I Was Never, Ever Good Enough For Him Part 2

This is Part 2. Part 1 is here.

His name is Josh or John. I can't hear and his breath is so nasty that I don't want to ask him to repeat ANYTHING for clarity. We dance. I have 6 moves.

Crayyyy-zzzzzyyyy.

He's entranced by me. He's paying attention to me. The boys in junior high gym class never did. I am winning. Finally, someone is paying attention. Fuck, yeah they are! I'm 172 pounds and wearing stretchy pink fabric.

I got that sump-in what can he do?

I'm smiling. I'm drunk. I'm dancing. He leans in to kiss me with that moldy cheesebreath. His Jew-ish nose hits mine and I back away. I'll make out with him, sure. Fine. I'm only a week from having been a fucking child-abused heifer with a Skinemax addiction. I just need a second to fantasize about someone else, like Harrison Ford circa Empire Strikes Back or William Katt from Greatest American Hero. Then I can make out with anyone, maybe even a girl.

He squints his eyes and frowns noticing my pause. "You don't want to kiss me," he asks. "Really?"

"Huh?" I say, guilty, embarassed, guilty again. "No, I like you." I say. I lie.

I'm a SLAAAAAAAVVVE For You.

He grabs me my by stomach. Uh, what happens now. This is weird. Should I laugh? He looks like a vulture now. Angry, but smiling, about to eat a dead snake. There are fat deposits and loose skin from my weight loss that have not gone away. He feels them. I feel him feeling it. I cringe.

"I wouldn't wear a form fitting shirt to a club with a body like this."he says as he squeezes the rolls of my past.

"I just lost 100 pounds, so there's a little..."

"Dude, you are so out of my league anyway." He lifts up my shirt and flaps at my skin on the dance floor, and shakes his head. Gaysians everywhere look at me. I feel myself cry and I hope, like a rape victim that he'll feel bad and let go of me, and walk away, and find someone tougher than me. Tears and hiccups fill my face. It's probably because I'm drunk. It's probably because I'm guilty. I resisted someones affection. I leave, and I drive home to Sacramento, across the bay bridge totally drunk and defeated. It's the most unsafe thing I've ever done, allowing a boy to define my worth by comparing it to his own.

Jew-ish John/Josh lives in LA now. I see him sometimes at the grocery store and the gym and even at a bar once in a while. But mostly, I see him in the mirror, everyday since that night six years ago. And when I see him I don't think about his cheesebreath, I think about how he told me the truth about where I fit in the single world, the gay world, in his drunken, "how-dare-you-not-fuck-me" world, and I scramble to find some way to make everyone love me so that I can prove him wrong.

Yesterday I saw him at Trader Joes. I panicked. Is my shirt loose enough? Do I look fat? Can he tell I just went through a horrendous break up? Do I look like the used goods that I feel like? Am I just a walking fucking Lifetime movie or worse, am I Ruby? Do I look like RUBY? He cruised me and then asked me if he knew me from somewhere. I lied and said I didn't know. We chatted for a few minutes and laughed about croutons (I can make anyone laugh about carbs). Then he asked if he could have my number.

It would be so nice to right this wrong, to show him that I'm great--better, skinnier, more toned then that night at Badlands. That after my break-up I have a certain Whitney quality about me, that I'm fresh, that I'll slap you on the head with a cell phone if you spit on me. I would be so nice to feel sexy again, to feel like someone wanted me and just me and my jokes and my face and my calves, you know, the good parts. But it would also be nice to stop chasing the man that I was never, ever good enough for--and who smelled like moldy cow.

I smiled and said, "That's really nice. But, no thanks."

He didn't yell at me. I paid. I got in the elevator, and I heard the end of the megamix.

My loneliness ain't killin' me no more.