First Impressions

A clothed man answered the door, as if I were making a normal house call. I wondered if I would be fucking him later, started to introduce myself. He started to ask me something, then stopped short. It was as if he had been forbidden to talk, but had forgotten the injunction.

“Jefferson?” I said, invoking the only name I knew.

Instead of answering, the boy motioned for me to follow him upstairs. Though I could conceive of no other place I could be where a boy who refused to speak would lead me upstairs to a party when he had never seen me before, I began to wonder if, somehow, I had gotten the directions entirely wrong and was about to stumble into a hipster party to which I had not been invited.

At the top of the stairs the boy pushed the door open. I found myself in a lovely, white painted apartment, lined with books, chic art--and what seemed like an inordinate number of typewriters. In the living room was a group of people who were fully clothed, holding drinks, and the oldest one--a man--was holding out his hand to me and smiling, saying, "It's Jefferson..." I shook his hand feeling as if my eyes were bugging out--I hadn't recognized him. Somehow he looked entirely different than I had expected, even when we had talked over webcam once before—present in the moment, and very pleased with himself.

Gee, I thought, he is good looking. And so was everyone else in the room--

“..Florida?” Jefferson was asking me things and I wasn't paying attention. "Where are you from?" he went on, looking at my dress, which hardly reached my knees, "Florida? It's cold out.."

The boy behind me was taking my coat, and I realized they were all looking at me while I was still getting over the fact that they all were hot and no one wanted to rape me and I had to say something clever--"I'm from the land of POOR!" I blurted. I believe they may even have been amused.

It was no wonder I was having trouble finding my wit—my mind was occupied with the sea changes that were happening to it. The nagging anxieties of the past few hours—the agonies of the past few months—were banished in the swell of confidence I felt. It no longer mattered what other people wrote, or thought: I could feel the ease and mutual trust in the room, currents that would gently but inexorably move me to what I most wanted.

In short, dear readers, I melted. I went over to the kitchen, to mingle. The houseboy asked me if I wanted a drink.