Oh wow...

So I saw New Boy at a reception today. We chatted. It was so obvious again. Except this time it was so obvious that he was trying so HARD NOT to be obvious it was too cute. And oh gawd. There is nothing like seeing an exceptionally cute boy, with brown hair, rich cream colored skin, a gorgeous smile, and the prettiest eyebrows trying to pretend like you don't turn him inside out ;)

I found out he's quite the writer. I told him as much. He asked if I liked to write. I said on occasion, but that I was not nearly as prolific as he. We agreed to a swap. I sent him a small self-contained piece of mine on my home town. In response, I got this INCREDIBLE, RACY, super intense, sexy ballad. Holy smokes. I am blown away. It can't get more obvious than this now. His writing was so steamy... I just want to maul him. I mean, what's better than someone who can talk dirty to you like no other???

I mean, I've had guys that could turn me on with their golden tongues. My first booty call from my days of youth and 1L from last summer. But this New Boy, well, he's a real pro. He is not some amateur. He's the real deal. Writing is his thing. And unlike the other's whose prose was just aimed at getting me into bed, this New Boy's material has an incredible depth. Everything from the game behind gay male relationships, lust, and the meaning of true love, his soul matches his wits--quite a feat.

A lot like Love

I've always wanted to write on here about my first love. I can never write about it in a way that I deem satisfactory. however, a friend dragged it out of me to some coherent degree during an IM conversation. So here is the adapted overview version of that story. The point of the post is about being spoiled by something soo incredible the first time around--that you really don't know how you're ever supposed to live with anything less. It's also about real love and whether its forever and if having sex the first time around gives love the same chance. This related to my date this past saturday about which I will post soon. So here's the IM tale of my first amor.

Having exquisite taste and then getting some of it has the potential to sort of get u used to some pretty far out stuff. Geeee i'm so spoiled now. How am i supposed to go back 2 normal? I always thought this about my dudes, ironically especially about the guy I loved. He's unbelievably gorgeous in the face. When I went to NYC with him, I remember people literally tripping and falling over from the whiplash of seeing his face--and the indifference of those people is not unknown. My sister doesn't usually share my taste in guys, but when she saw him she also freaked.

A friend once noticed that i was more into bodies than faces. Well, in part i think it may be due to my first love its hard to picture afterwards someone as perfect faciailly as him there were so many moments where like time would stop because i would get a new angle of his incredible face. Its as if there endless possibilities with it. It was like the sky on a clear night: beautiful no doubt on the surface but filled with even more infinite details if u kept looking. I remember one night sitting on his porch. He loooked the best he ever did. He had just come back from a cruise and sitting there i realized why the greeks thought that the gods walked among us. Had he lived during that time they would've certainly thought him a god. No doubt. His beauty was just too fierce and intense. 'Daunting' would be an understatement.

While in Europe, we went to that museum that has all the famous greco roman art. i can't recall the name. I took latin for 6 years, so i grew up with pics of all these art pieces in my text books. He decided to take me there--he's so sweet--i guess b/c he figured i'd like it. He had been there several times already and seemed a bit bored once we got there but i was like in fucken heaven. All these statues of perfect looking people and even pieces of the real wall of babylon.

After going around for about 2 hours my eyes got used to the symmetry that underlied pretty much all of the art work. All those pretty cheekbones, deep set eyes, etc, etc. He was waiting for me at the end of the museum path. I still remember. He was sitting on the edge of a bench, hunched over, leaning his chin on his hand and his elbow on his knee, looking for me, and when he looked up it was sooo clear to me how his face was exactly the same as all of those in the museum. It freaked me out except, i think it took evolution a little longer to arrange such intense features in the same way as the other less articulate faces of the past. When I got back from that trip, I remember noticing that the world seemed different to me. I couldn't exactly put my finger on it. But then I realized, that my eyes had adapted--adjusted to his beauty. They had become accustomed to such wattage, that looking at regular people was not the same. It made sense--during that trip we basically slept through the days and spent the nights exploring alone on our own. So yea, i think that's part of the story of my facial burnout.

