by Chase Connor
“Yes.”
“Here.” Peter reached into his back pocket, extracting his wallet. “Let me give you—”
“I can buy two cups of coffee,” I said gently. “You are going to wait here?”
Peter returned his wallet to his back pocket jerkily, his eyes avoiding mine as well.
“I need a moment.” He said, a wry chuckle escaping his lips as he adjusted his stance. “Maybe you should go alone so that we aren’t so close to each other for a few minutes?”
“Okay.”
Without looking at Peter, I turned, my eyes still on the concrete beneath my feet, and began my journey across the street. I had wanted to tell Peter that my body would undoubtedly miss his in the few minutes that I would be gone. The words were swallowed down to join the fluttering in my stomach as I crossed the street, which was usually much busier. Traffic wasn’t nearly half as bad as it usually was due to the late hour. Soon we would be in that odd hour where people were starting to drift towards bed, yet it wasn’t quite late enough to seem untoward to be walking about the city. Regardless of the hour, I did not care how unseemly it would be if someone found me walking hand in hand with a stranger along the city sidewalks. Peter could have asked me to walk until exhaustion overtook us, and we fell in heaps wherever we gave out. Or, if he had asked it of me, I would have gotten into a car and gone to the United States with him, such was his pull over me.
As I entered the shop down the street, rubbing my hands together to simulate the warmth of Peter’s breath, I found myself ambivalent about Peter. Simultaneously, I wanted to tell Peter how enamored I had become with him in the space of a few hours, but also tell him that this was the strangest situation I had ever found myself in during my short lifetime. I did not have dinner or tour the city with strange men from foreign countries. Never once had I felt drawn to bring my body close to a stranger’s, to want to feel any part of them touch any part of me.
Surely, Peter thought that I had been deceitful in the things I had been saying all night. He had given me a coat. He had paid for dinner and offered to pay for coffee. Peter surely must have thought that I was a male prostitute—a gigolo who was poor at his job but was still employed in the profession nonetheless. My dress was poor, I was young, I had no discernable gainful employment, and I had too readily accepted kindness from a handsome foreigner. Peter could not have been kind enough to accept the truths that I had told him at face value. As I asked for two coffees, black, and waited to pay, I realized that I would have to reiterate to Peter that I was not trying to have sex with him for money. Though, I found myself thinking about how sex with Peter would not be out of the question if he wished it. The thought did nothing to stop the fluttering in my lower parts.
What is wrong with you, Enzo?
In my twenty years of life up until that point, I had never considered actually having sex with anyone, let alone a stranger I had just met. Even boys in school that I found attractive did not have the pull required to make me consider doing such things with them. Why was I suddenly so enamored with someone I knew so little about? Yes, Peter was attractive. Yes, Peter was kind. He was charming and funny and generous. But he was a stranger. My body, especially the lower half, ached as I thought of Peter waiting outside of the basilica for me. Thinking of his lips forming an “O” and blowing warm air across my hands made me flush. Up until that point in my life, I had never known what the term “sensual” had meant. Peter’s mouth so close to my hands, warming them, then the flutter of his lips against my knuckles affected me in a way that nothing else ever had. When I had paid for the coffee, and I was carrying one in each hand out of the diner, my hands warmed by their heat, all I could think of was Peter’s breath. The thought continued to do things to my body.
I have never been ashamed of my body. Though I have always been tall and thin—lanky and gangly—my body has always more than served its purpose. Walking across the street, trying—and failing—to hide my shame at what the thought of Peter was doing to my lower parts, was torturous. One can only walk so awkwardly for so long in an attempt to hide such a thing before the attempt itself draws attention to what it is trying to conceal. As I approached the curb on the other side of the street from the basilica, I looked up and found that Peter was lying on the sidewalk in front of Notre-Dame. With a horrified gasp, I clutched the coffees tightly in my hands and dashed across the street. Panic-stricken, I raced to Peter’s side, looking down at him, wondering what had happened to make him fall in front of the basilica. It had been bitterly windy, but not icy. Had there been a puddle?
