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| iamasexaddict.com |
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Posted on the 6th of October 6th, 2008
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What she says: “Hi, I’m Shane, aaaaannd … that’s all I got, right now.”
What she would say:
Hi, I’m Shane, and I’m a sex addict. I’ve been – well, since I lost my virginity at 17, I guess.
”Sex addict.” Is everyone as … weirded out by that label as I am? Not in some dramatic, “Oh! I’m so ashamed!” way. Just like in a ... having to read Penthouse Letters to a bunch of nuns sorta way.
I don’t know if I’m a sex addict or not. I think I am, I mean, I should wear a t-shirt that says “I’d rather be fucking,” because – and not just here, any time – when I’m tutoring the kids, when I have the flu – This guy I know was in the hospital – he just had his kneecap crushed by a baseball bat. Well, and a very angry football player I went to school with. Not an hour after the guy came out of surgery – Oh! And I had this good friend in the hospital, a really good friend almost OD’d and I –
But I mean, maybe I’m wrong, maybe that’s not proof I’m some sex addict because I fuckin’ … I love him. I love him and I fuckin’ miss him, and I miss us, and if I could just – if he would just … We don’t know how to forgive each other. We’re both vengeful, we hurt each other. He hurts me. I never cried, I was like this hard piece of fruit, I was an apple, I really was. Not exactly in the All-American, rated-G way, but I mean … no one could find a way into me. I was smooth and hard and no one even noticed. Apples don’t really smell until you cut ‘em open. But being with this guy … He took me and he held me and beat me and tasted me. Like punching a piece of fruit against the sidewalk or somethin’, like blunt trauma head wounds you see on surgery channels. That was our relationship – is – I don’t know. I can’t explain it in words, I’m not poetic, I hate talking in the first place. But that’s what I think of – crushing fruit until you get to the core. The seeds.
Before that, I guess I used to get that from going to bars to pick up a new guy every night. I had rules and I lived by them – only one night stands, the key word being one, anonymous, preferably, in neutral playing field. Public places. Bathrooms, parking lots, corner tables, against the wall, someone’s backseat – maybe his, maybe mine, maybe some unfortunate bastard who left his ride unlocked. People don’t do that here, but they do it down South. And then it was like all of a sudden, I had all of that in one guy. What’s that besides sex? It’s textbook, that’s what it is. I felt like shit. I felt like shit so much of the time I didn’t realize when I was feeling like shit and when I was happy anymore and then one day, he dug deep enough and I blurted it out. And there it was – I never told anyone else – so instead of being in me, it was with us. He chucked the old shit and showed me how to not sweat the small stuff.
He put me in the hospital once. We got in a fight. Well, more like he was seein’ me, and fucking people for money on the side, and when I found out, I decked him and you know, I grew up with three brothers, I’ve had fights with guys, but I don’t know why, I just never … expect it when it comes but it did. I tried not to go to the ER, but I went to a friend’s house and he caught me cryin’ and took me and I had to sit in this stupid donut for, like, weeks. The point is, the shit I carried? I didn’t carry it anymore. But suddenly it was all around me, alive in so many different ways and each way – and I don’t think he meant to – but each way told me that he understood. It was like explaining something to someone and have them repeat it back to you to let you know tenderly that they were listening.
I guess the problem is – well, I think the problem is that we got happy. We got content, we’d been together a couple years, and ours – or maybe just mine – I started thinkin’ about the future – gettin’ married ‘cause it felt like we already were and then I got a job.
I wasn’t looking for one, it just happened to me – big Fortune 500 businessman with a reputation needed to learn Portuguese for some clientele he was dealing with and talked to some people at my school about getting a tutor. And it’s not like I ever thought of myself bein’ anything much – well, not about sports and stuff, just about school, I have learning disabilities, it’s boring.
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Posted on the 3rd of August 3rd, 2007
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Posted on the 16th of July 16th, 2007
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“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”
-- Neil Gaiman
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Posted on the 11th of July 11th, 2007
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"Oh, darling, let your body in, let it tie you in, in comfort."
-- Anne Sexton
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| Public : Blog Entry 001. |
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Posted on the 2nd of July 2nd, 2007
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They tell you keeping a journal is the key to quitting.
Do you have mental problems? Why don't you keep a journal. You want to quit smoking -- write about it. Do you suffer from undereating, overeating, nymphomania? Do you hear voices? See spots? You might have some problems with your boyfriend, marriage, career, stress. Are you a bored, overtired insomniac? Do you sleep all the time? Do you get headaches? Too many heavy flow days? Chronic pain in your hands and feet? Ever want to hurt animals, throw a telephone, step on all the cracks? Are you afraid of the number 8? Bald people (Peladophobia)? Bicycles (Cyclophobia)? Blushing or the color red (Erythrophobia, Erytophobia or Ereuthophobia)? Books (Bibliophobia)? Kissing (Philemaphobia or Philematophobia)? Knees (Genuphobia)? Looking up (Anablephobia or Anablepophobia)? Becoming mad (Lyssophobia)? Feeling pleasure (Hedonophobia)? Poetry (Metrophobia)? Do you think your dreams could unlock your hidden agenda, tell you what to want, what you want, what to do, who to trust, how to love, where to find God? I think you're catching on.
And now, we're supposed to be getting to the good part, right?? Why I'm doing it. You probably think I have something really good to put here, huh? Well, I don't. I was supposed to take this communications class, and I got shoved into this bullshit, blogging class. And I mean really, what a crock of shit, excuse for a class is that, huh? Not do I have to make one of these things and type out a bunch of shit to people I don't know, but I don't even get told what to talk about. I don't even get a prompt. I mean, what do I look like, Ariana Huffington? Perez Hilton? Ann Coulter?
