“Chance Encounters
 of the
Close Kind”

© 2010 by Anel Viz. All rights reserved.

 

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

 

 4.  A Collector

We’d been talking for not much more than ten minutes when he said it.  For reasons which will soon become abundantly clear, I cannot remember what we were talking about.  I suppose when you get right down to it we had been talking about nothing, one of those idle conversations that pop up between two people who happen to be sharing a park bench.  The topic doesn’t matter; what does matters is that what he said did not in any way follow from what we were talking about.  Out of the blue he up and says in the most matter-of-fact tone imaginable, “You know, I’d really like to have sex with you”.

He caught me totally unprepared.  It had never occurred to me to chat him up, nor had I thought he was hitting on me.  I didn’t know how to respond.  Sex with a stranger – what gay man hasn’t done it one time or another in his life?  But you always have some clue.  I didn’t exactly hesitate; rather, I discovered that my mind had simply gone blank.

“So?  How about it?”

“Just give me a moment to collect my thoughts.”

“Take your time.”

He was pleasant enough and not bad looking, a few years older than myself.  Not what I’d call my type, but what the hell?  As they say, if he had the place, I had the time.  I might well have gone to bed with him under different circumstances.  This was not a cruisy park.  I hadn’t come there looking for sex; I went there to read my newspaper.  I had no clue what could have prompted his remark.  He couldn’t have been reading my mind, since sex with him wasn’t something I had on it, as far as I could remember.  He put it so bluntly too, without a trace of lust in his voice!  It sounded more like an observation than a proposition, not at all your typical pick-up line, and he delivered his follow-up question in the same noncommittal fashion, as if it were all one to him.  What do you make of a person like that?  I could detect nothing sinister in his manner but one does have to be careful.

I’m only speculating on how I would have assessed the situation.  As I said, my mind went blank, and I just sat there.

“So what do you think?”

“I don’t think.  I’m trying to collect my thoughts, but it’s as if I didn’t have a thought in my head.”

“That’s because I collected them for you.”

“You what?”

“Collected your thoughts.  It’s sort of a hobby.  I collect thoughts.”

“You collected my thoughts?  You collected MY thoughts?”

“Yes.”

“I want them back!”

“Sorry, finders keeps.  Besides, I can’t give them back.  I threw them out.  It was all rubbish, a bunch of pseudo-intellectual gibberish that had nothing to do with me.  It was very rude of you, letting your mind wander like that.”

“You go picking my brain – no, pickpocketing my brain – and you accuse me of rudeness?”

“Oh come now!  Lots of people are willing to share their thoughts.”

“This isn’t sharing.  This is theft!”

“Well, if that’s how you’re going to be about it.  Here.”  He reached into his pocket and handed me a coin.

“What’s that?”

“A penny.  For your thoughts.”

“This is outrageous!”

“You’re not going to ask for more, are you?  I already told you what I think they’re worth.  And it’s just for your thoughts, mind you.  I don’t pay for sex.  Nor do I ask to be paid.”

“You take away my thoughts, rob me of the very essence of my personality, and then you expect me to go to bed with you?”

“Yes.  You’re in the perfect frame of mind for it.  Not calm perhaps, but collected.  And without a lot of trivial, self-indulgent thoughts to get in the way, you can become one with your body.  It will be a tantric experience.”

“For me maybe, not for you.”

“For me too.  I haven’t a thought in my head.  That’s why I have to collect them.”

“You mean you throw everybody’s thoughts away?”

“Yes.  I have yet to come across a thought worth keeping.  Unlike most collectors, I hate clutter.  It’s amazing, the nonsense that goes through most people’s heads.”

“You... you’re nothing but a psychic voyeur!”

“Admit it.  You’re intrigued.”

“I admit nothing of the sort!”

“There you go letting your intellect take over.  You’re resisting me.”

“You’re damn straight I’m resisting you!”

“You shouldn’t, you know.  Not if you want the sex to be good.”

“What sex?”

“The sex we’re going to have together.”

I stared at him, but couldn’t stare him down.  He just returned my gaze, not even blinking.  I got up and walked away.

Towards ten o’clock at night, though, I got to feeling horny, so I headed out to one of my favorite bars.  I walked up to someone at random and said, “You know, I’d really like to have sex with you”.

“Fuck you,” he answered.

 

Posted: 01/15/10