Saudade. Chapter 3

I had fucked my first boyfriend. The sex tinted glasses were gone, some panic and anxiety said hello but my whole body melted like butter. I-

I lied to you when you called and asked. I couldn’t tell you that we had fucked. Letters are always the easiest when you’re ashamed and know that no matter what a bad reaction is expected.

That was the guilt which filled me, but there was also some long lost love. I knew that I had clipped off your wings and given them to another.

And I had lied, because I just couldn’t tell you all of this over the phone. How do I tell you this, when he was laying besides me and I could only think of him, feeling that I would never get bored, that somehow a different routine would happen and that I would have some happy ending I had wished so badly when I was young? I feel so tired, but somehow this whole mess made me live. It made me live, which I haven’t in a while. At the same time I wanted to sleep, I was tired and drained, tracing my fingers against his skin. I kissed his forehead.

I want to feel safe and I haven’t been feeling that at all, just feeling myself go through life holding onto hour to hour. I felt like there was nothing else and I’ve had plenty mornings where I didn’t knew if I loved you because I couldn’t feel at all. I know I’m chasing after a long gone fallen star. I lower my head and kiss him again.

This time it’s far more slow, different from how you kiss. We keep holding against each other’s lips, some traces of how it was in the beginning so many years ago. My mind starts telling me exactly what I had done now. I had unwind with an old lover, who I had never touched this way. We both hadn’t touched each other in such a way. And laying here feels like a different closure, which you surely can’t achieve from just kissing.

I can’t help but wonder what the fuck have I entangled myself into. It’s never just sex, no matter what one wants to believe. It’s some reconciliation. We keep kissing and it fires up a bit, but we both pull back, far too drained to see where it could lead. My mind is scattered and peppered with guilt. We both don’t look into the other’s eyes, probably both recalling all the fights and all the weirdness that one has said once when they were so young. I position myself back so that I can kiss his forehead and we both listen to the other’s breathing.

I trace his skin in circles now, trying to recall how it had even felt before, but it was too long to remember. All I can remember now is all the falls and highs.

“Why did you leave me exactly?” I ask him out loud, a question which I thought I would never have an answer to, only things I could answer would be with a stupid guess. My heart rate gets faster. David finally decides to lean himself up and looks at me, but I’m not sure I want to see him no matter what the answer is.

“Do you really want to know?” And I get scared from looking at him. I feel myself so young and lost, because I had gotten the answer on the last time we had talked, a few years after dating, because I had decided that we ought to remain friends because now looking back, I was too queer to make friends and that’s why apparently we stuck together for so many years. But the answer was never enough.

“I… I was screwed in the head. I lost you too early, too much ahead of time.” He confesses and I don’t even know what to do with him. “I lost you so early. I thought you would wait, I thought you would come back.”

“I did.” I say. “I can’t say I waited, but I’m here. Now. By coincidence, which is true, but I’m here.”

He breathes out loudly, anxious, fidgeting with my hair now. It’s much shorter than what it used to be, but I could never cut it fully, I still enjoyed some length and I just fancied it because some men who I looked up to had it, so it was nothing that had a bad connotation with me.

I somehow couldn’t lie or tell the truth, but I was holding back things to say regardless, I guess I have that with everyone, you included. I can never get myself to confess the full thing sometimes, unless I think it through sometimes and even then I leave some details which I can’t really say. By the end of the day I feel like I can’t trust anyone at all. Maybe it started with David, who had cheated on me. I don’t really know. And we were too young to even properly consider or know an open relationship. Did he change now? People state that cheaters remain cheaters their entire lives. That you can’t just make another cloth out of the one you have.

Would that be the same for David? And now that we had thrown our sexual frustration out of the way, what does one do after such a thing? I had asked myself what would I have ever done if I had seen David. I always had it filled with anger, because he had changed me, just like any other partner or maybe school sweetheart had. I had everything from shoving him to showing you off, that I had managed to find true love elsewhere and that he was nothing and yet here I was, in his arms and running away from yours.

Maybe it’s not even up to David, maybe it’s just up to us. Maybe we’re the ones at fault, maybe it’s all my fault and David did nothing. I feel like it’s some ancient love triangle, where I don’t know where I lay. And how come I unearthed this long lost love, which I had thought I had gotten over so many years ago? I had spoken to you about David, a lot and you were there when I had discarded him, we were friends then and I saw a new beginning in you. I knew I was in love and that I could change. I never fell out of love with you, either. I just screwed up along the way. I somehow broke and decided to go alone to Brazil, which will haunt me until I die. I don’t know why I wanted to connect to a place I had been to so rarely before, maybe I had felt something, but it would be a lie. I slept all the way on the plane, nearly missing the food. I felt nothing other than the bare bones of guilt. That’s why I kept avoiding being awake. I didn’t want to think of the fight.

