What about Eva Hesse, I say—I’ve just come from her exhibit of infinite textures in repeating plastic forms. Not her exhibit—she’s dead and that’s why SF MOMA’s giving her a show. But Jeremy hasn’t seen it.
What about contemporary Iranian cinema, I say—Mohsen Makhmalbaf or Abbas Kiarostami? But Jeremy doesn’t know if he’s seen their movies. What about Mike Leigh—did you like Secrets and Lies? It was okay.
I try my favorite authors—David Wojnarowicz, Rebecca Brown, Robert Glück. Jeremy hasn’t read them. I scan my bookshelves. What about Jean Genet or James Baldwin? Okay, Jeremy says, maybe 1970.
Then Jeremy wants to talk about the democratic process—the what? That’s how I know I’m falling in love, because I can tolerate these silly conversations. But even without the falling part, I want to say I love you like with all my close friends, but I’m worried he’ll get scared. And maybe I’m scared, a wolf ready to bite off my head and will Jeremy sew it back on?
We’re making out at a party, I’m ready to get on my knees but Jeremy’s uptight around his friends—they might think he’s a slut! And this is the high fashion set; some cheap-looking new carpeted flat on Mission with a bunch of ’80s runway casualties hanging with the mods and suburbanites. Every time the music starts to sound okay, it ends up turning into a dance remix of a rock or pop song: “Another One Bites the Dust,” “Paint It Black,” and something that sounds like Bon Jovi. Jeremy and I are slamming each other into the walls, and the buttons of my sweater keep coming undone. One guy asks for more tongue and I ask for his, but apparently he’s lost it. I lose my mittens and Jeremy finds them—how romantic!
Jeremy goes home to do K and I go home to wash the smoke out of everything. The next day’s good news: endless scenarios run through my head about what to do if I test positive, wait stop the cameras I’m dying. But the good news is there are no white lines in this fantasy—just crying, food, and shopping. Jeremy’s so nervous he’s shaking, and I just want to hold him all day, night, and right through to tomorrow—forget about the earthquake, at the clinic it’s duck! Duck. Goose.
Luckily we’re just ducks in this game. Jeremy says I don’t have much stress in my life and it was just so hard waiting. I don’t know what he’s talking about: no stress? We look for music, Jeremy’s Bach and my electro. Later, we go to Steamworks, where the sauna’s too hot for Jeremy, but I like the eucalyptus—or wait, is it Pine-Sol? Afterwards, I’m hugging and hugging, the feeling of Jeremy’s skin. He says I feel like I’m coming to a new period of calm in my life and you’re part of that.
Jeremy holds me so tight while I’m on my knees sucking this guy’s cock, wanting his come but mostly wanting Jeremy to keep holding me. We get a five-way started in a room—every guy is kissing me too softly and I get way too hypoglycemic, my body shuts down and I panic. Jeremy’s a raging ball of non-stop arousal and I’m scared in the cheesiest way, what if he doesn’t love me? Looks like he’s about to fuck this one guy and I’m jealous, but if I don’t eat I’m gonna cry. I whisper: I’ll be right back, wait for me to fuck him. Then I say it out loud: I’ll be right back.
The guy who was in the TV room when we arrived is still sitting there, and I still can’t decide if he’s cute. I’m having problems digesting my food; I just feel so edgy, rushing to shit again. Then I’m heading back to the room and Jeremy finds me, he says I missed you. We go back to the TV room so I can eat more, and I get all tearyeyed, I say: I keep wanting to say I love you, but I stop myself ’cause I don’t want to scare you. Standard TV-movie fare. Jeremy says I love you too and the clouds clear in the background, my hair blows in the gentle breeze, light reflecting off three small tears. But wait: we’re at a sex club, glaring fluorescents and a chain mesh wall behind us.
Jeremy fucks me on the floor in the video room, it’s easier to relax if I’m watching someone else getting fucked—we’re in this together! Hardly anyone watches, what a weird crowd. We’re a bad example, without a condom—well, it’s on the floor next to us and when we come, on that floor too, Jeremy’s tired and I’m ready to go dancing. In the morning, I sit in the sun on Jeremy’s roof, a view of everything. We go to a movie in which time slows down, a man steals clocks; a large fish in the kitchen swallows the man’s father, reincarnated as a roach. Everyone loses their luggage or acts like it. At the end, time and everything is a giant Ferris wheel spinning backwards. Jeremy says I can’t imagine you not being in my life, and the Ferris wheel is my eye spinning around into the beauty of the future.
