We should refill our glasses and toast to the Bear God
◊ I made a deal with Dan: we'd both write about last night. I've been chewing all day on how to start and now I'm two beers down and half-drunk and tired and it still doesn't look any easier, so I might as well throw myself in.
So: at a party I went to this weekend, I ended up messing around with someone. It was rough, but he'd asked me if I liked it rough. I said yes. Now I'm sore and stiff and I look like I lost a fight. I don't even know how I got some of these bruises.
I know how bad it looks. The bruises are excessive, but hey — I'm in the mood for excess. And it's nothing I didn't want at the time.
That's the thing I can't seem to make Dan understand: It's OK. I knew what I was doing and I enjoyed it. Beating the crap out of this guy would make no sense; you might as well beat the crap out of me.
Anyway.
I knew when I talked to Dan on the phone yesterday that I was in for a long night of talking and crying. We talked for a while at Jeff's when I picked him up and things seemed a little better for a while before I inadvertently fucked things up again in my usual manner on the ride home.
Fuck.
I can't be well-behaved long enough to drive back from San Mateo without hurting Dan all over again.
Some people can cook. Some can play the piano. Apparently I am a hurting-Dan prodigy.
We made it home, spending half the drive in awkward silence. We'd been in the kitchen for probably two minutes when I showed him the bruises. No sense trying to hide them, right? Dan looked like he'd been punched in the face.
Actually, he probably looked like I'd been punched in the face.
So.
It's almost a ritual now. Even when we can barely bring ourselves to speak to each other, we crack the ice cubes and pour the whiskey and fill the Zippos with lighter fluid, arming ourselves for another long night on the porch.
I knew what I needed. I needed talk and sex.
Please excuse my literary metaphors:
I needed the talk to be Vonnegut-simple and Vonnegut-clear.
I needed the sex to be Brautigan-gentle and Brautigan-sad.
We settled in on the porch with our drinks and our smokes and we talked. It was the kind of talk that only makes sense after two glasses of whiskey and a million cigarettes. Repeating it would be a mockery.
It would also be impossible because, fuck it, I was drunk and I don't even want to remember it for you, my faceless audience. If you've ever stared into a glass of whiskey and tried to think of just the right words, you already know what I said.
I know I told some ghost stories about my first boyfriend, stories I'd buried and thought I'd forgotten. There were a lot more sad stories than nice ones, but I guess that's how it goes with some people.
And then.
It's been so long since I teased anyone that I'd forgotten what it was like. I'd be sucking Dan's fingers or kissing his throat and I'd stop and smoke a cigarette just so I could start all over again a few minutes later.
And we talked and we teased and we talked and we talked and we were driven back inside by the cold.
We danced to Tom Waits and I know I cried more. And he took off my sweater and my shirt and I told him I needed him to be gentle. I don't know if he knows how hard it was to ask it. I'm not very good at being fragile.
He treated me like I was made of spun glass and spiderwebs and dandelion fluff. Every lick, every stroke, every slide of skin on skin was perfect.
I wish that last night were enough to fix everything, but nothing is. I'm so sure I can do nothing but hurt him and he's so sure that he's not enough.
I get the feeling we're both being very, very stupid.
Well, fuck it. Here's to stupid. Sometimes it's all we know how to do.