“You know,” Peter said as I slid to a stop next to him and hunched over to look at him. “When you look at it from this view, I can almost believe in Heaven. It’s like the towers are reaching towards God himself.”
“What?” I gasped, still horrified that Peter had fallen. “Are you okay? Did you fall?”
“I laid down,” Peter said, smiling up at me as he pulled his hands up to place them under his head. “I thought it might look even prettier from here.”
“You did not fall?”
“No.” Peter grinned wickedly. “I just thought I’d lay here and see if this angle is even prettier. It is.”
“You—you laid down on the sidewalk to see the basilica differently?”
“Yes.” Peter’s grin grew. “Have you ever tried it? Looking at things from a different angle?”
Staring down at Peter, I remembered the coffees in my hands. Peter was grinning up at me, so I jiggled the cups at him sheepishly.
“I got the coffees.”
“I see that.” Peter nodded. “Set them down. Lay down and look at the basilica with me.”
“What?”
“Lay down and see what I’m seeing. See it from a different angle. Please.”
Looking around, I found that a few cars were still traveling Notre-Dame Street West, but the foot traffic was nearly nonexistent. The shop down the street had been empty of everyone except the employees, so no one was staring out of the windows, eating and wondering what was wrong with the guy sprawled out on the sidewalk in front of the basilica. Chewing at my lip, I glanced around sheepishly as Peter grinned up at me, enjoying my ambivalence in trying out this activity with him. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to lie next to someone so handsome and stare up at the beauty of the basilica, but years of making myself small so as to draw less attention to myself made me fearful of the activity. Finally, with a deep sigh, I knelt down and set the coffees down on the sidewalk above Peter’s head. He smiled as I positioned myself, lowering my body to lie beside him.
As I shimmied my body into place next to him, he pulled one hand out from under his head to grab mine. I smiled to myself as I gripped his hand back and placed my other hand under my head to cushion it. Then I looked up so that I could finally see whatever Peter saw when he looked up at the basilica from his place on the sidewalk.
He had been right. Looking up at the basilica while lying on the sidewalk was a totally different experience than standing before it. When I would stand on the sidewalk and stare at the basilica, it was just a stone building with beautiful windows and jutting towers. On the sidewalk, staring up into the infinity of space and stars—what few could be seen through the light pollution—I felt like the basilica was reaching up to Heaven. All I could see before me was the building and the universe beyond. The buildings nearby, the light poles, street signs, cars…everything faded away, and I was left with Heaven and the basilica. Peter squeezed my hand.
“It’s beautiful.” I exhaled.
“Told you.” Peter sighed, his thumb rubbing along the back of my hand. “I knew it would be prettier from this angle.”
“Do you think the people who built it thought of this?” I asked.
It was a dumb question, but one I would have loved to have answered for me.
“I hope so.” He replied. “I’d hate to think that they went to all this trouble and didn’t bother seeing it from its best angle. Can you imagine anythin
g more tragic than building something so beautiful but never actually seeing its true beauty?”
“That would be awful.”
Peter merely nodded.
“Now I am sad.”
“Don’t be sad, Enzo.” Peter turned his head to smile at me, drawing my eyes from the universe and over to him. “If they didn’t see it from this view when they had the chance, they’re seeing it from one we’ll have to wait a long time to see for ourselves. At least they have that.”
“You are…why are you so wonderful?”
“I’m usually not like this.”
“How are you usually?”
“Morose.”
“Morose?”
“Gloomy.”
“I do not believe you.” I smiled.
“Do you want to sit up and drink coffee?” He asked.
Nodding, Peter reluctantly let my hand slide from his as he sat up and turned to me, pulling his legs into the lotus position. I mimicked his movements. Reaching out, I grabbed one of the coffees and handed it to him, which he quickly cupped with both hands. Then I grabbed my coffee and used it to warm my hands as well. The fresh, hot coffee inside was easily felt through the paper cup that held it, which my chilled hands very much appreciated.
