The Starbuck's Boy

Like anyone would be

I am flattered by your

Fascination with me...

Once upon a time, in the magical kingdom of Nippon, a school teacher met a boy. It was the teacher's first year at the school, and the boy's last. The boy was a third year, as the Japanese school system divides junior high and senior high into three years each. That made the boy fifteen years old.

And he was not a happy boy. A good English student (the subject the teacher in question taught), he was nonetheless the butt of all his peers' jokes in class. The teacher did not quite understand what it was that made him so vulnerable to attack, until he overheard the boy's homeroom teacher talking. This boy, who we will call "Takuma," had confessed to his classmate (and supposed best friend) that he thought he might be gay. The "best friend" immediately told everyone else, and left Takuma at the tender mercies of all the other boys.

Now, this story only works if you accept that the teacher had no ulterior motives. But being gay himself, he felt sympathy for the Takuma, with whom he had always had a good relationship with anyways. So one day after class, when Takuma lingered and suddenly burst into tears over the abuse, the teacher made a decision. He told the boy that he was, in fact, just like him. And he assured the boy that no matter how bad junior high was, someday he would outgrow it and find someone to love. Then he could look back on it all and laugh.

Things went well at first. Then, one day, Takuma came after class and gave the teacher a drawing he had done. It was the teacher's face, drawn from memory. The teacher accepted it, and then Takuma told him that he really liked the teacher, that the teacher was kind. He told the teacher he wanted his first boyfriend to be like him.

Like any hot blooded woman

I have simply wanted

An object to crave

The teacher made it clear to Takuma that he already had someone, and that Takuma was far too young. "Wait a few years, and you will find the guy you love."

Then the boy graduated, and the teacher did not see him for four more years.

It happened like this; Kenji had just left me three weeks before. I was devastated. Empty. I wandered around like a zombie with his heart torn out. Japan had never seemed more foreign to me that it did then, a hostile place of people who lied behind their smiles. I didn't want to even leave the house. But of course I did...I had a job, and now that Kenji had left me, I had to take care of everything on my own. I had to go out and deal with the world. I had to treat it like I always had. Thus it was that quite innocently I stopped in the Starbuck's one day, just after work.

I ordered a Grande size Cafe Mocha, and then waited for the barista to make it. He was a tall young man--taller than me--and very handsome. It took a few seconds for me to recognize him. Takuma had somehow gone from all arms and legs to dead sexy. Just in four years.

He recognized me as well, and we chatted while he made my coffee. Then I went off to my table.

Like any uncharted territory

I must seem

Greatly intriguing...

Takuma appeared before I had finished my coffee, having taken his break. He was a freshman in university now, and an English major. He wondered if we could meet sometime so I could help him with some college homework. Enough time had passed that I had forgotten my misgivings, and I had certainly tutored former students before. I arranged to meet him at my place--the place Kenji and I once shared--where I often taught students.

He arrived. I had made coffee and I helped him with his homework. As the night wore on, he seized his courage, and suddenly tried to kiss me. It was awkward for me and maybe more so for him.

"I never stopped thinking about you," he told me. "I would like you to be my first."

I don't think you unworthy

I need a moment

To deliberate

There was most certainly a time when a very hot 19-year-old would have been just my cup of tea. And God, the boy had become dead sexy. But I was twice his age. The boys kept getting younger and I got older. At best, they could feed my vanity. At worst--if I made the mistake of giving them my heart, the way I had with Kenji--it would mean only more pain. There was also the problem of Takuma being a former student.

Must be strangely exciting

To watch the stoic squirm

Must be somewhat heartening

To watch shepherd meet shepherd

So I told him "no." I told him I was still in love with Kenji. I told him I was too old. And I narrowly escaped with my dignity intact.

It was yet again more sign of the damage Kenji had done me. I was acting like an adult.

Lyrics by Alanis Morrisette, "Uninvited"