The Mormon and The Manhattanite
It was a Thursday, and a week of reading, cramming and studying had exploded onto a sleazy, Lower East Side bar upon which I was dancing wearing only my black bra and jeans. Amy was on the bar grinding alongside me. We were among friends from NYU and strangers, and I felt comfortable. More accurately, I didn’t care enough to feel discomfort. So I danced holding an inverted, half-empty bottle of tequila to my lips as the kitchen help howled.
The rest of our group sat calmly at a table. Brad was drunk and moping over a girl. Scott was trying to cheer him up. And then there was Aiden, quietly watching. The drinking, the grinding, the nudity, all went against his strict Mormon values. And yet there he was still sitting at the table watching.
Aiden was often there, always involved, never partaking, throwing in the world’s face the cognitive dissonance of a Mormon priest who looked like a California surfer and danced till dawn swigging water from his flask. He was good looking, well-dressed, but didn’t pay much attention to women. Who could blame him? Not only did he have to remain chaste until marriage, but he could barely kiss a girl without invoking the wrath of The Church. So he receded into fashion, jokes and shenanigans earning the reputation of gay from half the school and asexual from the other half. As he sat there, Aiden barely registered on my radar.
Then he grabbed me. Well, actually the way it happened is hazy, but I presume this is how it occurred: Amy and I got drunker and as more clothes started coming off, the boys came to take us off the bar. Aiden put himself in my line of fire. He stood below me with his hands held up to help me down. I grabbed them, dropped down to his level and leaned against him. Emboldened by alcohol and attention—it’s blurry—but drunkenly, innocently, I kissed him.
I don’t remember much of the car ride home, but I don’t recall feeling bad. Aiden rolled with the gang, and a kiss was occasional collateral damage. When we got to my apartment, I wobbled out of the car, waved happily to the crew and started on my way. But my consciousness snapped back into place as Aiden got out behind me and planted a firm grip on my elbow. Once he had guided me up the front stairs, I turned at the top to wave goodbye. And that’s when it happened. In front of the doorman, in front of a car full of friends, he kissed me. Too drunk and dumbfounded to speak, I turned away slowly and gingerly made my way up to my apartment.
Compared to Aiden, and indeed compared with much of my medical school class, I was the picture of sin. I had my first drink at 14 and finished high school with a tongue ring, an arrest record and a penchant for frequenting nightclubs with men twice my age. I had spent the last two years running with a fast crowd in Los Angeles, and dancing shirtless on a booze soaked bar was a Tuesday for me, not a Thursday.
October 6th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Nice post! It is always the ones you least expect. The quiet ones.
Keep them coming.