Dear Linc,
Consider the cyclist. His vehicle is controlled only by the efficiency of his sturdy legs pushing against the pedals. He sits atop that narrow seat that plunges into the chasm of muscular opposites rising and falling, up and down, to the rhythm of his navigation and his hips, his whole body, in graceful tune: up and down, rising and falling, always that seat into his ass.
It has been exactly one year since I was with Adae, the only man I’ve ever been with. I had nearly forgotten that the day was the 23rd. (Actually, it was the night. But why quibble.) I haven’t been with anyone since. What happened was so much of a fluke that despite my best efforts I’ve been unable to replicate the experience. Sadly, my life isn’t an HBO show or theatrical romcom, or even a good story to tell.
Speaking of telling stories: sometimes I consider the dishonorable nature of disclosing the very-personal things that I do on my very-public blog. We live in a world of example. Catholics are taught to set a good example. If you’re in sports, you can’t afford to be cocky lest you actually enjoy the reputation of being an asshole. I am not influential enough to set much of an example for anyone but I want the world to know that people are not caricatures or buzz words. It is easy to express disbelief in scientific fact like evolution. It is harder to investigate the evidence just like it is no easy thing to consider the complexity of so many people all around us, in our homes and workplaces, in the whole world all the time.
This morning while you were in all likelihood watching football, I was out on my run and I fell prey to the consequences of my sexual drought. I was running along the coast on a Great Highway sidewalk when I found myself behind a cyclist lithe in the manner of his professional athleticism, which was also evidenced by all the sponsors listed on his attire. I couldn’t see his face. I didn’t know his name much less the story behind his name, his whole existence. All I saw was a body, and as I ran, I watched. I was guilty of shallowness and objectification. Breathless from my run, from things that I needed but didn’t have. I let him go and watched until he disappeared into the fog.
Damn, that ass.
When you have me, I want you to take the lead. My legs flank your waist and the contact of your hands to my back produces a literal electricity of indescribable satisfaction. Every moment we are together is like the first time. I look at you without certainty and in disbelief that this is happening. At this you are stricken and you ask, “What’s wrong?”
The way I answer with “Nothing” doesn’t leave you entirely convinced because I am not myself entirely convinced. Yet I press on.
Your hardness is gratifying. I motion my hips to position myself so that I feel it pressing against the seat of my mesh shorts, to both prove to myself that this is really happening and to also shamelessly fulfill the carnal desire of being with another man. You are persistent and strong, Linc, and the fabric threatens to break with such degree that already I have release a singular moan. With the vague fear of appearing weak, a pansy, I take a pained breath as if I am on one of my usual runs and forcing myself to break through a wall. Upon exhalation, the exhilaration is so much that my arms contract upward. Now I run my fingers through your lush hair with its strands like silk upon first contact but which turns grittier the deeper my fingers go. The simple yet overlooked notion of having sex with another person is that you are in fact doing so with another person. What everything from the movies to publicly funded sex education fails to tell you is that you will endure a person’s imperfections, their unique odors and oddly contoured appendages, the language of their biology. Although there is a trace of cologne — thank God you’re not one of those types who feels that he has to be bathing in that stuff — you still smell like a locker room. Fortunately, this arouses me even more.
I love having my hands in your hair. I would prefer there not be so much of it. Late in life I have discovered that I like my men with short hair. It’s more masculine — which is no strike against you, because the determined look on your guileless face is the expression of a warrior. The fingers of your right hand find the elastic of my shorts and as you begin to pull I stop you. Our eyes lock and your brows cross with mild anguish. We say nothing but I am asking if I am ready for this. Though I have bared my soul in words I’ve never been naked in front of you. Are we ready for this?
I would feel better with the lights off. One of your dogs is scratching at the door, which I look toward feeling bad for him. “He’ll be fine,” you say in the manly purr that I have hitherto imagined. My hands find your back again and I am amazed at the bumps over which they make their improbable transit. Your skin has a dryness despite the easy glide of my hands and I wonder if this combination is unique to your biological language as a man. I love being with a man. Who knows? I might love you, too.
For now, we find success with pulling off my shorts. I am hot with self-consciousness but you don’t notice this internal turmoil because heat is coming from other things: the emergence of sweat, for example, the warmth of your skin against the astonished cool of mine.
“You’re freezing,” you say.
“I’m scared.”
As consolation, you allow me to slip under your thick comforter, although soon you join me underneath and our erections find each other. You are pressing deep against my shoulders and I feel like I might suffocate being pinned down yet the bed is so soft that I don’t feel crushed. Rather, I am protected.
“Come here,” I whisper firmly.
When we kiss, I am careful not to overwhelm your face. I don’t want to be a bad kisser but with each transit I take over your lips and every moment of exploration that I allow you across my neck, I want you to know how much I need you. We are both men and yet you are the man. I have wished this and here you are with me, granting. Panting and granting. What follows next is the fulfillment of so much longing.
What has preceded is a fantasy based upon many elements of reality. To imagine being with you, Linc, I have looked back to my night with Adae. For an entire year I’ve lived on that memory. I could not write about sex until I actually had it and I cannot begin to anticipate what it is like with you. There are men who in their machismo of disapproval would want to physically strike me into getting back out there and getting some. There are women who in their disapproval of frailty would outwardly regard me as a lonely heart to be nurtured and perpetually befriended, someone safe to hang out with, while privately feeling sorry for me. Whatever works for them, whatever works for me.
Joe
