My Funny, Embarrassing 117th Date Read online

  My Funny, Embarrassing

  117th Date

  (A Short Story)

  by

  Charles Z Doilain

  Copyright © 2014 by Charles Z Doilain

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  To all PLHIVs, love is (always) a real possibility.

  Today was my 117th date. In the last three years, I had gone out with 116 people. One hundred and sixteen faces that had rejected me. One hundred and sixteen that didn’t progress beyond a few dates. My record was five with one person. Most of them lasted for three or four dates, the rest were good for one date and maybe a follow-up. That was it.

  I am 34 years old, living in San Francisco, a second-generation immigrant from an American-Irish father and a Filipino mother. I was born in the United States and lived in San Ramon, California for most of my life, until I went to college and established a career as an IT professional at a tech company in San Francisco. (I would’ve wanted to work at Google, Apple, or Microsoft, but the feeling wasn’t mutual. Every year that I applied, they sent me the standard reply that even though my résumé was impressive, they found somebody else better suited for whatever position I applied for. I printed those rejection letters and kept them at home to remind me never to give up).

  My job was to manage company data, collect it, keep it secured, back it up, and ensure that certain confidential data was available only to certain people in the company. At work, I was usually hunched in front of my laptop, classifying whether information was public, internal, confidential, or secret. I was a typical Asian, even though, strictly speaking, I was of mixed race. My features certainly established that: long face, sharp green eyes, tall nose, and thin lips. My father had stronger genes than my mother. The physical attributes I got from my mother were my wheat-colored skin and my hair: black as ebony and smooth as silk. I let it grow long once in high school just because it felt amazing to run my fingers through my hair.

  I am also a gay man. My parents never knew about it, because I never saw them except for Thanksgiving and Christmas. They didn’t ask me about my love life, because I was not brought up to just get married off right after college. They brought me up to work like an industrious little ant to upgrade to a better life. When I earn my first billion, then maybe I would get married. My parents had such lofty expectations for me because their lives were behind them and all they had were the dreams they had for me. They didn’t pester me about my relationship status. My parents, both in their late 50s, liked the idea that I had a job that paid well. Something that they didn’t have when they moved to the US to get married.

  In my twenties, I used to go to gay clubs with gay acquaintances I met online on weekends. Such was the typical life of a young, gay professional. Money earned on weekdays was burned on weekends. But I got tired of the scene. It became repetitive and the faces I saw each week hardly changed at all. So, in my late twenties, I receded from the club lights like a fading diva who decided that a nine-to-five job was more stable than the glitter and spotlight. I focused more on work and building my financial portfolio. Besides, as someone typically regarded an Asian, I didn’t have a stellar success rate. I was Mandy Moore to the Britney Spears and Christina Aguileras of the early aughts. Gay men have stereotypes about their peers. Asians were usually considered to be effeminate and bottoms with small dicks. I was none of those three, but it was hard to fight stereotypes, so men I met had those assumptions. I was lean, with muscles in the right places. My body was toned and I liked my legs and thighs because they were firm from running marathons for different charitable causes and health awareness campaigns. But who cared about how I really looked? It was hard to challenge stereotypes. Those who saw past them were surprised that I was not how they thought me to be. You’re not a typical Asian after all. Massive internal eye roll. I stood 5’9, yet still there was a perception that I was a bottom just because of my race. I was not a bottom, nor was I exclusively top. I didn’t have much preference when it came to sexual positions. I could do either way depending on whom I was dating. Sex was, well, fine, but my life did not revolve around it really. At times in my life, I had been very horny and really lonely too. It was a fact of being gay—to be wildly horny and inexplicably lonely. But those times were not as frequent. But when they happened, the combination was lethal.

  The last time I was both was four years ago. I was in between jobs because I had just recently been fired from my last one. It was a case of me and my manager having different work ethics. She wanted me to work longer hours, even if there was nothing else to do. I preferred to go home on time, if I had nothing left for the day. She told HR that she was all for a work-life balance, but she couldn’t fathom why I couldn’t put in more hours. She was horrified that I went home on time. And I was horrified that she never went home on time. But she was the boss, so even if we both horrified each other, she won.

  After three months of job-hunting, I still had no viable prospects. My daily expenses were slowly eating up my savings in the bank. My self-esteem was low. I had a lot of time and little money I was willing to spend. I told my parents that I was jobless and they gave me a hearty laugh and told me I had lots of savings to tide me through an eternal drought. They thought of me like a man of steel. What they couldn’t understand was that inside my armor was a child.

  You get the picture.

  I went online and it didn’t matter who I talked to as long as I got laid. For a week or two, I was a slut. I slept with guys in their apartments, houses, and hotel rooms. I had a quick romp with a hunky, mature guy at a public restroom late at night. We went inside, locked the door, and pulled down our pants and trousers. He bent me over, lubricated his cock, fucked me hard and swift (plop, plop, plop, plop, plop, plop) and we were out just as fast. A ninety-year old man would take a longer time to pee. And I didn’t even get his name.

