To Make Love With Your Eyes Closed Read online

  There’s another silent gap. This one even more awkward before.

  “Do you know what?” You say. I look into your eyes. You are so fucked. Beyond fucked. It’s quite amusing seeing you drunk actually.

  “What?” I say nervously.

  “I just feel like you and I haven’t really bonded.”

  I agree, but in my head.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like, I feel like I have gotten along really well with everyone else but you and I just aren’t there yet. I don’t know what that is, or why.”

  “I, don’t know, but I kind of know what you mean though.”

  It’s actually because you’re a dick that’s what it is.

  “Well, as long as we are, umm, cool.”

  I laugh nervously.

  “I don’t know, I just somehow was under the impression that you didn’t like me.”

  I look at the floor.

  “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know, just how you act differently around me, I guess.”

  “What gave you that impression?” You sound genuinely surprised. I start to feel stupid.

  “I don’t know, that’s just how I feel.”

  “Well, if that’s how you feel I’m sorry, but that isn’t my intention at all.”

  My flourishing anger dissipates as I look into your apologetic eyes. How can I remain angry at someone so beautiful? I tell you that I forgive you and you look up with a small smile. A mild one, a smile that didn’t seem to take much effort but at the same time, powerful enough to destroy my sanity and my self control, throttling it into the abyss. I feel my throat dry and my hands moisten. I want to collapse.

  I look into your eyes for maybe a moment, but the possibly the longest moment in the history of time. I’m mesmerised by your eyes. Then you lean in to me. Like gravity has pulled us in together. I lean in to you too. I have no idea what I’m doing. What the fuck am I doing ?!

  I lose control of my senses. I lose control of my body. Our faces are centimetres apart. Our eyes close. Our lips touch. And that was it.

  The universe paused. It’s fucking cheesy but that is what happened. Time stood still. I was electrocuted by lightning and every inch of my life felt like it made sense. My entire body tingled. I was filled with the most alien feeling on the planet.

  I liked you. It all made sense now. I had liked you all along. It must have been the sexual tension. It had driven me mad, it made me hate you, and in this moment of realisation my feelings were now completely out of my control. I am filled with confusion. Horrible, horrible confusion. Five minutes ago I hated you with a passion and now I have feelings for you? As the angst and sexual tension vanished I was filled with a new feeling. One that feel so good, but also oh so wrong.

  We separated from each other. And then you looked at me, realising what you had done. You look at me with disgust and I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. Bob and Rory suddenly emerge from the toilets. You cough and turn away from me. You tell Bob that you have to leave, immediately and that is the last we see of you tonight. Rory looks at me really confused but just shrugs. He obviously had no idea that what just happened, could have really happened.

  I try to enjoy the next couple of songs on the dance floor but I just couldn’t fake it. I told Rory that I wanted to go home because I’m tired. He doesn’t question it too much. I usually do this. We get a cab back to our own homes.

  I can’t sleep.

  I don’t know if what I’m feeling is true satisfaction and happiness because of the incredible moment I just shared with you, or if I am secretly clued in to the fact that what is about to happen to me is going to emotionally ruin me.

  8

  I don’t know what made me decide not to clue in the other workers about what happened last night. Looking back it was definitely a good idea though. I’m happy I didn’t publicly ridicule you. I wanted to give you a chance to explain what happened. I was in the best mood the next day. Which is dumb. Because I know of your situation I was pretty confident that what happened was just a drunken mistake. I didn’t care though. You kissed me. There was no logical explanation for it. You found yourself attracted to me in that moment in time and I became irresistible. When I woke up this morning and looked in the mirror I couldn’t see it. I didn’t understand what you saw that was so attractive in me. But I didn’t care. I still feel a little insecure. You are a total ten and I, a four.

  The whole bus ride into work was torture. What was usually a twenty minute journey seemed to feel like a lifetime. My head wouldn’t calm down. I couldn’t get over how I felt. I couldn’t imagine how you and I were going to approach each other today. I hopped off the bus.

  I thought, “shit, I hope you’re not in today.”

  I mentally prepare myself for your face with each step I take towards O’Byrne’s. No amount of thinking is going to calm me down though. I am so full of nerves. I feel sick. I feel like I am no longer in control of the way that I am walking or, even, the way I raise an arm or twitch a leg. I feel small, puny, weak. I feel hollow, transparent, and vulnerable.

  I push through the closed door. The bar feels small, cold, musty. Aaron emerges from the back area. The raging sound of the angry dishwasher flourishes across the silence in the bar. He nods to me and yells out “hey.”

  I nod back and follow with a weaker word that sort of resembles a “hey”. I haven’t really dealt with the effect of the alcohol by this stage because my head is far more intensively trying to purge its thoughts of you. You are the toxicity in my blood, not the alcohol. I resume my station and begin my work as I usually do. You aren’t in today. I don’t really know if you are supposed to be or not. I don’t tend to check your shifts seeing as I was so convinced that I truly disliked you. In time I think, if anything, I would probably start to check when you’re on just as mental notes to prepare myself for that day or to avoid you completely.

  Byron didn’t come in on this day either. It made me finding it having something else to focus my mind on difficult.

