Chapter 7

It was shortly after that humiliating public display of rejection by Ritz at the coffee shop—that sad, unrestrained moment—that I began sifting through detailed memories of failed relationships in a downward spiral of self-loathing. Calling them relationships was rich, most of them more like practices in what not to do when dating. In the time since Nate and I split, I had unsuccessfully dated several guys that were not right for me but who were perfect for inflicting unnecessary punishment on myself. It wasn't so great for some of them either. The fact that a guy's sexual preference may have been the only thing we had in common never stayed my pursuance.

A na?ve notion of love led me to believe that relationships had to be built from the ground up, ignoring completely the need for a solid foundation upon which to build. There wasn't a manual I could reference, and I had no help, no guidance from enlightened elders, no well-intentioned cohorts providing me with sage advice. I had examples without context, pictures to peruse, but pictures could be assembled and manipulated for the sake of the show. Nate was a master manipulator, twisting the sordid details of our shared life to add color and depth, deftly hanging masterpiece after masterpiece for his friends and family. He was Monet; he could turn Picasso and Pollock into Degas and Rembrandt in the right lighting. After that, I didn't know what to think.

Were the couples I knew genuinely happy, or were their movements all for display, brilliantly directed plots to keep up appearances? Alex and Patrick shared passions and common interests but a fifteen-year age difference and backgrounds as varied as pizza and sushi. My sister and her husband, Tim, had nothing in common. She's a loudmouthed, vegan coffee-shop owner from Long Island, and he's a reserved Midwesterner who works as the head chef at a steak house and loves to fish. They seemed happy as clams. My own parents, however, insisted they were happily married to anyone who seemed interested, but I never witnessed an ounce of affection between them. They rarely spent time together, my pops busying himself at the accounting firm he worked for in the city and my ma concerning herself with lesson plans and grading papers, constantly. When my pops would watch TV, my ma would go shopping or call her friends. There were times I wondered if they even liked each other.

Other gay men were no help. The relationships I witnessed between so many of my brethren seemed intentionally constructed, convenient rather than complementary. We sought out others in the same social castes, those with similar features and backgrounds. We had an inherent but useless skill that allowed us to sniff out others who looked exactly like us, drove the same cars, adopted the same workout regimens. I couldn't count the number of times I'd been introduced to carbon-copy couples at parties that friends of Nate's had thrown, corporate attorneys or Audi drivers or muscle-bound gym rats. Introductions would go like this: "Do you know Brad and his partner, Chad? They work out at Metro Fitness and collectively can bench-press four hundred and fifty pounds." To which I would respond, "Cool. I just wanted to know where the bathroom was."

The boys of Midtown had a knack for gerrymandering their own lives, cornering themselves into interest groups and subcultures that didn't register outside of the gay community: bears, cubs, otters, twinks, muscle daddies, circuit queens. Even jocks and yuppies were split into finer groups: kickball players, rollerbladers, graduate students. Possessing common interests with those around you certainly made conversation easier, but enjoying the same type of music as someone else seemed vastly different than sharing an aesthetic, a personality, a brain.

Nate and I shared differences… of opinion, of demeanor, of visage. Enormous differences. Though I'm sure he'd concocted a story about us to share with his friends, one that embellished the similarities in ambition and wealth while diminishing the contrasts. It would be a story that was never read to me but must have been widely disseminated amongst his social circle, judging by the way his friends spoke to me, a barely masked contempt for the likes of those with whom I grew up.

I was angry after we split up, for various reasons. I harbored feelings of anger at myself, mostly for wasting so much time on such a self-serving jerk. Once Nate and I were official—a relationship that awkwardly transpired after our hookup, one of convenience—he decided for us that clubs were not appropriate places for people in relationships. And because I loved him—thought I loved him—I found myself agreeing without the benefit of conviction. It's almost frightening how one can believe something to be true in the pit of their soul, so true that it becomes almost religious, then change their mind the minute a love interest says something that contradicts it. The brain does everything it can to convince one of the contradiction, no matter how ridiculous it may sound, for the sake of love. That must be how cults begin. The idea that we can be susceptible to such ideas in the name of love is disheartening. But I was young and hungry when I met Nate. No one has come close to changing my mind about anything in recent years.

