March 27, 2004

“What the hell happened?” I asked Trevor and Zorianna once we were outside, startled, after the campus police made them scramble into their clothes and get out. I followed them with my shoes hanging limply in my hand, having left behind a half-drank bottle of wine and Trevor’s fedora. My feet were getting wet on the cold pavement as rain fell softly on the three of us.

Trevor paused in the rain, swore, and lit two cigarettes, passing one to Zorianna. He then kissed her gently on the lips, and afterwards brought his lips to mine. Our kiss was awkward and tender, so he kissed me again, fractionally longer. I smiled and kissed Zorianna, her lips intimate and wet, and we all felt better.

“They kicked us out!” Trevor said, explaining how the campus security caught him, disliked his man-nipples, and asked him to leave the premises for the night.

All this started earlier at the Interdisciplinary Arts Conference, or rather at the reception that followed. Zorianna showed up just as everyone was leaving, and we had wine and laughter until I lifted Trevor on my shoulders and flew with him through the room, ripping papers stars from the sky.

With his right hand he grabbed my hair and with his left he waved a starry mess until we came crashing down to earth, breathless and sweaty. Then Jason climbed on my shoulders and I once more flew through the room. Eventually I stopped, exhausted, and shoved stars into my pocket.

Trevor and Zorianna felt my exhaustion and grabbed me in their arms, and the three of us stood in a giant embrace in a corner of the room. We drifted with our embraces and tried to get people to join our ritual of tenderness. Greg Smith ran from us when we put our arms around him, and Beverly, dressed in green and smiling, told us that our aura was different and she couldn’t embrace us.

We took our embraces into the hallway, where Trevor found a mat and the three of us collapsed on the pimpled rubber. People passed us by, eyes averted in amazement, and we continued our caresses, eyes in each other’s nipples. Trevor and I took off our shirts, and he held Zorianna in his arms while I convulsed with laughter on her breasts and put my arm across his back to hold the three of us together.

Nobody said anything as they passed our altar of flesh, so we laughed hysterically in awkward poses. It took us a while to recover our breath, and when we did we rushed through the hallways shirtless and carrying a bottle of wine, looking for a corkscrew.

With the bottle open, we ran into the boy’s washroom and made small talk until some fucker came in. He was pissed to see us and stared menacingly until we got off the sink and ran out of the washroom. Trevor and Zorianna ran into the girl’s washroom, and I rushed down the hall with the half-empty bottle in my hand.

“Come back,” somebody yelled. “There’s security the way you’re going.”

I listened and shoved the bottle in my pants before I continued running down the hall to pick up my shirt. By the time Trevor and Zorianna were caught by the manager of security services (he looked like a janitor, Trevor later told me), I was respectably dressed in my suit and tie, smiling affably.

“We ran, sliding down the hall,” Trevor said, “until we couldn’t slide anymore and they caught us.”

“Two of your people are half-naked out here,” the manager of security services screamed at Jackson when he came into the room. Jackson, who did an astounding job of organizing the interdisciplinary conference, looked stunned. Apparently, Trevor and Zorianna violated the Laurier dress code, and that’s how we ended up outside in the rain, my socks wet and cold.

I took off my socks and put them in my pocket, and the three of us walked away arm in arm, hollering in the night. Zorianna made us African tea at her place, and when we grew tired we lay on her kitchen floor, limbs and breath intermingling.

We laughed for a while trying to get comfortable (Trevor’s stomach made ratting noises against my ear) and we caressed hands and arms, the flesh lovely and white beneath our fingers. We quoted Cohen and cats walked over our outstretched bodies, purring.

Zorianna’s hands are smooth and textured and her palms more deeply lined than Trevor’s. With this knowledge we feel asleep in a cradle of flesh, one of my hands in Trevor’s hair and another under Zorianna’s head. Now and again I lifted my heavy eyelids to see her eyelids, and closed them again, trying to imagine how our run-in with the campus security will be reported in next week’s Cord.

We got up when Trevor left to smoke by the river, and when he came back we huddled on the smallest couch we could find and talked about movies, stalkers, and Marxist sex. When we left at one in the morning, Zorianna gave me dry socks and I was grateful and happy. Trevor and I walked by the river, too happy to go straight home. We hummed Cohen’s songs and he left me in front of Tim Horton’s, hugging he warmly.

How do I always end up undeservedly finding beautiful people who like Cohen and understand tenderness?