I Love My Side of the Story (7 page)

“To the good stuff,” he says, and holds
his beer up.

“To the good stuff.” Our eyes hold for a
second longer than they should. I clink my glass and drink. “So… you’re here on
business? What business?”

“I work for a software company in San
Francisco. I’m an engineer.”

“Ah,” I say, knowing nothing about
software. I take another sip. Tastes good. “Do you like your job?”

He nods. “Yeah, but I’d like to work for
myself. I have an idea for an app. I don’t know. You’ve gotta give it a shot,
right?”

“Totally. I work for myself. It’s worth
giving it a shot.”

“You do? What do you do?”

“Casting Director. I cast actors in
films and television,” I take a sip.

“Wow. That’s very interesting. You look
a little young and too…”

I raise my eyebrows, “What?”

He hesitates, says, “…Nothing. Yeah, so…
I’m meeting with investors tomorrow.”

“On a Saturday?” I ask, watching his
gorgeous man-thumb absently rub the side of his pint-glass.

“I work nine to five, so they agreed to
meet me on the weekend, when I could get away. Left work early to catch a
reasonable flight. Just got in an hour ago, but I didn’t want to go to my hotel
room yet. It’s still early…” He sees me staring at his thumb and it stops
moving. I meet his eyes and he smiles a smile I can feel in my panties.

“Oh,” I say. “That’s very cool, um…too.”

He nods and says, “If I’m going to do
it, I’m going to do it right.”
I bet you
would
.

“Uh huh…” I say. He holds my eyes for a
charged moment, then takes a last drink of his beer.

 
“So it’s time to talk to the money guys.
See if I can make it happen. Can I have another?” he says to the bartender as
she passes us. The motion he makes with his fingers; I can’t help but stare at
them.

“All you need is money then?” I ask,
bite my lip, cross my legs.

“That and an artist,” he says. “I want
the interface to be different, hip. So I’ve decided I need an artist to create
something unique.”

All of a sudden I see it - the way he
turns his head, the angle he holds it, he looks kind of like Ryan Gosling.
That’s who I couldn’t place! “What’s your name?” I ask, with a smile.

“I’m Mark.” He reaches out to shake my
hand. I reach out and slide my hand into his.

“Amber.”

My Side, Dammit.

The first time I saw Amber… she was at a
bar in SoHo with her girlfriends. The three of them looked like Fort Knox,
where the money was – only you couldn’t get at it. That’s what it’s like
when you’re a guy and you see women locked in a conversation you probably
wouldn’t be interested in… and there’s no way they’d let you in it, anyway.
Which of course changes your mind completely. Now you
want
to be involved. Heavily. The hunter in us, the Lion, wonders
how we can get up the tree to get the Monkey.

No. Bad analogy. Women are not monkeys.
They’re more like Gazelles (Although some of them are like Monkeys; the spazzy
kind. We’ve all seen ‘em). Most though, are Gazelles… or will be Gazelles when
they grow up.

So we the Lions wonder how we can get
the Gazelle away from the group while still remaining the Lion and not
deteriorating into a laughingstock Hyena. No man wants to look like a Hyena.
Some men naturally
are
Hyenas, just
like some girls
are
Monkeys, but when
a Lion gets
turned
into a Hyena
because the pack of Gazelles is too much for him, it ain’t pretty. You think,
oh man, stop. Back away. Regroup. Leave your balls with them. Game over.

See this is my theory: we men are wild
animals, tamed to varying degrees. The secret? How much we get tamed is up to
us. Completely up to us. It’s more complicated than that, though. We’re not all
Lions or Hyenas. There are other types, too, of course. Some examples are these:

·
     
The hipsters are Meerkats; cute, skinny, harmless.

·
     
The thicker football players or men who could be football
players, judged on size alone – are Gorillas; powerful, primitive, calm
when you feed them.

·
     
Then there’s the bad boy types, they are Panthers; sleek,
aloof, sneaky, sexy.

·
     
Business, corporate-type men range from Water Buffalo to
Sharks (not a mammal, but you know who I’m talking about).

·
     
Pukes you shouldn’t meet alone in a dark alley are Hyenas;
cowardly but dangerous, ugly on the inside.

·
     
Men who can provide for their women are Lions; courageous,
protective, leaders.

There’s a whole jungle and of course, I’m only scratching the
surface.

I’m a Lion. And seeing Amber for the
first time, I felt very much that I wanted her in my Den, to turn her from a Gazelle
into my Lioness. She had to be by my side. For good. And I knew it the moment I
saw her.

