“You could’ve redeemed yourself with a trip to the Natural History Museum. Everyone loves the gem hall.” I type quickly, firing the text off to Reid who’d just spent approximately 40 seconds in The Met with his unimpressed daughter. The gem hall. The gem hall.
I allow myself a moment to dwell on the memory of the two of us making out in one of the dark, sheltered corners, so far away from the throngs of visitors that we felt as if we were in a private room.
It was 3 days before Reid’s departure. We’d spent every moment we weren’t tangled in the sheets of my bed visiting the quintessential parts of the city. Things that I loved. Things I’d hoped he might love. Things I’d secretly wanted to be enough to keep him here. They wouldn’t be, but I showed him nonetheless.
We’d ventured to the Upper West Side for a late breakfast at Bella Luna. We sat in the back next to a large, circular mirror. I was falling for him. I could see it in my eyes, reflected back at me as he thumbed through the menu. I looked away from the mirror. Somehow, if I couldn’t see myself, if I couldn’t see the fact of my feelings written across my face, this would all hurt much less when he’s gone.
I got grilled polenta and roasted eggplant. Poached salmon with a white wine sauce for him. We’d planned to share, but I liked his plate more and he preferred mine, so we ended up swapping entirely.
“Have you been here before?” he asked as the waiter refilled our waters.
“Reid,” I said with feigned indignation, “I would never take you somewhere I had not heavily vetted beforehand.”
With a coy smile, he reminded me of the East Village bar we’d wandered into last night. I’d never heard of it, but we tried it anyway. We’d just ordered a drink and settled in when “Amateur Karaoke Night” began. “What constitutes ‘amateur karaoke?’” we’d wondered during the 4th rendition of Whitney Houston’s I Have Nothing. Was karaoke not amateur by nature? Were there paid karaoke-ers? Had we fundamentally misunderstood karaoke? But, by the 3rd drink these questions faded to the background and we’d found ourselves singing the 7th I Have Nothing of the evening. We were certainly the worst singers by far, but none of the other performers had made out through Whitney’s final “ooohs,” so Reid and I received a standing ovation and an invitation to come back next week. Next week.
“So, you have been here before?” he nudged my knee, pulling me from my memory.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“High school.”I considered his face, his lashes, his lips, enjoying the warmth in my belly that came with him wanting to know me.
“I had my first date here.” I replied, almost like a dare.
He leaned back, a smile breaking across his face, “So this is where you bring all the guys?”
I leaned towards him. “Just two of the guys.”
This seemed to satisfy him. “Did he pick you up in his car, proper? I need to see what I’m up against.”
“Well, considering we were both city kids, neither of us had our license… so no. He met me on a pile of snow. I didn’t know what to say on a date, so I was pretty quiet. But, we went on two more dates after that, so I guess I did fine.”
“Did he kiss you?”
“No.”
“He’s an idiot.”
We walked south hand in hand, stopping every so often in an abandoned stoop to make out languidly. When we reached the Natural History Museum, the main event for the day, Reid pulled me towards the line for the main entrance, which was wrapped around the block.
“Mister Tourist,” I teased, before leading him further south. He threw me a questioning look.
“Do you trust me?” I’d asked.
“Lead the way, beautiful.” His voice had been light, dazed, almost silly, but I could hear a thickness underneath. My grip on his hand tightened. He laced his fingers with mine and squeezed.
I guided us gently into the less flashy, near empty entrance on 77th, where we followed a handful of nannies and their charges into the ticket line.
“Never use the main entrance if you can help it.” I instructed.
“Sage advice. Any other things I should know from a seasoned New Yorker?” He asked. I grinned. Of course there was.
“I tease, but the tourists matter.” I began. “That people pay money to briefly visit my city…It’s endearing. It’s special – even when they’re walking four people wide on Ludlow Street. Let’s see, I want to give directions. It’s like when you ask a guy to tell you about Bucowski. Catnip. I love it. The word is How’ston, not Hue’ston. And, if the subway car is empty, it’s empty for a reason. New York is the perfect place to find yourself. It’s the perfect place to find others. It’s… home.”
Years later, there would be a movie of Reid’s I would watch exactly once, in which the female lead recites this monologue almost word for word. It was the only romance, to my knowledge, that Reid had ever penned, and the scene had unmoored me for a week. Had he simply used my words for their certified New Yawk City authenticity, or was he… searching for me? Asking the universe if I was still there? In the end, I’d decided it was the former and didn’’t reach out.
The ancient ticket attendant helped us with our admission fee. I’d wanted to pay, but Reid refused, his upside down smile shining down on me.
“Let me,” he’d urged. I obliged, as he gently combed my hair off my sweaty neck, kissing my forehead.
“You two look happy,” the octogenarian ticket attendant croaked in a thick Brooklyn accent, before waving us through to the first hall.
