Whatever The Night Brings : SOBER
I’ve been a virgin for three years, one month, two weeks, two days, fifteen hours and five minutes. I’ve forgotten what it feels like to love a woman, let alone just sleep in the same bed with someone who doesn’t craw in like a crass bed bug. I’ve lost the feeling of dreaming parallel for a few hours sweating from holding one another, clothed, through our sleep. It’s fantastic and arduous and I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold on to something so fragile.
It’s free pool night at the Village Pub and I’m drinking affordable PBR’s and Amstel Light bought for me by a friend I haven’t seen for some time now. I feel cheap and free loading, but I know she’s just being nice. Saying, “I’ve missed you too,” with the sweet ring of alcohol buzzing inside the brown bottle. All I have is conversation gone too long without being traded to offer and I’m convinced it’s enough. I take the drinks and start the bottle and then go on to do something stupid like opening my mouth about what I’m thinking.
“I’m sick of being JUST cute,” I say. People and friends and those strangers in between look at me. I can already read their speakeasy faces and what shooting chemicals are going off in their brains telling them to label me egocentric and a braggart.
Before I can start explaining myself someone says, “What do you mean, Sam?”
“I mean girls just think of me as cute. They never want to date me. They’re just about the other thing in the end. It’s frustrating.” I wave exhaled smoke from my face.
“Oh, quit it you’d be bored if we weren’t so difficult,” says my friend.
“And you’re probably dating the wrong ones too,” adds a female defender . Always on the defensive these gals to get a little rise out of me, in them, in men. To stir the nest, ya know?
It’s not what I mean, but I don’t speak out loud. I’m a little drunk and I’d rather not argue about how I don’t feel the least bit desired. I don’t want to go on a tangent about how hard I try to get to know someone genuinely. I don’t need to justify the simple fact that sex is the last thing on my mind. However, I am human. I stop talking. Let my leaning against the pin ball machine be my kneeling in a pew and pray for self-control. Take another sip of the sacrament and laugh at the next thing said even though it’s a joke ridiculing what appeared as self-aggrandizing.
I’ve been a virgin for three years, one month, two weeks, two days, nineteen hours and thirteen minutes. Last call. Tab closed.
