They always ask how we met.
When we're at dinner parties together, knowing looks and smiles are exchanged, and I tell the inquisitive party that it's just too long of a story to go into.
Then they press, because people always do when they see two young people in love, as we are. I sigh, and then tell them that the story I'm going to relate is completely honest, a good sign that I'm bullshitting, and if there are any discrepencies, my lover will gladly (and loudly) bring them to light.
There was this party, I begin, at my house a long time ago. I was surrounded by about twenty people, all of whom I had never met before in my entire life, all of whom had apparently been ditched by their rides and had decided to make good use of the beer I always seemed to have on hand at the time. We were complaining -- as fashionable youth often do -- that evening about the traffic and car registration laws of our beloved state, which were, in all truth, borderlining fascist. We were all very vocal about the subject, and kept ranting about it until we hit this silence wherein we all simultaneously realized we had completely exhausted all avenues of this particularily rich line of conversation.
To break the tension, I stood up and announced, Well, That Being Said -- I don't remember what had been said, come to think of it -- I think I Shall Go and Urinate On The DMV. I walked to the door and turned to ask, Would Anyone care to Join Me?
To my complete surprise, this very pretty, and, until now, very quiet young thing dressed in dark blue jeans and a tattered orange sweater rose from the crowd and said, Yes. I would Love to Accompany You.
I was only joking when I had drunkenly announced my intentions to piss on the DMV, but this young creature's vim, her vigor, inspired me to fulfill my promise and walk with her the mile or so down the road to the strip mall where a small "express" office had been set up recently.
On the way she introduced herself, then shushed me as I was about to say my name. She told me I looked like a Henry, and this is how she would know me. Here was where my infatuation with her superseded that of some hazily drunk ambition to copulate. Henry was my favorite name in the world. Years later, she would confess to me in the 10 items or less line at the grocery store that she had been asking about me all evening and had found out this strange fact about my taste in names. This doesn't matter.
We arrived at the DMV after about a half an hour of stumbling around, walking past the car dealerships and all-nite pizza parlors, tax prep offices and florist shops, talking about our least favorite things in the world: colors, places, smells, whom we had most wanted to see dead and twitching in high school. The night breeze died down as I looked at the door to the office, as I stood with a bladderful, as I took a breath and then looked back at her. She said nothing at all, but had this whimsical sort of look on her face that just said, We Are Here. What Are You Waiting For?
I unbuckled my belt and unzipped my pants and prepared myself when the wind suddenly picked up and reminded me how much of an idiot I was for not bringing a sweater and cap. I wrapped my arms around my body instead of holding onto the bits that I should've been worried about, which were now left hanging.
This is the kicker, I say, if the nosy shits who asked in the first place haven't yet figured out that they were getting more information on this subject than they had ever hoped to know. This is the kicker right here: as I begin to shiver and clench my teeth, she merely reached out, grabbed ahold of me, and said, Here. Let Me Aim.
That was when I knew it was love.
After I had finished, I smiled at her and confessed that I usually only relieved myself on government offices either on very special occasions or when I was particularily drunk. She smiled back, and then kissed me.
It was another five minutes before either of us noticed that she still held my half-flaccid penis in her hand. It was the smirk that flashed across her lips upon realization of this fact that told me it was forever.