I love him. I'll never stop. It was his b-day this past month. I sent him a gift. He called me and told me that he loved it. I said that i was glad that he did. We don't talk like everyday but there isn't distance between us when we do. I'm rather confident that i know him better than perhaps anybody, and i'm pretty confident that he knows that. there were times when i would look at him and he would shit a brick--just b/c he knew that it was practically impossible for him to lie to me.

Sr year, he dumped his gf, who he thought he might marry. That was a big deal. I remember when he first got with her. We had gone to dinner that night and i shot him a look like i know what u're doing and he looked down terrified b/c he knew i did. He said that night i can see her being my gf for about 1.5 years. Then the night they broke up we smoked under the archways of the chapel, it was raining that night and there was a full yellow moon. I remember i asked him, how long were u guys together? hmmmm..... he said, about a year and a half. maybe a year and seven months, he finished. and i was like shit. did he know all along that's how long it would last?

Afterwards, he slowly got more and more depressed. We were in a class together that semester. I was in my super high powered academic mode getting str8 A's and i would wake up on adderall at 4am to do work. One night, i logged onto IM and he was on. I said to him, wtf? why r u up? He said that he had been drinking and that he was still on campus and didn't want to drive drunk to his apartment. He asked me for a ride. I said no prob. When i got there, he said he didn't want to go back to his apt by himself. He asked if he could sleep over at my place. I was like, okay.

I only had one twin bed. I said, no prob cuz i'm awake for the rest of the day anyway. A few days later, the same exact scenario. A few days later, the same exact scenario. He slept in my bed several days and he literally looked like a cherub in it. He has the sexiest eyebrows the mind could imagine so while sleeping he looked incredible. i never tried to pull anything sexual though b/c he was so honestly depressed that i thought he needed a friend more than a come-on.

Eventually he rushed a frat and started going out with a girl and i stopped hearing from him as much. Then l8r while hanging out in conversation he off handedly mentioned that those nights that he came over to my place he wasn't drunk. I was like wait u stumbled up the steps. He just looked at me, with a knowing glare, and said, i wasn't drunk. That's when i knew that his issues were beyond me and i figured him out.

He needed 'structure'---he nearly worded it this way later--that would give meaning to his life. The frat and the girl seemed to do that and so he went with it. I wouldn't let him get off that easy b/c the way in which he and i related wasn't like that. I always pushed him to be more of himself b/c i thought that what lied beneath was so incredible. But i think he was scared that other's wouldn't see it that way. When he wanted to do the peace corps his father told him it was a weak decision. I thought it was awesome. He turned in the app. He was a sure in with his previous experience. but then turned the peace corps down and ended up at so-so law school.

Were we ever officially a couple? No, though we did and said lots of couplish things and people often mistook us for a couple and even his gf's recognized a mutual attraction. He denied being gay every time as did i a while back. We had awesome times though. Quite possibly some of the best memories for me.... haha. Isn't this sort of situation so bitter-sweet, where it could have been more than it was, if we had been able to admit it?

Dunno honestly. I think we had a lot and i think that going in the typical 'boyfriend' direction might have obfuscated what was actually there. That was part of the reason why i didn't go that way. we enjoyed each other's soul without the partiality of other factors--no social issues, no physical issues, no 'relational' issues.

People tried to shit talk us. i was visible on campus at the time and other than his frat he did nothing else on campus. For a second or two, i had some clout on campus and people wanted to be my friend--induct me into their cliques, etc. But i was so into him that i just wanted to be with him. so i would just hang out with him.

