{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}

How strangely beautiful that just as our weather turns foul, this summer bop comes along with sultry memories of heat and sun, and the restless infatuations that once made up a summer night. Sandwiched between Madonna’s brilliant ‘Ray of Light’ album and the soon-to-be-stomper of ‘Music’, this William Orbit soundtrack tune set the aural stage for her ‘American Pie‘ cover and found Madonna in-between projects just as I was in-between boyfriends. 

A summer in Boston can be gorgeously disconcerting when one is between boyfriends, and shuffling along from crush to obsession to debilitating bewilderment is not made easier by the tricky heat and humidity of the season. Those dizzying days blur together now, somewhere between retail work at Structure and my first office job at John Hancock, somewhere in my early-to-mid-twenties, when everyone is allowed and expected to act the supreme fool with all the unjustified and false self-confidence of youth. Everything was stultifyingly serious and silly at once – as deadly as it was ridiculous – and Madonna decided to throw her fuckery into the ring with this song created for a goddamned Austin Powers movie (which I still have not seen). 

I immediately put the swirling psychedelic opening onto my answering machine (because we had manual answering machines back then, and CD players) and used the title of the song as my screensaver. It was the 90’s for fuck’s sake – we were doing the best we knew to do, and more often than not failing miserably. As a die-another-day Madonna fan, I felt she could do no wrong, and I fell giddily under the spell of this song, just as I fell under the spells of all those beautiful boys who crossed my path at night. 

Haven’t we met?
You’re some kind of beautiful stranger
You could be good for me
I have a taste for the danger…

A Boston summer night, with all its mystery and sparkle, unfurled beyond the stretch of steps that led up to the condo. Watching the street below, I paused there as the street lamps glowed yellow, lighting the ways of workers winding along their paths home, or revelers just embarking on the start of a night out. All potential opportunities, all possible love stories – because isn’t that what every night was at that point in life? Even when we pretended it wasn’t, it always was. I knew it, and I knew my heart wouldn’t stop yearning just because I told it to stop. 

If I’m smart then I’ll run away
But I’m not so I guess I’ll stay
Heaven forbid
I’ll take my chance on a beautiful stranger

I looked into your eyes and my world came tumblin’ down
You’re the devil in disguise that’s why I’m singin’ this song

To know you is to love you

He said his name was Freddy. At least, I think he did. He lived just a street or two away, near an incongruous mimosa tree that lent its perfume to that strange stretch of summer, and he seemed a little too magical to be true. He passed by only in the deep hours of night, and we smiled our smiles that bordered on snickers because we both had no idea what we were doing. 

Those summer nights mixed with liquor in ways that were both wonderful and disconcerting, and on one particular late evening, we wound up on my couch, as young gents are often wont to do. It wasn’t like it usually was – rough and hungry and frantic, when two young men are so into each other they devour all in sight, driving tongues and appendages deeply and relentlessly into whatever is physically possible – this was almost like a moment of stilled time. No hurried pulling off of underwear, no rushed grabbing of backs or fronts, no quick tumble onto the bed while still joined desperately at the mouth. Instead, we sat silently. No one moved. The air felt still too. Even with the open windows everything had stopped, stilled like a movie moment out of ‘The Matrix’. 

It was the strangest thing. He didn’t want a drink. I didn’t want another. We simply stayed sitting there, not even talking, and no one moved to break the spell. It was impossible to tell if this was weird for him too, but he remained silent, and so it became less weird for me. I already half-believed he wasn’t really there.

You’re everywhere I go
And everybody knows
To love you is to be part of you
I pay for you with tears
And swallow all my pride

Ta-da-da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da-da-da-da
Beautiful stranger
Ta-da-da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da-da-da-da
Beautiful stranger

The dim light of a lone lamp near the door was all that glowed in that moment. A little more came from the street outside, and the uppermost floors of what was then the John Hancock tower sparkled in the distance. Afraid to seek out his eyes and be seen in return, I slowly unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt and slid my hand across his chest. Was he even real? And if he was, what did he even want? I straddled him decisively then, to pin him down in case he was a ghost. He didn’t squirm or try to get away – instead our lips just barely touched, our noses only lightly grazing one another, and never before or since have I had a wisp of a kiss that left me wondering whether or not it had actually happened. Hovering over him, thighs upon thighs, I watched as he slowly unbuttoned the top few buttons of my shirt, and then leaned his head into my chest. 

I pulled him closer into me, my chin resting on his soft hair as he breathed in the scent of my skin. We were impossibly young and saw no reason why it wouldn’t last. 

He leaned back into the couch then, keeping his eyes down and his gaze averted. I wanted so badly to see him and to look into his eyes, but I followed his lead and didn’t pry, gently maneuvering off of his lap. Aside from our shirt buttons, our clothes were all still on, all still intact. We hadn’t even mussed our hair. 

If I’m smart then I’ll run away
But I’m not, so I guess I’ll stay
Haven’t you heard?
I fell in love with a beautiful stranger

I looked into your face
My heart was dancin’ all over the place
I’d like to change my point of view
If I could just forget about you

To know you is to love you

In all the nights and years that came before and would later ensue, in the many men and people who would occupy my bed and my body, this would be one of the few times I felt so intensely attuned to someone that it was a spiritual moment of connection which transcended the physical world. It wasn’t because of who he was, it wasn’t because of who I was, it was simply because of some magical alchemy that brought two people into each other’s orbits for a night, when a mimosa tree sprinkled its ripe perfume onto two young men who couldn’t quite bear the idea of being alone at that hour, on that street, in that summer. 

In the following weeks, I would watch for him, but never very seriously. I didn’t seek out where he lived, or haunt the general vicinity like I would do for others. Maybe our schedules were off-kilter, maybe his nights weren’t his alone anymore, maybe he never existed outside of the conjured longings of my overactive imagination. Whatever the case, I would never see him again, and I would never really look. My heart didn’t want to find him, and my head knew that to see him again would break such a perfect spell. 

You’re everywhere I go
And everybody knows

I looked into your eyes
And my world came tumblin’ down
You’re the devil in disguise
That’s why I’m singin’ this song to you

To know you is to love you
You’re everywhere I go
And everybody knows
I pay for you with tears
And swallow all my pride

Song #169 – ‘Beautiful Stranger’ ~ Summer 1999