(Ha, obviously, I don't want anyone to come onto me ever again. After this, I think I'm going to look up Ann Coulter porn on Google and see what I can find. Hey, I'm just curious about the crazy people in this world. If you wanna know: lots of fake, topless photos with both real and embellished racks, a couple BDSM fantasy shots with a girl with long, blonde hair that COULD be Ann Coulter if you stand really far away and pretend she actually does, indeed, have sex, some photoshopped, pregnancy fetish propaganda, and Ann as a vampire, Ann as a zombie, Ann firing a gun, Ann as George Bush, and my personal favorite,
The Misadventures of Ann Jungle Goddess, Savage Author Of: How to Lie about Liberals if You Must.)
And I lied. I think if I came home dressed up as Ann Coulter, the man I married would fuck me sideways. He'd probably take the week off to shop for conservative outfits and props to make it look more authentic, and encourage me to take some acting classes, if only for the sake of marital bliss.
Let's just put this out there. Some of you might know the guy -- the guy I married. He's twenty eight years older than me, which makes him 48 -- equal opportunity for all you fetishists (is that what they call you people?) who get off on that kind of thing, conservatives who get off telling me how I'm going to go to Hell for that kind of thing, and high-society assholes who look at me with contempt (Thanks to Amy, who explained the concept of new money and old money at my first anniversary party, which was a month after I got hitched.) Anyway, his name is Rex Kolter. For those of you who, I don't know, don't give a shit (God bless you) and/or don't read USA Today, The New Times, The New Yorker, etc., et al, I'll give you the rundown -- he's got a big media corporation, kind of like Virgin, and he owns planes, trains, automobiles, newspapers, soft-drinks, and a fantasy football team (fun fact).
Now, me? I'm kind of a loner. I mean, now I am, and maybe I always was, it's just gotten worse. It's a state of mind. You grow into it. Maybe you grow out of it. Or maybe I won't, and I'll throw all this away to be a hermit with several weird phobias, a dog that's not a German Shepard or a Puggle (I'm not a real fan of either breed right now), and I'll do something else like use a homemade raft to pass the time. Maybe I'll live out of a car after this. Maybe I'll go from women's shelter to women's shelter because it's easier to get other people's old clothes that way. I'm not a fan of anything new -- not people, not soap, not jeans or pillow cases, or slippers, or tennis rackets or baseball hats (Fear of newness, novelty -- Cainophobia or Cainotophobia. Fear of new things and ideas -- Cenophobia or Centophobia, by the way.) I do however, like cell phones. I like wearing things several times before I wash them. I miss the South (where I was born and raised), I miss driving a car (who does, this is New York), I like cabs better than subways, but not because I'm snot, I like used material more than I like strangers, and sometimes scotch more than vodka, but mostly vodka more than scotch. Maybe all this is true because really, I'm kind of shy. I might be Doxophobic.
I love someone with Chaetophobia. That's the fear of hair.
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| Folded in my notebook #1 |
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Posted on the 6th of May 6th, 2007
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My counselor Wendy photocopied pages 8-12 of a self-help book called The Feeling Good Handbook by David D. Burns, and gave them to me on the day they let me out. She says these are thought patterns that I had been practicing which led me to misery and painful, depressive episodes.
Here are 10 forms of twisted thinking that you should watch out for:
1. All-or-nothing thinking. "You see things in black-or-white categories. If a situation falls short of perfect, you see it as a total failure." Engaging in this sort of thinking will often lead to the failure of long-term projects; when results don't roll in right away, you feel completely discouraged.
2. Discounting the positive. "You reject positive experiences by insisting they 'don't count'." This form of twisted thinking "takes the joy out of life and makes you feel inadequate and unrewarded."
3. Emotional reasoning. "You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are." A good example of line of reasoning would be something like, 'I feel so worthless. I must have nothing to offer to those around me.'
4. Jumping to conclusions. "You interpret things negatively when there are no facts to support your conclusion." This form of twisted thinking can be further broken down into mind reading ("without checking it out, you arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you") and fortune-telling ("predicting that things will turn out badly" when you in fact have no evidence to support such pessimism).
5. Magnification. "You exaggerate the importance of your problems and shortcomings", and/or you "minimize the importance of your desirable qualities". Thus your flaws become food for obsession.
6. Mental filter. "You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively, so that your vision of all of reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors a beaker of water." For example, twenty people compliment you on something and one person has a negative opinion of it; that negative opinion is what you keep coming back to.
7. Overgeneralization. "You see a single negative event... as a never ending pattern of defeat by using words such as 'always' or 'never' when you think about it." For example, when I experience a depressive episode, I will often end up thinking that it will never end, that I will always be feeling this way.
8. And then there are the ones that I have come to think of as 'The Big Three'. Labeling. An extreme form of #1 above. "Instead of saying 'I made a mistake,' you attach a negative label to yourself: 'I'm a loser.'... Labeling is quite irrational because you are not the same as what you do. Human beings exist, but 'fools', 'losers', and 'jerks' do not. These labels are just useless abstractions that lead to anger, anxiety, frustration, and low self-esteem. You may also label others..."
9. 'Should' Statements. "You tell yourself that things should be the way you hoped or expected them to be... 'Musts', 'oughts', and 'have tos' are similar... "Should Statements" that are directed against yourself lead to guilt and frustration. Should statements that are directed against other people or the world in general lead to anger and frustration... Many people try to motivate themselves with shoulds and shouldn'ts, as if they were delinquents who had to be punished... all these shoulds and musts make you feel rebellious and you get the urge to do just the opposite... Dr. Albert Ellis has called this 'musterbation'."