It was my favorite type of compliment. A positive opinion, presented like a statement of fact. New Yorkers are, for better or for worse, notorious for giving unsolicited opinions loudly and publicly. A simple “hat” hurled at you from a showtime performer on the way off the subway? You could ride that compliment for a week.
But this – a non-attire-related compliment from a stranger – was a strange phenomenon that had only happened to me with Reid. In a city so straight forward, so anti-bullshit, it felt… significant.
The 77th lobby was not quite as grand as the sweeping pre-historic skeleton greeting the patrons at the main entrance, but Reid’s eyes lit up nonetheless. Above us, a gorgeous Haida Canoe hung nobly. Reid dropped my hand to move closer and take in the detail. His mouth slightly slack. I knew if he could, he would reach out and touch it. I pulled out my camera to snap a picture of him, but was quickly scolded by a very vigilant docent. I watched him a second longer, committing to memory the way his eyes danced across the canoe’s underbelly. Like it was perfect. Like it was precious. It was the way he looked at me before reverently unhooking my bra.
I joined him under the canoe.
“It’s a comfort to know,” he mused, “that art has always been a part of the human condition.” He surveyed the canoe. “Even items made, presumably, for function over beauty are worthy of it.”
I reached up and ran my fingers along the stubble on his jaw. He was so beautiful like this. He leaned his head into my hand, exhaling lightly, letting his eyes linger for one more second on the canoe before redirecting them to me.
“Sorry if I’m,” he searched for words, “pontificating.” He fumbled for my hand. “I get so envious sometimes. Of physical art. Writing is so –” he gestures loosely to the space above his head, “non tangible.”
“Tangibility is not the main function of art. Dance is also not ‘tangible.’” I countered.
“That’s true. But it does physically happen. And you, your art. I mean, photographs can live forever. In a museum or a wall or, I dunno. Anywhere.”
“Ummmmm, is this how I find out you’ve never been to a bookstore?” I goaded him with a smile. He pushed my face with his hand, rolling his eyes as I continued, “Because Books-A-Million is basically a capitalist monument to the written word.”
“Wow, I think you’ve come up with their new slogan.”
“But seriously, you know what a bookstore is, right?” I teased.
“Yes, Lily, I’ve even been to the library.”
“Ooh, say it to me again.”
He leaned in and whispered, “I love to swipe my library card.”
I feigned chills. “Good, I didn’t want to be kissing some dummy.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” He whispered in my ear, “You make me a little dumb.”
I turned my head and kissed him. “I can’t fault you for that.”
He looked down at me with a contemplative smile. We held onto each other’s gazes for a second, then he murmured “I really like you.”
I repeated his words back to him.
“You know,” I looked up at him quietly. “I don’t always see what I do as art. Photography… It's more like documentarian work. A social service. Like I’m history’s eyes or something.”
“Me too.”
“I think you’re something else. A creator.”
“I’m mostly just rearranging moments of my life into a linear story. It’s documentation. Proof it all existed.”
“That’s not so bad, is it?”
He looked at me. “No, it’s not.”
He kissed me gently but meaningfully. He deepened the kiss and I sighed into him when that damn docent cleared his throat, signaling for us to stop. I threw him a guilty smile and we made our way, hand in hand, to the next exhibit.
Once past the cop-docent, Reid muttered “I’m all for doing good work at your job, but don’t be a dork about it,”
“Tell me about it,” I agreed.
We entered the dark shadows of the Gem Hall. Black floors, black ceilings, black walls, and hundreds of illuminated rocks lined the walls. In the center of the room sat a huge gemstone with purple crystals sparkling in the light spotlight.
“That color reminds me of you,” he whispered.
“Purple?” I asked, slightly disturbed. Purple had always been my least favorite color.
It reminded me of a bruise or the night sky. Night had never appealed to me. I wanted to see what was happening in a way the dark had never permitted. I preferred the day.
“Purple is beautiful and regal. Deep and brooding. But, there’s a clarity to this purple. It’s translucent under the light. You have depth but you’re not opaque. Not to me.”
“Are you trying to get laid in the middle of this rock room?” I asked. Reid shrugged. The answer wasn’t “no.” My eyes dipped to his lips. This week wasn’t long enough.
I looked around. The room was dark and Reid was hot and the docent I’d grown to hate wasn’t around. I put my hand to his neck, pulling him low, and kissed him. More feverishly than I should have given the setting, but I kissed him and it was worth it. I felt his mouth tighten into a smile as he kissed me back and I pushed him backwards towards a dimly lit corner of the room. Then, my hands were entwined in his hair. My tongue was tasting the sweetness of his lips. Why did he smell so good? I felt him harden against me and knew my body was just as ready as his.
“Why are these rocks making me want to fuck you so badly?” Reid had whispered, coming up for air.
