Sludge Utopia Read online

  * * *

  At a very, very good party Ivan hosted last weekend, I met Helena’s brother, Oreste. We got along well. He’s a comedian. He wrote to say it was great to meet, and Helena, having gotten wind of it, asked, too, if I’d like to come see him perform tomorrow night. Of course, I must. And for the first time in some time, I’m terrified. He seems collected, witty, kind, worthwhile.

  I’ve been loving this summer, but I cannot keep up.

  * * *

  Spent the night with Oreste after his show. I barely even have language for this. It was just—it was perfect. I am so excited by him. I love the way he speaks and I love what he says and I love the symmetry in our speech and I feel very nervous without feeling self-conscious, certainly never being made to feel so, and he doesn’t seem to possess meanness at all. Oreste is very smart and very witty but never pretentious and never snide. Always attentive. Always attentive. Never too fumbly (I am more so than him—it is certain). I am frightened and lucky. OK. I assumed Helena had invited me to see Oreste as a sort of setup, and I assumed it was due to communication that the two of them had shared. I was a bit correct. Helena later told me that this constituted “thirty per cent” of her intention. And Oreste, for his part, seemed to be caught off guard by this conclusion when I brought it up to him after his set. He seemed worried about my professional relationship to Helena, and then I felt very embarrassed and very foolish to have wrongfully assumed that Oreste might have told Helena he was interested in me. After this misunderstanding, I thought he was merely attempting to shield me from hurt and embarrassment for a few minutes while we both finished our drinks. He offered to walk me to my bike, and we spoke nervously about nothing for a few more minutes, and then I hugged him goodbye. He reached for my arm, and I gave him one single, apprehensive kiss—pulling right back—but, as I realized he wanted this, I sprung forward for another, and that one lasted. See: I don’t even know how to recount this kiss to sufficiently convey how this kiss felt or what was done to me by this kiss. It was vexing. Just, I don’t know, each sensation perfectly balanced; everything hit just the right note; we got in so close to each other; it lasted for a few minutes. A hard smack in the face. The thought of walking twenty-plus minutes to either of our apartments wasn’t pleasant to face: I biked and he took a taxi. And then, at mine, no disappointments. He’s so great! Love kissing him. Incredible stamina. Great grip, lots of pinning down, lots of everything. It was too much! It was unlike any first time I’ve had with anyone, I think—I think? Pretty sure. I just couldn’t believe it and could not have asked for more. Conversation in the morning (and second fuck): great. He’s very polite, very respectful, and I’m anxious not to say things that are objectionable, but that’s the worst it gets, I guess.

  * * *

  Oreste makes me feel eerily sure of wanting to be near Oreste. Not even wanting—a feeling of, what else? What other decision would I make? Finally, I’m not choosing between men in a series of qualifying binaries—yes, I’m stimulated but not turned on, I’m turned on but terrorized, I’m calmed but not enthralled. I don’t know. He inspires all of these good feelings in me, satisfies everything he needs while never frightening me or making me feel inadequate. I feel “natural” with him, exactly myself, able to articulate things exactly how I’d like, never either venerated or ignored, and I’m so turned on by him. Finally, I can look to someone for everything—and such a circumstance makes my desires easier to control. I have no compulsions toward him, no feeling of mania. He says I seem incredibly comfortable with myself, in myself. With him, I am. I’m managing not to feel frightened absolutely to death of when something disrupts this. I just cannot envision not wanting to be with him. He has surpassed so many expectations. He’s wonderful! Perhaps he’s no more wonderful than I am and, finally, we’ve found the other with whom we’re properly compatible. It does feel like what I imagine others have meant by compatibility all this time. I met him eight days ago. We’ve spent the night together twice. All the same. Why would I want to stop? No other men in sight. Just none. I don’t feel nostalgic and I don’t feel the urge to “test” myself before others. This is the fucking best.

  I’m at a loss for even being able to properly describe how I feel about Oreste to friends. Infatuated? Well—not simply. The immediate ease of being with him resembles no previous involvement. And he doesn’t leave this aching impression behind upon me. I’m not worried. How has this circumstance been so kind?

