Because anything went at the Highwire, because
Gaetan had a vaunted place, as Mary & Abby did,
because Gaetan was intermittently one to travel
with an entourage, no one was surprised to find
Anastasia, with her crew, pacing the polished wooden
floors, knocking back red wine, huffing nitrous,
& putting up the requisite inaccessible, impervious
front to those foolhardy enough to believe they could
approach her. I, for instance, knew the ropes, & had
too much to do anyway. Except, at some point in
the night’s festivities, all the junk in Anastasia’s brain,
everything frozen, lazy-loafing, shy of approach, all
the nights spent following other people around, waiting
to be signaled, signals sent back registering ranking,
caught up with her at last, & she exploded. Gaetan
was exasperated to find her sitting in one of the windows
of the gallery’s west-facing façade, threatening to jump.
Gaetan was a cool customer, but hit him with something
unhinged, he would go into warrior mode, brusquely
brush off those inexpert, & set to work. We all watched
as Gaetan leveled with Anastasia, whose drunkenness
was not helping her, leading her to understand that
the situation was hardly hopeless. She had a real life,
friends, purpose, & everyone here cared about her.
The party, as an entirety, you would think ceased, yet
it did not. Not all the revelers realized the drama unfolding.
Even those who did drunkenly chose to trust Gaetan. I
did too, was right to. Philly fixed Jersey that night, as was its wont.
Heather is easily misinterpreted. She goes to bed with me for complex reasons: because she has pity for this underling artist, who tries so hard to be recognized; because this underling artist gives her treats (a public forum for her own underling art); because she finds him hard to resist after a few drinks; and because, lo and behold, she is genuinely aroused by what happens when these things are investigated. I don’t have many interpretations of Heather; she’s average height, average weight, a face more handsome than beguilingly pretty (sort of a WASP Frida Kahlo, heavy eyebrows, thick lips, dark hair that rides her head in waves). But what happens in bed is so climactic that it takes us beyond our self-serving interpretations. This is a woman who gives; every inch of her is covered in desire, which can (and must) be fulfilled. Heather likes sex more than any other woman I’ve slept with. She screams, bites, moans, and there is such a delicious fluidity to her movements that, despite her near-homeliness, I am moved to do the same thing. Heather is teaching me how rare it is to find a partner who loves these processes, who makes sex a manifestation of spiritual generosity. We’re both almost thirty; I’ve never seen someone who contains both the generosity and the sense of comfort Heather has in the physical act.
In this favorite game, and when youth is involved, women often hold the cards. Heather has decided that we will have two nights, no more. There is something in me that wants and needs her too much. She is too touched, too moved. It’s safer just to flush the thing. I don’t particularly realize this, as we sit at the Cherry Street Tavern. All I know is an anxious feeling that I’m going on a trip and Heather is giving me a warm goodbye. It is a trip involving my art and my sense is that I’m going to get killed. Heather, she knows privately, is about to kill me too. She puts in her diaphragm and when I come, it is an exquisite lunge into some variant of heaven. Her intake of breath tells me that she is getting my stream. She might even be frightened that the diaphragm is punctured. Amidst all the peace and its benignity is the sense that things are getting out of hand. This is unsanctioned intercourse, out of mutual dependence; Heather feels this too much. So that, when I get back from my ten days in New England (where I have, in fact, been killed), Heather is nowhere to be found. That part of her that took my streams is loathe to take any more, too happy, too at peace. I learn that Heather represents that great portion of humanity that wants to be in pain. Ecstasy is a dead end street; it is too unreliable, too jumpy. Heather now goes for guys that give her the manner and form of the pain she wants, and not too much of the nice stuff.
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