Losing J______, or Crazy Chinatown Man, to another smart, successful woman (because we are a dime a dozen), produced a special kind of pain. It wasn't the heartbreaking suicidal insanity that caused me to lose twenty pounds and nearly drive my car into a river when my last relationship ended; it was a calm resignation to the fact that I can't hold the attention of the men I want. I felt hopeless, massively defeated, and beaten down to accept apathy for men I date as the best possible course of action.
To counter the pain I spent three nights in a row with W______, and I made the conscious decision to dive in. For seven months I'd held back with him because I didn't want to waste my time or his, but at this point, as I'm looking for jobs in Oregon, the circumstances have changed. My time in Seattle is limited, and I want to spend it with a man whose company I enjoy. For the foreseeable future, I'm not looking for Mr. Right. It's all about W_____, Mr. Right Now.
I lingered with W______ in the mornings, accepting his offer to make me tea and allowing myself to stay in bed with him until it was too late to possibly accomplish anything productive with my day. At night we had sex by candlelight over and over again, as though neither of us had ever touched a naked body before. I asked him questions that were long overdue, like "What makes you prefer to shoot black and white photography?" and "How did your father die?" and "Why did your last relationship end?" It wasn't that I didn't care about the answers to these questions before; I just didn't want to walk through that emotional doorway.
But walk through it we did, hand in hand on his couch, as he opened up about his art, father's death, and past relationships. It was a lovely three nights during which, for the first time in years, I wasn't nervous about the status of a relationship. There's no need for it to go anywhere or to not go anywhere because I'm leaving Seattle as soon as I can. W_____ and I can just be.
"Call me if you need me to bail you out of jail," I told him, as he was preparing for a month-long trip train-hopping across America. "I'll get you anywhere in Washington state or Idaho."
"You'd bail me out of jail?," he seemed surprised. "That's so nice of you!"
I filled up a grocery bag with grapes, chard, kale, and tomatoes from his garden, and he told me to come back any time to take vegetables while he's away, then I drove him to an overpass in South Seattle just above the railroad tracks, where I pulled over and we said our goodbyes.
"I want more of you," I said, as we kissed standing in the shoulder of the road. "Promise me you won't get a train girlfriend in the next month."
"Promise me," he countered, "that you won't get a Seattle boyfriend in the next month."
Easiest promise ever.
We sealed our promises with a kiss before W______ hopped over the concrete barricade blocking the road to the train yard and disappeared into the bushes. I got back in my car and drove away smiling, excited to settle for a good time with a man who adores me and is on an adventure that might get him arrested.
