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.
The plane lifted off the ground and I watched as the earth moved away from me in slow motion. Other planes were landing, other planes were taxiing around the runways, people stood in front of large glass windows, waving goodbye or hello.
I settled back in my seat, waiting for the NO SMOKING sign to go off. My mind drifted around the plane, watching people, listening to conversations, feeling emotions of other people's lives. A couple two rows up were whispering to each other, and the guy kissed her ear after something he said. A man with a small child seemed flustered and anxious. A group of women behind me were gabbing loudly about a wedding. I shifted in my seat and looked behind me to better hear the story of the bride and groom. The one man with the group of them was pretending to take a nap. They were animated, friendly and vivacious women, perhaps in their late 40s or early 50s. It seems the wedding they attended had many comical elements. It was like listening to a soap opera being read aloud. One of the women saw me listening and exclaimed "Oh, you look just like her bridesmaid!" "Another case of always the bridesmaid, never the bride," I replied, which caused all of the women to laugh. The man taking a pretend nap opened his eyes slowly to look at me, acknowledge I did look like the bridesmaid with a nod, and then winked at me.
As the plane touched down in Ohio, a quiet serenity fell over me. I always felt this way here, in the state of hills and grass, highways and trees. It's the kind of state to grant you peace upon entry. Something about the scenery inspires a desire to go on a long walk. My client and I often went drifting on the railroad tracks, him with his camera snapping photographs of old wooden side pieces and rusted chunks of nails and bolts. We'd talk about life, politics, religion and photography. He taught me a lot about things that had been, things to come, and thoughts and opinions on both. He was a man of many words, and yet a quiet man. A playful yet serious man. He and I had a lot in common, as often was the case with some of my steadier clients.
It was upon this visit with him that he set up a tripod and filmed me jumping up and down naked on his bed, beckoning him to come and play with me. When we watched it later on, we could not stop laughing at how his hard cock came into the view before he did. We kept rewinding that part, over and over again. Laughing hysterically and tumbling around naked on the bed some more.