The Last Time We Met

September 1985, Los Angeles, California

I was James but also not.

I was me, and I knew my name was Chris. I was surrounded by people but also alone in a dark room with colored lights flashing overhead. Electronic music played from somewhere, a slow parade of melody.

Looking from a window above, it's like a story of love

From across this dark room I saw him. He was Cedric but also not. He had dark eyes, or maybe he didn't, and dark hair that curled around his ears, thick eyebrows. With each flash of the lights his skin color changed, dusky blue to pale purple to bronzed yellow.

Can you hear me

Came back only yesterday

I'm moving further away

I couldn't say why I was immediately drawn to him, with all of these others around me: flashing costumes, glitter and sequins, bare expanses of skin. So much to distract me, and yet I saw him and I moved toward him, to ease the pull I felt in my chest.

He moved in my direction too, as if he felt what I felt.

Want you near me

When we met, the pulse of the crowd had been lulled by the song, pairing off, swaying. An ocean of people. I was swaying, too, in the heady rush of whatever this was. He smiled just a little. He was wearing lip gloss. His lips shone, pink and wet, in the club's flashing lights. Glittery pink eyeshadow dazzled me, or maybe it was all those brightly colored drinks I had, making my vision starry and drunk.

All I needed was the love you gave

His fingers touched my waist, my bare skin, because I wore a t-shirt that I turned into a crop top and jeans with more holes than fabric. If I closed my eyes I could see my own reflection, my bleached blond hair and the one earring and the lip gloss on my own lips from Lisa, the roommate my parents thought I was dating. But then I opened my eyes I saw Cedric, who had another name now, another face. His fingers gave me the same thrill.

All I needed for another day

We moved our hips together. I was figuring his face out, trying to understand how I already knew him, will know him.

And all I ever knew

Only you

I knew this would forever be our song. I knew his name was Brent, Brent Marshall, and this was Los Angeles in 1985, at the start of my first year at UCLA. Everything had already changed for me but this, this very moment, was the first time I had felt alive. For the first time I was openly gay, and I liked how men looked at me when I walked in, admiring and hungry. But I never expected this.

Brent pulled me closer. Our hips touching. I couldn't stop staring at him.

I blinked, and the lights changed. The same song, colored lights in a dark room, but we were lying down. A dark bedroom, Christmas lights taped to the ceiling. I was holding him and he was thin, so thin, brittle in my arms.

Another blink and I was back at the club and the lights were making me dizzy.

I blinked and—