“Everything makes me want to fuck you so badly.” I exhaled, every sense of inhibition lost. I pushed my hand up under his shirt. I’d marveled at the softness of his skin every time I’d touched it. I wanted to kiss it, I wanted to caress it, I wanted to dig my nails in it. He moved his kiss down my jaw, the stubble of his beard –
“The docent asked me to tell you to stop.” An older woman with a severe bob looked at us judgementally. Several yards behind her, in the entry to the lobby, the docent from hell shook his head. We mumbled our apologies and the woman left.
“Do you wanna get out of here?” he asked. As much as I was dying to fuck him, I wanted to show him my favorite spots now, before it was too late. I shook my head gently, trying to banish the laundry list of dirty things I wanted to do to him from my head. “We at least need to look at the T-Rex,” I replied.
“Ok,” he whispered. He kissed my cheek, pushed off the wall, and casually took my hand as if we weren’t about to go full ‘car scene in Titanic’ a few seconds ago. I think I love him.
We wound our way around the museum, through the halls and up the stairs, as I tried, with varying degrees of success, not to kiss him in front of an 80 million year old primitive tool. He rubbed my thigh, infuriatingly light, during the iMax presentation on African Mammals. I tucked his tag into the back of his shirt, sending shivers down his spine. He stood behind me, dipping low to whisper a joke about an ancient reconstructed bird I was staring at. I laughed and turned to kiss him but he moved back slightly, teasing me. Not here, his eyes taunted.
But, at the end of the 3rd floor, he whispered “If I dont fuck you in the next 20 minutes, I think I might die.” I couldn’t agree more.
We looked for the exit, but paused when we passed an ascending stairwell, blocked off by a flimsy chain rope and a sign reading “No Entrance”.
“Hm,” he mused, turning back to look at me. His eyes raked up my legs, the silky skirt hitting my mid thigh, the tank top he’d been wanting to take off since we left my apartment. He leaned against the stairwell wall. “That’s interesting,” he said daringly. It was a question, not a statement.
“You can’t be serious.”
He swallowed, and I swear, the way his adam’s apple moved was a sin. I stepped towards him, not yet agreeing to what he was asking.
Though he’d seemed straight-laced when I met him, Reid had a mischievous streak in him. Nothing too dangerous. A cigarette smoked too close to an entrance. Flipping off aggressive drivers. And once, a hand under my skirt in a booth on the Lower East Side.
His gaze darkens and my fortitude weakens.
“That is interesting,” I countered, matching his gaze.
He sidestepped the chain and peaked his head up the stairwell. It must have been empty, because he nodded for me to follow him up.
I considered, briefly, that Satan's docent may be tracking us, but when I looked around no one was there. And Reid was grinning at me.
“Lead the way, beautiful,” I hummed.
We trailed up the abandoned stairwell to a sawdusty 4th floor. Evidently, all the work was taking place overnight, so as not to disturb the studious museum patrons. Powertools, half built walls and crates upon crates of glass panes, nails, and paint filled the hall. It would be beautiful one day, I could see that. It was eerily desolate and I had this thrill in my stomach as we moved deeper into the labyrinthical hall. What would I say if we were caught? Would we be kicked out? But then he was kissing me. Reid grabbed the sides of my face urgently and I matched his frequency.
“You’re so fucking–” but he didn’t finish the thought because his lips were on mine and he was pushing me up against what would soon be some sort of shadowbox display. He lifted me onto the flat surface and I wrapped my legs around him, pulling him close. He let out a sigh. I shushed him teasingly and he growled lightly, I know you’re right but what am I supposed to do?
He arched over me and I could feel how badly he wanted me. My head was on fire. He pulled at my shirt, and my eyes fluttered open, half blind with lust. I looked around.
“Are we alone?”
“I think so,” he replied hoarsely, eyes locked with mine, not even pretending to care if someone caught us.
My heart was pounding. I knew we shouldn’t, but I wanted him. I reached for his belt and he helped me pull off his pants. He burst out of his boxers and I couldn’t help but think it was the most beautiful penis I’d ever seen. He left my skirt in place, pushing my underwear to the side, lining himself up with me. I pulled at his back, begging for him, when he stopped and held my gaze.
“Are you sure this is ok?” His hair was wild and his lips were smudged red, but his eyes were clear.
“I’m begging you to fuck me.” I replied.
And with that, he was in me. Kissing me ardently and urgently. We fucked quietly and quickly, occasionally giggling softly at our audacity. I closed my eyes as he touched me, and when he finished, I remember watching him, wishing I could document this moment forever. Proof it existed.
I startle when I hear a knock on my door, more of a warning than a request for permission. Emme comes in a half second later, pulling me back to the present. To a version of myself that can’t believe how bold my younger self used to be. A version of myself I wonder if Reid would still ravish on the 4rd floor of the History Museum. I quietly hoped he would.