I was on the bar patio with a couple of
friends, Gary and Matt, from my acting class at Stella Adler. We were
attempting to drink away the reaming we’d gotten in class that night for shitty
scene work. I was really down on myself about it, having just heard that one of
our old classmates, Jake Lombardi, won an award at Sundance for an independent
film he’d starred in. Since acting is my purpose in life – I will be a
working actor one day and soon, I promise this – I couldn’t help but feel
jealous of Jake. He’s such an ass. A Panther of the worst variety.

Matt, a conspiracy-theory-believing
pessimist, said after our second round, “Makes a guy want to quit.” Hearing him
of all people say that… well, it cleared my head. I’d been thinking the same
thing, but because
he’d
said it
– the guy who always sees the worst – I could hear how dumb it
sounded. Two negatives make a positive.

I shook my head. “No, see that’s the thing!
There can be no quitting!”

Gary frowned. He’s the quiet type who
when he speaks, it means something.

Matt’s face scrunched up. “Why?”

“Look man, we have to be like athletes.
They practice every day for hours and hours and hours – to be the best of
the best. And when they lose a game, they get back up and work harder to win
the next one. They don’t quit. If you want something, you have to give it your
all.”

Gary nodded. “Josh is right.”

Matt, surprised by the rare sound of
Gary’s two-cents, dropped his half-full beer on the concrete at our feet.
“SHIT!” He bent down, and over his back, through the glass window, I saw
her…Amber… for the first time. Looking at one of her friends, she’d smiled, and
it lit up my world.

Matt stood back up, with an empty beer
bottle, his hand covered in foam. “See,” he said, “Everything is shit.”

“I’ll get you another beer,” I said, and
left them.

My opponents: A redhead, always trouble,
and a lanky model, even worse.

I had only one chance. Maybe only a
fraction of a chance. Maybe only a fraction of a fraction of a chance. I had to
go for it. There was no other option but to dive right in and be the dominant.

Parting the crowd, I could see only her;
that smile, those eyes, that dress. She pushed her hair away from her shoulder,
revealing bare skin above a spaghetti-strapped blue dress. She was killing me.
When she finally saw me approaching and we locked eyes, something happened; we
both felt it. I know, because I saw her breath catch, the same time my heart
stopped. The redhead turned. The model followed. I walked straight up to the
three of them, my eyes only on her.

“Who are you?”

She was startled, plain as day. “I’m
Amber.”

“No. You’re the color of the ocean; blue
and gold and breathtaking.” I held my hand out, “I’m Josh. Can I talk to you
for a second?” She looked to her friends, but I didn’t. I didn’t even flinch.

She cautiously slid her hand in mine.
“Ummm…sure.”

I nodded to the Gazelles who would later
be known as Jessica and Nicole. Nicole’s mouth was open and Jessica smacked her
to get it shut, with hilarious timing. But I wasn’t in a laughing mood. I felt
like I was floating.

I guided my Lioness to the far side of
the multi-angled room until I found a space private enough for us to talk.

Amber, holding my hand, looked up at me,
“What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Whatever you’d like to talk about. Tell
me everything about you.”

“You’ve been watching me?” she asked,
figuring this didn’t come out of nowhere.

“Yes.”

“From where?”

“You see that glass?” I pointed to the
window in question. “It’s very clean.”

And bam, that smile came back to knock
me on my ass. I looked at her mouth and saw the tip of her tongue sticking from
between her teeth. My cock got hard in an instant and I was in trouble because
I don’t wear shorts or briefs. Too confining. I’m a big guy and I like to
free-ball. I’m not in my teens anymore so it’s usually under control, until I
met her.

“Shit,” I said, looking away.

“What?” Her smile dropped. She looked
around for what was wrong.

“No. It’s…” I didn’t continue. She was
too much of a lady to look down; that was obvious. Since my cock wouldn’t
listen – only had his eye on her – I had to think of something. I
reached and moved her over so that she stood between me and the wall, with my back
to the room.

“What are you doing Josh? Are you hiding
from someone?” She looked around again. “Is your ex here, or something? That’s
not okay with me.”

 
“No! God no. I…” She was irritated, so I
had
to tell her. “I’m… uh… pitching a
tent… and I don’t need the world aware of what you’re doing to me.”

Her eyes grew wide and she laughed,
“What?!” She looked at my crotch.

“Stop looking. You’re making it worse.”

She covered her mouth with her hands,
peeked up at my face, then back my crotch, over and over. “Oh my. Wow. Look at
that.”

My face turned red. “Cut it out, Amber.
Seriously.”

