Hermosa

November 6, 2016

November 6, 2016

Diego,

Today feels like the day we went to the aquarium in Chattanooga. "Sweater Weather" by The Neighbourhood playing – you wore this sweater that was two hues above the lightest pink. What would you call that? Rose maybe? I wore a dress that wasn't really a dress, not on me. I was too tall. This was the first trip we'd taken since you bought your new camera. You took photos of everything, but especially my legs in the grey tights.

The leaves had all changed on the mountains and within. Looking at one of those photos, they're brown as they skitter in my path while I gripped both hands around the faux leather straps of my little polka-dotted backpack – my head turned like an owl to throw a smile your way. My hair was bobbed then, bleached until it was nearly white. Red bricks, blue "dress", pale grey bridge, pastel skies. It was a day for soft colors and hushed voices. We were lucky. It was the middle of the week, and everyone was away at school or work. We had the whole two buildings to ourselves.

You let me linger for over an hour at the seahorses. I took your picture with this weird pop art looking alligator that was as tall as you are. We sat in eggshell colored rocking chairs on the top floor of one building overlooking the river. There, you took a picture of your hand in mine.

I wore a bracelet of stones. My ex had made it for me, a signature art piece that he'd been making since high school. The detail of the umber, amber, jade, and coral in each round bead is pleasing to the eyes. You were heavier then. Your hand was so much bigger than mine. I'm squeezing tightly. I was probably saying nice things.

It wasn't until we were coasting down mountains in pitch black on the way home that you asked me to tell you about all the men I'd slept with before we met. You had told me before that I was only the second person that you'd had sex with, so I felt uncomfortable. I worried that you felt like you had missed out on something. Six years between your high school girlfriend and myself was a long time – time when other boys were experimenting. You said you didn't care about being like other guys, but I knew you regretted not having experiences of your own.

"Isn't it bad for the future of a relationship to dig into past sexual experiences? Like, won't you be jealous? You might start comparing yourself to other guys or something. Just doesn't seem like a good idea," I said, pushing the gas pedal hard in an attempt to get out of this conversation in a hurry.

You assured me that you were comfortable and asked me again. Reluctantly, and laughing anxiously like I do through every single word of every sentence, I listed them all in order:

1.) When I was seventeen, I met my first boyfriend – a very religious guy that gave great head. He didn't believe in penetration before marriage, and after a little over a year of fighting constantly about things that weren't important then and aren't important now, we ended it.

2.) Resolving to stay as far away from long term commitments as possible, I found myself one day when I was nineteen sitting on a bench in the middle of campus. I was staring at the clouds daydreaming of being anywhere else when this group of guys walked by on their way back from the gym. One stopped and said, "Nice weather we're having." For several weeks after that, he seemed to pop up wherever I was sitting. (I was never in my dorm. Too stuffy, too crowded.) He would say, "Nice weather we're having," and I decided that I was going to sleep with "The Weatherman".

The next time we had one of our chance encounters, I asked him to have dinner and the rest is history. He was the first of a laundry list of brown haired, blue eyed men. He was a little bit shorter than me, but I just wanted to fuck someone and he didn't seem to mind.

After romping around in the snow one night and foolishly jumping into a fountain that wasn't fully frozen, he told me, "You need to get out of those jeans or you'll catch a cold." I said, "Yes, sir," and we went back to his dorm where his roommate was sleeping. He pulled me into the blanket and began kissing me, working his hands into my underwear. There, he made a discovery. He asked, "Are you a virgin?"

It was kind of gross how excited he was about it. Anyway, I was ready to get rid of the hymen, feeling that twenty was a late enough breaking point, so he thrust himself in. I hated the smell of the condom, like a hot tire. I was in so much pain, we couldn't have sex long because I felt like someone was trying to clear the inside of my uterus with a machete. I could feel the sharpness all the way into my intestines. I was probably constipated.

On other nights he used a set of handcuffs made of rope that he'd learned to make in Eagle Scouts to holster me to a towel hook in the bathroom. From there, he was able to throw my legs over his shoulders.

The sex wasn't good, or at least I didn't climax, but I was young and I got off on watching him get off. I learned pretty early on that I'm aroused by watching my partners enjoy themselves. So every time he put me on a counter or stood on his toes to get into me in the shower, I'd watch his eyes. I'd look for the color to fade into a haze.

You can see it when a person is about to climax. They're eyelids flutter. You feel their body shudder in random muscles. With you, Diego, your eyes reach above you and your eyebrows squint. You moan louder and make little whimpering sounds. Your thighs twist in and out and tremor. Your grip tightens on whatever you're holding – my hips, the blanket, the headboard...

Of course, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

3.) After "The Weatherman" dropped out of school, I had a summer fling with an old crush from high school – this guy with a huge dick who ate like three ham sandwiches a day and nothing else. He wanted a relationship, but I couldn't cook for him and he didn't like any restaurants. He also had this crazy premonition that the world was going to explode on my birthday. Three months on my back later, I broke up with him.

4.) There were a few random men that I met online. Nothing special to report.

5.) Then there was my ex. I wasn't going to talk about that, except to say that he pre-maturely ejaculated during most of our intercourse. I wanted you to know that because I knew that you were jealous of him. By that point, you didn't have a reason to be. You were the only person I wanted to spend any amount of time with.

You didn't say much on the remaining hour of the drive to the studio apartment. I asked if you were okay. I think you grumbled a, "Yeah, I'm fine."

I wish you had told me what you were thinking that night. It would have saved us so much trouble.

-Jules