Earlier that night, he had asked for her phone number and not mine, and so I cried myself to sleep listening to "untouchable face" by Ani DiFranco.
Which was a stupid thing to do, cause he already had my phone number.

When I wrote to him, I had sent him the lyrics to "32 flavors" by Ani DiFranco, which basically summed up perfectly how I was feeling towards him at the time. I wasn't trying to be falsely dramatic and passionately cheesy by sending him song lyrics; it was just a pretty song, and it was a plain fact that the words said perfectly what I wanted to say to him.
He wrote back with just one line, which read: "What the hell was that all about?"

if music be the food of love sing on, sing on sing on, sing on till i am fill'd, am fill'd with joy - Henry Heveningham, "If Music Be the Food of Love"

I loved the practice rooms at Brown University, cause you saw a baby grand piano in nearly every one of the soundproof booths equipped with glass doors in which to practice. The glass doors would seal off the outside world so perfectly, and there was a ventilation system inside the booths so you didn't have to keep opening and shutting your door to get your required amount of oxygen; overall the booths had that air of innocent decadence that emanates from high-quality materials which are taken care of well and used with respect by everyone who comes in contact with it.
This particular day I was in one of the better booths with him. Bitterly I had decided to play one of my easier pieces for him, since I hadn't taken lessons in over a year. Except for a song which he asked me to figure out on the piano, I don't remember the pieces I played for him, just the feeling of self-pity/regret over not being able to play better for him, and the feeling of happiness that even if I hadn't finished my paper yet, even if I needed to do my laundry, needed to figure out a way to get my dad to cough up the current semester's tuition money for his little homo son, I was away from all that daily life for now. I was with him and a piano, shut off from the rest of the world by a thick, large door yet still able to observe it through the expanse of glass, and I was pleasing him with one of the things in the G-rated category I did best.
When I had finished playing one of my favorite pieces, his mouth was hanging open further than usual, and he kept staring at me. His eyes practically glittered, almost in a disturbing way. It was at moments like those when I realized that I was my own worst critic; I always forget that lesson, though.
"That's about it," I said. I looked away from his eyes - what I saw in them was almost too much, too embarrassing even.
"James, that... Great. You were great." He moved closer to hug me.
I was surprised to find that my eyes weren't getting leaky, and I just chuckled and teased him as we held each other, asking into his ear what he would have done besides a hug if I had played something even better.
"The doors are glass, after all," I pointed out, grinning into the hollow of his neck.

don't make my mouth water don't make me want to slaughter if you give me a dishwasher, don't clean my life with your style... i'm cutting the rope from your boat (but something still sticks in my throat) - Hatori Miho, "Speechless"

I sat in the living room, playing the piano version of Ravel's Menuet. I was so nervous, cause while I was playing it he was in my bedroom, reading the three-page letter I had written to him. I hated myself for being too lame to tell him the truth in person, but I knew it was the right thing to do, as it would have come out all wrong had I been required to make to eye contact with him while I explained.
He came out of the room and stood behind me, waiting either respectfully or impatiently for me to finish; I couldn't tell. I could feel his eyes on my back, and I forcibly channeled and redirected the nervous energy that surged up into my piano playing. Consequently, when I finished the piece, I had to admit it was one of my best performances of the Menuet.
"You're really good," he said softly to my back.
I turned around, knowing his answer already, and grinned at his solemn face. He was holding my letter in his hand. "Thanks."
"And I think it'd be really good for you if we didn't spend as much time together like we have, cause it makes it hard for you, but from the letter you sounded like you kind of knew that already."
Oh, and I guess it's not more convenient for you either, you bastard. I kept smiling at him as I said, "I know. Well then, do you still mind if we go to the art fair and then dinner and movies like we planned, and then call it quits for awhile?"
"How 'bout we just do the art fair for today?"
"That's perfectly alright. Are you ready to leave?"
"Yeah, mind if I take this with me?" He raised the hand holding the letter.
"Oh, pshhh, go right ahead. Let me grab some water before we go."
All during the art fair, I'd stare at his perfect form and quiet eyes, remembering that when he first came to my door that day I had uncharacteristically gotten very dominant, demanding that he come inside for awhile before we left for the fair, even if it might mean not getting there on time to get good parking. I remembered the look of surprise and expectation on his face as I led him into my bedroom, and the confusion in his eyes when I grabbed him by the shoulders, pushed him down onto my bed, handed him the letter, and left quickly, asking him to join me in the living room after reading it.
And later, for the rest of my life, I'd remember his eyes, the way the expectation had morphed into bewilderment, and for the rest of my life I would wonder what his decision would have been had I taken a different route after leading him into my bedroom. I'd always wonder if it would have been better or worse down that path, whatever decision he might have made in the end, and I wondered if I would have cared.
Ravel's Menuet is still one of my favorite performance pieces.

The morning after, he kissed me on the cheek five minutes after I had woken up, said bye to me in a sad sort of way, and walked out. He had gotten up before me and was already finished packing his things, and so he had just been waiting for me to wake up so that he could leave with a clearer conscience.
I wish he hadn't kissed me on the cheek - that hurt the most, the feeling of tokenism that comes when you're loved but not loved enough. I just sat there in the bed, feeling like I might want to cry, still too sleepy to know if I was really going to do so, and through my fatigued daze what I sensed most strongly was this urge to run out to him and tell him to stay one more day if he wanted to, to do anything to convince him. After all, he hadn't been all that eager to leave when I had talked to him the day before, and I actually got up and went to the front door, my hand faltering twice on its handle.
Later that day, I realized with something close to a shock that there had been no music on my stereo the night before when it had happened, and I was sort of glad that I hadn't run out after him. It had been a rather cold morning for the eighth of April anyway, and my ego didn't want the guys in the other fraternity houses to look out their windows and see me shivering and arguing with a stranger.

