Smile Like You Mean It

“Are you going to sleep?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come back downstairs.”

A few minutes later, I hear some rustling upstairs and footsteps immediately coming down the ladder of the loft. I open my door and see him standing there with this expression. He knows exactly why I asked him to come back down, and he’s half-smiling. I can’t do this anymore, all this tension with a guy who sleeps so close and has gotten so close, getting to know each other and him getting to me, like no other guy has gotten to me before.

I want to kiss him, so I do. And he kisses me back. Jean Paul Gaultier smells so good on him. I close the door; he turns off the lights. We don’t have to say a word.

Two months before when I was browsing through Craigslist, I was looking for a new summer sublet, not a summer fling. But there’s no such thing as a search engine for love; the best finds seem to always pop-up when you least expect them.

Although I had my fair share of adventures down on Wall Street, it wasn’t my sort of neighborhood, so I began looking for a new place in a new location just for the remainder of the summer. After a few days of calling, e-mailing, open houses and figuring out the security deposit, I found a spacious exposed-brick loft in the middle of Manhattan with three other roommates: a bartender, a musician and another short-term subletter, a 21-year-old Florida student interning at a prominent LGBT activist organization. He found the place through mutual friends. I was the stranger.

Shortly after we both moved in, I remember the boy from Florida knocking on my door to personally hand me my new issue of Esquire. Nice gesture, I thought, “Thanks!” He turns around to go back into the living area but then suddenly stops and turns back.

“Hey, what are you doing today?”

“Uh, nothing, just gotta go to work tomorrow morning…”

“Wanna go grab coffee or something, just walk around the city.”

“Sure! Have you been to Cakeshop? It’s my favorite.”

That night he tells me that he’s researching international hate crimes for this organization; meanwhile I’m interviewing celebrities for a teen magazine. He knows nothing about pop culture, and I find that refreshing. We have a great time engaging in political discussions about the state of gay rights because he’s quite the conscientious activist, and I have a knack for playing devil’s advocate for the sake of a good argument. I like to tease even in conversation.

And even though he spends all his workday submersed in reading up on some of the most atrocious acts of torture, he always comes home with a smile on his face. I come home after a day full of Miley Cyrus and all I want to do is kick a puppy.

He has this bright optimism, even though he’s well aware of humanity’s irremediable flaws, that gives him hope, a silver lining sort of attitude.

To a boy like me—cynical, jaded, irreverent—it lifts my spirits just to see him walking in with that smile. I can’t help but want to soak that all in. I can’t help but want to get closer to Sunny D.

So it gets to this. Two weeks after we’ve moved in and had our first coffee run, we’ve grown so comfortable around each other sharing this loft. We’re sitting on my bed after a night out with some friends, we’re not speaking; he’s just looking at me.

I’ve never been this open with a guy before. I share my thoughts with him absolutely unfiltered because that’s exactly what I get from him. I never considered him a potential anything, just a roommate in the most superficial sense, but somehow and almost organically, he’s managed to bury himself deeper. For the first time, I’m not putting up a front to try to impress or to get laid. Sunny D gets to see and hear and witness all of me all the time. I’m totally transparent in front of him, and he’s still here, looking at me.

He has a boyfriend back home whom he promised to be faithful, and I’m seeing other guys in New York. There are no secrets between us, just the unspoken. I feel something, and it’s heavier than a crush, and I know he feels it too. I’m ready to say it.

“I better go back upstairs,” he says waiting for a response that might convince him otherwise.

“No, stay. Stay here with me.”

“I can’t. You know that.”

“You can. You can stay here,” I whisper in his ear as I pull him closer to me.

He jerks back abruptly, and gets off my bed. He looks at me for what feels like ten minutes. Finally he says, “I need to change out of these clothes.”

“Are you going to sleep?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come back downstairs.”

The Adventures of Super Crush & Boy Toy (Part II)

Super Crush jumps on top of me; I grab his wrists and toss him to the other side of the bed. His body ricochets gently as I get on my knees and tackle him again. He puts both his hands around my neck and draws me in closer. I rotate my head, and he looses his grasp on my neck. He is out of breath now and laying down with his arms open. I pin him down and kiss his neck softly, making my way up from his jugular to his jaw. I can hear him rustling his feet and taking off his sneakers, and then he raises both of his legs and puts them around my waist. I shift up and grab on to him. I stare him down and can feel his crotch getting harder. I surrender.

