Kade called me on my phone. He said he was downstairs waiting in his car already. I took a final look at the mirror; I grinned to check if I had anything in my teeth, then dashed out of my apartment. He had the radio tuned to a dance station. I listened to a familiar EDM track, but could not recall what the title of the song was. After I put on my seat belt, Kade kissed me on my cheeks and I looked at him surprised but smiling. It stunned me, which caused my brain to short-circuit. Sparks everywhere. I couldn’t think of anything to say about the kiss, so I asked, “Where are we going?” which came out like werwiwigoyn.
He smiled, my heart turned into mush and my palms became drenched in sweat. I become paralyzed whenever I am with someone I really, really like. I could smell the Oriental spices of my perfume in the air—hints of grapefruit, coriander, and basil—and I felt a sneeze coming. I tried hard to control it, so it came out like the short wail of a kitten that had been squeezed.
Kade chuckled, which made me blush. After countless dates, every first date still felt like my first ever. I was as awkward as the first time I went out with a guy in college, where I ended up fleeing from him when he started to unzip my pants while we were inside his car. I remembered stopping and asking myself, “What am I supposed to do? Yell ‘rape?’” But by then it was too late to go back to the car, so I kept on running.
We dined at the Cheesecake Factory, which was fine by me, except that I felt like I put in too much effort dressing up. I was wearing a grey suit (unbuttoned) and black shirt underneath. On the other hand, I told myself that at least it wouldn’t look like we were dating, more like two men doing business. (He was in short-sleeved shirt, so there was miscommunication somewhere when we decided to go out.) Business. An exchange of goodies—fluids, maybe, or…I don’t know. I had to stop myself from overthinking these things, but bear with me; I had not had sex for a very long time. I was hornier than a teenager. Anything phallic turned me on.
“I hope this is okay with you,” Kade said as we sat on a booth. “I like their complimentary brown bread.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I just have to watch what I eat. I get fat easily.”
“Seriously?” Kade asked me, his eyes wide like small saucer plates. “You look delectably lean.”
He was flirting. Delectably. I so loved the term. “I burn a lot of hours in the gym,” I said. “I’m kidding about the getting fat easily. But I do gain weight if I let myself go at a buffet restaurant every day for a month.”
He laughed and said, “That indicates that you have a fast metabolism.”
We ordered cheesedogs for an appetizer. I ordered pasta, while he ordered the filet mignon for the entree. A guy who liked his meat.
“Look,” he said, while he took a sip of his iced tea. “I have to apologize about my behavior the other time. I was flirting too much with you and I really shouldn’t have.”
“Oh no, no. I didn’t take offense,” I said. “It’s alright.”
“Well, the thing is,” he said, shifting in his seat and straightening his shirt. “I really shouldn’t have done that. It was entirely inappropriate.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” I said. “It wasn’t inappropriate.”
“No, you don’t understand. I’m HIV positive,” he said. He looked me in the eyes, then stared somewhere upward. His left eyebrow twitched and there was a quick knitting of his forehead.
My jaw dropped to the floor—the second time this had happened to me while with him. My eyes widened. How could he be so cavalier about it? How could he be so playful the night we first met, as though he was a normal, negative gay man? I scanned my brain to recall if there was a statistic somewhere about the chances of meeting another HIV positive person in the wide dating pool being one in a gazillion. It had to be something like that. And just look at Kade! And then I realized why he was single—just as why I was single.
“Do you know,” I said in a low voice. “That you’re my 117th date?”
“Since the first time you started dating or since your last ex?” he rattled off quickly without letting me finish. His voice was nervous and the words came out like he was being electrocuted.
“No,” I said with a sly smile. “The first time since I was diagnosed positive for HIV.”
Now it was his turn for his jaw to drop on the floor. I laughed. I touched his chin and pulled it upwards. Inside my head, I was wondering whether what was happening was real. It was one of those unbelievable things that defied my sense of logic. It was like playing the lottery day in and day out. You played for the slim chance that you would win the jackpot, but you knew your reality and you knew how close to impossible winning the jackpot actually was—but you kept on playing anyway, because it had become a habit, even if you kept your expectations real and low.
Ever since I had been diagnosed, I hadn’t given up on dating. I put myself out there like I was not afflicted, although I had always been careful and transparent when it came to having sex. But I knew my chances. I didn’t go to forums and groups that involved only HIV-positive gay men. No—I looked for love out in the open. I immersed myself with the many others looking and hoping for that great love, regardless of their status. I didn’t want to be treated differently. I was already so different just from my race, color, and orientation; I didn’t want to add another feature that would invite further discrimination from others. I had had enough of being different and being treated differently. I wanted to belong and not be set apart from anyone because of something I had no control over. I didn’t choose to be Asian American; I didn’t choose to be gay; I didn’t want to be HIV-positive (who does?). But Miss Fortune smiled on me and decided I would be those three. I had to live with what I was given, but it didn’t mean that I couldn’t hope for the life I wanted. Heaven knew it hadn’t been easy. I could not recall the many times I cried myself to sleep out of frustration at my life. Many times, I had wanted to give up on love, because it seemed like such an impossible quest. But if there was one thing that could be said about me was that I didn’t give up. I might retreat and stop for a while, but I was stubborn when it came to wanting something. I would only give up when the last nail on my coffin was hammered in.
