twenty- Audrey,

What happens after you sleep with someone?  People have different answers.  Nick Hornby says that you can never do right by them.  I agree. 

You’ve tripped a wire.  They’re aware of you.  They know it’s you who just came into the room.  Without looking up.  You set off little vibrations shooting down their legs and even before the ring-tone they’ve assigned to you starts to play, they guess—correctly—that it’s you calling.

You leave something while you’re inside them.  Something intangible gets misplaced during the all-feeling, filling, coupling.  The sex act: all of you touches all of her, all at once.  A hand in a glove.  A body drowning in a swimming pool.

They’re aware of you.  They’re aware of you and where you’ve been.  They know you can go back there.  Doesn’t matter if you don’t want to.  Maybe it was an overnight layover.  Your flight leaves in the morning.  Still, you can go back there.  Maybe you will.  That something you left?  Maybe you want it back.

That’s what keeps us.  That misplaced something that we want back.  We lost it.  And the only way we can look for it, we can’t look with our eyes.  Only grope in the darkness.  But it’s like having a cast on your arm and feeling an itch somewhere inside it.  You can’t see it.  If you could, the plaster’s so tight around your skin that you wouldn’t be able to scratch it.  So you wiggle your swollen arm inside the cast.  You wiggle the cast around your swollen arm.  But you never find the itch.  You bang against the cast and you twist your arm inside it.  But it’s too tight.  There’s no friction.  The two things are held together too close.

So you give up.  You stay with them.  They won.  They have you by your something intangible.  You can’t let go because you’re not the one holding on.  And they squeeze.  The grip bears down.  Your legs slacken; you’re on your knees.  You’re voice lifts up to them, begging—or praying.  But you don’t ask them to let go.  You ask for harder.

If they release, there’s one painless moment.  Then the blood returns—floods.  Magnified.  It takes a while to settle but that spot will always be sensitive, weakened.  The next one who grabs?  It’ll hurt more.

Harder.  You ask for harder, for a painful painful numb.  All feeling and all filling.  True love.

That’s the other way you can give up.  Surrender.  She won.  She has you by your something intangible.  So you let her keep it.  It’s there inside.  Growing in her belly.  Not yours anymore.  Between you two, the sex act and the coupling, it fastens you.  Tight.  No friction.  Two things held together close.

This love will always fail. 

“A lover’s a liar, to himself he lies.  The truthful are loveless, like oysters their eyes!” –A line from Cat’s Cradle.  I agree.

That kind of love—truthful—has no friction.  An arm in a cast.  You can’t find the itch and you’ll never come close to it.  But it’s the itch!  The painful painful numb.  All feeling and all filling.  That’s what keeps us together.  Why you can’t let go.  Why I keep looking for it.

Lies.  Love is a religion founded on lies.  What do you see when you first see?  Hair, skin, muscles, fabric.  What do you hear?  Bullshit.  Mostly true, but also grandiose.  Prostitution. 

These true lies we tell to sell ourselves.  There’s no such thing as a true lie?  Bullshit.  Is there a lie that isn’t somewhat based on truth?  None. 

And what do you feel?  Desire.  That’s the definition.  Want.  There’s no need.  Need equals dependence.  Debt.  Obligation is passionless.

Love is prostitution.  Loving is you being a John.  Buy the whore.  Fuck her.  Come back with more money.  The something intangible.  You want it back?  Keep looking for it.  Don’t give up on it—even if you never find it again.

If you forget it.  No more love.  The whore’s dried out.

If you find it.  No more love.  You’ve gained some new moral perspective.  Or the whore has fled to nursing school.  Time to find a new alley.

Desire.  It pulls.  It pushes.  Friction.

I’m cheating on you.  I’m not going to stop.  Friction.

What do you owe someone after you sleep with them?  Walter Kirn wrote that you owe them everything.  And that the only question is whether they’ll make you pay it off.  I’m deferring the others.  But you?  I’ll pay.

There hasn’t been a woman I haven’t skipped the bill on.  I’m in debt, combined all the loans.  I claimed for bankruptcy.  I have nothing to give them.  But everything I’ve hidden—saved—you can have.

Need.  I need you to hide my something intangible.  So, I can love you.  Desire.

I’m not going to stop.  Because there must be lies.  Our religion is founded on lies.

I need that itch.  You can’t let me find it.

They both work for me.  I can give you their names if you want proof.  You can’t make me stop, but I can keep it to just the two of them.  At least you know.  Truthfulness we can survive.

If I find that something, then I’ll know the truth.  That I need you.  So there must be lies.  Our religion is founded on lies.  But their true lies.

You can have Nick.  He’ll be your lie.  I owe you that.  And I know he honestly loves you.  That’s why he’ll fail.

But you and I?  We have our religion.  Desire.  Friction.  You hide my something intangible, and I’ll hide yours.  We’ll never find them.  We’ll push and pull.

We’ll love,

Henry

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