  * * *

  MY LORD, WHAT LUCK TO BE IN SUCH A BLISSFUL FEELING.

  It’s like I’m on only the good parts of Cipralex. Had beers with Caroline last night and she could tell, too. Things in my head are very sunny. What do Oreste and I even say to each other? I never remember. I love to be touched by him. Feels perfect. Any impression he makes upon me is the right one. So much warmth. Into it.

  * * *

  Blaise says, in life there are two things: learning new words and learning new ways to fuck (my interpretation: new ways to enjoy, new desires to discover that one has, or has had all along). Say, this is true. Then, I think, it is very good to live.

  What a warm blanket I’ve had draped over me for days. I feel secure and peaceful, constantly. I don’t see only Oreste. I see lots of lovely friends in lovely life. Summer is drawing quickly to a close! Final Monday shift at the library tomorrow, three shifts left at the café—then one week off—my Lord! And then: another year of classes begins.

  * * *

  Even my digestion has improved. I don’t understand what happens when I feel well. Keep living? Like this? My God. I think more when I’m upset. And those thoughts speed time’s passage. Days enjoyed are so slow. Ivan’s party was two and a half weeks ago? This is possible? These weeks, unequivocally wonderful, have been, I fucking swear, the longest of my life.

  Still scary, though, insofar as desire for Oreste leads me to believe that I must be less to him than he is to me, not due to mistreatment on his part, but simply due to this feeling that the entirety of my being is a more minimal thing than my interest in him. And he must know, right? He is working to supplement me, so what I feel for him is gratitude for this. He should tire of me, I’m sure, just as I do when I am larger to others than they are to me.

  * * *

  Feeling a little apprehensive today. You know what is annoying about myself? This fucking precious optimism all the goddamned time. For a few weeks, I have either been waking early to go to work or waking with Oreste, and today I did neither. This allowed me to enter a quiet space of contemplation, which is safe for only so long.

  I’m sure I feel this way often, but I just don’t think my own thoughts are valuable lately. I feel like my mind is lazy and not attuned to all it once was. The pleasure of working so much, constantly being available to serve others in this underconsidered way, is alleviating to stress, but then I return to myself and, only after so long, thought improves, but I feel worse. So. I don’t know. I don’t know where the compromise is.

  Two days ago, went to visit Max on the island after work (he is there for one week), ran into friends, and suddenly it was an arrangement totally of another kind, with hours spent drifting on a small boat in smiling company, and a quiet barbecue at a house on Ward’s. The perfect summer afternoon and evening, truly.

  I should feel a bit inadequate, right? That just means it matters to me. This lovely neutral place where I feel neither inadequate nor superior: well, that’s just how I feel when I’m actually with him.

  * * *

  On the street today, some man handed me a business-card-sized advert for God, and is this really in the Bible? It’s sort of good:

  GOD: If there is anything separating me from you, please take it.

  Reminds me otherwise: YOU ARE LOVED/YOU ARE LOVED/MY FRIEND/YOU ARE LOVED/BY JESUS/GOD IS LOVE. Poetry.

  Still, Oreste has not decided to leave me. What luck. Spending time with him is exquisite. There are so
few blockages. I always feel good around him, and I never feel like it takes much effort. He says of me (when I want, but he is too tired, to fuck in the morning), you’re so energetic! But I don’t feel that way. Before him, I don’t feel like I must drum up any energy at all; I always feel exactly prepared for the particular demands of being with this person. And further still, he gives me whatever energy I need. It never feels like surfeit; it’s never too much. I have exactly what I need before him, and it doesn’t leave too much residue behind. I don’t feel I much need God’s love.

  God, it’s so strange not to drink too much and not to say too much and not to sleep around and not to sabotage. A picture of control without restraint. Who knew I could display it. It’s just so fucking easy.

  Worked final day at the café yesterday. Though I enjoyed my summer there, it didn’t feel like much to have it end. I suppose that means I’m not anxious for what is next.

