Dumping Ground

            He dumped me the night of prom.

            That would sound much more shocking and heart-breaking if I wasn’t twenty-six and chaperone at the time.  And also if it wasn’t the third time he’d dumped me.

            There are two vastly different camps on the battlefield of breaking up.  One is either the dumped or the dumper.  Very rarely do the two warring sides come together in the amicable peace treaty of a mutual dissolution. More often, retelling the story of the break up, we begin with the phrase: “I never saw it coming …”

            There we are, blissfully sunning ourselves on the sun-drenched beaches of a seemingly solid, stable relationship when the drone of a bomb squad thunders in from the horizon.  Their hatches open and bombs drop,  We need to talk screams from the sky, hurtling towards us with stupefying speed.  The earth beside us explodes as I’m just not happy throws sand into the air.  The flaming debris of It’s not you, it’s me rains back down into the smoking crater as we scuttle to crouch, trembling, next to the yet unexploded We can still be friends.

            It’s a rite of passage, this psychological warfare we call breaking up.  Show me one person who has dated one—and only one—person their entire life and I will show you a person who lives entirely in their head.  It’s an odd dance we do though, with the stakes raising ever higher as we age.  As children and teens, we are expected to fall in and out of love with the changing seasons.  We applaud our children as they mature into heartbreakers and publically count the devastated trail of lovers they leave in their wake.  Parents affectionately clap their children on the back, beaming, and proclaim to all within earshot, “Yup, this one’s going to break a lot of hearts!”  Much rarer is the scene of a parent cradling their brood in the crook of their arm, stroking their hair gingerly, whispering, embarrassed, “Sadly, this one will get her heart broken too many times to count.”

            But broken-hearted in high school , we find solace in our parents, who assure us that it has to happen to everyone, that we’ll look back on this in our adult years and realize that it wasn’t all that big of a deal.  We are promised that it will get better.

            But it doesn’t.  In young adulthood, dating becomes auditioning a mate.  We are expected to filter through an expansive list of potential lovers and filter down to the promising few.  If we are twenty-two and casually dating our way through an ever-expanding Rolodex, we are reminded that you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince.  If we are twenty-six and without a long-term romance, we begin to receive the not-so-silent reminders that our parents were married and pregnant by the time they were our age.  Every phone call and email home becomes a fresh opportunity for Mom and Pop to thump their finger on our biological clock, setting off the deafening ticking.  At twenty-nine, parents abandon all hope and lavish their love on your pets, substitutes for the grandchildren they’ve realized you will never provide them.  The sad part is, our parents aren’t the only ones abandoning hope like miners trapped in a collapsed mine.

            As relationships flamed out in college, I was unperturbed.  Somewhere in the instinctual, primitive, nomadic corners of my mind, I knew it was all temporary anyway.  Why get hung up on the end of something which had a definite expiration date from the moment of production?

            The anxiety increased substantially as I aged.  As I grew older, I lost the rosy optimism of youth, and the concussive blast of each ended relationship rang in my ears and stunned me senseless.  The end of my first post-college relationship I’m willing to label as approaching healthy and stable left me shell-shocked for months, painfully paranoid it all meant I would die alone, my body undiscovered for weeks and partially eaten by my cats when neighbors finally called to complain about the stench wafting in through the air ducts.

            In retrospect, I realize that we were two vastly different people and the third (and final) breakup was perhaps the healthiest thing that could have happened in our relationship.  In retrospect, I realize that we would have never been content living each other’s life, as I derived no joy from dancing on the bar in gay clubs, and he found no pleasure in growing old on the couch.  In retrospect, I realize he should have dumped me in person.

            There are two types of people when it comes to breaking up: the straightforward and the chicken shit.  The straightforward are honest and upfront, blunt and without the sugar coating.  “We need to talk” leads to an actual conversation and no mystery as to where we stand as an item.  In my experience, very few people can check this box when asked to describe their personal style.  It is hard, it is uncomfortable, and the role of villain is clearly defined.  We tend to go through life as if it is our personal film narrative.  Though the straightforward attempt is the more psychologically healthy of the two, we can’t help but vilify the person in hindsight.  The dawn of each new relationship sees us toting our emotional baggage to a prospective partner’s front door, hoping our overnight bag of communication issues matches their valise stuff with abandonment paranoia.  Yet the specter of exes lingers in our minds, like a silent movie villain diabolically greasing his handlebar mustache.  Though miles beyond The Worst Prom Ever, I cannot fully escape the fear that each new beau will text me a random “You prevent me from experiencing joy” message.

            But at least when we are told we are Joy Killers, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s over and it’s up to us to begin putting the pieces back together.  We spend our weeks attacking feelings of insufficiency with sugar and liquor.  We agonize our friends with elaborate and detailed analyses of everything that went wrong, until they wish we would shut up and just keep drinking the pain away.  Far worse are the break ups where no bombs are dropped, but the other side simply disappears from the map.  No peace treaty signed, no cease fire announced.  Hell, no opening salvo fired.  Its as if they simply burrow into underground bunkers, effectively terminating communication with the outside world, and leaving the rest of the planted to wonder: “What in the hell ever happened to X?”  We wait, we send messages, but when no response is received, we have to accept that we were dumped and never told.

            The Phase Out is the most mind-boggling break up tactic, and yet (in my experience) somehow the most popular.  Perhaps it is an evolutionary holdover from when a woman just had to change caves to lose a determined suitor, or a man need only hop on a camel and take off down a foreign trade route to free himself from the talons of some vicious shrew.  Perhaps even up to the mid-1900s it was simple to evade unwanted attention by tossing out a vague explanation and disappearing into the mist: “Baby, my country needs me; I’m enlisting.”

            But the modern age has decimated the coward’s way out.  Unless you sever all human ties and live off the grid, you leave some sort of electronic footprint.  A hilted lover can leave only so many voicemails and send unreturned emails before they start seeking answers.

            Though frowned upon in polite society, we’ve all engaged in a little cyber-stalking.  We refresh Facebook status obsessively and lurk invisibly in instant messenger programs, waiting for signs that the object of our attention is active.  We react with shock and outrage when we discover we’ve been blocked or unfriended, though the weeks of sending communication into an unresponsive ether should have been the tip off that this was inevitable.  The first status update confirms that they’re not dead, they’re just ignoring us, and we weep our way back to the red wine and Rice Krispie treats.