“Okay. I won’t look. I’m sorry.” She
averted her eyes to the ceiling, which looked ridiculous. “So, what do you want
to talk about, Josh? Any subject. I’m all ears.”

I thought she said
I’m all yours
, which was probably a projection. “You’re all mine?”
I asked, searching her eyes.

She cast her eyes slowly back down to
me. I waited, us looking at each other for what felt like two lifetimes now
joined. She said quietly, “I think I might be.”

I held my hand out. “Let’s get out of
here. You want to?”
 

She nodded the smallest nod. I weaved my
fingers through hers and held on, turned and led her back to her friends.

When we got to them, they stopped their
conversation, fast.

 
“I’m Joshua Chase.”

The redhead said through a surprised,
small laugh, “Jessica Harper,”

“Nicole Henry,” came a voice like
molasses. I would later find out Nicole was in fact not a model, which
surprised the hell out of me.

“I’m taking Amber home with me.” Both of
them reacted. I let go of Amber’s hand, reached into my pocket for my wallet
and held out my driver’s license. “This is my name, like I said; Joshua Chase.
And my address. Take a picture of it with your phone. I don’t want you to
worry. She’s safe with me.”

Nicole took it, exchanged looks with
Jessica and Amber, as Jessica took a picture, excited. Nicole handed it back,
her face saying,
what the hell,
as
she asked,
“You okay with this
Amber?”

“Uh huh,” smiled Amber, looking
crazy-adorable.

“Have a nice night, ladies.” I took
Amber’s hand again, nodded to her friends and led her out of there.

See? Lion.

We took the subway home and rode it with
her straddling my lap, making out, completely oblivious to whoever might be
looking. This is New York and after 1:00 a.m. you see this kind of shit all the
time. But to be on the receiving end of it, is something else. Feeling the
softness of her mouth, the curve of her lower back, her ass on my legs
separated only by fabric – was the luckiest feeling I’ve ever had. It is
a rare awesome kind of magic you feel with some people. If they could bottle
it, the world would be a happier place. All men search for this feeling. Women
don’t think we do, but we do. Until we have it, we’re wild. Animals searching
for a purpose, domesticated by society only, with nowhere to put our wildness
and no one to help us maintain dignity, but ourselves. We don’t always succeed
at that. We want to pound our chests in the forest, howl at the moon, and call
dominance over that which is ours. Making out with her on the train, I felt I’d
found it. That thing. That feeling where I had a place for all the craziness we
all work to control – a woman for whom I could be tamed and happy.
Home.

On the walk to my place, we talked about
where we’d come from, how long we’d lived in New York, how we both liked the
changes in the weather and how it made us appreciate life more. Then we went
into the stuff that makes us, us. How I crave hotdogs pretty much every time I
see one of those stands everywhere in the city, because when I was a boy, my
dad took me to baseball games and always bought me two. How she used to jump in
puddles when it rained, no matter what shoes she had on; often making her mom
upset and her daddy proud. How he’d wished she’d been a boy and was mean enough
to tell her. How I had a dog named Sam after Lord Of The Rings. How she had a
cat named Dog, because she’d wanted a dog, but her mom only liked cats. How she
came to love the cat/Dog, despite herself. How my Sam ran away, and wasn’t
loyal like in the book. How my mom had told me he had to take the ring back so
we’d all be safe, just so I would stop crying. How she played with Barbie dolls
in secret, since her father wanted her to focus on softball and not ‘girly
bullshit.’

As we took to the stairs of my place
Amber asked if I had a roommate. “No. I’ve got a studio. Got that so I didn’t
have to have one.”

“Good,” she’d said looking back from two
steps up. I saw her lipstick was gone and she looked kissed. By me. I opened
the door and let her in first. She did a quick scan and spun around, her dress
fanning out slightly, her long blonde hair following. Then she backed away,
planted both feet and did something I’ll never forget. She lifted her arms up
over her head. I froze, looking at her as she waited for me to take off her
dress, hands high, bracelet fallen almost to her elbow. She tilted her chin
down in a way that was unbelievably cute. I snapped a mental picture.

“What are you waiting for? An eclipse?”
she asked.

“I’m waiting to wake up.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be much fun. Would
it?”

I cleared the distance and wrapped my
arms around her, lifted her dress up and off, kissed her long and deep,
carrying her to my bed, with no intention of letting her leave, for days. I
didn’t check out her body except with my hands, because I couldn’t stop kissing
her long enough to look down. Neither of us could stop and our kisses were all
over the map: Smooth. Rough. Hungry. Sweet. Deep. Loving. Lustful. Ferocious.