Fragment 30: Byzantium

Weird how it feels, the pulse running slowly through you, knowing that you are driving too fast.

I guess that's why I eyed him suspiciously from the backseat, realizing that he was pushing the pedal. The city oblique through mist of gentle rain and thicker early evening fog, elevated expressway a monstrosity of modernity, looking in on condo dwellers and shift workers alike until you hit the off ramp.

I am sure he wondered, deep down, why the fuck he abandoned a future as a doctor in some distant land to drive a drunk guy across the highway to Babylon in Canada.

Who knows? Frankly, who the fuck cares? All I know is that five thousand years from now, all things being equal, our empires will be gone and those we looked down on will have had the last laugh.

For a time.

It all changes, see, or at least that is what my Dad taught, for all that his bullshit was worth (not much...fucker with his belt, cigarette, knowing I was into boys, looking at me with those nasty fucking eyes...), but he did teach me that, despite appearances, it is all transitory.

Power today means fuck all tomorrow.

And what applies to societies...

Anyway at last at exit ramp, I don't need the contempt anymore, seeing that I am paying the bill and all, down, round-and-round, into deeper fog, dark to darker, until he drops me at the park behind the Flat Iron.

What he wants to say is....what he says is ..."that will be$22.25".

No please for gay folks.

I was tempted to tell him to go fuck himself, but why bother.

Out into October style brisk. God, I love that time in Toronto. Dark getting earlier ( and only children and jackasses long for daylight ), cold not yet cold, mist when not expected.

Nothing expected.

I knew that I was early but I wanted him so much I didn't care.

Travelling winding stairs to the bar, band blasting from the back declaring themselves with bad Stones' covers and tributes to groups that they will never be.

Well, what to expect, we wouldn't part with the $10 if they played a bunch of sad shit none of us had ever heard.

Would we?

This platinum blonde chick and her plump friend are staring at me soon after I sit down. Seems to always happen. Gratified to know that had I been born straight you would have been into me...or would you have...do we not always want what we cannot have?

Dawn leans over (hey, fuck you, she said that that was her name) and asks me if I would like to see why her boyfriends have always said she gushes?

Not really...but it is hard not to be curious...

Glen arrives right then, red hair, fit, looking like I knew he would, like I knew he did...

Looking like the guy I had wanted to screw every night for the last ten years, ten years to the day since we had once met.

(Glendon College, known for its French girls, and there was Glen, Pub Night, rubbing harder-and-harder against me, dance floor crowded and dense with smoke, my cock growing larger and larger until...)

"So, stranger, fancy meeting you here."

Glen has this smile, disarming, gentle. I buy him a Gin and Tonic and move ever so slightly closer to him, his breath sweet and perfumed, his upper lip beautiful, my heart beating faster, knowing that I have waited too long.

He looks so fucking fantastic naked, an Adonis, as I work my way down his magnificent chest to his glorious member, throbbing, responding to my every touch, so proud, tall and so thick. It was just...well I suppose it was delicious.

He arrived in those suits that all these boys with wives wear, too perfect, too family-man, too corporate.

Ready, as he leaned over and put his hand on me, to make that version of life just disappear.

I have never wanted to fuck and be fucked like that.

And when he came, exploding inside of me, I felt him throbbing, pulsating, pushing...

Hotel room bleak, but not us, happy in each other, happy in our embrace.

Kissing his ear, stroking him, knowing we had to part...

So Glen, will I ever, you know, see you again...

I meant it as a laugh, but no response.

I guess I fell asleep, but when I awoke he was leaning naked against the window, his curved back delightful, his profile just...just...

I went over to him, to the window, and put my arms around his waist. He turned and smiled at me, tilting his head down to my cheek. I kissed the crown of his head, running my fingers through his thick red hair.

You know I won't see you again...

Saw the plane then, lower and lower towards the island airport. I feel dizzy watching and dizzy knowing...

...and on Monday where will we all be...will I still be there...without him again will I still be there at all....