            Will I find my Prince Charming?  Undoubtedly, though at this rate I will have to kiss my way through half of the Amphibian and Reptile House at the zoo before finding the right one.  Together we will store our matching emotional baggage under the bed to gather dust, and stretch out to sun on the white sandy beaches of Healthy Relationship, with no ominous bombers casting their shadow.  But still, on my deathbed, I will gather my children and grandchildren to my side, and tell them a story of heartbreak and woe: “It was the night of prom, and I received a text message just as I was getting home.  I ate nothing but Rice Krispies and red wine that summer.  I lost fifteen pounds, but damn I looked good.”

Ring Around the Rosie

      The complete absence of furniture in the house should have been my first tip that something was amiss.  Or, failing that, the girl curled in the kitchen cabinet sucking on a gin and juice through a crazy straw was also a good indicator that I had stumbled into an unusual situation.  Alas, I wrote both of these off as eccentricities when in fact they were klaxons alerting me to some Crazy Shit going on.

            I was blinded because he was Hot.

            My first date with The Model had been a subdued affair, coffee and conversation.  His were the too-perfect good looks that instantly thrust me into the realm of self-deficiency:  bright green eyes set in a flawlessly rich, Mediterranean skin tone, and two careful lip piercings to give just a titillating air of Bad Boy.  He was an art student, and I stumbled my way through my extremely limited knowledge of art history, non-committal nods giving way to imperceptible flashes of recognition when he mentioned an artist or style I knew only through Snapple bottle caps.  He’d mention an artist who changed his world and opened his eyes to new avenues of creative expression, and I’d sip my coffee, fixated on his artfully styled hair, painstakingly coiffed for an affected indifference.  Only his faux vintage tee, strategically distressed jeans, and crisp skater shoes belied his affected disregard for physical appearance.  I felt shamed by my own appearance, my hair not knowing the touch of a comb for years and jeans—horribly baggy and now in their fifth year of continued wear—having come straight from the rack at Target.

            I am not a romantic. Though I enjoy the occasional romantic comedy, I find I need none of the theatrics in my own life.  Flowers are sweet, and I’ll appreciate the gesture, but immediately after receiving them I’ll remember I don’t own a vase and the flowers end up in either a souvenir Houston Rodeo cup or salad dressing shaker.  I’ve never enjoyed candy, so chocolates in a clichéd heart-shaped box end up in the trash as soon as my beau walks out the door.  To make my heart flutter, a man need only crack open a domestic beer and say he wants to load up a zombie flick on the DVD player.

            Yet I resolved to flex my long-atrophied romance muscle for the second date with The Model.  He was A Catch, and I knew I had to step up my game. I suggested an outdoor screening of a silent film, complete with intimate picnic dinner.  He agreed, and I realized I had nothing with which to put together said picnic dinner.  My kitchen is atypically Spartan in terms of domestic accessories.  I have perhaps two pots, a mismatched collection of dishware, and an old potholder that has been repurposed into a dishrag.  My Martha Stewart nesting gene is noticeably deficient.

            I tried to cobble together a romantic picnic to woo my potential boy, by the task was daunting.  In hindsight, I realize that Costco is not the best source for epicurean delights.  Economical, yes.  Sensual, no.  Lacking a picnic basket, I loaded my two pounds of kiwi (“It’s an aphrodisiac,” I told myself), off-brand box of red wine, and pallet of string cheese into a plastic shopping bag.  Bag bulging, I patiently awaited The Model to whisk me away to the park and fall madly in love with me.

            He called me only after he was thirty minutes late and I’d begun to depressively gnaw on a still-fuzzy kiwi.  “He’s lost,” I rationalized, “He needs directions and called only once he realized he couldn’t find my house without help”

            “Hey dude, change of plans.” He sounded unconcerned about his tardiness.  Or his abrupt decision to derail my careful plans.

            Change of plans?  Was that valid? Can you change plans when they weren’t yours to begin with? But, my level of flexibility and understanding is directly proportional to how much the sparkle in your eyes makes my heart flutter.  I began to unpack the shopping bags.  I resolved to be optimistic.  He was Artsy and Creative; he probably had a much better plan for our second date.

            “Okay, what’s the plan?”

* * *

            Thirty minutes later found me coasting through an unfamiliar neighborhood in the suburbs of Houston.  The Model’s friends were having a house party and the invite had been extended for us to join. Though I’d hoped he would pick me up and chivalrously ferry me to the party, he was already there when he’d called to suggest the change in plans.  I ordered a gag on the logical corner of my brain demanding to acknowledge this discrepancy, but again: eyes sparkle, heart flutter.  I parked, desperately trying to distinguish each house from its clone neighbor and cursing the designer who’d decided street numbers are best when hidden like Waldo.

            When I finally found the house, tucked indistinguishably off the street, I realized I was three hours late for a party that had been going on since late afternoon.  Though guests still in attendance were remarkably few, the array of empty bottles on the counter suggested an entire fraternity had vacated only moments before.  It would have been impossible not to notice my entrance into the house, as I represented a substantial increase in the number of party-goers and I knew immediately that a subtle retreat was now impossible.

            And then there he was beside me in his Urban Outfitter graphic tee, tousled hair tucked into ironic trucker cap, taking my hand to lead me into the kitchen to meet the other guests.  Two stood in the kitchen, standing over the stove and eating cold pizza directly from the delivery box.  Another was taking a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon from a fridge stocked with nothing but cheap beer and a box of baking soda.  I was introduced to Maggie, a stocky blonde who sat cross-legged under the kitchen counter as if there was no other place than an empty cabinet that one should drink gin and juice.  The Model led me into the dining room, where a couple was enthusiastically making out on the pristine cherry hardwood floors as a disinterested girl sat watching and shoveling chips into her mouth.

            “That’s Robert and Amy,” The Model said, tapping the intertwined legs of the dry humpers with his toe.  “And this is Alyssandra.”  Alyssandra grunted in my direction, her version of a polite handshake, I assumed.  An unsettling air hung around her, as if she hadn’t bathed in a week and took it as a personal challenge to see how long she could go before anyone called it to her attention.

            Alyssandra shook an empty jar at The Model, “We’re out of fucking salsa,” she managed through a mouthful of chips.

            “I have some kiwi in my car,” I offered, unsure of the proper response. “I bought them fresh today.”  The look of such extreme revulsion skittering across her face told me this girl could only be satisfied with another jar of fucking salsa.

            As The Model headed back into the kitchen in search of salsa—a futile task, I was sure, I’d seen only liquor and pizza to this point—I lowered myself to join Alyssandra sitting on the floor.  There were no chairs or tables in the room, and a look over my shoulder confirmed that there were none in the kitchen either.  The living room had not a single couch or armchair, with only curtains hanging around the sliding glass doors.  Maybe I’d never realized that furniture was so bourgeoisie, I thought.  I wanted to show The Model I could get along with his Bohemian friends and their way of life.  A foot away, the lovers writhed and moaned.

