Pride (Excerpt from "Dilate")

A week later, after the Steve situation, the celebration of Gay Pride was in progression. I had never been to the parade, and decided to go this year. I didn't want to go alone, so I invited a co-worker of mine to watch the parade with me.

It was raining that day, and my friend never showed up. So, I waited for the parade to begin, as I sat on one of the lions at the New York City Public Library on 5th Avenue. The loud motors from the Dykes on Bikes sent chills up my body as the celebration began. I watched the cavalcade for a couple of hours, until I decided to walk down with the parade down to the village. I was wearing my "Nobody knows I'm gay" t-shirt, which caused many people in the crowd to make comments. I wasn't one to create attention to myself, but realized with this shirt, it was inevitable. All I could do was smile, even at the ridiculous responses of "We do now!"

On my way down, the parade stopped, and we all engaged in a moment of silence for those who had lost their lives to AIDS. I was standing behind a couple in front of me, holding each other in comfort. This brought tears to my eyes. Luckily, I was wearing sunglasses.

I stayed in the Village, until it was time to head onto to the clubs. First, I went to Champs for about an hour. I spotted a cute guy there who seemed to be cruising me, yet, never approached me.

Tired of that crowd, I decided to head over to Splash. Honestly, I don't know what possessed me to do this, as Splash was not one of my favorite places. I felt that it was a Superficial club/bar, and that if you didn't have a body, you were totally ignored. Still, I figured I wanted a change, and since it was close by, I decided to venture on over.

Five minutes into the club, the cute guy I was cruising walked in with his friends. I was sitting on a bar stool, close to the almost empty dance floor. He made his way over and started talking to me, telling me that he lived in Jersey, and was in town for the parade. He must not have been interested because he left shortly after. So I started thinking: Was it my voice? Was it my chipped tooth? My insecurities began getting the best of me….until I noticed I was being cruised again from someone a few feet away from me. He came over and introduced himself to me. His name was Andrew.

Andrew and I left the club and began walking downtown. We were getting to know each other. We got on the subject of movies, and the film "Babe" had come up. I had never seen this hyped up movie about a talking pig, so he invited me over to watch it. "This is different", I thought. I was so used to being invited over for sex, but never to watch a movie.

I laid in his arms, as we sat on the futon watching the film. Afterwards, he told me how much he loved my look, and told me that I reminded him of Andre Agassi – who I happen to look nothing like. We finally went to bed, and engaged in oral sex.

When we were finished, Andrew proceeded to tell me that since he's been here in the past year, he's had sex with over sixty men. He told me that he wasn't into relationships. "Great", I thought – 'cause I'm not into guys who are so sexually active. But, I felt myself developing a more serious attraction for him, so I figured 'What the fuck? We'll be fuck buddies.' I had never had one of those before, and i might as well experience it.

Two days later, after sex at his place, we went shopping. I had mentioned to him that I like to write, and that my forte' was writing poetry that bashed my ex-boyfriends.

"Well", he said, "I'm glad I'm not your boyfriend."

That was the moment I had to question what I was doing with him.

I didn't call him anymore after that. Nor did he try calling me.