HERE WE GO AGAIN

Welcome back to the merry-go-round that is my heart. I am still not used to how fast and hard I fall but damn, when the planets align, who am I to turn up my nose?

In a phrase, Simon is utter perfection. He is incredibly, physically hot but that is simply nothing compared to his mind. He is without the vast majority of the hang-ups manly men of his generation (mid-thirties) often have. He is utterly comfortable with fraternal affection (case in point: he full-body hugs his close male friends and espouses how “fucking amazing” they are) and he possesses a staggering knack for finesse. His life is constructed around making the world a better place and he’s willing to put in the hard time it takes to make real change. He’s neither threatened by outside feedback offering a suggestion and thus shutting it out nor does he take said outside feedback as a whipped little boy.

After Saturday’s blow out with Simon and his incredibly quick turnaround apology to J, he took J out for dinner Sunday night. Apparently, Simon explained everything that had gone on between the two of us and spoke to J about how he felt I might feel. According to J he mentioned that he was lucky to have me in his life because I make him a better man. He then confessed that he needed to apologize to me for his ungentlemanly manner.

While I appreciate the sentiment behind the idea that he felt he needed to apologize, the fact of the matter is that he did nothing wrong. I came in hard and fast and he reacted appropriately. There were openings for things to get personal but neither of us took them and we just went hard about the issue.

St Paddy’s Day rolled around yesterday and J told me I should come out for beers with he and Simon. I double-checked with J if he was sure that he thought Simon would really want to see me and J insisted. So, I agreed, as my problem with Simon had nothing to do with me but fucking up with my boy. As my boy was fine with hanging out with him and it wasn’t about Simon and I, all was good by me.

J and I met at the South Gate Youth Hostel for dinner before we were to hit up drinks with Simon around the corner and a block North on the bar street. While we were in the middle of dinner, Simon texted J about meeting for food. We explained where we were and had a moment when we weren’t sure whether or not we were going to get blown off again. We just looked at each other.

“No,” I said, “we should make a good faith effort to take him at his word. He apologized and the only way to move beyond is to take him at his word.”

“You’re right,” J said and with that we found a larger table to fit him. Not a moment later, Simon texted J to ask him to order food for him. Just as J was finishing ordering, Simon arrived, inconspicuously not making eye contact with me. He sat down clearly a little nervous and, disconcertingly, not looking at me at all.

So, we proceeded to make small talk about nothing and everything. Slowly we came around to actually talking just about the time we started talking about books. We talked about our book collections and then I went off on a tangent about how I’ve divvied mine up into fiction, non-fiction, classics, foreign language fiction, foreign language non-fiction, foreign language classics and textbooks for straight learning. I also have an “oversized” section that contains most of my art and reference books. And of course, within each section, everything was alphabetized. I may or may not have been accused of being “anal.” And I may or may not have confessed to being an “entomology whore.”

All in all, it was really nice to sort of find our groove again.

We then changed venues to meet up with two men I shall call “Steven.” One calls himself “Bad [Steven]” and the other guy was named “Good [Steven]” by Bad Steven. In short, Bad Steven is the sort of detestable chauvinist that gets away with it because he talks a lot about “glamorous” things, calls himself an “artist,” is very young (mentally, physically he’s probably mid-twenties) and is good looking. Good Steven is a lovely, smart, silly, subdued, young English gentleman.

Bad Steven started off trying to charm me with his generic sleaze and when I wasn’t having it, informed me that I might be earning a place on his shit list.

“Okay.” I said, generally bored with him. And, as there is nothing more offensive to me than being tedious and boring, the feeling he was expressing was mutual.

“I’m done talking to you!” He hollered, trying to bait me into begging him to come back.

“Okay,” I shrugged and took a sip of my gin and tonic.

Laughing in a way that can be best described as “jocular” he turned to my boy J to try and socialize. I refused to engage in the conversation the two of them had despite Bad Steven’s many pathetic stage whispers to bait me into conversation.

Frankly, I was too busy watching Simon being, well, Simon. He is truly a sight to behold.

The only time Bad Steven was actually able to break me from watching Simon at the end of the bar was when he would physically touch me to get my attention so I’d hear another one of his stage whispers to J about how I was standing in the way of their good conversation.

Finally Douche Bag left and J turned to me. “Girl, you are always right on. You just cut through it.”

“Huh?”

“I thought you might be being a little harsh. I wanted to give him a chance but you were just right. You just knew and shut him down instantly.” My boy J is nothing if not flattering. “God,” he said exasperated at the thought of Douche Bag.

Then it was time for J to go up and play and Simon came over to me. “Should we move up to flood him with love?”

“Where do you want to move?”

“You pick.”

“You know he plays the Irish flute for you.”

“Yeah, I’m not that stupid.”

“No, I mean he told me specifically that he likes to play it for you because he hopes it makes you feel more at home.”

“That’s because he’s fucking amazing.” Simon then moved to walk past me but stopped. “You know, I’m not a total moron. I do know how to pick my friends.”

“You’re a very insightful man. You just need a good slap on the ass every once in a while.” Which made him snort a small, amused laugh.

So I moved us to a table up front and Simon took the seat straight in front of me. With him, he brought three beers. I got the first one, he then placed his across from me and then brought the last one up to J on the stage. Good Steven sat to my left and J’s empty seat was to my right. Several random folks and Douche Bag sat on Simon’s side. A beautiful, pouty girl took a place next to Douche Bag and clearly began to pout her way through some sort of lover’s quarrel with him.

As I studied her have her quarrel with Douche Bag, I noticed her stunning necklace a black metal choker in the shape of a rose vine complete with thorns and dewdrops in crystals. I then looked back to Simon and noticed him watching me.