He carried one of my gargantuan suitcases in for me, all the way up to the clerk at the ticket confirmation/baggage check area. I knew he hated public displays of affection; we had even had an argument over it, but I decided to defy him this once and grabbed him by the shoulders, kissing him lightly on the lips before he turned to leave. It was probably the last time I'd ever see him, and I had to do it.
He look flustered but he wasn't angry, and we said our byes and turned away from each other, him towards the exit, myself toward the clerk, a woman in her late thirties with glasses who had that stereotypical look that one sees more often on housewives in an infomercial studio audience rather than on women in smart airline company uniforms. This woman had seen the kiss - she couldn't miss it, as we had been standing right on front of her when it happened - and she was glaring at me full force and obviously trying very hard not to do so, as if some unseen powers were coercing her into politely serving the needs of shit instead of those of a human being.
A sort of cold anger and amusement/pity rose up from somewhere in me, and I smiled snobbily/fatuously back at her restrained glare, giving her my best "I entered Brown University at sixteen and you're stuck in this lame job at forty" look. She noticed and backed down slightly, which made me feel bad for acting high on myself, especially since my genius mother was stuck in the exact same job at the time, but in all truth I couldn't help it and I didn't care too much.
I continued to smile, my eyes half-closed in amusement. "I just need to check these two suitcases and confirm my seating."
After it was done, I looked straight at the clerk, smirked with precise intent, and gaily hummed the song he had made me figure out on the piano some months before as I turned from her and walked to my gate.
As I hummed, I wondered if my mother had ever been through this at the airport where she was working, and if she glared at travelers too. However, I was too happy at the moment from acting like a total snob to the clerk to do more than idly contemplate the matter, and I was soon savoring the memories of the days in the soundproof practice rooms instead.

tonight, when that moon will have hidden itself in the clouds let us meet at our secret palace court the garden of flowering cherry blossoms - "Paradise of Cherrywood" (Here Is Greenwood)

He parked at the curb just outside my driveway, and when we got out of the car I walked around to the driver's side so we could talk for a bit before he went back home. It was the end of July and the day had been hot, but now it was night and the air was excitingly cool compared to the sluggish heat we had to deal with earlier; happy for the drop in temperature and made more alert by it, I glanced around me as we talked to each other, taking in the dark houses, the clear sky scattered with a few sparse clouds behind which the moon was hiding, and the general silence of the world. When we kissed, a soft breeze rose up out of nowhere to ruffle our hair, and in a corner of my mind I was amused, tickled to think that our kiss had the cheesily perfect setting more appropriate for a movie scene.
I didn't dwell on that for too long though, for what amazed me the most was the feeling of healing that I experienced in that kiss - obviously I was too involved in the physical aspect of it to be able to fully analyze my feelings, but it was as if all the past injustices and crap in my life were being drained away and replaced with warmth. Even if I couldn't put into words at the time what that experience was, I was still immensely grateful for the feeling, and I made sure he knew it.
I had my eyes closed as we kissed, but I had the feeling that if I opened them while I was doing so, I would have seen that the world had become a featureless gray sphere with nothing on it but a tiny car and two tinier boys leaning on it, kissing. As this feeling strengthened, I felt a song starting in the bottom of my gut, rising up steadily in pulses to bloom in my chest and then crowd into my head, and although the song was wordless and probably would have been immensely boring had I taken the time to record it onto staff paper, it was still music, and one of the best things I had ever heard.

He picked me up at night, and as we drove slowly downhill on the deserted residential road to get to the busier streets, he turned to me and grinned, saying, "I put the Ranma CD in the car's player cause you like it. You wanna hear it?"
"Sure."
He skipped to track eight, telling me, "Okay, remember, this is the jamming song, so when it comes on you have to jam with me." He grinned wider.
I just looked at him, amused and half-smiling, and drawled out a long, skeptical "Alrighty."
"Okay, here it comes, you promised!"
I laughed. "Did I?"
The song came on and he started bopping as he drove, the way a hyper, bored kid might when sitting in the backseat of a car during a long drive. I mentally shrugged and joined in half-heartedly, not because I didn't want to or I thought it was stupid, but because I was too bemused that he was acting this way because of me, and because I'd rather have danced with him standing upright, and with more tactile contact.

I saw him most recently in March, and while he was here I made him listen to some of my favorite Japanese songs. Somewhere into the second song, he gave me the look and said, "You know sweetie, these songs are really cheesy."
Because of that comment, I was surprised that I slept with him later that night.

He had heard me playing the piano in the dingy little practice room, and he invited himself into the room the way only a self-assured straight guy can, and as I pounded out an intricate chord progression I had come up with for a song I was writing he improvized a rollingly energetic melody on a different part of the same piano. Together we created a sound that was too awesome for words, and it was then that I realized that I needed to be with a musician, or it would never, ever last for very long.
I would have fallen in love with him immediately because of that rapport in the practice room alone - if only he had not been terminally straight, and if only I could forget the disgustingly sexist comment he had made in class on Thursday. No music was enough to remedy some things.

On our last night together, I started chuckling a little while we were kissing, because the music coming from my stereo was a girly, childish kids' song. I explained this to him, pointing out that it felt a bit amusing and surreal to be in bed with something like that as the mood music, but I don't think he got the joke - either that or he wasn't in the mood to hear it.

On our first night together, we played my CD of Chopin's Nocturnes, melding together as smoothly as the notes themselves. If I recall correctly, the CD stopped before we did.