10. Personalization and blame. "Personalization occurs when you hold yourself personally responsible for an event that isn't entirely under your control... leads to guilt, shame and feelings of inadequacy. Some people do the opposite, They blame other people for their problems, and they overlook ways that they might be contributing to the problem... other people will resent being scapegoated and they will just toss the blame right back... It's like the game of hot potato-- no one wants to get stuck with it."
Someone who practices many or even all of these forms of thinking on a frequent basis may not be aware that she's doing any of it. To realize that each and every one of these patterns functions to distort one's personal reality in unhealthful ways is the first step towards letting go of the negativity that you may or may not realize is holding you back.
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| The Rear View |
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Posted on the 16th of February 16th, 2007
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We've got the Jeep now, we've had it for a while. We made the rear view mirror our own little store window. I've got fuzzy dice -- hot pink and furry like once upon a time, they were in a store on Sesame Street. I'm not a pink sort of girl, but they stay up there anyway, because they were a gift and they just look happy. Do dice smile? Mine do.
And then there's a watch --I don't know, it's a Casio or something. It's got an analogue, My Little Pony watchface -- two pink, cartoon horses and small pink and gummy, jelly-straps. Jesus found it in the common room when we were both sitting on the olive green, worn and weathered couch. He was hovered over the coffee table, intent on the cards he had in his hand. Across from him, sat Jack with his wolfish smile, and some of the other guys. I had my daily dose of Lorazapan, which is why so I got swept into A Walk to Remember on closed captioning and told them not to deal me in when it came around. And it was cold, so cold I'd pulled my arms out of the armholes to stretch my shirt over my knees, which I had close to my chest, but it wasn't warm enough, so I wedged my bare feet between the couch cushions, and I think Jack won the hand. Jesus tossed down his cards and reached over give my ankle an affectionate rub. I shifted my heel, and felt something under it. "Hey," I said sleepily, and started to pull myself up. "What's that?" Jesus had already traded my ankle to grab it though, and held it up like a prize fisherman. He gave it to me while the other guys ooh'd and ah'd. "It's not working. It doesn't work. But some poor kid lost it."
"How do you know it was a kid's? It might just be some Fruitcake's."
"Because it's some kid's, look at that." I wrapped it around my wrist, to demonstrate, and it barely closed around. "We should take it to somebody. A nurse -- where's Maria, that one, the nice one." I sunk back with it in my hands, and played with it while they finished a few more rounds of poker. Then Jesus was out, rubbed at my calves to warm them up, and asked to see the thing, so I gave it to him. He studied it, and I knew he loved it, then. It was something borrowed, it was young and soft, and made for playing dress-up with jelly shoes. Or maybe it was some little girl's first watch, and she hadn't learned to tell time on it yet, or maybe she'd learned but just one time, and she forgot. Maybe she was visiting her brother -- no, her grandfather here, at the hospital. They'd been doing things grandfathers and their young granddaughters do -- watching Teletubbies or something, when it came off. No, maybe her grandfather scared her sometimes, and she took it off and tucked it away to keep it safe, and then forgot. Maybe the watch missed its girl.
He stopped touching me, and retreated to sink back into the corner of the couch opposite me. I wondered what he was thinking about, but I didn't ask. Jack was dealing for the rest of the guys, and Jesus flipped the thing around to study the back of it.
We told Maria about the watch, and she said no one had called in for it, missing. Jesus offered in that timid way he does, that he could fix it, he thought. And nurse Maria told him very genuinely that he should indeed give it a try. That way it would work again. "For when she comes back for it," I finished. "Yeah," Jesus said, and went to find a new table, one with better light.
I watched him take the screws out first; he tended to the parts like a surgeon, with presicion and delicacy. Jesus is so smart, I thought, that when we read a book, he can't help memorizing paragraphs. He can't watch a subtitled movie without being able to pick up key phrases, and use them appropriately, later on. He couldn't look at that watch without wanting to take it apart.
It took twenty minutes for me to forgive him for New York. He had the watch back together by then, and told Maria it needed a new battery. And Maria, being the nice nurse she is, snuck one in a few days later. The little girl's watch works, but the little girl never came for it. The nurses hurled the timepiece into one of their drawers behind the partition, the junk drawer because it was filled with, well, junk. No one was ever going to make the calls they promised to. No one would ever care about that watch like we did, like I did.
When it came time to leave, "It would really mean a lot to me if I could keep it," I said. Maria folded it and slipped it into my pocket when I was on my way out. Now, it's strung up on the rear view with a piece of string.
And then there's the EPT test -- it's from a CVS in Iowa. We went in there at like, 12 o'clock at night, and I took the damn thing in their bathroom while he wandered the aisles, waiting for me. I gave myself a pep talk for 10 minutes. I paced; I stared at myself in the mirror; I sat down on the closed toilet, dropped my head into my hands, and kicked myself in the ass for not paying better attention; for being irresponsible; for being a downright fucking moron; for crying about it. Then, I peed. The test took fifteen minutes, and I sunk down on my knees, held onto the lip of the sink, and sat my chin down on its ledge, just watching. I remember not liking how small the room was, or how the heavy smells of bleach and urine hung down so heavy, and low. Everything was shock-white except for the light, and that hummed a flourescent yellow. The room was unkind. It felt downright parental -- blunt, brazen, and tall.
