Borderline: 2015 06 19

2015 06 19

C used to be called K — we were livejournal friends in 2002. Later we became Facebook friends when that was a thing. If I were going to say that we’ve kept in touch (we haven’t really; ever) she would be the person I’ve kept in touch with the longest. But in fact it would be most accurate to say that we were strangers who happened to read others' blogs when we were teenagers.

C was a pretty girl in Kansas who could write really well. As a bratty young boy I devoured her entries about high school romance, her car crash, what it was like growing up adopted in Wichita, Kansas under the cudgeling reproof of Kafkaesque Indian-American parents, and so on. Though I had no idea what she looked like, I had a kind of crush on her -- which my girlfriend at the time sensed and hated. Whatever; it was not serious because, naturally, I would never meet C. She was in Kansas, I was in Los Angeles, and never the twain shall meet. Until a week ago, and fourteen years later, she embarked on a cross-country road trip to clear her head after quitting her bio-informatics job in Chicago to pursue a law degree at Georgetown, and she posted on Facebook that she’d soon be in LA for a few days and would anyone like to say hello? She tagged me in the post. A few days later we got lunch at Mohawk Bend.

***

I was tired and hungover because B had been over the night before, sucking on my face until 2AM, carrying a toy piano under her arm, wearing Janushead makeup; one side of her face male and the other female, in costume for a karaoke competition where she sang the duet from the opening of All In The Family by her lonesome (and apparently won this round handily). So I was tired and not excellent conversation. Mostly I listened to C talk about finally finding her birth mother, what it was like at her job, why she wanted to change careers, how she liked the people at Georgetown, a Facebook group they all had together where they posted a hundred times a day.

She told me about a man she’d met at a bar. “I’m not the kind of girl that people usually walk up to in bars?” she said as if this were a question or as if I had the capability to dispute it. She had started dating this man, and he was nice but there were problems.

“He texted me things like, ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ or ‘I don’t know if you’ve ever had a one-night stand before,’ and I’m like… ‘Dude, I’ve had way more one-night stands than you.’” Which happens to be something I natively assume is true of all women. And also that they know what the men in front of them are about more acutely than those men do 99% of the time. “Oh but look at this,” she said.

She touched her phone a few times, then showed me the screen. It was an instagram picture: two copies of Infinite Jest on a hotel nightstand. I chuckled and she seemed gratified.

“We’re reading it together. So now among my Georgetown friends ‘comparing highlights’ has become a fashionable euphemism for sex.”

***

We parted ways because she had somewhere to be. In Culver. Then that night around 10pm I was deep in Ableton, working on this song Lanie and I had come up with at band practice over the weekend, and I got a text. It was C.

“Tipsy in Culver City and my friend loved the story (as did I) of your girlfriend getting mad about you reading my LJ. I always had such a crush on you, but I assumed you had a super long term girlfriend.”

I blinked and closed Ableton. Internally I was like, “Wow -- guess I’m finally gonna get to fuck C. What luck.”

***

We sent a couple vaguely flirty texts back and forth. The next day we got lunch at Flore but my phone was ringing off the hook with work calls. I had been pouring so much time into writing this short story about dropping out of college called ‘You Can Never Go Home’ that I had been putting off tons of consulting work and my clients were getting anxious with me. Nevertheless at the end of lunch we stood before her car on Sunset Blvd saying Goodbye and I said, “Can I kiss you?” but I already doing it anyway. It was very nice. “I’m sorry you’re so busy,” she said. “So am I,” I said. Then I walked away.

Back at home I worked for a few hours, triaging emails and a few phone calls. Around 4PM she messaged me on Facebook with a link to an article about the friendship between young Eugenides, Wallace, and Franzen. We talked about it briefly. I had mostly stopped working for the day. It turned out a couple hours was all I had to put in. Then she said:

“By the way, in case you didn't know already? If you'd have asked me, I would have stayed.”

I told her I wanted you to stay, and have you left yet because I want to see you again.

At this point she was gone, back on her road trip, 2 hours out of Los Angeles, probably as far as Kettleman City or Paso Robles, but she said, "I'm turning around." Why not, I guess: This was a weird, once-in-a-lifetime, having-an-adventure, road-trip-openness, only-young-once kind of thing, right? And because, you know, maybe we had had sexual tension for fifteen years and done nothing about it, and surely it would feel good.

***

She was in my apartment as dusk turned to night and we ordered Indian and drank a bottle of Gamacha and talked until about eleven. We were on the couch and there was nothing left to say so I stared at her.

“I get the feeling you’re very hard to read," she said. "Or you’re easy to read, but hard to believe.”

I was staring at her directly in the eyes.

“If you’re saying you don’t know what this look means, I find that hard to believe,” I said.

She looked away, smiling.

“I think I have a hard time reading signals? Very often I hear from somebody after the fact, ‘Oh, you didn’t know? I was totally into you.’ I just don’t get it until it’s spelled out very explicitly.”

I cleared my throat.

“C, I think you’re beautiful, charming, and intelligent. I’ve enjoyed your company tonight over dinner very much, and can’t wait to fuck you.” I reached up and pulled the cable to shut the blinds. Involuntarily I yawned. “Would you like to get into bed now?”

***

[Omitted for privacy: a long and detailed description of a night of sex. The section ends with me feeling very friendly and comfortable toward C, like we had known each other forever, were the oldest friends, and nothing could distress either one of us as we pulled the covers over our bodies and quieted.]

***

The last thing I remember is how different she was when she was asleep. All her hesitation was gone. She had told me that she sometimes had night terrors. She would go to sleep in bed, everything normal, and suddenly wake up to find herself running down the hallway crying or screaming. Nothing like that happened. But all night I kept thinking, “She’s being so aggressive?” Her hands were always reaching for me, pulling me into her body, reaching and reaching in an effort to grasp me securely.

I don’t know if she was awake in these moments. Something told me it wasn’t something she was aware of doing; that I was maybe even witnessing an unconscious, spontaneous desire for closeness which she would rather have kept secret from me, and which was being acted out without reason or judgment. I let her hold me even though it kept me awake almost the entire night. Maybe it was only in my head, but I wanted so badly to do something nice for her. On the pure instinct of nature and with no style and proceeding not from any deliberation on my part. Her reaching hands had grief in them, too, it seemed to me, and I wanted to be allowed to suffer with her. Maybe I already was, or maybe it was impossible, or maybe (probably) I was all wrong to begin with. But it was something. I was glad she had driven those two crazy hours back to LA.

***

Sometime around 6am I roll over and check my phone to find I have an OKCupid message from a woman called TheTransferrance. She has a pale round face, she studies Jung seriously, wants to open a private practice after school, has a cat, seems to be into candles. Her message to me reads: "Did the Drama of the Gifted Child resonate with your childhood experience? I too enjoy drunken eBay escapades on weeknights. Would you like to get a drink sometime soon? -K"

"I'm gonna use the restroom," I mutter, yawning, and kiss C's shoulder which makes her stir slightly. In the bathroom, rubbing my eyes, I scratch out a trenchant affirmative: "It did. I would. Free tonight?" And then head back to bed and wrap my arms around C. The cycle continues. Always I am at the borderline. Maybe I'll get it right this time. Probably not.