The Boyfriend Chronicles: Brett
The Boyfriend Chronicles: Brett
May October 1998
(Originally posted 10/1/2003)
This one is going to be a little difficult, but not for any of the reasons you might think. The reason this one is difficult is because I have to keep stopping every three words to fantasize about Brett’s naked body. This could take a long time.
My bones melt at the thought of him. He had deep blue eyes that were forever crinkled in mischievous laughter, blond hair, an ice-cream grin and strong, gorgeous, expressive hands that would make me shudder in delight every time he brushed them across my keyboard.
Yes, I said keyboard. No, it’s not a euphemism.
When I started work at Bell, Brett was assigned to train my class of graphic designers in the finer points of composing yellow page ads. We were all his for two weeks, from three in the afternoon until eleven at night, when all three-hundred-and-some artsy-fartsy college-age kids would pour out the doors and into the local bar scene. For two weeks I lusted and drooled, flirted and fantasized, wore short skirts and teeny tops and just about stopped eating from the sheer excitement of it all. I lost fifteen pounds that month from the fallout of a libido in overdrive.
At the end of the two weeks, we went to a local pub to celebrate the end of training. Brett agreed to go with us for one drink. I don’t remember much about the bar, except that it had a kind of bird in the name — duck? swan? — and that Brett’s boss showed up so he had to spend much of the evening being nice to her instead of paying attention to me. Then fate stepped in. Oh, glorious, generous Fate — for once, she was on my side. Seems I’d inadvertently left my umbrella in class (I swear to God, it really was an accident) and Brett had picked it up for me. I followed him out to his car and this is where it gets really good.
I flat out asked him if he was in a relationship (I don’t really have time for subtlety and innuendo) and when he said yes, I pressed him for more information. He said it wasn’t serious, and then there was more unnecessary talking and then suddenly we were kissing.
Oh.
My.
God.
Bells. Electricity. Fireworks. Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Vegas jackpots. I soared above the thrill of these and then some. His mouth, his tongue, his hands — jeezismaryandjoseph, it just about made me cry. We kissed and kissed and kissed until the gentle drizzle began to get an attitude and forced him into the car and me back inside. I was too stoned on my own endorphins to care that everyone was staring at me and whispering. It didn’t matter. I just made out with Brett.
Things got a bit difficult after that. Turned out his regular schedule was 9 to 5, while mine stayed at 3 to 11, making it very hard for me to see him. And if I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t launch the spectacular final offensive I’d planned that would bring him down and into my bedroom. It consisted mostly of strategically arranging my legs to show as much of their tanned and toned length as I could get away with, walking past his desk to envelop him in the aromatic jetwash of my perfume and catching his eye with suggestive grins and sultry winks. Better plans have been laid, I’ll admit, but I was neck deep in lust at the time and it turned out he was a less of a challenge than I’d first anticipated. Girfriend, schmirlfriend. He wanted me as much as I wanted him.
So it was no surprise that we finally shed our pretense of restraint (and most of our clothes) in a frenzied and breathless wrestling match in the front seat of his little yellow sports car. Which led to furtive groping in the conference room. Followed by kissing behind a file cabinet. And then eventually, he found his way to my little apartment where we spread a quilt on the living room floor and boinked like bunnies on an all-Viagra diet every single Saturday he could get away.
For a while I tried to persuade him to leave his girlfriend, with whom he was profoundly unhappy. He’d tell me how she’d nag at him about getting married and starting a family, neither of which he was ready to do, and how it would always end up in a screaming match that drove him out the door. I couldn’t understand why in the world anyone would choose to stay in a relationship like that, especially when he had us as a safety net. But he stayed and I eventually gave up. For five months we just enjoyed one another, no questions asked.
Late that year I met and started dating Eric Two, and had to tell Brett that we couldn’t see each other any more. Unlike him (and apparently about 50% of the rest of the male population), I was not comfortable professing exclusivity to one while having a little recreational fun with another. Brett was put out, unable to understand why we couldn’t continue while I pursued a relationship with some other guy, but I stuck to my guns. I really liked Eric and wanted to give us a chance, and I was beginning to get bored with the bedroom olympics anyway. We stayed friends, but he was banned from the bedroom thereafter.
Brett and I are still in touch occasionally, and if I’m not mistaken, I’ve wound up in bed with him between relationship once or twice since then, but a few years ago I realized that part of us was over. I tried hard to explain to him that over the years we’d known one another, as we had become friends and confidants, a kind of emotional intimacy had evolved that made it harder and harder to see the sex as casual. I told him that without the security of some kind of commitment — something neither of us really wanted — you could have one kind of intimacy or another, but not both. Anyone who’s ever awoken after a night of drunken romping with a close friend can attest to that. He couldn’t understand, no matter how many times I explained or what kind of handy visual aids I used to illustrate my point. It was all moot anyway, as five years later he was still in the same relationship with the same girl, having the same fights and making the same empty resolutions to leave.
I’ve seen him once in the past year, when his job brought him to my area. He took me out for sushi and I slept next to him wearing his shirt. He confessed in the morning that he’d been too aroused to sleep and I sensed a touch of sadness in his half-hearted attempts to lure me back into bed.
Truth is, I still think he’s sexy, but I kind of feel sorry for him, and there’s no surer lust-killer for me than pity. He’s been suffering in the same awful relationship for years, no matter how bad it gets, and it dawned on me that he was afraid to be alone. I understood it and tried to just be there for him, but the attraction was definitely gone. I can’t say for sure if it would have turned out differently had he ended his relationship, but I know I would have respected him more for it.
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