A long time!
I've been meaning to update but just haven't been up to it lately, so now I'm going to!
Final exams are done, and now I'm working at the library over the summer. But that's besides the point, I suppose...
Following Mr. Jack's reply to me, I thought, "Oh dear, I'd better tell James about this."
Not because of any feeling of guilt on my part, but because James knew the story of how Mr. Jack's presence at the bus stop inspired me to write the Craigslist ad - if I didn't tell him that I was going to meet this particular man, how would it look to him when he found out?
I sent him an email explaining what the deal was.
He responded, saying OK, green-light, etc. - that was on Tuesday of the week in question.
So I set up Friday afternoon for coffee with Mr. Jack, after final exams were finished - it happened to be a convenient time and day.
Meanwhile, James had abstained from seeing me during final exams week to allow me to study, and had mentioned in an email seeing me at the end of the week - I missed him terribly, and I mentioned that Friday afternoon had been marked for coffee, but perhaps we could see each other in the evening.
For whatever reason, this sparked a jealous rage in James, and we had a lengthy argument - "Now that you have the original fantasy-man you wanted, you're going to dump me" - "He's not my fantasy-man, he's just a guy who rides the bus, I adore you and want to stay with you" - "I think you're saying these things to convince yourself more than me, you've obviously been thinking about him enough to have looked him up and sent him an email" - "I just thought he'd be interesting to talk to"
On and on. We agreed to leave it for the time being, and talk about it in person on Saturday, after final exams and after he was finished with what he was doing at work that week.
So I finished exams in a sour and melancholy mood when I should have been celebrating the beginning of summer. I tried to put James out of my mind when I went to meet Mr. Jack at 4PM for coffee - but when he went to the bathroom, or went to get another cup of coffee, it would well up again. But I didn't mention anything, and had a good conversation with Mr. Jack nonetheless.
I went home at about 5:30 that afternoon. I had a mundane evening alone - my roommate and her friend were fucking off in front of the computer as they usually did, and so I went out in the back yard to burn some dead weeds and plant matter. I sat on the ancient, paint-peeling picnic table that's been in the backyard since before I moved into this house, watching the stuff burn and staring up at the few stars visible in the city's glow.
James was the one who brought me the steel drum I used for burning, and on its first use, he was there, watching me indulge in my small-scale pyromanic urges. Afterward, he told me that he liked the look I had on my face as I was watching and controlling the fire.
I felt very alone as I sat out there then. No thoughts of excitement over the afternoon's meeting with Mr. Jack, no mulling over the possibilities - which was what James, in his jealousy, thought I was thinking; in my loneliness I only wanted James - his smell of soap, salt, and smoke, and the difference in how much taller he was that made me feel enveloped and coccooned.
On Saturday morning, James called me, and when I answered the phone his tone was measured and so unlike himself - he said "I was going to come by at 5 today to tell you I was done and finished - but I was thinking that we should talk about this and work this out. Is it okay if I come over now?"
For a moment I was trapped in a dumbfounded silence, unable to say "Yes, you can come over now" - I knew he was jealous of my meeting with Mr. Jack, but it was (from my perspective) unjustified, and I had done nothing and had no intentions and was completely innocent. In fact I was reaffirmed of how much I adored him and never wanted him to leave.
"Is that fine with you?"
"Yeah..."
I opened the front door maybe 20 minutes later and saw him sitting in the chair he sat in on the front porch, smoking a cigarette. He said in that same measured and unnatural tone, "Mind if I make a pot of coffee?" (He never asked before because I gave him indefinite permission). It was a harsh, deep, unnaturally clear, and somewhat loud tone, and it was most unbecoming of the man whose voice read me Alice in Wonderland and melted me when he said "Miss Kimberly Sophia..."
We went to the kitchen to put the coffee on. He would not touch me. After he poured his first cup, he leaned against the sink and told me how it was, or how he saw it.
(In words close to these):
"I've been trying to be your teacher, mentor, guidance, while being your lover - these roles seemed to mesh well enough for the last two months, but now I am conflicted. The teacher in me says you should go out, experience new things, date people, have coffee with this damn guy - but the lover is jealous and possessive. I want you all to myself. You have to decide what you want from me, because I can't keep doing this. If I am only your noncommital teacher, then we can't do this anymore - we can't have sex, lie around naked, because it would only feed my emotional attachment to you - and if you go and fuck someone else I wouldn't be able to contain the hurt and jealousy. But if you want me to be your lover, you will have to give up some of the freedoms of your youth - dating, sleeping around, whatever - and commit to me, be exclusive with me, make this a serious relationship."