I looked at Kade and my eyes began to water. I know, I know I was being melodramatic, but after 116 rejections, who wouldn’t be? And I know I was jumping to conclusions that we would both live happily ever after. But the fact that he was being open to me and he was not rejecting me was a small step forward already.
It was his turn to laugh, and he offered me the table napkin closest to him to wipe away the tears forming in my eyes. I laughed as well and said that I was just overwhelmed and overjoyed.
“You seem so confident,” I said to him after I gathered myself. “How can you be so self-assured when, you know, you’re positive?”
“Oh,” he said with a little shrug. “I don’t take rejections too seriously. Sure, I feel disappointed when I get rejected because of my status, but I don’t care anymore. I don’t let this disease get in the way of my life. So I date and date and date. If it doesn’t work, which is more likely, then I move on to the next. No hard feelings. That’s just people being human.”
He looked so relaxed while he told me of the many dates he had in the two years since he had been diagnosed.
“I’ve had a couple of guys I’ve had sex with and it didn’t really bother them as long as I was the bottom and we used a condom. They also took some PrEP meds for precaution,” he said. “There are a few out there who don’t care about it. Although, most of them are just too horny, so they don’t really care as long as you have a tight hole or willing to suck them. How come you haven’t met anyone like them?”
How do I tell him that it was different when you were perceived as more Asian than American? There were certain gay guys whose preference were only whites. Even gay guys had their own prejudices and bigotries.
“I don’t know,” I said. I looked at him with a tired and exasperated look. “I’ve been unlucky with that.�
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“Well,” he said. He exhaled and leaned back in the chair. “Now that our secrets are out, what now?”
“We finish our dinner,” I said to him.
“And then?” he asked. His eyebrow rose quickly.
“Hey, I just suggested that we finish dinner,” I said. “You suggest what happens after dinner. I cannot plan this entire evening for both of us. I need a little help.”
“Actually,” he said. “I want to take you to an art auction. Do you wanna go?”
“Sure,” I said. “I know nothing about art, but I appreciate beauty. I appreciate you, don’t I?”
“Flirty,” he said, winking at me. “Well, my mother is having an art auction in the Art Gallerie Studio.”
“I’m game,” I said without thinking and then I paused. “Wait, did you just say your mother?”
“Yes. Why? Is that a problem?” he asked.
“Um,” I paused and tried to think of what to say. “What does it mean? How will you introduce me to your mother? Isn’t it too soon to meet the parents?”
“Oh, don’t be so uppity. It’s not a formal meeting. And we’re not getting married anytime soon unless you really want to. It’s just an art auction. She’ll be too busy to even ask me who you are,” he said.
After dinner, we drove downtown to where the Art Gallerie Studio was. We were talking, sharing anecdotes about our lives, the dating disasters we had, and how we dealt with our diagnoses, when my stomach started to rumble. I realized I had had a cup of coffee after dinner, which sometimes upset my stomach for reasons I could not fathom. It didn’t happen all the time, but it happened—and now was not the best time for it. I turned the volume of the radio up louder to distract myself and drown the rumbling, but I could feel my stomach growling like thunder. Everything I had eaten that day was revolting inside my body. I started shifting my legs, stretching, contracting, and moving them sideways just to diffuse the tension building up in my stomach. Kade looked at me and he held my hand. He was totally oblivious to the temporary hell I was going through. I gripped his hand and smiled at him while sweat started to form on my hairline. This. Is. So. Not. Happening. I let go of his hand. The growling became more forceful and I began to writhe in my seat like a demon had possessed me.
“Are you alright?” he asked me. He tried to hold my hand, but instead I adjusted the position of the air-conditioner on the dashboard so the cold air blasted my face.
I didn’t know what to tell him or what to do, but I felt the muscles in my stomach easing and relaxing like a teenager in a rebellious stage. My stomach refused to obey whatever I willed it to do. I tried to constrict my butt checks, sucking my underwear inside to stop anything from getting out, but what was inside was a force of nature that could no longer be controlled. I opened the window out of some sort of survival instinct.
“What are you…?” Kade hadn’t even finished his statement when hot air squeezed out of my butt. I was relieved and terrified at the same time. The sound—like a horn being blown slowly and lengthily—was hard to un-hear. It whooshed out and with the sound came the deadly smell. And then, without warning, another bombshell dropped. Louder, unmistakably louder and longer, like a rifle firing without prejudice to anyone within the vicinity.