“I’m not like this, you know.” He said. “I’m usually very sullen and gloomy. I don’t like people, and I do everything I can to avoid having discussions with strangers.”
“I still do not believe you.”
“I’m married to my work because I don’t have any faith in other human beings left,” Peter added, ignoring my statement. “I like to be alone. I don’t like compromise or negotiations. I don’t like to worry about whether or not other people are happy with the way I lead my day to day life. Having to worry about relationships where part of the responsibility for making them work falls on me is absolutely excruciating. People do not want to be happy because that is when they are most miserable. People need conflict to feel alive. I don’t like that, Enzo. I don’t like people who are searching out the next struggle, the thing that will make them feel alive. I just like being alive. I like being with my thoughts. Alone.”
“Then, why are we here?”
Peter turned his head, looking at the basilica, his head leaning back in an attempt to see it from our previous positions on the sidewalk.
“I don’t think you’re looking for your next struggle.”
“No,” I said. “I am not.”
“I think you’re looking to get rid of a few.”
Nothing I could have said would have made Peter’s statement more perfectly clear or accurate, so I brought my coffee to my lips and sipped it. The hot, black liquid warmed my lips and tongue, slid down my throat, warming my soul. It was strong. I loved coffee.
“I don’t try to pick up strange men…anywhere.” Peter continued. “I don’t sleep around or make getting laid my life’s mission. I want you to know that. I need you to know that, actually.”
“Why?”
“Because I like you.”
“I like you, too.” I agreed. “I do not do those things either. I never have…”
Peter stared at me for a moment, then nodded, not requiring that I say that thing out loud. Again, he was secure in allowing me my dignity.
“I find it hard to believe that other guys don’t chase you down.” He grinned, finally bringing his coffee to his lips.
“Why?”
“I was lying when I said you were handsome, Enzo.”
A frown immediately came to my face.
“Handsome isn’t a strong enough word. Gorgeous, maybe? You’re, uh, sexy.”
My frown disappeared and was replaced with rosy cheeks and a smile I tried to hide by dipping my chin to my chest.
“I don’t know why I am acting this way with you.” He sighed. “But it is what it is. You make me feel exuberant. And you’re gorgeous.”
“Thank you,” I mumbled. “I think you are gorgeous, too.”
“Thank you.”
“Is this ridiculous?” I asked. “Two strangers saying such things to each other? It is like we have been caught up in some magic spell.”
“I don’t believe in magic.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would keep me from admitting what I know to be unequivocally true.” He said. “I struck up a conversation with you because I wanted to. I invited you to dinner because I love your company. I’m sitting on this cold concrete drinking coffee with you because there is nowhere else I’d rather be in the entire world right now. Because I knew that you were put in my path for a good reason. This isn’t a magic spell. It’s kismet.”
“Kismet?”
“Fate.”
Laughing was not what I had intended, but I found myself laughing at such a proclamation from Peter. My head was thrown back, my eyes shut tightly, as I brayed at such a ridiculous, though sweet, thought. Peter was far too level-headed to subscribe to something such as fate. It was also ridiculous for a stranger to tell another stranger that fate had brought them together. Peter didn’t get angry at my laughter but instead smiled at my amusement.
“Do you really believe that?” I asked once I had my laughter under control.
“Ask your God.” He nodded up at the basilica. “While we’re here and you have the chance to do so.”
“Do you think that God would agree with you? Or do you think he would also think that this is too charming even for you?”
“I think God would tell you that there’s no harm in believing.”
There was really no response to that statement that I felt would be a sound argument. God definitely would suggest a leap of faith.
“So, it is fate.” I agreed. “We were destined to meet at the Autumn festival. Now what? What happens after Fate has had its way with us?”
“That’s the thing about Fate, right?” Peter leaned in with a wicked grin. “It sets you up and then just fucks off to bother someone else. It never really sticks around to tell you what you’re supposed to do next.”
