Cool Jazz and Cologne in the Air

Every once in a while, I feel like reminiscing, and today is one of those days. I try not to focus on the past, but rather keep myself focused on looking forward. However, it’s good to look back every once in a while. We remember the good times to appreciate what we’ve had, and keep the bad times in mind to learn from our mistakes and prevent ourselves from repeating them.

I’d like to tell a story today, something romantic. After all, the title of this blog is ‘Modern Romance.’ I was driving downtown today past an old apartment building where my first love used to live many years ago. Well, perhaps love is too strong a word as we didn’t know each other very long before he moved away to take a new job. Perhaps ‘infatuation’ is a more appropriate term. It was the first sex I ever had that I actually enjoyed, and the first time I ever felt like it was alright, maybe even cool, to be who I was, a young gay man.

We met on the internet, as many of us do. I had gone home to spend the summer with my parents after a difficult year at school and a series of failed attempts at finding a ‘friend’ to hang out with (i.e. have sex with). I wasn’t even looking for anything at the time. I was in another state. I started talking to this gentleman, however, and we decided we would meet once I returned to school. I remember I was very nervous. I had never just gone to someone’s home without knowing anything about them before. He gave me directions to an apartment building downtown where I had to be buzzed in at the door. I was intrigued. The lobby was very swank, the inhabitants obviously had money. I took the elevator up to the third floor where I found the number I had been given and was greeted by a short, sexy blond man of 38.

The first thing I remember was the smell. There was something more sophisticated here than the average apartment, no nasty candle scents or air-fresheners, but rather something more earthy, more masculine, but not nasty or seedy like my roommates dwellings. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. He sat me down on the couch, and after a few awkward moments leaned over me and planted a very strong kiss directly on my lips. Before I knew it, he was taking me by the hand into the bedroom where he undressed me and…..well, you know the rest.

Before the end of the night, he had asked me if we could be ‘exclusive.’ In other words, only have sex with each other. I had never been asked that before, but I quickly said yes. Everything about him was intriguing to me. His furniture, his artwork, the way he drank his coffee at this little table next to the kitchen out of mug labeled with artist’s names. And his body, of course, I found him incredibly attractive. We talked about art and music. I remember I would go over in the evening and he would be playing Billy Holiday on the stereo and I would feel like I had been transported into another universe. Everything here was so much more sophisticated than anything I had yet experienced in my mere 21 years. I wanted to be a part of this world; I didn’t want to go back to my seemingly mundane existence. Everything seemed possible here. This was romance.

We had a conversation about crayons once. That was my favorite. I had never been allowed to have the real Crayolas, but I had always dreamed of having the 64 pack with the sharpener in the back. He had had the brand name, but was never allowed to have the big pack, either. Such deprivation as children! We laughed.

I remember that he had this scent about him when we were close that I couldn’t get enough of. I can recognize it anywhere to this day. I found out later that it was a cologne called ‘Catalyst.’ It became the first scent I ever bought on my own, and every time I wore it I would remember those evenings downtown and feel a little more sophisticated. He would go off to shower after sex, and I could still smell it on the sheets. I loved it.

The irony is that we never actually ‘dated.’ We never met outside the apartment, in fact, until much later when I shared dinner with him on a trip I had taken to the city he had moved to. I feigned logical thinking when he sat down and told me he was thinking of taking a new job, even though inside I was suddenly crushed. I told him that we had not known each other long and that I shouldn’t be involved in any decision he made on such matters. He was sweet to pretend that my opinion mattered on the subject and that he was taking me into consideration. I know better now, but I let myself believe it then. I would think of a joke to tell him or something funny and I would call him up just to hear his voice for a second, make sure that he was still out there. I was young and naïve, what would you expect? I didn’t know anything about love or dating or anything really. At that point I didn’t even know all the ins and outs of sex in general. But it was a start. It was my first journey into any kind of romance, whether it was real or I just created the idea in my own head.

He was the first man to ever take my breath away, that feeling where you just have to stop for a second because you are so happy. It makes me smile to think about it. I just hope that he smiles sometimes, too, when he thinks of me, wherever he is these days. Incidentally, my parting gift to him before he left town was a box of brand-name Crayola crayons, 64-count with the sharpener in the back.