            “Are you two dating?” she shrugged her shoulder in The Model’s direction, who I desperately wished would hurry and find the salsa.

            “This is our second date.”

            “The two of you fucked yet?” She licked salt and tortilla crumbs from her fingers.

            “We’ve only been out once.”

“Not my question, Sugar Teats.”

I shuddered involuntarily.  I am, by nature, an intensely private person, reluctant to let anyone see me naked let alone discuss the finer points of my sex life with a total stranger.  Especially when my lack of details made me look like a Victorian coquette.

I was saved by The Model, who reappeared with a bottle of beer in one hand and bag of candy in the other.  “There wasn’t any salsa,” he said.  “But I found you some Twizzlers.”  Alyssandra snatched the offering bag from his hand, accepting the substitute.  He turned those panty-dropping eyes in my direction, “Do you want to get out of here?”

I nearly leapt into his arms in a show of my unbridled enthusiasm.  “Sure, whatever you want,” I managed to return coolly.

Unfortunately, his idea of getting out of the party was literally stepping into the back yard, also conspicuously devoid of any decoration and ornamentation—minus a slightly incongruous swing set.  The swings barely held our adult mass, creaking in protest, but we sat and watched the pink glow of urban light pollution to the east.  I waited for the conversation to unfold, but the silence remained oppressive.  Surely there should be something for us to talk about?  Maybe he just wanted to be alone to make out.

“Are you having a good time?” he asked.

I scanned my memory banks for the appropriate canned response. “Yeah, your friends seem really nice.”

“I don’t really know anyone in there.  Just Maggie.”

“The girl in the cabinet?”

“Yeah, she’s fun.”

Or drunk.  Half a dozen of one, six of another.  “You don’t know that girl Alyssandra?  She seemed pretty interested in whether we were together or not,” I said.

He chuckled.  “That’s weird.  Just because I invite you to a party doesn’t necessarily mean we’re hooking up.”

I tried to not let the crushing disappointment read too obviously on my face.  “Yeah.  Crazy.”  The conversation wasn’t unfolding as I’d hoped.  If we’d stuck with the original plan, at least the movie would have filled the awkward pauses.

Alyssandra, ears apparently burning like the Hindenburg, stuck her head out of the back door.  “Hey, we’re about to play a game.  You boys want in?”

I am a fiercely competitive person.  I’ve lost friends over an evening of Cranium, and in college I once dislocated a girl’s shoulder while playing Red Rover.  Put me in a situation where there is the possibility of winning and I will abandon all scruples and sense of decorum in the quest for that sweet, sweet victory.  When Alyssandra offered up the prospect of a game, I knew I could play it one of two ways: I could dominate the game and prove to The Model that I was a prize worth keeping, or I could lay low and end the evening with my dignity in tact.  Crossing back into the house, I decided I would play to win and snag a victory kiss from The Model.  I understood this crowd, and knew that, without a doubt, we’d be playing some variation of a drinking game.  No matter.  Cajun blood runs in my veins, my people are no strangers to the drink, and I’d spent a fair share of my years in academia displaying an Olympian prowess in Beer Pong and Quarters.

Back in the dining room, a few collapsible lawn chairs had been arranged into a circle, all facing outwards.  “I don’t think I know this game,” I told my date.

The Model looked at me like he might a small child stepping off the short bus. “Don’t you see?  We’re going to play Musical Chairs!”

I hadn’t played Musical Chairs since I was at a schoolmate’s birthday party in third grade, and I’m pretty certain that even then I found it juvenile and childish.  “Oh.” At least this was a game I could win; as an adult male, I was capable of feats of strength and brutality my frail boyhood self could only dream.

I searched for an adequate follow-up, to somehow assure my date—and in no small part myself—that there was nothing I wanted to do more than play childhood party games, but the only thought racing through my brain centered on the fact that I was surrounded by a group of twenty-somethings, drunk beyond all reason, raring to play Musical Chairs.

“Come on! Let’s get started!”

From a corner I hadn’t noticed before, music began blaring.  Of course, it only made sense in a house with no furniture or decorations there should be an enormous DJ mixing table and amp system.  Something unreservedly house/trance/techno began pouring out of the speakers and The Model urged me around the circle.  He was giddy with anticipation of the music stopping and seemed physically anxious when away from the safety of a seat.  The music cut and we all rushed for a chair.  Alyssandra, bereft of a chair, sulked away, presumably to renew the hunt for some fucking salsa.

The game continued, our small band of revelers cut down to just three battling it out for two chairs: The Model, myself, and the girl who only moments ago had been writhing on a hardwood floor.  I lost the round.  I’d love to say I did it in a heroic show of chivalry, sacrificing myself so The Model could stay in the game.  But the truth is that The Model shoved me out of the way and I tumbled to the ground, splayed out on the floor in a pose reminiscent of 50% of the Lovers from earlier in the evening.  I slunk off the game floor, dusting off my bruised knees and ego.

Maggie stopped me by the kitchen. “I’m so glad you could come to my party.”

I didn’t know she was the hostess, and I found my opportunity to clarify something that had been bugging me for the past hour. “Are you just moving in?  I notice you don’t have much furniture.”

She tittered. “This isn’t my house, silly!  My mom is a real estate agent trying to sell it.  I just used her code to open the lock box on the front door.”

The party fell away, the cheering for the Musical Chair champion impossibly distant.  I am unabashedly a Good Boy, and can count on one hand the number of times I’ve ever broken a rule—though even in the counting I risk an elevated heart rate and hyperventilation.  I still remember with haunting clarity the one time my mother caught me slicing open the tape on Christmas presents with the precision and stealth of a CIA agent.  I’ve never done it since.

“So, we’re breaking and entering?” I squeaked.

She tittered.  Again.  That wasn’t an answer. I could hear police sirens in the distance.  I would be taken away in handcuffs, mug shot taken, I’d lose my job as a teacher as a result of my criminal history.  Sweat began beading on my forehead and rolling down my neck and back.  My mouth felt dry and I began planning the quickest exit in the sure event the police began beating down the door.

“Hey,” The Model was beside me now, sneaking up unnoticed like an experienced felon. “We’re going to play Twister in a second.  You in?”

“Did you know that no one lives here?” I yelped.  “That we’re here illegally?”

He laughed. “Yeah, we do this all the time.  Didn’t I tell you that?”

