As some of my close-er confidants will attest last week was an emotional roller coaster. I will continue to claim that there was definitely some sort of hormonal imbalance going on that provoked the tears in a workplace bathroom-stall but it surely was a moment that declared the need for re-evaluation and clarification.
This crazy nonsense started after having gone on a date two weeks ago with a guy I found intriguing in a way other than just sex which was then followed by a volley between of all-day texting to not a peep. By the time last Monday approached I was somewhat drained and a little crazy. Physically, I was perfectly relaxed from my July 4th excursion away from the city but mentally I was losing it. All of a sudden, forgetting the concepts of time and patience I found myself overly immersed (and unsatisfied) with the online cupid scene and hitting up old-faithfuls. Starting with an old acquaintance from middle school years who I have slept with annually if not biannually for the last six years and ending with a Dickpic rendez-vous last night I am happy to announce that I have re-gained my stride and have re-leveled my head.
The healing process began last Thursday night. I sat in a family friend’s apartment babysitting the most adorable child, only blocks away from my old acquaintance that for story-telling purposes shall be referred to as the Actor (as he is in the process of making it work as an actor: clever, I know). Earlier this month I received a text from the Actor about his place being entirely empty for the month and that I should “hit him up” sometime for a little romp around in the most all-around sense. In my sassy (and drunken) state I replied that “I’d think about it” and here I was, only a few weeks later, still within the boundary of the month hitting him up as an escape from my emotional roller coaster of a week because sometimes that’s just what we need. So after finishing up with babysitting and not hearing back from the Actor, I went to the train and headed home (please also imagine that every time I say Actor it is pronounced “Ak-tor” in the most old-school dramatic sense of the word. Just for funzies).
As soon as I get home I get the texts that didn’t come through while I was on the train (perhaps the only way the NYC Subway system lacks but it’s okay because it makes up for it by running 24 hours and being reasonably reliable–and we all should probably take a break from our phones for the 20-something minute commutes to places). And so it begins. After going back and forth about him paying for my cab and for me to come back, when all I wanted to do was lay in bed in my air conditioned room the situation turned itself to a more sexually-charged version of texting.
Then it was sometime on Friday during work when I got a text from Dickpic as well (I secretly believe that there is some sort of radar that goes off in men that signifies that someone else has interest in someone they might be interested in, whether or not they’re in the immediate area–a “when it rains, it pours” kind of scenario). Being his Irish self he has a friend from the motherland visiting him in his one bedroom apartment, crashing on his couch and making our casual situation slightly more complicated. As of Friday he didn’t think we’d get to get together for another two weeks so there was a lot of sexually-charged texting going on there as well as a form of extended foreplay.
Pretty much the entire weekend the content of the texts I received on my phone could be considered NC-17.
Finally plans were ironed out with the Actor for Sunday. I was going to go the beach with friends, go get my nails done and then meet him at his place around 7 for some fun. While Dickpic texted me all day about what I was doing and if I could break away for a little bit in between activities on my calendar for some good, old fashioned stress relief. After apologizing, saying I couldn’t and proposing other days we decided to keep plans in the air and kept texting.
It was somewhere in there that the Actor rescheduled. Saying he had dinner plans at 7 and asking if I could come over later, closer to 10. I immediately decided to take no chances in my sexual exploits of the weekend and simply rescheduled the Actor and told Dickpic my plans had just fell through and that I was suddenly available.
This is where things got fun.
Suddenly it became a game of logistics. Dickpic was at his office and could take a few hours off but would have to go back so time spent traveling would be time eaten up. When he offered quite seriously to get a hotel room nearby his office (and only a handful of minutes from where I was) I agreed. After a last minute booking at a four star hotel in SoHo, he left work, checked in, left a key at reception under my name and was waiting for me in the room in his boxer-briefs on the bed.
I have to use this time now to say I have never done anything like this. I’m sure this could read to quite a whore-like image but I will have you know I could be anyone on the subway or in your office and you wouldn’t know: so judge not and all that. And other than greetings that was the first thing discussed with Dickpic in that hotel room. So to go on the record, he hasn’t done something like this before with someone he wasn’t dating and just as I told him the truth I believe in what he said. Call it foolish and naive but I like to think the best of people until they give me a reason not to.
So on goes the story.
In that hotel room as a break from work, Dickpic and I had two hours of incredibly fun sex all around that hotel room with the blinds wide open and a beautiful view of the New York City skyline from the 11th story of this hotel that also reflected in the mirror that ran along the far side of the bed. Afterwards we lay there, head in hands gazing out into the city buzzing with electricity. And here I can’t help but think of a favorite quote from Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Everything Is Illuminated”:
From space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. Not light, exactly, but a glow that could be mistaken for light–a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut’s eyes.
In about one and a half centuries–after the lovers who made the glow will have long since been laid permanently on their backs–metropolises will be seen from space. They will glow all year. Smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. Shtetls will be virtually impossible to spot. Individual couples, invisible.
The glow is born from the sum of thousands of loves: newlyweds and teenagers who spark like lights out of butane, pairs of men who burn fast and bright, pairs of women who illuminate for hours with soft multiple glows, orgies like rock and flint toys sold at festivals, couples trying unsuccessfully to have children who burn their frustrated image on the continent like the bloom of a bright light leaves on the eye after you turn away from it.
Some nights, some places are a little bright. It’s difficult to stare at New York City on Valentine’s Day, or Dublin on St. Patrick’s. The old walled city of Jerusalem lights up like a candle on each of Chanukah’s eight nights. Trachimday is the only time all year when the tiny village of Trachimbrod can be seen from space, when enough copulative voltage is generated to sex the Polish-Ukrainian skies electric. We’re here, the glow of 1804 will say in one and a half centuries. We’re here, and we’re alive.
We lay there mostly in silence with the occasional interjection of questions and answers as the glow from our window reached out like an offering to the darkening nights’ sky. Shortly after I put back on my bathing suit, because naturally I forgot to bring the normal undergarments, changed into the dress I had brought with me and left him in the hotel room to shower before he went back to work. It was a wonderfully stressless evening topped off with the guilt-free pleasure of not having to change the sheets or hang damp towels to dry that comes with the territory of a hotel.
And so now it’s Monday. The work day is over (or well, at least for me) and I am looking forward to this upcoming week in the city. As of right now there are no plans to see the Actor but that doesn’t mean last minute decisions won’t come up – spontaneity is so much more fun anyway.
*bonus points if you know what TV show the title of this entry comes from.
Running a Few Behind 