When I washed the test under water, my hands were jittery, and shaking. I blew out of the bathroom, zipped down aisle 12, and lept into Jesus' arms squealing about how we were so buying condoms that night because THE TEST WAS NEGATIVE. He held me, and my legs went around his waist; we made out right there, so giddily and energetically that the baby diapers and Desitin behind us turned into a sequin-spangled Elvis and plaster, cherub wall hangings a drive-thru chapel in Vegas for a good five minutes. We decided to celebrate with things like Raisinettes, Doritos, and boxes of brand name cereal, and 2% Milk. And orange juice, always -- with pulp and without.
And we checked out, and we both had bags in our hands that were heavy with purchases, and Jesus didn't complain one time that they didn't have paper, only plastic -- not once. We were silly with relief. We raced to the car -- one of my bags split open, and I had to rush back to grab up our snacks, so he won. We decided to not drive anymore that night, got the pot out of the glove comparment, and took the sidewalk all the way to the park. The city is more of a town, the town is small, and sleepy -- during the day, and at night too. The only people on the road were truckers, and somewhere close, there was a train.
So we played tag with new rules, and picked up the pace when it started raining hard. By the time we made it to the playground, he lost his shirt because I caught him, and we stopped when I was topless and climbed into the clubhouse because the pot in my back pocket was no longer safe -- we had fun, we played, we smoked and we ate, and we fooled around and we fell asleep, and we woke up early in the morning.
I don't think we got more than two hours that night, but we had to make it to the local clinic so I could pick up my birth control, like responsible people who were no longer teenagers. Before we drove over there, I popped climbed over the back seat to find one of my sneakers, yanked out the shoe-lace, and hung the EPT test from the rear view for the reason that people take pictures. We ate Frosted Flakes out of Thermos lids, and I bitched about how I was so tired, I wanted to diiiiie, and he promised we'd sleep afterward. It would be the first thing we did.
We made it to the place after breakfast. The waiting room was filled with vignettes -- the single mother, the happy couple, the bickering couple, the obviously divorced couple, the ones with well behaved children, and the ones with children that pulled each other's hair, screetched, and beat each other with magazines. Babies cried. I fell asleep on Jesus' shoulder for a while, I think. He woke me up when the nurse called my name.
I didn't get birth control. I found out I was pregnant that day. I needed an abortion, instead. I had to call my brother collect for the money. And they gave me this pill that I had to take, and I had to stay in this room in the back for observation. Jesus stayed with me, and took care of me when the cramps hit. Well, they weren't cramps, they were contractions that clenched my guts up like a fist, and squeezed until I really didn't care that I was in a clinic, and I didn't care that the test had lied, and I didn't care that I had to ask for money for the first fucking time in my life because I'm not some idiot who's going to throw herself down the stairs and break her legs to lose a baby.
But they passed, and the money came, and they gave me two more pills to take over the course of the next two days. Jesus opened the front doors to the clinic, four and a half hours after we'd walked into that place. When we got outside, it was anybody's perfect day. I didn't have sunglasses, and I didn't want to look at it. Instead, I turned around and hugged him for a long time. He hugged me back in the middle of the parking lot and told my temple we'd get a hotel room that night and sleep in fresh, clean sheets, and watch real TV. We got in the car -- him in the driver's seat, and me in the passenger's seat. The pregnancy test swung like a pendulum for the first minute and a half, until I lunged forward, grabbed it up with both hands, and snapped it in half. "Fucking liar," I snapped at the damn thing, showed Jesus the slender piece of plastic I'd broken off, and hurled it out the open car window as the scenery whizzed by. I gave it the finger, and I nudged him until he did too.
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Posted on the 13th of February 13th, 2007
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"I can't stop thinking about last night. I don't even need to go into the 'what could have been'-s, just the what Were was good enough. Even if it was nothing. I'm glad you were having such a good time. But I like you better with your glasses and hat on rather than off. I still think you need a hair cut. Tonight you are 90 miles away, approximately, and I am missing you, exactly. also i found breast enhancement pills in my friend's bathroom and i didn't know what to do so i just closed the cabinet."
I could write about married life. I could write about more of my sessions with that therapist Rex was fucking. I could write about the first time Jesus and I met up at the park -- he came by request, so he could hear me apologize and assume responsibility for my hand in the disaster that was us being together -- the co-dependency, the great, big manic adventure, and the way I fucked him and asked him what his last words would be if he lost the ability to speak. I had to apologize for ruining his shower, I could write about the way he grieved so violently he was fucking the pillow that smelled like me. Or I could write about that goddamn dog Paul, and how much I hate him or that goddamn girl Kate or her goddamn typewriter I made him throw off the roof at the newspaper offices, where he worked. God, I hate that name: Kate. It just has this sound that's awful -- whenever anybody says it, not just him, but anybody, it sounds like a below the belt end to an arguement or the last, winning, and cowardice blow in a fight. Kate. It sounds like a cheat to win. It sounds robotic, immoral, and like it has no soul. Kate. Clean Kate. There are so many times I've daydreamed about beating her in the face with flowerpots and stuffing her mouth with dirt because burying her alive isn't enough for me. I want to bury her and bury her again, and every time I see the name Kate, I want to scratch it out with frantic pen-scribbles, cut it up with toenail clippers, or gouge it out of my paper with my fingernails or teeth.
There was a guy too, and I could write about him and how it was a whole different bend to fear. I should probably note that Jesus told me he pictured me when they fucked. He told me he pretended it was me, but I'm not sure if that was a night before we saw each other thing, or habitual. I didn't ask because I liked the way I could take those words and stretch and pull at them like sheets, up over me. I make cacoons out of things like that, I noticed. Well, they also told me that in the hospital -- if I'm afraid or uncomfortable, I don't need the whole world, I'll just build another one, but so much smaller, filled with things of permanence -- now they could be, or not but to me, they have to be. Memories turn to laws like gravity and all that other physical science crap -- it gets very scientific. It really does. I'm not sure how it happens, but it gets me through days like the one when Jesus decided he didn't want it to be just us, again. I know I was married at the time and I'm the one who left. I'm the one who admitted I was wrong and told him I loved him desperately. He never accepts my apologies. Well, hardly ever, anyway.
