Hi. My name is Jonathan, and this is the story of how I came to fall in love with the president's son.
It started out in early December, 2007. I was a freshman at Brandeis University and was returning home for winter break. I lived in MA, so it really wasn't that far of a drive from school to my house. My parents are divorced, and I live with my mom and stepdad, because my dad is a total douchebag. I live with my brother, who is 11, and my sister, who is 17.
On my first night back home, my family and I went out to dinner to celebrate me coming home. We're a Jewish family (although not religious), and to a Jewish mother, her child completing a semester at Brandeis University is about as good as it gets--middle aged Jews LOVE their kids going to Brandeis. At dinner, we enjoyed each other's company and chatted about the plans for the month.
"Jon, what are you going to do tomorrow?" asked my mom.
"Ehh, haven't really thought about it yet, but hopefully something with my friends. Maybe go see a movie in Lowell. Who knows."
My mom was about to say something, but my sister cut her off. "Ok no one cares what you're going to do tomorrow or whenever--what we do care about is whether or not you picked up any hotties at Brandeis?"
"Danielle, that's none of your business, and besides, you're embarrassing him...But hypothetically, suppose it was our business, what would your answer be?" Mom asked, trying to sound like she was above the gossip.
"Well, hypothetically, the answer would be no, I have not been whisked away by any gorgeous men and am single as always," I replied sardonically.
"Well that's too bad...you're quite a catch," mom said, trying to cheer me up.
"Well I'm sure he's thrilled to hear that, honey. Maybe you can set him up with one of your over-50 friends from the temple or your book club. I'm sure he'd love that," said my stepdad, who was what we liked to call a "lapsed" Catholic. He was in the military for over 20 years, and over the past few years that he and my mom have been married, he has slowly gotten used to the idea of having a gay stepson. But he was still minorly uncomfortable talking about it out in the open. But he is a cool guy and it really didn't bother me.
Dinner carried on in a similar manner. After my family was done embarrassing me, my sister and I joked throughout the meal and made fun of our parents. Danielle and I had really missed each other a lot, and it was awesome to be back and see her, although I already missed my friends from university. Towards the end of the meal, while my mom and stepdad were busy counting carbs and insulin for my brother (he has juvenile diabetes), Danielle leaned over and started whispering to me.
"So, did you bring any ice cream back from school?"
"What? Ice cream? What the fuck are you talking about, and why are you whispering?" I asked in a normal voice.
"Ugh, you're so fucking retarded Jon. Weed. Did you bring any weed? The weed here is shit and I know your pot is always bomb, so did you bring some or not." She replied, aggravated that I didn't pick up on her made up code words.
"Ooohhhh. Yeah I have like a gram on me. My friends at college gave me a bowl for my birthday, so we can use that. We'll smoke when the retards go to bed." My sister and I liked to smoke weed together, and whenever we did, we had to wait for our parents to go to bed so as not to get caught. It's not as if they didn't know that both of us smoke weed--they did (mom is pretty socially liberal)--but they didn't know that we did it together. I would definitely get in trouble for smoking my younger sister up!
Later that night we got high together under the deck, and then headed to the basement to listen to music and watch TV and do other stoner things. My sister and I started chatting about random shit as well.
"Have you been following the election?" Danielle asked me.
"Why the fuck are we talking about politics now? I just had a mind-blowing theory in my head and now it's gone. Damn it!"
"Shut up and tell me. You know you think Brent Laker is hot as fuck. I KNOW that my fagboy brother is excited about the probable future president having a sexy openly gay son. You're lying if you say you aren't," She jibed.
"Yeah, well, you know I support Laker, so yeah I'm following it, and yeah their kid is hot. But you know that I'm not into that whole idolizing celebrities thing. So he's gay. I'm gay. No one is taking my picture and putting it in People and Time. I'd pay more attention to him if he was at least an activist, but he's not. That's his mom. Now she is the shit. She totally puts herself out there in support of our community and I think she's totally where it's at."
"Oh well, Mr. High-and-Mighty over here has too much moral scruples to jack off at night to Brent Laker. Blow me," she said. It might sound like we're fighting, but we're not. We both know that we are joking, and we spend our time trying to come up with better and better insults to toss at each other.