Many of my classmates gossiped that i didn't have a gf and that there was no mention of me hooking up. They thought that was weird and per usual they said i was gay. Being seen alone with the prettiest boy the campus ever saw on late nights at random isolated locations didn't help the matter. Many people thought he just looked gay.

i just thought they were haters

so him having gf's on the side benefited me too. this is sick of me to say now but it protected me as much as him from something that was not to be feared. so yea it was a 'horror of horrors''--a beard by proxy. Are 2 boys into each other giving up what could've been b/c of a stupid image--that wouldn't even last--a horror? TOTALLY.

But we were just newbies at being gay, having to deal with all of that AND being newbies at relationships AND at campus politics--would've been a good amount on our plates. The way we did it we just untangled and skipped all of that, kept it simple. We liked each other. Did i want to jump his bones? Of course. Did he come on to me. Yep. But by having nothing happen, we de-charged the situation of all the unnecessary. We got to know each other for real. I know he loves me. I see it in his eyes. If he ever comes around, i'll have him full and complete. He'll never doubt that i love him for who he is, through thick or thin. When u're as hot as he is, that's tough to find.

After Sat night, I feel the same way about the doc I hooked up with. Does he have a ridiculous cock and body? Yea, how the hell am I supposed to go back to 'normal'? Can we date now that we've had a major romp as our first 'date'?

However, I did survive my first love. So I its safe to assume that I will survive again if the doc doesn't work out. I guess I wish I could have everything in one moment, and then freeze it so it would always stay that way.

Trophy Husband: To be or Not to be

I just got home after hanging out with Bef at her place having some late night drinks. The topic quickly turned to sugar daddies and eventually to trophy husbands.

I talked about Steroid boi and his "best friend" and how the last time I saw him at the gym he said to me--"Oh, I've been 'taking care of him' this past week." I talked about the first guy I dated, who also expected his future partner to make the majority of the money, and the second (also last guy) I dated who's best friend also paid for everything (including my dinners).

The gay world seems to have dichotimized itself into the likeness of the hetero world. Older, out of shape, financially driven males use their resources to acquire less driven gorgeous younger bois. "Except," Bef said, "the gay world being even more superficial than the hetero world, requires an even more fierce distinction."

Damn. That's nuts, because well, I want to be both. I would never want someone to pay for my anything, and I would rarely want to completely support someone else. To this Bef added, "Then you do have those amazing power couples who synergistically optimize their talents to produce even more wealth."

Sure why not.

Then the conversation turned towards Ty and Dean--because well, though their ages do not follow the Sugar Daddy pattern, in all other respects, their relationship does abide by theat template.

I walked over to Bef's apartment's northern wall. She has a framed picture of her Dean and a male supermodel. It's a cute snap shot. The three of them are cold, huddled together, and laughing really hard. All three of them are laughing in poses that flatter them--a reflexive reaction in a world where every picture matters. What stuck out to me though was that despite his age, and despite the guy he was sitting with, Dean stuck out. He was just as hot and photogenic as the model.

"So Dean's not driven?" I asked Bef. "Ty is good friends with MS (a female supermodel). She made a few calls and tried to jump start Dean's career. Dean didn't return or respond to a single call or e-mail. He could've had his own career by now and been making his own money. But apparently that's not what he wants. He could've done fashion or jewelry design. He's talked about putting together a gallery exhibit. He could be more active at his current job and actually become a partner. It would be easy for him to do any of these things. But he doesn't. He just seems to want to be taken care of. Some men just want that," she explained.

"How long have they been together?" I asked. "Seven years," Bef replied. "Geez... just one year after Ty arrived to the city," I said.

"Exactly," said Bef, "and in all that time, Ty has made a fortune, and Dean hasn't done a single thing of which he's talked about doing."


"I heard they haven't had sex in a while."
"I heard they haven't even kissed in a while."
"Do you think they love each other?"
"Ty definitely loves Dean. But I think Dean's love for Ty is only brotherly love."
"How can that be?"
"Dean's not attracted to Ty anymore. When they started at first, Ty was really well built, but he wasn't working as much. Now, Ty is fifty pounds heavier, doesn't care about what he eats, but makes virtually all of the money."

