May. 2nd, 2018 03:10 pm
A bed of spines
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
muckefuckMy Santa Fe adventure was everything I could have wanted it to be. So much so that at one point I told my big ginger farmboy about the time I broke my foot and ended up riding to my bus stop on the same bus as the varsity female lacrosse team. "I felt like I was in someone's fantasy, but it sure wasn't mine. But this here is absolutely my fantasy."
We fooled around every morning and evening, and usually during the day as well. We made a game of it: How many rooms can we have sex in? (And there were lots of rooms.) The second day I came up with the idea of strip eight-ball and we played it every evening. We took long indulgent showers and lounged in the outdoor hot tub in the light of the noontime sun and the full moon.
I tried not to think too hard about the environmental impact of a house halfway up a mountainside on the edge of town. The views were too incredible. I stumbled around the hillside evading prickly pears and cane chollas to photograph "moss rocks" and cacti in bloom. We drove through incredibly austere landscapes to national monuments to hike up dusty canyons and back down again.
We geeked out about everything. I wanted to know the names of all the plants around and he wanted to tell me. We took self-guides at the sites and stopped at every marker to read the entries. He couldn't wait to show me the stars and broke out an app to locate constellations. We sat up one evening reading about serial killers on Wikipedia.
We hardly spent any time in town. Cocktails off the plaza one night, dinner in a strip mall another. All the museums and galleries couldn't compete with the pleasure of not having to put on pants. He relished the chance to sleep in. For my part, I was never getting enough sleep and always hoping to catch up.
I managed to keep reality from biting until our last night. As Monshu would say, there were "echoes" all along but that last night it seemed they superimposed themselves to the point where I could no longer ignore them. I cried and hoped he didn't notice. I weighed every word I said to him.
We avoided putting a name to what we were doing. But on the drive to the airport, he seized the bull head-on and said, "You asked me if I wanted to fall in love. I'm getting tired of playing the field. But I think you need to do more closure." The relief at having him articulate what I felt was immense. All weekend I'd be dreading the moment I'd have to disappoint him.
He didn't want to let me go before nailing down a future meeting, but there are too many unknowns. Maybe in July, after he makes a trip home. It won't be easy to come out and visit him again, not while his roommate-cum-ex and he still have a no-hosting-when-I'm-around rule. He'll come to see me. Maybe we can arrange a rendezvous someplace we both want to travel.
Did I question the wisdom of running across the country to get busy with someone I'd met only once? You bet I did. We both did--so we were able to joke about it. (Thus that business with the serial killers.) But I knew I would do it and I knew why: because this life is too goddamn short.
We fooled around every morning and evening, and usually during the day as well. We made a game of it: How many rooms can we have sex in? (And there were lots of rooms.) The second day I came up with the idea of strip eight-ball and we played it every evening. We took long indulgent showers and lounged in the outdoor hot tub in the light of the noontime sun and the full moon.
I tried not to think too hard about the environmental impact of a house halfway up a mountainside on the edge of town. The views were too incredible. I stumbled around the hillside evading prickly pears and cane chollas to photograph "moss rocks" and cacti in bloom. We drove through incredibly austere landscapes to national monuments to hike up dusty canyons and back down again.
We geeked out about everything. I wanted to know the names of all the plants around and he wanted to tell me. We took self-guides at the sites and stopped at every marker to read the entries. He couldn't wait to show me the stars and broke out an app to locate constellations. We sat up one evening reading about serial killers on Wikipedia.
We hardly spent any time in town. Cocktails off the plaza one night, dinner in a strip mall another. All the museums and galleries couldn't compete with the pleasure of not having to put on pants. He relished the chance to sleep in. For my part, I was never getting enough sleep and always hoping to catch up.
I managed to keep reality from biting until our last night. As Monshu would say, there were "echoes" all along but that last night it seemed they superimposed themselves to the point where I could no longer ignore them. I cried and hoped he didn't notice. I weighed every word I said to him.
We avoided putting a name to what we were doing. But on the drive to the airport, he seized the bull head-on and said, "You asked me if I wanted to fall in love. I'm getting tired of playing the field. But I think you need to do more closure." The relief at having him articulate what I felt was immense. All weekend I'd be dreading the moment I'd have to disappoint him.
He didn't want to let me go before nailing down a future meeting, but there are too many unknowns. Maybe in July, after he makes a trip home. It won't be easy to come out and visit him again, not while his roommate-cum-ex and he still have a no-hosting-when-I'm-around rule. He'll come to see me. Maybe we can arrange a rendezvous someplace we both want to travel.
Did I question the wisdom of running across the country to get busy with someone I'd met only once? You bet I did. We both did--so we were able to joke about it. (Thus that business with the serial killers.) But I knew I would do it and I knew why: because this life is too goddamn short.