Ick, potentially
I was out doing some club/bar-hopping last night, looking to maybe talk some sports, have people buy me drinks (I must be honest - they taste a lot better than the ones I buy myself), dance a little, maybe get laid. I was sort of thinking of maybe a college boy - though I would fervently deny it six months ago, they say a man reaches his sexual peak somewhere around the age of 19. Sure, going by my real age, the half-and-seven rule says that's too young, but this body just turned 25, which means anyone old enough to be drinking in one of these places should be fair game.

I was about to leave the first bar, since while nice, it was mostly full of late-twenties/early-thirties professionals. Me, before the exchange, and that's not what I was looking for that night. It is, however, what found me.

Not "me" in a literal, "Michelle in my body" sense, but "me" in terms of a guy I went to school with, in the same program, living on the same floor freshman year. David Eggars wasn't ever really a close friend like Kurt, Wei, Mike, and Donna were, but we'd always been around each other until we graduated and he moved back to Texas. He bought me a drink, the bartender pointed him out, and I decided to join him in the corner.

Obviously, we couldn't reminisce, although I did the next best thing - after nearly slipping up with my name ("I'm Mart...ina. Please, um, call me Tina."), I told him I was a computer programmer, which is true, even if I'm not getting paid to do that right now, and when he asked I told him I'd gone to WPI; I let him assume I was Class of 2002 or something as opposed to our own class. It was kind of neat to talk a little shop, although I'm rusty. He was, too, since apparently he was promoted to some other position; he was actually in Boston on a sales trip.

Around nine o'clock, he offered to take me back to his hotel, and I almost said yes. That was when I remembered that while I wasn't particularly close with him, my friend and ex-roommate Mike was. I didn't see Mike that often because he'd gotten married three years ago and become a father a year after that, but I do remember and email from him in June that mentioned Dave had gotten hitched.

I kind of felt in a bind - he wasn't wearing his ring (but once I thought to look, yeah, I could see a tan line on his finger), so I couldn't exactly say "oh, sorry, but I don't sleep with married men". I suppose it's kind of a silly quibble, considering how rather willing I am to sleep with men at all, and that I've never met Mrs. Eggars, so it's not like betraying a friend. But I don't want to hurt anyone, even a stranger halfway across the country who might never find out about it.

I didn't have much time, so I tried to make it look like I'd just caught sight of his hand, and then noticed that it certainly looked like he wore a ring. To his credit, he didn't try to say he'd just gotten divorced or widowed or that he and his wife had an arrangement, just that he wasn't finding marital bliss as blissful as he'd expected. I told him that I wasn't going to solve that problem, told him to call his wife, and walked out.

I suppose it would make a better story if I said this made me reconsider how I'd been living my (or Michelle's) life the past few weeks, and that I went home and thought about it, but I didn't. I went to a nightclub, listened to a band, and had a great time which ended in the apartment of an earnest-looking MIT student who sort of reminded me of myself (or Kurt, or David) ten years ago. He was good on the dance floor, as well as charming and smart, but once we got to his bedroom, well, I may have been his first, from how he acted. I may have rattled him a little when I asked if he was seeing anyone, but I honestly don't think he'd ever used a condom before. Besides, he had a good answer when I asked ("Three guys for every girl here, and I'm not scheduled for a girlfriend until three weeks before graduation").

And, really, I don't feel bad about either of them. Maybe Dave will think about whether he really wants to be married, and lord knows I would have appreciated hooking up with a slightly older woman with Michelle's body when I was an undergraduate.

-Marti
- posted 6:31 PM - - (archive use only)