I don't want my life to end up this way. I have yet to meet a gay couple that epitomizes or that models the paradigm I desire for my future. I suppose I'll just have to create that vision for myself without examples.

Boy Love Part 2

Continued from part 1.

Hmm... W's comment got me to read back over this old post. I realize I never finished it. So here's an attempt to recap what ended up happening.

After that incident in his office, I was off-balance for the rest of that day. But eventually, I forced myself to disregard the incident and I finished the work.

However, I never saw my boss the same way again. I didn't give him the benefit of a doubt whenever he complimented me on anything remotely physical. Eventually, he noticed the change. I wasn't as open anymore. I wasn't as forthcoming or cheerful around him. I didn't ask for advice with the same frequency or genuine curiosity.

In short, my view of him had deteriorated. This man that I came to love for his character, was suddenly no longer the ethical pillar I had made him up to be. No matter how many different ways I played them in my head, I couldn't interpret the events of that early afternoon as anything but attraction. I was still somewhat in the closet, and had so much to learn about anything gay or about the so-called "gaydar". So, I felt like I was either going crazy, or my boss might be attracted to me. Neither was good news.

So routine afternoon, he brought it up--my change that is. "How are you, Tino?", he asked. It was odd. We had already greeted each other. But he asked with genuine curiosity. He cared, and I could tell. I was angry however. Angry at working for a guy who I loved and would've thrown myself at, but who was completely unavailable. In childish habit, I even questioned his motives for keeping me around.

"I'm good," I replied with a hint of forcefulness. My intent was to preempt any probing. I sensed his approach. I expected that he would bring the issue up, banking on the fact that I would never be fully candid, and so I would be forced to either deny the change in my demeanor or conjure up an alternative explanation. Either way, he was covered because he would just either express empathy, or wash his hands by having explicitly "cared". I was being such a woman:p

I never considered that he might have gotten something out of our friendship, and that he might have genuinely missed our conversations. I didn't consider that the weight of that might precipitate an honesty and vulnerability in him of which I had never seen the likes of in older professional men.

He didn't accept my "good" answer, and he continued to probe. "Really?" he asked, very gently. I would've been offended had his tone not been so gentle.

"Uhhmm... yeah," I replied evidencing my bewilderment at his persistence. That's when I gave in, and after a pause I said, "Why... do you ask?"

That last question opened the gates to a conversation I can never forget. He went there. "I've noticed you've been a bit different these past few days...." He went into detail. Point by point, he had noticed exactly how I had changed. I was floored and cornered. Clearly, he wasn't playing the game I thought he was. He wouldn't settle for neither a fake reply nor an alternative excuse. As he continued, I started to sweat internally and to somehow find a way to lead the conversation to that afternoon. I would have to let him take it all the way home.

When he finally completed his observations of me, I just sat there. Probably like a deer in headlights. Stunned, I just sat there and absorbed the moment, allowing my reaction to speak for me. There sitting in one of the many leather chairs that stood along the walls of his board-room like office, I never turned away. Face to face with him, I proceeded to collect myself, allowing him to see on my face the impact of his interest in me (something I NEVER do with people).

"Do you remember that time you called me in, when I was at the gym?", I slowly began. The same tension that had gripped him then, immediately returned. His posture became rigged, and his head rose like an officer at attention. But the gentleness, never wavered.

His eyes widened as he heard those words, and immediately he said, "Yes... Yes... I do." He wasn't going to deny the event. He could've at that point. "You came in, and you were still in your gym clothes," he said.

Whoa... here goes nothing. "There was a particular moment. Perhaps, a quick reaction," I continued.

"When your shirt rode up," he said---fuck, he went there. Now I knew he was a man. All at once, all the tension and questioning that had tormented me up until that point broke into a cold sense of weightlessness and near-ecstasy. My eyes widened.

