Hitting Too Close To Home (Part 4: Floored)

A majority of homes that I've lived in have hard wood floors. No wonder I grew up gay.

As a hard wood sort of fella, I've always had an aversion to carpets. They're high maintenance. When I moved to Big City, four years ago, the first major purchase I made was a bed, which was followed by sheets, a bedspread, and a matching carpet. I remember thinking how out of place the patch of carpet looked on the floor. I got the same feeling when James took off his clothes, and asked "So, do you like what you see?"

No, I didn't like what I saw. I saw a bunch of flea-sized Tibetans dying various patches of his hair, and weaving them into patterns. I saw a chia face with that ugly "not yet a beard, no longer just stubble" look going against the grain of his skin. I saw a man so petrified by the way he looked that he sent out fake pictures and then had the balls to take off his clothes and ask me if I liked what I saw.

I didn't reply. I pretended to be so absorbed by examining the room's decor that I hadn't heard him. I decided that if he was the type of person who loudly repeated questions when they weren't answered, I would leave. I prayed for him to ask again.

The next thing I knew Fuzzy Sluglips was more up close and personal than that horrible Robert Redford movie. I braced myself for impact. Scratch. Scratch, Scratch. I loathe stubble burn. I pushed him away. "I don't think this is a very good idea. The vibe is all wrong."

What the fuck did I say that for? I mean, I know that I needed to say something to stop the kissing and get out of naked guy's house, but of all phrases to come out of my mouth, that one kind of hurt to say.

I walked home quickly, taking a light detour when I noticed a skunk down the street from James's house. The night had been bad enough, I didn't need it to end traumatically.

I was staring off into space as I got home. Trying to spit the venomous taste of "the vibe is all wrong" out of my mouth without actually spitting. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I nearly tripped over Ethan as I walked up the stairs to my front door.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/45196.html

Hitting Too Close To Home (Part 3: Fuzzy Recollections)

At some point in the past month, I've begun to schiz. Insobermode flops between leather computer chair and leather sofa, watching TV screen or computer monitor. He lives on Ramen noodles and Cherry Coke. Insafemode leaves the house at odd hours, whether it's to meet strangers for sex, or just to mill around Boston.

It was Insafemode who left the house at 3:45 on a Friday morning, after Insobermode had been rejected. While Insobermode had fretted about what would happen on his way to meet Ethan, Insafemode was writing a LJ entry in his head as he swaggered over to James's house.

Neither personality had walked in this direction before. I'm not talking metaphorically, I'd never had any particular reason to investigate the area Southwest of Chez Insafemode. After a couple of blocks, the familiar multi-family houses gave way to apartment/condo/dorm complexes; the sort of buildings with broom closet sized rooms, where people who wanted to live closer to their sub-living wage jobs.

I envisioned entering James's terrarium. He would be standing on the not-so-far side of the room, that "come hither, even though you're only standing three feet away" look in his eyes. He would coyly offer me a drink from the water bottle hanging from his wall. After a few sips, he would start playing hard-to-get running laps on his metal wheel.

At roughly the point where I was mentally envisioning leaving his house in a plastic ball, the quality of the buildings started to improve. Parking lots were filled with Maseratis and other mid-life crisis mobiles instead of 1984 Ford Tauruses.

James would answer the door in a cashmere bathrobe. In the middle of his room would be a water fountain shaped like an erect penis. His chihuahua, Gates, would be shivering in his lush doggy bed. "Insafemode," he'd say, "so glad you could make it. Your picture doesn't do you justice. Let's say we cut through the bullshit." At which point he'd, literally, disrobe, revealing his perfectly chiseled ass. We'd fuck until the Cubs won the world series. When we were both too spent to do more than twitch and moan, we'd fall asleep in each others' arms. The next day, my own private Dellionairre would take me out to brunch where we'd discuss those poor slobs running around the streets in plastic hamster balls.

As quickly as they'd popped up, the posh condorms disappeared. I arrived at the properly numbered house. Hamster cage it was.