I’m probably the worst letter writer because my stories won’t match up, but this is all the truth I can afford. You always knew me and who you loved. You knew that I would always be scared and somehow my life had shaped me desperately in the way I am. But please consider to think, patch the missing pieces together and you’ll know everything. You’ll see that I never lied, I was just struggling to tell the truth what was going on in my head, because I always do. If one does sign a love contract, you knew the terms and conditions that I would always be like this and you somehow accepted me and I just went after David, regardless of what everything was said. But then we never discussed a scenario where I would see him and just go for him. We never knew that I had always loved him. Is it because love never really fades?

I would claw it all out if I could, if you had told me earlier but now-

I don’t even know.

I don’t even know myself apparently since I’m no longer knowing which feelings I have and what to do with them. And in all this thinking I kiss David again and he kisses me back, neither of us fully aware of what to say and somehow we still keep letting our bodies talk, entangled.

I want to tell him that I still love him, but that would send him running. I tend to judge men by the previous men I’ve encountered, by those which wanted nothing serious from a hook up and this happened to be a hook up. But what did David want? I can assure you that I hold the same fear I had held with you so often. I haven’t changed, I just got uglier as I became bare. Maybe there was just a layer which you hadn’t seen. I don’t know, or maybe I had loved him all these years and everything was leading up to this rather than some happy ending with you. I remember you told me the story of the man who left his wife for a high school sweetheart who he had met accidentally again or just different school sweethearts which would reunite, who realized that actually they would never find anything better.

Was that the same with me? Was I throwing the wrong thing away?

David wouldn’t tell me that he loved me first, after all this time and maybe it was best that we would keep our mouth shut, because desire had shown us all the colours we were missing and had held locked deep away in our heart.

“Why did you never try to get back with me?” I asked him, breaking the silence and the kiss.

“I thought the timing was off and you would never accept.” He pauses. “Didn’t I offer to get back together?”

“Yeah, when I started dating someone else. Talk about jealousy.” I chip in, remembering how weird I felt, because that was the first time we decided to stop talking to each other altogether, because I had found someone else after our break up and after he had dumped the girl he had cheated on me with. I didn’t even know the full story, I just heard a bit from him and how he had never loved her later. He had broken up with her on Valentine’s day as well, which remained a joke I would tell people, maybe all these years I struggled with losing David. I don’t even know. I barely remembered everything now and yet here I was, struggling with how things were going with you and running to him.

“I couldn’t stand seeing you with someone else, that’s when the fear would kick in.” He confesses. “I just thought that love was a game rather than long, vivid reflections of emotions because one is scared to admit what is really in their heart.”

“And what is it in your heart?” I ask, my lip trembles once. I even look away, not ready to hear anything at all, so I look away, missing his eyes instantly and he kisses my forehead.

“My feelings never went away. I never loved anyone else.” He says softly, nearly a velvet whisper.

“Do you still love me, after all this time?” I ask, as he kisses my face all over. What a sudden shift from sex to love confessions. It always amazed me how those two contrasted and I never understood how could sex be tender, when I always wanted to get pounded or be just as harsh with my partner at the time.

“I could never love anyone else. You had stolen my heart.” My blood goes cold for a moment before I master the courage to kiss him again, feeling the fire run in my blood. Could I say the same? I had loved you. I had loved him apparently.

I still feel lost and terribly unsure of what to say and I feel like I am in an interrogation room where he is smoking a cigarette, blowing smoke rings and watching the air dissolve them softly, as you are behind the one-way mirror. You would watch all of this unfold and I would never get to see your reaction as you heard it all. I won’t be in the same room as you read it. I don’t even need to be besides you. My comfort will only bring you a heavier blow, because of how will I act. Would you even be able to look at me in the eye? I had lied to you all this time. I had loved another man, for once it was the second which I loved more. I didn’t even know my feelings ran so deep and I didn’t want to confess them either.
When it came to you, I always knew the whole time that I would hurt you. I could never understand how come you clung so tightly to such a fuck up. I didn’t know what to expect from this though, because you had loved someone else, you never loved a cheater, you never loved this me which I thought was long gone.

I fuck up.

