More Boy Talk

Without wasting a beat, Jonathan smiled. “What an experience you are having there.” He continued nibbling at a bagel not even looking at me, not, as they say, batting an eyelash.

For his calm, nonchalant response, I wanted to wrap my arms around him and never let him go, never leave from that spot, to sit there always in the sun, with him close beside me. I probably could have, we were in New York, not Uzbekistan; public displays of affection would not subject me to a damaged reputation, social ostracism, possible arrest. New York was amazing in that way -- I didn't have to be afraid. And while the feeling of safety was comforting, I held back -- realizing that I was changed a bit, I was more restrained and though I would sometimes have those bursts of extreme emotions, they'd subsided somewhat, evened out -- my disposition had become like those quiet Tashkent mornings with the sun beaming brightly but not yet as aggressively as it would in the afternoon. In a very intellectual, perhaps spiritual way, I loved Jonathan and couldn't imagine ever being apart from him, and I even imagined that it would be possible one day that we might want to be together, of course, if we didn't drive one another crazy with our nonsense, with these crazy meaningless relationships that drove us mad and didn't fulfill us and ultimately drove us to one another for consolation, like this chat on a parkbench at lunch.

I felt his consoling hand on my shoulder and imagined that he knew exactly what I would say, without my needing to say a word. I imagined that he could understand that whereas my life overseas was interesting, exciting, and with a fair share of absurdity, much of my days were spent hours on end sitting alone out of place in this strange country, surrounded by people that I felt very unlike.

To break the solemnity, he did his best impression of a non-jewish man trying to sound jewish. "Oy, who is this Natasha?" I wanted to tell him all the jokes I new about Natashas, like the one about the Russian man who is told that he has a terminal disease that can only be cured by sleeping with a virgin. I wanted to tell him how in Turkey, Natasha is synonymous with prostitute.

“She's Yulia,” I said. “I'm not sure I really know why I’m with her. I guess it's something to do.” I suddenly thought about how complete and utter an exile I had put myself into in this respect. On the other hand, the sex was astoundingly good -- and I told this to Jonathan. "It is like she’s got me trapped in some kind of a sex spell.”

“Are you really straight” he said jokingly. "How would you do on the butt test?" I remembered the proverbial, hypothetical butt test -- the way to tell if someone was gay or straight: if confronted with both a man's butt and a woman's butt, which one would they lick, if they had to choose.

“I'm gay, definitely gay. I think it’s good that I’m back for a bit – maybe here I can get a bit of perspective. Facts are that she’s very attractive, I mean, in the way I'd imagine the way a rock-star's girlfriend would look. The sex is great – which, throughly shocked me when it first happened. So, strangely, my interest in her is purely physical, not emotional, intellectual, nor spiritual. I mean, I’m just like an ordinary horny straight man in that respect, all about pussy...of all things."

I told Jonathan about all my doubts, my concerns that being away for so long had made me get too accustomed to compromising, in the same way as I had grown used to living much more simply in terms of material comforts, in the same way I would be happy to get home in Tashkent and to find that the hot water is working, or that the water works at all, that perhaps I was too accommodating, too accepting of my fate, had given up too quickly to wait until I found a good man out there. Yulia was like a convenient and maybe temporary band-aid solution – I could be in public with her, I can be with her, though I find her company less and less pleasant, and I enjoy the sex. But the larger question remained, "Have I gone too far in terms of adapting and accommodating to expatriate life?"

Jonathan looked at his watch. “I have to go back to the office, but I hope that while you’re back you get your dicked sucked," he said as if that was all that it took to bring me back to the fold. I gave him a playful slap. Maybe there was something to that. On the one hand, I didn't care to have my dick sucked, never got much pleasure from it. On the other hand, Yulia's enthusiasm and ability could not compare to the much vaunted abilities of gay men. However, women were coming up with all kinds of innovative new strategies for giving head -- and there was a whole industry of women's magazines devoting reams of copy to teaching women how to give head like a gay man. I read in one some tips recommending women hum a little tune while giving head, to add a little vibration to the effect. I'd never thought of that one myself, but it seemed in theory like a good idea. I wondered, did Russian women have such magazines? I had no idea. And what tune would you hum?

Jonathan and I walked past a newspaper kiosk and I thought to maybe pick up a Cosmopolitan magazine for Yulia, who probably at this time was wondering about my abrupt disappearance. But her English wasn't nearly good enough to read a Cosmopolitan. And besides, there was no future for us anyway.  ¶ 6:48 PM