It was over for me.  There is only so far down the spectrum of criminal activity an eye sparkle is able to move me, especially when that sparkle is dulled by gin. “I should be going,” I told him.  A rigid Good Boy to the core, I couldn’t maneuver my body into the positions he needed on a Twister mat or in an empty cabinet.  I assuredly wasn’t flexible enough for a wrap sheet.

He didn’t miss a beat, didn’t beg me to stay, didn’t offer to come with me and finally have that picnic. “Cool.  I’ll catch you on the flip flop, dude!” And he skipped back to the gathering group to play Twister.

On my drive home, I noticed a police car in my rearview mirror.  I sat straighter in the driver’s seat, smoothed my hair, and practiced my speech for the inevitable moment when the cop pulled me over: “I’m sorry officer, I didn’t know I was breaking the law!  I would never have played Musical Chairs if I knew jail time was the only prize.  It was for a guy.  An artist.  And I don’t even like art!  Or Urban Outfitters!  Can I interest you in a kiwi?”

Freaky Feet

The world of online dating continues to fascinate me.  Granted, it no longer has the attached stigma of a few years ago, when couples would sheepishly concoct fabricated stories to hide from their friends and families that they actually met as a set of pixilated, posed portraits and series of halting email exchanges.

            “So where did you two meet?” an inquisitive mother would ask.

            Both would studiously avoid eye contact and mumble something about a bar or mutual friends.  Anything was better than “online,” which smacked of pathetic desperation.  “That’s nice,” Mom would continue.  “At least you didn’t meet your husband at an S&M ball like I did!”

            But times have a-changed, my friend.  When we now learn of a new friend’s single status, we ask which dating site they’re registered on.  When you break up with your boyfriend, friends crowd around to console you with ice cream and the increasingly more common promise to help revamp your online profile with gorgeous candid shots showing just how much fun you’re having without him.

            The gays have it a little differently.  The wonders and options of online social networking are nothing new.  Since the dawn of internet chat sites, queers have been working them to their advantage to meet new people.  But my people take it to a more primal depth.  From AOL to Grindr, if there’s a chance for sex as an eventual outcome, we’re all over it.  As long as I can remember, the internet has been the gay gateway to porn and sex.  Only recently has Farmville started taking the gays away from their hunt for cock and placed them on their own virtual plot of land.

            As a timid young college student, trolling the internet for sex was always a forbidden novelty to me.  While guys my age were whittling notches on the bedpost at a pace which would put a beaver to shame, I stuck to the shadows and waited for Mr. Right to pull me out into the light.  My parents were somehow tremendously successful in instilling a 1950’s sense of morality and shame which hobbles me to this day.

            Not that I wasn’t online.  I was, but I insisted on conversation, wit, and intelligence.  I latched onto any guy that started a conversation with anything more complex than “Horny?” or the ubiquitous “Lookin’?”  Yes, I was lookin’, but not for a quick blow in the library bathroom or no-strings sex with a guy who didn’t even know my name or major.  When I didn’t match the sexy banter, and my flirtation was limited to a winking emoticon, men moved on to find a quicker, guaranteed good time.

            As the world of online dating flourished for my straight friends, so too did it flourish for the gay community.  Though barred from certain sites which catered exclusively to the straight community, we had our niches where I was free to post a few comments about my quest for something beyond a sweaty roll in the sheets.  I had my carnal needs, true, but also the specter of Catholic guilt crouching on my shoulders.  Though there were indeed men searching for the same things as me, there were more and more men blatant about their need for sex above all else.  Even Craigslist, a site originally dedicated to apartment hunting and used furniture sales became a hotbed of hook-up activity, with men posting frank descriptions of their fetishes and phone numbers to avoid the tedium of email exchange.

            I cannot knock the world of online dating.  Two of my former relationships grew out of a connection made online.  And though they both eventually ended, for their duration they were meaningful and real.  For the online gay community, they can probably be described as success stories, lasting more than one night and not fueled by poppers and ecstasy.  Granted, no ads will be made any time soon spotlighting my online match as we celebrate our 10^th anniversary, but a nice tagline could be “Managed to celebrate a 365-Night Stand!”

            I have, however, made mistakes. For all the harsh puritanical notions drilled into my skull, I’ve had the odd moment where I’ve fallen from my moral high horse and into the gutter of baser desires. More often than not, these moments come in times of extreme stress and anxiety; dumped by a boyfriend or frozen out by a prospective new one, my answer to “Lookin’?” suddenly becomes “Yeah, why not?”

            The fat kid growing up, I’ve always had body issues plaguing my adult sense of self.  My greatest nemesis in life is the crease in my jeans waist band made when I sit down and my gut pours onto my lap.  Though I qualify as “straight skinny,” I’m two toes into “gay fat.”  There are only a few commonly accepted gay body types, and mine is not one of them.  I’m too thick to be a Twink, and no chubby/hairy enough to be a Bear.  The Holy Grail of gay bodies is the Gym Rat, the man whose daily routine includes at least two hours in the gym and crunches measured in sets of thousands.  The body, chiseled and toned, is usually hairless (though whether through genetics or Nair is left a mystery).  Men clamor for this body.  Ideally, a gay man wants to develop one of his own, but it requires too much work and commitment, so we settle for touching that of someone who has put in the work.

            Browsing though online gay personals, it’s impossible not to notice the vast majority of profile photos are of naked, headless torsos.  The men I am chatting with (should they decide to return my opening chat invite) are reduced to washboard abs, pecs, and pert little nipples.  The implication is impossible to miss: men aren’t wanted for what’s in their heads, but for what’s underneath their clothes.  It’s a virtual meat market, where we choose potential mates not on personality and dependability, but on BMI and max bench press.

            I don’t have that to offer up.  My unclothed torso will drop no jaws nor trigger salivation in admiration.  I’ve never posed scantily clad in my boudoir, or even soaking wet as I emerge from the pool in my Euro trunk swim suit.  I rarely swim, and when I do, I scurry like an exposed crustacean from the water to my towel to prevent others from seeing my jiggling flesh.  I tend to dress in clothes even the Amish would deride as being overly-conservative, and love winter fashions which allow me to hide my extra pounds under layers of sweaters and scarves.  You’re never fat in the winter—you’re jolly.

            But gay men don’t want jolly.  There’s a reason kinky, man-on-man Santa fantasies aren’t flooding the internet.  Gay men want the Adonis bodies, the ones that show a man spends an equal amount of time at the gym as he does his desk job.  And Santa’s never been on a treadmill in his life.

            Even with just a headshot I can’t win.  My neutral expression reads as severely pissed off, and smiles morph into a forced grimace.  So, paradoxically, from a distance I’m jolly, but increasingly angry and pained as you come in for the closer look.