I have this long desire to destroy myself, because I deserve nothing, nothing at all. If everything would go my way, you would be gone because I don’t deserve you and if I could even properly function I would have been gone so long ago. The problem is when one can’t find the right blade they result in self destruction, torture until one collapses dead.

I don’t know why suicide is so hard. I don’t know how I happen to be so disgusting that I don’t free the world from myself, when the stress becomes so high. It happens at all times, nowhere to escape and you want it all. Watching you never made sense, how you always go forward and you drag me with my face in the ground because that is how I enjoy it.

I knew it, though, I knew laying at bed at night that somehow I had captured his heart and the other girls meant nothing and guys apparently as well. But I had only known the girls part.

He’s waiting for me to reply and I just stare at those lust filled eyes. He loves me. You love me.

“I would tell myself for so long that I had never loved you.” I pause. “For so long. And look where I ended up. I lied myself just to wake up from life in your arms again.”
I’m not lying.

How long have I loved him for then? I don’t even know when I had even started properly thinking about love, it was so long ago that I can barely remember anything before we started dating. I just remember it being so long ago, a bunch of bitter memories and old discarded thoughts were he was tangled into.

I didn’t even want to think of you. My mind was going places, driving on two busy roads where nobody else could cross. I couldn’t function, but life goes on to kick one in the groin. I don’t know why you feel distant recently, I didn’t understand where did the split ends appear. I always thought it was all artificial until looking now at all the cracks we are waltzing by and you’re holding onto tightly. I think it’s because you think you’ll never love anyone again, because I was your first proper love. You told me you never loved anyone before, that you would try other men and that they weren’t your cup of tea and they all turned into anecdotes, I could never even retell it as well as you would, with your voice impersonations which I would watch as of they were a show of themselves and you would speak of them.

–

Having low self-esteem and being on the verge of a breakdown was really food for the whole story. It was all writing what if I would fuck up this badly, knowing at the same time I would never would, I don’t have the feelings left. So it was really just fuelling that all up.

I’m also polyamorous, so this was putting my mind is a mindset where I would feel trapped by my relationship and not act accordingly, when clearly Allan has feelings for two. Cheating is a theme I enjoyed exploring because I frankly enjoy love drama and a good story about it and I’ve written about it numerously, but I’ve always only been on one side, because I’m open to my partners. Your friends would know, so why wouldn’t your lover?

I gathered inspiration from a recent relationship I had where it was just supposed to be sex and it escalated, so I took all the thoughts from there. I struggle with speaking out and it’s a quality I amplified, making Allan a terribly unreliable narrator.

Saudade. Chapter 2

I tried hard not to think of the break up, I didn’t want to think of it at all. I didn’t want to think of his girlfriends until we stopped talking. Then, I really didn’t know much and it was odd to see him age and I couldn’t help but wonder how much had he aged when it came to me. How was his thinking about me now? He looks down and just nods, probably thinking even more where would his next moves go and what did my reply even mean when it came to the game board. I looked around, seeing all the vendors and people coming from the beach.

I always talk gibberish on the way if something is about to happen. I always found it fascinating how guys would really be far more anxious than I would show, talking would calm my nerves and I would just continue talking about how it was to get to theirs before we would hook up. I wondered if I could even attempt to use the same tactic on David. Was it a hook up? Where do we go from here-

The eternal question which struck me once things went awful. When I would lay in bed, curled up and my boyfriend would try to get some sense into me. I couldn’t listen. I couldn’t focus anymore, I would have my eyes open at night for them to rest from the day which would make me psychotic. Night would ease my nerves, as soon as I would see the sky going darker but when it came to winter, it would just make me depressed. I needed to change everything from the bed covers to my own being. I felt like I was losing myself. I wanted to connect myself, like when I thought of my childhood when I realized that I had been a man all along. David was connecting with some innocence I was missing. I was different and timid and I wanted to give the young me a happy ending to all the turmoil. I used to believe that in some parallel universe we were somehow together.

What if-

I was getting ahead of myself, like when one arranges a second meeting and the first hookup is downright shit. I don’t even know what my feelings are from day to day, so how could I predict something like that. Eternity scared me and I didn’t want to settle now. I didn’t want to look at people who had no more love stories to tell. I wanted to be an eternal lover of many somehow.

We would talk how we didn’t tolerate gay people back in the day. Had that changed or was he seeing me as a girl just because I was clean shaved for the wedding?

How much of a hint is it if I ask of his sexuality? Is that even something to ask? What about how he viewed me now even if he had called me Allan?