I could write about the way I demanded over dinner that Rex fuck my ass so I knew what Jesus was feeling when that guy fucked him, and what it felt like to be in his fantasy. Oh, and the way I've never seen Rex drop his filet mignon so fast, or taking my hand so gently -- that was bullshit because once he had me on the floor, he was so violent and merciless, I thought my eyes were going to explode and my ass was going to look like a salmon filet does when you cut it -- I bled. When I told Jesus about it, wanting to see some jealousy, the way his eyes went soft with care and pity, and the way he pampered me with things like chicken soup and slow sex on the kitchen floor, and even a little of that other thing I like that he rarely does.
What else could I write about? Oh, Jesus and the way he told me to go to Sudan for Christmas, and Dubai for Easter. The way he wouldn't go with me, or the way I talked Rex into going -- which wasn't really hard, he's very agreeable. No one would believe it, but he is -- or the way Jesus spent the holidays with people that didn't matter and orgasms that did. Or the time he told me that he sent me to those places selfishly, because where I went at the time, the media would follow -- such was the way being Rex Kolter's wife. Or the one time Jesus and I did actually squeeze in a trip to Egypt, and how the hotel that didn't need lights, it was so lit with gold. Swimming in the pool, ordering room service, walking through the local shops, hitting antiquities, and managing a vacation without jailtime -- well, technically. We got a call -- well, I got a call more specifically, a day into our trip from my husband asking how I was enjoying Cairo, and how lovely I looked in the pictures on the front page -- the smartass.
I really did enjoy being married to Rex. Things were so predictable and I was so well-nourished -- every morning, he'd be in his office reading the paper and I'd go to classes and lesson after lesson, and the way we'd always have dinner in his apartment, across from each other at the table. He never missed. I missed once, and I forget why, but I felt really, horribly guilty about it. Rex didn't mind, or he didn't seem to, outwardly. I remember he told me he knew about my affair, and did I honestly think he'd let me have one if I wasn't a good wife. I wondered about the glass Jesus' broke in the master bedroom when I wouldn't on Rex's bed, and if he found it. Christ, and the bomb of all bombs, that night Rex asked me out of the blue what I would do if he asked me to end it. I paled and started stammering, and he laughed at me.
Having that sort of lifestyle, being at the top of a high rise, never wanting for anything -- sometimes not even the ability to block out the things that hurt you because you have money as a distraction -- it's like being suspended in amniotic fluid. That's what penthouse apartments are to me, but not in some gold-digging way, just ... in an I don't know way. With Jesus, I don't need any distractions. I don't want any distractions. And as much as I hate it, the last thing I want to be is safe. Loved and loving, yes. Safe, no. Sometimes it feels like love gets its shape, density, warmth, relief, from the damage all around it. Like pockets of air that survive a crushed mine, or the ones nature builds into caves, under water.
Sometime I will write about that. And all the windows Jesus broke when we got back from Cairo and the reporters flooded in and surrounded his apartment building -- he cut himself up so bad that day and he didn't even know it. EMS and the police showed up -- we don't know who called them. When we got to the hospital, I got 10 stitches, and he got over 100. He didn't even know he'd cut himself, really. He knew he did, but he thought they were papercuts. Papercuts from work. He was either going to jail or the psych ward over what happened. He wound up at the psych ward and so did I, for months.
And Rex sent me an Encyclopedia a week, starting with A -- it's how I kept a time count. I was misdiagnosed a few times, but I'd been taking Jesus' pills so he wouldn't for months. And I'm happy about it now -- I stayed sick. We were both sick together, sick and playing cards, sick and reading, sick and cleaning up piss from electroshock, sick and screaming, sick and watching mute TVs. When we graduated that, we moved on to less-sick and doing art, even less-sick and taking trips.
I don't even remember when we decided to make this trip, but I know it was there. For all the things I remember, you would think I'd remember that, but I don't. But you're listening to the Beatles on the radio and you're singing and I like that, so I'll just ask you later. Was I writing this whole time to you? I don't even know who I was writing to. But I'm too lazy to go back and scratch out all the 'he's' and make them "yous", and this might not be to you, anyway. So later, I will. Or never I will.
Did you know there's a Wilmington, Pennsylvania? I just saw the sign. They're Amish, though. Maybe on our way from New York to Iowa, we'll save enough room to fit something from there. Maybe a bed -- a headboard or something, wouldn't that be funny?
I found that letter at the gas station two stops back . It reminds me of us.
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Posted on the 27th of April 27th, 2006
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It took me four and a half months of living with Jesus to leave him.
I didn't leave him at night. I walked out on the perfect morning, and told Rex to marry me or I'd kill myself that afternoon.
The wedding took nine days to plan, and I didn't do any of that. Rex hadn't offered to let me, anyway -- he actually revelled in the preparations like it was a grandiose, senior prank. For him, it was. That was okay. You're only used if you feel used and otherwise, it's nothing sinister. I was fond of him.
He did ask me what I wanted. A Catholic wedding, a white dress, and as soon as possible were my only stipulations. He booked St. Patrick's while I oblidged, and gave the globe on his desk a spin; my finger down on the ocean closest to Kenya.
It's been appointments he's made for me ever since - equestrian at 8:30 Monday through Friday, classes at Columbia after that, piloting at 4:45 every afternoon. If I don't have a fitting, then I have finishing, if I'm finished finishing and I haven't gotten a call, then my husband isn't finished fucking, so I should find something to do until later, when agreed curfew kicks in and I'm due back at the penthouse to be dressed for a benefit or some other current affair.
