Can't Think Straight:. Kiri Blakeley
over Christmas. I guess even if you give a man total sexual freedom, you still expect a modicum of reliability.
My grandfather and I are walking back from dinner when Aaron calls. He’s been staying at the apartment to watch the cats and updates me on them, then tells me he cleaned the bathroom. “You didn’t have to do that,” I say.
“It was disgusting.”
I tell him how my grandfather doesn’t get him at all. “He’s revolted by men,” I say. “He doesn’t understand how anyone could prefer a man over a woman.”
Aaron chuckles, hesitantly. I’m twisting the knife a little, making him feel like less of a man.
“Well, baby, so far we’ve broken up so you could spend more time drinking at Last Exit. Are you doing any real work on yourself?”
“I’ve been to a couple of gay bars.”
Ask a stupid question.
“In Chelsea?” I gulp.
“There are gay bars in Brooklyn.”
Ask another stupid question.
“How’s that going for you?”
“Not too good. I can just about say hello.”
I can picture it: Aaron, paralyzed with shyness. He was never good at the pickup.
Over dinner, my grandfather had told me that a great passion requires great suffering on both sides. He’d only felt it twice in his life, on neither occasion with his wives. The first time was when he was twenty-two, with an older woman whom he’d followed to America (I have her to thank for being American). Then there was a woman named Christina. He considered her the great love of his life. The relationship was fraught with jealousy, raging dramas, blistering arguments, and phenomenal sex. One night at a party, after seeing Bernardo dance a little too amorously with another woman, Christina had extinguished her cigarette on his hand (he still had the faint scar) and then tried to burn down his apartment.
Yet even this supposed great passion couldn’t stop him from straying. Christina had once walked in on him having sex with her best friend. I’d asked him why he couldn’t keep it in his pants—not even for his soul mate.
“Because,” he said, “I always wondered if I was a good husband, a good father, whether I would get a good job. One thing I knew I could do well was to get women into bed.”
We all have our strengths, I suppose.
Day 18 “What’s the longest passion can last?” I ask no one in particular.
“I’ve read lots of studies on this,” Julie declares. “It’s three years.”
“Three years!” everyone exclaims. I’m not sure if we all think three years is too short or too long.
“Wait,” Julie says, “maybe it’s three months. I can’t remember.”
A group of us are on 14th Street at Ipanema, a rundown, glaringly lit little joint. I wish we could go somewhere else, somewhere darker, more intimate, with lighting that won’t reveal every flaw—but my halfhearted attempts to corral everyone are resisted. I have a reason for wanting to look good—Rahil is on his way.
When he does arrive, he’s like a jolt of caffeine to the evening, jubilantly introducing himself (“Rahil here!”) to all and sundry, before turning to me and growling, “You look fantastic.” He doesn’t look so bad himself, with his light green T-shirt a bit too tight. It’s not long before we’re full on in the PDA department and people are beginning to move away from us like we’re contagious.
Rahil begins working one constant theme: going back to his apartment.
“No.”
“All we’ll do is what we’re doing right now.”
“No.”
I hadn’t been out of the game so long that I didn’t know that a girl was still expected to kick up a fuss as a prelude to sex—that is, if she wanted to make it more interesting (for the guy, at least).
“If you’d called earlier in the week, we’d be there now, because that’s what I was going to suggest we do,” I say. “But you didn’t call me until an hour ago. Look. I’m a low-maintenance girl. I’m not asking for dinner or any courting. But I do ask for a plan so at least I know whether to take other offers or not.”
“But … but… you said you didn’t like to make plans!” he sputters.
“For all you know about women, here’s a very rudimentary thing you seem not to know. A woman can change her mind at any time.”
“My mistake. It won’t happen again.”
Julie, Jake, Rahil, and I catch a cab back to Brooklyn. Jake gets in the front seat and keeps looking back with what I imagine is a look of disapproval. Is it directed toward me and the fact that I’m acting so slutty so soon? Or toward Rahil as a kind of warning to tread carefully with me? Or toward Julie, who every once in awhile gives Rahil a drunken, overly friendly embrace?
After dropping them off, Rahil and I head to Loki for one last drink. But we don’t drink. We make a beeline for the back couches, which are deserted, and sit kissing and fondling. I make sure to flash him my pink lace panties, the ones I’d just bought from Victoria’s Secret. Not the kind of thing you bother with in a ten-year relationship.
The apartment refrain is never far from his lips. “We’ll just kiss, nothing more, you can leave at any time. I want you to feel safe….”
Of course we end up back at his apartment.
We’re all over each other on the couch until he picks me up and carries me to the bedroom. I’m acutely aware that this is a calculated move, certainly one he’s practiced many times, but it’s still one of the hottest things anyone has ever done for me. I love the way he comes, noisily and lustily, holding nothing back.
“I’m going to leave early in the morning,” I say. “Don’t be upset if I don’t leave you a note.”
“You don’t have to leave.”
“But I’m going to.”
About 6 A.M. while Rahil sleeps, I’m crawling around on the floor, trying to locate my clothes. My grasping hand touches upon a bunched-up wad that turns out to be a frilly white shirt and a thong—neither of which are mine. Could be the ex-girlfriend’s things, but if so, it seems strange stuff to leave behind. At any rate, I’m amused by it. It’s further evidence that I’d picked the right person to have a purely sexual fling with.
Walking back from his apartment toward 4th Avenue to find a cab, I think of the term “walk of shame.” With my mussed hair and cakey makeup and still wearing last night’s dress-up clothes, it is indeed a walk of shame—giddy shame—as if my bruised sexuality is hanging out there for the world to see, point at, judge, and secretly envy.
I can’t believe this is my life.
* * *
Late that afternoon, I manage to drag myself into the cat shelter, where I’ve volunteered for seven years, cleaning cages and feeding homeless felines. The animals are so simple. Some are scared and need a little coddling. Others are stretched out and happy. I’m just glad to have something to concentrate on besides my own drama and lust. At 6 P.M., Rahil leaves me a message. I’m beyond surprised to hear from him so soon.
“Bottom line, I want to see you,” he says.
At midnight he arrives at People Lounge on the Lower East Side, at my friend Lily’s thirtieth birthday party. I’d been drinking a lot before he got there, hoping that the more I drank, the more I’d find other people interesting. But it doesn’t