15

My twenty-one years matched E___’s forty, and would later match in bed. We both had new bodies. Mine now brimming with Aliveness and muscle, instead of malnutrition or fat. Hers cared for throughout her adulthood out of an intoxicating Sadness. A sadness stemming from the ugliness of her childhood and fueled by deep insecurities. Insecurities honored by going to the gym regularly, and spending money to uplift and to preserve what was left of her youth.
What we had in common the most was the way we played. Boldness was central. Spontaneity, Impulsiveness, but especially Boldness. Socially, she was fiercely intelligent and had a quick wit and good-natured laugh to balance, and I had bold ideas and insistences about the Truth of the human experience.
We played the piano in the opposite way. She was deeply soft and respectful of its powers, and I concentrated heavily on the technicalities, fearful of hitting a wrong key.
We treated poetry with the same respect, E____ insisting that certain people shouldn’t be allowed to speak, they treated words so casually and wrote so badly.
We treated Art with the same respect, and animals, and plants. E____ would regularly pick the herbs off certain old graves claiming them to have powers that only her grandmother really knew, but she could remember some.
Our own human lives we treated differently, since Life had lost all credibility with us, due to our haunting pasts. Pasts that filled the House with its music: her passionate Beethoven and my maddeningly slow, careful Chopin.
Hence we treated Life as if it didn’t matter, and Boldness remained our addiction. Our safety net was the mutually understood idea that nothing could ever happen between a twenty-one year old man and a forty year old woman. Therefore we enjoyed the absolute freedom that two people enjoy when they are naturally attracted to each other, while completely safe from anything Real ever happening: anything that might conjure up any heavy or real emotion, or complications.
She was the only one I really enjoyed talking to much at the café. And she insisted I was the only one she really enjoyed.
We did enjoy M___, we just enjoyed each other more.
Once, we spoke of how nice it would be to visit Washington D.C. and left for it several hours later.
Quickly-thrown-together one, and two day trips became the norm. We would sneak off from other events at the café and have little adventures, walking through the cemetery at night, driving to a restaurant in another city -- all on impulse, until the adventures became the norm, and M___ -- despite his jealousy tendencies -- joining us became the norm, and the three of us sharing our daily lives together was the norm.
We all shared the wordless philosophy that all of human Life lacked credibility, was meaningless, and the only world that was real was Nature, Art, Music, and the world the three of us created, simply by our company.
Hence the sex wasn’t Real sex, just play. When E___ looked at me, and, maybe simply out of boldness, said, _You know, this is dating. This is what dating is. All this time we’ve been dating._
And my look of shock confirmed her suspicion that I was inexperienced, and it made her laugh.
Weeks later, when E___ said, in a seemingly general way, that she needed sex, my boldness was happy to oblige. But after twenty minutes of thrusting I still hadn’t ejaculated, then lied and said I did.
E___ continued to teach me sex. And over time I got better; turned out pleasing a woman in bed was easy. Pleasing myself was not.
_But this is sex,_ she said, _You have intercourse, then play or talk or lay awhile, then have intercourse again._ It’s what people do, intercourse and the moments and days between intercourse -- it’s all sex.
I had hoped that sex was about leaving the world and coming into the natural state. I thought it was the peak of what I hoped numbness would be. Turns out it required the opposite. What I hoped numbness would do for me, it turns out, could only be done by the opposite.
I lay there wondering why I was so disconnected to sex, wondering why the Roaring hadn’t dished out enough yet for me to resolve my private problems.
In the end, it would become clear that we were all disconnected from sex, from Life.
Hence M__ never got a boyfriend, and kept insisting he was attracted to women, that he was even attracted to E_____.
Hence the twenty year relationship E__ had had with a celebrity actor who regularly flew her all over the world to meet him in hotel rooms and at events had ended without anything Real -- I was her rebound.
The reason was that it was all just Play.
And I think deep down, they knew, and were manipulative in its handling.
They manipulated themselves into believing this was Living. And therefore they were incidentally manipulative in making sure I never caught on that this was the opposite of living Life.
It was how they had lived their lives for many, many years. And how I would live mine for one year.
I wish I could say I figured it all out smoothly. But in real life I was cumbersome about it, noticing this wrong and that, and still continuing full force ahead.
Our last effort at Boldness was when I ended up on a deployment list, and was gearing up for war. It began as a joke: that I should marry E___ so the three of us would be a real family.
The marriage would secure that I came home after the war, and didn’t disappear from their lives. The closer deployment came, the more I felt things were wrong, but I secretly married her anyway, thinking nothing bold could be bad.
It was a secret at first, but the avante guard caught on and reacted with shock. They insisted I had been laid victim to a Queen Jezebel, to a Delilah, and I was merely the young, ripe lamb to slaughter.
I knew in my heart Boldness was the only way to keep Life at bay.
When I left home for pre-deployment training, I started making friends my own age, and started getting a heavy feeling, despite the Truth being remembered, that everything about my life was wrong wrong wrong.
The Roaring was back in full force. It had really never left. What I had mistook for its absence was merely the new distraction of M___ and E_____.
The pounding heart, the ringing ears, the burning eyes, all were back. I ended up not passing medical, and not deploying that time.
By the time I returned to M___ and E___, my plans to turn my life around were firmly set.
M___ and E____ were angrily heartbroken and left alone, in their beautiful house, by the beautiful cemetery, with the sounds of their beautiful baby Grand.