  Depression

  On the evenings I enjoy most, I wish I could masturbate without porn, which I find tacky and ugly.

  * * *

  I’m finally feeling a bit of anxiety regarding Oreste, with whom I suppose I couldn’t possibly sit in a bed of flowers forever. It’s still good, but it lacks the remarkable ease with which it began. I fear that without the same explosiveness, I might become boring to him. How soon can such a thing happen? We only fucked in the morning the first couple of nights we spent together. I find it difficult not to reveal my fear of growing boring, adding to the threat. He’ll see that I’m not as comfortable with myself as he thought.

  “Stimulating”: intellectual/sexual: different meanings: the first beginning an active process of thought, continuous past that beginning; the other just allowing/facilitating an experience of pleasure.

  All good things coming. Um. Maybe just not as many times per night as before—

  * * *

  What do I write privately when I’ve already shared everything with Oreste and Helena? I have no reason to feel nerves with Oreste because, on one occasion, he left my apartment to do stand-up at one in the morning. Hard to get used to the sort of involvement where this wouldn’t signal a renunciation.

  Had some wine in the park with Marianne. She slept with Julian this summer (post-baptism, naturally), and he told her, first, that he’d slept with a prostitute earlier that day and, second, that he “wished [her] mind was like [her] vagina.” She said he couldn’t stay hard. And that she picked him up as he was reading the Bible alone at a dad-jazz bar. Thanks to the Lord that I am detached.

  Oreste joked that if I wanted to do a stand-up set, he could certainly get me one. Sort of made me desire it. I don’t think I’d be able to come up with a single joke that didn’t involve sex. At least laterally. I don’t think one should do stand-up if a man she is sleeping with offers to facilitate this. Specifically not if he is joking himself.

  Left Toronto briefly. Have really been having the slowest, calmest, most wonderful time in Montreal. Final weekend of summer going splendidly. Meditating on what I get so nervous about re: Oreste, fearing that I will seem or become boring. It’s so absurd. First meeting, he admired my slowness. It’s foolish that I might have behaved initially with such ease, and now, learning to feel anxiety again, I compromise this. Return. There’s no reason not to feel this ease. There’s nothing I must rush to display, nor anything I must rush to cover up. He’s with you on purpose. Feel fine.

  * * *

  Oreste is not forcing me to do comedy and I cannot bring myself to admit that I would like to.

  Thought when secretly devising stand-up set that, OK, the primary ethical conundrum of a woman’s sexual life is how to take the reality of a world that does not work in her favour—a world of desire that subjugates her—and learn to get off on this, while behaving in a manner that is ethical such that, perhaps, you might change the landscape of sexual desire for women who come up after you. You must allow for a better future while getting off on its present. Just needs a punchline.

  Reading Dora in a café. OK, in the midst of Dora’s father’s failings, she feels attracted to his friend, and fantasizes, on occasion, that they will wed. Despite this, she, recognizing him as a seducer, pushes him away to save herself from this attraction. What Freud tells Dora will not change her life. It’s lovely for Freud to have invented for himself a fantasy of a time where catharsis might be enough. Now we must live with hyper-attended knowledge of our neuroses—choosing which to nourish and which to starve, and how, exactly, to indulge those neuroses we should. There is so much objectionable content in Dora (so much), but perhaps the worst of it is that Freud attests—maybe even in earnest—that if Dora hadn’t left treatment just on the brink of his simple breakthrough, she might have been “cured” of her hysteria. She would be cured of her hysteria because her doctor could tell her of the preciousness of her love for this irresponsible seducer—so she could know very well: I wish to put in place this man I can fuck for a father whose attentions left me? How far from this knowledge might Dora have actually been? Upon such a realization comes the hard work: one must live, still, an entire life dealing with the disappointments and difficulties upon which such an unpleasant fantasy could be founded in the first place.

