Life and its Confusions - 1. Chapter 1

I needed to talk to him. I didn’t know why, but for some important reason I needed to talk to him. It was one of those instinctual feelings, and I couldn’t let it go. Finally three awkward words slipped out of my mouth: “Rough waves, huh?”

He looked at me strangely for a moment, but then replied in a very friendly fashion, “Yeah they sure are.”

I was spending Labor Day weekend at Ocean City, my last one in high school, and I had decided to take one last swim before I left. It was the last day; and the rest of my friends, including my girlfriend, were getting ready to leave. I was just going to be in the ocean for a minute, but then I noticed him.

An awkward moment passed between us when neither of us talked, but it passed when he asked me, “Came here to celebrate the last of summer?”

It was not surprising that he would think so. I looked just as young as I was: 18 years old. I passed him off to be in his early to mid-twenties.

“Pretty much,” I told him.

“Who did you come with?”

“Just a few friends. What brought you here?”

“Oh, same thing. Just came to relax for a while with some friends. They actually left yesterday to go back to college.”

So he was in college. I was betting junior year, by the looks of him. He was very tall, taller than me, and I’m considered pretty tall. He had a very nice body, muscular and slender. His eyes were blue, and his light brown hair waved to the side. Simply put, he was quite attractive.

“What year are you in college?” I asked with interest.

“Junior year.” (Knew it!)

“Where do you go?”

“Hofstra.”

“What are you majoring in?”

“I’m doing a double major in Philosophy and Psychology.”

“Really? I was thinking of majoring in Philosophy myself.”

As time passed on, we had a detailed discussion on our views of philosophy. We eventually got out of the ocean, and continued the discussion on the beach. Hours went by like minutes, and when the clock hit 5 pm, my girlfriend called me. She yelled at me for losing track of time, and told me to get home on my own, because she and everyone else had left already. Dan asked me who it was, and I told him it was one of my friends calling to say that everyone had left. He asked me if I wanted to come up to his condo for a while to continue the discussion, and I said yes.

As we were heading to his condo, I realized that I hadn’t even asked him for his name yet. “Dan,” he said, “Dan Richards.”

He had a very nice condo. It was surprisingly cozy for a Marriott. He offered me to a glass of wine, and I accepted graciously. We kept talking about philosophy. We had gotten to the topic of Existentialism, and were discussing intently about Nietzsche and Nihilism.

“A matter that I find frustrating is that his views on Nihilism have been found to be merely a depressing belief and nothing more. The truth is that he believed Nihilism to be a fact, not a belief.” He sipped his wine and continued. “Thank goodness we know that his dark beliefs on what would happen to man as he wrote of it in Thus Spoke Zarathustra never came true, though it might in the future. Many people nowadays find it exciting to take on the belief of Nihilism as a way to avoid responsibility. I find this to be an atrocious reason to believe in a philosophy.”

“I entirely agree. It’s outrageous that people would use philosophy as an excuse to live a reckless life.”

He offered me a cigarette, to which I also accepted. We went out onto the balcony, and continued our conversation. Eventually it turned into a more personal discussion, and he began telling me his life story. He had been born in Baltimore, and had grown up in Silver Spring. His dad had died in a car accident when he was four, and his mother raised him. He was an only child. His mother was an abusive alcoholic, but over the years he was able to come to terms with it and by 15 years old, he was taking care of her more than she was taking care of him. He moved out at 17, and got his own apartment in New York, where he has been living since. The only way he was able to pay for his apartment there was because he was a clothing model for a famous European brand. He had had a steady relationship with a guy for a year or so back in Silver Spring, but they broke up when he moved. Since then, he had had only one relationship, with a girl named Jessica, which lasted for two years. They broke up because their relationship had grown stale in his opinion. He had been a smoker since the age of thirteen, but it didn’t show anywhere.