  I slept with any random guy who wanted to fuck me. At a time when no one in the corporate world wanted me, it felt good to have someone—anyone—wanting me, even if it was just a temporary thing. That feeling of being desperately wanted and desired became my destruction.

  Six months later, I got seriously ill. My friend Susana, in her three-inched stilettos, rushed me to the emergency room because I was having chills and my fever was quite high. Susana was a high school friend, who knew I was gay even before I admitted it to anyone. She was an all-American girl with honey blond hair and freckles on her face. She came from a family of lawyers and was now a successful one specializing in international law in downtown San Francisco.

  I was a curiosity to her the first time she saw me in high school; that was how we became friends. I was like an exotic pet to her, who she later on realized was not actually a pet, but a human being. I was small and she was tall when we first met in the hallways of San Ramon High School. But before we graduated, I had become taller than her. She knew of my boy crushes even before I realized they were crushes. She teased me incessantly when my eyes rested on Gari, a student one batch higher than us who had a British father and an Indian mother. I admitted to her I was gay when we were in senior high and she laughed and slapped my shoulder and said she had known all along. Susana was there when the doctor told me I was HIV positive. At first, the doctor asked me if I wanted Susana to leave, but I told the doctor that she could stay. Whatever the results were, I needed someone else to know.

  That
was the reason why those 116 guys rejected me—because I was HIV positive. In the ladder of desirability among gay men, I belonged at the bottom (they considered me a bottom anyway, but this was a different kind of bottom): Asian and HIV positive. What hope, what chance did I have of finding the One? Anyone? If normal, average gay guys had a hard time finding love, how could someone like me? I was a walking stereotype, a living cliché of everything that was wrong about being gay.

  I had become nonchalant when looking for love. I would not stop looking for it just because I had these huge hurdles to overcome. I had my whole lifetime to look for it. So what if I spend all my life just looking? The point was to never give up. That was how my parents raised me when it came to everything. Never, ever, fucking give up. My mother didn’t exactly say it like that. She said it in a more elaborate and long-winded sermon during one of the many times I felt rebellious and wanted to quit school and do some other thing like writing.

  Writing. Yes, writing. It was a hobby of mine, one that I actually wanted to pursue if only there was money to be had from it. I didn’t give up on it though. I kept a blog, as an outlet for my random thoughts about the weather and politics and my lack of love life. Even, sometimes, the lack of anything happening in my life. And then finally—finally!—two weeks ago, Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors, gave a talk. So, of course, I had to go. Susana was supposed to join me, but she backed out at the last minute (typical of her) because a client needed her that Saturday.

  I felt abandoned, so I was not exactly my best during that time. There were cocktails prior to the talk, which was about the importance of Fantasy in the contemporary world. That was how I met Kade—my 117th date.

  He was taller than me with pale skin, good teeth, blonde ruffled hair, a nice smile and stubble on his chin. He was carrying a first edition of Violent Cases, which was what I noticed before anything else. It was like, “Wow! Violent Cases!” And then, “Hey! He doesn’t look bad.” My jaw dropped to the floor, not because I found him gorgeous, but because of the graphic novel he was carrying.

  “Your jaw,” he said, bending down and imitating picking up something as he stood. “I’m Kade.”

  “Barron,” I said, my eyes still fixed on Violent Cases. It was one of those hard-to-find, out-of-print books—and a first edition at that!

  He was there alone—and I liked that about him already. I find it attractive when people can do things and go to events alone without needing a companion for a crutch. I admired that, because most of the time I couldn’t. Sure, I could eat alone, but it had been a long time since I had watched a movie in a cinema all by myself.

  We sat together during the talk and lined up next to each other to have a book signed by the author. (I had with me a paperback of American Gods, which I felt ashamed to show to Kade). After that, he asked me if we could have dinner and I said yes. That still didn’t qualify as a date, because, well, because I said so. Yes, I was attracted to him by the virtue of having a shared interest, but I had very little to go on to actually see if he was a potential happily-ever-after partner. And, seriously, after 116 people, I didn’t expect to meet someone at a symposium (of all places!). But there we were, having dinner, and suddenly his foot touched my legs. At first, I thought it brushed against mine by mistake, so I sat up properly and pulled my feet towards my chair, but—oops!—there it went again—his foot on my leg and this time I knew that he was flirting with me. Of course, I was aroused. How could I not be? I had not had sex for centuries; I feared my virginity had grown again. I smiled, hesitant and awkward, because I didn’t know how to respond to it. I could not—could never have sex with him without disclosing my status. I knew I had to be coy and demure, so I told him that I enjoyed the night, but I couldn’t sleep with him just yet.

