I know it has been a while. I’ve just been busy playing home with the Turkish Delight, and the results have been mixed; happiness, angst and frustration blended  into this irregular lump we can relationship.

When I’m in his arms, feeling his gentle fingers going down my spine, to massage my lower back, because he knows that where my back feels most tired, I can’t help but feel incredibly lucky. Lucky enough to silence the pesky voice of doubt, at least for that moment…

Generally, I have very little appetite for the vulgar. Risque is cool, vulgar is not. Or, well, so I tell myself. I think I have something of a multiple personality disorder online. Often, when I have a few meaningful conversations with a certain nick, I think that nick is me, so when my hormones take me to the point of raunchy conversation, I log-in again with a new nick. I’m not sure if its OCD or MPD, perhaps its a best of breed combination.

So anyway, back to the Turkish Delight. About a month back, I found myself on gayarabs, and as I was running out of intelligent chat options, I decided to message a certain DxBj. Now what I had in mind was some mindless banter, followed by the requisite exchange of fantasies. Like so many guys I’ve chatted with before on irc, I had absolutely no desire to meet someone who nicked himself DxBj. I mean, c’mon.

“Top/Bottom?” asked DxBj. It is delightful to chat with someone who is so adept and urbane about such matters. Bluntly asking if you bend over is indeed the epitome of sophistication. “Joy”, I thought and continued for entertainment’s sake.

When the chat go to “asl, stats?” Something snapped, and I shot back “I don’t do numbers. Why don’t you find someone else to get laid with?” Most conversations go silent here. But Turkish Delight surprised me, “Oh, I’m not looking to get laid. Its my first time here. Actually, my mom is visiting, so don’t worry, meeting someone is out of the question .” I pressed one, “So why bother with the top/bottom thing?”

“Seems to be the norm here. Plus its good to know “

And so it started.

Write, for example,’The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.’

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another’s. She will be another’s. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Pablo Neruda

10 quirky facts about kissing

1. Two out of every three couples turn their heads to the right when they kiss.

2. A simple peck uses two muscles; a passionate kiss, on the other hand, uses all 34 muscles in your face. Now that’s a rigorous workout!

3. Like fingerprints or snowflakes, no two lip impressions are alike.

4. Kissing is good for what ails you. Research shows that the act of smooching improves our skin, helps circulation, prevents tooth decay, and can even relieve headaches.

5. The average person spends 336 hours of his or her life kissing.

6. Ever wonder how an “X” came to represent a kiss? Starting in the Middle Ages, people who could not read used an X as a signature. They would kiss this mark as a sign of sincerity. Eventually, the X came to represent the kiss itself.

7. Talk about a rush! Kissing releases the same neurotransmitters in our brains as parachuting, bungee jumping, and running.

8. The average woman kisses 29 men before she gets married.

9. Men who kiss their partners before leaving for work average higher incomes than those who don’t.

10. The longest kiss in movie history was between Jane Wyman and Regis Tommey in the 1941 film, You’re in the Army Now. It lasted 3 minutes and 5 seconds. So if you’ve beaten that record, it’s time to celebrate!

Source: MSN Dating

So there I was standing next to the Mirage Islamic Art Center on Jumeriah road, feeling not unlike a renter waiting to be picked, conscious of the speculative gaze of passerbys at the young twenty-something standing by himself in the dark. If I had been Russian or Polish, I would have had to turn down at least 5 offers. Half unsure of why I wasn’t in bed reading nytimes, I called him up, and within minutes he pulled up in his little hatchback, filled to the brim with clothes, hangers and shoes.

At 25, I can count the number of guys I’ve been with on a few fingers, but I think that’s a disingenuous statistic. It makes me feel nice and chaste, but its misleading. I was a virgin until I was 24, so go do the math. In the last year and a half, I’ve been with 4 guys. I learn that by gay standards that’s still very high on the chastity totem pole, especially considering these were guy i was dating. But still, it leaves me unsettled.

He were lying in his single bed, tired from the drive, when I squeezed him hard and whispered, “Do you want to fuck me?”. Jon never asked for anything outright, but I could see the hint of a playful smile, which came with his usual rejoinder to any proposal, “Do you want me to fuck you?” Its interesting how unoffensive these conversations are in a gay relationship. It had taken me months to overcome the shame in talking about the top/bottom thing. In fact one afternoon, lying next to each other in my empty dorm room, after spending the morning hurling my things to another apartment, we stole a few secret minutes to feel each other one last time in the room where he had created so many memories. As with most secret moments, there were eruptions, followed up mute expression of ecsasty that young lovers get accustomed in dorm rooms with paper walls. Without a paper towel, or soap or water or even a rag to wipe myself with, i asked him with modesty curiosity, “Why do I always have to be the one to get dirty”. He poked me gently, and whispered, “because you’re my bottom”. I coudn’t decide if I should take an exception to what he said, or revel in his sense of possession. But I didn’t have much time to think about it then, all i wanted was some paper towel and a bar of soap.

C’est the vie, as they say in French.

Two weeks after I sent him the birthday wishes, he wrote back, with the courtesy of a past acquaintance whom you never got to know. “Thank you for remembering the date,” he wrote back. I traveled eight hours to see him last year on the very same date. Perhaps its easy for him to forget.

-From The Bubble

“What happens when an ibanker meets a geek?”

Now, my dream guy would’ve replied “Zecco.com”, but Dave just sent me his msn contact. Fair enough, i thought. After several weeks he finally turned up online and we clicked, at least to the extent you can with an investment banker. So yes, Dave was a Jewish Ivy-league investment banker. “Typical!”, you’d be tempted to say, but in Dubai its quite a novelty. Being American is difficult enough, but imagine being American AND Jewish AND gay.

Our first date was in MoE. I was in the Autobiographies section of Borders when he called. He had a mature voice, giving a false sense of authority. I saw him walking in. Dave wasn’t skinny, and with a receding hairline at 23, he didn’t crack any mirrors. And while in his light blue polo, he looked attractive to me, he had a stubborn, unkind streak which took less than 10 minutes to show, even though it was veneered by the pseudo “peoples-person” persona that is oh-so-popular among those who think they have pedigree.

He wanted Johnny Rockets, and nothing else would do. There is a fine line between being assertive and selfish. I was in a kind mood that day; he must be the assertive type, i thought and followed him to Johnny Rockets. Dinner was uneventful, and he parted with a calculated “Thanks, I had a good time.” I couldn’t tell if his aloofness was a lack of interest, or the result of affluent New England upbringing.

I took the taxi home, settled into bed, thought of Jon, and cried. Would it ever be possible to replace him?