The Personification of Sweat: Part I

At some point, the memories of all the ex-boyfriends begin to run into one another. One wanted to fly. The other wanted to drive fast. And the ones before and after are a singular bad sexual experience that is blurred across a span of years; an anti-climactic orgasm that ends where it should peak, lulls where it should intensify. In what should be the afterglow of endless erotic encounters, the only thing I remember is the sweat.

I think I saw it on a movie. A character said that we all have three great loves in our lives. I've had two and I don't expect a third anytime soon. If it comes up, I'll let you know. My two loves can be described in simple terms for they are nothing more than men. Men, as all women know, are simple creatures. Simply put, one was fat and the other skinny. That doesn't sound too profound but, again, men are simple and should be explained in simplistic terms. Really, the distinctions between them, the things that separate them from one another in my mind, the way in which I define them—one as fat and the other as skinny—explain everything you need to know about them.

Harold, whom I will refer to as Harry, Hairy, or El Gordo was fat. He sweat when it was cold. There's no reason why anyone should sweat when it's cold. Inside or outside, if it was cold, Harry was sweating. He didn't wear coats outside during the winter because he would overheat. When he'd overheat, he'd sweat. He was also sweaty when it was hot. Harry sweat when it was hot outside or inside. When we made love, he sweat on me so much so that I began to think that I had a gland problem. I thought that I had overactive sweat glands but I wasn't the one sweating. I learned that later. After years of being self-conscious about what I thought was my own hot, sweaty body drenching Harry in secretions from every pore of my body, I gathered what I realized were only a few drops of dew on a sleeping bear and moved on to Dillard.

Dillard was my second love. In a way he was also my first but it wasn't consummated until after the sweat had dried on the Hairy Bear's back. Dillard, whom I will refer to as Dill, Dildo, or Dilly was skinny. He was so skinny that he made me feel like the El Gordo in our relationship and I'm not a big person. I loved him and his skinny sweat. I sweat now just thinking of how close we used to get to one another when we made love. We loved each other hard. I never fantasized about anything when I was with him because as soon as my mind formed the thought, we were doing it, acting it out, living our fantasies as they came to us. We needed to be together, to have our bodies touch. Even the sweat on our bodies reached out to join one another like two rain drops racing down a window; as separate drops they are a formidable match for one another but, once they join, they are unconquerable by any other drop on the pane.

I miss my skinny Dildo but I don't miss my Hairy bear.