EVEN AUSTIN’S AIRPORT IS cool. It’s smaller than Phoenix’s, but the stereotypical parts—the stainless-steel window frames, the shiny tile floor—can’t extinguish the place’s undeniable uniqueness. While I walk from my gate toward ground transportation, I pass rows of homey, eclectic restaurant stalls, the smell of barbeque wafting over the walkway. Every sign boasts the city’s personality, its nightlife, its music. I lose count of how many guitars I see, slung over travelers’ shoulders, in signage, even statues.
In the terminal, a man with long hair sits on a portable amp and strums the handsome purple guitar in his hands, echoing something melodious and syncopated into the space. For a second, images flash into my head—myself practicing with a guitar or in front of a mic, channeling impressions and emotions into song. Vinyl records covering my floor, obscure bands on my shirts. Songwriter Siena.
Walking from my gate, I immerse myself in my destination. I already have the impression Austin is a city dialed up to ten, while Phoenix is content at a three. There’s electricity here, and not only the power-lines kind. With how dramatically my surroundings have shifted, it’s hard to imagine I was home only hours ago.
They were not comfortable hours. I spent every minute of the flight working over the sex issue. In my seat, with the cheap fabric of the cushion under me, my earphones wrapped unused in my sweatshirt pocket while cold compressed air dried out my skin, I soul-searched. Gazing out my window, watching the beige flats of the country pass under me, I recognized that I am, obviously, deeply curious about having sex.
Now, in a way, I feel like Patrick and I are back at the beginning of our relationship. I’m excited to get to know us all over again, to find out what’s new about Patrick and for him to discover what’s new about me. I just don’t want the expectation of sex to rush these reintroductions. On paper, we’ve been together for three years. In my head, though, we’re kind of only on our second date, if a weekend-long one.
Somewhere over Texas, I decided I would erase the question from my mind. I’ve gone three years without having sex with my boyfriend. It won’t kill me to go a couple more months. Besides, I rationalized, I don’t even know if I’ll want to have sex with Patrick if the moment comes. Sex in general? Sure. Sex with this particular boyfriend at this particular time? I won’t know until I’m facing the chance. It was only a month ago I was just warming up to kissing him again.
I walk outside, leaving baggage claim behind me. Winter weather in Texas is similar to Phoenix. The pale blue of the sky is nearly white in the midday sun. Even so, it’s not exactly cold, and everything has an earthy scent I find intensely invigorating.
Pulling my suitcase, I continue to the wide drive-through where Patrick texted me he’d be waiting. I find him immediately, wearing sunglasses I don’t recognize, standing next to a car I only recognize from the photos he texted me when he got it, and in a snug-fitting quarter-zip jacket I do recognize but never took notice of.
The sight stops me for a second, my suitcase rolling into my heels. Because Patrick looks . . . hot.
His hair is just long enough to look windswept, his neck and face tanner than I’ve ever seen them. I know it’s from all the hiking he’s been doing, even in the winter. I was glad he’d taken up hiking just because it was a new hobby. Now I’m glad for a whole new reason.
The effect is instantaneous. Every one of my rationalizations about sex, not rushing, and focusing on rediscovering our relationship vanishes from my head, drifting into the open Texas sky.
In the same moment, Patrick sees me. He doesn’t move forward, but a grin slowly spreads across his face and he lowers his sunglasses.
Remembering I’m stalled on the sidewalk, having nearly forgotten my own name at the sight of him, I start walking. I don’t run into his arms. I stop a foot away, enjoying the charged space separating us. I wait, wetting my lips, letting my eyes roam over him while his roam over me.
Finally, slowly, he leans down and intently presses his lips to mine. His hands pull my waist to him.
The sky is swallowed up. The electricity is no longer around me—it is me. I let my body fold into his, let my hands find the back of his head, and I’m overcome with his familiar smell. While the taste of his lips is familiar, it’s a familiarity hidden under the shock of everything new. It’s proof, devastating and delicious, that our kiss on the final night of Patrick’s visit was no fluke.
Just thinking about the visit makes me want to laugh because it reminds me of the last time we kissed in an airport.
When we pull apart, Patrick’s eyes fix on me. “Now, that’s better,” he says definitively, and I know he’s also remembering our stilted peck in front of my mom.
He reaches for my luggage—which I surely would’ve forgotten on the sidewalk in my dazed stupor. The effect of the kiss is only just starting to wear off, and I don’t know whether to be exhilarated . . . or frustrated.
Frustrated because I just wasted the last two hours of my life.
My deliberations at thirty thousand feet were worthless. I didn’t need to spend minutes and mileage wondering if sex would put pressure on our fragile, renewed relationship. It’s only pressure if I feel like it’s pressure. Which I don’t. I feel like it’s exactly right. If Patrick were to ask me now if I wanted to lose my virginity in the back of his new car, I know what I would say.
I reach for Patrick’s passenger door, letting myself relax. Deciding whether I wanted to have sex on this visit was the hard part—the turbulence. Knowing I do feels like touching down on the runway.