WHAT IF EVERYONE LIVED IN A TWO-MILLION-DOLLAR HOUSE?
The yoga instructor says we’ll all have Tina Turner legs when we’re sixty. At Whole Foods, a woman rolls around an entire cart filled with Smart Water: she’s gonna be very smart. 2:30 a.m. and this trick comes over two hours late, I fuck him for so long and so slowly that I’m actually aching to come yes I do mean aching. Pushing slower and slower, I was gonna save myself until tomorrow’s trip with Jeremy, but if I don’t come now, I’ll come as soon as Jeremy touches me. The trick says he’s milking me with his ass, and there it goes and sure my orgasm’s all right, but I wanted to be screaming. The trick slides off—you really gave me a workout—and I’m left with this piece of plastic digging into my dick.
Jeremy and I drive up to Guerneville, weird it’s so small and the redwoods are so tall. Everything smells like air, I mean like the redwoods. We find the vegan restaurant and then Jeremy wants to tour the bars. At the Eagle, they’re playing Paula Abdul, which is the highlight. We walk over the river in the cold, but we can’t find it, hurry back to the room to jump in the hot tub. But first a sexual distraction, no wait that happens earlier, when Jeremy wants to fuck me harder and I feel like I’m turning a trick, but are the neighbors enjoying the show?
The hot tub is locked and we’re freezing, Jeremy sucks me off and then we lie in bed for thirteen hours. I sleep for about ten minutes. The best part is laughing at who-knows-what at five in the morning. Next day it’s warm and I’m wrecked, we drive to the coast, where Jeremy finally shoves his come down my throat and sure I choke, he says sorry, but honey I need to choke.
Let me paint a picture: cliffs towering above us and the sun in our eyes, the warmest day so far this year and here I am on the wideopen stone-covered beach sucking Jeremy off and choking, yes choking, I said choking on all that come sticking in my throat. Then Jeremy’s holding me and we’re snapping pictures—porn shoot—damn, I can’t remember anyone else who made me pant. Okay, so my last boyfriend situation ended eight years ago—that was Zan, he gave me my first incest flashbacks. I mean, he held me when I started to panic, an extra dimension of terror in the room and I didn’t know what it was. Zan had already dated an incest survivor, he held me and I felt like a little kid, just losing it, trying to figure out what was real. With Jeremy, I’m ready to feel like a little kid again, not just the pain but the potential.
We drive down the coast and jump out of the car to watch the sunset. Jeremy’s kicking sand into the saltwater creek and I’m worried that he’s damaging the ecosystem but oh it’s so nice when the sun sinks into the ocean, all those pinks and oranges and reds. Jeremy and I sit down on a piece of driftwood and stare at this celestial magic trick, the colors in his face too. Even though I haven’t slept, everything feels softer like I’m in a space I never want to leave, a space with Jeremy, until he declares that there’s no good art anymore because now anyone can make art—oh no, it’s one of those conversations. We’re in the car and Jeremy acts like we’re fighting except when I ask him why he’s so upset, he says: I’m not upset. But he still sounds angry. I feel like my mother when I ask him to breathe, only my mother never said that, to my father or anyone else. And never breathed.
Back at home, Jeremy pulls down my pants, and I love it. A message from Andee: I think it’s February, I’m just calling to see if your phone rings, because mine still does. The yoga room smells like bacon; I want to leave. Then hot chocolate, which is okay, and then back to the usual rotten soc
k smell. Zan calls from New York, he went to a Hedwig party and someone punched a hole in the wall. On the way to dinner, Gina and I pick up the pictures of Jeremy and me—I think the photo guy’s looking at Gina to see if she’s Jeremy. The ones of me sucking Jeremy’s cock are so hot—I look great in that position. Then the sun shining down on us and we’re smiling, it’s so sweet, I look at the photos over and over again until Gina calls to say are you still looking at those pictures?