I'm on a diet -- it was suggested by a nutritionist and which Rex casually and sardonically enforces. We eat dinner together, almost always. Lunch however, I'm supposed to take at or near the college. At lunch, I'm probably supposed to be making the smart choice -- Healthy Choice salads, soups, and breadless sandwiches over anything greasy, grimey, sugary, or bready.
Lunchtime is quiet. Sure, there's a slew of chatter in the lunchroom, but I've seen what those kinds of friends can do. They stab your boyfriend, they fuck your boyfriend, they tell you they're pregnant with your boyfriend's baby ... or they fall in love with you, they get obsessed with you. They expect you to be there for them. They expect you to tell them every God damn thing on your mind, in your heart, and then they fuck you with it later. I don't need friends. I don't have time for friends. My life is a diet.
Jesus is always at lunch. I rebel at Wendy's. I need a therapist.
So I got one.
My therapist's name is Mrs. Roscher, and I've been seeing her for a while. She's a middle-aged woman with cropped blonde hair who's always wearing a tidy suit, tidy like the kinds President's wives and pageant girls' wear. The kind that look tailored, itchy, and too-rough to touch. She prefers pastels despite her strong jaw and slightly mannish face, or maybe because of them. Her lipstick always looks freshly-applied, a pink that's almost red, and she keeps a baggie of almonds in her left drawer. Whenever I come in slurping on a Frosty, she offers them to me, and says they're 'the good kind of fat'.
I suspect she knows my nutritionist, or maybe my husband. "I'm the good kind of fat," I shuffle in around the door and say, sucking down the rest of my shake.
"You know today you told me you promised you'd tell me a story."
"I know," I sigh once I'm curling up on the burgendy, leather sofa in her office, the one by the window.
"We can stop whenever you want," she says, swivelling her chair to face me. She clasps her hands in her lap simply. Everything is so simple and clear about her. "The sooner we talk about him, the sooner we can work on you know, you moving passed him."
"... Yeah," I say, and bite at my thumbnail.
* * * * *
Jeeeesus, Where do you like me kissing you best?
Ribs. And palm.
Why the ribs?
Part ticklish. Part soothing. Part fresh. Where do I like kissing you? Where do you wish I didn't?
My mouth. My pulse. Nowhere -- Toes. It tickles and it feels like I stuck my foot in some slime, I get that tin foil feeling.
When did I kiss your toes? Where do you want me to kiss you?
You never did, I'm just saying I wish you don't. My spine. Where on your ribs. Here?
Nuhuh, two higher. Closer to the edge. When do you like me best?
When I wake up and roll over and you're still there. When I'm watchin' TV or whatever and you're on the laptop, and you're singin', and you don't even realize it. When you're jealous. When you answer my questions before I answer yours and think I don't notice.
When I catch you reading something, When you're proud of someone, doesn't matter who it is. When I see you looking at me - and youuu don't think I notice. What's the one thing you'd want me to ask you right now.
Ask me to quit my job. Ask me to get something respectable where I don't have to wear underwear under my clothes.
Alright, captain underpants. Quit. Please? You hate it. I hate it. You're better than that shit. You are. Go do something you deserve to do. Where you don't have to wear any under wear at any time. What's the one job you would do if you could? Anything. No limits. Are you going to quit your job?
I read up on public relations, it doesn't sound too bad. It's sorta what asshole has me doin' now, anyway.
Yeah?
Sooner than later. I'm waiting for somethin'. I don't know what. I'm lying, I know what. It's him. It's like if I can figure him out, nothing'll hurt anymore. He knows somethin' no one else knows. We don't know. It's so fuckin' important to me. You would get it if you talked to him, you would know it like you know my body.
Do you like that I don't ask?
Of course I don't like it. That's why I love it. You won't just let me win. You don't pacify. I'm not tryin' to hurt you anymore, Jesus. I got what I needed from you. How long are you into lettin' me get away with it?
How long are you going to keep taking. I think I've forgotten how to stop you.
What am I taking? And don't lie.
You. I'm not lying. If he's that good, I wouldn't come out knowing. He'd know how to blind me.
How are you blinded?
If I saw him...I wouldn't be able...to hold still....I wouldn't even want to kill him...just fuck him up till he wished he was in hell. I think that's part of it...never seeing you with him...never seeing what you'd be like...never that scare of seeing him touch you...for myself. Up close. There. Right infront of me. Fury. Absolute fury. Tell me where.
The dip at the small of my back. Between my shoulderblades. The back of my neck. I wanna stop. I'm misplacin' everything I take.
How would you stop? Why now?
I don't wanna fuck him anymore. I want to get the planning the church wedding over with so we can plan a kick ass vacation. I want a decent job. I don't want to be like you. I just want you.
You mentioned me meeting him. I wanted you to know why I couldn't. Why don't you want to fuck him anymore? Where should we go?
That's the thing, I stop and I'm quittin' and I'm givin' up my word and I'm comprimising myself. I don't quit and I'm givin' up myself but I'm not comprimisin' my word and how much of that is me. That's me. My word is me. And words are so fuckin' confusing when someone manipulates with words and manipulates with truth and I'm just fuckin' ... awed. Fuck I never realized you could do so much with the truth. It's a balloon, but it's a fuckin' bicycle. We were fuckin' beautiful once. I don't know, I always choose. Let's just get a map and close our eyes and point.
When were we beautiful?
It's easier to say when we weren't. Beautiful when I kissed you first. Beautiful on the kitchen floor. The night I told you I kissed him, we were beautiful.