"I saw your arms for the first time... I was surprised," he said. "I didn't expect you to look like that." I went red, and I became noticeably aware of my cock. The tension between the arousal and the fear seemed capable of splitting me in two.

"Are you attracted to me?" I asked point blank. I couldn't evade the burning question on my mind. Of course, I was developmentally speaking in terms of romantic relationships an infant. Attraction means nothing, but I didn't know that yet.

"I can't respond to that," he replied, looking at me intently. Both of our shoulders were squared and aligned with each other as we had assumed very upright postures.

"Why?", I demanded.... feeling the intense, nearly enraged, need for affirmation. His affirmation.

"Because you work for me."

OMG, I must have lost it at that point. I knew exactly what he meant.

"I can't treat my employees like that," he said.

"Like how?" I retorted.

"Your question would require me to think of you in a sexual way in order for me to answer," he stated. I was good at coming up with questions that forced revealing answers, and he knew so.

Bullshit, I thought. Attraction occurs in a split second. It, for the most part, precedes thought.

So, I did the impossible, and I came up with a hypothetical. A loop hole that would allow him to answer the question, evade any employment uncomeliness, and ascertain my intentions.

The air in the room was already dense... with courage. So I went with it. I slowly said, "If you were to have met me, before.... before you hired me, before you were married... Would you have then been attracted to me?"

He was taken aback by the hypothetical and by the room he suddenly became aware of within the space of abstraction. His head moved back, as if from a jolt produced by the failure to expect such an approach. His reaction might have also been in part to the fact that I referred to his marriage.

He took a deep breathe, and he let it out slowly. He was processing. After he exhaled, he just looked at me with intensity.

"Yes... definitely... automatically."

I hadn't expected those adverbs. They hit me almost as hard as the word 'yes'.

So then, I reeled back, as if recovering from whiplash. I breathed in, and exhaled slowly. Fuck, I was just like a mimicking child.

I radiated happiness, and almost immediately was overtaken by grief, because after all it was a hypothetical.

From there on out, the conversation flowed. He was married, and very happily so. Yes, he had been attracted to men, but he didn't admit it to himself until after he was married. It didn't matter though, because his love for his wife had never been a charade, and in that sense, his marriage was real and therefore still worthy of his vows.

We finished the conversation by thanking each other for our honesty. Implicitly, the term was coming to an end. He said that my work was amazing. He said he was a better professional as a result of having me on board. I was floored, but after the onslaught that had just occurred, I was really relatively unphased.

I of course reciprocated and told him how much I valued everything from the job to the conversations, and the friendship. I didn't hold back, so I told him that I loved him. He said that he knew that he should love me. Everything about me made that certain. However, he said, he didn't know why he didn't love me.

I was a wreck. A total wreck. It was the worst let-down quite possibly ever. That's when I decided to come out to myself without doubts. I had to. I had to go back to campus and finally pay attention to all those bois who I knew had been trying to flirt with me, but whom I had ignored. I had to play with them---to assuage what I felt inside.

My job eventually ended. It had a predetermined length. But, I couldn't say good bye. So I planned my last set of hours during a period when I knew that my boss wouldn't be in the office. So I left without saying goodbye.

He e-mailed me. He had of course noted my evasive departure. He said he would've like to have had an exit interview, but that he nonetheless "hoped good things for me" and asked that I stay in touch "over e-mail."

I became very jaded for a long time afterwards. I told myself that I was played. But I wasn't. He could've taken advantage of the situation. I would've been more than willing. But he didn't. Instead, he fessed up to the reality, didn't waiver in acknowledging his part in it, and clearly stated his convictions. I couldn't have expected anything more from a bigger man.

I haven't spoken to him since, but I recently e-mailed him to schedule a conversation. I'm apologizing for my reaction and for having left without saying thank you for the experience of the job. I wrote in the message that I knew end of year was rough and that if we had to talk in 08, that it would be fine. He wrote back, "I'm not so busy that I can't talk to you."