I buzzed the button with "james 's place" written in cursive letters on a post-it note, a big smiley face dotting the "j". Nothing about our encounter was what I imagined. His condorm was deceptively large. Two bedrooms, one kitchen, one bathroom, one den. His room was the swallowing image of Ethan's. Madonna poster? Check. Computer with pretty boys fucking screen saver? Check. Rainbow triangle adhered to window? Check.

"Hi."

James was...not the guy from his picture. Heavy-set, but not fat, he was majorly stubble-faced. I imagined he had a thick carpet of hair covering his body from Adam's apple to toe knuckle. A theory that was quickly proven accurate.

He pulled me toward him, and shut the door in one fluid motion. "So," he asked, "do you like what you see?"

A question, I realized, that I really shouldn't answer honestly.

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/43308.html

Hitting Too Close To Home (Part 2: Still Up)

As the front gate clicked shut behind me, I tried to figure out what I could have possibly done wrong. I'd barely said anything, I hadn't made any moves on him...maybe that was the problem. Maybe I hadn't been forward enough. We'd been meeting for sex, and we'd spent the ten or so minutes I'd actually been in his house making small talk and watching Tom Green being interviewed on Leno. I don't even like Leno, and I fucken hate Tom Green. I should have jumped him, or at the very least kissed him. Fuck.

I'd only ever been rejected for my looks before. Now someone who had found me physically attractive, someone who liked being around me and was 100% definitely gay, someone who had invited me over to their house for sex had rejected me without even seeing me naked. This was new territory. Painful new territory. Atlantis without an oxygen tank. I got the bends, and they weren't nearly as fun as The Radiohead album led me to believe.

Since I only lived about a ten minute walk from his house, I didn't have to spend too much time brooding in the rain that should have been falling around me. It had been less than a half-hour round trip. Some evil bastard in my brain took possession of the remote that controls my mental broadband. Images of my dead gecko, the smell of Ryan's shampoo, Ethan saying "I'm really glad we finally met" "the vibe is all wrong" "you should leave", the memory of Liam's "I never want to see you again you fucken pussy" e-mail. To top it all off there was some sort of fire near my house, so in addition to the lovely mental soundtrack of rejection, I had the piercing sounds of fire engine to fill my head.

Refusing to surrender to depression, I watched some South Park as soon as I got home. I didn't do a lot of laughing, but it kept my mind occupied.

After about an hour, I grew steadily more bored and negative, but not an ounce less horny. What to do? Watch more TV? Write an Insafemode entry? Masturbate? E-mail James? Hmmmm.

I'm not sure whether I had some subconscious premonition, but I'd given James a short-term bullshit excuse. One of those things that could have taken ten minutes or ten hours. Much like sex, but not.

I shot him an e-mail letting him know that I was once again looking for something someone to do. Then I sat back and waited for a reply. And waited. And waited. After an hour had passed, I figured he'd either gone to sleep or found someone else. I headed to bed, but remote control wielding demon wouldn't let me sleep; images of gecko, Elvis's laughter, dead chinchilla, the smell of MAMIP's cologne, "you should leave."

After two hours of pointless tossing and turning, I got up and plodded over to the computer to write an entry. One new message in my inbox.

From: Jamesishorny
To: Insafemode
Subject: Still up

Sorry I missed you. After your e-mail, I decided to head out to The Leather Bar with a friend. I just got back. Am a little buzzed, but wide awake and still very interested in getting together. If you're still awake, hit me up.

I looked at the time sent. It had just arrived. Sweet. I replied that I was, in fact, still awake, and could be in his house (which was about the same distance as Ethan's but in the opposite direction) in ten minutes or so.

The same distance, but in the opposite direction. I liked that. Surely that meant I would have as much success with James as I had failure with Ethan, right? Isn't that the way metaphors and cheesy chick-flick logic work?

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/42676.html

Hitting Too Close To Home (Part 1: The Vibe)

Shortly before I left Cranberry Lake for Boston, I worked as a stage manager/actor/lighting designer for a theatre troupe in Tourist Trap. It didn't pay well, but it allowed me to spend several hours a day attending to the needs of a certain parasite who need not be named. When said parasite was removed from my gills, I began shark swimming through life. When the mother of one of my coworkers got wind that I was leaving for Big City, she smiled at me and said "I knew you'd be moving on soon. You're a big fish in a small pond."