We hold our silence for a while, as we cross the street and then we both fake to be interested in the streets as we walk back to the hotel. We pretend to be looking at each other only briefly, even if he never escapes my vision and it reminds me of us sitting opposite and barely blinking not to miss a breath of the other. Even writing we feels odd and off, because I know how paranoid you would get, reading all of this. You never wanted me to even consider him again, because he had destroyed my soul, but somehow my love lived on and the worse is that I had really loved him at the time and that seemed to seep onto my fingers all over again.

He offers to go his room instead and frankly that’s better, because mine has clothes and toiletries all over. We avoid looking at each other in the elevator, both standing at different ends. I can even hear the footsteps when we walk down the corridor, as I keep looking at our feet. I want to grab him and somehow make me believe in the eternity of today’s night, even if I know that I’ve got some serious intimacy issues and commitment ones as well. There’s something going on in my head and I would never stop talking to a therapist if I could.

He opens the door for me, pushing his hair to his side. I walk in and as soon as he closes the door I turn to him.

Last time we were in a closed space he nearly kissed me because we ended up staring at each other. But neither of us made a move and I just stood up, not wanting to entangle myself into him once more because he had hurt me.

“I don’t think I could change. It was as if I had frozen in time. Something wasn’t letting me go.” And David is very close to me. I had changed drastically and I don’t even know if he realizes that he could love another me. I had changed so drastically. He doesn’t touch me.

“I changed.” I shrug. “I had to. I knew that you left me for something wrong in me-”

“I didn’t. I was always me.”

“I was the one left. I just thought of it and I ended up getting broken, just regaining some new me after every single time I wasn’t satisfied with myself.” I want something new every day. I straighten up. I’m scared as well. I don’t want him to love someone who I’m no longer. “I changed. I found out who I was.”

“Yeah, but it’s one thing digging out who you are and another is changing.” His eyes are too blue. “I knew who you were.”

“You knew I were a guy?” I smirk. “Even I didn’t know that back then.”

“Well… maybe somewhere deep down.” He looks away and shrugs, closing his eyes, tilting his head. “I freaked when I heard about it, frankly. It was quite a few years ago. But it made me think… if I was with a guy… maybe there was something to that.”

My heart runs a marathon without stopping, probably ahead of all my other organs, dousing them with blood.

“I had thoughts before that. I hooked up with a guy, before I even knew about you. I just didn’t want to think of it much. I kept having girlfriends in a row, just discarding them and wondering where the fuck were you. It was hard to find you beyond a few acquaintances and they wouldn’t speak much of you because they didn’t know.” My whole body goes cold and then hot again. I really tried to burn all bridges. “But it still screwed with my head. I didn’t know who I was either.”

“It was different dating you. Now, I know why. Well, I’ve known for a while.” He says quietly and looks away.

I want to touch him. I want to tell him that it’s going to be alright even if it is. Is it?

I wanted to ask him everything. Who exactly had told him and how did he really react, the full story. I wanted rain to start falling, so that we would be in a more concrete bubble where we couldn’t go outside the hotel, I missed tropical rain, where it wouldn’t stop for a while but this time Rio was fully dry unfortunately. But the heat felt good after running away from winter. My mind trails and we just keep darting towards each other’s eyes, confused. Where do we go from here?

I hate that question because it applies to so many things. Before I was impatient with the way life was headed for many years and now, when there’s some power to change things the question is asked. And looking around everyone has it pretty bad, but the desire to make it better somehow remains. Is that really such a bad thing?

I’m not even sure where I would go.

I’m lost and somehow his eyes hold a past where I had seen myself. I was different and lost then, but he’s giving me plenty illusions and we just stand by the door, David thinking far too much on what to say and he’s very hesitant to make any moves like always.

It would take him alcohol I believe or the night when truth unravels-

I breathe so heavily. David, I had loved him so. How is it to love someone when you’re not sure about yourself? Could I have gotten a chance to find out how is it to love him again even for a few brief lines, how it could have all tasted?

I look away and that’s when he puts his hand on my cheek. I close my eyes, he’s still a bit taller than I am. I didn’t get much of a growth spurt later even if I had been tall for my age when I was young. I don’t even know why I’m being so honest with you. I just want to atone for sins, because by the end of the day God forgives us all for those who acknowledge what we have done. I’m an confession box and you’re the priest, silent for now and probably judging me later once the confession and I am out of your sight.

He stops once he reaches my stubble, not being used to it, since his memory plays a different song. He trails back up and gets closer. Maybe we would discuss this best post coital and those are the glasses we need, just to give ourselves some hope and desires in a bleak reality.