After rising from the ashes of the dumpster fire that became of that relationship, smartphones had burrowed their way into every nook and cranny of life, relegating face-to-face introductions to the clouded waste bin of memory. Going out to meet someone had become complicated, arduous work, like salmon swimming upstream in bear territory. The exercise had become pointless. The world seemed to have changed without me.

In the leering, twisted face of adversity, I did manage to meet a few people, as unhealthy for me as many of them were. There was Joseph and Evan and Stefano, all of whom possessed their own potent blend of annoying traits even if they were hot. Joseph was the sad, woe-is-me type whose friends didn't respect him, who never lived a day that wasn't ruined by something vaguely inconvenient. Evan was fun but always had one eye on the door, constantly peering over my shoulder to make sure something better didn't walk in. And Stefano was cute, and interesting, and a bartender at my favorite restaurant on Spruce Street. He was even nice. But he had an addiction to video games, the impact of which I didn't quite understand until I was left waiting for him to show up to all three of our dates. There was a level he just couldn't beat, he explained to me. I ended up having to find a new place for happy hour.

Then, there was Marc, attractive but clueless, who I feel warrants further explanation to gain a meticulous understanding of what I had come up against in this new world of singledom, of brazen individuality. We met at the gym in my building after I made an ill-fated decision to redefine my life. Reckless enthusiasm over escaping the dead weight of Nate's thumb characterized the next few months. A sudden drive to try new things, to do things on my own, invigorated me. Going to the gym without the encouragement of someone else lasted about two weeks, and so did Marc. I should have been tipped off that he wasn't right for me when I discovered he didn't even live in the building. He occasionally hooked up with a guy who lived in the North Tower, and to alleviate the burden of that guy having to venture down to the lobby to let Marc in, the guy had given him an extra key fob. It was a red flag I decided to sail right past.

Marc was on the treadmill when I strolled into the gym that evening, feeling determined and probably a tad self-righteous. No one else was there. It seemed like he'd been running for a while, his frame dripping with sweat. He wore nothing but gym shorts. Smooth, tanned, and muscular, he had the build of a professional basketball player. His features were sharp and his jawline squared, lightly covered in a dusting of dark stubble. Thick, brown hair styled itself neatly atop his head, somehow unaffected by the perspiration that danced elsewhere on his body. Anyone into men would have found him attractive.

With renewed purpose, I stepped onto the treadmill next to him and programmed the setting to a speed higher than I should have started with but still not as intense as the setting Marc had chosen. The thin, white cord connecting his earbuds to the phone tucked into the space meant for water bottles or sports drinks bounced as he strode. Doing my best not to linger, I shot quick glances in his direction from the corner of my eye, attempting to catch sight of those endless beads of sweat trailing down his pecs and abs before soaking into the waistband of his mesh shorts.

His body was perfect, leaving me to wonder why he was working so hard on that treadmill. I wasn't stupid; I understood that a nice building needed constant maintenance to stay nice, but had my body been constructed with as much care and detail as Marc's, I probably would have opted for a less intense level of upkeep. After years on the dance floor, years of being pressured to go to the gym by Nate—"for health reasons," he'd say—I was no schlub. But I felt like a gangly kid trying to lift weights in gym class next to Marc.

Ten minutes were left on the digital timer of his machine, so I set mine for the same. I'd planned for a thirty-minute jog, but maybe I'd spend the other twenty minutes working out in a more intimate manner.

Just before the time expired on his run—and it had to be called a run, for there was no other way to give description to his ardent stride—Marc programmed in a quick cooldown, his pace decreasing to more of a leisurely jog. A few moments later, I did the same. My heart rate and body temperature had increased just enough for me to break a sweat, to glisten as a sheen decorated my flesh. Marc removed the buds from his ears as he slowed to a walk, placing them in the cup holder with his phone, grabbing the T-shirt he'd draped over the handrail to wipe at his forehead, and glanced in my general direction.

"You new to running?"

I removed my headphones so I could hear him. "Sorry, what?"

"It was a quick run," he elaborated, labored breathing adding weight to his words. "I wondered if you were a beginner."

"Oh." I smiled. "Nah. I just needed a pick-me-up before lifting weights."