I wish I could be just content. Just want you. What do you think of the fact that I can't? I feel guilty for it, you know. Like I don't deserve you because of it. Because I can't do what you can. Just want you. Am I wasting your time because I can't? Am I just taking advantage of you?
You could. I remember. Just let me believe it, even if it's a lie I need it. I just don't believe it is or was. And that's what I mean, I don't wanna go back, why I don't wanna fuck him. I know you've gone back to it, and I'm supposed to meet you and fuck him but ... c'mon. I want him. Not like you. I don't want to. I'll stop.
Why do you need it? I hate that I do that to you. That I make you do that.
Foundation. If that's changed, then ...
What are the differences in how you want us. What're the similiarities?
Gimme your hand. He thinks you're an idiot and he understands why. If he were capable of you, I'd be be worth more to him than "I don't know." He hurts me and it's dirty and he pushes me and he'll tear me apart and I want him to find every fucking weakness cause I want to feel it. I'm need to know what he knows. And I need to know we're different, me and you. We are. He takes from you the way you take from me.
So, why does he think I'm an idiot?
Why do you think you're not.
You let him take from me.
You remember that guitar. The one your father gave you. Would you give it to me? I could sell it. Trade it. Break it. Right in front of you, would you give it to me. You let him take from you.
I'm an idiot. So yeah, I would. I basically did.
God.
Why do you need to know that, that we're different? I know it's important, by why through him?
He's me without you. He's me.
I wish we didn't take it here. I didn't want this tonight. It should've been just us. So who are you with me?
But you took it back. You did, for .. You tried. But ... When am I? Now? What was I when I was in some fucking building and you wanted to hand me some fucking tool. Who *was* I, who am I. Do you still wish I was sitting in some God damn car next to you when you're at work, when you're with him? I know you don't.
I miss you.
You know what? Show me.
Why do I have to prove myself? Every fucking time? Why doesn't HE? Because he fucks you like you want to be fucked? Because he does what I apparently can't? You said he was YOU when you're not with me. I asked what you are WITH me and that's what I fucking get.
I'M IN A MILLION FUCKING PIECES.
I mean, why arn't MY fucking words good enough.
YES this is what you GET what you've DONE is what you GET!
Because I don't fuck you around with them?
Oh you don't?? Don't you fucking DARE.
How about YOU show me. Show me how you fucking love me so much. Is that why Kolter knows I'm an idiot? Because I FUCKING LOVE A GIRL WHO WILL FUCK SOMEONE ELSE WITH ME KNOWING IT? As though that fucking allows her some permission to be free of whatever guilt she might or might not feel since apparently she WANTS to so fucking bad? Well I guess that's YOUR FUCKING LOVE FOR YOU.
I felt guilty today. I didn't fuck him today. I'm glad it's over. Haven't you heard ANYTHING I FUCKING -- FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU AND your FUCKING SELF PITY.
SELF PITY. OH YOU SHOULD SEE FUCKING SELF PITY. LOOK AT YOU. THAT'S FUCKING SELF PITY. RIGHT THERE. YOU'RE NOT IN A FUCKING MILLION PIECES. YOU'RE IN TWO. AND HE'S GOT THREE FUCKING FOURTHS OF YOU. AND NO, I DONT CARE THAT IM SHOUTING. BECAUSE I HOPE THAT SOMEONE ELSE FUCKING JUDGES YOU FOR THAT. I asked a SIMPLE fucking QUESTION. I say I fucking MISS you. I fucking MISS how we were. and fuck if I can say ANYTHING like that without having to SHOW YOU JUST HOW MUCH. I THINK THIS IS A PRETTY GOOD EXPRESSION OF THAT BY THE WAY, DONT YOU? I AM the fucking orange juice guy. I AM. You fuck KOLTER and then you COME HOME and you stare a the fucking CEILING while I fuck you, don't you? Wondering why the FUCK I bother. You're fucking disgusting sometimes, you know that? I bet you didn't. I bet you didn't think I could ever say that about you. But look at me. I fucking did. I didn't fucking think I could say that about you. Ever. I don't fucking said I've ever said that about a person. Congradulations, you're right up there with genocide and Christian Idenity. YOU KNOW WHY I BOTHER. You KNOW. You probably want me to face up to the guy just so I can fucking fall. So you have a damn fucking reason. Well, tell you're fucking mother that she was right for me, okay? That I'm NOT THE ONE FOR YOU. THAT IM FUCKING WASTING YOUR TIME. THAT THERES OBVIOUSLY SOMEONE ELSE. Fucking tell her that her fucking horoscope bullshit came true. Would you do that for me? Thanks, thanks a fucking lot. And thanks for your fucking time ... AM I JEALOUS ENOUGH NOW."
No. I didn't think you could get that much wrong in one ... you know, thing. I'm not opening this until you leave. Unless you're gonna stay. But I knew I'd get disgusting. told you I'd hate you for it. And I do.
Like this?
Yes. I fucking love you.
You better.
Take me back. I don't wanna want him. Just take me back.
You're mine. Nobody else's. Even if you want to be, you can't be. Not gonna let you. No more deal. I'm calling it off. I can't take it anymore.
Are you the one? I am.
Yes.
* * * * *
"And that sums it up. Four and a half months, every night -- same fight, perfect ending."
She inclines her head, my file in her lap. It's thin. "How did it end?"
"Me in the dark, listening to him get dressed through the door. He never left though. He'd try, but it was more like he was making himself presentable to meet me on the bathroom floor. It was like our ... secret place. Our roommate was never there, we weren't hiding from her. It was ... It was more like our screaming got so loud, we cut air, just ... mangled it. We've got this weird thing about breath, so ..." I look out the window again and remember what he looks like in the afternoon in his jeans, walking on the sidewalk.
