White Monkey

He didn't look like his picture but no one ever looks like their picture.  I've learned to subtract two points from the 1-10 hotness scale.  If they're a 8 in pics, they're a 6 in real life.  I mean, I'm all about the face.  We're talking about faces, here!

I went over at 9:00.  I go to bed at 8:30, usually.  Awake since five, I had already gymmed, worked, came home, and was now walking over to his place because i didn't want to be sitting, stoned, worried that the police would find my car, and i am never driving stoned.  The sidewalks were spotted with sheets of hard ice, and this was life, this was my life, usually a safe surface, with patches of zero friction.

"ive got lots of green".  And he did, and I played "clueless nerdy baby-stoner" and needed bong instructions and watched Ridiculousness, and talked about our shared Jackass crush, Chris Pontius and I nearly squealled.  He was the first to know who he was, and also find him attractive.  Once I was stoned enough that I was running my fingers over my face I asked to watch the shopping channel

"Shopping?"
"Not for shopping.  It's relaxing.  It just numbs you out."

We argued over the remote and we watched tastefully mommish fitness dvd instructions, and carry-on luggage demonstrations.  Our relationship had fast forwarded, in less than an hour, to married 40 yr old couple, arguing over "who gets the remote", but he could change it if he wanted.

I had never talked to a hook up for so long before.  I got to know him, and i felt.... naked?  Eventually he kissed me and blew smoke in my mouth and he texted someone.  I thought it was someone else, some other dude that would fuck right away, and not this stammering guy who hasn't pulled his dick out.

"That...  do you ever find, with hooking up, that you're never sure how much to talk to the guy before?  Like, right now.... right now, man, i'm feeling like you're waiting to have sex and i'm just killing your mood.  Like, we still are going to do it.  I just.... you know, do you ever feel the same."
"Got no reason to worry about that here.  You think too much."
"I know, I know, it's just.... i think about these things and, should we be talking this much?"

He rolled a joint in a joint roller his sister brought by earlier, and i needed to be more stoned for this. I was coming off my last hit where the world seems loomy and demonic like a three story tombstone, and i wanted to be the type of stoned where my fingers feel as sensitive as dicks, and the couch felt sinky.

"So where you wanna do this?"
"My room's right over there."

I felt ill, jagged nuggets of ice melting in my throat.  Not from him, but from the splitting of intimacy.  The sharing, getting to know, and not wanting to know, and now, taking the "proper" order of a relationship and shuffling the deck and trying to sort things out, trying to put this contact into some order.  I saw his dick before his face, knew about his family before getting stoned together, and talked naked on his bed without knowing his last name.   And i'm trying to put the experience up to the window and compare it, look through a jar and the muddy waters and sift through the particles.  Take a sample and compare it to others, and trying to look around at people and ask, pleading "is this normal?"

My mouth was so dry and halfway through i asked him if he thought my mouth felt dry. 
"hey, no worries."

I tried to muster up some spit but nothing happened, like a dentaly hygeniest had used that stainless steel mini mouth vaccuum.  His phone dinged and his body tensed.

"i have to... i just have to..." 
"no, that's fine.  Can you get me some water?"
"sure... i just, my friend said he might come over, but i was going yo tell him to wait."
"oh."
"he's totally cool, though you don't have to worry."
"okay."

How is it possible for my mouth to be this dry?  Fuck, i had permanently damaged my tongue.  I wanted to massage olive oil into my gums, where's the water, where's the water he was supposed to bring me.  A tumbler sat on his....desk?  bedside table?  A tumbler with a 1/4 inch of dark brown liquid, and my mouth was just so dry.

We laid side by side and the pillow was a stuffed knitted monkey.

"That's Jojo."
"oh... he's... comfortable."

Both too stoned to keep track of conversations, our voices were short, broken, one thought left my mouth and fluttered before evaporating.  I squished the mouth of Jojo real tight and felt a heaving in my gut.

"You're the first guy i've... i've met through doing this that... that I would want to hang out with."
"yeah."

Why did I say this.  What am i doing.  What am I doing. What am I doing.  The speed at which a guy puts his clothes back on is the speed in which you leave, but he was still nude.  He left the room and I... was he waiting for me to put my clothes back on?  Did he want me to leave?  He wanted me to leave and was too polite to say anything.  I practically tore a hole in my sweat pants getting redressed so fast.  

I saw his clothes beside mine, another hoodie, another pair of sweatpants.  And maybe that's how love happens.  He wasn't the one, he was the one in front of you, and you picked out the similarities like dewy berries and held them in your mouth.  How can i think about love.  I'm not.  We had known each other for.... three hours?

I gathered my notebook, my plastic bag of apples and almonds (you think the feedbag got left out of this?)  Said good byes, and I walked home.

The pavement of this town felt ancient and i was mesmerized by how.... empty the streets were.  I walked for blocks without seeing a person or car drive by.  I half closed my eyes and kept watch of the ice patches, only to look up and, shocked, think "I'm not even at Kent?! How is that possible?"

Therapists and counsellors sneakily try to find out, initially, who the abusive male figure in your life growing up was.  They might as well just sit down with a clipboard and ask "so, when did your dad fuck you?"  because it's implied in their line of questioning and experience that most people who end up in the mental health system had some sort of messed up male role models.   But i didn't.  I didn't and i refuse to but the blame on my dad or uncles or older brother or teacher or whatever.

i didn't have any messed up relationships with men growing up.  I was creating them now, thank you.  As an adult!

On his bed on the dark comforter, (the only detail i remember of the room) i thought "i can stop.  I can stop.  This isn't fun.  This isn't fun.  I feel sick."  And suddenly the reality of stranger's bodies and my dry mouth felt so overwhelming.... was i making intimacy as disgusting as possible so I can say I "hate it"?  Am i proving to myself that the fear of intimacy is real?  I don't know if i know what it's like to fuck someone I like.  I don't know if that's a problem.  If i smell cologne now, I feel nauseous and trapped.

I poll my friends, and ask the HealthPros.... "is this okay?  Is this good or is this bad?".  Trying to file this behaviour away into one of the two bins.  Good or bad?  Moral or amoral?  Destructive or helpful?  Am I always getting better or always getting worse?  But it's never either.  It's always both.  Nothing is ever good OR bad.  Is there?  I still don't know.  (heaven/hell dichotomy grained upon my catholic brain)

Is this okay?  Does it have to be okay?  

I woke up with a throbbing dehydration headache, but surprisingly well rested.  I ate a banana and checked if he messaged me back, but he hadn't.  Maybe I'll find someone new.  Maybe I'll do a "huge clean" of the house.  The rest of the day sits on my shoulder like a tiny white monkey, pulling at my earlobe and ruffling it's fur.