  When I said that to Kade, just as he dropped me off at my apartment, his eyes widened briefly and then his lips bent ever so slightly downwards. I knew what he was thinking: who in this day and age still holds off having sex on the first night? He tried to kiss me on the lips, but I turned around just in time for his lips to touch my cheek instead. I knew he might be reading it as a rejection, but I wasn’t ready to tell him I was HIV positive. First of all, I didn’t expect to meet someone that night. Second of all, I didn’t know how open-minded he was about it or how much he knew about it. I didn’t want to explain to him—or to anyone, for that matter—that HIV was not the death sentence it used to be. I didn’t want to tell him that people living with HIV were just that—living with it and not dying from it. With proper care for our health, we had the same life expectancy as anyone else. I didn’t know if Kade still lived in the Dark Ages or if he was one of the rare few who were enlightened in one way or another.

  On the third night after we met, when I was already asleep, I received a drunken call from him at 1:32 a.m. He was slurring his sentences, but I got the gist of what he wanted to say: why did I reject his advances? Didn’t I like him?

  I told him he was drunk and he should sleep. I told him that if tomorrow or the next day, when his mind was clear, he still wanted to talk to me, then he could call. Call he did the next day.

  With a sprightly voice that woke me up from the afternoon doldrums of the office, he said, “Barron! Do you wanna go out with me this weekend?” How casual, wasn’t it? Like we were friends since childhood.

  And so there I was, getting ready for date #117. My date with Kade. My hands were wet and clammy. I was beyond terrified. It was as if I had drunk ten shots of espresso. I could run from my apartment to the moon and back at the speed of light and would still feel the fast dub-dub of my heart. My mind was scattered, thinking about so many things. I didn’t know what to think first, what what if to question. What if Kade attempts to kiss me? What if he slyly suggests that we have sex? Make love? (Is it making love at this early stage or is it just two guys fucking?—Good material to blog about.) What if he becomes cold? What if he walks away instead, disappointed for reasons that I failed to see? Ahrrrrgh! It was exhausting to think about what could happen when it had yet to happen. Should I or should I not tell him now? When was it a good time to tell someone you were positive? Here was the thing: if I told him then, there was a 116 out of 117 chance (or 99.145%) that he would flee. If I told him later—much, much later—(like maybe when he was falling for me or vice versa?) then it would feel like I baited him. A gotcha! moment that would seem like I had planned all along for him to fall for me beforehand.

  I called Susana after blowing my hair dry and—judging by the moaning at the other end of the line—it was a most unfortunate timing.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “You shouldn’t have answered.”

  “Pfft,” Susana said with a throaty laugh. “I’m in my office having a vibrator break.”

  “Oh good,” I said. “I thought you were with a man.”

  “Ha! Nah,” Susana said. “Too busy for that. Although, I did have sex two nights ago with…with…damn! I forgot his name.”

  There was a long pause in our conversation as I waited for Susana to say something, to remember the guy she had sex with. For a lawyer, Susana had the memory of a goldfish. But somehow, she was brilliant at what she did. She was setting her sights on a partnership in a couple of years, so she had been busting her ass (with an occasional sex break) trying to prove that she deserved the promotion.

  “Never mind,” Susana said with a sigh. “I couldn’t even remember his face. He doesn’t look like any hot celebrity, so maybe that’s why I can’t remember how he looked. And the sex was eh. My dildo had more moves than him. I had to suppress several yawns until he came. And I had to think of my new cases to entertain myself. So, what’s up Mr. Hot Asian?”

  When Susana was being playful, she called me Mr. Hot Asian, which, even though I knew she was just being my friend, gave me an ego boost. She started calling me that after she became a lawyer and moved back from New York to San Francisco. She was surprised at how much I had changed since high school. “You have muscles! Your face…
it’s leaner!” she exclaimed the first time we met for dinner. And that was when she started calling me Mr. Hot Asian.

  “I have a date tonight,” I said to start.

  “And you want me to tell you whether or not to tell your date your status?” she said immediately without waiting for me to finish. “If he tries to get you to bed, which I’m sure he will, then tell him. If not, he doesn’t need to know…for now.”

  “What if he tries to kiss me?” I asked.

  Susana laughed, a wicked laugh that could give Maleficent a run for her wings and money. “Dear, dear, a kiss will not infect him! If he kisses you, make sure you do tongue.”

  We chatted for a little while longer. Mainly, I told her to stop working so hard and have a life outside the corners of the law firm. “Observe the weekends,” I said to Susana.

  “I am, dahling,” she said. “That’s why I have my vibrator with me. It gives me more satisfaction than any man can.”

  After our phone conversation ended, I opened my small cabinet of perfumes and experienced a slight panic. Out of the 40 different bottles of perfume I had, I couldn’t remember which I wore during the Neil Gaiman talk. (Perfumes were the things I collect, just as Susana had different dildos and vibrators.) I didn’t want to be late for my date, so I put on Dolce & Gabbana’s The One and hoped that Kade was The One. My inner, cynical self laughed wickedly at the thought. In reality, my heart had been bruised so many times that I didn’t care how this date went. It could go any way and I’d still be fine. After hundreds of failed dates, you learn to take it as it is—a way to get to know another person and not a gateway to the fairytale romance you wished for. But, of course, like Pandora’s box, despite all the cynicism, at the very bottom of it was the hope that this date held the key to the love I had been searching for.