"Ah," he replied, believing my lie without question. I gathered he wasn't the brightest crayon in the box at that point, but I also didn't care. "Well, you look good doing it."

"Thanks," I responded with hands on my hips, the belief that I wouldn't need a longer run confirmed. "You too."

Marc smiled. A minute of silence—maybe two—passed between us as we continued with our cooldowns. We simply walked next to one another, intrigued, knowing glances occasionally being thrown in the other's direction. We could have been across the bar from each other, repeatedly catching one another's eyes, exchanging coy smiles, knowing that sex was inevitable. Maybe it would happen at one of our places, or maybe it would be sooner, in the bathroom of the club. The details were malleable, but the act was no longer up to us. Fate had spoken.

That sterile gray box of a room on the other side of the pool deck with low ceilings and Berber carpeting and a narrow wall of windows facing out to Spruce Street below didn't offer the music or the flashing lights or an endless stream of people drunkenly knocking into you on their way to the bar. That tiny gym with only a few pieces of equipment was well ventilated but sparsely decorated, not much more than a water cooler fitted with a sleeve of white, cone-shaped paper cups and a sanitizing station with cheap paper towels and a couple of bottles of blue-hued commercial disinfectant spray. There were hand weights and a few fitness machines bathed in fluorescent lighting. The only halfway pleasant places to rest your eyes were four small television screens evenly mounted on the wall above the windows, silently broadcasting the evening news.

Marc found himself entangled in my arms, constrained against the back wall of the gym, my body leaning into his, our lips meeting, tongues punching into one another as we hastily made out. I don't even remember how we got to that point. It's probably for the best that I don't. Our conversation was never invigorating, lacking substance where substance most definitely should have been. What's worse is that the sex wasn't that great. But Marc was fun to look at. And people who are fun to look at and also seem to like looking at you are not easy to let go, no matter the bore they may present.

But there we were in that gym, fingers working over each other's bodies, slick with sweat. Marc's hands drifted underneath the hem of my T-shirt and grasped at my waist. One of my hands slid into his shorts while the other held the back of his head as we kissed. His erection, fortunately trapped inside his briefs, pressed against my own as we struggled to find a rhythm. We did, eventually, but it wasn't one of those smooth, easy rhythms, like the music played during a quiet storm mix on urban radio. It was choppier and avant-garde, like jazz or a heavy metal power ballad.

Before we were too far gone, too deep into it, someone walked into the gym, forcing us to back away, to compose ourselves. Phone numbers were exchanged, and we went on with our evenings, leaving the gym to meet for a drink the following day. It was then that I found out about him not residing in the building, instead having an arrangement for entry with a speed dial trick.

Was speed dial even a thing anymore?

For the next couple of weeks, Marc and I hooked up nearly every other night, meeting for a drink or two before heading to my place to fuck or to blow each other. I kept expecting the sex to get better, but it never did. We awkwardly fumbled around, never quite carrying each other to completion, instead finishing ourselves off before parting ways, less than satisfied.

Nearly every day for two weeks, he sent me a selfie of himself taken in the floor-length mirror that hung on the back wall of the gym, a stoic expression plastered on his face as he pulled his shorts up, exposing a muscled thigh. He was very proud of his thighs. And selfies were his thing. He once told me he took photos of himself to track his progress at the gym. Maybe that was partially true. But as the days passed and the initial attraction began to crumble, it became apparent that he simply liked looking at himself. That was the real reason for the selfies. They would be posted on social media, garnering hundreds of likes and comments from people he'd probably never met, stroking his ego to the point of emotional ejaculation.

When we were together, he was glued to his phone. Connection was impossible. When he wasn't snapping photos of himself in the mirror at the gym, he was on his phone editing photos of himself he took in the mirror at the gym, a narcissist without the mental capacity for manipulation.

My interest in our brief affair, sexual or otherwise, fizzled not long after it began. I no longer wanted to be bored by someone else when I could just as easily bore myself. Once I stopped contacting him, he ceased texting shirtless photos of himself to me. I admittedly saved some of those photos to later use as stimulation when I needed an image to accompany my hand but ended up deleting them for my own sanity, preferring to forego the pathetic feelings that crept over me when I viewed them.