Super Crush takes off his maroon polo, and I kiss his clavicle as soon as I see it. He takes my hand and places it on his chest, as if he’s trying to show me how fast he’s breathing or… how hard his heart is pounding. I finger his blond chest hair a little bit and then hug him as we both collapse onto his comforter.

He has a big window right by his bed leading to the fire escape. Every night that I’ve been staying over for the past few weeks, the moon, thanks to that window, has been the only source of lighting we’ve needed at night. By this point, I can almost navigate his body blind-folded.

I unbuckle my belt and move my hips forward so I can take it off with one swift pull. I take off my socks next. Socks are always one of the first things that need to come off. I don’t hook-ups in socks.

Earlier that evening, Super Crush and I had gone on another date. This time, we went to see Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona. Perfect date movie, I think, ’cause you have the quirky Woody Allen humor mixed in with steamy Spanish sex scenes.

And now back to my sex scene: Super Crush unbuttons my shirt and tosses it on the ground next to my socks. I lay down on my back and he climbs on top of me. It shocks me a little bit, so I make an overly exaggerated expression of confusion. He starts giggling and that confuses me even more.

“What is it?” I say suspicious of his laughter.

“Nothing, I just… haha. Nothing,” he says. I’m not satisfied with that answer, so I keep looking at him in wonderment. He finally lets down and confesses, “It’s just… I haven’t had this much fun on a date in a while.”

The morning after, I wake to the sound of Sunday morning cartoons playing on his television. The Fairly OddParents, I recognize Timmy’s voice. Super Crush is sitting up on the bed, waiting for me to get up.

And I think: I’m so lucky. My summer in New York has just started, and I’m living in the perfect location on the Lower East Side, interning at one of my favorite magazines and dating a caring boy and getting way past the point of pretending.

I had been thinking all night, while we cuddled, how I was going to bring up the subject of becoming boyfriends in the morning. He, too, had prepared all night for what he had to say to me this morning.

“Hey, so I talked to that guy at Marvel,” he says starring at the TV, not looking at me.

“What did he say?” I ask even though I know the answer. He’d been talking to Marvel Inc. about a potential short-term internship starting as soon as possible. This whole time, I had pretended to be supportive, faked a smile whenever the subject came up and told him that I hoped for the best, but, deep down, I wanted him to get rejected, I wanted him to stay in New York, stay with me, so we could keep doing this, keep doing this until…

“They want me to go work for them in California.”

I had found my one superhero. And he had found dozens.

[The Adventures of Super Crush & Boy Toy (Part I)]

The Adventures of Super Crush & Boy Toy (Part I)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art would be more awe-striking if it weren’t for the erratic masses always crowding its hallways, as if it were some sort of theme park. I never feel bad not paying the suggested donation. C’mon, I’m living in New York on less-than-stellar magazine summer internship wages. Besides, you can’t put a price on art.

That Saturday, I go to the Met to see some surrealism but stay to catch the superheroes. It’s a rare exhibit: superhero fashion. Left and right, well-built mannequins with colorful capes, metallic breastplates and leather masks make the connection between fantasy and fashion apparent. Catwoman via Cavalli, DC Comics as if published by Conde Nast.

And then, right as I’m day dreaming and staring at Spiderman’s package, I notice a blond boy standing next to me, wearing a light blue polo and crossing his arms.

“You know, it’s weird ’cause the tighter the outfit, the more uncomfortable usually. Don’t you think Spidey would’ve figured it out and just worn some sweats” he asks openly but with an incredulous expression.

“Well, I think the material is pretty malleable. Just think of it as if he’s swinging around Manhattan naked,” I reply.

“Haha, great visual,” he says, then turns to me and flashes a smile, perhaps surprised by my amusing response.

We spend the rest of the afternoon together criticizing the costumes and commenting on comic books. Turns out, he has a big crush on Batman. It’s unadulterated and endearing, part of him wants to grow up to be the cape crusader, the other part just wants to go down the bat cave.

