Countries of Origin

by Javier Fuentes

We sat down on a freezing bench and admired the massive globe sculpture against the blue sky, its continents connected by concentric steel bars.

Talking about something that cannot be fixed is a waste of time.

Unwilling to accept the passing of time, these now middle-aged men were still wearing the same flashy clothes that had once heightened their youthful beauty but now exposed their used-up bodies. As I kept dancing, I said to myself I would never become the older guy who didn’t know when to stop.

I hated being so vengeful, my desire to hurt him also part frustration for falling in love with guys whose idea of loyalty included a weekly visit to the bathhouse.

My brain was soaked in wine.

I didn’t mind the emotional blackmail; quite the opposite. I loved feeling wanted.

Up until now, I had considered myself to have two countries of origin, and the notion that I could always establish myself in my other homeland had reinforced the belief that I was inhabiting the space voluntarily. That was no longer the case.

Shutting the door behind me, I stared at the room. The turquoise spread that had been so neatly laid over the queen-sized bed when we first entered was now on the floor crumpled into a ball. The room had a smell. A musty smell that told the story of the night. I walked up to the window, parted the curtains, and opened the door to the balcony. A fresh sea breeze quickly erased the traces of our stale selves.

“I told you about how I had sex for money five hours into meeting you, not because I wanted to play a game. I wanted to show you how I am, how broken I sometimes feel. I thought you, of all people, would understand given what you’ve gone through. But you’re like every other fucking gay I know, obsessed with meeting the perfect person, a person that only exists in your imagination.”

I was beginning to accept that being next to him, even when he was deep asleep, made me more complete. I looked out the window and smiled at the thought that a little over a month ago, I had been the one passed out in the back of a car. I couldn’t help but wonder if he had done the same. If he had also taken advantage of that moment to act on how he truly felt. If he had caressed my head all the way home.

Despite my attraction to him, I still felt that, if I had to choose, I would rather become an unconditional friend and not another person to fuck.

It occurred to me that this moment of raw and painful intimacy was the closest we had been to making love, the moment we had revealed our most vulnerable selves.

The city was so silent, it seemed like we were the last two people on the planet. For the first time, I wondered if I had been wrong all along, if I should have pursued the only person I had ever had a real but inexplicable connection with. If I had missed my chance.

I ordered my tears to stay put, but tears don’t follow orders.

Death, I remembered from when my mother passed, had the otherworldly ability to reorganize the world around you.

sometimes life gives you what you want but never the version you have in your head.

I regretted my lack of courage, how long it had taken me to get over my hang-ups, my inability to act. Summer was already a version of us that only existed within the confines of our memories.

I thought again about how life sometimes gives you what you want but never the way you expect it.