“Don’t breathe!” I told him. “Open your window!” I adjusted all the air-conditioner panels toward his face, but I could see that it was a little too late. His face distorted, his nose twitched, and his eyes blinked. He was misty-eyed, tears welling in his eyes. I smelled it too—the stench of rotten eggs mixed with vomit after a hard night of drinking and a hint of burnt rubber—but it was different when it was yours. No matter how awful it smelled, you’re familiar with the odors of your body. Kade was most certainly not. I wanted to throw myself out of the car and just die, rolling down the highway. I wouldn’t mind a truck smashing my face beyond recognition. I wouldn’t mind being dead right now. Goodbye, cruel world! For a brief moment, I had thought love was possible.
I was aware of the seconds passing by, aware that with every second that time moved forward, the smell remained in the air. It refused to leave. It clung to the car’s upholstery, to our clothes, to our skin, to the very depths of our soul, and to the deepest recesses of my memory. A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Farting is such bitter sorrow, that I shall say goodbye till it be morrow.
“Oh my God, what did you have for lunch?” Kade laughed hysterically, slapping the steering wheel repeatedly. “That was awful.”
“I want to die now,” I said, burying my head in the palms of my hands. I could still smell a hint of my fart in the air. It was stubborn.
I didn’t have words to express the embarrassment I felt. Kade pulled the car to the side and we both stepped out. I discovered a newfound appreciation for fresh air that night. I could not look at Kade. I wanted to keep walking on the grassy plain and disappear in the dark until I reached the mountainous range of San Ramon and the wildlife claimed me and tore my body to pieces.
He laughed again and I wanted to shrink until I had become like dust.
He walked towards me and said, “Don’t be embarrassed. We’re humans. Shit happens. Literally.” He laughed, but this time he pulled me close to him and embraced me. I embraced him with my eyes closed, wishing that none of it had happened. He caressed the side of my face and looked at me like he was looking through me. He still had that grin on his face, but he didn’t say anything anymore.
And then he kissed my lips. I kissed him back, needy, hungrily. Cars passed us by. Time stood still. The half moon shone brightly above us and stars twinkled in the sky. I didn’t think of where we were. We were on a highway, clothed in semi-darkness and in each other’s embraces. I forgot my name. I was lost in his embrace. His lips were soft and they were locked against mine.
“Do you still want to go to the auction?” he said, brushing my hair and whispering in my ear.
“I need a restroom,” I said with a laugh.
“Right,” he said. “My place then.”
After I relieved myself, which I know was not the most impressive thing to do at your date’s apartment, we sat in his living room and let our locked arms and mouths fill the hours of the night.
We did not have sex that night. Nor did we when we woke up next to each other in bed the next day.
“I like kissing you,” he said, kissing my lips until my eyes opened.
“What time is it?” I asked, pulling his face closer to me and kissing him more.
“It’s 8:00 a.m. I think,” he said, mumbling the words because our mouths were inseparable that morning.
I didn’t know how to account for the days that followed. I measured time not by the moving hands of the clock, but by my heart beating fast when we were together. I knew time based on the breakfasts, lunches, and dinners we had together, by how many kisses he gave me, and when he pressed his body against mine as he hugged me. Time was this fluid thing defined by moments, by the way he looked at me, winked at me, and smiled.
If I had been accused of murder during those days, my only alibi would be that I was with Kade the whole time. Well, not exactly. Of course, I had to go to work. But work, much like the days, was a blur. I told Susana about Kade and the first thing she asked me was—how was the sex? In the two weeks that Kade and I had been going out, we still hadn’t had sex. Not with penetration or anything. We were content with kissing and wrapping our arms around each other. At our age, it was so grotesquely wholesome and unthinkable, but I didn’t feel pressured to jump in bed with him. I wanted to do it with him, of course, but I was just as happy having him around to talk to and hold hands with when we were alone together.
“When I was six, I had a turkey for a pet,” he said one night while we were in his living room watching the end credits of The Proposal roll by. “I took care of it since it was just a few days old and I had grown attached to it. I talked to him like he was a friend and I called him Johnnie. A few days before Thanksgiving, I came out of our house looking for
him after I had taken my afternoon nap, but I couldn’t find him. I cried and cried until my mother hushed me. She told me that Johnnie was very sick and had to be taken to a vet. I begged her to take me to the vet so I could visit Johnnie, but she said it would not be necessary. Johnnie would be home during Thanksgiving. So on Thanksgiving, I waited by the kitchen window for my father to bring Johnnie home. But dinner came and he was not there. My parents told me that Johnnie had gone to a farm and so, of course, I told them that we should visit him. Every day until January I pestered them about visiting Johnnie, but my father finally put his foot down and said no. And then, when I was ten, during Thanksgiving dinner, my mother let it slip—I forgot what we were talking about that night—that the turkey I ate when I was six was actually Johnnie. I rushed to the bathroom and threw up. That was the last time I ever ate turkey.”
My Funny, Embarrassing 117th Date Page 2