Dear John

"So what does that patch on your jacket mean?" I wore the patchwork-y jacket, the one i bought in Georgetown. The cashier of Commander Salamander had both a lip ring, lisp caused by said lip ring, and a burning teenage desire to cut a demo album. I love that store.

"It means I'm a hipster piece-of-shit."

He is amused.

We choose his place. Plus, I'm in a take-me-home sort of mood. This is unusual for me, but it's been a weird night. Early in the evening I'd nearly been arrested for sassing a police officer after blatantly (but skillfully) jaywalking outside the spice girls concert in dc. Perhaps it was the coquettish disco numbers that had emboldened me. Or the artfully lit stage show. Or maybe it was the shots of Gray Goose a cheerful Verizon center employee has sold my best friend and I from the back of a recently converted hotdog cart.

The alcohol allowed me to more privately define my own mental metaverse. Crowds of people become only chunks of urban noise. Moving cars become only challenges in my pedestrian olypmic tryout. And police who try to shake me down for jaywalking become nazi officers.

I am piece-of-shitshow spice. And i am on a reunion tour of one.

Confidential to officer rent-a-cop: Sorry i tried to bite you. That was not classy. At the moment, i didn't realize who you were. i've been a little on edge regarding people who grab me from behind since my recent mugging/assault. That being said, go after an actual crime, douchenozzle. Seriously... probable cause based on jaywalking 5th street? i would have kicked the charge faster than an on-stage costume change.

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John, trendy jacket aficionado and fellow intoxicee, doesn't know any of this about me. i choose to vacation in his drunken concept of me; the cute, quirky bar pick-up. Perhaps I'm amorous rather than drunk. Perhaps I'm eccentric rather than unstable. Perhaps I'm coy rather than cold. And besides, his neck smells nice.

We're now at his place. I steady myself on the granite counter as he opens two beers. Beer is a superb come down drink.

Clothes are flung, rather than tossed. We're both in an aggressive mood. This proves hazardous. The intricately faux hand crafted West Elm headboard is not suited for use as a prop or counterbalance, despite my best intentions.

We attempt what we refer to in the lesser regions of Brooklyn as "big boy sex". (Gentle hetero readers: That's the standard issue gay kind. Hint: It involves the pooper.)

To a culture that had never witnessed modern coitus, it would appear that we were performing some sort of party trick gone horribly awry. Rather than a drunken, post-Reagan administration session of gay lovemaking, it could have been construed that my penis was attemping to create a ballon animal. Perhaps a galloping albino giraffe or a fanciful swan. No less than five condoms were lost in the process. Only four were found. Dot dot dot.

In the end, we gave up and passed out.

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I wake up around 9 am. He's asleep, therefore, there's still time to escape. Socks and dignity are somewhere in the messy room. I can find neither.

And then he wakes too. He puts his arm around me. It's a nice arm. All of him is nice, actually. Naked and dazed, I realize that I have decent taste.

"So what's your story?", he says affectionately. The question is not rude. The moment is missing only a handshake.

We do a make-shift how-do-you-do conversation. He mentions that he works for the government, though does not specify the job. This is well known code in DC. It means that he either works for an agency secretive enough to give John Grisham a literary woody, or does something completely lucrative that's too boring to mention. We are making small talk. And small talk is not acceptable to me if one is doing so while able to see the other person's balls. We are beyond a point at which subtlety is comfortable.

I wonder where my pants are.

I say something awkward about last night's penile balloon animal debacle, feeling a slight need to apologize. He is cheerful, and with me on looking at the humor of situation. I suddenly like him much better. He seems to notice this, and pulls himself closer to me. He nuzzles me in a way one doesn't nuzzle a stranger. And I've nuzzled strangers.

We begin to have a real conversation. We talk DC, quirks and predilections of people we know and love, with the occasional mild declarations about who we actually are. He's charming and quip-pish .

I begin to look at him again, only this time examining is face. He's beautiful. Not just a shirtless, overprocessed phone sex ad aesthetic beautiful, but a real beautiful. Green eyes and tan skin and tousled hair. The boyscout and trickster character all in one, with magazine cheekbones. I photograph him with my mind.

He mulls the idea of taking the day off of work. Though I realize this may be a hangover related move, I'm flattered by the idea that he doesn't want to kick me out at the appropriate mid morning hour.

Between kisses he gets up to rehydrate, and I vomit in his roommate's bathroom. I conceal the noise, so as not to seem unsexy. We fool around again. Successfully. Very successfully.

We watch a fluff action movie in bed. We talk most of the way through it, each of us still having plenty to say. We're on to the less usual getting-to-know-you questions.

"When gay marriage is legalized, which nation do you think would have the best mail order husbands?"

He's funny, and well informed about fallen eastern block heroin chic. He is subtle and has real undertext. I tell him that his screen name for ordering gay male order husbands should be Johnorreah. At this point, I'm taking the day off too.

We sit across from each other on the sofa, eating take out noodles.

Unexpectedly, the "Why are you single?" question arises.

I am a fucked up, valuable piece of post-modern art, I tell him. I am giant red cube or bright pink nude. But I am well constructed, genuinely thought out, and fun in a way that's outside one's usual elements. Someone will take me home, and add me to their life. They'll enjoy me in the living room, but soon realize that I clash with everything. All the things you already have and love there won't match, and I'll only crowd the space. Rather than throw out the rest of the room to match, I'll end up having to go. And so I'll leave.

He gets up and walks across the room and hugs me. This is a not the weak, pacify-your-sadness hug that I've felt before. Nor is it the lame generic sympathy hug. He wraps all of himself around me, and we fold into each other on the modern green angular sofa. This is the hug that seems to say, "I have room for you". It's more connection than intimacy, but feels amazing in a way that I hadn't realized I missed until now.

I spend the next night with him as well. But not the two-night stand. I hope there will be other nights too.

- Twink Puppet