I know that she meant I was a talented actor in a limited scene (there's no accounting for taste), but my subconscious interpreted the statement differently. I had lived in Cranberry Lake for nearly seventeen years that. I couldn't leave the house to get my mail without running into four people I'd slept with, two of my elementary school teachers, one of my mother's best friends, and a former coworker with a partridge in a fucking pear tree sticking out of their ass. After Ryan's death, I lost all desire to get into a relationship with someone I already knew.

I began moving on whims. Six months in Boston, a year in Vermont, a year and a half in Boston, three months touring the country, five months in Boston, five months in Pieceofshitdeserttown, and another six months in Boston. All in all that's nearly three years of the last five that I've lived in Boston. No one will ever be able to say "You're a big fish in a small pond" to me here. I live in an ocean.

The problem with the ocean is that there are a startlingly high number of beautiful fish: marlins, coral angels, clownfish, heniochis, red volitan lions. I'm at best a minatus grouper. I stand out enough to get noticed, but I'm not the fish that either the tourists, the scientists or the anglers are looking for. Discarding the fish metaphor, I'm never surprised when someone expresses an interest in meeting me because of my writing or my personal ads,then stops e-mailing me after they've seen a pic.

Last night was an exercise in frustration. I've been writing about Ryan for the book, one of my geckos died, Timmy didn't work out, blah blah blah, depressing shit. So perhaps it wasn't a good time for me to be trolling for a date, but (insert deity here) I wanted to fuck the pain away.

Enter The Internet. I had a few e-mails from people who wanted to meet me, filed away in my inbox. I sent them replies, and placed an ad of my own. Among all the thirty-eight year old obese married guys who chose to ignore the "under thirty" that I placed not once but twice in the four sentence ad, was an e-mail from someone named James. James was my age. His picture was a face. A cute face but it could have been pasted on to any body. Whatever, I was depressed and horny. We made plans to meet around 11:30.

At 11:00 I got an e-mail from someone I'd been interested in for a long time, Ethan. Ethan was Colombian. His pic suggested he was slightly chubby and a shy, fairly masculine guy. In short, perfect. Also, he'd known what I looked like for a month or so, and he thought I was cute. Booya.

Ethan's roommate was out of town, and he was horny. I e-mailed James a bullshit excuse why I couldn't meet, showered, grabbed some condoms and lube and headed down the street to Ethan's house. Down the street.

It's been a long time since I've gone to someone else's house for sex. Since the night I started this journal, to be exact. My record on going to people's houses for sex is poor. This is why I prefer to host. Last night, hosting was not an option, so I trekked over to Ethan's house.

Ethan was not a slightly chubby, shy, fairly masculine Colombian. Unlike certain Pakistanis, he hadn't lied to me, he'd just lost some weight since the photograph, and become, for lack of a better term, gayer. My gaydar has very limited range, but even I could tell from the moment that he opened the door that he would have a Madonna poster in his room. I don't know what he does for a living, but I imagine it involves flowers, choreography, or a pair of scissors. Not exactly my type socially, but the boy was hot.

We walked up to his bedroom, where we sat down on his bed. The next two minutes were a blur. We talked about how his little brother was living in Pieceofshitdeserttown, how disillusioned he was with "the gay scene," how he was really glad we'd finally gotten together.

This was the moment of the film where everything turns around for the hero. After a particularly tragic time involving lots of rain and tear-stained introspective brooding, the main character meets someone he finally clicks with. Fuck you, Timmy. I'm so over you, Elvis. Look at this extremely hot guy who likes me for my looks and my personality. I'm going to fuck all the ghosts away.

Camera zooms in on the protagonist and his love/lust interest. They are sitting together on the bed. Both are smiling. The camera pulls in tight on the love interest's lips as he says "The vibe is all wrong." Pan out. Protagonist is clearly rattled. "You should leave."

original post: http://insafemode.livejournal.com/41848.html