Thin Lines

Content Warning:  The following post has explicit sexual overtones and hard drug use.  Read only after consulting and adjusting your own moral compass to decide if this is really the post for you.  

God, I wanted him.  A little piece of perfection at the end of the bar.  Handsome.  Rugged.  Straight.  Drunk.  He had left and come back, shot down by the girl he had spent so much time and money on; now moaning pathetically about the sorry state of his life. He hadn't had sex since July 4th-- that seemed appropriate.  He was in the military, back from Iraq and shortly headed to Darfur.  

But there's a thin, thin line between making an advance and taking an advantage. 

I was behind the bar, working at the Ohm Lounge-- not so much to make money but to occupy myself while I did mounds and mounds of blow.  Two hours earlier I was the king of the world, the paragon of self-confidence.

But there's a thin, thin line between invincibility and instability.

And I had done it.  I was past casual party and into an indulgent binge.  Shaky, stuttery, uncomfortable-- I needed to go for a long run alone.  Alone being the key word: people are strange but I was stranger, woefully out of whack.  Still, there was a knee jerk reaction in my loins when he asked the bartender if she knew any gay guys.  He was desperate, he said.  He went to a gay bar once in San Diego and felt "respected."  He wanted to feel that way again.

But there's a thin, thin line between bad karma and genuine misdeeds. 

Scenario A has us leaving the bar, walking the two blocks to my hotel and indulging in coke-fueled pornographic fantasy, the kind you see in Treasure Island videos.

But there's a thin, thin line between performance and pathetic.

And I had done it.  Scenario B has us leaving the bar, walking the two blocks to my hotel and suffering through about 30 minutes of awkward, useless fondling before he came and went, after which I jerked off, irritable and limp to a Treasure Island video. 

I walked the two blocks to my hotel alone, did more coke, and took a long shower.

"You gotta go after the things you want while you're still in your prime..."

But desire has taken on new dimensions, with consequences cocaine can cause seem irrelevant.  Two hours earlier I wouldn't have gone home alone.

There's a thin, thin line between feeling okay and falling apart.

There's a thin, thin line between good ideas and bad.

There's a thin, thin line between desire and death.

I haven't done it yet.

No plagiarism here!  Post contains an excerpt from a song from 'Avenue Q'.