Fuck. So I'll be talking to him soon, and perhaps, now as a grown up, I can be at peace with what happened as well as with him. Perhaps, we can even be friends.

Boy Love

One of the first persons I ever fell in love with was actually way older than me. He was almost as old as my dad.

I was looking through some artsy gay pictures just now and I saw one that reminded me of him. It evoked the kind of intense affection I felt for him, and that perhaps he felt in for me too.

He was one of my bosses during my third year in school. I was slacking at the time, so I didn’t mind working a lot.

The first time I met him was during the interview. Having gotten squared away with the staff, I waited in his office. When he walked in, I instantly got nervous, the way I do whenever I am not only forced to meet someone new, but also when my subconscious subjugates me to physical attraction before my brain has even had a chance to size up the features. I knew I was attracted to him, before I even knew I thought he was hot.

He was in a hurry and barely noticed me until he sat down. I was taken aback not only by his imposing masculine features, but by the way that maturity had brought them out. Although his face abided by the youthful symmetry that contemporary aesthetics today espouse, he wasn’t young. It wasn’t that his skin sagged or that he had wrinkles—its just that his skin didn’t have that nubile brilliance younger skin tends to give off.

His hair, had begun to recede and grey slightly, but it was still full and bodied. His features were beyond articulate—they each stood out on their own. Brow, eyes, lips, cheekbones, forehead, and jaw were in agreement, but each had their own thing going on. His frame was lean. Even though he wasn’t at all bulky, his shoulders were broad, his chest noticeable, and his waist tight. We were about the same height.

I balanced my nervousness and shyness with my professionalism to put forth a tempered confidence. But in the initial moments, as he plopped down on his leather chair, when his intuitive sense preceded his mental words, I could tell he had picked up on something in me. For a moment, and perhaps he didn’t even know it, I could tell his mind paused, incisively looked at me, and quizzically wondered about some reaction he must have perceived in me. Even though it happened within a split second, I wondered if perhaps, I had not hidden my reaction to his appearance as well or as quickly as I thought I had. He didn’t react to it to though. He only knew that he had seen it, found it unimperative, and proceeded with the formalities of the interview.

We talked about the generic shit, and were able to move through all the topics smoothly. We were not unalike in conversational style, and so he found it easy to go through the steps. He liked the ease of it, and I could tell that he would weigh this enough to give me the job. The interview ended, and later the following day I got the news that I gotten the job.

Although I was just joining the staff the supported him already, I would be working most closely with him. I would do a lot of reporting to him, assessing shit, writing, and interpreting shit. I was still shy.

The staff liked him a lot, and he was known for all the expected things—intelligent, confident, and sensitive—and of course hot. He was a hunk. Just as known were his happy & fulfilling marriage and two kids. Though he worked a lot, his schedule did reflect obvious exemptions for family.

Eventually, I got into the rhythm of shit, and I lost my insecure tepidness. He was easy to work with. I thought of him as a mentor, and felt lucky to have such a cool boss. He respected me as well. He trusted me, and had no problems challenging me with tasks that required initiative.

The more we got along, and the more I got into the work routine, the more my thoughts of attraction for him faded. Reality was setting in.

We eventually got a rapport going. He liked me. I think I reminded him of himself when he was young—a typical response amongst those who give me jobs. I could tell in the half nostalgic way he would gaze at me. He asked me more about life at school. He seemed surprised that I didn’t have a girlfriend. I could tell he didn’t know what to make of it, but he managed to disregard it. He commented on one of the other girls in the office that was about my age. I said I already found out she had a steady boyfriend. “Oh,” he said, while smiling.

Eventually, he realized I picked up on the dynamics of the office beyond my immediate work. I could tell what was going on with the business and clients without being told. He asked me about my views about the industry. Although we talked a lot about work, we also talked about life in general. Goals, politics, and what makes a person happy. He was a deep thinker and so was I.

