The Rules of Attraction

PAUL The days went by so quickly that time seemed to stop. During the next weeks I was only with him. I stopped going to Acting II, Improv Workshop, Set-Building, and Genetics. None of them made a difference anyway. At least not in the way he did. I was in a dreamlike trance but it was tension-filled and satisfying. I was always smiling, looking like a perpetual drunk even though I quit drinking as much beer as I usually consumed since I did not want to obtain a beer-belly. I drank vodka instead.

What did the two of us do? I mostly hung out with him and no one else. I didn’t introduce him to Raymond or Donald or Harry and he didn’t introduce me to his friends. He taught me how to play Quarters and I learned how to flip that coin with such skill and dexterity into those plastic cups filled with keg beer that when we would play, either with Tony or just alone, he would end up getting smashed and I’d sit there slightly sober, sipping warm Absolut, staring. And he would be shocked that I had caught on so quickly and he would practice alone to keep up with me.

It was a time when I would notice old lovers at parties and not squirm, since I felt so confident about this new romance. Whenever I would pass one by in Commons or at a party or when Sean and I were in town or sitting by the End of the World watching fall turn into winter, I wouldn’t blush or look away. I would nod a hello, smile, and go back to whatever I was doing without flinching. At parties when I helped Recreation Committee set up (only doing it because of Sean) by rolling kegs in and setting the speakers up, I wouldn’t flirt or even want to look at anyone else. Not that I wouldn’t notice people I had slept with. No, they seemed to stand out even more, and I was only relieved that I wasn’t with them, but that I was with Sean instead.

Since his roommate Bertrand (“a stuck-up Frog,” he’d say) was either shopping in New York on weekends or over at his girlfriend’s place off-campus, we had the room to ourselves, which was good and bad. Good, since it was in a house where there was usually a party, any party, on any night of the week and so it was nice to get drunk in Booth, in the living room, or if it wasn’t snowing or raining or cold, out by the front porch, then walk up the stairs to that room at the end of the hall. It was also bad because he was afraid people would hear us so he would get paranoid and have to drink a lot more before even any sort of foreplay could be initiated.

After sex (during sex he was crazed, an untamed animal, it was almost scary) we would both be starving and then we’d drive on his motorcycle to Price Chopper. He always had an extra helmet. I’d put my arms around his firm slim waist and he’d race down College Drive toward the market. Once there he would play a few games of Joust at the video machines near the front door and I’d buy the sliced cheese, the bad salami he liked a lot, the rye bread for him, the whole grain wheat for me, and, if it was before two, the inevitable six-pack of Genny or Bud. I liked Beck’s but he said it was too expensive and he didn’t have enough money. Most of the time he liked to shoplift. He loved to do it so much that I would have to calm him down. We’d only do it in the middle of the night when no one was there, just one checkout line open and the nightshift boys unpacking canned goods in back, with Rush coming from the speakers that during the day carried Muzak. I’d be wearing my long Loden wool coat I got at the Salvation Army in town and he’d be wearing his leather jacket with the tacky fur trim that had a surprising amount of pocket room and we’d pass through the checkout line without any hassling, my coat and his jacket weighed down with cigarettes, bottles of wine, Häagen Dazs ice cream, shampoo, and he would stop, just to be daring, and buy one piece of Bazooka gum. One night I saw an old lady who was too thin and who barely had any hair left and she was sorting out coupons and I almost didn’t want to steal the Swiss Chocolate Almond Häagen Dazs and the Ben & Jerry’s Heath Bar Crunch but Sean wanted it so badly that I couldn’t say no, since he stood there, defiant, sexy in tight jeans, his jaw set, his hair shiny but matted with sweat due to our lovemaking and casually tousled. How could I say no?

He didn’t tell me a lot about himself but I wasn’t particularly interested in his background anyway. We’d either get drunk at The Pub on campus (sometimes we’d go there after dinner and stay until we closed the place) or we’d drive to The Carousel on Route 9 and sit and drink alone at the bar and those were the only times he’d say anything. He told me all about growing up in the South and that his parents were farmers and that he had no brothers, a couple of sisters and that he was on financial aid and that he was majoring in Literature, which was strange since there were no books in his room. It was also strange that he was from the South since he didn’t have a trace of an accent. But these weren’t the things I liked about him. His body wasn’t as nice as Mitchell’s, which had been systematically worked out, and last summer, in New York, he had gone to a tanning salon so his skin color was a combination of pink and brown, except for the shocking whiteness where his underwear had blocked out the ultraviolet rays. Sean’s body was different. It was in good, solid condition (probably from working on the farm as a boy) with barely any hair (a little on his chest) and hung well (well hung? I never knew how to use that expression anyway). He had brownish wavy hair he parted to one side that could of used some mousse but I didn’t press it.

I liked him for his motorcycle too. Even though I had grown up in Chicago I had never ridden one before and the first time I had been on one with him I laughed my head off, dizzy with excitement, the danger of it amusing me. I liked the way we fit on it, sometimes my hands on his thighs, often below, and he wouldn’t say anything, just drive faster. He drove like a madman anyway, through lights, through stop signs, going around corners in the rain at what seemed like eighty miles an hour. I didn’t care. I would just hold on tighter. And after that, riding drunk on the way back to campus from drinking at The Carousel in the windy New England night, he would pull up to the Security gate and wait for the guards to let us in. He would act as sober as possible, which really didn’t matter since he knew all the Security guards anyway (I’ve found that people on financial aid usually do). We would go to his room or my room if the Frog was in, he’d fall on my bed, kicking off his boots and telling me I can do anything I want. He didn’t care.