  Aaron spent most of that shift in the office. It was a quiet shift, those ones always seem to drag on, but this one was even worse for me.

  Then changeover comes, and you walk through the door. Time stands still, again. I take a deep breath in. I am ready to be abused or attacked, or something. I don’t know why, maybe I was to blame for what happened and you wouldn’t be okay with people knowing that you had initiated it. You don’t look me in the eye, not that I expect you to. You spit a hello at me, really quickly and then race out of the room. I take another deep breath in. I don’t want to be a stereotypical gay man and try and draw this out of you in the most humiliating way possible. I don’t want to throw myself at you, but at the same time, I can’t take the physical torture of you ignoring me. and in time pretending that nothing has happened between us.

  The surprising thing is that I’m not the one who finds the courage to end this though. It’s you. I am just about to end my shift and leave the bar without saying a word when you drag me aside and tell me very firmly that “we need to talk.”

  I panic, but try to look like I am not.

  How on earth could I be expected to act normal right now though?

  You seemed serious in your expression. Deep down I wouldn’t believe you could be feeling any good way about this scenario. I follow you out into the alleyway. You bang close the door.

  “Did you tell anyone about last night?” You say.

  “No, no, I-” I lose my train of thought.

  “Good, because I know that we both know what that was, it was an accident, it was stupid, it was a mistake, it was…” You continue to ramble on.

  My sense of sound fades out. I can’t hear anything but the sound of the blood rushing through my ears. I am taking note of your hand actions and the worried look on your face. I hear parts of what you’re saying.

  “… girlfriend … drunk … mistake … not gay…”

  I’m a little hurt. It’s not your fault t
hough. You didn’t mean to bait me.

  I look down at the ground. I want to believe that this is nothing. I look back up into your blue eyes. You honestly believe that this was a mistake and meant nothing, I can see that. You’ve convinced yourself that you didn’t want to do what you did. But no one does something like that accidentally. A straight man can not just openly kiss another gay man by accident and then act insecure about it afterwards without it meaning something. This would have been so different if we were playing truth or dare and you had just shaken it off. But you’re so upset about this.

  Why do I care? This is a fucked up mess.

  I should just trust your intent and let you go. Your snake eyes will mean nothing but danger to me. You wrap up the conversation with that same worried look on your face. I smile and laugh and tell you that you’re out of your mind and have nothing to worry about. That it meant nothing to me to and it’s not awkward for me at all. I doubt that you would believe that though, I don’t sound very convincing. We head back inside after a quick slap across the back. I stumble back to the bus. I’m not really thinking about much at all, for once in my life. I’m still carrying around that little ego boost you gave me last night. You’ve convinced yourself it’s nothing, whatever. It did mean something to me though, but whatever, I’m happy for you no matter what road you choose to go down from this point onward.

  I go outside and wait in the torrential rain for the bus to swing by. It’s so strong this afternoon that it’s drenched the outside, furry parts, of my coat and I can barely hear my music. I barely felt the vibration of my phone either. But when it registered with me, my heart dropped. I tear out my phone from my pocket, thinking, hoping that maybe it’s you. I flick the switch at the top.

  It’s Duncan. Of course it’s Duncan. He’s here to kick me while I’m down. I slide across his name and enter my passcode.

  “Hey Gerry :-) What’s been happening?”

  Part of me gets really angry and wants to tell him to fuck off, permanently, but the other half of me is picking up the shattered pieces of my self esteem and is looking for any escape route from this torrential depression.

  I have really strong feelings for Duncan. I’m not forcing myself to talk to him out of desperation. I feel very confused. It’s just starting to sink in. I mean, my feelings for you are only just starting to sink in too, but also, the idea that I now have feelings for two different men, that’s sinking in too. I type up a quick reply.

  “Hey Duncan!” (forced enthusiasm despite my current mood) “I’m good thank you. How have you been? Haven’t heard from you in a while.” I figure that short quick messages tend to give the reader a signal to get lost, so if you expand out your sentences a little more it displays that you’re interested. He doesn’t text back straight away, he never does.

  I’m on the bus, soaking wet, listening to Passenger.

  The girl next to me has her headphones in but seems to have the music coming out of the speaker on the phone. I’m really confused. I think about letting her know, but there’s absolutely no way she can’t already be aware of this. Is there? She looks like the type of Dublin girl that might smack me in the gob if I give her a word she doesn’t like too, so I choose to leave it. I choose to listen to what feels like Sam Smith’s entire catalogue collection until I’m home. As I walk through my front door and light up a drag, Duncan texts me back. He asks me out tomorrow night. I don’t have any plans, heck, I don’t even have work. I text back a cool, “yeah, that sounds good.” I don’t want to sound neither too interested nor too disinterested. He sends back a smiley face.

  Now I’ve got myself really interested in meeting up with him. I hope he doesn’t bail.