I still see Marc around the neighborhood. He pretends not to see me. Or maybe he doesn't recognize me. His brain may very well be filled to the brim with images of himself doing reps, too crowded to remember the name or likeness of someone he slept with for two weeks straight.

Then, there were those to whom I never gave a fighting chance, weary from the practice, jaded by experience. I went through the motions, no longer equipped to deal with the norms of socialization, to handle the practice of human relation. In the aftermath of my refusal to curate the types of people in which I invested my time, there were a few glimmers of hope, a few guys who probably wouldn't have seemed so bad had I recognized the resemblance of a healthy relationship, had I figured out how to give love, to allow myself to be loved. In that new world of perpetual connection, I simply found reasons, sometimes creating them, that would allow me to walk away without blame. The damage done by past relationships would outlast any new endeavor.

I couldn't see it at the time, but I set myself up to walk through endless forests of collateral damage, innocence and hope be damned, optimistic efforts reduced to rubble. The poor guys I left in my wake didn't know what hit them. They had their shit together to some extent. They meant well. But I dug and dug until I found the bad in the good, allowing myself to fall into a violent cyclone of predetermined defeat. I'd become a professional at finding problems where there were none, a master of setting hypothetical fires in the distance, then diverting my path before I could be burned.

It started with Tariq, another Chatter connection. Tariq was cute and smart and just way too fucking nice. He did horrible, awful things, like go out of his way to open doors for me. He threw compliments around like candy at a parade, applauding me on everything from my clothes to my hair to my choice of beverage at dinner.

I wanted to like him. Even my friends were rooting for him after meeting him by chance during our second date. They happened to show up at the same restaurant just after we'd been seated. I asked them to join us, to which Tariq kindly obliged, figuring how awkward it might be for my two best friends to sit at the table next to us, pretending to be complete strangers while he and I tried to get to know one another.

The four of us sat there on the patio of the cantina, gnashing on chips and salsa as we attempted small talk and waited for our drinks to arrive. Tariq courteously played along, obviously nervous in the company of strangers, not planning on having to get to know my friends as he got to know me. The night quickly devolved into a revival of tales about how Alex, Calvin, and I met, a spate of sometimes conflicting stories from all directions pummeling my date as we laughed and joked about how messy we'd been in our younger years. Tariq made valiant attempts to interject, but he wasn't quite assertive enough to make much of a dent in our volleyball game of a conversation, one person serving up a topic while the others bounced it around, back and forth, sometimes setting one another up for a zing of a spike.

The three of us routinely egged each other on, played off each other, interested and amiable one moment, witty and acerbic the next. On my own, I was reserved and placid. But in the company of friends, those whom I'd come to know as family, I came out of my shell. We had been in each other's lives for so long that we knew things about one another that we didn't know about ourselves. Conversation flowed between us so naturally, so organically. But that sometimes made others feel like a fifth wheel, lost in a school textbook for a subject that was new to them, written in a foreign language they had never before encountered.

Patrick thought it was entertaining. He'd gotten used to it, had his own friends that mimicked those traits with each other. He found it comical when the three of us would get stuck on a topic, talking over each other for hours about something that made no difference. He'd simply pour himself a glass of wine and enjoy the show.

Tariq sat calmly by, occasionally chuckling at our banter or relating a story of his own to one we were telling. I did my best to make sure he felt included, asking him questions, inserting him into our conversation, but it wasn't easy. Once we'd gotten a few drinks in us, we turned into boisterous versions of ourselves, shedding any veil of introversion we may have once wrapped ourselves in.

Through it all, Tariq held strong. Had it been me in that situation, I would have probably left the table, concocting a story about somewhere I needed to be. But he was too nice for that. He was the type to stop and let you pass first in the aisle of a supermarket or ask where you'd like to have dinner, even if he secretly craved something else. Tariq was the type that would save the last dinner roll for you, butter it, and stop short of feeding it to you only after you requested he didn't.

After that meal, he suggested we take a walk around the neighborhood and just talk. It was a sweet idea, spending time together with no real agenda. He was incredibly understanding about the situation at dinner and able to be much more open and forthcoming when it was just the two of us. That's probably why we lasted for almost a month. But that's also when I began to notice how relentless he was in his goodness.