I laughed loudly at this.
“Fate intervenes, but never ever sees things through. Fate is kind of the biggest deadbeat in the entire universe.” He added.
“I suppose we have to be glad if it ever shows up then?”
“Exactly.” Peter’s eyes lit up, nodding along. “How tragic would it be if we were to ignore Fate? It only pops up to get things going. It’s not coming back. Who are we to tell Fate to try some other time when things are more convenient?”
“I think we should spend the night together,” I stated suddenly, unaware that I was going to say anything, let alone that. “I mean…what I mean to say…is that we would be reckless if we did not use this night to spend as much time with each other as possible.”
Peter’s face split with a grin, his eyes still sparkling.
“This is my only night left in Montreal,” Peter said. “I would hate to spit in Fate’s eye and not use every moment I have getting to know you, Enzo.”
“I would—I would like to know everything about you, too.”
“Then,” Peter held his coffee cup out for me to tap mine against, which I did, “I think we should christen this as our first date. Would that be okay with you?”
My cheeks were warm again as I pulled my coffee cup back.
“That would be okay,” I said. “It would be wonderful.”
“I’ve never been on a date with a guy so gorgeous. Or young.” He teased, bringing his coffee to his lips.
“I have never been on a date.”
“Never?”
“No.”
Silence overtook us as we both sipped our coffee, warming ourselves as best we could with the rapidly cooling drink. Peter just stared at me, though it was not awkward or uncomfortable. He merely seemed to be studying my face, as though he wanted to memorize every line since he would likely never see it after that night. So, I stared back, taking in the planes and angles of his handsome face. His fashionable swoop of red hair, the fre
ckles along the bridge of his nose, the way his jaw was chiseled and masculine without being severe. I hoped, as my eyes danced around his face, that he found my looks as pleasing as I found his, though I wasn’t sure if Peter was gorgeous to anyone but myself. I had never subscribed to traditional conventions of beauty, only concerned with the things I personally found to be beautiful. I hoped that I was beautiful in the way that Peter found most pleasing, even if it was not traditional or conventional.
“Do you want to see where I live?” I asked suddenly, then realized how that sounded. “I mean to say, do you want to see where I live in this city?”
Peter couldn’t help himself, a wicked grin, which he tried to hide by chewing at the corner of his lip, bloomed on his face. Smartly, he lifted his coffee cup to his lips, sipping at it in an effort to further disguise his expression. Waiting patiently, afraid to say anything else about my meager apartment, I let Peter get his facial expressions under control as he warmed himself with the strong, black coffee. Finally, he pulled his cup from his luscious lips, and his eyes met mine.
“I would like to see where you live.”
“My home is meager,” I stated softly. “I only say this as a warning so that you are not appalled by my home. I would just like you to know everything about me.”
“I love that you want that, Enzo. And I understand.” Peter nodded. “I’m sure your apartment is lovely.”
“It is clean.” I shrugged one shoulder, chuckling nervously. “But it is not lovely.”
Peter laughed at this.
“I would expect nothing less from a former custodian.” He quipped, which made me chuckle. “Enzo, I won’t make fun of your home. And I would love to see it.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s go.” Peter stood suddenly and gracefully.
He held his hand out to me, and I took it.
Reasons to Keep Moving
The front door to my apartment, on the second floor of an old tenement building, would stick quite often. At first, it was an egregious annoyance, one that would frustrate me to the point that I would badger the landlord to fix it on a daily basis. Over time, however, I learned that pushing against the door while giving the bottom right-hand corner a sharp kick with the toe of my shoe would free it from the jamb. Whether it was set haphazardly in the doorframe or it was just old, thick paint that caused the problem, I wasn’t so sure. Regardless, it was easier to deal with a sticky door than a landlord who felt he didn’t have to fix anything due to the meager amount he charged his renters each month. The fact that he rarely gave me any trouble when my rent was late—which was often—also changed my habit of badgering him about the door.