It was a heated summer afternoon few months ago. I planned to meet Alden for lunch at Amaze, an Asian fusion restaurant by First Avenue. It was almost a 15-minute walk from Fifth Avenue where my office is located. As usual, we ordered our favorite: steamed Shumai for appetizer, a bowl of salad, Salmon Teriyaki with brown rice, and of course Thai iced tea to complete the meal. Our server Angie has already memorized our order every time Alden and I will go there around 12:30pm. The only thing that sometimes change is Alden might fancy either Edamame beans or Gyoza (Fried meat dumpling) in place of Shumai. “How are you feeling right now?” Alden would ask me knowing about the crisis I was going through for months now. That day I said “I am trying to cope; my therapy and medication are helping along with occasional meeting up with friends like this one with you.” He quipped “I am glad you sounded like you are on your way to recovery” as we are finishing the salad and occasional sips of the tea. After the lunch, Angie asked us if we want a second helping of Thai iced tea to which we replied with a resounding “No”, adding we will just lubricate our throat with water but we will get an order of Fried Ice Cream that we will share so she has to bring two teaspoons. Then memory of a familiar conversation in 2012 came to both our minds as we were talking about second helping and sharing: a man we both slept with at different points in time.
The memory started with the days when we were both working in a real estate company by 55th Street and 9th Avenue. One day in July of 2012, we were reminiscing down memory lane when we were still working as auditors in a firm located on 50th Street and 7th Avenue three years before. Then for some reasons I mentioned a name of a guy introduced to me by a common friend visiting from one of the Southern states. Alden’s face lighted up with surprise and asked me if the guy lived in a specific address in the Eastern side of Manhattan. He then said that he met this guy years ago in a chatroom in AOL called “gwm4gam” which is an acronym for gay white men for gay asian men. Hmmmm….sounds familiar to me as I remembered I frequented this group site years ago myself. Of course, I met some guys to date or for more in that site. He then continued saying the guy invited him to meet up in a bar and by the end of the night he found himself spending passionate moments with this guy in his house in Manhattan overlooking East River. He remembered the bedroom as well as the arrangement of the living room, the windows with a view and the bathroom with specific architectural designs as he remembered taking a shower while asking himself “Why did I even sleep with this guy?” He said to himself as the hot water splashes into his skin “There is definitely no second date with this guy. Let alone sex with him. This is one night only.” Alden said he bid the guy goodbye and said his thank you for the lovely night dialogue. “I am not spending a night in this house again with this guy”, he said to himself as the elevator was taking him down the lobby of the building. No second helping of dessert as we would put it. Alden even remembered the moments at the bar when this guy was telling him that he knew some people in Alden’s audit client at that time, who is now our mutual employer when this conversation occurred. Not that this guy was super ugly or something but on the positive side Alden said the guy was well endowed but smell like some kind of sour milk with crooked teeth; so we decided to call him Mr. Cottage Cheese because of his distinctive scent. The day after the first conversation occurred, I took Alden to a cash only restaurant by the name of Chai Thai. After finishing our meal, I started with “I have to admit something to you.” His face looked surprised as if I have some kind of a deadly disease or life threatening event that I have to confess with. He said “What happened?” I told him that the guy we were talking about yesterday,Mr. Cottage Cheese, I actually slept with him as well. His eyes opened wide as he quipped “WHAT?” Yes, it is true. That same guy he was describing yesterday is the very same guy I had a tryst once few years back and I don’t remember the exact date or year because like Alden it was not memorable for me to remember the details. All I remember is that after meeting him in AOL chatroom we agreed to meet up in a bar by 47th Street. The next thing I know I was a little bit tipsy and we took a cab to his apartment and spent passionate moments as well in the same bedroom that Alden has vividly described. It was raining outside and the wind was howling but I remember the windows with the view and how he tried to show me the East River visible from the window. Even the design of the bathroom were exactly as Alden has described to me. What’s noticeable as well is the smell of the man like a milk curd, which fits our nickname for him of Mr. Cottage Cheese. Like Alden I said to myself “I am not coming back to this house. I am not going to see this guy ever again for a second helping. This is just a one-night stand.” After cleaning myself up in the bathroom I bid my goodbye to the man and made sure I carry my umbrella with me so there is no reason for him to call me to comeback to pick my umbrella up. After all it was too cumbersome for me to go to Manhattan as I live in Jamaica Estates when it happened so it was more than an hour travel time via F train. Come to think of it, now it occurred to me that I lived in Jamaica Estates from 2004 to early 2006, so it could have happened around that time. Alden remarked “Oh My God! I can’t believe this.” We slept with the same man though at different times or years but what is the probability of us sleeping with the same guy. What an impossible coincidence? We then concluded that the Mr. Cottage Cheese is a slut who preyed on Asian boys and what are the chances that he also bedded other common Asian friends. Unbelievable, we shared the same man at one point in our lives, though at different times. Burst of laughters.
As we were sharing the fried ice cream dessert spoon after spoon, we realized it gives us the same burst of laughters the way we spoke about it the first time as it is now and every time we talk about it. And now it gives us goosebumps wondering if another friend might have fallen for the same guy. Well, not sure if I want to go to that direction.
As we exited the restaurant, we took another stroll at the end of 58th Street overlooking East River and back to 59th Street where we separated ways. Well, we decided we will just bury this secret in the treasure chest forever. Walking by myself going back to work I marveled at how bizarre some coincidences in life were, specially in the gay life because you never know who you will bump into one day, or who you will sleep with tonight and meet up in the street years after, or worse, discovered that the same person fell into the hands of another friend or acquaintance at some point in time.
Weird, right?