  On giving oneself up and what it looks like: I feel prohibited from letting Oreste know that I am anxious for contact from him, or how I relish it, or that I wish our contact between seeing each other could be of slightly stronger sexual/emotional content, because I feel like this would relinquish control of myself to him in a way that is, chiefly? Not attractive. I don’t think it would turn him on to play with this thing I give him: oh, immediately as I hear from you, I feel good; otherwise, I feel terrible! He has other business to attend to sometimes, and this sort of behaviour is demented. I have things to attend to, too. I’m often slow with him. Is this pacing resistance? Is Freud correct in saying that all emotion is experienced, like orgasm, as continuous buildup of tension to a point of release? I’d prefer not.

  How about the injunction that we all should sublimate—be better Freudians—in order to keep our desires in frisson, building pressure to burst forth from contained spaces, rather than to release prematurely and thus relinquish—or even to simply squander—our emotions? What of that I think it sucks.

  Hold the phone, I just realized for-sure for-sure that it’s really fucking tough not to behave exactly as you’re used to behaving all the fucking time (I don’t get exactly the attention I want from Oreste; I want to throw the relationship, and him, under a fucking cargo van).

  “It’s just enough” as (always) code for: “It could really be a bit more.”

  Basically, with love, I want to think nothing. I just want to live in the fragrance of it. And never see Oreste again and come home and fuck the shit out of Paul.

  * * *

  First thing: Oreste is not Julian, nor Max, nor anyone or anything else. Major difficulties with projection cause me to replicate each old lover as a new one, put them beside each other so they resemble one another, interpret actions of some variety so that all motives are the same. But this is not true. It’s not even true that I’m attracted, always, to the same sort of man, just as it’s not true that they’re all bound to treat me the same way unless I invite them to do so. Oreste is not the same. Oreste is concerned with ethics, and not terribly good at communicating things of a delicate nature. God, I like Oreste.

  Was not incorrect to notice a pullback on his behalf. Last night, he told me that a friend of his is drafting up papers for a visa so that he may move to Los Angeles this fall. Oh, OK. This was brought up following Oreste’s having forgotten, apparently, the morning he mentioned wanting to find an apartment here in October, and maybe a secondary job outside comedy to stabilize his days. He said of this, he would like to settle, but Toronto is not the city.

  We had this conversation at a bar, not terribly close to either of our beds, and I was certain we were meeting s
o I could be told he didn’t want to see me any longer. But apart from discussing his uncertainty about Toronto, we didn’t really discuss things between us at all—or we did, a few things, playfully and easily. He said he was happy for the change in scenery, feels like he barely knows me in public. I told him, too, about feeling specifically compromised by only ever having him to my apartment, that he has the opportunity to view all these extensions of me, that I feel comparatively so much on display. He seemed intrigued and hadn’t even considered this—“I can send you pictures of my old apartment, if you’d like.”

  * * *

  Safety in lost objects: they certainly can’t deprive you of anything more. Slightly sick with unknowing this autumn. It’s insane to me how long spaces in between seeing Oreste actually feel. Unpunctuated. It’s strange to even feel the desire that wants a cock, specifically, inside. I frequently want a kiss, a little affection, but not to be penetrated, which sometimes quickly annoys. Not lately! My Lord. I so desire penetration. Specifically. From one.

  Binge-drank for the first time in a while, again, on Thursday, for my course union’s “bonding” drinks. I have such an urge to economize when it comes to drinks free of cost. Started drinking earlier than anyone else alone with Maurice. Confided in him my sadness regarding the situation with Oreste, realized aloud: no, I really don’t have any idea where things go from here, how things are, even, at present.

  Interlude: it is crazy how much better masturbation has been lately. I am delivering some unnatural orgasms to myself. Get so excited—so excited!—by smiles and the touching of faces. I daydream about Oreste to serious excess. My best hopes are to turn him on even a fraction as much. I can’t even tell him this stuff because this isn’t the sort of dialogue we carry on. It isn’t the sort of dialogue he likes to carry on. I just have to be impossibly turned on, so often, completely alone. It’s a lot to carry. So I’m looking real fucking forward to when Oreste is back in my GD apartment so I can put what I can’t speak into practice.