I kissed Michael S. tonight. I haven't kissed him since I graduated from college. But I only kiss him when it matters. And I don't kiss him in a romantic way. It's not like that.
Tonight, I was talking to him - while he tended bar near my apartment - about our collective past. And, from that, he thought I was sweet.
He is sweet. And he loves me and still thinks me beautiful.
But time has changed Michael and me. And it hasn't. I'll always love him more than he loves me. And he'll always "get" me.
And apparently, I'll still kiss him when the moment's right.
My college life, in fact, ended with a kiss to Michael S. Drama students out for a night of drinking were standing there watching us that night in Boneshaker's and told him to go ahead and kiss me. Because he'd told me that I could have whatever and whomever I wanted. And, in response, I worked myself up and gave him a soliloquy about how it wasn't true because he knew I wanted him and couldn't have him. I was at my most kissable during that speech. The actors watching me deliver it just STARED at me.
That was the last time we kissed before tonight. That one and this one were both friendly. But they both meant something.
I'm repeating myself and not explaining enough.
Tonight, I was talking to him about seeing myself for who I am. How I'm completely different. And uniquely remarkable. And how we all are.
But let me give you the immediate context of the kiss. I'd been drinking scotch, and I'd just read him a speech that I'd written on notecards about how he made me feel during college and how he still makes me feel. He makes me feel like a kid. Seeing Michael makes me want my chance with him - since he slept with everyone else, married everyone else, regarded everyone else. But he's not hunky. And he's not unapproachable. And it's not that he didn't love me. And it's not that we couldn't have then. And it's not that we almost didn't then.
Sometimes I like to think that I'm special because I'm the one he didn't sleep with. Because I still love him. And he still loves me. But we don't talk on the phone.
It's a long story. Me and Michael S.
It's my book actually. It's my story of coming out. It's my story of first falling in love. It's my story of really falling in love after thinking I did the first time. And it's my story about the fires. The one I set. The ones set by other people.
Tonight I talked about Jerry. And Robbie. And those years. And how Michael hurt me, even though he loved me and never promised me anything. It's difficult to not be the only one not asked to dance.
Beyond that, I talked about who we are now. And how he makes me feel like a shy kid when I see him even now. He's surprised that I come to realizations he's been trying to teach me about myself for years.
Instead of hearing him when he first tried to teach me my own worth years ago, I remember him undressing in front of me in his parents' house, preparing for a night out bowling. I remember the conversation we had in the dressing room at Gap in North Point Mall and how people were just staring at us while I spoke to him and he was changing pants.
It's weird, I guess, that he loves me and knows me, and I sometimes can't see it because I'm too ridiculously caught up in lusting for him and not thinking myself worthy. But that's how it was then.
Tonight I reminded him of the weeknight he called me at 1 a.m. back in 1997 and rushed to my dorm room to read me a column he'd written about me. He'd written a column about how strong I was, how capable I was. (It actually dealt with all people with disabilities and how Michael found their perserverence remarkable. But he dedicated it to me.) He showed up in my dorm room one night to read me something he'd written mentioning how great he thought I was, something I wasn't ready to hear. But he read it. And he'd written me a note at the end of it telling me just how much he cared for me. Maybe he meant to love me that night. There was a charge, a vibe.
I still remember what he wrote me at the end of that column.
"Never forget that you have true strength. Thank you for showing and reminding me. Love, Michael."
Thinking back on his old columns, I remember when he used to give me backrubs in my newspaper office. My friend Erin saw one of them and asked me how long we'd been dating, not believing me when I told him we weren't. When Michael and I wrote a Point-Counterpoint debate for the newspaper, as well, the connection between us, in my head at least, gelled. (My column, for posterity's sake, was better than his.)
Tonight I also reminded him of the Valentine's Day dinner we had together. How we watched "The Lion in Winter" while I gave him a back rub that became something more than friendly when I urged him out of his clothes and studied his body with my hands for hours. Hours I spent in wonder that I was there - and that I was showing restraint - until Michael fell asleep, completely relaxed. I kissed him on the back of the neck, then whispered to him that I didn't think I could go much longer without kissing him more, kissing him deeper and kissing him elsewhere. So Michael, half awake while wearing underwear and glistening with oil on Valentine's Day, pulled out the side bed, and I slept there.
I'm the one who didn't have sex with Michael. And I'm still the one who didn't have sex with Michael. It defines me and makes me special. Or stupid. Or naive. Or the one he wasn't attracted to.
But we get each other.
His first husband - because Michael doesn't date so much as marry for a couple years - was one of my exes. His second husband was one of my exes. His third husband was someone I flirted with and kissed on a couple occasions. (Luckily, I have no ties to his current husband, though he is a nice guy.)
And now I think I liked all of them and only really loved Michael. Why is that?
I went to that bar tonight to say hello.
I didn't even know tonight that I wanted to tell him these things, and I ended up kissing him. He had hugged me. A couple times. Once while talking about Robbie. But another time because I said something nice. They were lingering, eye-contact hugs based upon understanding, love, survival and history.
And I was ready to walk away, but I thought there'd been a moment where I could've kissed him and missed it. So I went back, put my hands on his face and pulled him to me, kissing him. A friendly, reciprocated one.
"We only do that when it matters," I said to him. And I walked away.
Ours is a love story. And it's not.
But I can pitch it better than this. You've heard love stories before, and this one's different. Not because it's gay. Not because it's true. Not because it's about a couple marginal, bizarre crimes that are no longer relevant.
This one's just different.
I confess this all to you because I've been drinking, partly, and because I've always wanted to tell this story to someone.
People can learn from the fires. People can learn from what happened to my friend Jerry. And, I guess, what happened to me and the others in relation.
The story of the UGA hate-crime fires in 1998, if I ever tell it because I know all about it and it's my story to tell, begins not when I met Jerry.
It begins the moment I first saw Michael S.
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