"You're really good with your friends. I can see why they like you," he'd say with a smile, his hands planted in the pockets of his jeans as we walked.

"Thanks. They're good to me too."

"Yeah, but you really take care of them."

"No more than they take care of me."

"I think you just don't see how much you mean to them."

It would go on like that until I finally changed the subject. He was trying to be nice, to compliment me, but there was only so much thanking one could do, only so many niceties one could justify.

We made it through five or six dates, dancing on the edge of more, nearly falling off the cliff and into a proper relationship. We got along well, but I couldn't take the gushing, the incessant admiration. I wasn't unappreciative, or maybe I was, but it all just got to be too much. I told him at one point, in passing, that I didn't need all the adulation, "Hey, Tariq. I appreciate it when you tell me I look good. I really do. But it's not necessary. Why don't you tell me about your day?"

Tariq would simply smile and chuckle at what he perceived to be modesty, as if I were being facetious, then tell me about his day before going on about how much he liked my hands, gently grabbing them from across the table, massaging them with his thumbs. It should have been romantic, but it felt gratuitous. He just couldn't turn it off.

Even his appearance was friendly, warmth washed over with hotness, that thick head of jet-black hair, heavy brown eyes, an alluring smile complemented by a neatly trimmed beard. His beard was even nice. What a jerk.

Running my hands through his hair when we fucked felt good. And he wasn't a bad fuck. But as soon as the act was consummated, the homage once again commenced. It was like trying to run through a swarm of manic, buzzing cicadas with him. After a while, none of it seemed genuine. It was too much. I had to dump him.

He shouldn't have to change his personality for me, I told myself. Bury his natural instincts. If that was the only thing about him that bothered me, couldn't I have simply addressed it? Sat him down over a drink for a candid conversation? I'm sure there were things about me that bothered him, made him uncomfortable: the way my friends were always dropping by, how much I worked, maybe the way I chewed my food. But instead of trying to resolve any enduring issues, I simply walked away, made it easier on myself, left Tariq to wonder what he'd done wrong.

Then came Perfect Pete, this beautiful specimen of a man: tall, dark, and handsome. He could have been a model, chiseled in a natural way, hardly an ounce of fat on his body. His perfect dark hair effortlessly styled itself on top of his perfect head, and he had just the right amount of body hair in all the perfect places, nary a strand out of place. Those big brown eyes and that perfect playful smile that gave way to those perfectly straight white teeth were, well, perfect. Just looking at him became a pastime for me.

Pete and I got along quite nicely. We enjoyed the same foods and taking long walks around the neighborhood. He was perfectly affectionate. After about a week of dating, when he would catch me glancing at his perfection, he'd grab my hand and hold it gently while we walked, occasionally planting a kiss on my cheek or throwing me a wink—which he could do perfectly. Physical affection from most guys felt awkward, but I didn't mind when Pete was tender with me. He was sincere and genuine, but that was just it—he was too perfect. I felt like such a slacker around him, a scrub. It didn't matter that I worked hard or owned my own business. I wasn't as perfect as Pete. I sometimes broke glasses and tripped over my own feet and said dumb shit in heated moments.

Two and a half months, Pete and I lasted. We slept together often, and he was even perfect at that. He liked to please, said it was in his nature. That mouth of his was magic, the way it enveloped me as his fingers interlocked with mine, that warm, velvety tongue swiping its way up and down my shaft before encircling the head of my cock as he blew me. He could get me so close, somehow knowing exactly when to remove himself and work on my balls, my taint, forcing me to spread my legs so he could bury himself in my ass. He knew exactly what he was doing. I was putty in his hands in the bedroom, and before I knew it, I'd end up with my face against the pillow, his perfectly hard cock opening me, sliding in, burying itself inside, our fingers somehow still woven together.

Pete liked the physical connection. And in the spirit of perfection, he had the type of cock that never forced its way in, never hurt. It perfectly fit like it was created for just that purpose. He would rock himself into me gently, over and over, leaning down to kiss the nape of my neck every so often. When he got close, he would pull out and flip me over onto my back, returning his focus to me, making sure I was getting close too. He was even perfectly polite in bed.

