New Experiences - 1. Firsts (2023 Edition)

Firsts

Nervous

My heart slams into my ribs

A hummingbird caged by my ribs

Starving, frightened, begging to escape

 

It kinda hurts

But then,

It kinda feels good too

Which I guess is just like everything else

 

There are so many people here flowing in and out

Like a river that can’t make up it’s mind

Music (screams) pours out into the street

Something fast and loud

 

Two men walk out holding hands

A couple makes out in the alley

So open, So obvious

It’s strange here.

 

I stand stock still a second

Trying unsuccessfully to summon confidence

When I’m as ready as I’m able to pretend to be

I take a step

 

Push my way into the river

Follow the stream through the doors

The room smells of artificial sweetness

Expensive cologne masking sweat and booze

 

The music overwhelms

Pulsing, drowning out everything

So that you can’t hear yourself think

I guess no one comes here to think anyway

 

I elbow my way through the throng

Spot an empty space near the back

Arms and legs swing in relative time

Already I’m sweating

 

A dark corner, a couch

A gaudy shade of orange

I sink into the pleather surprised by it’s comfort,

Pick at a crack in it’s plastic coating

 

I sit there for a few moments, take it in

Not really my kind of place

An interesting experience, maybe

Already I want to leave

 

A man steps out of the crowd

He stops, scans the room

His eyes lock on me

And he smiles

 

That smile kicks my nerves back into overdrive

There’s something predatory about it, about him

His teeth are too sharp I think

His eyes too bright

 

He starts walking my direction

Slipping through the crowd with a practiced stride

I shift my weight - the couch suddenly isn’t so comfortable

He makes it to me and sits too close

 

“Hey.” His voice cuts through the noise

“Hi…” Mine is so quiet that even I can barely hear it

He smiles again and I shiver

With fear and maybe something else

 

His hand is moving slowly

Now it’s on my knee

I’m lost, no idea how to react

Should I push it off, or pretend it’s not there?

 

I turn to him and start to say something,

My lips barely open before his close them again

He kisses me ferociously, hungry

I don’t know where to put my hands

 

I lean back into the ugly couch, he leans with me

The pleather creaks as he forces me down into it

I think about pushing him away

But it feels strangely good

 

His hands move up and down,

Tracing my profile

One slips under my shirt, slides up my stomach

Follows the lines there

 

I finally close my eyes, feel what there is to feel

And there’s so much

His lips

His hands

 

I don’t know how long we sit there

When we come up for air

He says something I can’t make out

Over the music and my own heartbeat

 

“What?” I yell

“You want to get out of here?”

Do I?

I’ve seen enough tv to know what that means.

 

This man has to be at least a decade older than me

Probably more

And I know exactly what he wants

I want it too, but should I?

 

“I… of course I do.”

This makes him smile again

Wings beat rapid against fragile ribs

And he kisses me again

 

He grabs my hand, guides me through the writhing mass

In a way that says he’s done this a million times

And I know he has

A million times, a million boys just like me

 

Is this a good idea?

I know what I feel

And I know what I want

I’ve always known

 

But is this safe?

Is it right?

Does it matter?

I know I want this, but do I want it this way?

 

We flow out the doors

He guides me to a blue jeep parked a block away

I climb in, sink into the bucket seat

It smells clean.

 

That’s a good sign right?

He cleans his car

That must mean he’s safe.

No stupid, all it means is that he cleans his car

 

He starts it up

Some pop song plays on the radio

He turns it off with a quick flick of the dial

And we pull away in silence

 

Everything’s so quiet now

Or maybe it’s just everything seems quieter

Without other people watching

When it’s just the two of us

 

His eyes are on the road

One hand back on my knee

The contact burns my skin, it hurts

But then it feels good too

 

He pulls into a nondescript parking lot

In front of a red brick apartment building

He climbs out first, opens my door for me

Chivalry, it would seem, hasn’t died yet

 

Once I’m out of the jeep he slams the door

The beep of the automatic locks

Echos over the empty lot

And I have one last second thought

 

I shake it off

It’s not like I can just end this now

I’ve gone too far

This is going to happen

 

I follow him into the small lobby

Just a gray room with some mailboxes on the wall

He calls the elevator, I watch the numbers change

They count down and I’m struck by a memory

 

I’m six or eight or twelve

Sitting in the nurse’s office

I’ve had another panic attack

She tells me “Just count down from ten for me”

 

Breathe in

ten nine eight seven six five

Breathe out

Four three two one

 

We step into the elevator

He puts his key into the slot, presses the sixth floor

And I feel that odd sensation of

Movement when everything looks still

 

Numbers again, counting up from one

The light in here makes my skin seem pale

He turns to me, that smile again

His too-blue eyes glinting

 

I’m suddenly reminded of my cat

When she comes home with a dead something

Self satisfied and carnivorous

Teeth too sharp

 

Then he kisses me again and the image melts away

Replaced with the hunger

That never really goes away

I want him. Now.

 

The elevator dings, the doors slide open

He drags me down the hall

Door number 608

He flips through his keys

 

The door unlocks with a clunk

Like old doors do

And he swings it open

And we kiss our way through the apartment

 

He guides me to the bedroom with his body

And maybe a little too roughly he shoves me onto the bed

He slides off his shirt

He’s beautiful

 

He climbs into the bed,

Lays his entire weight on top of me

Between his lips and his body

I can barely breathe

 

I push up on him

Try and take some of the pressure off

He presses harder,

Steals what little air is left in my lungs

 

Finally he rolls off of me

Opens the top drawer of the table by his bed

The wrapper glints in the dim light

Again, I want to run

 

Instead I lean in and taste him

His chest tastes like salt or maybe earth

And he smells like cut grass

I try and drown fear with desire

 

Seconds feel like minutes

Anticipation worse than the end results

He takes me roughly, and it hurts

But it feels so, so good

 

In the end it all takes maybe ten minutes

Lying abandoned in his bed I listen to the hiss of the shower

I am no longer a virgin

And I don’t know how to feel

 

On the inside that is

Physically I’m sore and sorta… gooey

And that’s strange

But not as strange as the way that I don’t feel any different

 

I thought after this

That I would be a different person

But I just feel like me

Weird

 

He offers to drive me home

But I just have him drop me off back at the club

It’s not till I’ve walked halfway home that I realize

I never asked his name.