there was something insistent about his apartment even if it was a relatively relaxed 1 ½ bedroom - if you have the heart to believe that description - studio squeezed right smack in the middle of things manhattan.
everything he owned, the satiny sheen of the g4 apple computer, his gleaming shimano mountain bike he plastered against the spine of his door, all these seemed to demand attention.
and right above his surprisingly characterless couch was a full size poster of the long dead doors front man, his lithe torso bare, his arms flung open like a christ with a habit.
it was not his, he immediately made excuses, as soon as we got into his apartment, for the jim morrison poster which he labeled incongruous for his space. it belonged to his former boyfriend, he claimed.
his building, like him, was unexceptional to look at, shepherded right where other similar squat buildings sprouted maybe back in the 50’s in the east side of mid manhattan. but everything in it, in his apartment, seemed to urgently claim my attention. like him, as well. inside his apartment.
unlike when he first sought me out in the bar, inside his apartment, he looked lacking not in clarity and distinctness. his nose, which i thought before as slightly insubstantial, seemed to command a very dominant berth in his narrow and very sparse face.
and when i first hesitated going to his bed, he just stared at me with his green eyes, almost the hue of a wet snake skin. and all i remember saying to myself after he looked at me was i know what i'm doing and i could get used to this.
when i got up after to put on my clothes, he was asking things like shall i be again. be what? i feigned incomprehension.
to calm down the tempest which i was certain he could read in my face, i skimmed over his apartment once more.
a striped button down hanging for dear life like a limp scarecrow in his closet door. his drop leaf desk, the one with his computer, raging with the clutter of well thumbed books and magazines and some torn envelopes.
i went to his bathroom and stared at his medicine cabinet bursting with half empty cologne bottles and skin tonics. the lowest rung was splashed with drops of an undistinguished lotion - or is it liniment? - of a surprisingly sweet yellow shade. and i remember thinking i could come back here and restore order to all these.
i spurned his intention to embrace me before i hurried off. he asked me again his stupid question. will you be again? i remember nodding and it felt, scarily, like a habit already.