But what to do then in that particular relationship when all is said and understood? There’s not a thing, I tell her, that I’ve experienced from you that I haven’t done either to you or someone else, or thought in my brain. Even my ideas make themselves manifest in my reality, so I can see the truth of them. And a lot of my ideas and actions have been foolhardy, I see that now. I hope I can get better.
We talk a lot. We talk for three hours and a half hours in the café and it’s pretty exciting and meaningful and I share a lot of my latest thinkings about relationships and life and what with all the openness and connection – and the way her top keeps slipping down to reveal ample bosom and brassiere – I start to feel, also, the stirrings of lust and sexual attraction. In fact, I find her unbelievably sexy. I get thoughts in my brain about suggesting to go off to the toilets for a fumble. Thoughts I don’t release.
I’m trying to be a little bit wiser. It’s one thing to think those things – I forgive myself that – but a whole other thing to put them into words. The wise man probably avoids taking that step. The wise man smiles as he watches those thoughts arise and figures they’ll more than likely subside at some point and, in any case, what possible benefit could come from any kind of physical union, beyond a short-term buzz? Seems like these days I’m looking for a little bit more than that. Plus, a cessation to romantically-induced headaches.
We leave the café. She suggests we keep talking and go back to mine and make some food. I’m all for that, seems like the natural thing to do. She says what a good time it’s been and I agree. You know though, I say, it’s pretty annoying. I came here thinking this would be it, that I wouldn’t want to see you again after this. Felt like I was happy when we weren’t having any contact and then when we did have contact it just made me unhappy. But now I feel happy again. It is a little bit annoying – but whatever part of me that genuinely forgives and understands everything, once everything’s been expressed, is in full motion and I feel nothing but goodness, save a slight niggle over the whole Ireland thing. No matter, though, I’m determined this thing isn’t going to go anywhere.
We shop. We cook. We keep on talking and I guess we’ve been talking seven hours now, easy and fun. We’re up in my room with candles and quiet music sitting on the floor. She’s looking at me intently. I’m not sure what to say so I ask her how she feels. She says she feels good and asks me how I feel. I say I feel good too – and, in the spirit of honesty – the kind of honesty I hope to inspire in others – I say I feel a little bit lusty. I say it ‘cos it’s true and I hope that saying it will help it disappear, move me beyond it, as it so often does. She says she feels a little bit lusty too. I tell her saying it seems to have dissipated it, ask her if the same has happened for her. But she says no.
I play a Gong album and we lie separately on the floor listening to it with closed eyes and doing hand dances. The Gong is amazing and there’s maybe no finer way to listen to it than lying in the dark with a woman who’s also listening to it and digging it too.
It’s getting late and she says she ought to go. Yawns a little. But doesn’t make a move. I get up. Get a bit fidgety. Lay back down.
She rests her hand at the top of my thigh, says she’s feeling pretty aroused, talks about how good it feels by the radiator and what it would be like to fall asleep there.
I know getting her to go will be the right thing. Climbing alone into my bed and sleeping content and uncluttered. Bringing myself to orgasm if I really need to release whatever sexual energy has been generated by the day’s proceedings. Something uncomplicated and without consequence.
But, wow, all these hours we’ve been but a foot or two apart and how sexy and appealing and attractive I’ve found her. The casual revealing of her milky-white belly and cleavage. The emotional and intellectual closeness and the connection. And the knowing that she’s feeling it too.
Except, all at the same time there are thoughts of wanting morality and not wanting to give in to the desire for trifles and baubles. The knowledge of the headaches that brings, and the knowledge of the headaches she specifically brings to me. Thoughts of her and this whole Ireland thing and whatever’s going on there. Hardly fair on this other guy. And hardly fair on me.
I could have ended up having sex there with a woman I find almost impossibly alluring and with whom I share a deep and powerful emotional connection. I know what it would have been like and I know that it would have been awesome – at least on one level. But, the thing is, I’m trying to work on other levels now, and on other levels, probably, it would have sucked. I want more than that. I don’t want to be used. I don’t want to be this woman’s plaything.
She walks back into my life confessing sins of selfishness and treating me badly and then makes it clear she’d like to spend the night with me again, all the while having something going on with someone else in a country she’s planning to move to, and all the while knowing how she’s hurt me and how I want more than mere sex and how I’m trying to regain my morality.
Then again, it’s not for me to judge what she wants for herself, but for me to live my own life and live what’s best for me. These things are sent to try us. My beliefs and theories about life and about myself needing to be tested and experienced in the real world, for better or for worse.
I once had ideas about free love and I got to see the truth of those.
It was a truth whose fruit didn’t taste so good.
And now I have ideas about going beyond sex again. Delayed gratification. And keeping things simple.
