Date #45: The Way We Touch

So to answer a few questions brought up by some readers--

1) No, I am not "done" with Charlie, as many of you have asked.

2) Yes, I do go back and edit entries after I've written them. So, when bored, if you want to scroll past old entries and check out any additions I may have made (aka correcting dumb grammar and spelling mistakes) you may find some fun stuff. This is for those of you who wondered about the tight little ending to the last entry that feasibly isn't possible unless you consider the fact that I wrote a newer ending after I posted the entry.

3) Yes, now that I'm no longer celibate, and because it's Christmas, it's time for an entry that deals a little bit with sex.

Basically, I had sex with Charlie.

BRIAN: Well, I'm already loving this story.

Back at the Nordstrom's Cafe, Brian was still reeling over a pair of jeans he had just purchased, and being the true gay that he is, he wore them to lunch and had the jeans he wore to the mall in his shopping bag.

We had gotten into the topic of sex when Brian mentioned that his new jeans were so hot they should be put to use immediately by finding someone who could take them off him.

BRIAN: Nothing makes you hornier than a good pair of jeans.

Amen, brother.

It was then I mentioned the event that had happened the night before. Charlie had called me up to ask if I wanted to come hang out at his place. I'm not even going to count what happened as a date since I think I got two words out of my mouth before we were on the staircase leading up to his bedroom going at it like cheetahs on antelope in the Serenghetti.

BRIAN: And yet your tone indicates: Problem.
ME: I need to ask you a question, and it's probably going to make me sound like a whore.
BRIAN: Sound like one?
ME: Seriously.
BRIAN: Okay, going into serious mode.
ME: Do you ever feel...numb?

There was a pause.

BRIAN: Kevin, if this is your way of divulging to me how often you and Charlie--
ME: Not physically numb, you lunatic! Not in that way anyway. I guess...I don't know.
BRIAN: Well, don't look at me. I don't know where you're going with this.
ME: Okay, remember the first time a boy ever did anything to you? Maybe not even sexually, just something--
BRIAN: Derek Frampton, junior year of high school, both of us in drama club. He rubbed my shoulders backstage during a performance of Bye Bye Birdie and I felt like my entire body was going to explode.
ME: Exactly! You felt something. You felt a lot of something.
BRIAN: Well yeah, you feel that way whenever you're first with a guy.
ME: Do you? I mean, I'm asking you. Do you?
BRIAN: Not to that extent anymore, but on some level.
ME: I...I guess I do, too, but it just...it doesn't last.
BRIAN: Well Kevin, it's not meant to last. It never lasts. What makes it feel the way it feels is that it's new and fresh. That's the whoa. After awhile it turns into comfort...which is nice too.

I could tell that last bit was a little like saying--The movie was good...for the first ten minutes.

ME: Is it wrong that I don't want the comfort to kill the whoa?
BRIAN: It's not wrong. It's just not possible. At the end of the day, we're still men. I mean, for godsake's Halle Berry's husband cheated on her. Somebody cheated on Halle Berry! Somebody cheated on Heather Locklear. I mean, we are disgusting creatures who, unfortunately, have very short attention spans, and get bored with people very quickly. It's just in our nature. So we fight. We fight our nature. It's what makes life interesting.
ME: Great. Is there a bridge I can jump off?
BRIAN: Hang on, I'll go get the Drama Queen crown. I forgot you get to wear it today.
ME: I don't think it's just that I'm bored. I think...Okay, remember how I told you about when I first started college?
BRIAN: You mean your slut phase?
ME: Yeah, my slut phase. I think that was when I stopped...feeling things. Like, excited or anticipatory or intrigued--by almost everyone. I think going through that phase is the reason why now when I have an amazingly cute, funny, sweet guy ripping my clothes off right on the stairway in his condo it's like I've zoned out and I'm watching it all happen from another plane or something.
BRIAN: So you're saying you're desensitized?
ME: Exactly. And of all the things to be desensitized to--I mean, take away sensation and what's even the point of sex?
BRIAN: Wow...I don't know what to say.
ME: It's okay. I appreciate you listening.
BRIAN: You know, if I stand up and you get a better look at me in these jeans, you might feel something again.
ME: Why do I bother coming here?
BRIAN: The chicken?
ME: Yeah, the chicken.

And we finished up our lunch.

But after all, these entries are about dating, right? Well, where's the date you ask. The truth is I didn't even bother setting one up this time. Paye called me up to see if I wanted to go out dancing somewhere and even though I was in kind of a lousy mood, I decided to give it a shot.

