Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2003 - 5:40 p.m.
Surfacings
The fears seemed to be dissipating. Noticeably so. For the past couple weeks, I haven’t been nearly so anxious, alone late at night in my apartment. The counselling I’ve started must be helping.Last week my therapist had me complete a survey about the impact of the assault—its recent impact, over the course of the previous week—on my experience and consciousness. For statements like “I avoided letting myself get upset when I thought about it or was reminded of it,” or “I stayed away from reminders about it” I rated my response high—in the ‘Quite A Bit’ to ‘Extremely’ range; for questions like “I found myself acting or feeling like I was back at that time,” or “I had waves of strong feelings about it,” I scored quite low, ‘Not At All’ or ‘A Little Bit’. In other words, I was in avoidance mode, but not having much trouble with what they call ‘intrusion’ and ‘hyperarousal’.
Interesting. My therapist wants me to do some journaling about avoidance, to reflect on what I’m getting out of it.
So far, I’ve put the assignment off.
***My new apartment is great—a much larger, cooler pad than my old one. The only thing I’m not comfortable with is that, like my old place, I’m on the second floor. It would be incredibly easy for someone to scale the fence and hop up onto my patio from the back alley. I’m hypervigilant about locking the patio door at night and whenever I’m leaving the apartment during the day.
It’s been suggested that I get a home security system installed; at first, I thought this a great idea, but now I don’t. Anyone I know with one has to contend—at least occasionally—with false alarms and I simply couldn’t handle the alarm going off mistakenly in the middle of the night: it would freak me out, big-time. Maybe I’ll get another deadbolt on the front door instead, and look into some other method of making the patio door more secure.
A more recent—yet also, still-more-recently dissipating—anxiety comes up when I enter my suite after I’ve been at work for the day or have even just been out for a few hours. As I walk in, I brace myself for someone—Diego, presumably, or one of his older brothers—to have broken in during my absence and be waiting to kill me. So I have to open all four closets (two in the hallway, two in my bedroom) and check the bathroom to make sure no one’s hiding before I can shut and lock my front door.
I know—hope?—that this state of affairs won’t last forever, but for right now home is where the fear is.
***Meanwhile, there’s Miles. We’ve had several more excellent dates, and I really really like the guy.
It’s not just sexual!
And it is very sexual!
It’s rare, uttering those exclamations conjointly. So yeah, I’m intrigued.
I haven’t had sex with anybody else since I met Miles, but it’s way-way-way too early to be thinking about monogamy. I see monogamy as an important phase of an initial romantic commitment, at least usually. Equally, if not more importantly, for me monogamy is not something to be presumed, assumed, or expected; I envision it for myself, rather, as a state of relatedness to be consciously and openly negotiated, one that we (whoever "we" might be) will embrace, evolve into. So, yeah, someday I could see myself evolving into/choosing monogamy with Miles, but for right now I’m just ecstatic about getting to know him. “Let’s just enjoy each other,” is how he put it the first day we briefly touched on the issue. It seems to be cool with him that I’m not a very conventional guy.
Time will tell.
Anyway, Miles was over Sunday late afternoon and early evening. We’d spent Friday night together, too, so I had no intention of having him sleep over again. After an intense conversation about where we were both at with this inchoate relationship (“let’s just enjoy each other” being the open-hearted page we both found ourselves on), we watched an interesting documentary about Asian history, which made Miles homesick. Then we webcam-chatted with Joey and Matt for a bit. It was getting to be around 9 pm, and Miles said he should go.
“Nope,” I said, grinning, “Not yet you’re not! You’re gonna put me to bed first.”
“Oh yeah?” he said.
“Yeppers. And you’re gonna cuddle with me till 10 pm. That’s when I’ll kick you out, and not before. You hear?”
He heard. “Now go take your clothes off and get into bed, eh?” I commanded.
Such an obedient fellow he was.
In my haste to follow, I almost forgot about the patio door, but I walked over, slammed it shut and locked it.
As I stood there, I looked into the back alley and two guys were walking along. The one closest to me was darker-skinned, Latino, I thought. He noticed me standing there and held my gaze. He looked hostile.
My body froze, and I gasped for breath. The guy disappeared from my view, but moments later showed up right beside my building, right beside the fence I was sure he would then leap onto my patio from. He was still glaring at me.
My legs were shaking as I cried out for Miles. I was so fucked up I couldn’t remember his name. He came running from the bedroom. “What’s wrong?!?!”
An SUV pulled out from the parking spot right there. I realized what had happened. The dark guy was merely getting into his vehicle which just happened to be parked beside my building. It wasn’t Diego, it wasn’t one of his big scary brothers. The guy had only been looking at me because I was looking at him. He meant me no harm; for all I know, he caught sight of the glow coming off my face, and thought I was cute.
That’s what my intellect came up with over the next four to five seconds. My body, however, was still back there, constipated with fear. I could barely explain to Miles what had happened, I was shaking so bad. I felt stupid, and terrified, like I was spinning out of control.
(Can you say "intrusion," and "hyperarousal", boys and girls?)
“It’s okay, baby,” cooed Miles. “Come away from the window. I’m here. You’re okay, baby.”
I let him lead me to bed. He held me up; my gait was a bit worrisome. I couldn’t catch my breath.
I held on for dear life.
Miles looked so good in white briefs—I’d only ever seen in him boxer-briefs before—that I could’ve cried. He stripped me down to mine, gently pushed me into bed and held me tight.
The bed was soon abuzz with underwear flying, with tongues and phalli and limbs akimbo.
It felt so good; he felt so good; I felt so good.
But I couldn’t shake it, that body-spasm of fear. I was locked-up by it, and I realized that I hadn’t felt so triggered since the night of the assault. This part of me was certain—certain!—that someone was in the apartment, and would walk in any second and stab us both to death.
I was a mess, a horny mess, and I had a man lying atop me that would do just about anything.
“Miles?” I said, tentatively. “Miles, can you spend the night?”
“Of course I can, baby. Are you sure I won’t keep you awake though?”
“No, I’d really like you to stay. I am feeling really fucked-up right now.”
“I’m glad I’m here, baby.”
And our dicks got harder and more linked-up with everything. It’s been a long time since I’ve been so naked. We were burning brightly, getting beneath surfaces.
Butch top man that he is, eventually—and with my enthusiastic approval—Miles fingered me as we jerked off. He stopped, though, when he saw me grimace. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he protested.
“No pain, no gain,” I quipped, eager for the probe to continue.
“But, I don’t like it, getting fingered or getting fucked—you know that,” Miles said. “So I don’t know for sure if I’m hurting you. You have to tell me, ok?”
I promised. I urged him back in.
“Yes!” I exclaimed, wriggling. “Yes!”
He caught the drift of my statement, and prodded harder. I writhed and squirmed, amazed at the depth from which this charge was building inside me.
I splat and he splat and we all quietened down.
We talked and cuddled, and I finally felt drowsy.
But not unguarded.
***This morning the Q-tip I was using came out of my left ear with a big dollop of brown wax.
This was nothing out of the ordinary, of course.
The surprise was that—nearly three months after the assault—the wax-ball was darkly flecked with blood. Dried blood. Mine? Diego’s?
Ours?