“Where do we go from here?” I nearly whisper, opening my eyes and his lips hovering above mine. I look at his lips and then back up.

“Anywhere.” He says and kisses me.

I nearly jump from the surprise, as if burnt. I gasp into his mouth, pulling him closer by his collar. It gets passionate desperately quick, as we both put our arms around each other, not knowing every shade the over has changed to, but there’s too much of nostalgia and the kissing is already not as innocent as before, as we both rub our tongues against each other, sucking on lips and biting. My hands start trailing to the front of his shirt. I start undoing the buttons in haste, feeling myself far too excited-

Last time he saw me I dyed my hair blonde for the first time.

Last time we just sat close and talked, not aware that it would be it. We spoke of our plans and they didn’t include hooking up so many years later for sure.

He tilts his head lower to bite my neck. We’re both not aware of the future, frankly we’re just fucking, just like any other hookup only this one comes with tears and complications of the nostalgia we long for. It’s all under a different sauce which makes me wonder, what the fuck are we even thinking, but no matter how much I doubted it, I would undress him further and then he would just undo my pants. David traces the skin above my boxers first before sticking his hand inside.

“I always wanted to make you feel good.” And he strokes me, teasing me, getting his fingers wet with me. He kisses my neck, moving up to my ear. “What do you feel like?”

I realize that this isn’t a conversation I would have with you on the couch, discussing what we both feel or me pinning you down. In this case, he doesn’t even have the faintest clue of my tastes and how I feel. He’s about to unwrap me and fuck me.

I grab him by the chin, so that our eyes are locked.

“Fuck me hard.” My mind goes places where I wouldn’t go if I wasn’t so ridiculously horny and broken, the thrill excites me of fucking my first boyfriend. I hadn’t taken anything with me, so I’ll be the bottom for tonight. It’s not like this wasn’t what I thought of often. I do have to specify that I’d prefer front today. “Fuck me raw.”

He kisses me roughly and strokes me in circular motions, making me moan before pushing me onto the bed. David takes my pants fully off and goes down on me. I entangle my fingers in his hair, ruining how neat it looked a while ago. I spread my legs even wider, moaning, digging my nails into him. He gets me pretty near before he stops and goes up.

“Be a good boy and go on fours.” He says stroking my cheek again. We kiss as we remove the rest of our clothing. I do go on fours, digging my head into the pillow as I feel him slowly go painfully in. I’ve always felt pain in this certain position, but that’s what drove me wild. I liked pain, I liked pleasure, I loved sex with the all the feelings that came with it. Maybe that’s why I liked trying different people, seeing how they could please me and use me. I loved being used. I loved knowing that someone was receiving pleasure from me.

David kisses my back, waiting for me to adjust to him and his size.

“Fuck me.” I say, giving him the signal and he starts thrusting slowly, making me used to it before he picks up the pace to a much faster and rougher speed. I keep moaning, clutching the bed covers or the pillow, whatever my hand falls on and I hear him moan from behind. I am terribly near, but I keep trying to steady and not come yet.

He’s far too deep within me and I know this will all be a regret.

David puts his hands on my hips, thrusting even rougher.

“Fuck, this is so good.” He moans out and I can only imagine how he looks like, hair all destroyed and sweaty, flushed and sexy.

“Please… so good.” I breathe out, barely even knowing how to breathe. He puts one hand between my legs to stroke me once more. I moan louder. “Please… don’t, I’ll come then.”

David stops.

“I want to see you come.” He continues stroking me with his fingers, as I nearly bite the pillow from being so near and turned on. “Turn around.”

I do that and lay on my back, spreading my legs wide and he takes in the view with his eyes stopping a while on my chest with the scars, I guess. He leans down to kiss my nipples, lick them.

“Back to fucking.” He says and kisses me with haste. David sits up and positions himself, holding my legs as he sits up and thrusts without any introduction.

“Fuck!” I scream, feeling the pleasure hit me and he’s watching me. I breathe heavier with each thrust and he’s no different. It feels amazing.

It feels so good.

“You feel so… good!” And he leans his head back, closing his eyes, unravelling. That tips me over and I scream my orgasm out, shaking, thrusting harder against him, as I feel him fill me up. We thrust a few more times, riding the orgasms out until we stop.

David slides out of me and I feel a fair amount leaking out, which feels like the desert to it all. He looks down, grinning tiredly and then laying besides me. I put an arm around him, both of us barely breathing.

I had fucked my ex.

