My ex-boyfriend and I agreed to stop seeing each other last Spring. We officially call it quits during the rainy part of the season—before springtide washes everything vibrant. When it’s grey and mercurial in Los Angeles the expensive cost of living starts to make less sense. I lose all mine trying to make mourning bright, like sunlight, I struggle to shine on foggy May mornings. Summer slowly arrives. As slow as the stingy cool breeze that cuts through the wet heat of my studio apartment. At last, I feel relief.
June always brings me a sense of pride. Rainbows, parades, twins, day parties, and sweaty t-shirts is what I think of when I think of June. I feel an intrigue, or rather, an urgency to dip a toe in the dating pool. With just the tip in a newfound sense of self-esteem, I come a hour from Long Beach to explore West Hollywood’s (affirmatively shorthanded as We-Ho) Outloud Festival. The Outloud Fest. is We-Ho’s Coachella dupe: the saturation of cowboy hats, the heat and an influx of gays and girls. The festival sits right in the heart of We-Ho so all nearby streets are closed off and several stages are built in a local park. Performances from either queer icons or iconic LGBTQIA+ allies run throughout the day. Gay men cruise openly in the street. Bar trash cans overflow. Religious extremists protest with signs that read “JESUS SAVES”, while simultaneously, through a bullhorn they condemn me to hell. Somehow, still, I feel at peace. There’s a unique sense of liberation walking around a mass public gathering alone. Surrounded by strangers, yet, shielded in community.
I walk down the road going from booth to booth, but notice one of the non-profit organizers eye-fucking me with a Rocket Pop on his blue tongue, of course. I take the bait and take a bite of his push-pop because it’s hot and two tall whiskey Moscow Mules will make me lose any inhibition. He tells me to meet him back at the tent in a couple hours when he’s off. When I return, he’s with a slightly cuter friend and now we’re a trio. I got the sense that both of them wanted me in the same way. It made me feel empowered. Knowing I was an object of desire—something to be fought over—a prize to be won and I am OK with it. My beauty and my body embraced by not one, but two men suggest to me I have both; I have something worth fighting for. I kiss the cute friend in the port-a-potty we share for the sake of time. “Wanna make out,” I say “yes” so clumsily his lips feel more like rubber than flesh. Finished, we stand still staring drunkenly at our piss streams as they cross into a single river. I guess he was the winner.
This theme of being stuck between two men continues throughout the summer. I find myself back on the apps talking to multiple guys at one time, the attention is addictive. It is easy to get through a stale work day as I hop from one conversation to the next. My chances at finding a real connection seem slim, so I settle for round-a-bout discussions on origin stories mixed-in with average hookups. No matter, “I’m an explorer,” is what I tell myself to justify any regrettable decision. Honestly, I knew I was simply avoidant of being alone. I also know it is what I need the most, but when I met him I chose to see it as just another adventure.
For the sake of anonymity I’ll refer to him as Roman. He’s not a demon, and I’m not a barb I swear, but he is an empire. Cultured. Stable. Powerful. His heart so enormous I can see it beat, beat, beat outside his chest. Roman and I have the rapport of a single soul split in half. We are beyond familiar. We are twins. Together we forge a flame. I trust Roman almost instantly, spending days that turn into nights at his place without any shame. Usually, in a case like this, I’d say I was being too clingy, but Rome is my habit, my home. We take turns lying on each other’s chest. I feel my strongest, now, at my most vulnerable. My hardest, soft.
At the same time, I began another ~relationship~ with L.J. In truth, we aren’t particularly remarkable together. We have different tastes in movies and music. Always circle different options when choosing where to eat, it is like dating my perfect opposite. The one thing we can agree on is how we like to kiss. For hours at a time we just embrace each other’s lips, but not say much or anything at all. After some days, I feel the imprint of his tongue left on mine and text him as I lick my lips. No sex is ever had, but I come back for more again and again. The passion between us keeps me warm in ways Roman cannot. If Roman is my twin flame, then L.J. is pure gasoline. I couldn’t help it, selfishly, I saved them both as places to hide when I no longer had the patience to sit in solitude. “I need to explore,” I exclaim, but at this point, I have turned full colonizer. In search of new land to disembark on, to discover and to inevitably destroy.
Going through old journals, I found an entry I penned during that time:
August 26th, Saturday
I’m so attracted to flames, and maybe a little pain. I know, I know this already sounds insane, but stay here, with me. I just don’t have it in me, the heat, so I crave warmth from the strongest fires to cure the cold. I feel stiff and old at the end of the day; passion purges me clean the break brings me meek and I surrender to solitude. Love has robbed me youth.
Journal Entry #1
I’m dating two boys right now. I like them both.
I’m being really greedy, yet fair. I don’t text or think about the other one when I’m with [ Roman ]. That was true until it wasn’t— it became a broken rule after Roman kissed me and kissed me again, but he was only on my lips; my mind travelled elsewhere. I contemplated how [ L.J ] would excite me to the marrow, my cells ring when he plants his flesh on mine. I haven’t been the most honest with either of them, and I haven’t lied. I want them both to feel special. Unfortunately, this is the most dull I’ve ever felt in a while. I fear my love language is just attention glazed adoration. It can also be my affliction. Despite my usual practice of wanting to be at the center from the corner seat on the first row. As I tip-toe into the spotlight I re-consider “now everyone can see me?” And I retreat physically, while mentally fantasizing how warm a spotlight must feel. Instead I receive heat from the meat of men. Their lips, hips and dick glide on mine bringing it to a rise with us meeting at the peak of passion. Passion. Pleasure. I find purpose in a person who compliments my character not aware I’m showing them who I ought to be. Not aware this is a show and I am the creator, the actor and they give me audience, in return, I feed them pieces of me. I don’t think about Roman when I’m kissing L.J., I only wonder if he’s (L.J.) gonna reach for the rest of me. I want him too. But Roman, I want him too.
Over the weekend I spent time in the dessert depot Cathedral City, a Palm Springs adjacent town mixed with veteran homosexuals and heterosexual war vets alike, where I learned a new kind of religion. One of the younger, yet seasoned, gays Jamie begins to spew stories of wild Miami party scenes filled with Calvin Klein models, Prince’s nightclub, and inevitable hedonism. Although, he says, “I’m much calmer now, a lot more tame—thanks to Chad,”. Chad being his husband with whom he shares a three story home, a new puppy, a pool and a jacuzzi. Chad also shares his husband with another guy, his husband’s boyfriend. Jamie makes the point that homosexual relationships already defy traditionalism so why bother with it at all. “Desire is never going to go away, men are going to be men,” he insists. I nod along, but I’m not so convinced. Jamie met his boyfriend, also married, via an introduction from Chad. But the new addition did little to shake the foundation the two have forged over time, “I love Chad, he’s my home. I also love my boyfriend, but not like my husband. If he left me that’d be it, I wouldn’t marry again,” he finishes as Chad’s arrival ushers in a more exciting topic: carne asada tacos for dinner.
Man loves man. Man loves man loving men. Man and man love, loving men. I nodded along, but I’m still not convinced. Would I really have to endure my later years potentially caught between two men—again? Could a traditional monogamous relationship be as elusive as Jamie said? I’m more than sick to my stomach at the thought of my longtime partner taking a lover. I’m also 20-something and selfish and not absolved of all insecurity. Currently, I can confess, the only men I’m caught between is the one I see in the mirror and the man I imagine in the future. My hope is that I can be to myself what Chad is to Jamie, what Roman was to me—a home.