"Aite, aite...touché. Well done. Yeah, like I said, he's hot, but I seriously don't spend too much time thinking about him. I'm more interested in his dad's politics--you know, I think that's a bit more important. But even still, I already know most of his positions b/c he is our senator, so I followed him more closely when he was running for senate," I replied. We let the conversation move on from there, because my sister sensed that I was going to start seriously talking about politics and was not even slightly interested.
I wound up going to bed at around four a.m., and woke up the next day at almost one p.m.
When I cracked my eyes open, I groaned and closed them again, not wanting to get up. I was compelled to move from the sensation of pee about to explode out of the end of my morning hard on. I sleep-walked over to the bathroom, peed, and stood there until my boner went down. I looked at myself in the mirror, rolling my eyes at my messed up bed hair and the bags under my eyes that I get after a night of smoking. I examined myself closer. Because I was about a quarter Armenian, I had tan skin that I thought was pretty nice. I often got complemented on it, as people thought I was Italian--people seem to associate Italian with sexy. I had dark brown eyes and long eyelashes that old women fucking loved. Pretty good looking face, average body, not very much muscle. I made a mental note to work out more (this is the same mental note I've been making for about a year and never fulfilling, but I always said it anyway). I had both my ears pierced with medium sized diamond studs. Dark, thick, sort of curly hair cropped pretty short so it didn't look ridiculously curly, as it was apt to do as it grew longer into a bizarre Jew-fro. I had four tattoos: One on each shoulder (kanji (Japanese characters) for "brave" and "warrior"), music from Beethoven's 23 sonata stretching across the middle of my back, and one that's hard to describe on my right bicep. I personally loved them, as did all my friends, but my mom didn't share that opinion.
I stumbled out groggily into the kitchen and saw my stepdad at his laptop on the couch.
"Morning lazy ass. See you decided to get yourself out of bed finally," he said.
"Morning fat ass. See you decided to burn our eyes out by not wearing a shirt. Thanks a lot," I jibed back. Again, this was all in good fun. I loved that my family and I could talk to each other like this. It was convenient because I absolutely love swearing. I believe swearing is the healthy outlet to express anger that would otherwise manifest itself in physical violence. It keeps people a little bit saner.
I went outside for a quick smoke. I should tell you how I came to be addicted to cigarettes. I lie to my family about my relationship status in college. One night, I was fucked up way too much. Toward the end of the night, my "straight" roommate wound up date-raping me. I was fucked up afterwards, and I went to my friends who smoke and asked for a cigarette to calm me down. It worked. I loved it, to be honest. From then on, I use cigarettes to take my mind off the minor Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that I had developed. Anyway, by this point, I was getting much better and I was merely smoking out of addiction. Hope that explains it (not excuses it).
Anyway, I finished my cigarette on the deck, poured myself some cereal and chilled at the house. At around five I went to meet my friends from high school at the movie theater in Lowell. It was great to see my friends, and we all went in to watch the movie and text each other at the same time. Mature, I know. My friends did not like that I smoked cigarettes, so I made an effort to not do it around them. During an extremely boring part of the movie, I went outside the theater and sat on the front sidewalk and smoked a cigarette. While I was glancing around absent-mindedly I saw a guy walking up the middle of the parking lot. He was wearing a sweat shirt with a hood over his head, and he was looking down. I noticed behind him there were several men following him. But they looked they were there to watch him. It was odd. He came up to where I was and in the background lights I saw the men who were following him were wearing black suits. He looked up at me, and his eyes just caught me off guard. They were literally the most amazing shade of blue I've ever seen. I was totally mesmerized by them. I looked over more of him, and his face was beyond hot, I thought. He clearly had a nice body under his clothes too. He stopped in front of me and starting talking, In a voice I thought was perfect.
"Hey, sorry to bother you. I was wondering if I could get a cigarette from you?" he asked
"Yeah it's no problem, here, yeah I'll give you one...hold on..here" I stammered out klutzily. He lit it up an inhaled, and I immediately felt an overwhelming sense of guilt, because he smoked it completely wrong, and I knew I was giving this kid his first cigarette, something I never really wanted to do.