–

I like writing lengthy sex scenes and overall I’m a very sexual person, so I see no point in hiding it at all through my fiction. There’s no sex scenes with gay trans men written that are outside of erotica if you really look for it. Accepting my body was troublesome and my main problem was sex for many years, so now writing such things without the fear and crippling dysphoria is a triumph and I wanted to show that Allan is desperately wanted sexually. It’s a fucked up story and frankly writing it I really had to distance myself from the fact that I was basing on a very long gone love which I had moved on from. The whole story and writing it was an experience.

I haven’t spoken and I can’t claim anything and this is a work of fiction, where I just based off my experiences and my first heartbreak which lasted years from a friendship we should’ve never maintained. I just go through guys I’ve been with and all had gay rumours so that only fuelled the story.

Saudade

We sketch our memories and sometimes we rub them out too hard and it ends up leaving a hole, even if you can’t see what was there any more-

So when you rub it off…

Do you still know what was there?

It’s like we don’t speak of loneliness enough, because we do and eventually somehow that mercilessly tumbles onto suicide. Then next time I’m at a doctor the question of suicide rises up, because it is somehow assumed that everything goes hand in hand. It’s asked with a smile, an assumption that of course the thoughts never cross my head.

It’s always a lie and it gets rubbed harder.

“Have you ever loved anyone” is another question which gets asked, but I rarely have the guts to tear all the petals away and reveal that I had loved when I hadn’t known myself at all. So was it really love?

What about all the rest? They just came and went with the post coital talking, where neither confesses how lonely the other feels.

It feels as if life was divided in two parts, where I knew myself and when others thought they did. If I was a smoker I would be probably smoking, but the problem is that it stopped becoming cool and it’s just something parents do among themselves, splitting a cigarette, promising to quit tomorrow.

Everything seemed like waiting for a ghost. Or maybe seeing one up close, not drug fuelled either on both ends. It’s never a confession that I’ve seen him on Facebook, so I knew how he’d look like if it were so happen to meet.

I remember that way back when I would wear dresses, before I knew who I was, I saw one of my exes while wearing a red dress and in heels and I walked past him. I remember my whole body shaking and thinking how metaphorically pretty I looked. That the last time we saw each other would be me in a red dress.

Today wasn’t a metaphor of any sorts, but a cocktail of a mental breakdown which caused me to scream at my boyfriend that I was going to said wedding alone, that I needed time to clear my head and the thoughts don’t even go well on paper, as I retell this all. I get the same rush and it’s not a good thing. It’s not a good thing when you’re asking for an apology and some sort of alibi, but it’s easier to get denied by the truth than some mediocre lie, because I know that there was nothing I could hide myself from. I didn’t know.

My thoughts are all jumbled and I apologize, but it’s really the whole fact that I would see him on a wedding of a friend, who I had no idea he was in touch with or even knew on the first place and who didn’t warn me either. There was no winking and saying ‘your first ex will be there’ because no one knows much about those times when I was different. People just assume just like the gender therapists that I’ve always been desperately macho. I never tell them that I wore dresses and even then it becomes in a whisper. Maybe for some Halloween to reconnect when I was still trying to understand myself, but the idea was bad. It’s even worse that I see him at the party and he’s surely no waiter.

He couldn’t have stalked me like I stalked him on Facebook. I changed names. He’s not friends with the people I’m friends with. Rumors don’t travel of names and surgeries, maybe that I’m trans. So I look around, there’s plenty of drinking and I can’t even focus on the sand underneath my feet to ground all my emotions.

I saw him at a wedding.

I see him at a wedding and he’s making eye contact with me because I’ve stared long enough. So he makes his way up from sitting on the sand alone and why not congratulate a friend instead of the bride and groom? He’s wearing grey pants and a white button up shirt. We’re both probably far too sweaty and we would’ve all benefited from having a swim suit wedding, but the bride didn’t want that and the weather is so hot that it just goes into being in a toaster where you can’t sweat more than you would sweat ten degrees ago.

It’s a long forgotten desire of what the fuck would have happened.

He broke it off. I wasn’t the one saying quits, but after years of waltzing and him telling our friends he loved me, I stopped. I didn’t visit him when he was desperately ill and I just made a face, that I would never visit him again no matter how much people thought I needed a boyfriend.

And as you know, this was way before I had lost my virginity. This was all child’s play and some story which would be rated well by Disney. That was all it was. I just entered teenage years and I was too young to consider actually wanting sex. I didn’t know who I was, so how could I want?