            I have landed a few hot bodies my rare forays into the world of hooking up.  When I can keep a pair of pecs (or is it set?) talking to me beyond the initial “Sup?” or “U hung?”, they notice I have a quirky sense of humor, and maybe a spark or two of smarts.  If somewhere in the conversation I notice the guy too is funny and intelligent, all bets are off.  I’d gladly—nay, eagerly—saw off my left foot at the ankle with a rusty hacksaw to land a guy with the trifecta of hot, smart, and funny.

            But not all men are as perfect as they might seem on a computer or phone screen.  Chiseled abs can hide some very disturbing insides.

            We began talking one night as I stared up from the bottom of a very oppressive well of sexual frustration.  He was never meant to be Mr. Right, and wasn’t even supposed to be Mr. Right Now.  My initial plan had been to land another guy, the tantalizingly mythical hybrid of geek and super hot jock I’d been talking to all week.  But, like a magician’s illusions, he’d turned out to be all smoke and mirrors, leaving me to pull the rabbit out of the hat solo.  So when I received yet another “Horny?”, I could only honestly answer “Yes.”

            Though hook ups in the past had left me feeling unclean at the molecular level, my morality was forced to ride shotgun as my libido took the wheel.  Our conversation was a series of monosyllabic words arranging a meet, like apes trying to communicate the best way to navigate the New York subway.  A quick text to let a friend know where to find my dismembered corpse should I wind up missing, and I was out the door.

            The cooler winter weather was just arriving in Houston, which meant the temperature dropped thirty degrees in the twenty minutes it took to find his house based on his cryptic directions.  While the thin shirt and flip flops had been practical upon leaving, they were comical stepping out into the 50 degree night air.  With my car parked precariously ditch-side on an unlit street, I began my search for his condo in the sprawling complex.  He hadn’t given any street numbers, just vague landmarks with nonsensical directions: Enter gate 18, go left to stay straight, after four rights, go left with a slight northerly trajectory.  I wandered aimlessly around the complex, one paranoid corner of my brain waiting for the garrote to slip unexpectedly across my throat until I heard the whistle.

            It wasn’t the wolf whistle favored by construction workers to express admiration for a beautiful woman, nor was it like that used to call your faithful Labrador Retriever to your side; it was a bird call.  Three notes, repeated twice over, the signal my hook-up had chosen to let me know I was in the right spot.  A scan of the area revealed nothing, and I peered awkwardly into the shadows, willing him to emerge.  Nothing.

            The bird call again.

            I finally saw him on the darkened upstairs balcony to my left.  I started making my way to the unit and he receded back into the shadows. 

He’s already naked? I thought, figuring he was trying to avoid drawing unwanted attention to himself.  The door in front of me unlocked, but didn’t open.  I knocked timidly.  Nothing.

            Should I do the bird call? I wondered.  I knocked again.  This time the door cracked open slightly.  A bird call came from within.

            The logical part of my mind should have told me to leave, recognized this for all kinds of weird shit, thrown up a deuce and gotten the hell out.  But if Morality was riding shotgun that night, Rational Thought was hogtied in the trunk.  Plus, I was freezing and his house at least promised heat.  I stepped inside.

            Though not unattractive, I understood immediately why his profile photo prominently featured his torso and not his face.  Soon to coast over the hill into middle age, he had the look of a forlorn rabbit who’d seen a few too many freaky things his earlier days.  I extended my hand and offered my name.  He shook it and said “Nice to meet you,” but gave me no name in return.  At least he’d stopped whistling.  Slipping out of my flip flops, I followed him into the bedroom decorated in the classic style of a Motel 6.  And that’s when it started to get weird(er).

            Rather than ask if I wanted a drink, his first question was: “Are you ticklish?”  My answer that no, I wasn’t, seemed to disappoint until a small grin crept onto his face.  “So that means I can tickle you anywhere and it won’t bother you?”

            I can’t remember the last time I’ve been tickled.  Probably as a small child, and most certainly never as part of foreplay.  The concept of tickling has never been remotely erotic to me, though the Whistler seemed to feel differently.

            “Um, I guess?” More of a question, really, not a definitive statement.

            “I could tickle you all over your back and it would be okay?  I could tickle your armpits and you’d enjoy it?”

            “Well, I think ‘enjoy’ might be a very strong—and wrong—word to use in that case.”

            He didn’t hear me.  “And I could tickle your feet while we’re fucking and you’d get off on that?”

            Whoah there.  This was a man who looked like he should be filling out tax forms for the school board, but sounded like he was planning the dirtiest birthday party ever.  I started to inch my way closer to the entryway, fearing his next question would be feeling out my inclination to dress up as large furry animals and squeal for his pleasure.

            “You have big feet.”

            That I do, I can say with all honesty.  When I hit my growth spurt in high school and shot up to 6’2”, my feet exploded into size thirteens.  My flip flops are like skis on slick, tractionless surfaces.  And those flip fops were now lined up neatly by the door leading to my freedom.

            “I guess,” I said, suddenly self-conscious of my flipper feet.

            “Are your feet ticklish? It would be so hot to watch you squirm while I tickle your big feet.”

            “Again, not really ticklish.”  I left out the fact that all sensation in my feet had been destroyed by my years walking around barefoot on the searing hot sidewalks of the Middle East.  He’d just take that as a personal challenge, like the messiah come to heal the quadriplegics.

            “Can I suck your toes?  Do you want to suck mine?  Do you want to tickle my feet?”

            The answer to all three posed questions was a resounding “no,” but I simply shook my head in mute amazement.

            “What are you going to be doing with your feet while I fuck you?”

            “Well, I figured they’d just kind of be … there, you know?  I didn’t have anything special planned for them.”  His face fell as if I’d just told him there would be no pony rides at his birthday party.

            “Look,” I continued.  “I don’t think this is the best plan.  I don’t think we’re looking for the same thing tonight, which means at least one of us won’t have fun.  And I’m willing to bet that’s going to be me.  I’m just going to head out now.”

            “Can I at least slap your feet with my cock before you go?”  But my big feet were out the door before I had a chance to respond.

            Morality was waiting for me back in the driver’s seat once I clambered back into my car, while Rational Thought mean-mugged me from the backseat.  I drove home, my only stop a brief meeting with friends to get an outsider’s opinion on my freakishly large feet.  I ended the night as it began, settled into the couch with my non-ticklish fins tucked beneath me, clicking through endless online profiles, looking for the genuine Mr. Right.