"You've never smoked before." I stated matter-of-factly.
"What?"
"You did it wrong, you've never smoked before. You let me give you your first cigarette."
"So the fuck what?" He started to get annoyed.
"I don't want to get another person hooked on this habit, because it's not a good one. You might think it looks cool, but you better wake the fuck up, because it's not. It's gross and hurts and makes you sick. Now, if I were you, I would put out that cigarette before you actually inhale it correctly, and never pick one up again." I said after getting pretty worked up.
He just stared at me, blushed a little bit, put his head down, and dropped the cigarette to the ground.
"Wow, I can't believe that speech actually worked. I mean I can't believe you listened to me!" I was shocked.
"Yeah, I guess something about you just got to me." It was an ambiguous comment, and I could not figure out exactly what it meant.
"Alright," I said, trying to change the subject." Why don't we just pretend to meet again in a normal way. He and I both laughed at my lame joke.
"Alright...Hi, I'm Brent Laker"
"hey man. I'm Jonathan--wait, what did you say?"
"I'm Brent Laker," he said smiling.
"Oh shit. Holy shit! Oh, um, wow. Ok. What are you doing out here, Brent?" I said trying to come up with a normal response.
"Well, we live a few towns away from here. We're barely home anymore because my dad is around campaigning. But we're here now definitely for a few more weeks, and when he starts moving around again, I might just stay here with mom. But right now, I just had to get out of the house and do something on my own, without the constant bombardment from the news and phone calls and meetings my dad has at the house. Don't get me wrong, he's a great dad, but sometimes I can't deal with the whole politics scene--too invasive."
"So, do you go to school around here too?" I asked.
"Yeah, I do. I'm a senior in high school now. You?"
"I'm a freshman in college. On my second day of winter break right now actually," I smiled.
We made more small talk like that for a little while, and then he asked me if I was seeing a movie, which I thought to be an obvious question.
"Um, yeah. Do you come to the movies to do something other than watch movies?" I asked playfully. He just looked down and blushed and laughed a little. It was so fucking cute, I can't even tell you.
"Well, what I mean is, are you seeing a movie with someone right now? Because if you're not, I was wondering if you maybe wanted to see one with me. Plus, you'll get Secret Service to follow you around, which is kind of cool, the first time at least," he said, nervously at first, but laughing toward the end. I thought for a minute: I actually was here with friends, friends who were waiting for me back inside and who might get worried. I also have friends who happen to think this particular boy is very hot and would gladly sacrifice their time with me in order for me to be able to spend time with him. So I decided to say I would love to watch a show with him. We went inside and found one playing at a close time. While we were in line for popcorn and sodas, I texted one of my friends inside, telling them where I was:
Hey, don't wait up for me. I'm in another movie with someone I met outside. You will absolutely FREAK when I tell you who it is!
He asked me what I wanted and I just got a small popcorn, whereas he got a medium one. I got a small soda, and he got a medium one. I saw the total price and was pissed at how expensive food is at the movies. I was grumbling to myself about this as I fished through my wallet to hand him some money. While I was rummaging he paid the whole thing. I looked up and he put his hand on my hand that was searching for the money, to stop me.
"Please, let me pay for it. It's no big deal, especially after you agreed to come with me. You don't know me and you could easily have just told me to fuck off, so this is just a small thank you for not doing that," he said smiling. I thought it was the sweetest fucking thing ever. I realized that I was turning into a schoolgirl around this guy, and it was completely embarrassing. We walked into the theater and sat down toward the back. Not many people were there, so it was nice and quiet, and we felt almost alone in the theater.