“Hey.” His voice is deeper and my hair length changed, dyed blonde. Hair length was something I didn’t give up, I still wanted it to cover my ears and look like I had escaped from some rock band or maybe some movie, book, I just didn’t want an undercut and facial hair made me look like Kurt Cobain in a way, so I kept clean shaved just to look different and with shorter than Kurt hair. Now he’s looking at me full force.

He knows that I’m trans

And there it goes.

Maybe he did stalk my Facebook.

He opens his mouth to say something, but what does one say? He can’t possible dead name me-

But he does.

I squint, because I wish there was sun and this is pathetic, that I’m shaking and I’m not in a red dress, instead I’m also in a button up and pants, sitting on the sand and I don’t feel as glamorous knowing that I have pills I take a few times a day to calm down and I still haven’t gotten the courage to even connect to the internet or call you besides telling you that I arrived.

I take a sip of my beer.

“I meant…” He sits down. He’s really staring.

“I mean.” He stops. “It’s… Allan now, yeah?”

I just nod. He’s terribly changed but even if I’ve seen plenty photos and how his life is going from bits I’ve heard here and there, it’s hard to imagine someone change so much when you’ve seen them before. I still look down and dig my feet deeper into the sand, feeling a bit like a seasick sailor. I shouldn’t even be talking to him, yet here I am, trying to even get on board somehow. Somehow the loud Portuguese seems to ease me as well. It becomes awkward when I don’t understand or don’t try, since learning languages en masse is a thing now. It’s nice to find solace somewhere even for a brief while.

My heart still keeps racing and my hands are as sweaty as the ocean.

What else does one say?

And it’s gonna get worse.

How the hell do I say that my whole world is going under? That I’ve considered even a mental hospital, just because it seemed like the place they would take someone who had completely gotten sick of the big city, of how everything had started running its course and getting out just seemed crazy. Maybe a plot of a farming simulator, but it would never escalate to anything more. I wanted out and I knew I was crazy. My mood couldn’t be stabilized and everything seemed flashing and now he was here. He wasn’t even a mirage, he was a disaster waiting to happen again. We just drink beer quietly, making both aware that this how we would react at a school reunion anyway. We have nothing to talk about besides me asking why the hell had you gone for the other girl?

Why had you dumped her so soon afterwards?

Why did I sabotage every relationship I had afterwards even my most recent which had been with you? He was solely the reason, the fingerprint I couldn’t change. He had been choking me all this time and using his hands instead of allowing my own and I would just watch.

The love had evaporated and I no longer knew how it had tasted. I just remember choking. I remember the kissing which was confusing.

Please, if you’re angry at anyone be angry at him. Accuse the one who steals, not the one who runs away.

I knew I would sleep with someone in Brazil, that I would let someone chat me up. And then the possibility shined brightly in my eyes like a flashlight and I could only turn away. But I’m getting ahead of myself. But that’s how you do it, you tell the bad news, who the murderer is and then you find out how he had killed. Or rather that someone had died.

“It’s funny…” He gulps the beer and then nods at the bride and groom. “That we both know them at the other side of the world.”

“I don’t really talk about you.” It sounds like a snap. “So I doubt they would’ve made the connection.”

“Neither.” He replies just as coldly. I did masturbate to him though. We obviously never had sex, even if some girls and boys our age already gave themselves in. And he looks at me with a bit of iciness in his eyes, he has to play ball with the same technique I am playing with. He wants to mirror it all.

“David.” I pause and he looks stung by me saying the name. Feeling an old poison run through the body. They say you never forget your first love, but mine was getting grown over by thorns in my mind which only confirmed that I didn’t want to touch. David stares at me, his hair all tidy and kept, unlike mine which is getting a bit too long for my liking, I need a trim and stop my fear of hairdressers back from the days when I didn’t use to pass or let alone be on testosterone. I don’t even know why I uttered his name. How does one skip the awkwardness?

“I wanted to see you again.” He taps on the beer can with his fingers, tapping some old song I can’t exactly recall. “But you never wrote back and I just gave up, knowing that I had pushed it too hard on you.”

“I don’t even know what you meant by it.” I laugh darkly. “You didn’t want me back, yet you wanted to apologize for everything and told me that you would tell someone who you didn’t love that you loved her.

You were so odd.”

“Who says I changed?” He chips in, still looking at me. I feel bizarre. I keep looking away from his glance, just to avoid him. But I still remain in the conversation, not even moving an inch away, maybe just fiddling with the beer can.

“I’m pretty positive that we already were built by the time we were dating.” I sigh. “I think we all try to think we’ve changed, because no one wants to be stagnant in anything, so we lie to ourselves that we change, that everything is getting better, but is it really?”

