Heat

One of the saddest things is when you find out that someone you thought was special was in fact, more ordinary than most. When the good things you committed to thinking about them turned out to be embarrassingly wrong.

I met David at work and didn’t think much about him. He was cute and funny, but as we were both otherwise engaged, I didn’t think much of it. I asked him once if he ever rubbed people the wrong way. He took it in stride. He was one of those guys that could be really open if you asked and since most people never did, I began to learn secrets. I wanted nothing more than the knowledge and when my friends lusted after him from afar, I took pleasure in knowing truths I’d never share.

I changed jobs and our friendship waxed and waned. Secrets aside, we were never that important to each other. So I was appropriately surprised with two and a half years into our friendship, I leaned against my car while David kissed me tenderly and sweetly and called me beautiful.

For about three weeks, that moment was extremely important to me. The usual ravages of life had taken their toll and anything to boost the self esteem was not taken lightly. I had gone to see him perform—something I’d done several times before and not thought a thing about it. But I remember seeing him on stage that night and something was different.

To say the David is sexy as hell is a real understatement. He’s on the short side, but his body is absolutely incredible. Strong firm, well define chest, six-pack abs that descend into a thin, trim waist. He has dark hair and light, bright blue eyes. A wonderful genetic specimen. If I were to go artificial insemination and there was a picture of him in the donor book, I’d insist on his sperm. Unless Adrian Brody’s was in there, but in that case, I’d insist on fucking the donor.

After the show, we went drinking, which you really shouldn’t do if you’re feeling lonely, and I swung by his apartment. I was awake and buzzed from the sugar in my amaretto sours and didn’t feel like sleeping just yet. He walked me downstairs to my car and it was clear there was something in the air. I asked him what he was looking at me like that for and he shrugged adorably. I jokingly asked him if he wanted to make out and when he said “yes” I knew I had gone too far and that it was only a matter of seconds before…

Contact.

Kissing someone new always takes a little adjustment. If the person you previously kissed had large, full lips—as was the case with me—then you spend a moment searching for the flesh you’re used to. But seconds later, you find your rhythm and it can be wonderful. He put one arm around me and held me against him. I could feel the strength his well cut biceps holding me to him. I even let myself fall back against them to test the strain. There was none. I was happily trapped face to face with my friend who kissed me like I mattered.

My kissing history is dodgy at best.

My first kiss came at a church convention in Detroit when I was 13. An ugly 13 at that. I look at pictures from that trip and the fact that I’m so hideous overshadows the fact that the guy was 18 which borders on illegal. But I did have boobs, so what did he know of my age.

His name was Brennan and he was chewing gum. I hate gum. It is impossible to look sophisticated while chewing gum. People chew gum to stop smoking. They replace one nervous habit with another just to have something rolling around in their mouths. Gum turns people’s breath from unnoticeable to impossible to esacpe. Sure it’s minty fresh, but it wasn’t anything before. Why do we now have to announce each exhale. And cinnamon gum is even worse. Cinnamon the spice is warm and sweet and reminds one of Christmas. Cinnamon gum smells like my dog’s feet.

That day, however, my curiosity over being kissed far overshadowed my hatred of gum and the fact that this guy was the least impressive person I’d met in a long time.

He came for me and I was terribly awkward. My mother was teaching a class nearby and it was all I needed for her to see me. While most mothers probably would have thought it was adorable, mine would have likely performed a clitorectomy on me and then made me write an essay on the perils of communinig with the other sex.

I knew I was supposed to do something with my tongue, but I wasn’t sure. I had braces and I wondered if Brennan could feel them. I couldn’t feel anything except the rising nausea in my gut and I hoped I wouldn’t throw up just yet. Brennan insulted me, wrote me two letters over the next few months and never spoke to me again. I had stomach cramps for two days and figured this whole boy-girl thing wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

I didn’t kiss anyone else for the next three years.

My second foray into physical relations was no better and slightly more scandalous.

Again low on the self esteem, I took my friend Brian’s invitation to join him at a party at his place with some of his friends from college. Brian was two years older than me and was already living on his own. Very impressive. And he had alcohol. Even more impressive, but I was firm in my boundaries. I was NOT going to drink.

But apparently I was going to let a stranger stick his tongue down my throat while another played with my breasts.

I was out in the living room and realized I was by myself. Things had gotten quiet. So I went into the bedroom to discover that everyone had piled up on the bed and were touching each other. I wanted in. I wedged myself in the bed and felt like I actually belonged.
The things is, I know that this is what I’m after. Belonging. Feeling like I matter to someone. And I know that people regularly do things that allow me to feel this way. That the problem is with me. Whatever the receptors are inside of a person that allow them to feel love and connection are missing in me. And so without the proper machinery, my desire for connection defaults into a desire for sex.

And not even really sex. But some currency of physical expression that feels like might be used for me and for no one else. Or at least for a select few. Anyone can shake a hand or get a hug, but kissing. Well, that’s resevered for fewer people. Touch my belly, that’s something else you just don’t do to everyone. Hold me to you. Let me feel the strength in your arms pulling me closer to your mouth. I may not be the only one, but really, how many girls can say they know you that way.

