I met him while I was giving a condom demonstration during a brief safer sex lesson for a group of college students. (I was a professional sex educator for several years, but that’s another story for another time.)
John stood out right away. I liked the way he smiled at me, I liked the way he smelled, I liked that we had so much in common before we even met. On that first night we met we talked until late into the night, sitting on the floor in the near dark, flirting and bantering as hours swept by.
I was nineteen then. We did the same routine for the next three years, moving closer to each other and then further away again, pushing and testing limits and boundaries. There were outstanding complications that kept us from taking anything to the next level—we had boyfriends at different times and our jobs complicated things—but we kept up our usual repartee for all those years.
I think I fell for him. I may even have fallen in love with him, but it’s hard to tell now what exactly those feelings added up to.
Fast-forward to this summer. All of our complications are gone. We’re free to be who we want to be and do what we want to do.
A couple weeks ago we were at a club downtown, having drinks and dancing the night away, and we got on the dance floor together. Our bodies collided, his hands ran over my body, and I closed my eyes.
He leaned in and said, “Are you ready?”
“Ready for what?” I asked.
And then he kissed me, softly. Then again, more insistent, more urgent. Then again. And again.
I kissed back.
I spent the night at his apartment, wrapped up in blankets and his arms (though things stayed innocent).
Then a few days later I got a short, curt e-mail from him. “Uh, I’m going to be really busy this summer,” he said. “I have all these friends who want to see me and work is really crazy and everything so, uhm, I hope you understand and everything.”
I stared at the computer screen. I read the e-mail again. Then I threw my head back and laughed. And laughed. And laughed.
Oh my God, I thought, after all this time? What a cold way to say it, what a cowardly way to do it. I laughed some more. Then I snapped my laptop shut and walked away.
So now I’m moving on from John. It feels good to let go of something that preoccupied my mind and my time for so long. It feels like a breath of freedom, like the promise of something new is just beyond the bend.