We filled our wine glasses, and I in turn explained my background to him. “I was born in Montgomery, and brought up in Arlington, Virginia, but I came back to Montgomery a year ago. My mother left when I was three; I don’t remember much of her. I have a brother and a sister, twins, both five years older than me. My sister is very catholic; in fact, she teaches religion in a catholic high school. My brother is pretty much a player with a very bright future as a politician most likely. My father raised us by himself. For the first half of my life, I was the outcast of the family. My brother hated me until very recently, and my sister still does. My father was usually too busy to pay attention to me when I was younger, which caused me to rebel by smoking and drinking excessively. The first time he paid attention to me was when I began having panic attacks. I don’t know what caused them, but I was diagnosed with anxiety attack disorder at 15 years old. Eventually when my siblings went off to college, I developed a very strong relationship with my father.” I felt like I shouldn’t mention my girlfriend for some reason, but I explained pretty much everything else of my life. We ended up eating some mac and cheese, and we kept on talking for hours.

The clock was striking 2 am, and we were both a little tipsy. We were on his couch, staring at each other. We had just been talking about some comical event that happened to him a few years ago, but we forgot about it all of a sudden. His whole manner became so sexy I couldn’t stand it. I had never thought of guys in a sexual way before, but something was different about him. He came closer to me, and I did the same. We slowly leaned in and kissed. It was the most amazing kiss of my life. His stubble grazed against my cheek, and his soft lips brushed against mine. Slowly the kiss became more passionate, and he lay his muscular arms around me, placing one behind my head, the other on my lower back. We played with each other’s tongues, and I grew hard. I grabbed his soft hair and back with my hands and he moved forward, making me lie on my back. I could feel his length against mine, and we rubbed them against each other, continuing to play with each other’s tongues. I helped him take his shirt off. It was the sexiest thing I had ever seen. His abs and chest were perfect. He helped me take off my shirt, and we kept making out, rubbing harder against each other. Our mouths touching, his body firmly against mine, his hair between my fingers; this was paradise. Eventually he started moving down, kissing my chest as he went. He unzipped my pants and took me in his mouth. I moaned loudly with pleasure. His tongue moved smoothly around my bud, and he began moving back and forth fast. I couldn’t stand it very long, and I came. He swallowed and came back up to kiss me. Then he went down again, took off my pants, and began licking my hole. His tongue inside me felt amazing. I moaned and groaned loudly, and he wiggled his tongue even further. Eventually he took his pants off to reveal his long phallus. He spit on it, and was about to enter me when I told him it was my first time. He said he’d be very careful. He kissed me softly as he entered me. He began going back and forth slowly. It hurt. It hurt a lot. But there was also a feeling of utter pleasure that came with it. He began to thrust faster, and he moaned. I moaned with him, and we kissed. Our hands were all over each other, and everything was a blur of pleasure and moaning and kissing. He came with a groan and fell on me, and we both fell asleep almost instantly.

The next morning I woke up with a start to find that Dan wasn’t lying on top of me. I got up and found my way to the shower, where I washed off the dirt and sweat from last night. I was very sore. I got dressed after getting clean, and looked around the condo for Dan. He was nowhere to be found. I thought about last night. Everything about it was amazing. Our conversation, the wine, the sex; it was a truly perfect night. Suddenly, a jolt of fear went through me. What if he didn’t find me interesting? What if I wasn’t good enough at sex? It was my first time after all. What if he left to get rid of me? I felt a rush of embarrassment. Even though last night was the best night of my life, it might be better to forget it. I decided to leave, thinking he didn’t want me to be there anymore. When I got to my condo, I realized that school was starting the next day, and I should start heading back. I packed up, got to my car, and left. On the road, the only thing I could think about was his voice, his hair, his eyes, his body, his moans. Everything kept being played through my head. His body on mine, his tongue in my mouth, the feeling of him inside me. But suddenly the sexual aspect was gone from my thoughts. It came to me that it would be amazing to have a relationship with him. Thoughts rushed through my head of how it would be amazing for him to be there to take care of me. That thought stayed in my head for a long time, and I began to fear it, thinking of all the consequences it might bring forth. I decided that it was best that I forgot all about Dan Richards and the night I spent with him.