I think the boy’s name was Billy and his kissing me was also illegal. I was 17 and he was 23 at least and likely in the military. The room emptied save for myself and two boys. One of them slid his hand under my shirt and ran his fingers across my middle, telling me I had a stomach like a dancer. I made a mental note to continue my cycle of binging and purging. I’m sure this was not his intended effect, he really probably just watned to get my pants off. But you never know what people’s baggage is, so you should be careful with the compliments.

Billy pushed my hair behind my ears and started kissing me. This was the first time I felt someone’s tongue and I thought it felt like a clam. I was surprised at how easily my mouth opened for him and how steadfast he was at sticking his tongue in there. I didn’t get it. But I knew it was what popular girls did. I knew that only pretty girls got to do this kind of thing and so I let it happen, hoping that made me at least one of the above.

The next day, I told my friends what happened. They were impressed and thought I was cool. I didn’t tell them that I cried for hours after. That would have killed the mood.

Which is in part, why I resolved not to cry when David kissed me against the car. I tried my damndest to remember that David didn’t give a shit about me. But his touch was so sweet and I was so lonely and craved loving attention. And I would have gotten away with it if he had not turned out to be really sweet over the next few days. He emailed me regularly at work and told me that he missed me. We kissed again in his office and it was just as good. He whispered sweet things to me and I could see in his eyes that he wanted me. He opened up to me about feelings. About when he called his ex and she was a jerk to him. He was shaking that day and I could hear it in his voice. He told me I was the only one who knew and I figured since we were back to sharing secrets, things were good.

We decided to arrange a full on tryst. We would meet at his place and see what happened. In the days leading up to it, I felt something tentative in his voice and I accused him of not wanting to see me. But then he called me, frantic, hot and bothered. It was more than just a come on, it felt like a connection. We were both two hurting people who filled unique places in each others’ psyches. And I thought that meant something.

I went over to his place and it was wrong from the start. It was very hot for one, so the tricks I’d learned to use to turn him on, to really get his attention, didn’t work. His skin was too damp with sweat for my soft touches to glance off his taut stomach or my kisses to feel wet against his neck. Instead, my lips just got lost in the moisture that was already there.

I was nervous. The stakes were high. I was pretty sure we weren’t going to have sex and we didn’t. but the sloppy near sex that did happen was comic in its bumbling. It was like we were kids who’d never been with anyone else. The chemistry of that night was missing and neither of us could find our footing as we looked for something meaningful in each other.

That being the case, I probably shouldn’t have made him cum.

But by that point, it became about power. He was content to walk away, but he was being gruff and I knew that a little release would ease his mind and get him to be kind to me again. He was easily convinced to lay back down and like teenagers, with clothes on, we worked until he made a little mess and seemed in much better spirits.

The minutes after orgasm are much more important to women than the orgasm itself. And David performed well. When we walked from his apartment to the parking garage, I reached for his hand. It felt natural to do so and he held it back. He kissed me twice before we left like an old, comfortable couple. He smiled and our connection seemed in tact. I felt shaken, but okay. Sure in the knowledge that this was one more secret that would keep us close. Not that I had a monopoly on David’s hidden life, but it’s nice to be needed and it feels good to be told you’re important.

That was Thursday.

David was too busy to talk that Friday and that weekend, he was out of town. When I hadn’t heard from heard from him all day Monday (the first hiatus from flirty emails in 3 weeks) I emailed him with a joke. He wrote me back to tell me that week was really busy. And so was the next one. And I realized what he’d become.

The man I’d thought was sweet and sincere was so, but only inasmuch as it got me in bed. It’s such an old adage, so tired and staid that it doesn’t even sound possible anymore. After all, we weren’t just a hookup, we had two plus years of friendly connecting of sharing things of relating to each other in a special way. If his plan two years previous was to be nice to me only until I made him cum, it was a stupid plan.

But it worked.

I thought back to the comments he made. The sweet nothings he whispered and instead of feeling a lover’s blush grace my cheeks, I felt hot anger there. Embarrassment and shame. And I regretted the day we met.

I’m not that kind of girl. I don’t do those kinds of things. I only did it because I needed to feel something and he allowed me to feel that. Turns out, I mistook chemistry for connection and I became a notch. And David became a stranger.

It’s sad when the person you’ve looked at with admiration and trust for years turns out to be an asshole. But as much as I was disappointed in my ex-friend, the same went double and triple for myself. I am frighteningly ordinary and hardly special at all.

I know what my issue is and I know what the solution is not. I know that no person will ever fill the hole in me that I was trying to shove David into. Frankly, it wasn’t fair for me to kiss him, for in doing so, I obligated him to things he knew nothing about. And instead of a clean break, should he ever talk to me again, he will find that I resent him. And no one likes to be resented.

Not even assholes who stop talking to you when you allow them the pleasure of release.