When she leaves I think, Christ, I had no idea she was such a lusty broad, plain and simple. She really can flit from one man to the other without much care.
When I climb into bed I feel glad that I avoided it. She’s gotten back in my head to a certain extent, and I’m not sure how I feel about that, but it’s not a fraction as bad as it could have been.
Still, I did open the door once more to her, the conversation and the connection and the shared outlook on life so potentially amazing, and upset of the past healed once more. I don’t know why I forgive so easily. Maybe I am just too nice. But all former transgressions were forgotten, and even her thing in Ireland does seem like a trifle. I mean, I’ve had my trifle, I know how inconsequential they can be from the inside, no matter how big a deal it might be for others. But seeing myself in others, I guess, helps me somewhat to see what it is from their inside too, beyond my petty foolish man/boyhood insecurities and jealousies. I dunno…
No sex, but once more a little confused anyway. Happy without her but an undeniable attraction and desire and hope when we’re together. And then thoughts of how it didn’t work when we were ‘properly together’ anyway. And then reminders of how much we’ve been through over the past few months.
But I guess ultimately I don’t trust her. She’s been selfish and treated me poorly and I’ve seen no real evidence to suggest a genuine change of heart in that. I mean, she’s apologised and maybe realised one or two things – but the fact that she would have gone to bed with again doesn’t sit so well with me. And no explanation over this Ireland guy and what’s going on there. Maybe him just getting fucked with too. Maybe the whole thing so simply understood as a lusty girl lacking in scruples going for what she wants and what she wants is sex.
I’ve been brought up to think more of women than that. To put them on pedestals and buy into that whole “fairer sex” thing. To swallow the idea that it’s men who think that way and that we’re the bad ones and the ones controlled by the whims of our pants. And every now and then I catch a glimpse of the world that makes me feel everything I’ve been taught about that was wrong.
A lusty broad. A foolish, trusting guy. The way we first slept together after not that many hours of non-sexual interaction in the first place. And then for three years she was in my head and heart.
Is it as simple as that? And have I broken through into something by finally saying no?
In any case, I guess I still wake feeling a little bit drawn back into something and also, perhaps, hoodwinked. She was in the doghouse and she knew she was in a fairly major way – and she talked herself out of it to such an extent that she almost got me dangling on that hook once again.
I’m just too nice! I mean, I do genuinely feel only fondness and gladness and want to encourage and share good times and this is who I am – but, man, I’ve got to be careful. Employ a bit of wisdom. Not neglect my badass side. Know what’s good for me and stick to that. If there’s anything real between us it’ll come out without needing to resort to sex, just as it will with Laura. Sex, schmecks – you know what I mean? I think it’s time to get me born again in some good old chaste Christian morals – and not the ones that allow anything but virginal. There’s always the right hand if I need to release a bit of pressure and keep the prostate well-oiled and cancer free. Not that I generally bother with that so often. At least up until recently.
And on that note…
Days since:
Eating a 500g bag of dates (0)
Showing someone a red card (2)
Eating fish and chips (3)
Sharing a bed with a girl (5)
Wanking (6)
Sharing a bath (10)
Starting a new job (13)
Kissing (26)
Having sex (27)
Crying (32)
Cooking something other than an egg sandwich or dhal (42)
Making it up with my mum (47)
Working on the sequel to Discovering Beautiful (48)
Hitchhiking (114)
Graduating with an MA (133)
Driving (314)
Drinking a very weak shandy (618)
Being in another country (634)
Sleeping in a graveyard (722)
Having my picture taken/taking a picture (736)
Having my picture taken/taking a picture (736)
Eating chocolate/sugar/a biscuit, etc (753)
Falling out with my mum (775)
Making it up with my mum (776)
Having sex with somebody new (785)
Sleeping in a concrete tube (810)
Buying some clothes other than jeans, socks or sportswear (966)
Publishing a book (1029)
Doing a healing (1318)
Sleeping in a building doorway (1322)
Dancing naked atop a Mayan pyramid (1336)
Drinking something stronger than a very weak shandy (1383)
Appearing on a TV show (1549)
Eating meat (1388)
Crashing a car (1666)
Working a job with payslips (1751)
Being tipsy (1768)
Riding on a freight train (1908)
Falling out with my mum (2040)
Standing on American soil (2300)
Living in a caravan (3557)
Working as a postman (3966)
Headbutting a Frenchman (4397)
Being drunk (5235)
Getting arrested (5378)
Being on American soil legally (5765)
Wearing underwear (5926)
Losing my virginity (7528)
Discovering Everton (10250)
Getting born (13599)
And:
Days until I have to move house (3)
Things I’ve done about finding a new place to live (0)
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