I felt the blood pumping in my temples and loud ringing in my ears as we left the bar and walked up Spring to the subway stop. About to lose my footing on the rain-slicked stairs, I put my arm around Derek and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He stopped, looked at me, and smiled.
Six beers and an auspicious set of songs that night, which included the Band With the Former Pixies Member, the Feminist Band Who Stayed Feminist When They Made It Big, and the Band Whose Singer Dated Damon Albarn, had convinced me at that moment to ask Derek if it would be OK to call him “my boyfriend” instead of the more specific “guy I’m sleeping with 98% of the time.”
True, he had met my mother. True, he had read my favorite postmodern writer (and hadn’t namedropped him). True, when we went on our first date, my favorite song from The Band From Sydney Who Dropped Out of Julliard to Make Their Own Music had played. We said nothing on the trip home on our near-empty subway car. I dazedly stared at the stops as we passed, reading the magazine I had taken from his book bag as the stops flew by: CHRISTOPHER ST, 42/TIMES SQ, 59/COLUMBUS CIR, 66/LINCOLN CTR, 96, 103, 127. A block’s walk, three flights up, and he was unlocking his door. The faint odor of a meal the roomates must have cooked hours ago wafted through the apartment. He didn’t turn on the lights as we walked down the hall and entered his bedroom. In the twilight, the familiar sight of bound volumes covered the far wall. His taste preferred the type of hyper-modern furniture that seemed to leave no room for anything other than right angles. I looked in his book bag for the magazine I’d been reading earlier, always expecting to find a manuscript titled something like “Sexual Behavior, Emotional States and Decision-Making Among Homosexual Men” with pages of tables documenting my moods, each of our dates accounted for in 15-minute intervals, tables of our sexual frequencies, carefully culled transcripts of our telephone conversations, and photographic documentation of our many haunts. I waited until we were comfortably nestled under the covers.
“Derek? Can I ask you something?” I said cautiously.
“Hm? Sure,” he replied sleepily.
“Do you think I could call you my boyfriend?” I stammered. “I mean, would that make you uncomfortable?” Once the words left my lips I was paralyzed, unable to see his expression in the dark. Was he horrified? Unsettled? Happy? Ecstatic?
“We can talk about it,” he replied in a tone one would use to instruct another on how to send a fax, and rolled over to go to sleep. Unsatisfied, I tossed and turned in a dreamless sleep that night, trying not to wonder if I’d just made a mistake.
After work the next day, I found myself heading to Abishek’s apartment. He didn’t know about Derek, and I don’t think he wanted to. By some cosmic coincidence, they lived but two subway stops from each other. As I climbed the stairs of his third-floor walkup, the task was time to find the song from The Band That Made That Song From A Siegfried Sassoon Poem. It hinted at faraway war and chaos in a foreign land, which I felt was apropos. I wasn’t sure whether I liked Abishek’s manner better than Derek’s. Where Derek was calm, clinical, and detached (with his degree that made him almost a doctor) and his respectable job at the medical journal, Abishek’s crooked smile (while reading me love letters he’d written in a failed love affair) and his baffling laughter trying to explain the lowbrow allure of romance novels was harder to interpret. I followed him into the familiar chaos of his bedroom, the endearing sight of Strand bags peeking out from the mess. Stacks of theoretical mathematics textbooks mixed with romance novels covered most of the furniture and floor.
“So, how was your week?” I asked, watching his lithe form in half-shadow as he rummaged around to move his laptop to a chair facing the bed.
“Good,” he replied. “It’s strange being back in New York, almost unreal.” He’d spent the past month back in his rural hometown. Before he left, he told me he might not want to see me again after a month with his family, but it seemed he’d had a change of heart.
“New York is like a gigantic amusement park—any kind of need can be satisfied immediately. I can’t reconcile it with the town I grew up in. I’d never go back, but it’s a gear-splitting experience to go from one mode to the other,” he continued, as he looked around for a movie to watch. We cuddled on his bed as he started the movie. He kept stretching, saying he felt like a cat unable to find a comfortable place to sleep. I closed my eyes and rested my head against his, breathing in his scent as we drifted off to sleep.
