Mid-November Sam and I were trapped inside, watching music videos on YouTube and edging closer and closer towards drunk while thunder punctuated our tipsy conversation. "
“Okay, so which boy did you love the most,” he asked me and I buried my head in my hands and sighed out a vague response.
“I’m not touching that one.”
“Aww, too afraid of a real conversation?”
“I came here to unwind and drink, not rehash my past failures.”
“So,” he laid his head against my own while scooting closer. “You’re still a little bitter then?”
“Maybe,” I replied, pushing him away and stretching out on the couch, laying face up to stop my head from spinning. It was true. I had never broken things off with any of the men I dated, they always ended things first. So, in that way, I suppose I never truly got over any of them. I held onto to resentment and bitterness. Or so my therapist liked to say.
“The Redhead,” I said, giving in. “He was the best at sex. Though I only slept with him once.”
“Then, I don’t think you can logically make that claim.”
“Why not?”
“Quantity over quality,” Sam said, giggling. “Or something like that. One good fuck is easy. Anyone can do it well once. You’ve got the passion from the start: the anticipation, the awkwardness of learning each others’ likes and dislikes. You’re grading on a curve. Everything seems good.”
“Well, it was definitely curved, that’s true. But other than that he had a great body and that was when I was thin and men could still pick me up and toss me across the room.”
“And he did that?”
“Not him in particular, but sure, he could.”
”Wasn’t he the one with the messy room?”
”Oh yeah. He lived in a studio apartment with supplement bottles and half-finished protein shakes everywhere. He did that thing that men do when they don’t know how to decorate: shoved his bed against the wall.”
”It’s always the messy ones that know how to have sex.”
”If you see a mattress on the ground with trash around it, you know you’re in for the time of your life.”
The Teacher, the Boy, the Blonde, the Man, the Redhead. Each name offered up in silent prayer: the pantheon of my love and longing, nestled high atop my modern Olympus. I convinced myself it had to be this way: silent longing and miracles divined from everyday occurrences. Truthfully, the Gods of old spoke little to humans; their ethereal senses tuned to other matters. I was an afterthought of their brilliance, something divinely touched but incapable of surviving in the majesty of their palace.
At least that’s what I told myself.
“The Boy was the worst at it,” I said. “But we were new to each other and to sex and to sex with men. We fumbled around, had no idea of where we wanted to be or what positions we wanted to be in.”
”Huh, I never had those days.” He said.
”You always knew you were a top?”
”No, I wouldn’t go that far. I did flirt around as a bottom for a while—in college. But, the first time I had someone to guide me. Someone who had been there before walked me through the steps it took and held my hand when things were strange.”
I miss them all in different ways. The Boy the least of all. Each one prayed to, would offer a boon: confidence from the Redhead, accountability from the Man, security from the Teacher, humility from the Blonde, patience from the Boy. In times of strife, I offered up my lamentation to the Gods, hopeful they could hear me and take pity.
We laid on the floor, drunk and listening to Rugged Country by Japanese Breakfast as the room twisted around us. I asked him about his own pantheon and he described a series of men, each wider than the one before.
Cause I was lonely here and it's lonely still
In the rugged country where the weeds grow fierce
Quicker than the crop I keep running from
In this rugged country
Sleepy we inched towards my bed, collapsing into it and planting soft kisses on each other’s lips. I asked him if he wants to fuck me and he politely declined before crawling into bed, wrapping his arms around me, and falling asleep. We weathered the storm like that: warm bodies curled next to each other in silent but steady devotion.