           

I'm Gonna Live Forever

I’ve always been destined for greatness.  It just hasn’t happened yet.  I came the closest in middle school, when I begged my parents to sign me with a talent agent.  As a mediocre actor with absolutely no musical ability, I had no discernible talents an agent could peddle.  I starred in my fair share of school drama productions, but only because males in the department were so freakishly rare.  Ten years after the fact, I still wake in a cold sweat, sheets hobbling my ankles, as I relive (with striking clarity) my disastrous stint as Seymour in my school’s production of Little Shop of Horrors.

            Playing the part required no huge stretch of the imagination.  Slap on a fistful of hair gel, deftly curled cow lick, a pair of tortoise shell glasses, and I became the dictionary definition of nerd.  They cast me, essentially, to play a role I already played beyond convincingly in real life.  Looking the part was simple.  Acting the part, however, demanded far more courage than I held in reserve.  For an introverted social outcast, Seymour had an inordinate number of solos demanding all eyes on him.

            From the start, doubt crippled my performance.  I was a boy among men, the cast filled by both middle and high schoolers (the speaking roles generally doled out to the junior and seniors … somehow I snuck through that filter).  My body had barely begun to contemplate puberty, let alone pump my body full of deep, rich, masculine testosterone.  Unable to get through a spoken sentence without my voice cracking, I had no hope of holding a sustained sung note.

            And rhythm.  My dear lord, did I ever lack rhythm.  Step-ball-change, kick kick, sashay, tappa tappa tappa.  These terms meant nothing to me.  The choreographer learned early on to expect very little from me, and simplified my dance numbers to periodic shouts from the darkened wings: “Bryan!  Just stand still and try not to look so awkward!”

            My father, in a misguided show of paternal pride, filmed all three of the performances and screened them for anyone expressing the slightest interest.  Incidentally, not many people expressed the slightest interest.  Months earlier my family agreed to host a visiting Yale Wiffenpoof, the elite acapella group slated to perform at my school.  Unfortunately for him, his visit coincided with Little Shop’s opening to a lukewarm audience.  I returned home from the cast party to find my Technicolor humiliation shuffling across the TV for the traveling troubadour’s amusement.   Mortified, I slunk into the living room to see my pasty, pudgy self warbling off-key, a look of bemused confusion on our guest’s face.  Both my parents, bless ‘em, beamed with pride.

            “Dad!  Turn it off!”  I shrieked, my voice cracking to add unintentional emphasis to my embarrassment.  “Don’t make him watch that!”  It caused me physical pain to watch myself, and I knew someone who actually could sing was wracking his brains for some polite critique of my phenomenally unremarkable musical talent.

            “No, no,” he assured my dad.  “I’m fine.”  Fine.  The catch-all, non-committal word, underlined with an unspoken “But I sure wouldn’t have any objections to you turning this off.”

            The private screening of my own personal hell heralded the end of my stint in musical theater; my career on the great stages of Broadway died gasping its first breath, screeching a note never before heard by the human ear.  So musicals were out, but straight up acting still offered me my glittering future.

            I knew I could deliver a line convincingly.  I managed to beat out the Brazilian student for the role of Seymour only by the grace of my acting chops.  That and the fact that his spoken English sounded like a man fresh from the dentist with a mouth numbed by Novocain.  Ironically, he was cast to play the masochistic dentist.  I remained confident I could play any role thrown my way … as long as it involved no singing.

            And thus began my campaign for a talent agent.  I had no schemes to land myself in a summer blockbuster, nor did I want to make my rounds in commercials hawking snack packs or Sunny Delight.  I didn’t want power lunches with Hollywood movers and shakers, nor did I want to nosh with the glamorous elite.  I wanted one thing and one thing only: a role on Star Trek: Deep Space 9.

            If there have been any doubts up to this point about my dorkiness, let me quell them now.  I will unabashedly claim my geekdom; I revel in it.  I’ve been a Trekkie since the first time I heard the trumpet notes of the original opening theme.  I squealed with joy when I first saw the trailer for the revamped Star Trek movie, bringing no small amount of embarrassment to my date.  I am well-versed in lore and trivia.  I do indeed know the trouble with Tribbles, I can list with unquestionable authority all of Dax’s symbiotic hosts, I will stand in strong defense of Captain Janeway’s managerial capabilities, and I will always wonder why Deanna Troy ever deserved a senior position on the bridge.

            I knew with my sights set on the Deep Space 9 soundstage (a veritable tractor beam of focus and determination) nothing could stand in my way -- nothing except my parents.

            My parents rolled their eyes when I first told them of my intent to be the latest great actor delivering the opening speech at Star Trek conventions scattered in strip malls across the greater Midwest.  Even though I knew with absolute certainty that legions of adoring fans (dressed as my complex yet loveable character) would beg for both my autograph and attention, my parents remain coolly skeptical.

            “Bryan, this is a phase.”

            “Star Trek is not a phase!” I countered.  “It’s one of the longest-running franchises in television history!”

            “What happened to the dream of playing violin in Carnegie Hall?”

            “The chin rest gave me a crick in my neck.”

            “Playing back-up guitar for Belinda Carlisle?”

            “The string popped when I was tuning it; I could have been blinded!  I’m scared now.”

            “Being a vet for the Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Bailey Circus?”

            “I don’t trust elephants.  The clowns freak me out too.”

            My parents are dream crushers.

            I shelved my dreams of gallivanting across the universe.  If my parents refused to pay to have me discovered, dreaming would only spiral me further into my well of depression.  My rehearsed interview with Matt Lauer and Katie Couric would never air.  Rosie O’Donnell would never fling a Koosh ball my way and ask how it felt as the youngest cadet out of Starfleet Academy.  My star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame would go to someone else.  I would forever eek out a commoner’s existence, gazing into the stars at night, wondering “What if?”

Blessed Be

God has always eluded me.  Raised nominally Catholic, my only connection to God was an aversion to church on Sunday mornings.  But even as a kid my family didn’t attend church regularly.  In Caracas my parents were unwilling to drive across town for the only English service, and barely knew enough Spanish to say “hello” let alone understand the complexities of the local Spanish masses.  When we lived in the Middle East, there was a fairly large Catholic expat population, but it was legally barred from building a church.  To circumvent the laws, we met in our homes, living rooms transformed into sanctuaries and over-stuffed couches substituting hard-backed pews.  Even our priest, Father John, bore an uncanny resemblance to Jesus with his shaggy brown hair, Birkenstock sandals, and comfortably liberal San Fran vibe.