It didn't take any thinking on my part to say "I want you to be my lover."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"I'm not so sure you're sure. I think you're running a line of bullshit on me by seeing this guy."
"I'm not."
"Well, you tell me one thing and then say another, and you said you miss me so much, but seeing this guy on Friday was more important than seeing me."
"It wasn't more important, it just happened to be a convenient time after final exams."
"Oh yes, RIGHT after final exams."
"It wasn't right after, it was six hours after, in the late afternoon. And you could have seen me before or after I met with him - for lunch or dinner."
"How do I know you were even here last night? How do I know you weren't fucking him in his fancy art studio?"
"I was burning things in the back yard. You can go look in the drum, there are fresh ashes. You can ask Kelly, she met me on the bus home at 5:30 at the Walgreens stop."
He seemed a bit nulled by this point, and said, "Well, why is this guy so important to you anyway?"
"He's not. I just thought he'd be interesting to talk to. I mean, he told me the advantages of oil paints, for God's sake."
"I could have told you that..."
But what seemed to turn the argument was when I said, finally, "Look, I would tell this guy to fuck off if you wanted me to."
His voice dropped its harsh, unbefitting tone, and asked, "You would?"
Normally, in conversations more amiable, he was not one for eye contact, staring at something over here or over there, or at his food or at me doing something strange with my drink straw (we spent a lot of time in restaurants) - but he stared right at me searching for an unflappable indicator of honesty - I tried my best to give it to him when I said "Yes" and stared him directly in the eyes. What more could I give him?
His face seemed to soften, and I tried a joke - "I mean, it'd be impolite, but I would."
He smiled, and said "Well, maybe I was wrong..."
I pushed my advantage: "Yeah, I'd say so."
A man prideful of his reputation for composure and self-control, he sat there for a moment, contemplating, then said "Well, I'm not angry anymore - now I'm just embarrassed."
"That's fine."
He sat there for a moment more, then said "You know, last night I was furious, utterly furious - couldn't sleep, chain-smoking cigarettes, wondering if you were even at home, wondering if you were fucking that guy..."
"I told you: I adore you. I don't want anyone else. I don't want to date anyone else. And just because I'm young doesn't mean I can't be in a serious relationship."
"Are you sure? You won't be able to date anyone else..."
"Well, will you let me have coffee with who I want to have coffee?"
"If you aren't doing anything besides having coffee. Nothing sexual. Nothing intimately emotional. If you want me to be your lover, I have to be your only lover - we have to be monogamous."
"Okay."
And we made a promise of fidelity there at the kitchen table - he made me show all my limbs to make sure I wasn't crossing fingers or toes (as if I would have, how childish) - and that was how it went and how it is now.
And then I said, "Hey - stand up -"
"What for?"
"Come here."
I had waited too long over the course of that week, stressed too much over final exams, jumping through too many hoops for work at the library, felt too alone as my roommate and former best friend plotted openly her new life in a new apartment with new best friends, had too stupid a jealous argument over a guy I met at the bus stop - for me to resist hugging him tight as soon as he would permit me, and dissolve all the horrors and sadnesses of my week and my life in that embrace.
We went to breakfast after that, and everything was as it had always been - I slipped off my shoe and rubbed against his leg under the table, and I'm sure some other patrons of the restaurant saw, but I didn't care anymore.
Later that afternoon, as we lay in bed together, half-aroused and half-attempting to siesta, I rolled over and kissed him, and said "I am yours."
I didn't expect my life to take this path from a silly Craigslist ad, I didn't expect I could have a serious relationship with someone three times older than me - and I suppose with most older men I probably couldn't - but there is something about James that leads me to believe that maybe with him I could. He never says I'm too young, and I never say he's too old - we make up the difference in age by sharing and expanding what we have in common. He doesn't behave like a stodgy old man, even though he has the wisdom of one, and I don't act like a dumb 19-year-old.
Eventually, he said, his age would make him decrepit and I would have to leave him then - a wish of love, perhaps, to not make me suffer as he suffers his own inevitable breakdown. We'll see what happens when it happens - he said perhaps he would go out into the desert and let the sun and the heat kill him, rather than decay alive. Perhaps I will fly from him then, or have flown before then, or perhaps by then I will have loved him too much and too long to do as he says and leave - I can't tell at this point. But in any case, even if I am not his lover then, I will suffer and mourn him at that (hopefully distant) future point, for what he has already given me.
In the weeks since that silly fight, we have been happy, and everything almost the same except the intangible, imperceptible difference that I am his and he is mine.
I miss him now.