I dreamed I was walking down a long, thin, crescent of beach. At the far tip of the beach, Derek was sunning himself in a chaise lounge, apparently unaware of my presence. I wanted to walk towards him, but with every step the sun got brighter and brighter. My 8-year-old cousin was walking along with me and kept handing me larger and larger bottles of sunblock with ever-increasing labels: SPF 80, 120, 260. I broke into a run, but the glare of the sun blanched my whole field of vision.
I awoke. The sun was streaming in through a lattice of leaves from the park across the street. I sleepily watched the light and shadow eddy over the floor, thick with folios from research papers, highlighted and underlined magazines, and a large suitcase with large block letters printed on it: ABISHEK SAHNI RAMAPRASAD, 1286 AMSTERDAM AVE, NEW YORK, NY USA. I wondered what would be appropriate music for this scene—perhaps the Cellist With The Name Synonymous With a Child’s Toy. I looked over at the back of his head, not sure if I should wake him. In a moment, he rolled over and sleepily smiled at me, eyes still closed.
“I’ve got to go to work,” I said. He sat up, squinting in the light. He rose and walked me to the door.
That evening I sat down across from Derek at a vegetarian restaurant off of Union Square. We’d been making small talk about the show we’d be seeing next week, the Band Who Only Records Their Records Alone In A Cottage in the British Countryside. The restaurant was nothing more than one long booth with an intricate wooden sculpture lit from behind that took up the wall above the booth. Everything else was white enamel and reflected the slowly changing color behind the sculpture. We were the only people eating, as they were about to close. He smiled as our food arrived, gingerly picking up a spring roll to dip it in peanut sauce. I could see something was on his mind.
“So, did you want to have a conversation about us?” he said sheepishly, looking like a lecturer who’d forgotten his notes. I looked up from my tofu-covered broccoli.
“Sure, I guess we have to have that conversation at some point,” I began carefully, my gaze drifting from his earnest eyes to the latticework of the sculpture behind him. He paused for a moment before continuing.
“I’m big on honesty, that’s like, the most important thing to me. I want to be able to trust someone. I guess this sounds really New York, but I’m not a fan of monogamous relationships. He paused, inspecting my reaction. “I had a very good relationship with Jared because we understood this, and we were together for two years.” I sawed at a large sprig of broccoli with my fork, trying to break it into bite-size pieces.
Lascivious tableau after tableau flashed through my mind involving his ex Derek, who I’d met at a so-trendy-it-wasn’t gay bar in Hell’s Kitchen that only played Bands That Sound Like They Are A Drum Machine Stuck on 4/4 Time. I pictured Derek in a white laboratory coat presiding over scenes of remarkable decadence, dutifully jotting down measurements and observations on a legal pad.
“Yes, I feel the same way,” I said, not sure that the right words were coming out. The tofu in my salad wasn’t cubed; it was mashed into an unhealthy-looking paste. “The media reinforces this false standard of monogamy which works for barely anyone,” I continued. The waiter came over to refill my water glass, which left an awkward gap in the conversation.
“I mean, we’re young, why limit yourself?” Derek continued after the waiter had disappeared into the kitchen, dipping another spring roll in sauce and taking a bite. “I mean, I’m not going to be looking for someone else, but, you know…” I caught his gaze, I wondered what (or whom?) he was thinking of.
“I know what you mean, I’m too busy to be looking for someone right now,” I said, still digging in the blob of tofu that was left after I’d eaten all the broccoli. I looked up at him with a relieved smile.
“That’s good, I’m glad we talked about this,” he said, finishing his last spring roll and taking a swig of water. From his tone, I almost expected him to take the legal pad out of his book bag and jot down the outcome of the conversation.
I tried my best to smooth over the rest of the night, easing the conversation into the New Yorker article we’d both been reading on the subway on the way over. I felt like I was counting down the hours until I could call my best friend and ask what she thought of what was going on.