Every Tuesday night, homes across the compound would open wide their doors to Catholic diaspora of Qatar and we’d shuffle in under the cover of darkness.  Father John’s support staff consisted of one Filipino woman who made the communion wafers, so members of the congregation stepped in to fill other roles.  A rivalry developed between the children to see who would act as altar servers, the higher visibility positions.  Competition always reached a boiling point around Easter for the annual pageant.  I like to think the year I was cast to play Jesus lingers in the mind of the congregation like a sweet dream.

“How such a young boy was able to portray the agonizing conflict between duty and desire is astounding,” they must have thought as I was nailed to the cross.

“That is most assuredly a young man headed the priesthood.  Or show business.  Either way, he’s destined for greatness,” another might have murmured to her companion.

“Does Jesus have mascara and Sun-In highlights?” the more astute audience member would have remarked.  My love affair with the Catholic Church ended the day I could no longer wear costumes and make-up in celebration of the Lord.

As we grew up, my family went to church less and less.  Rather than that comforting point of familiarity each week, church became the occasional torture my parents would drag us to when they were feeling particularly guilty about something.  Once we moved to the heavily-Catholic Venezuela, with easy access to mass, we virtually stopped going.  My family attended church only when home for the summers and Christmas, and even then it felt like we went only because it was what was expected of us.

I began dabbling.  That’s really the only word for it.  Primed at a young age to believe in some sort of deity, there was a vacuum of faith when Catholic doctrine was removed.

In my life, I’ve met many people who have been on their own odysseys of faith, people dissatisfied with the religion of their childhood and searching for something new to fill the void.  For most, the path takes them in and out of mainstream services, tending to deposit them in either the atheist or agnostic camp.  Sometimes they wind up in the ranks of the nondenominational Christian or evangelical mega churches.  Rarely, some left-leaning suburbanite decides to dip their toe in the pool of Asian religion to lay claim to Buddhism, rarely knowing little more about the faith than what you can pick up on the back of a take-out menu.  My own wandering was atypical from the start.

My eighth grade history teacher assigned a project on the Salem witch trials.  In those days, long before the advent of Google and Wikipedia, a research project was a Herculean task weighed down by the Dewey decimal system and dusty card catalogues.  Hoping to outsmart all my classmates who would similarly be hunting down the library’s limited history of witchcraft books, I asked my dad to pick up some literature on his next trip to the States.

My father is an amazingly oblivious man; one need only look at my childhood of My Little Ponies and musical theater, and his incongruous disbelief when I eventually came out of the closet.  Many a conversation between my brother and I has centered around speculation on my father’s behavior at work.  Certainly in order to climb the corporate ladder as high as he did, he must have been intent, laser-like, at work.  To be so focused on the task at hand, ready to spring cat-like into the corporate fray must have been utterly exhausting, for my father was anything but present when he was at home.  We learned over time that speaking directly to my dad, holding sustained eye contact, was no guarantee he was listening to you.  I like to imagine that not unlike a computer, my father cycled into power reserve mode each evening as he clocked out.  He retained motor skills enough to navigate traffic home, and nod his head in general assent to what was said, but never enough to function at true capacity.  My father, it was assumed, never fully powered back until walking through the office door the next day.

            It was this cloud of oblivion that prevented my father from recognizing exactly what he handed off to me in my formative teen years.  I try to imagine the scenario of my dad in a bookstore, asking some goateed clerk for assistance.  My father, harried and haggard from a trans-Atlantic flight, shuffles into a bookstore.  He knows he wants some political or war thriller for himself, and vaguely remembers the requests of his family.  Rather than walk the aisles for the correct title, he will grab the first book with an obviously chick-lit cover for my mother, citing ignorance when it is not the right title.  He knows I have a grade riding on my request, so can’t simply grab the fist book that strikes him.

            The clerk who helps my father is either genuinely incompetent or unabashedly fucking with him.  When my dad asks for books on witchcraft, the clerk leads him to the Neo-Pagan section and hands him three primers on Wicca.  Somehow the clerk mistakes my father, dressed in a starched business suit and cowboy boots, for a freewheeling soul interested in fostering a connection with Nature and a closer relationship with the Goddess.

            Upon arriving back in the Middle East, my father hands out the books like middle-management Santa.  My mom attempts to hide her disappointment at getting the wrong book, but she will exact her passive-aggressive revenge in due time.  My father hands me my stack of Neo-Pagan lit and my passport into my awkward teen years.

            I don’t remember my final grade on the witchcraft project.  But I do know I steered that ship in a direction far different than the one envisioned by my teacher.  I poured over my new books, entranced by the primal beauty and simplicity of the faith.  I was a quick convert to the cause, ready to defend Neo-Paganism to any monotheistic bigot who refused to understand.  My project—meant to be on the 1692 trials, mind you—was a one-man show touting commune with nature, divination, and spell crafting.  I expounded on the Rule of Three, a Wiccan take on karma, admonishing my peers to be vigilant of the energy put into the Universe, for all would be returned in a multiple of three.  And, in a tangential reference to the original impetus of the project, I climbed atop my soapbox to rally a stupefied class: “Never again the Burning Times!  Fight religious intolerance!”

            I never descended to the depths so common among rebellious youth.  I never dressed in all black, nor applied heavy make-up (my days of playing Jesus long behind me).  I never allowed my hair to twist into dreads and forswear all products not naturally collected from the forest floor.  In the years I studied and practiced Wicca, it was a fiercely guarded secret kept from my parents.  My only outward show of defiance was hidden from them.  On the rare occasions they’d force me to church, I would gravely trace a Sharpie pentacle over my heart.  But even that was impermanent and hidden from view by my Sunday finery.

            Online chat rooms and Wiccan forums became my best friend, my only access to information on my new spiritual path.  Many were the nights I locked myself into the family computer room to log online and chat with Pagans scattered across the globe.  My parents, banging on the locked door, thought I’d simply discovered the joy of porn and masturbation.  Sky Dancer in Cincinnati was particularly helpful in identifying magickal herbs commonly found in the kitchen.  Wolfsbane Thunderclap of Eugene, Oregon taught me the mystical properties of the trees native to the region.  And Persephone Moonbeam showed me how to be most comfortable with my body when worshipping skyclad (read: naked).  I wish I’d held onto Persephone’s contact information as the years marched on; rather than grow more comfortable with my body, I’ve developed habits to avoid nudity at all costs—I’m mere months away from showering in slacks and a sweater.

            A teenager trapped in a foreign country, my access to the Neo-Pagan community was markedly limited.  Not only was I unable to sip a nice honey mead in the forest after a long night Calling Down the Moon, I had no learned coven to take me into their arms and show me the ways of The Craft.  All of the books my father brought me praised the value of the solitary practitioner, the witch unable/unwilling to find a group with whom to work.  Suddenly, I had a title for my loner status; I wasn’t the ridiculed outcast from mainstream faith, I was a Solitary Practitioner developing my personal connection with the universe without the interference of some heavy-handed middle man in a robe.

