I loved our hotel "meetings" I really did, but I always imagined something more. I imagined what it would be like to go far away from New York, where no one knew me and I could walk around the streets with Karen, hold her close to me and kiss her and no one would question it, they wouldn't look down on us for being in love.

I always thought being gay was the hard part…who ever thought that straight would cause me the most problems.

I walked into Karen's manse; she had assured me it was going to be empty all day. I looked in her bedroom and no one was in it, I looked in the study, which was also vacant. I opened the door to the kitchen where she was throwing things in a pan and dancing back and forth to a song on the radio…Billie Holiday maybe…

I stayed and watched her for a minute. She was adorable. I walked up to her and she jumped a little bit, she was about to say something and I put a finger to her lips and put my arm around her waist and dipped her. We danced in her kitchen and I was home. Wherever she was, was where I was most happy. She sang along with her sweet voice that was several octaves lower when she talked just to me… I guess it was all part of her act. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy only I know the real Karen…at least I think that's the real Karen…who knows, but I really just wish she would show the world the same version that she shows me, if they didn't like it, they were stupid.

A lot of things about Karen's lifestyle were all a part of the façade. She was so enigmatic, so unpredictable; I envied that…. (Coming from the man that alphabetizes his sock drawer.)

I was never sure if what she said was her or her autopilot self. No one but her and God knew her true self. Why she hid it was beyond me…but not really. Sometimes she was blatantly subtle… if that's possible. Her anatomy was confusing within itself and that's what addicted me to her. The fact that I never knew what was coming next, I couldn't be more intrigued in whatever she was about to say, because unlike everyone else in my life, it was new and unpredictable.

I feared I was losing her, in fact I knew I was…I could tell by how she looked at me. She was bored. She was always bored.

I wish she saw herself the way I saw it. I look at her cooking, swaying back and forth to the music, smiling…. Didn't she see how incredibly perfect she was? I liked just talking to her, listening to anything she had to say. You learn a lot about a person when you shut up for a second stop talking about yourself and listen. I think that is the problem with so many people today, so self-absorbed. It's the way I had been, the way Grace and Jack were, but Karen and me, we really heard each other. We would argue just for arguments sake, and she would always end up being right.

I remember she was sitting on the edge of the bed, just looking at something…thinking. I pinched her leg and she said, "Ow," which didn't surprise me. I don't even know why I pinched her…curiosity? To see what would happen? If she had feelings? If I was really there sitting next to her?

"What?" I asked. "You pinched me," she said sounding hardly frustrated…she was always frustrated but never with me. I apologized and she smiled, then she fell back and kissed me, she always surprised me when she did that, she never made the first move. When she did it made me feel like she really wanted me, like she made an effort just to kiss me, it meant something. She would always do it at the perfect times… when I was thinking that I was the only one that felt something, or… anything. She would kiss me right when I was about to give up on her.

The romantic notion of it wasn't lost though, it was always there, there was always spark with us. She smiled when I walked in the room, unintentionally. I swooned when she fell back on the bed. Our knees went weak when we kissed.

I always left the hotel room wanting to let the whole world know that she was mine and that I loved her. It killed me that I couldn't tell a soul, let alone the entire world. I always feel stupid around her. She says things that only she knows sarcastically, like if you didn't know that you were stupid. It drove me crazy but I loved it.

I was getting older. It was odd, I couldn't remember things I had done just moments ago…did I grab my wallet? Did I lock the door? Did I put the cream back in the refrigerator? Trivial things I forgot, but nothing about her. How much a common man would render her tiny details insignificant meant nothing to me because everything was important. I remembered everything, the way her hair fell into place after she fell back onto the bed. I remembered the way her cheeks were red after I kissed her right below her bellybutton.

She would talk sometimes and I would listen to her, contently listen to her every word. "I told him I wasn't a virgin," she said as she was talking about losing her virginity to a college professor, "I mean the quick handy behind the school for ten bucks is hardly sex, letting a man twice my age feel me up in a janitor's closet to spite mom is hardly love-making. I don't think anyone could really love me if they knew me… REALLY knew me. I wish I could be completely honest with someone, anyone. I always wanted to live an extraordinary life; I wanted to change the world. The revolution is coming ya know, and all I do is sit here and drink and talk when the fucking revolution is standing at my front door," she shut her eyes…. i shut off the light.

I always felt bad doing it. I stood up and put my coat on, she was peacefully sleeping on the bed, topless and angelic. I pulled the blanket over her and almost kissed her gently but decided I couldn't wake her. I slipped into my shoes and went out the door slowly. I wished I could see her face in early morning light. I wish I could wake up with her in my arms. Watch her eyes flutter open for the first time, and adjust to the warm sunlight that shed through the window so cautiously. I feared it would never happen, but then again, I often confused dreams with reality, why not reality with dreams?

I swipe the key and open the door to the hotel room for yet another sexual encounter with my secret lover slash good friend slash client…hmm, when I say it like that it sounds sorted... I'll just say I'm meeting Kare. I caught her looking at herself in the mirror. It astounds me how all of these beautiful women say that there are things wrong with their body…especially her who is so flawless. She told me once, "I hate my body. It's bony in all the wrong places and fat in the same. My hair is okay as long as it keeps cooperating, and I guess my eyes are alright. I hate my lips though, and my hands. I wish I were taller, not that I'm too short, I don't know, I just hate relying on Stanley to reach the pans up in the cabinets on the top…."

It was so trivial, trivial insignificant things that she said that defined her character so perfectly. She wanted to be independent and hated when she couldn't be. She felt bad about taking all of Stan's money, but it never stopped her from doing it or joking about doing it. She hated her body yet acted as if she was the prettiest thing that ever walked…which is true if you ask me. Even straight-laced Grace swooned over Karen, she was an amazing thing to look at and if she let you, talk to.

But she was so distant.

She was always so…aloof.

Kind of the way I was, just not so obviously.

She was Karen, and I loved her.