Right when the museum is about to close, we exchange numbers and AIM screen names and head our separate ways, but the communication doesn’t stop. If anything, the flirting becomes more intensified online and in texts. After a lively online conversation that evening, he convinces me it would be a great idea if I ask him to dinner sometime. But I don’t need any convincing. By this point, I’m super crushing on the kid.

The next night, I show up to his rent-controlled apartment in the Upper West Side. When he opens the door, my heart sink a little, but I recover quickly with a big smile. He is way cuter than I remember. I start getting a bit nervous—fumbling my words while trying to give off a collected outward stance. But inside, I’m all mushy.

Super Crush lives with two girls he met while in college in D.C. but the girls weren’t home, so we proceed to go to dinner. He has made reservations at this Thai place a few blocks away. The place is small with wood panels and candles on each table. We talk about videogames; he is a Super Nintendo fanatic and still plays almost every night before bed. We talk about college; he graduated two years before and still keeps in touch with a multitude of his peers. Overall, he seems universally well-liked and proper. He pays the check, and I’m surprise. Even after dinner, I’m not quite sure what vibe he’s projecting. I play it cool, too, though.

Afterward, he suggest taking a stroll in Central Park. It’s twilight so when we get to the pond, I spot quite a few fireflies circling around us. We walk all the way back to his apartment, and on his doorstep after a brief silence, he asks me if I want to come upstairs and play Super Mario Kart.

His room has an All-American, collegiate feel to it, and it’s immaculate, too, as if his mom had come by earlier that day and done a massive cleaning. We take off our shoes, lie on the bed and start to play. He picks Luigi; I choose Yoshi. Super Crush beats me 7 times before he finds it in his heart to let me win the last race. After he turns off the game and we put down the controllers, he turns to me and gives me the “Now what?” look. So I reach over, grab his neck and kiss him.

[The Adventures of Super Crush & Boy Toy (Part II)]

The Bridge Falls Down

I’m already late for my internship. Again. I’m always late. And I thought that by staying with him downtown I would be able to make it on time. But I’m never on time.

The walls of his apartment are decorated with black and white photographs of bridges. The Brooklyn Bridge. The London Bridge. The Golden Gate Bridge. One night I sat in his living room for a whole hour, drinking red wine, as he showed me photos of his trip to New York. He went on one of those helicopters that fly around the city just so that he could get a bird’s eye view of the towering bridges. He once told me that if he could do anything in the world, he would build bridges.

I wait ’til the morning to tell him that it isn’t working.

Bridge Builder is successfully settled in Chicago and knows exactly what he wants next. And I’m an impulsive college guy who is never on time. I didn’t expect our relationship to endure past the point of casual dating. But after the concert at the House of Blues and the expensive steak dinner and the talk of going to his parents’ lakehouse in Michigan, I got the sense that he wanted more from me. Pretty soon, his calls and e-mails turn into a form of suffocation—a commitment I’m not ready to make. Maybe because he is 28 and I’m 21 or maybe because he has built a life in Chicago and I still want to go to New York.

Or maybe because I enjoy being on my own. Or maybe because I know that he isn’t the bridge that is going to get me to the other side. Not now, anyway.

Before he steps into the shower, Bridge Builder lets me borrow a fresh pair of Hugo Boss briefs. During our last-time-sex session, I didn’t even have the chance to take my underwear off before some minor leaking occured. But that leaves me with a pair of soiled Calvin Klein boxers to get rid of before going in to work. Disponsing of the evidence. So I walk out onto his balcony and the crisp Chicago morning air takes all the late-night heat out of me. Out on his balcony on the 42nd floor of his apartment building on Lake Shore Drive overlooking the lake and the loop, I realize that the only bridges in Chicago connect only directly across the river. They don’t lead anywhere—just from one part of the city to another.

I hear him turn off the shower, so I lean over slightly on the railing and toss my boxers out the balcony. I watch them parachute down and land on satellite dish a few stories down, waving in the wind like a triumphant flag, surely disrupting the signal.

I walk back inside. Bridge Builder is standing in the living room wearing just a white towel around his waist and a few drops of water on his shoulders and chest. I kiss him goodbye and tell him that I’ll call him later. But he has this look. He knows I’m not going to call. I grab my jacket and walk out the front door.

There are places I still need to go. And I’m not going to get there by sitting here and staring at black and white photographs.