So I went to meet N for our tete a tete. The one I had ever so slightly been avoiding, whilst trying to appear casually no-avoiding and just busy. Not entirely sure it works that way, but oh well.
I went to his flat, and N opened the door wearing, surprisingly for him, a t-shirt. He was also wearing his custom black trousers, and braces which he’d left draping, rather than hoisted over his shoulders. It was a sweet look.
He made me a cup of tea and ask for a hug, to get rid of any awkwardness. I guffawed about, proclaiming there was none, but I’m pretty sure I shot myself in the foot there, because when he went to kiss me, I did the super elegant thing of converting a full on pash into an clumsy kiss on the cheek. Elegant as always.
We sat on his sofa and chatted. We chatted about T and I, and also about N, and what his life was like. He looked me in the eye and said I was the only person he’d been attracted to in the last six months. I swore, and he told me it turned him on when I spoke like that. It was so straightforward, it was shocking. Much more shocking than any of the coy texts or flirting I got from S or M or even T. He told me what he wanted to do to me. He told me he wanted me to go to Paris with him. To stay in his hotel room. He told me he wanted me to call him Sir. That bit made me laugh/cringe, I have to say.
In a way, it was very appealing. It obviously had some appeal, because despite myself I felt myself being drawn into this dream, this fantasy, when if I’m honest I knew I didn’t want to get into even as I walked to his lovely flat. I said ‘yes', when what I really meant was ‘I don’t know’. The deal for me was sealed when he kissed me, and I felt nothing. It wasn’t even horror, or disgust or anything negative. It was simply the pressure of his large moist lips on mine. And that was all.
I haven’t kissed many people but I know it’s not supposed to feel like that. But I was weak, and I let him kiss me and I kissed him back. But down deep I knew I couldn’t give him what I wanted and more to the point, I didn’t want him. In the end, I don’t want a lover that I will never love. That’s not what this journey is supposed to be about.
I don’t know why I find it so hard to follow my own advice, and realise that when it’s not right, it’s not right. When you don’t follow that gut instinct is when you get into trouble. N would never hurt me (at least not in a way that we hadn’t agreed) but I felt the weight of his feeling to be so oppressive. I’ve often longed for someone to tell me that I am beautiful, and attractive and that they’ve never met anyone like me, and that after I leave they say how lovely it was to kiss me. But I never realised how unhappy it could make me, when I don’t feel the same way. It’s only a blessing when it’s reciprocated. How do you tell someone that it’s not you, it’s them? That you just don’t feel the same way, not because of something they’ve done, but because intrinsically you just aren’t attracted to them.
Three days went past, and the more time apart made me realise I couldn’t go through with it. It was making T unhappy, and I felt trapped and scared. I knew the longer it went on the worse it would get, and the more damage would be done to our friendship (in that I would play the avoiding game - that one that I am so good at). So on Thursday I called him and told him that the ‘yes’ I had given on Monday had become a ‘no’. It had always been a ‘no’, but I guess I just needed to work that bit out on my own.
