Sam

Sam asked me who I had loved the most and I told him, “I’m not touching that.” We were both tipsy, edging towards drunk, after getting rained in by a flash thunderstorm.

“Aww, why not, are you too afraid of a real conversation?””I came here to unwind after a stressful week, not rehash the many failures of my past.””And you’re still a little bitter?” He nudged me playfully, opening another White Claw and taking a dramatic gulp.”Maybe,” I replied, and it was true. I had never broken things off with any of the men I dated. They always ended things first. I suppose, in that way, I never truly got over any of them. At least that’s what my therapist said.

“The Redhead,” I said. “He was probably the best at sex. Though we only did it once.””I don’t think you can logically make that claim.””Why not?””Quantity over quality—or something like that.” He laid back on the couch, face up at the ceiling to keep his head from spinning. “One sexual encounter is easy. Anyone can do it well. You’ve got the passion from the start, the anticipation, the awkwardness of learning each other’s likes and dislikes. You’re grading on a curve. Everything seems good.”

It was hard to argue with his logic, though that might have been my mental state at the time. “Fair,” I said. “But he had a great body and that was when I was thin and men could still pick me up and toss me across the room.”

“And you liked that?””Who wouldn’t?””Perhaps someone with any sense of self-confidence.””Ah, well, I wouldn’t know anything about that.””Wasn’t he the one with the messy room?””Oh yeah. He lived in a studio apartment with supplement bottles and half-finished protein shakes everywhere. He did that thing that men do when they don’t know how to decorate: shoved his bed against the wall.””It’s always the messy ones that know how to have sex.””If you see a mattress on the ground with trash around it, you know you’re in for the time of your life.”

The Teacher, the Boy, the Blonde, the Man, the Redhead. Each name offered up in silent prayer: the pantheon of my love and longing, nestled high atop some modern-day Olympus. I convinced myself it had to be this way: silent longing and miracles divined from everyday occurrences. Truthfully, the Gods of old spoke little to humans; their ethereal senses tuned to other matters. I was an afterthought of their brilliance, something divinely touched but incapable of surviving in the majesty of their palace.

At least that’s what I told myself.

“The Boy was the worst at it,” I said. “But we were new to each other and to sex and to sex with a man. We fumbled around, had no idea of where we wanted to be or what positions we wanted to be in.””Huh, I never had those days.” He said.”You always knew you were a top?””No, I wouldn’t go that far. I did flirt around as a bottom for a while—in college. But, the first time I had someone to guide me. Someone who had been there before walked me through the steps it took and held my hand when things were strange.”

I miss them all in different ways. The Boy the least of all. Each one prayed to, would offer a boon: confidence from the Redhead, accountability from the Man, security from the Teacher, humility from the Blonde, patience from the Boy. In times of strife, I offered up my lamentation to the Gods, hopeful they could hear me and take pity.

We lay on the floor, listening to Rugged Country by Japanese Breakfast, letting the room twist around us. I ask him if he wants to sleep with me and he politely declines.

Still, we share the bed: he curled up next to me, me to him.