“So, what are you doing this evening?” says cute guy sitting beside me at the hotel bar. Now I want you to understand he’s blond, 31, single, and a personal trainer in his spare time. He’s traveling on business related to the health field and he is also a paramedic. My young coworker has whispered to me earlier to find out if he’s gay.“Tonight?” I say to the hunk. “Well, I’m going to a club to dance.”“What club,” asks the hunk?“Oh, it’s a gay club downtown. You wanna come with us?” A look of obvious heterosexuality plays across the hunk’s face like a neon sign.“I guarantee you won’t get me there” he delivers in an “I’d rather be dead” voice. When he leaves for the toilet I give my coworker the sad news.“How can you be sure,” he intones pleadingly.“Trust me on this honey,” I tell him firmly, “He’s straight. He showed me pictures of his girlfriend. He told me she wanted to come here with him but he’s playing it cool because she’s so needy. He showed me pictures of several other girlfriends that he is also dating and he asked me what I was doing this evening.” I reply definitively. “Besides, he asked me about the hot blond bartender with the big boobs and told me he would love to have her in room 430.”“Wait, says my coworker, “aren’t you in room 429? OMG, how are you going to sleep knowing he’s next door?”I echo his alarmed tone and the mid west accent he’s using, “Do you think you could trade rooms with me?” I can’t keep a straight face for long though because I could see he was considering the exchange.The hunk heads off to his room with dinner on a tray and my friend and I wait for the other girls to get ready to go to the club. Struggling with directions and driving a strange rental car we finally arrive about 10 PM. I’m DD and have to stay sober, but the music is definitely enough to get me high. The boys are young, beautiful, mostly shirtless, and they dance like demons. I dance along, sometimes with one of them, sometimes alone, as the music and the people interweave like silk ribbons being torn by the wind. One pulled me against him as I passed by, all of 22, his shirt tucked in his pocket, his undulating body wet with sweat. I smile and put one arm around his neck, the other hanging behind me as I lean into him for one very dirty dance. As our hips thrust in a mock sexual rhythm and his oh so piercing brown eyes look into mine, I become aware that he is not exactly playing a role. I lean back, give him a look as hard as what has come between us and say, “You are gay, aren’t you?” His head shakes “no” and he pulls me back into his body. Oh shit, leave it to me to find a straight guy in a gay bar. We dance to the pulsing music and the tension of the beat and his expert maneuverings drive me to places I know I dare not go. His name is Vince and he’s the hot young thing that you see working in car wash, the gas station, or perhaps in a porn film. He’s here with a gay uncle who looks like he might have been Vince back in the day, but life has been hard for him. I think about that baby face becoming the grizzled mask of his relative and I want to find words to let him know what life has in store, but I know my advice would be wasted. When he asks me for my phone number I touch his cheek gently and tell him it wouldn’t be wise. Inside I am laughing at the sweet audacity of youth. Driving back to the hotel at three in the morning my drunken workmates demand that I stop at the golden arches so they can have junk food. It’s not a good time to mention calories or cholesterol, and they already know my opinion on fast food, so I comply. The car reeks with the smell of grease and ketchup the rest of the way to the hotel. I do not escape the odor until I slip my key card into the door of my room where it always smells of lemons and fresh laundry. Vince is somewhere still trying to get lucky this evening and the hunk is apparently sleeping peacefully on the other side of my bedroom wall. I sink into the crisp white sheets of my king size bed and think about the throbbing in my right knee. It will ache for days after recklessly attempting all the moves the twenty two year old could do, and I lie there wondering why I tried. It’s probably for the same reason middle-age men buy sports cars, get jaunty hats to cover their bald spots, and work like hell to get a young blond to ride around in the seat beside them. Most likely, but having stupidly squandered my first childhood, I’m going to make the most of my second. I doze off peacefully, smug in the knowledge that it is by choice I sleep alone tonight.
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