“First thing; beautiful necklace. Second; very moody.”

“Yeah, it’s very beautiful.” I concurred.

“But very moody,” Simon made a sour face. Teasing he then dramatically rolled his eyes. “Women!” He unleashed, exasperated.

“Look, we can only work with what you give us.” I explained.

To which he smiled and took a swig of his beer.

J then started his set on stage and we more or less grew quiet to listen to him. He started off with one sort of flute/recorder type wind instrument. He then moved on to a large flute that had the mouthpiece almost half way down the body of the flute. He finished off with the Irish flute.

“Happy St. Paddy’s Day!” he opened with. To which there was a smattering of “whoo”s and clapping, primarily from our table. J started to play and Simon just lit up. He was clapping and hollering.

At one point, Simon turned to me and said, “You’re never going to hear this again; an Irish flute, a guitar and a synthesizer on ‘accordion’.” Simon then turned back to J to provide him some desperately needed rhythm. Later J thanked Simon because J was having a hard time keeping time with the way the back up was playing but when Simon’s clapping kicked in just then, J was rescued.

Good Steven and I then started talking about all sorts of things. He’s a very sweet bloke with a gentle demeanor and a strong sense of propriety. During our chats, I would occasionally tune in and out of our conversation to listen in to Simon’s. Often he was busy bragging about how amazing J is. There was a brief back and forth about going to yi jia yi (1+1) which is one of the local clubs. Simon made it none too clear that he wasn’t going and I like to think of it as “Rape Motherfucking Central” because it is. You literally cannot be in that club after midnight if you are a Western woman and not expect to be groped and fondled so aggressively and inappropriately that the last time I left my breasts were purple with bruises as were my thighs and I had a long key scratch across my stomach to say nothing of the fact that the men grab your clothes so hard my bra-covered breasts popped out of my shirt. “What the hell were you doing that you go treated like that” you ask? “Leaving.”

So I made it clear I was setting no foot near yi jia yi and went back to Good Steven.

While Good Steven and I were talking, Douche Bag made his drunken way over to me to review precisely who he had met for the evening.

“I’m sorry, I’m terrible with names. It’s not you, I’ve just forgotten your name again.” Douche Bag said for the hundredth time that night. “I know that [J] because he’s like me. He’s an artist but you, I just can’t remember.”

I resisted the urge to say ‘Cunt’ and decided to go with “Christina. And I fully expect you to forget it before we meet again.”

“Yeah I will. No, I’m just giving you a hard time, you know but we’re fine right? I mean you give me shit and I’m giving you shit.” He continued to go off at full volume about how we’re all good and he hopes I think we’re all good. Finally, he offered me his hand and I shook it.

“Right,” I said, desperately not giving a shit.

He then shifted around behind me, put his hands on my chair and announced to everyone that, “We’re all good!” He hollered that over and over for a minute. Then, to prove how “good” we are, he grabbed my chair and tipped it forward as if to tip me out of the chair. In lieu of tipping me out of the chair he merely slammed my knee into the large, heavy table directly in front of me and sliding it a good foot. He dropped the chair and tipped it again two more times and then grabbed my shoulders, squeezed them super hard while hollering about what good friends we are.

It all happened so quickly that I was merely stunned. I happened to glance up in my stunned-ness and see Simon in “kill” mode.

Douche Bag then drunkenly stumbled off to the bathroom.

“He’s actually a good guy.” Simon said, trying to subdue the situation.

“Yeah, I’ll take your word on that.” I said.

Somehow or another, the night went on and J got a phone call from his girl. J went outside to chat with her and Simon saw his bag.

“Where the hell did he go?” Simon pointed to J’s bag.

“His girl called.”

“He wouldn’t just leave all his instruments like that, would he?”

“He didn’t ‘just leave’ them. They’re with me. He trusts me.”

“Yeah. You’re just a LITTLE defensive about him,” Simon teased good-naturedly.

I picked up my fingers and made the gesture for “teeny tiny” with my pointer and thumb while I squeezed one eye shut and squinted the other. I mouthed, “just a little.” That made Simon laugh some more.

Eventually, all extraneous members of our group left and J was outside talking with his girl so Simon and I were left alone. Simon told me how happy he was for it just be the two of us and we just started going. It was just nonstop repartee. He was brilliant and hysterical and accommodating and incredibly patient with my alcohol-addled brain. It was just the two of us and it felt amazing. I wanted to never ever leave that moment. I’m never quite as fully present in the moment as when he’s around.

And then Simon leaned over. “You know, there was a point in the evening where I wanted to take [Douche Bag] outside.”

I shrugged and quoted Eddie Izzard, “Like you do.”

“I wanted to take him outside and put him up against a wall but there wasn’t really an intro. Had it gone on any longer, however, I would have.” He looked at me directly to be clear I understood. “I would have taken him outside and put him against a wall.”

“Oh,” I said, not really knowing what to say to such chivalry. He’s the first man I’ve ever liked that I know will not only fight with me but for me as well. “Strong all the way through” without being impenetrable is a very sexy notion. It’s safe to say I swooned.

“So, where shall we go next? I didn’t sit through all of that not to have a nightcap.”

“I don’t know.” I said. “I think Henry’s is still open.”

“Where’s Henry’s?”

“At the top of the street.”

“Henry’s it is.”

“But I only think it’s still open. I don’t know.”

“Henry’s it is.”

We collected J and headed off to Henry’s but discovered the bar just across the street was empty, quiet and still open. So, we piled in there and proceeded to chat for the rest of the early morning, leaving after 3 in the morning, all of us having work in a few hours.

Dear god, he is perfection.