Encounters: The Explorer

 At the end, as I ran the tip of my fingers through my lashes and listened to the rain, something moved inside of me and welled up. I looked at his silhouette in the dark, the orange glow of the street light against a backdrop of deep blues, the sun was about to rise, and his face livid, as if a ghost had spooked him. I should have asked him to put the dvd on after all. 

My parents had decided to go on a trip last minute. My sister then went on to her boyfriend's house and I was alone at home. The first hours of being alone after having been forcefully surrounded by people are always very interesting and exciting. I was enjoying the cold weather, the silence, the very sweet tea I had poured myself. I read a book for a while and fell asleep. 

By the time I woke up, there was a stillness in the air. I checked my phone to see if anybody had tried to reach me to do something. Nothing. I checked my social network accounts for a while, but the world seemed to have kept going even though I wasn't there to watch or take part. I lay in bed looking at the light shaft on the corner slowly fading away as the sun set. 

I must have fallen asleep and woken up again. The computer left on, a page of a dating website open. On my profile I had pictures that, in hindsight, were very "risqué". 

When talking about youth, people never seem to tell you that there's an unquenchable thirst for attention and validation, we look to anchor our unstable self on other people's view of us, but we shouldn't always seek to quench that thirst and I hadn't been told that either. 

Before then, I used to talk to a guy some thirty years older than me and he gave me a jolt of self confidence when he said my texts were genius and I was special. I didn't care then that, in spite of supposedly finding my texts amazing, he wanted more pictures of me, rather than more texts. I felt like someone was proud of what I was capable of doing and happy that it sufficed, that I had nothing to tweak to please him. That relationship went on for a while, and I used to think he knew exactly what to say to make me feel validated. Who was even Kafka when I had already started writing? You're just ahead, he used to say. Before asking for more pictures. 

It was already 11pm when a guy, about ten years older than me, sent me a message on my profile. "I like your pictures, would you like to meet?". He had that look of someone who is standing on a solid foundation, someone you can cling to and be safe. Maybe I thought I knew what I'd get from him, he'd tell me I was great, like the older guy I talked to and distract me from the corrosive feeling of irrelevance that came with being left alone. 

He said he'd pick me up at the bus stop close to my house. I left and walked towards the bus stop. It was 2 in the morning. There was a moist cold breeze I gulped in and found that helped me feel alive. I was excited for a few minutes, then I started getting anxious that he'd find issue with my voice, my appearance, my height. And then I decided he wasn't even going to show up. It was half 2, I texted him saying I was going back home and as I got up to walk back home, feeling deflated, a car pulled up next to me. 

- I'm here! 

The window came down, he was nearly 2 metres tall and some grey hair seemed to be slowly coming out of his temples and beard in contrast with the dark hair around. I got in the car and immediately felt self conscious. I realised I probably wasn't as attractive as he thought I would be and also that we had barely talked. 

- It's going to rain. He said. 

I intended to say it wouldn't be a problem because we were heading to his home, instead I put my hand on his thigh and said "yes" mechanically. 

He looked at me, looked at my hand on his thigh, adjusted himself on the seat and kept driving. 

I closed my eyes and tilted my head back. I could feel the rough denim on my hands and for a second the idea flashed in my head that he might stab me on the back during sex. At this stage he would be already thinking that I'm a weirdo, but I felt like I needed to be in the dark and kept my eyes closed.

I took my time opening my eyes again and, when I did, we had just about arrived. 

I squeezed past another car parked in his garage and right behind me, he had his palm on my back guiding me through the dark. We got in through what seemed like a back entrance with a small sitting room. There was a small sofa with a blanket on, a few DVDs on a coffee table and a bucket of popcorn. 

All I wanted to do is to go somewhere dark, I thought if he had too much time to look at me, he'd realise I wasn't exactly as handsome as he was and I wasn't strong enough to deal with being rejected by a stranger on a rainy night. I suddenly felt so vulnerable, I actually looked forward to the prospect of being stabbed in the back. 

He asked me if I would like to watch a dvd or if I wanted to go straight to the bedroom with him. 

"We can go to the bedroom if that's okay with you."

His DVDs were mostly of live concerts and I didn't know any of the singers, which I thought would make for a very awkward attempt of a romantic evening if I didn't like the music and he didn't like me, but were both too lonely to drop it. 

In the bedroom, with the lights off, he stripped down to his underwear and pulled me towards him, kissing me. My neck was getting sore from looking up, so I reached his underwear with my hands and holding him by the dick, slowly walked backwards so we could get to the bed. 

I don't know what that did to him, but as I sat on the bed, he turned his back, walked a few steps away and grabbed his own hair with both hands, as if he was in a state of deep confusion . 

I asked if everything was OK and he turned back, walked again towards me, held my chin up and got his semi hard penis down my throat. 

After a while, we were in bed and every move I made to get him inside me was evaded. I wonder if he had, even in the dark, come to the realization that I was way uglier than what he expected. (I could easily rephrase that nowadays to say that he fit a beauty standard that I didn't) Or if he was just not going to penetrate someone he was, in my head, about to stab. 

I knew about gouinage but he hadn't mentioned anything of the sort, he also had condoms on a bedside table, it couldn't be that. 

 I can't remember exactly how we got to that stage, but I remember he was spooning me, I was moving my hips, he was rubbing his beard on my neck and whispered in my ears: 

 

- Boy, I'm trying not to, but you're gonna make me cum. 

- Why trying not to? 

I could feel my back soaking up and hear him groaning as his lips touched my earlobes. 

We stayed there, lying in bed next to each other, in silence. The rain started to hit the window. What do we do now? I wondered. 

I turned to him and could see that he seemed to be very introspective, his eyes fixed in the ceiling. 

- What's wrong? Is everything OK? 

- Yes, it's just... 

- What's going on? 

- We shouldn't have done this. 

- Why? 

I thought I might as well get ready for the knife blow. 

- I'm married. 

Straight through me. I didn't know how to react, so I started picking my lashes off. I thought of saying it was OK, but I honestly had no idea if it was. 

For a good 5 minutes we were in silence, then I could hear him cry. 

At the end, as I ran the tip of my fingers through my lashes and listened to the rain, something moved inside of me and welled up too. 

We both had tears in our eyes, two islands that failed to connect.

I looked at his silhouette in the dark, the orange glow of the street light against a backdrop of deep blues, the sun was about to rise, and his face livid, as if a ghost had spooked him. I should have asked him to put the dvd on after all.

(Illustration by Ninn Salaün)