backstory: that guy and the girl on the date over there
She turned to face me, and in the overbearing light of the airport in morning, her eyes were a shocking shade of green that was pale and striated: the pulpy, banded meat of a lime wedge.
“Have you, uhh,” I faltered, not outlining a plan beyond the initial grabbing of her attention, “seen my bag yet? It’s leather, and it’s a duffel, with dark brown straps. One of the straps is falling off,” I rambled nonsensically, reduced to half-capacity by the twin afflictions of fatigue and restlessness, and distracted even further by the fact that her lips were chapped; peeling like white flames across a desert of pink sand.
She just smiled, a milky-sweet curtain call of metal and rubber bands that momentarily sliced through me in a panic that maybe I had been — inadvertently, of course — fantasizing about a minor on the last two hours and some change of the flight. And when I strode up to her, eyes glued to the upside-down-heart of her ass in spandex and the way it cascaded down to thighs that just barely touched each other and buckled with newfound definition every time she shifted her weight…was I zeroing in on some kid who was asking her mom for rides to the mall just a few months ago? Was she here on some study-abroad program, earning a few college credits in advance?
“Is that it?” she offered, pointing demurely behind me as my bag sauntered over lazily on the belt, the dislodged shoulder strap swinging teasingly over the side, the slight squeak of its metal clasp scraping across the steel underframe of the carousel like an undisciplined child testing his parents’ patience. I smiled curtly back at her, pressing my lips together in an unfeeling straight line of forced gratitude. I nodded quickly, efficiently, smartly; a man who has done nothing wrong with his hands but has secretly committed a host of deplorable crimes in his brain. As I walked away, I caught a glimpse of her holding my gaze in a way that seemed almost…expectant, perhaps? Or maybe that was just my stupid optimism talking, hijacking the situation to suit my deeply buried desires. Regardless of any sort of eye contact that may or may not have been lingering between us, I distinctly remember her eyes falling away, to the floor, and rather than a look of despondence folding across her face, she exchanged with the dusty floor of Fiumicino a slight yet distinctly incredulous smile.
“So, uh, how’d your strap break?” A measured, familiar voice wafted into my right ear. I was standing in the line to have my luggage inspected by Customs, a nuisance only present in some international airports but not others, proving to be more of a maddening guessing game than a certainty of international travel. Turning around (doing so as more of a formality than a means of identifying the voice), I smiled at her as if I were sitting for a yearbook photo: polite, endearing, and utterly sterile.
“It just snapped off while I was walking around in the Oakland Airport one day, killing time before a flight,” I answered honestly, not realizing until the words had already somersaulted out of my mouth how increasingly dull I was beginning to seem. Even to a girl in whom I had totally and overwhelmingly lost interest, there was still that tingling desire to seem alluring. The fact that I didn’t want her probably intensified it, actually. I wanted (in a way that felt more like necessity) to be seen as this unreachable commodity that stood teasingly within grasp, as shallow and immature as it sounds. We’re all petty children when you get right down to it.
The line began to move and we all complied with the unintelligible lecturing in cursive from the Italian Border Patrol. I caught every ten words or so, but I’ve been through this song and dance too many times not to know what to do. It’s common sense, really. The less I can open my mouth while I’m abroad, the better.
“Where are you staying?” she asked, probingly.
Not knowing whether it was appropriate to answer, but then again also feeling rude ignoring her, I briskly said, “A hostel in the city center for the night, then headed to Crete tomorrow. Bright and early.” I wasn’t going to Crete.
“Want to get a drink?” she asked with a wink as the line lurched forward.
“Uh,” I scratched my nose instinctively, trying to mask the innate crumpling of my face at the ensuing awkwardness. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea…” I mumbled, wishing I’d just said my schedule was booked and I had no time.
“Why’s that?” she asked with a raised eyebrow, incredulously and in a sort of tone that was so teasing, I felt disgusted with the universe for setting this delicious temptation down in front of me, and then with myself for actually considering acting on it.
Why didn’t she get it? Why was she still talking to me, why was she pursuing me, why did I have to be the one to come out and say that it was a criminal offense for me to do whatever it was that we both clearly wanted to do?