In what seemed like no time at all, the concert of the band that made the song “The L Train Is A Swell Train And I Don’t Want To Hear You Indies Complain” was over, and we were ensconced in the sharp angles of his bedroom. He’d fallen asleep a good twenty minutes ago, and I wasn’t sure what to do. I rolled over in the direction of the wall full of books. We’d read many of the same authors, but did this make us closer or further away? Were we in Borges’ mirrors—repeated ad nauseum so as to make our real selves disappear? Were we constructs of Simone de Beauvoir—empty pawns recapitulating fights for meaningless ideals into eternity? We were two Meursaults—both too hedonistic and disdainful of tradition to have anything meaningful say to each other.
At that moment, a cool, clear feeling washed over me. I needed more than this. I needed more than a noncommital “that felt good” after we slept together. I needed to feel wanted, not just a suitable puzzle piece that fit in the shape of his bed two nights a week. I was out of the bed and halfway dressed before I realized what I was doing. I picked up his phone, scrolled down to my number, and deleted it. I’d had enough being called “buddy.” If he didn’t have the courage to call me his boyfriend, then I wasn’t going to be an emotional martyr. I looked over the apartment for anything of mine, finally spotting my copy of The Atrocity Exhibition on his bedstand. I slipped it into my bag, and silently closed his door behind me, heading to the subway stop. I felt better as the train continued downtown. I rode it all the way to the end of the line, at South Ferry. As I rose on the escalator out into the cool night air, the towers of the Financial District slept soundly above me. I walked towards the Staten Island Ferry terminal, and boarded the first boat. A light wind whipped up the waves as a stood on the outside deck near the bow of the ship. I needed the feeling of movement—of putting one foot in front of the other—away from the past.
As the ship surged into the inky darkness, I held onto the railing. I didn’t want to own his body, but I did want to own the curious circuitry of his mind. I took a deep breath of the ocean air as we shot further out into the open waters. I needed to know him enough to know that I was the one he cared most for. I pictured Derek alone in his bed, and Abishek in his ten blocks uptown. The ship was slowing now, approaching the cluster of lights that was the other ferry terminal. I looked back at Manhattan’s sleeping monoliths, looking like a balsa wood set built for a big-budget movie that would never be filmed. I pictured Derek waking up, wondering where I’d gone. But he wouldn’t.
The gangplank lowered, and I quickly walked down into the terminal, past the Staten Island Railroad signs, and to the departure area for the ferry back to Manhattan. In a few minutes, the doors would open, and I’d go all the way back: across the sea, across downtown, midtown, uptown, until I was back in Derek’s bed. As the boat pulled out of the slip and we began to charge forcefully through the saline air, I anticipated the brightness of the city as it raced towards me. I knew that in a half-hour I’d have let myself back into Derek’s apartment and back into his bed. I craved freedom and slavery at the same time—sexual freedom and emotional bondage. There was but one option.
I observed Derek’s face in the pale cerulean of early morning as I closed his bedroom door. From his position, I could tell he’d slept soundly while I was absent: his phone was sensibly plugged in on the nightstand; the window above the bed was half-open to let in the cool breath of the night. I slipped into his bed, careful not to disturb him.
I woke hours later. I could feel the warmth of our two bodies in the bed, and the sound of cars racing down Amsterdam, taxis honking at errant drivers. Snatches of conversation drifted up from the street through the half-open bedroom window, along with the faint citrus odor of the fruit market on the first floor.
I leaned over to kiss the back of Derek’s neck. He rolled over and sleepily smiled at me. I looked into his eyes, hoping to find the answers there, but there was nothing but the warmth of his body against mine. I could feel his hand moving across my chest, down to rest on the band of my underwear. I kissed him more deeply, pulling back to look into his glittering eyes. I realized it didn’t matter if he was seeing anyone else. It didn’t matter if I was seeing anyone else either. I knew that by the time night fell again, he’d be nestled against me on the uptown 1 train as we both read the same article from our two copies of the same magazine. And that was enough.