Forty-three.

Suspended time, pretend intimacy, and a fire petering out.

There’s an album that reminds me of split timelines and smothered flames. It's lyrically romantic in the way that vague longing and sepia-toned nostalgia evoke desire, like two strangers suddenly and inescapably locking eyes across a crowded darkroom, causing time to suspend itself; it's yearning made melodic via atmospheric 2010s synth-pop.

There's another essay I once anonymously authored out in the internet wilds about Pierre, the boy who introduced me to this record. It retraces how I met him at nightfall and commingled our limbs, but for the sake of brevity I had chosen to neglect mentioning the music and our pretend intimacy.

Pretend intimacy—that's what I would call it. It's the intercourse I would but did not have, the intercourse I withheld because the partner I wanted was not the person underneath me in that moment. Instead, I gave Pierre all the intimacy I was willing to dole out and nothing more.

Pierre came into my life when I was looking for someone else. I had envisioned an archetype, an idealized partner whose existence would tick off all the checkboxes in my head because I thought I knew what and who I wanted. In the aftermath of my big breakup in 2022, I was no longer willing to compromise on the men I allowed myself to date; I didn't want to repeat past mistakes and give myself (and my time) to an endeavor that would ultimately fail. Pierre wasn't the one I wanted, but he wanted me—badly.

It began with his interest and my indifference, but over the course of weeks he pursued me doggedly. I'd told him that he wasn't exactly what I was looking for in a partner, but I also wasn't decidedly opposed to meeting him. I wasn't uninterested yet I also wasn't very interested—I was simply, for better or for worse, neutral.

As I've aged, my romanticism has become a bit tempered. I still believe in the possibility of an immediate spark, but I've come to understand that finding a connection can take some time. I approach dates with less seriousness because I can't decide if I even want to date someone if I don't know much about them; creating space for spontaneity allows for more genuine interaction, and that goes a long way towards helping me understand my counterpart.

Sometimes, and especially after my breakup, I very much feel hard to be loved. I'm skeptical to a fault, and I resent being wanted for the wrong reasons, but I also believe in giving people chances. Thus, if Pierre wanted so badly to hook up with me, I decided to let him.

I remember keying the numerical password to his apartment building into the electronic pad and going up the stairs. I remember his front door, the door that he would in subsequent encounters keep unlocked for me, and how he'd opened it to let me in that very first time. I remember taking off my shoes, meeting his cats, and following him down the hallway. I remember immediately liking his bedroom, from the way it smelled fragrant to its minimalist-yet-tasteful decor to the single glass of wine on his nightstand to the candles he'd lit. I remember asking if he was French, because the vocalist of the music he'd put on was singing in French, and I remember him replying that he was only of partial descent. I remember sweeping him into my arms, inhaling his scent and feeling his skin against mine.

Occasionally, I will regret a hookup after it's over, usually because the vibe is off or we just didn't play well together or one of us catfished the other. Those guys I typically block and forget. I did not, however, regret Pierre. I still don't.

Pierre was cute. He liked what I liked, and above all just wanted to make me feel good. It's true that he trended towards subservience and that I, its chief beneficiary, enjoyed it, but it's also true that I just plainly liked him. The chemistry between us was more than there—it was electric. Every person has their own scent, the unique mix of bodily chemicals and pheromones that individuates them, and I found that I really liked how Pierre tasted. When my lips finally touched his, I couldn't get enough.

Throughout my life, I've seldom found that immediate sort of connection; off the top of my head, Stephen and Raul are two such people with whom I felt those very same sparks. (Conversely, I never felt that way about Henry or Jim.) In Pierre's case, I could tell that he liked me, perhaps for the same oblique reasons why I was attracted to him. In the intervening months, he begged and begged to see me. He wanted to date me, too.

Because I'm a skeptic and because I feel like I'm hard to love, I was surprised and a bit mystified at first as to why he was so into me. I was someone he hardly knew but still apotheosized. But—and maybe it wasn't genuine, or it was for the wrong reasons—I was charmed. I had recently been in a similar situation with Beau; this felt almost like a rehash of that experience, and I didn't want to lead him on, but I'm fallible and I'm imperfect and I liked the feeling of being desired, especially by someone with whom I had good chemistry. So, I allowed myself to fall into Pierre.

We slept together many, many times. I held his hand during our pretend intimacy and kissed him between exhaled breaths, and I biked home across Brooklyn in the ensuing midnights. In his eyes, I saw a timeline wherein I agreed to date him for real. I glimpsed fragments of a lifetime together, and I mentally recoiled. I couldn't do it.

When Pierre asked me to date him, I wasn't sure how to respond. I liked what we had—a limited intimacy, bound by pretense—but I couldn't see him as my partner, not where I currently was in my life. He was a few years younger than me and worked part-time gigs to support his creative endeavors, and I admired his hustle, but I couldn't let go of what I wanted.

After my breakup, I decided to believe in uncompromising romance instead of falling into despairing nihilism. I chose to be steadfast about certain qualities that I wanted in my would-be partner, chief of all that we would be on equal footing: we'd be equally enamored with each other, and we'd have similarly established our lives and careers. I didn't want to have to deal with disparity all over again, like I'd done with Beau and Jun—I didn't want to have yet another partner who would come to resent me. I was afraid.

If I went into such a relationship convinced that it was destined to fail, wouldn't I be willing that failure into existence? I would look into Pierre's eyes and see a life not lived, not because I couldn't but because I wouldn't. I knew he liked me and I could feel the chemistry too, but I couldn't do it because I felt too old and unwilling to take this particular risk. If I were a decade younger, maybe…and I admit I was tempted, if only for a moment.

So, I began to avert my gaze when I held him, I laid him down prone when I mounted him, because I couldn't bear to look into his eyes and see the life we wouldn't have together, and I smothered our flame.

In the end, I didn't know if I even broke Pierre's heart, or if he'd already and easily moved on, but I think of him still, not least when I'm listening to Paradis. I'll always remember him as one of the boys who tried. Our embers burn on in another lifetime.