I’m trying to stay connected to the air around but mostly above me, the sky pulling me into alignment. I have a boyfriend, shouldn’t everything be okay now? I just want to lie down and stay there, falling deeper into the bed floor ground earth until I dissolve. Or freeze—this is a stick-up! Where is that sky, clear blue the color of that fate I can’t hold onto, a robin’s egg falling falling until splat!
I’m trying to pull the wax out of my ears but the doctor already took it out. I still can’t hear a thing. He said it’s your jaw, take a Motrin twice a day for a week and you’ll be fine. I said all that will get me is a stomachache, but he didn’t laugh: he was the doctor and that was my prescription.
Jeremy calls and says I love you, not just I love you too and I’m jumping up and down, back flip, triple sous-cous or some other iceskating move I can’t even recognize, I had to look up the spelling of that one but oh what a feeling feeling feeling, stay on the ceiling. Andee calls: I think we’re on different time schedules, no that’s time zones, right, time zones. She says: some of these people in Berlin—I mean I like living here and all, but some of these people, I don’t think there’s a word in English for them. Or in German. Maybe that’s what I need to do—think of a word—I’ll think of a word, and then I’ll call you back.
Jeremy’s excited about the bathrooms at SF State—so many cocks to suck, so much come on the floors! He’s a grad student there now; studying linguistics because it seems easy and he can get financial aid so he doesn’t have to work for a while. I like that he doesn’t take it too seriously, and that he doesn’t want to work. I’m walking home from my trick and there’s a guy grabbing his dick, pretty soon I’m grabbing it too, and then I’m on my knees in the middle of the tourist district—snap a shot of this! The guy comes; his dog licks it up. I ask him if he lives with his boyfriend.
Walking home again and now I’m so much happier, thinking of the silhouette of the guy grabbing his crotch—really. Looking back and yes really, then we’re grabbing each other’s crotches until I get on my knees on the hard, yes so hard lovely cement. Rewind, rewind, rewind. Once a night on the cold warm streets inhabiting someone else’s desire would heal me.
Jeremy makes me do it; he makes me hook up over the internet. I hate the internet, but he keeps saying it’s so easy. It’s so easy. He hooks up with someone practically every day, sometimes before or after me and sure I’m jealous but I know it’s irrational to think Jeremy’s gonna leave me because someone else lives for him to pump that asshole like bread—you know, something easy to digest—but still I worry that I’ll be dumped for that talented individual’s special hole. Of course I don’t say anything. I’m a whore—I’m not supposed to get jealous.
I hook up with this guy Jerrold, who isn’t hot and rushes me out as soon as we come, why did I come? The next day, Jerrold emails me and says: I’m really nervous, there was precome on the outside of the condom, when was the last time you were tested? I email him back: don’t be ridiculous, we used a condom, relax. Then it’s Valentine’s Day, my first time celebrating it, or at least the first time in years. Jeremy and I get it on in the botanical garden, then he fucks me at the top of Buena Vista Park, I love listening to the trees shake in the wind, they make screeching sounds like some kind of mysterious bird. Later, we try something new: the bed. I shoot all over and Jeremy says don’t rub it in. We both like the covers untucked.
Jeremy says: you are my restaurant—what a hungry hungry hippo! Rue notices my new laugh, like a soft hum—is it because of Jeremy? Rhania leaves a message at 6:45 a.m.: I found someone you should start a club with. I call Rhania when I get up. She says: my father came over to give me a computer and I spent the whole time cleaning my room, do you think he noticed anything? Last night this guy gave me a chunk of glass and said hold this for me, I kept giving it away but I still have a big chunk left, though at least I don’t have to work tomorrow—or Tuesday.
Sucking Jeremy’s cock at the Powerhouse and everyone’s cheering him on: give him your load, make him eat it, give him your load! They always love it when he starts smacking my face with his dick. Afterwards, I feel so glamorous. Andee says: diamonds? Well, it came in a Tiffany box, but I think it’s cubic zirconium from the Quality Value Channel. Andee says Tiffany—as in, “I think we’re alone now . . .”
Andee’s been reading Dracula, and seeing the undead everywhere. At yoga, I’m lusting after this Abercrombie model; I just want to wax his car. Later, when he pulls on the jeans, I realize he’s the same Mr. Buff ’n’ Tuff from way-back-when, I died for him and it got me nowhere. I thought he was Eurotrash then, but turns out he’s got a New York accent; he seems as dense as a fence, but maybe I’m a fence sitter.