I didn’t say anything, because what do you say? My eyes were burning with fatigue, and my mind was melting under the contradictory blaze of desire and deterrence. I just stood there, glaring at her, until finally I broke away the eye contact when it was time to slide my haphazardly-packed duffel into the inspection chute.
“I may have braces, but I’m not a kid,” I heard over my shoulder. “If, I mean, that’s what you thought,” her voice slinked back like a boomerang, strong at first then trailing off with doubt.
I continued with the glare, too embarrassed to align with the stereotype, preferring instead to just be some wordless, staring idiot. It seemed like the lesser of two evils. After a series of uncomfortable seconds had passed, I shook my head dramatically, blinked a few times, and rubbed my jawline. I had some orange hairs scruffily springing out, and the bristles on my hand carried with them a sort of satisfaction that defied description — like a traffic light turning green as you approach it while still in gear, or finishing a journal entry on the last line of a page.
“I’m really jet lagged. I’m sorry if I’m weird,” I said, honestly. “Yeah. Let’s get that drink.”
She fell asleep next to me ten hours later, and she slipped out of my room after some thin protesting on my end some time after that. I can’t quite remember through the cloak of my barely-conscious satisfaction what was said, but I’m pretty sure I draped my arms around her and told her to stay. And I think she did for a little bit, but then ultimately disengaged; slipping out into the muggy, Roman night without a word. I rolled over onto my stomach and slept diagonally on the bed; glad to have felt her body pressed against mine for a little while, yet infinitely relieved to be left alone, and that she got the message without me having to say it.
I didn’t really talk to her again while I was in Europe. I didn’t see the point, really. With all the pieces falling the way they did back “home,” with my nearly hyperventilating at the thought of merely picking them up when I eventually had to be forced back — all I could really bear to have occupy my mind was a stream of whatever nondescript, faceless affection came my way. I wanted late nights and early mornings without repercussion. I wanted release, I wanted power, I wanted interpersonal connection without the work. That’s what we all wanted: me, and every woman I met over there. We didn’t want anything serious, we didn’t want to resign ourselves over to an embittered existence of love-laced malice…but we also didn’t want to sleep alone at night.
And yet, two months and some change later, Jennifer and I were in some lowly-lit dive in Allston, speculating which fresh-faced bar patrons were actually of age and which had a fake ID. She prefaced the meeting as that and nothing more: a meeting, just between friends, one that absolutely couldn’t interfere with her work, or her school, or her own personal reconstruction, or whatever it is that took up all her time. As the night wore on and the temperature outside dropped as the bar tab stacked on itself, we found ourselves less and less inhibited by social constriction (we were, after all, surrounded by a legion of big-shot 19 year olds who puffed up under the surface of their own tin-foil armor of badassery) and let our audacity out of captivity. She and I proceeded to allow the magnetic energy between our faces flow across the table a few times before retiring to the grubby unisex bathroom: tattooed with years of permanent marker scrawls from idiots who wanted to feel wise, stickers from mediocre college bands, and the occasional thought-provoking observation about life. I bent her over the pedestal sink and she gripped the sides, despite there being a film of years of Pepto Bismol-pink soap residue coagulating under the dispenser on the right. She didn’t care. She was too drunk. And I probably should have made sure she was cognizant of what was going on, the transition from chemistry to biology, how quickly the unknown variables of each sloppy kiss can translate to the collision of two angles: one 90 degrees, the other 180.
But I didn’t, because she isn’t stupid, or so I allowed myself to think. She wouldn’t have done any of this if she didn’t want to. If she didn’t want to do this, she would have stayed right there on the barstool at the table, playing on her phone or something while I pretended to use the bathroom, I rationalized to myself as my eyes darted from Jennifer’s grin of drunken pleasure in the mirror to a spot on the wall that read, “Julie Anderson is a slut,” in curly penmanship. As I reasoned more and more to myself that I absolutely didn’t to verify consent for this, I began to fantasize about how big Julie Anderson’s ass is.