the intimacy of a lover (SoHo Crush's housewarming)

Remember SoHo Crush: my longest relationship; the first guy I told that I loved; the ex of all exes who took me to the Inauguration and Vegas and Fire Island and then dumped me at Barrage? Well, he'd moved to Brooklyn and was hosting a party at his newly renovated brownstone. Of course I went; I didn’t want to look petty!

image from thebestastrologer.com

After work on a Friday, I met up with Bottomless Pitt, and we hopped on a train to Fort Greene. Neither of us was familiar with the area, and both of us were pretty impressed when we surfaced from the subway.

It just so happened that Tom Hanks was shooting a movie a couple of doors down, between the subway and SoHo Crush's place. We approached cautiously until a hot AD noticed us.

AD: "Hey, do you guys need to get through?"

Pitt: "Yeah, we're headed to-"

AD: "The party at 52? Come on. I'll take you through."

The AD led us to the steps, and when we rang the buzzer, I was surprised to be greeted by woman dressed in all black whom I didn't know. It took my middle-class mind a little time to wrap my head around the idea of hiring a catering staff for a housewarming party.

Woman: "I think everyone's pretty much downstairs. That's where the bar is."

Me: "Well, that's where we're going! Thanks!"

I ran into a couple of SoHo Crush's friends as soon as we walked in, but it wasn't long before I saw the host himself. He had a black blazer buttoned over a black tshirt, so I couldn't tell if he'd gotten fat. But we greeted warmly, and I managed not to stutter or do anything embarrassing. He led us up to his room to drop off our bags, and I just about shit my pants when my gaze fell on a fully functional, old school jukebox. In his fucking bedroom! It just happened to be next to the hanging carpet portrait of Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie from the Neverland Ranch. Forget the soundproofing-for-a-headboard theme from his old place! And did I mention that the coffee table downstairs was a lit scoreboard under a sheet of glass? Yeah.

SoHo Crush: "Now if you'll excuse me, I need a glass of wine. But I'm gonna get a real glass, not one of these little plastic cups!"

Bottomless Pitt and I went over to the bar, which was well, stocked with everything except for mixer for Pitt's vodka-tonic.

Me: "Yeah, SoHo Crush drinks soda with his vodka, not tonic. I'd always get it wrong when I was shopping for him."

I spent much of the party trying not to throw obvious shade to the (multitude of) attractive black guys at the party. Any one of them could be SoHo Crush's new squeeze... If he even had one.

While we were downstairs at the bar, I pointed out to Bottomless Pitt that the music was coming out of a Bose iPod docking station sitting on the floor. But I was impressed when we walked upstairs and heard the same song playing in the kitchen. A half hour later I had an even better laugh when we went back for another drink in the basement and heard the song from upstairs playing 2 minutes ahead.

Me: "I can't! He put the same playlist on 2 iPods and tried to manually synch them himself! He couldn't get SoHo Crash to start one for him?!"

For a while, I was pretty satisfied that I hadn't seen SoHo Crush’s new boy at the party: I really didn't see the intimacy of a lover in any of his interactions. Until this one black guy touched his elbow. I don't know what it was about the elbow brush, but it reeked of carnal knowledge. And it was emotional, too. A minute later when I saw SoHo Crush give him the casual all-too-familiar kiss on the cheek... I was far from losing it, but I wasn't totally okay.

Let me tell you: he wasn't the guy I'd've chosen out of a line-up. His looks were fairly unremarkable from what I could see. And that made it even worse: this guy had snagged SoHo Crush via personality and maintained a connection. Awesome.

As I said, I'd figured there was someone. I'd mentally prepared for that possibility, but actually seeing it was a whole different experience. So when Bottomless Pitt slurred that she was about to make her way to the train, I quickly made moves to join her.

Did I mention we were on our way to not 1, but 2 underwear parties? Yeah.

Boston Pride is coming up on Saturday! Click here to check out when my boys and I invaded the home of the Red Sox.