A Three Night Affair

A three night affair… started on a Friday night. A three night affair ended on a Tuesday morning. My plane was leaving at 10:00 am Tuesday morning, with or without me. My plane left at 10:20 am on Tuesday morning, with me sitting sprawled across seats 39 E, F, and G. The plane took off, and I said “goodbye” to everything and everyone I left behind in the Midwest. I was no longer an Illinois resident.
A three night affair began on Friday night under the pretenses of a one night stand. I left his house on Saturday morning thinking I would never see him again. The night had been one of little sleep and a copious helping of sex. It was the kind of night that puts a smile on your face for the entire day, even though you are dog tired and a little sore. I walked to my car at 5:30 in the morning with a huge smile on my face. “What a night” I thought.
It all started around 11:00 pm on Friday night. I had been out drinking at a local bar in Rockford. The show at the bar was ridiculous and totally not worth a five dollar cover. I stepped outside to smoke a cigarette and decided to walk a little. It was a nice summer night, cool and a small breeze sauntered through town bearing this light sort of scent… like warm roses. I had only walked a block when this disgusting little man starts to follow me. He was wearing a ripped muscle tee with old white jean shorts and a baseball cap. He starts to babble on about this and that. I was pretty much at a loss… “****, now I’ve got this obnoxious, drunk idiot following me” I thought. I looked around for a quick escape. SACRED ART TATTOO. “I’m just going to step in here… bye!” I said to my fellow traveler. Mo was still inside… and the door was thankfully, unlocked.
I walked in and asked Mo if he would take out my nose stud. It was stuck so he rummaged for something to take it out. And suddenly, there he was… drunk and stammering away about his night and so forth. I had seen him in the shop before… he seemed married or something… just unavailable in a general sort of way… But something was different tonight, quite possibly it was the few coronas I had had earlier in the night at a bar. He left and I followed. We talked a little… Don’t remember what about. But he invited me to Vinny’s and I said “**** it, may as well.” After that, the evening was finally beginning to look up. Vinny’s was empty so we drank a quick beer and went outside again to smoke. We made more small talk and I tried to charm him. Eventually we headed to CJ’s… for more beer and talk.
I could feel the night coming to a close… tried to hint, “yes, I want to come home with you, and yes, I will have sex with you”. My words were dripping with a flirtatious sarcasm and my eyes were doey… look up into his eyes, hold his gaze, smile sweetly, drop your gaze, blush and laugh. The “I want you” routine. My sweet ways charmed him I guess because he invited me home.
His apartment was practically bare… we sat on the only couch which seemed far too nice for his slightly ramshackle second floor apartment. We smoked a little, laughed a little, and talked a lot. After about half an hour I was feeling intoxicated and very bold. “Listen, I’m going to be frank a moment... if you don’t mind. It’s not that I don’t want to have sex, I just like this right now, talking and so on.” He smiled and laughed half nervously but also half condescendingly. “That’s totally fine… I didn’t invite you over, expecting sex… Whatever happens… happens. But I like cuddling…” Feeling a little better and less pressured, I relaxed… his arm around me. Eventually we moved to his tidy bedroom. I decided that I really liked him… for his cleanliness and for the soap in his bathroom.
Later, after marathon sex, I was exhausted and supremely happy… The birds were beginning to wake up and we were starting to fall asleep. I don’t remember falling asleep but an hour later he woke me up gently… “It’s five thirty…” “****” I thought… “I’m exhausted.” I laid there a minute more before getting up to get dressed. “So this is it then?” he said. “Yeah I think so.” I said knowing full well that I wanted to see him again more than I really should have. I turned to shake his hand… “Come on, that’s it?” he teased. I leaned in to kiss him. He walked me to the door and we kissed one last time. “Good bye” I said with a smile, turned and left. I walked away wishing I had never met him but yet so unbelievably happy that I did. I drove away thinking that if he was at the shop later I would tell him that I wanted to see him again… If he wasn’t then well, it wasn’t meant to be. He was indeed at the shop… later that day. The way he smiled made me weak at the knees. He left the shop before I worked up enough nerve to say much. Damn I thought… he was here and I couldn’t even say anything… I’m so stubborn with myself and my decisions. Later, I got his number anyway.
Saturday passed… no answer except “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, I’ve got **** going on right now.” Sunday passed… no answer until late… I felt ridiculous and stupid for being excited when he finally answered properly. “What am I doing?” I thought. “I am falling for this guy but he’s one, too old, two, mostly unavailable, and three, I barely even know him!” It’s the sex I told myself… the sex was more than good… more than excellent… Okay it was spectacular. But still what is my motivation? What made me fall for him?
I saw him again that night… he was still gorgeous to my now sober eyes and still funny and still so… level. I realized that night that I was falling for him… Me, falling for a one-night, well, two-night stand? Where was my mind? Where was my good sense? Where was my inhibition? It all went out the window of his ramshackle, second story apartment I guess.
I left his apartment once more thinking that I really shouldn’t see him again… That all this was risky business, that I was going to end up hurt, and that I could become self-destructive. But sadly, I saw him again that night, Monday night, the night before my flight, permanent departure from Illinois, and everyone in it. Monday night… was the best of the three nights. We had found a familiarity with one another. We had developed this strange, intimate, and precarious bond.
God help me… I wanted him to tell me not to go. I wanted him to tell me to stay with him. I wanted him to tell me that I wasn’t the only one who felt this strange, intimate, and precarious… bond. We had something I think. If I hadn’t left, there was something else there… more than just sex, more than just primal urges. “I want you to be mean to me” I said that night. I wanted him to make leaving easier. I wanted him to be a jerk so I would feel like running away again. All the while, my dread of leaving grew faster and faster as the hours all too quickly passed. “No, I can’t do that. You don’t deserve it.” He knew what I meant… It seemed like he knew everything. He knew that wanted him to push me away so I could turn around and do the same thing. For me pushing away is immeasurably easier than losing.
“Anger keeps me going… like fuel. Anger makes me get out of bed in the morning. Anger forces me to keep striving to do better, be better, love better, **** better…” I thought. Anger, unlike sadness is strength, sadness is weakness. I do not cry, I get even.
During sex I saw something in him… a sort of look that settled on his face… like he was going to snap and just kill me. But it would have been okay. I accepted in those brief moments that he was dangerous and being killed by someone who was so good at sex wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Then, as suddenly as the moods would settle, they would disappear, and all that was left was a truly… level and sane person. Strangely enough it turned me on… Seeing his weakness, his anger, his pain with a quick slip of composure. Mostly he was the type of guy that could hide his feelings… mostly he was the type of guy that could stifle himself. But in those fleeting minutes, I saw everything… everything he had to hide and strangely it was like knowing him… he didn’t have to tell me.
Eventually my time with him was up… It was time to get dressed and get to the bus station. For the last time I left his apartment, kissed him good bye. I didn’t cry. I refuse to cry for him because he taught me something… Love is possible. Love is waiting and it’s never too late. It is always in the unlikeliest of sources. I loved how he made me feel. I felt submissive and weak… but I needed it because I was so ****ing tired of being strong. He made me feel like I was at peace with the world. He relaxed me…. He inspired feelings of empathy and kindness that I thought I was born with out. Mostly, I think though, he was just there.
As I was driving away I texted him, “Tell me not to go”. “No, I can’t do that” was all he responded.
At ten twenty am, I lay sprawled across seats 39 E, F, and G thinking and hoping that I had made the right choice, knowing in my bones that I did, but wishing that the right choice didn’t have to be so painful. From this crazy, three day affair, I learned that love comes quickly and unexpectedly… and loving someone does not always mean that you are meant for one another.