What struck me as so odd, however, was the countenance worn by Vinati during, and particularly after, the act that is colloquially known as making love. (It is a conceptually spurious outlook on sex, as love has its origins around and within sex, though copulation is by no means explicitly reserved for creating the fog of love in two people: it is responsible only for galvanizing those sentiments, assuming that they are there. Love is not restricted to the bedroom; it can be created and made epic with the most simplistic of acts — I've seen lovers at their most tender sharing a box of fried chicken in Cobble Hill Park, huddled together on a bench awaiting the three am D train, passing a cigarette back and forth in the din of Times Square. This is not to say that sexuality and eroticism obfuscate the purity of love; it's simply that these two are components of love, necessary but not sufficient.) In the light of the moon I watched her surrender to the sensation of tiny death — the deeper breaths, the tightening of her thighs around my hips, the increase in speed with which she forced herself up and then down, the ferocity with which she bucked back and forth, swirling, moaning, speaking in tongues or Hindi or some language with a purely internal lexicon. I watched her, drank in the sight of her surrender, and I noticed that her expression did not appear to be a display of ecstasy or even pleasure. No, it seemed to be a look of terror — terror, perhaps, that I was both capable of producing and witness to the Big Moment.
As I lay watching her sleep, I cannot help but think about this. I try to write it off, to once again lose myself in the presence of her naked body. Cast your fate to the wind — you're in love, Charlie Brown. No, not love. The potential for love. Maybe.
I had watched Connie, my previous girlfriend, sleep (Gabrielle with pillow, with blanket, in twin bed recumbent, alone). It isn't one of those things that I like to admit; it certainly isn't something that I have revealed to her or those who know her. It was a reflex. It is a reflex. Some may stare to the ocean to find that moment of peace; personally, I see it in the tranquility of others, a form of empathy that is somewhat rare because it doesn't concern happiness or misery. I continue staring to Vinati for a long while and anticipate that she is soon to wake up (because they always seem to sense your eyes); yet she remains defiantly asleep, the halcyon moment uninterrupted.
After a few minutes, I lift myself and place my feet upon the cool wood floor. I look upon the heaps of clothing with its myriad shadows succumbing to the gray light of dawn-through-the-blinds; soon I am combing through the articles in this mound hoping to find something with which to cover myself. A towel is the best option available. I make my way to the bathroom.
A condom greets me in the toilet. It's a nice reminder of the previous night's experience, one that I will probably come to revisit frequently. In conventional parlance, it has been placed in the spank bank. Then again, it may come to pass that sex with her becomes the norm for the coming months, years. Will that make it any less special? Is that what happened with Connie? Is that something that all men are doomed to feel? Is that something that all people are doomed to feel?
It's difficult to establish any clear reference point as to how Vinati sees this whole thing. Ilkay has said “She's weird with relationships.” What that means is anyone's guess. He wouldn't elaborate. Was it a need for a quick release or a desire for something of substance? From here will we attempt to create a symbiotic relationship founded on a mutual love for one another? Will we engage in one of those shallow, give-and-take enterprises, complete with poorly contrived histrionics arising out of that tedium that is known so eloquently as settling? Or will we remain two autonomous drifters who just happened to share a bed for a night, who will never share so much as an earnest conversation ever again? Posing successive questions is certainly a nuisance, isn't it?
These are clearly not the only possibly scenarios; they do seem to be the most likely, however. Still, it is probably not the best idea to try to divine the future of the relationship, if any, from the Coney Island whitefish lazily floating around the bowl. So I set it free, down into the nether regions to live with its brethren. They swim there, the whitefish, trading stories and living in the past (it's an existence not at all unlike the image of heaven as painted by the boring and the dim). Not that it's all fun and games down there — at least not since a good portion of the croc population became addicted to crack. It wasn't their fault, though — the crocs, that is. They are instinctively drawn to bright-colored objects; and the balloons that started appearing during the eighties — sometimes due to hasty flushing, sometimes due to an impending bust — were bound to attract some attention. So it was an accident — the crack addiction. The attacks upon the whitefish, on the other hand, are mistakes. They, the crocs, are not known for their brilliant sight, and, to be fair, the difference between a balloon and a condom is fairly insignificant until one considers the uses the two serve. But this has nothing to do with Vinati and the situation on this side of the toilet. A beautiful woman is naked in the next room, and I have no idea how to maintain either of those temporary, perhaps temporal, qualities.
We train ourselves not to question in this manner: avoid anticipation, avoid disappointment. It's one of those banal aphorisms that the cynical pass down to those of us too eager and green to recognize that intuition is just another word for induction. Yet it's impossible to ignore the desire to decipher the silent language uttered by the woman sleeping in the other room. Do they, women, go through this, too? Or is this one of those things that men have to experience, and then lie about when asked if it happens to them? We certainly have a lot of those, don't we? The reflection in the mirror can't keep a straight face. He's clearly still thinking about last night as opposed to the consequences of today, so perhaps it is best not to address any more questions to him until he has had a chance to calm down some. Then again, prosopopoeia may be my only means of interlocution for some time.
What am I supposed to do? Should I be passive and let her decide how this thing pans out? It seems to be the safest option unless she wants someone who's assertive. But all women want that, don't they? Well, yes, unless it impugns their independence. But that's kind of the point of being assertive, isn't it? You make decisions, and people are left with the option of either following suit or getting the fuck out of your way. So, really, if you want someone to be receptive to your assertiveness, you need to either hope that they appreciate the assertive type or anticipate that they are passive enough to go by what you say. Welcome back to square one. Being passive means you're a pussy; being assertive means you're a dick. And, as it is for an asexual, neither organ seems all that appealing. And why did Natasha go back to Hycroft Drive without her Valtrex?
As I walk into the kitchen to get myself a glass of water, I am confronted by the smell of cigarette smoke. Unless Vinati has picked up the habit in the past five minutes, this doesn't make any sense. I notice a wispy trail coming form the unscreened window. I poke my head out. On the fire escape sits a stout woman with wet hair and a flush face. She wears a robe with an emblem of Warner Brothers cartoon character on the left breast. She looks to me with confusion, peers down to my towel, up to my dry hair, and then smiles. “Upstars,” as she point to herself. “Mi husband, he no like…uh…smoke,” she says in a voice that I can only describe as small. She smiles again.