Freudian Slip

Monday night I went dressed as Edie Sedgwick (think Andy Warhol's Factory) - shiny black-leather boots, fishnets, short short black skirt and a mod-ish black top. My eyes were heavily made up - fake eyelashes and lots of smokey smeared black eyeshadow. Really makes your eyes pop blue. My hands were bandaged with gauze (she set her room on fire in the Chelsea Hotel, c. 1966), and I carried a syringe (she was a famous junkie, and an unsmoked cigarette. I had big dangling chandelier earrings on of gold and aquamarine, and my hair was pulled tight against my head in a chignon. I'm sure I didn't quite look myself, as I normally wear almost no makeup. True to my word, I went as a loose woman, but a very chic one.

So, when I walked up the stairs to Henry's party (because he really wanted me to come, lord knows why), he took one look at me and said, in his saucy British come-on voice, "Well, hell-o there." Clearly, he did NOT recognize me. I just half smiled and waited for it all to sink in. He looked back up at my face and stared a bit, then the wave of recognition came over his face, then the embarassment, then, "OH! BLOODY HELL!!" To which I replied in a sweet but teasing voice, "Well, that's NOT a very nice way to greet somebody."

Some part of me was hurt to hear this violent expression of... not disgust exactly, but of him rejecting me after he showed a longing. He was pushing it all back out as fast and as hard as he could. I was annoyed that he was hitting on "someone else," but it was so amusing and oddly reassuring to be that stranger, yet at the same time not a stranger at all. A lot of his forcefulness was a reaction to the fact that he had just been SEEN. Seen flirting with someone fresh and new, and seen being undeniably attracted to ME. And we were both there to witness it. I WON.

I know that this sounds horribly egoistic, and I am sorry for it, but you must understand I laid my heart out for this man, twice, and he said "no." It is his right, and I will not persist with him. However, it is hard to be rejected when you smell the confusion and attraction from someone you want. Having undeniable proof of their attraction isn't simply about boosting the ego (though it cushions the fall), it's about having your senses and instincts affirmed. Feeling something from someone and seeing them do the opposite is crazy making.

Anyway, I could tell he was going to behave like a rascal all night, and I didn't need to be there swallowing it, so I left for another party. Then I made out with a boy. He kisses better than you, Henry.