Denim Boy opens up the door to his apartment wearing only his light blue pajama pants. I walk in and immediately start kissing him, touching him up and down, my black leather gloves caressing his skin. I push him up against the wall and his back slams it hard, making the whole apartment shake a little.

“You’re cold,” he says almost whining. It’s mid-December in Chicago. He takes my shoulders and pushes me back gently, and then walks over to close his front door. Meanwhile, I walk to his living room and throw my coat on his leather couch.

“Alright, now I’m ready,” he says and walks up to me expecting me to jump him again. I stand there, facing him with a dubious look. I’m teasing him. Not giving in and doing what I so obviously want to do, pretending like I have no idea what he expects from me. After a few seconds, he gives him and starts kissing me. He wants it too.

I unbutton my long-sleeved shirt, and he pulls me down onto his black leather couch. He lies down, and I get on top of him, putting my hands on the armrest to support my upper body as he writhes below me. His pants were thin, and I could feel his crotch getting hard.

“You have great sexual energy!” he says when we stop for a bit to catch our breath. Feeling like a lion, I drag him up and then lead him to his bedroom. I’m ready to roar.

The following week, I take a flight back to California for winter break. I don’t expect to keep much in touch with Denim Boy, out of sight, out of mind. And I think that perhaps he feels the same way. We’re nothing official, just casual. I like him, but I’m not one to push (unless it’s physically and up against a wall). Besides, I know for sure that I’m going to see him again after I return to continue what we had gotten into.

But Denim Boy texts me every single day while I’m away. Little casual comments turn into full-blown conversations, and before I know it I’m falling asleep clutching my phone and waking up to a ridiculous phone bill. I never thought I would be the kind of boy to have to get an unlimited texting plan.

“I just checked our signs on Wikipedia,” reads one of his texts. “We share a planet!” Towards the end of my stay in California, every time my phone vibrates, I can feel it all the way deep in my heart, and I start getting really excited to see him again.

My phone vibrates one more time while I’m hanging out with a high school friend and her boyfriend at Angels & Kings. It’s Denim Boy. I text him that I’m in the area, and he invites me over.

My heart is bursting with anticipation. But when the door of his apartment opens up, instead of Denim Boy standing there, half naked with his body for me to hold close, I see… some other boy.

“Hey,” Some Other Boy says without introducing himself or letting me know what the hell he is doing here. Confused, I walk in and then find my boy sitting on the couch.

“Hey! How was your trip?” Denim Boy asks right before coming up to give me a hug.

“It was fine…” I say with a tone that hints at my confusion, as if asking, “Am I intruding?” Denim Boy then realizes and introduces me to Some Other Boy, who is wearing a Yale sweatshirt. So to make small talk, I ask, “Oh do you go to Yale?”

“Oh no, my friend gave it to me…” Some Other Boy says.

Wow, why would he do that? Why would anyone wear a collegiate shirt of a school they didn’t go to? So that they have to explain themselves, cause you know people will ask, that they didn’t go there?

“Of course, you don’t go to Yale,” is what I want to say. But I hold back.

Half an hour of awkward superficial conversations later, I’m getting impatient. I catch Denim Boy while he’s getting a glass of water and ask if maybe we can take the after party back to his room—just the two of us.

“Oh… tonight’s not a good day, we’re kind of having my friend sleep over,” he says but I don't believe sleeping will be the only thing they'll be doing tonight.

“Oh… so you guys are getting ready to go to bed?”

“Yeah… kinda.”

“And I’m the only person that won’t be spending the night.”

“Not tonight.”

“So I should be getting out of here then.”

“We’ll hang out some other time, I promise,” Denim Boy says as a sort of consolation prize as I’m getting my jacket and ready to leave.

“Actually, no. We won’t. This was kind of the last time.”

Sitting on the El back to campus, I keep going through the moments in my head over and over again. We had a great time in bed, and when we hung out, and he kept making contact while I was gone. Was he bored? Was I just an immediate distraction, and now that he had found this Yale poser, he’s done with me? Squeezed every drop of fun out of me, or so he thinks. And why did he keep texting me, and pretending like he was into me? I would've been fine had he walked away after our casual hook-up. I would have scratched him from my boy bank and not have kept investing in what I thought would be a profitable return.

And I was so certain that this real boy would be different. He would care and be kind and not play games, not lead me on and resort to me whenever he wanted, like some plaything that would be available to him whenever he wished. What happened to the good old days when a boy kissed you because he meant it, not to just show that he could?

And then I keep thinking how my most intense flames tend to fade suddenly. What is wrong with me? And it’s happened with both the eccentric, party boys and with the real, down-to-earth boys too. Guys just want to make out with me, and hook up with me and take me home. But when it comes to starting something serious, I fall short. I’m a one-night thing and then expire.

I feel like a toy. So disposable.