Dawns and dawns went by, each night spent either with Joe or on the cobblestone streets of downtown New Bedford. Sometimes I'd see Joe keeping an eye on me, driving by slowly in his car, giving me a smile of 'just checking on you.'
And some mornings were harder than others.
He held my hand across the table, his middle finger rubbed against the smile-shape of the sideway-C-of-skin between my index and thumb. I had to leave that morning, a client from Ohio had booked me a flight to spend a weekend, and it was difficult not to acknowledge the slight feeling one would get when leaving one lover to see another. Much as emotions are supposed to be taboo in this line of work, they do occur, and I always tried my best to feel them, to allow them, as I'd learned many years before that to hold back anything is damaging to the heart and mind.
"I will miss you," I said matter-of-factly.
"And I will miss you," Joe said without fear. Then, he allowed his fears to speak up. "You are sure this guy isn't some asshole, right? Not just some guy you met recently, taking you away to Ohio, of all places, to hold you hostage in some sex dungeon?"
I lowered my head to hide my laugh as well as some weird feeling of shame. "I swear to you, Joe, he's a nice guy, I've known him for years." I wrestled with the shame in a corner of my mind, pinned the shame to the wall of gray-matter and looked at it directly. Somehow, during months of being with Joe, I now felt a sense of guilt and shame associated with spending more than a few hours with another man. I could easily pull a few tricks a night, with nothing but a business sense, some laughs and a good time feeling. But leaving for a few days to be with and sleep with another man, this was the source of my shame. It almost felt as if I was about to cheat on Joe. It also almost felt like I was about to cheat on myself.
Posted by nft at December 22, 2004 08:54 AM