The First

Ah, the First. No, I am not referring to the final foe of Ms. Buffy Summers. Even though this particular First can cause as much carnage and mayhem as The First Evil, I am referring to the First Love.  You know, the boy that broke your heart so bad and no matter how many evil things he might have done, you still remember him fondly. And even though I wasn’t meant to spend the rest of my life with, I am somehow cosmically connected to. Yes. That First. 

He wasn’t the first guy I dated. That happened when I was sixteen and just coming to terms with my sexuality and I was lucky enough to find another fledgling gay boy. So, obviously it was love  - or at least that is what I thought. This ridiculous notion seemed to carry me through my next couple of relationships in college. 

Right after I went to college I was kicked out of my house for being a friend of Dorothy, so I needed to find a place to live over the summer break.  It was divine providence that I ended up in Northern Ohio, on Lake Erie. Yes, I was working like an immigrant in the early part of last century, but I lived on a peninsula surrounded by beaches and worked in an amusement park. It was quite an amazing way to spend a summer. This is where I met Jared, my First. 

Scruffy, rugged, aloof, and basically everything I was looking for in a prospective beau. He wasn’t “traditionally” attractive. In fact,  throughout the years my friends would refer to him as “the mongoloid”. But he had this sparkle in his eye - a glint that flashed the mischievousness of a five year old. This is why I was so taken with him. Plus he was an artist. More specifically he was a metal sculptor with extremely strong and rough hands. Sigh. 

We dated off and on for six years and every time we broke up he crushed my heart so deeply I thought I never was going to recover (where was Buffy when you needed her?). 

Through the years we have had a strange relationship. We would always turn to each other during the most horrific moments of our lives. He was one of the first people that I confided in when I tested HIV-positive. He called me the night after his mother died. On both of these occasions we talked on the phone for roughly eight hours. Now we talk occasionally on Facebook and very rarely we’ll call each other.

When he found out I was having my debut cabaret performance in New York, he was determined to attend. I was a little floored, but I thought it would be nice to see him again. 

He was still the same scruffy, rugged, and aloof person I fell for all those years ago. After my performance, he and his current boyfriend joined me and my friends for dinner. We sat next to each other so we could get caught up on each other’s lives and he informed me of his current artistic endeavors. Pornography. I was again staggered. 

He smiled and flashed his childlike eyes as he saw my inquisitive expression. He told me his first film was already in circulation. I was ever so grateful he told me about it because, if I had seen it, I would have probably peed my pants if I had come across it and not had any idea. Jared said there would be little or no chance of me running into it, unless I was into fetish films. Fetish films? My curiosity propelled me to drill him for more information about it. 

As soon as I got home, I cracked open my laptop and searched him by his porn name. A name, might I add, he stole from a character from the TV show “Full House.” The movie was full of harnesses, whips, gags, a sling, a bondage rack and, of course, clothespins. 

I would have thought that seeing him spread-eagled on a bondage rack while his master was removing clothespins from all over his body, including his cock, would have completely altered the perfect image I had of him. But it didn’t. As I was watching his balls being tortured I couldn’t help noticing that he still had childlike glint in his eye.

Our cosmic connection was still intact and all was right in the world.