He never sweat, only glistened. No matter how hot it was or how active we'd been, he simply shined as he came. It was unnerving.

After I broke it off with him, I realized I had become that sad, self-deprecating guy that I'd blown off just months earlier. Pete was just too perfect, I thought, as he awoke next to me, leaning over to kiss my forehead. "Good morning, sexy," he'd say in that perfect tone that perfectly stimulated my core, giving me a perfectly unnecessary erection.

"Good morning," I'd reply, knowing full well that I'd have to break up with him, that I couldn't take how perfectly everything between us was going for the rest of my life.

Who could?

Maybe everyone.

Except me.

I couldn't accept that he might actually love me and want to be with me. It didn't seem real or right, him being so perfect without the indulgence of guilt trips or manipulation. Perfect could only last so long, I told myself. Eventually, he'd have to crack, exposing a flaw that would be so grand, so upsetting, so abusive that I would have to leave. And after Nate, I couldn't handle that kind of surprise.

I never gave that flaw time to surface. I explained to Pete that he was just too good for me, or that I wasn't good enough for him, or some conflation of words that spelled out how incompatible we were, when really, we were anything but. Pete didn't understand but contested only long enough to realize I wasn't going to budge.

We're cordial when we see each other around now, but I hurt him. We would never be friends. I burned that bridge, set it ablaze with a blowtorch, ignited it with a Molotov cocktail.

My almost-but-never-quite relationships with Tariq and Pete taught me nothing. I learned exactly naught from the manner in which I ran away, from the hearts I may have broken, from the needless wreckage I caused. I finally stopped looking, convincing myself that the threat of a serious relationship, the torment of love, was more dangerous than closing myself off. Even so, I still somehow made the mistake of falling into an intense three-month-long whirlwind with Kevin when he stumbled his way into my life unannounced.

The Hattie, as Alex and Calvin so lovingly referred to him, was the closest I got to a real relationship after Nate. Kevin bore a striking resemblance to someone that would have played the high school soccer team captain in any teen movie; a Freddie Prinze, Jr. in the right light. He was a hottie in every sense of the word and was very rarely seen without a baseball cap, hence the stupid nickname. Caps looked good on him. He had this slightly receding hairline he was self-conscious about, which was the reasoning behind the baseball caps. His receding hairline was cute. It was hardly noticeable, but it made him human.

I thought Kevin was straight when I first met him in the Irish pub that resided quaintly at the bottom of Stratus. It faced Spruce Street and unsuspectingly lured tourists and passersby into what was easily the gayest building in Atlanta daily. Sitting at the nearly empty bar by myself with an almost full pint glass in front of me, I stared blankly at the television screen above the bar after a long day at the shop. There were enough people in the dining room—eating dinner or mingling about with friends—that the dull buzz of voices allowed me to lose myself in thought. I'd been staring into space for probably fifteen minutes when I vaguely heard a voice beside me order a drink from the bartender, then address me, "Good match, right?"

"What?" I turned to face him, caught off guard by his question.

"The match," he repeated with a smile, motioning toward the TV screen at which I'd apparently been staring.

I had no idea what was playing on the TV. It could have been football or soccer or rugby. Hell, it could have been tennis. "Oh. Yeah. I wasn't really paying attention."

"Do you like rugby?"

I glanced back at the TV to see that there was, indeed, a rugby match being broadcast.

"I don't really know anything about it," I admitted with a crooked smile as I returned my focus to my new friend.

His accent was Southern, local. He must have been from the area. Georgia, at least. He was tall and thin and had a nice shape about him. He wore jeans and a blue polo… and a baseball cap. His clothes fit him well, molded to the shape of his frame. Not too much. Just enough. A chuckle caressed his lips. "Do you mind if I sit?"

The bartender placed a fresh pint glass in front of him. The amber color of the beer he was drinking blended in with the stain of the solid oak bar.

"Be my guest," I offered, gesturing to the empty pub chair beside me. "You here by yourself?"