As expected, the topics eventually included family—and although at first he thought mine was the normal American defunct home. He picked up rather early on that there was more to it, but didn’t press on. He demonstrated awareness and genuine maturity. That was my cue, and we, basically, became friends.

I was elated—here was this guy I really liked. For whom I worked, and who wasn’t so insecure as to prevent a friendship with someone younger. Shit couldn’t be better.

Over the course of the year, he told me about his school days, and his career decisions. He had more than a few talents that had been institutionally recognized and had to make some tough decisions about a focus.

He told me about how he met his wife, and how they got married soon after grad school. They had been together since then—incredible—a one woman guy with no divorces. I did notice however, that in telling me about all his school years, including his teens, he never mentioned any other relationships. Perhaps, I thought, he just didn’t think about any of them after meeting his wife, but that didn’t make sense. Plus, he was really hot—that didn’t make sense either. I dismissed this shit as aberrant and as probably motivated by other things.

He was all that, and I started to fall for him without knowing it. I was as fucken green as could be. Still, I didn’t start feeling this way because he was hot, successful, or smart—I knew most of that before I even met him. Instead, I had come to decide that he had character—a moral center and conviction. Fuck—nothing can beat that in combination with everything else. I fell for him hard.

Work picked up and it didn’t matter if I had to stick around to finish work. I could leave early or come in late later, or even get paid more—either way. On occasion, I was asked to come in on the fly, especially during krunch times.

One time, the call came at an unexpected time--about the middle of the day. Shit usually wasn’t happening at the time, but apparently this day was an exception. I was at the gym in the middle of a workout. I hadn’t started to stink so, still in sweats and a loose shirt, I asked if it was okay not to change. He said it was fine.

I arrived, and he started briefing me on what he needed done. Reports needed to get read, results needed to be in by the afternoon. I could leave out some shit I usually do, but had to focus on this other stuff. There were a lot of directions to listen to, and it wasn’t ending any time soon.

He got up to go get water. I leaned forward and looked across his desk at the stacks of files. I was not looking forward to this. Although I hadn’t done this before, I think I knew what the rest of his directions were going to be.

He came back, and as he was sitting back down and taking a gulp of his water, I leaned back and slouched into the chair in anticipation of the continuing slew of information. My loose shirt had clung onto the leather of the chair. As I exhaled and sunk into the chair, my shirt reactively tightened and uncomfortably constricted around my torso. My low hanging sleeves rode up to my shoulders.

In discomfort I started shifting up, and when I looked up, my bosses jaw was hanging low, and his eyes were wide open in a look of sheer disbelief.

I balked—what the hell was going on? My eyes darted to the left and to the right wondering if something was headed in my direction or something had happened near me. I looked back, and he was intensely transfixed. Right away, my mind triangulated the trajectory of his gaze—he wasn’t looking directly at me. He was looking just beneath my face.

As the realization of what he was looking at set in, my eyes grew wide and my jaw dropped as well. Self-consciousness began to grip him, but the conviction of his disbelief wouldn’t let go. He didn’t know whether to keep looking or finally break away. I felt my face flush—I couldn’t look away either. I had to know that my eyes were not fooling my mind either.

His shoulders twisted to his right, and his neck and face followed. His jaw never made it up. As he turned in profile, his chest tightened, then his shoulders, and finally his temples—the shame gripped him from beneath, and its intensity supplanted his disbelief.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I don’t know how I remained aware of anything, because the whole office seemed suddenly devoid of sound or movement.

A cold and tightening feeling spread through my chest and in a flash pushed its way over my whole body and out onto my skin before dissipating. The next thing I became aware of was my heart beating.

I dropped my face, and twisted to my right. I swallowed. And waited. “Um, well, ye-e-e-a…,” he said. His voice wavered with uneasiness, but a few syllables more, and he managed to start again, like nothing had happened.