As the lights went down, we stopped chatting and he put his hands on his lap. As the movie went on, I noticed his hands migrate. He was moving his arm behind his seat slowly, and then put it on the back of my seat. I could tell he was inching his hand up slowly, trying to decide whether or not to put it on my back. Even though we didn't know each other, except for what I've seen of him on TV, there was such a strong connection I felt between the two of us that at that moment, I wanted nothing more than for him to put that arm around my back/shoulder. I reached around and lightly grabbed his arm. He immediately froze, tried to pull his arm back, and got completely embarrassed, thinking I was refusing his advances. I held his arm firmly, looked him in the eyes, and then slowly moved it onto my back where I so desperately wanted it. He smiled at me and leaned back, happy that I wanted the same thing he did. The feeling of simply having his arm around me was amazing, especially when he began to light rub my shoulder absent-mindedly (but caringly) with his thumb. And as he was rubbing in that tiny little area, I knew that there was something special about this boy.
When the movie finished, he awkwardly removed his arm from my back and stood up as we got ready to walk out. Outside the theater, he looked at me and smiled, and I know I gave him a big retarded love-sick grin right back.
"So, I had a really good time, and I was wondering if I could have your number, because I'd really like to do this again sometime. If you don't want to that's cool though." Brent sounded like a man who thought he had no chance, which really blew me away. I personally was amazed that a god like him was trying hard to get me. Shouldn't it be the other way around, I thought. So of course I gave an excited "yes!". We exchanged numbers and hugged quickly as we went to our respective cars. I saw him get into his limo along with the men who had been following him all night. I got in my 1999 Saab and turned on my phone, displaying the response to my text earlier that night:
Who? Are you joking with me or are you actually not coming back?
I dialed her (her name is Amanda) number now that I could talk.
"Hey, where'd you go?" She asked.
"Well, you'll never guess who I bumped into outside the movies while I took that break." I had an excited tone of voice that she was catching onto
"Who?"
"Brent Laker."
"WHAT? Are you shitting me? You're messing with me you douche aren't you?"
"No I'm totally serious, he lives around here, wanted to get away from all the crazy politics shit and we wound up just talking for a while outside. He asked me if I wanted to see a movie with him, and I obviously couldn't turn down that option," I laughed.
"Holy shit I can't believe this! You went on a fucking date with a guy who could very well be living in the White House by this time next year!"
"Well, I think it's gunna be more than just one date. We had this total connection, I don't know what it was, but it was amazing. During the movie he put his arm around me and it was soooooo romantic and I just loved the whole experience. After, he asked me for my number because he wanted to see me again! I'm so fucking excited! I can't believe it," I stumbled over my own words with excitement and happiness. Amanda was pretty much silent because she was totally speechless. She then talked about how lucky I was for another ten minutes and then said she had to go so she could tell all of our friends. I laughed and hung up and drove home. On the way home I had a thought. Do I tell my mother or not? Danielle, absolutely. But knowing my mom, she would be so excited by something like this that she would actually become annoying to me. But the side of me that really needed to brag about this won out, and I decided to just tell them all. They were all upstairs in the same general area when I got home. My mom said hi and asked me how the movie was.
"Well, I can't answer that," I said coyly.
"Why not?" mom asked.
"Because I was distracted by the person I was with."
"What do you mean? I thought they were just your high school friends."
"Well that's how it started out, but then during the middle of the movie I met someone outside when I went out to smoke (eye roll from mom) and met someone and saw a new movie with them."
"Well who is this person? Did you see a movie with a stranger? Did your friends know you were doing this?" She was totally confused. It was kinda a fun game I was playing!
"Brent Laker," I stated simply.
"What?" Danielle cried.
"I met Brent Laker outside. He lives around here and wanted to spend a night away from the house and all the politics shit. We got to talking outside, he asked me if I wanted to go see a movie with him and I said yes. I texted Amanda to tell her what was going on. Anyway, after the movie, he said he really wanted to see me again and gave me his phone number."
My family was just staring at me in total disbelief. I smiled and pulled out my phone, showing them the new entry in my contacts under his name. This was enough evidence for them, because they started asking a million questions at once and excitedly rambling on in a way that was totally unintelligible.
"Look, I told you guys everything that happened. I'll let you know if we go out again."
"Jon, this is huge news! You're totally downplaying this whole thing!"
"It's not that big a deal. I mean it's pretty crazy, but I guess everyone meets someone famous at one point. And besides, I highly doubt that this will turn into anything serious.
Hope you liked it so far. More coming soon! E-mail me with questions comments etc at jonnymanmeg@hotmail.com