"No. My friends are over there." He pointed to a table of five guys, all focused on a different TV screen broadcasting the same match. They all looked straight as well, many of them wearing matching colors, a nod to a favorite team, I assumed. I wondered to myself if this guy was gay or just really friendly and somewhat clueless. He was attractive and well-groomed, save for the dark stubble that danced across his face and neck, a five o'clock shadow closer to seven. He could've gone either way, and I was in no mood for misleading a lost straight boy.

"I'm gay," I blurted out matter-of-factly, slightly relaxing my tone as I continued. "Just so you know."

"I'm Kevin," he responded, offering me his hand, briefly maintaining a straight face that soon gave way and allowed a cute smile to appear casually above his square jaw. "Just so you know."

The corners of his eyes crinkled under the brim of his baseball cap as he snickered. Eventually, I laughed with him. He was as friendly and funny as he was good-looking. We chatted for a couple of hours that night, much of the time spent by Kevin explaining the game of rugby to me. I understood as much about the game after his tutorial as I did before, but I enjoyed listening to him talk. His friends were straight, but he was not. He'd played soccer in college with a couple of them; the others he met through an amateur league at Cedar Grove Park. One of the guys was from Scotland, he mentioned, and had gotten them all into watching rugby when they weren't playing soccer.

Kevin lived a couple of blocks down Spruce Street from me in a different tower with a different name, and while he was really into soccer, he had other interests as well: cooking, art, live music. He was also a few years older than me, which I kind of liked. We dated each other just long enough for him to fall in love with me and for me to find something meaningless about him to convince me our relationship wouldn't work.

But the sex. The sex was fantastic. Kevin was adventurous and somewhat unpredictable when it came to sex. We could be in the bathroom of a restaurant taking a piss before dinner, and without notice, he would shove me into an open stall and suck my dick.

One evening, we decided to take a walk through the park after work, mindlessly wandering into a heavily wooded area off the beaten path, a nature preserve of some sort. A wood-planked walkway snaked its way through the dense forest as it climbed into the tree canopy off the side of a hill. No one was around, and judging by how quiet our surroundings had grown, how far we'd trudged into the innards of the park, there was a good chance that no one would pass by anytime soon. Surrounded by trees, still on the walkway, he grabbed me and kissed me, pulling me in close, rubbing my dick through my jeans as we made out. This continued until I was sufficiently hard. He then turned his back to me, dropped his pants, and bent himself over the railing of the walkway.

"Fuck me," he commanded with a flirtatious smile.

"Here?" I surveyed the area for people wandering about. There weren't any.

He laughed. "Yes. Here."

"I don't have a condom," I whispered, trying to conceal my words from some imaginary person that might be around, somewhere.

We'd gotten tested together a few days before but hadn't discussed having unprotected sex yet.

"So what?" Kevin chuckled. "You're not sleeping with anybody else, are you?"

How could I have been? Most of my time outside of work was being spent with him.

I scoffed. "No."

"I'm not either, so what's the problem?"

I guessed there wasn't one. I managed another quick look around the area and didn't see anyone, so I dropped to my knees behind him and buried my face in his ass, lightly tonguing at the wispy hairs that feathered out from around his opening. His essence was earthy, clean, masculine. A carnal musk lingered on his body, turning me on. As I tongued his hole, my already throbbing member grew harder in my jeans—if that was possible. Kevin tensed and relaxed, tensed and relaxed, quietly moaning as I worked over his tightness, loosening him up to the best of my ability.

Once he was sufficiently lubed up, I unzipped my jeans and pulled my boxer briefs down my thighs, freeing my erection. Spitting into my hand, I massaged the natural lube onto my cock and lined it up with his opening. The sun was setting, and the sky had grown dark enough to conceal our actions as long as no one walked by, but I glanced over my shoulder one last time to make sure the coast was clear before grabbing his waist and guiding myself into him.

Kevin winced as I entered but quickly relaxed, allowing me to proceed, to press into him deeper. My nerves were so on edge from being in such a public place that I fucked him with gusto, trying not to take too long. That didn't end up being a problem. I had forgotten how good it felt to fuck someone without a condom, no latex barrier between us, just skin on skin. He reached back, grabbing my wrist with one hand and the back of my thigh with the other, egging me on. From the muffled sounds he made, I could tell he was biting his bottom lip, something he did regularly during sex without thinking. It always turned me on. He loved every minute of it, and I was glad I could contribute to his pleasure.

