Kissing Kamal

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Matt walking past me at the party and not speaking wasn’t a possibility that I came prepared for.  An awkward hello followed by looking at each other, but not looking at each other across the room for the rest of the night?  Yeah, I totally came prepared for that to happen.  But not speaking?

I immediately downed my drink and asked Clay to get me two of the same.  We were chatting with a group of people who didn’t know Matt so no one noticed when he didn’t stop to say.  I acted like nothing was wrong.

Clay came back with three drinks for us.  I immediately downed one and took the other to nurse on.

“You okay there Kamal?” Clay said to me with a look of concern.

“Yeah Clay, I’m fine” I said.  “We came here to have fun and I refuse to let Matt put me in a bad mood.  Come on, I’ll introduce you to Van.” Read more…

Really Heather?

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Van Goodwin invited you to the event “Bon Voyage!” read the email from Facebook that I received several days ago.  I let the invite linger in my Inbox, giving some time for the RSVPs to trickle in.

Matt and I had been avoiding each other since our email tête-á-tête about traveling together to the bike race in Ohio.  While we weren’t going out of our way to completely switch up our respective routines, we would occasionally send each other a message like “I’m not going to happy hour tonight” which we both knew meant, “you can go there tonight and have no fear of me walking in and making things awkward.”

Being invited to Van’s event presented a potential problem.  Van was leaving DC for several months on a work trip and there was much talk about sending him off with a bang.  I wasn’t “best friends” with Van (and neither was Matt), but I wanted to go and show my support and I knew that Matt would want to do the same. Read more…

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Clay and I met at the parking lot off Beach Drive for a long bike ride. Our goal was to do 30 miles on that bright, crisp Sunday while we caught up with each other’s lives.

“Kamal, sorry I couldn’t make it up to NYC with you guys for New Years. My stripper in Vegas invited me out so I decided to hang with him.”

“Clay! You have a stripper friend in Vegas?”

“Yeah, I have one there and some in other places. I don’t know though. My resolution for the New Year is to decrease my dick print and possibly settle down this year. So tell me again, what happened between you and this Matt guy? I remember you mentioning him early on but that’s all I know.”

“In a nutshell, Mr. Wonderful became Dr. Horrible in the course of 24 hours. Read more…

Photo by Shawn Fultz and "Rex Washington"

Clay:      Well there’s not much going on except for Boyfriend for Now.

Jarrod:  What?!  First of all, who knew that Clay would get a boyfriend, and second, what does the “for now” part mean?

Clay, short for Clayton, is a tall drink of water hailing from Springfield, Mass.  Clay has a certain swagger that men just naturally find attractive.  His milkshake will bring all the boys to the yard and damn right, it’s better than yours. Read more…

Photo by Tony Yep

On a beautiful fall day in late September, I met my friends Clay and Jarrod for brunch at Café Dupont.  After a few mimosas…

Jarrod: So what’s new with you Kamal?

Me:        Well, I seem to have met a boy!

Clay:      Really?!

Me:        Yeah. It was kinda totally unexpected.  We met at the Washington Sports Club in Columbia Heights; in the pool while Clay and I were swimming.

Clay:      Are you sure it wasn’t in the sauna while you were stripping out of your Speedo?

Me:        No.  It was in the pool.  Totally legit.

Jarrod:  Okay.  Go on. Read more…