WHEN WE MADE LOVE

The other night I went to a party. 

Their party. 

I know you know who I’m talking about.

I got there at around eleven thirty, with a liter bottle of ginger ale that I flooded to the top with Kentucky Gentleman.  The drink whirlpooled to the color of brushed amber, and it smelled vaguely like cleaning supplies – I couldn’t say exactly which one, but it’d probably be store-brand.

I still feel awkward at these get-togethers – no matter how many of these drinks I make.  I know you don’t see these people very much anymore – it’s still weird when we’re both in the same room, I don’t want to lie about that – and no one really wants to deal with the drama of it all too much. 

I guess I “won” the right to them, but I wasn’t really trying to – it’s just the way the chips fell.  And just like roulette, the prize is really in the gloating, if anything.  It’s not like I did anything to earn this.  It’s just the way the chips fell.

My drink was awful fizzy, and it made it hard to breathe through my nose.  I couldn’t stop sniffing for the whole night – it felt like the whiskey was entering my sinuses, and that somehow rotted mahogany had turned into gas.  The stuff has a way of getting caught in your lungs till the morning.

After losing a game of beer pong that I didn’t care all too much about with these people I didn’t care all too much about, this guy we both know asked: “Hey, what was it like to make love to her?”

To you. 

He said he always had a thing for you and admitted that he used to be jealous of me with a drunk shrug that faked nonchalance as well as your roommate faked orgasms.  Or at least as well as she did that with that one guy she was seeing in July. 

(I’ll still never get why someone who studies clinical psychology can feel comfortable calling their partner “daddy” in bed.)

When I thought about his question, I wanted to say that it was wild and crazy and like something from a playboy write-in, but it wasn’t, really. 

I wanted to say that it felt like our souls were connecting and our moans and whimpers made songs that sang in symphony with one another, but it wasn’t really like that either. 

I wanted to compare you to a porn star or us to a romance novel or it to a firework display gone awry, but it wasn’t really any of those things, and as I heard myself aloud trying to describe it, I sounded like a pitbull trying force out the subtle tones of a soft purr.

I rambled on about this until I thought of the time I went to the beach with my parents when I was four.  It’s one of the first things I can remember.  My parents bought me a sunhat and velcro sandals and gas station sunglasses, with flames on the side, just for the occasion.  They took lots of pictures.  I don’t know where those pictures are now.

When we got to the beach, my mother covered herself in suntan lotion, spreading over the freckles that covered her arms and legs in a desperate attempt to stop more from scattering about.  Some doctors say that freckles are a sign of skin cancer, but I always thought that they were beautiful, like a leopard.  Do leopards get skin cancer?  I don’t know – I hope not.  They don’t deserve it; they’re elegant things, and I know how you feel about elegant things getting spoiled.

My father speared the sand with a giant rented umbrella and rocked it back and forth with the rhythms of an oil pump.  While he grunted against the strains of his paternal obligations – those ones he was held to even when on holiday – I saw the ocean for the first time:

An impossibly straight line; unending arms, extended; a big blue hug made of the same stuff I knew how to doggy paddle in.  I hadn’t learned any other type of stroke at that point, but I was particularly good at the doggy paddle.  Olympic invitations and all of that.

While everyone had their eyes on what they thought they had to do, I ran into the ocean with my sunhat and velcro sandals and gas station sunglasses and fell straight forward, plummeting into it – the cobalt crashing into me.

I floated underneath the surface and tried to drag myself towards it with pudgy arms.  All of my training in doggy paddling couldn’t help me underneath its force as it tossed me back into the air and underneath its indigo and I felt so helpless to the tides and to the moon and to the turning of the earth that all affected it.

The ocean chose when I could breathe and when I couldn’t breathe and I was completely at its mercy, lost in it without a cord to hold onto.  Up and down, against the sand and the air, breathing in plenty of both.

The ocean was something I wanted to be a part of, but when you’re in it, there’s more going on beneath its skin than it’ll ever let on.  Hidden torrents and secret storms, all submerged beneath the velvet smushing of its waves.

It took my gas station sunglasses, the ones with flames on the side, and I didn’t even care very much.

Before I could make anything out of it, before I could even feel excited or scared or process much of the all I felt in that moment, my dad reached down with his earthy hands and yanked me to shore.

After that, swimming at the pool wasn’t very exciting anymore. 

I remember the next time I went to the beach, some friends and I let the whitecaps of the waves chase us when they rolled in, and as the riptide pulled them back, we’d chase them, too.  It was fun, but it wasn’t the same. 

It will never be the same, really.

That’s what it was like when we made love, I stammered.

That guy we both know laughed, grabbed another beer, and said, yeah, he totally figured as much.