Five minutes of steady movement, of frenzied, lubed friction, and I was reaching my climax. My whisper was somewhat labored. "I'm gonna come."

"Do it," he urged.

I thrust into him one last time and immediately lost my load, tightly grasping at Kevin's waist as I filled him with what felt like a week's worth of pent-up stress and aggression. Attempts to hush our instinctual grunts, our visceral moans, failed. Anyone within a half-mile radius was probably treated to the sound of our clandestine orgasm.

As I finished unloading, Kevin pushed himself back into me, knocking me a step or two backward, then pulled himself from my softening cock. Turning around, he grabbed himself with one hand and drew me near to him with the other, jerking himself off. I dropped to my knees and took him into my mouth just as he shot his load, swallowing him for the first time.

As quickly as we could, we got ourselves buttoned up before heading down the walkway that emptied out onto a heavily traveled path, laughing all the way. It was a hot encounter that I hadn't anticipated but enjoyed nonetheless. I never knew when Kevin was going to be in the mood, accosting me, taking me by surprise, but I never minded him doing it.

But Kevin was adventurous, the type of guy that would say he was going to work out, then return hours later, sweaty and covered in mud or sand, despite the fact that there wasn't a beach anywhere near Atlanta.

"By ‘work out,' I meant I was meeting the guys at the park for a quick obstacle course training," he would say, nonchalantly brushing dried sand from his jeans onto the hardwood floor. Or, my favorite: "Oh, we ran into these guys that said they were going mudding just outside the city, so we hopped in my Jeep and tagged along."

Whatever the fuck mudding was.

I never cared, and he never seemed like he was hiding anything. His random shenanigans were kind of funny. He was the type that played the role of an adult male quite well while being a giant kid at heart. And he proved that assertion from time to time when he would randomly pick me up from work and take me hiking or zip-lining or kayaking. Athletic ventures weren't my thing. It wasn't necessarily a natural point of contention between us, but I ended up making it one. Kevin never cared that I didn't want to play soccer or run a marathon with him. He said he enjoyed the time we spent together, but I couldn't keep myself from thinking that he would have enjoyed a more adventurous partner, a carefree globetrotter who loved the outdoors.

Things could have worked out with Kevin had I not been such a jerk. After a random night of drinking, thinking about our situation just a skosh too much, I told him that he deserved someone who enjoyed an active lifestyle more than I did. Someone who wanted to go mudding with him. He argued that he didn't care. That he liked me for who I was. But I convinced myself that, deep down, he agreed with me. Whether or not that was true, it didn't matter. We had gotten too close, gone too far. Love was the natural next step, then jealousy, pain, and anger. I would be broken again. Damaged. It was inevitable.

And just like that, I broke it off with the Hattie, one more guy to whom I never really gave a chance, shattering his heart in the process. My penchant for standing in the way of my own happiness was alive and healthy. There didn't seem to be a relationship I wasn't able to royally fuck up. I didn't see a reason to keep hurting people when it was clear I had issues of my own that needed work. Instead of leaving a trail of broken guys in my wake, I adopted Maestro and focused my attention on my business.

Relationships were difficult, convoluted, laced with unwanted emotion. Tricks, on the other hand, were easy. The sex was meaningless. Searching out a hot guy looking to get his rocks off in Midtown was like searching out weed at a music festival. There was no shortage of superficial guys in the neighborhood, and it was easy to get rid of them after getting off. For years, I adopted the hardened nature of a rent boy, living by the rules of one-night stands, never developing feelings, never keeping anyone around long enough to hurt them, for them to hurt me, relieving all involved of any lingering notions or confusing signals.

My mind had changed though. Sex was sex. It was necessary and relaxing, but no longer was I satisfied by the fleeting physical releases offered by emotionally deprived sexual nomads. I wanted more. I fucked it up with Ritz, but I would remember that moment as a cautionary tale. It was time I put myself back out there, clearheaded, emotionally available, and, hopefully, well-mannered. Ritz was a dry run. I just needed to tweak my recipe. If I could keep my mouth shut moving forward, maybe I'd make it to a second date with someone I actually enjoyed conversing with, being with. And then, a third date. A boy can dream, right?