Friday First Kiss - Sunshine

Have you ever watched a movie with a scene where the main character is standing still and it seems like the whole world is speeding around him like streaks of colorful light? Or maybe like life is passing him by filmed on a camera running 100 times faster than it should? He stares into the one spot of stillness with a dead look in his eyes; like he can’t believe this is his life.

I stared at the drink in my hand. I didn’t even remember what it was or how I had gotten it. I let my eyes be drawn back up to the dance floor. It was writhing with hundreds of men in various states of dress and intoxication. I could walk out there and slip in between two of them and then my evening would end just like every other evening of my life. Inside a stranger. Or, if I got drunk enough, maybe with a stranger inside me.

The colored lights flashing and swirling made me think of that movie scene as I stood there staring out at the meaningless chaos of my life. Work, eat, drink, fuck, sleep and then do it all over again. When I moved here that was the dream, to live on my own and have a different guy every night if I wanted it. Now, I was five years older and five years lonelier. I didn’t have a fag hag girlfriend or an uncharacteristically cool with it straight guy bestie or the circle of seemingly shallow twinks that you could always count on, that you hear about in the books or the movies.

It was me. And the lights streaming by at 100 miles per hour.

Until that night.

As I was staring at the dance floor and its plethora of undulating, sweaty half-dressed men, any of whom were a sure thing, I was overwhelmed by the pointlessness of it all. Nothing, nobody in this place, could fill the gaping whole I felt growing inside of me. I dropped my drink on the floor, knowing that by the end of the night the broken glass would be ground down to powder by so many shoes, boots, and heels.

I stumbled back out into the night and took a deep breath. It stank of stale vomit, old sex and rotten garbage. The noisome air almost brought tears to my eyes and I tried to breath shallowly until I was far enough away from the back alley of the club that air was only polluted by car exhaust and cigarette smoke.

Eventually, I wandered toward the pier. This is where I came when the loneliness became too overwhelming to bear. I sat on the end, in the dark, with my feet hanging out 20 feet over the water and allowed myself to be wrapped up in the vastness of the ocean and sky. I stared out into the gently rolling waves and brilliant stars. I closed my eyes and let the rushing, repetitive sound of the waves wash over me.They slowed down the world racing around and rinsed the screaming colored lights from my psyche. I breathed deep of the relatively clean salt smelling air and began to relax.

Until I was nearly scared out of my skin when a hand descended on my shoulder.

I jumped up and spun around putting steel in my eyes before I looked at my intruder. I didn’t have a weapon but I was not weak. My 5’8’’ slender frame screamed twink, especially in my skin tight jeans and barely there fishnet tank top, but I knew how to take care of myself.

Before I could get out my angry retort, I actually looked at the man standing in front of me. I was immediately disarmed by sparkling green eyes, a flop of wavy blond hair and a genuinely friendly looking smile.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he drawled in some accent that had to be from somewhere south of the mason-dixon line.

“What are you doing here?” I snapped back at him, frustrated that he had interrupted my almost peaceful moment.

“You look cold out here. You want to go and get some coffee or something,” he cheerfully replied, seemingly unperturbed by either my death glare or my surly response. I glanced down at my clothes and realized what I probably looked like so far from the part of the city with all the clubs. He probably thought I was a prostitute or maybe an easy lay.

“I don’t want to sleep with you and I don’t want to hear you preach at me about the evil of my ways, so you can just be on your way.” I said, still scowling.

“Well, okay. I thought I offered coffee, not sex or damnation.” He said with a little laugh, eyes darkening just a fraction.

“Why would you want to have coffee with me? You don’t even know me.”

“That’s kind of the point. I buy you the hot beverage of your choice and then we talk to each other. And then, if you aren’t interesting enough, I leave you in the lurch for the tip.” That infernal sparkle was back in his eyes, even though he was doing his best to look serious.

“Okay.” I snapped my jaw shut so hard my teeth clacked in my head. That is not what I had opened my mouth to say. But the immediate grin that spread across the crazy stranger’s face prompted me not to take it back.

He jauntily held out his elbow in my general direction and it took me a good three seconds to realize he meant for me loop my arm through his. I must have looked ridiculous as I gaped at him. He just quirked his eyebrow, canted his head towards the 24 hour diner at the end of the pier and said, “C’mon, pretty boy.”

I grabbed his arm meaning to I don’t know what, but he just smoothly twisted his body somehow and got my hand looped in his elbow as I was still trying to sputter over being called “pretty boy” by this odd man.

We sat across from each other in the booth and the homey warmth of the place spread over me. I didn’t really know what to say but that didn’t stop him from talking. He told me about what must have been every time he ever did something stupid in high school, his crazy family, his dog, his theory about aliens using advertising to brainwash the masses before their invasion. I am pretty sure he was joking about that last one.

And when he asked me a question, I found myself answering. And smiling. And laughing. I don’t think I had laughed that much since before I discovered sex. His smile was contageous and his presence washed over me like the waves had been doing before he interupted me.

The evening came to end much too quickly, as the first rays of the dawn sunlight crept over the horizon. We walked out of the diner and I paused as he turned to face me with a mock serious look on his face. Then he grabbed my hand and bowed over it like an old fashioned courtier or something.

I felt him slip me a scrap of napkin and then he stared right into my eyes and kissed the back of my hand ever so briefly. My heart beat furiously in my chest and it felt about three times too big as I watched him saunter down the sidewalk, joy apparent in every line of his body.

I looked down at the napkin in my hand. It had a hastily scrawled message written across it.

Pretty Boy, Call me if you want to have coffee again. ;) 973-629-0891

I grinned to myself as I felt the warmth of the sun spread over me and start to fill some of those empty places inside.

The Beginning.

Note: That phone number is completely made up. Please don't call it. Some poor person will have no idea what is going on.

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