            I set about securing the necessities for individual worship, a slightly difficult task considering it was all done in secret and done without the benefit of the occult shops dotting American major cities.

            Candles were a cinch.  Raid the cupboard for Mom’s dinner party tapers, play dumb when questions get asked, and the deal is done.  Other tools were slightly more difficult to procure.  As a religion that relies heavily on masculine and feminine imagery, my altar (which most would call “a desk” when not draped with my cheap swatch of stars and planets fabric) needed to be adorned with both and athame and a chalice.  Anyone with passing knowledge of The Da Vinci Code will recognize the knife and cup as intensely sexual images, especially when one is thrust inside the other.

            But I had no way to get my hands on a ceremonial blade.  I could scroll through websites, oohing and ahhing over the craftsmanship and heavily bedazzled hilt of some knife sold out of someone’s garage in Missouri.  The blurb underneath the picture always promised the blade to have been forged in the fires of Mordor, in the flowing lava of Aunaloa’pekeekee, or tempered in the fiery exhalations of a Welsh dragon.  Though the prospect of such a potent blade of mystical origins made my heart race, I couldn’t afford the price tag attached to each knife.  Nor could I quite get over the thought that it was virtually impossible for one man in middle America to own dozens of athames of supernatural origin; more than likely this was a weapons-buff with a welding shop and an idea of how to make a little extra cash in the Renaissance Festival off-season.

            I faced a similar stumbling block when it came to finding the perfect ceremonial chalice.  My options were plentiful, from one guaranteed to have been given by the Lady of the Lake to King Arthur, to the Holy Grail itself (a steal at only $249.99).  I could choose from simple polished metal cups, ones hewn from a solid chunk of driftwood, to a classy ornate affair with dragonflies bracing a cup crawling with other jeweled insects.  I just couldn’t afford any of them.  And try as I might, I couldn’t convince my parents to buy one for me for Yule (which I would call “Christmas” when talking to my Christian overlords).

            “Wait, run that by me one more time.  You want a what?” my mother asked.

            “A dragon-stemmed, hammered gold chalice,” I said matter-of-factly.

            “For Christmas you want a cup?”

            “A chalice, yes.”

            “A chalice, of course.  And why exactly do you need a $300 chalice?”

            This is where I faltered.  Where to begin in convincing my mother that I needed this?  How to explain the significance, the symbolic uterus representative of sustaining life?  Would my mother ever appreciate the beauty of the exquisitely sculpted, (synthetic) ruby-eyed dragons supporting the vessel hand-crafted by blind gnomes living in seclusion in the Chilean Alps?  No.  Not a chance in Hell.

            “Well,” I continued, “Sometimes I just want to feel fancy at the dinner table.

            My mother leveled a cool stare in my direction.  “You can be plenty fancy with the cups we already have in this house.”

            And so I had to rummage through our kitchen drawers.  To my particle board desk/altar I added a pilfered Ginsu knife and plastic cup tossed from a Mardi Gras parade float.  I reasoned so long as intent was spiritual, outward appearance was irrelevant.  And this train of thought led me to litter my altar with an eclectic collection of seashells, incense burners, and action figures serving unconventional duty as idols; my altar looked more and more like a garage sale with every piece of crap I laid out on it.

            Every witch needs a cauldron, a fact any elementary school child can tell you.  From Macbeth to The Wizard of Oz, we’ve had the image of hook-nosed crone stooped over a bubbling iron pot seared into our collective imagination.  The cauldron is, in fact, a common tool of the witch and as a solitary practitioner I was now tasked with finding one for myself.  My mother’s gumbo pot, while the ideal addition to my growing flea market, would have been too easily missed.  I had to set my eyes on something smaller, moving out of the ransacked kitchen and into the rarely-visited formal sitting room.

            An easily overlooked potpourri holder became my target cauldron.  My mother picked up this little pewter accent piece when we lived in Indonesia, where our pewter home décor increased exponentially.  Pewter candlestick holders, animal figurines, soon-to-be-cauldrons, my mother hoarded every knick-knack she could find.  These pieces glinted sunlight in nearly every room of our house, and for this reason were one to suddenly go missing, it was highly unlikely my mother would notice.

            I snuck the pocket size potpourri dish out of the living room under the cover of darkness, a whispered prayer to Hecate (goddess of magic and witchcraft) the only sound as I padded across the rug.  Tossing the potpourri in the trash would have given me away the next time my mother tossed something out, so I had no choice but to destroy the aromatic evidence.  With my parents asleep one night, I christened my mini-cauldron by igniting the potpourri as it sat on my altar.  Though the room freshening properties of potpourri are well-known, very few seem to know of its high flammability and suitability for use as kindling.  Instantaneously the entire cauldron was ablaze, flames leaping dangerously high with an eerie whumph, licking eagerly at my ceiling.  With no sort of insulation coating the holder, I began to worry nervously about the melting point of pewter.  The sides glowed an ominous orange, and I seriously began contemplating how best to mitigate the damage certain to be caused when molten pewter began running down the side of my desk and onto the laminate floor.  In addition to being remarkably flammable, potpourri is also strikingly slow-burning.  Minutes passed and the flames betrayed no sign of dying down.  I waited anxiously for the fire to burn to embers, but the fire seemed to feed on itself and burned with a frightening intensity.

            As logical thought fled my mind in a panic, I risked my fingertips and picked up the searing pot.  I scuttled to the open window, planning to shake the flaming flower petals into the waiting night.  Yowling in pain, the scent of charred flesh wafted up to join the powerful smell of burnt potpourri already looming oppressively in my bedroom.  I flung wide the window and waved the burning potpourri pot into the air, watching the flames dance into the night, carried burning away into the darkness.

            I spent the remainder of the night with my fingers submerged in an ice bath, soothing the blistered tips.  I briefly debated a life of crime, knowing now that my fingerprints were irreparably damaged, yet I knew deep within that the Goddess would frown upon my potential life of crime.

            The next day, as my mother stepped into my bedroom to deliver folded laundry, her nostrils flared.  “It smells like a bonfire in here” she remarked.  I shrugged noncommittally, my swollen, scarlet fingers absently tracing my freshly applied marker pentacle tattoo resting beneath my t-shirt.  As my mom handed me my crisply folded boxers, her eyes drifted toward my altar, now stripped of ceremonial cloth and adornments. 

She paused.  “Was that scorch mark always there?”