"Talk to me about breath."
I clentch. "... I don't really feel ... comfortable with that. The point is everything's precious. I know it sounds crazy, I might sound fucking out of my mind --"
"No, no --" She waves her aged, feminine hand dismissively.
"-- I just don't think anyone notices anymore, what's precious when they just ... you know, run it over or whatever it is people do with precious things. He and I, we always knew, though. We've done our share of breaking, but we always know what we're breaking. We see it, we taste it, we know it fucking intimately and if we break it, then that makes us ... aware of our cruelty."
"What would you and he consider precious? Care for some almonds?"
I shake my head. "Stripping wasn't just a job. It wasn't like 'Oh hey, I'd love nothing more than to do this with my life.'"
"Well from what you're telling me, it sounds like it was a language."
"... What do you mean?"
"Duality, double-meanings," she says it like an obvious diagnosis. "Your words and actions were not to be taken at face value. Every word and action was assigned its own specific interpretation. For instance, you told me a while ago that the day you went to your husband's office, but he wasn't your husband then, that you asked him to take you on a date that night."
"That's right."
"And then you went to a ..." She checks her notes. "BDSM club ... and then had that incident on the street."
"Yes."
"Why did you make those choices?"
"Because I'm not a cutter?"
"Maybe. You know what I think, Shane? I think it was a declaration of war."
* * * * *
"... Excuse me? What?"
Mrs. Roscher raises her hand like a white flag. "Now before you get defensive, just hear me out --"
"I'm not fuckin' defensive." I shift uncomfortably and realize I'm biting on my thumbnail again, so I slap my palms on my thighs and keep them there."I just ... Go on."
"You said stripping wasn't just a job. What was it?"
"It was ... "
"Stop trying to think of the answer I want to hear." My therapist smiles kindly, the way teachers smile at their grade-school students. "First thing that comes to your mind: Stripping," she says, and snaps her fingers.
"I didn't think he'd let me do it." Her eyebrows go high on her forehead, and she clasps her hands in her lap again, attentive because I'm about to prove her point, and I know it, so I look away and take a deep breath. "He's jealous. He hates Rex." I fold my arms tightly across my stomach. I don't care if she's evaluating my closed posture. "I didn't want him to take that job."
"He wanted to take a job that you didn't want him to. You wanted to win, you expected him to fold, and he didn't."
"It wasn't LIKE that, it wasn't a respectable job! It was a bad job, it was a DANGEROUS job, it was doing some bad shit, shit that would effect me so YES. Yeah, I fuckin' wanted to win, are you fuckin' happy? I was protecting him -- Us. Him."
The clock counts loudly. We both listen to those seconds and let them pass. Tension simmers.
"Shane, look." Mrs. Roscher inclines her head to me. I'm tearing up, so she plucks a Kleenex from the box on her desk, and stretches her torso over her neatly-crossed legs to give one to me. I take it and crumple it up before I blot my eyes. "You protect the people you love at the detriment to yourself, without worry or regret, that's rare and noble --"
"I was bitter," I mutter, and look away.
"Why," she said, like she was locking on a target.
The room counts a full minute.
"... I would never do anything that would put him in harm's way. I didn't want to spend every night for the rest of my life worrying if he was coming home, or if something happened. But if he wanted to ... I don't know, be a police officer, I'd ... I'd have to do that, and I would do that." I swallow hard. "But police officers, no matter how much I fuckin' hate them, they're good people. They're out there to help people. Deep down, I always thought Jesus was, too. You know, he'd be a journalist, a revolutionary or he'd ... be in politics, he'd be the first honest politician, he's fuckin' brilliant ..." It hurts to smile, and it goes crippled. "But he doesn't want that. If he wanted that, he wouldn't do what he's doing. He was good, once. Selfish, yeah, but at the core, he was ... He was a fucking gift, not just to me, but now ... Now Jesus is just ..."
"Just a man," she finishes and hands me another tissue.
"Yeah." I sniffle and wipe my wet face. "And to a just-a-man, I'm just ... some girl."
* * * * *
"What if he didn't realize the danger, what if he thought it was a minor risk." Mrs. Roscher gives the clock a candid glance. She wants me to notice too. "What if it's not about your body, and it's not about not loving you enough. What if it's about his independence?"
"He proposed to me. We've been together for like, two years," Skeptical to her idiot-theory.
"All the more reason."
I bite. "Why wouldn't he just break up with me?"
She sits back into her chair, naturally authoriative, and makes a vague gesture. She's got a pen in her hand. "I get a lot of patients that are married. People with good, solid marriages, people who have surpassed eros. People who love each other as the ultimate companions. Companionate love is the top-dollar love."
".. And?" I deadpan.
"While you enjoy happiness with your lover, happiness isn't exclusively related to your loved one. When you're with someone a long time, you eat the same meals, you go to the same movies, you see the same things ... some people start to lose their identity. Acts of independence, anything from leaving the toilet seat up to taking a job, it's not about harming the spouse, it's about redefining, re-establishing, and really feeling a sense of self."
"So that's the ... self he wants to be?" My features pull and twist. "Well I don't like that self, I think that self is shit," I croak, and sniffle.
"Well Shane, you're young, and you have your whole life ahead of you," Mrs. Roscher breathes as she lifts my folder from her lap and drops it on her desk so I know we're done. She stands after I do, and embraces me briefly, as clean as her clothing. The suit itches like I knew it would. "All you can do is thank God you found out before you married him. I'll see you next week."
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