December 3, 2006

Back when I was an enthusiastic member of men4sexnow.com–oh, those halcyon days!–I received emails from any number of very attractive men who volunteered to have their way with me. Human frailty being what it is, many of these offers never gave way to physical encounters. More than enough of them did, however, that I spent very little energy dwelling on missed connections.

There were a few cases, however, in which the photograph that accompanied the initial offer depicted a fellow of such breathtaking beauty that even now a small part of me regrets what might have been, even if the time for which it might have been is less than a half hour. The most striking of these photographs, boat.jpg, displayed a young man, apparently Latino, standing in some sort of festive gathering area, his hands grasping the lattice of the low ceiling above him, a wide enough gap on his left side between the hem of his shirt and the waist of his pants to reveal a small but tantalizing expanse of smooth, muscled skin. The viewer had but a moment to consider this feature, however, before being practically blinded by the stunning face above it. He was smiling a smile of utter sweetness that yet managed to convey a sense of depravity the depths of which one usually doesn’t even dream of encountering. I am not so naive as to pine for this gentleman as the One That Got Away, but I have spent an occasional moment or three since then wishing that he and I might have enjoyed the pleasure of each other’s company for an afternoon, or at least for a lunch break.

Remember this, please, as I change topics slightly to reveal that last week, my computer informed me that its memory banks were almost full and that I ought to divest myself of unnecessary files so as to avoid risking the integrity of the rest of my data. A cursory exploration revealed that the largest files were all video clips of the sort that I find extremely useful from time to time, especially when E.S. is on call at the hospital. Unwilling to delete these, I went in search of other potential jetsam.

And in my quest, I came across the photo I have described above, which I hadn’t seen for years. I sat back in my chair as the file opened and prepared to spend a few moments luxuriating in reminiscence of the best of a time long gone. The man whose memory had given me so many pleasant moments appeared on my screen.

And he was totally homely.

He had mediocre teeth, and the photographer had caught his face at a good angle but two seconds of further examination revealed a visage no better than average, and possibly worse.

I cannot communicate the sense of betrayal that flooded my body and my spirit. Boat.jpg had betrayed me by not living up to my memory of him; my memory had betrayed me by playing me false–or, worse, my aesthetic sense had betrayed me by judging him attractive in the first place–or, worse yet, my critical faculties had betrayed me by changing their standards as I stumbled towards the grave. I had betrayed myself by indulging in a fantasy based on a falsehood, or by making false a fantasy based in truth. I was also quite sure that E.S. had betrayed me too, though I couldn’t figure out exactly how.

So I consigned boat.jpg, along with a great many other files, to my computer’s trash can, which I emptied shortly thereafter.

But now I am worried that, when I did so, I also emptied my dreams, and that all I have to look forward to is a life full of memories that will haunt me mercilessly until they crash in disappointment. At some point in the not-too-distant future my computer may tell me that I have to repeat the exercise, and I can only imagine what carefully-tended illusions I will shatter then.

Luckily, at least for now Fuckfest 4: Adam, Alexander, Colby, Foster, & Wade.mpg is exactly as I recall it to be.