“It’s not.” David sounds like a fatalist now, like on our last conversation which made no sense and ended up being the reason I just cut him off with no explanation. I always wondered what the hell would I have said to him, if I had gotten the chance and the fact that I had no idea what could I even say, just proves the bizarre twists and turns this conversation is achieving. He rubs his eyes, digging the can into the sand. “Do you want to go elsewhere or… you alright with the whole wedding around? I feel like we’ve got a whole night of catching up to do.”

I look at him, I feel like confusion is plastered all over my face rather than curiosity or any other emotion.

“If you want to that is. I wasn’t the best boyfriend. But… you know that.” He chooses his words carefully, as if this is still a complicated manoeuvre of game pieces and you’ve got to think which cards to reveal and the goal of one’s player is not said. What did the cards say he had to do to win? What even was victory to him?

Why are we even discussing this when we haven’t even properly said hello or how are you, just to kiss each other on the cheek and complain on how we can’t really take much with us to the beach? But instead we’re really rolling around in old thoughts and feelings which should’ve really been gone by now.

I drink the beer, pretending to think over his offer but somehow I feel a bit too frustrated on both ends of the problem, I want to hear what he has to say and it does sound like an invitation, but I don’t dare to ask. Who would really sleep with their first love if they could?

I look at him again.

I slowly nod, probably regretting everything which will unfold, but my heart is rushing.

He won’t really invite me upstairs now, I think about it, but we both stand up. I glance at the bride, who is the said close friend and she’s far too entertained by the groom to the point of laughter. I rub my eyes, as we walk through the sand silently. I recall how we would hold hands in the summer and how sweaty the hands would get, but somehow we wouldn’t break the touch at all. I look around, how people are still playing volleyball and some surfers seem to be lying with their surfboards and smoking. Others are blasting music which clashes against the wedding tunes. It’s been dark for a while now and I wonder how long have we not noticed each other or if he had-

“Did you notice me before?” I ask and he just dunks the beer, holding his answer back, giving a small nod as we get out of the beach area and into the street with the crowded buses screaming out locations and where they would go next, as well some taxis here and there.

“Didn’t have the guts to talk and then…” David makes sure that I’m looking at him. “You looked. So, that tipped me over.”

What even is his sexuality? He didn’t slip anything much about me, is that how sudden does one accept that an ex is transgender? How much should one flirt with a blade? My neck is probably red and I feel myself get redder and surely not from the heat that I’ve been desperately enjoying after being so cold during all of winter and escaping it.

Dreaming of him sexually didn’t help through teenage years and he was a constant fantasy and looking at him now, where sex is frankly frequent of an outcome, it becomes a desire. I just want the conversations to reach a lull, but even if my body takes hold of me, even if all this nostalgia is through rose tinted glasses, I must still maintain the conversation, allow it to come naturally and then straddle whatever I get.

How come we can feel lonely even when we’re in love? How can some love fade and other still be so vivid after years or does it become coloured glass nourished by the ocean, smoothing the edges and giving it an illusion of what it once was?

“Do you want to drink more or just…” He’s arranging his card deck in his mind. We’re adults now and we unwind in ways we would never dream of. Mistakes are made far more fatal. David barely lets go of my gaze. “Head upstairs for somewhere far more private? But then crowds can be private, because no one can ever hear anything and everyone having their own conversation lulls out any words one says to someone else who isn’t listening.”

“I think I’ve drank enough.” You’re the one making me drunk. I look around and throw away the beer, as I wait for the light to go green. David is still drinking his. I try to flatter myself thinking that he was too entangled in his thoughts to properly drink.

–

Well, here’s to a change and welcome to the new! I used to be an obsessive fanfiction writer, but as time went on and I had lots of time to think due to my mental health and assess where things were going. I’ve decided to go back to being a fiction writer, which I was many years ago. I’m very happy to share my new project with you, regardless if you’re an old or a new reader.

I knew that I wanted to write some fiction, but I frankly had no idea. I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep and my mind kept going everywhere, until I was given the question, what would’ve happened if I met my first boyfriend now, knowing who I am. Of course it’s no wishful thinking and we left on rather bizarre terms and I have avoided contact since and have no intention of changing that, but I let my mind wander for a few days. I then started writing it, letting it take form and putting all my bias away and basing the characters very heavily on both of us. It’s like a last ode even if I know that eventually I’ll think of things that happened because I always dwell on the past, but I’ve never set anything so heavily on it.

Saudade (Portuguese) – a feeling of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia that is characteristic of the Portuguese or Brazilian temperament.