  9

  Duncan asks me to meet him on Grafton Street. I wait there alone, in the dark and in the cold. In the rain. I feel like tonight, there’s a strong possibility of a thunderstorm. I hide under the small perch where Vodafone is. I scroll through Facebook, attempting to look busy to the untrained eye. I spot Duncan walking down the street. I can immediately tell that it’s him by the way he walks with his feet, flapping his legs about like he’s walking with flippers on. I don’t know what to expect in our greeting, a hug? a handshake? a kiss? nothing? He comes towards me first, or so that is how it feels, and slaps an arm around me. A hug is a nice touch. I sense a bit of nerves in the way he greets me. I think I sound nervous too. I’m very self conscious around Duncan. I think that everyone feels that way around the people they like. We go for a slow stroll together. It’s nice we’re walking slow. I think about how that means we are both really enjoying each other’s companies.

  “So,” he says, “any ideas for dinner?”

  “Starbucks?”

  Duncan laughs. I wasn’t joking.

  “I’m thinking Brazen Head.”

  “Oh yeah, definitely sounds good!”

  I mentally prepare myself for a long walk in the rain.

  “How’s work?”

  “It’s alright, I’m really happy there, still. But I’m starting to get itchy feet, well, a little.”

  By starting, I mean that I just began worrying about a few minutes ago. I do love my job but I’m just starting to get to the stage where I want more.

  “Ahh that’s good.”

  “And you?”

  “Can’t complain, I spend most of my afternoons in the office daydreaming about being back in Barcelona or Mykonos though haha.”

  Duncan works as a contractor. That’s all I can probably really tell you about what he does. I don’t really understand even what a contractor is, at all.

  Duncan travelled around Europe about a month before I did, around the third quarter of last year. It gave us a lot in common to talk about.

  “I know exactly what you mean!” I say with a laugh. “It’s so easy to be swept away in daydreams of exotic places when the weather is like this.”

  “Yer, can’t miss the Irish weather. I’m actually considering going on a working holiday next year to somewhere in Europe, experience something new, meet some cool new people, all that kind of stuff.”

  I feel a little jealous inside, not because I want to go to whichever fantasy destination he’s thinking about travelling to, but because I don’t want him to go. I don’t show this though, I don’t own him, hell I’m not even dating him. Technically.

  “Wow, that’s a great idea.” I raise a hand to the clouds as they thunder above. “And you won’t miss this either haha.”

  We engage in small talk for what feels like the entire walk to the pub. It develops a little as we talk about spiritual things and travelling. What I like about Duncan is that he shares the same beliefs as me. We get along really well because he gets me. He believes in new age things like the balance of nature, fate, the power of crystals, psychics etc. You’d think a lot of gay men would really be into a lot of that shit but it turns out, as soon as they realise a fundamental part of New Age belief is founded on Jesus and God they turn away. They don’t understand. They’re frightened by the homophobic nature of the loudest religious organisations. But people never test the waters to see how being spiritual and being religious are two completely different relationships.

  It’s one of my core beliefs that people, as spiritual beings, are made up of energy and this energy vibrates at a specific frequency. It can be raised or lowered depending on it’s reaction with other energy systems, such as people, or by the moods that we put ourselves into. By being in a positive mood you are raising your energy output and as a result raising the energy of people around you. Additionally, the specific frequency that the energy in our souls vibrate at can work really well with the frequency of another. This is how we find ourselves magnetised towards certain people following as little a thing as a conversation, a handshake, or even just eye contact. Chemistry cannot be forced, and it cannot be denied.

  That’s what I have with Duncan. Our connection is easy, but, our relationship isn’t. If I wasn’t so stubborn and didn’t have my heart set on saving this m
an, then maybe I would have the strength to walk away. Any normal person on the street would tell me that the person that you’re supposed to be with should want to be with you just as much, it should always be a 50/50 in relationships. I’ve heard that line all the time, I know what it means, I usually judge people who don’t walk away, but when you get it into your head that the man standing before you is your soulmate and just needs a bit of convincing, you send yourself down a dark and confusing street that is lit only with dark and beating orange bulbs that barely illuminate the pavement below.

  We’re at dinner. There is an awkward silence after we’ve picked out our meals and are waiting for the food to come out. I sit with a Heineken, Duncan sits with a Guinness. I can’t stand Guinness, I think it tastes absolutely awful. I can see the way he’s sliding his hand up and down the glass nervously. He’s never really been able to be comfortable around me. I wonder whether that’s because he likes me too much, or not at all and hasn’t realised it yet.

  “So,” he says, “have you been going out a lot recently?”

  I immediately return my thoughts to the other night, oh God, you, I had partially forgotten all about that headache for this evening. Why did Duncan of all people have to bring you up again? I swallow in deep, I don’t have the courage in my heart to even mention that any of that night actually happened.

  “No, I haven’t really been out-out for a while now. Have you?”

  I suddenly feel a massive gorge of distance between the two of us. I hate lying. It’s one of the things that I hate the most in this world, and I’ve just gone and done it to one of my favourite people in the world.

  “No, not really. We should go out together, would be fun.”

  He looks down nervously, afraid of rejection and the implementation it would have on this conversation I suppose. I don’t understand why he’s so insecure, he’s so fucking beautiful, I wish he opened up to me more. Our conversations are usually so basic, but it’s okay because he get’s me.