It must be the acupuncture, because I’m all the way to Union Square before I realize I need to eat, no I can’t just walk off this crazy wired energy. Okay, let me eat. Plus it’s Jeremy’s fault for getting me all sketched-out by being so wishy-washy, complaining about his plans to have sex with Mitch and Len, and then still choosing to hang out with them over me. I say who am I going to have sex with—all dramatic to hide the fact that I feel dramatic. Really I just want a tenhour hug. At least Rue’s home, I say I feel so edgy, falling off.
Meanwhile, I haven’t come in a week, so my trick is hilarious, I have to rush to the bathroom three times to piss so I don’t come. Jeremy and I are having our relationship conversation later on—I’m saving my come. The trick says: you remind me of my dog. Jeremy and I talk about our biggest fears—Jeremy’s afraid of losing his independence and I’m afraid of abandonment, is this a gendered relationship? Plus it’s like I’m the therapist, asking: what does that mean, losing your independence? Jeremy doesn’t want to feel obligated to call me; he just wants to call whenever he feels like it. I tell him I freak out when he doesn’t call me back; all I need is a quick hello. Jeremy doesn’t really agree to this, but he doesn’t say no either.
We talk about boundaries, Jeremy’s never been in a non-monogamous relationship and I’ve never been interested in monogamy. Not that Jeremy’s interested in monogamy; he’s excited that he finally doesn’t have to lie. Actually we have the exact same issues—I don’t want him to sleep with my close friends, he doesn’t want me to sleep with his—no problem, we each make a list, plus we agree that if we go out together, we go home together. Perfect.
Then Jeremy says would it bother you if I jerked off with someone in the bathroom right before meeting you, and then I didn’t want to have sex? I guess that’s what happened today. I call Rue for sleeping pills; can I just borrow a few and then give them back? My mind is a racehorse on the wrong steroids, without injection tranquilizers to cushion my demise, rise and shine! My digestion doesn’t work, I tried a lobotomy but now I can’t feel anything.
Rhania says: I’m getting sick because I’ve been crying, it wasn’t the crystal binge; it was those damn tears. I take Jeremy to see Alvin Ailey and damn it, just the hand choreography in “Revelations” is enough to make me cry, except that I’m holding it in while Jeremy holds my hand as I go from hot to cold to hot. There’s an incest flashback waiting in the ceiling but I don’t quite go there. Afterwards, we’re waiting at Cha-ya, the vegan Japanese restaurant in Berkeley, and Jeremy’s hungry, I’m grinding my dick against his leg and he’s embarrassed. The angry hippie crew watches us as we take a seat. What’s wrong—is there heroin in my hair?
On the highway, Jeremy wants me to jerk off and how did I get so hard, his fingers pumping the edge of my asshole, I want him to fuck me now. I don’t say anything b
ecause Jeremy’s in a rush to get free drinks at Moby Dick, but I should probably take advantage of moments like these when I’m actually craving it. Jeremy’s going to New York where he’ll be fucking this other guy named Jeremy who told Jeremy—I’m resisting calling him “my Jeremy”—anyway, this other Jeremy told Jeremy he was the best sex of his life. This other Jeremy is pussy-boy city and Jeremy loves that, but wait—Jeremy loves me, filling the holes in my other relationships. My asshole is less important, even if pulsating with symbolism.
Oh, the Power Exchange—well, the good news is that I get there by 12:30 and leave by 1:15. I dream about pissing in the pool at my grandmother’s apartment building. On the bus, this guy says I like your outfit; it looks like you escaped from a circus. At the beach, the almost-full moon is surrounded by a circle of light and clouds, Jayseh says that means there’s gonna be a hurricane. But we don’t have hurricanes here. Jayseh says I grew up here, and that’s what I learned in school—there’s gonna be a hurricane somewhere.
Zan calls to tell me this boy responded to his ad on gay.com with pictures of Jeremy fucking him. I get this shot of sadness and damn is that jealousy again? I need to clear that shit out; bring me the goddamn Dustbuster. Or never mind, I need something with super-high suction power, the thing that sucks all the water out of a swimming pool. Zan says how about my mouth? But girl, I thought you were a top.
So Many Ways to Sleep Badly Page 4