We went to one of the gatherings he and his other ballroom dancing colleagues throw. It was a lot of fun right from the start, and it definitely pitched my mood a little bit. I mean, how can you be sad when you're practically in the middle of a scene from Take the Lead?

Even still, it was easy for Paye to tell my mood wasn't where it should be. He asked me what was wrong, and I unloaded on him. I'm not sure it was the best thing to do with a guy you like--let him know that you think sex has become completely void for you--but he listened and seemed very sympathetic.

PAYE: I can actually identify with what you're saying.
ME: You can?
PAYE: Kevin, every gay guy has had a slut phase, and every gay guy has had at least one moment where he zoned out of a sexual experience.
ME: I just wonder if I'm ever going to feel that special feeling again. Like, that feeling I felt the first time I ever kissed a boy, or felt a guy kiss my neck--
PAYE: I swear to you, sir, you will know glory again!
ME: You're such a dork.
PAYE: If you're asking whether or not you're ever going to be fifteen again, then no. You're not. But I like to think that as you get older, passion takes on different, more mature forms. That's how I started feeling--what did Brian call it again?
ME: Whoa.
PAYE: Yeah, that's how I started feeling whoa again. I remembered to stay in the moment.
ME: It's harder than it sounds.
PAYE: Oh, I know. That's why I'm involved in a little hobby that forces me to do it.
ME: You mean all this?

I motioned to the dancers around me. Paye smiled at me and grabbed my hand.

PAYE: Come on, let's see if we can't jumpstart you up again.

He moved me out on the dance floor, which didn't include any other male on male partnerings. I was a little nervous that we were going to draw attention.

PAYE: But sir--that's the point.

Since, as I've mentioned before, I have two left feet, Paye did most of the leading. It wasn't so much that I was the quote-unquote "girl" or the situation, I was just the...okay, whatever, I was the girl, but it's not like I got dipped or anything.

What made it interesting was that Paye kept whispering things in my ear the whole time we were dancing. He got behind me and said softly:

PAYE: Now, I'm going to move my hand around your waist, and I want you to react to it.
ME: How?
PAYE: There is no how, just react.

So he put his hand around my waist and pulled me into him a little, and I just...let go. I kind of fell back into him and at that moment, he spun me around, grabbed my hand, and thrust it outwards while pressing me even closer to him.

PAYE: Now let me move you.

We started walking, simple yet...relying that much on someone combined with being that nervous that everyone in the room was staring at me--it was a litte...whoa.

Paye and I did a little move he taught me, nothing spectacular, where we switch off and move in something of a box shape. The way his eyes were looking at me I felt like my ears from going to go from red to running off my head and jumping him there and then.

After we completed the move, he came back to me and turned me around so fast I could barely catch my breath--just as the song was ending he brought me to a halt. I was gasping. People were staring, but also kind of smiling.

ME: Any...more...instructions?
PAYE: Just breathe.

I went home that night feeling like every atom in my body was trying to raise itself up off my skin and go into the atmosphere. I was that fifteen-year-old kid again, and I knew why. Ever since the boy craze phase, I had been indestructible. Invulnerable. Capable of having sex and then five minutes later be running an errand or on my way to hang out with friends with no sign that I'd been doing anything inappropriate just a short time before. I had let myself become solid so that I couldn't be damaged in any way, and in the process I'd taken away the joy of just being touched by someone.

But there and then, at that moment when I had no choice but to let myself rely on someone else, when I was out in the open being stared at and gaped at and I didn't know what was coming next...

Well, I'd imagine it was a little like having a guy rub your shoulders while "Put on a Happy Face" plays in the background.

FRIEND: I know that would make me put on a happy face.
ME: God, it just felt so good to be--awakened.
FRIEND: I know, and usually waking up is the scary part.
ME: Well, I'm not going to lie. I'm very relieved that I'm not stone-cold after all.
FRIEND: So the dancing fairy cured you?
ME: I don't know about being cured. But I will try to live in the moment a little bit more.
FRIEND: Excellent, and keep up this dancing thing--sex in a ballroom is hot.
ME: You know this for a fact?
FRIEND: Honey, Mario Lopez didn't know a rhumba from a fox trot before he met me.

So now that I've been "revitalized," so to speak, does that mean that there will be more physical contact on some of these dates?

Well, it has been unusually warm lately...

Smile