The Pisces
Page 28
“Yes,” he said. “I understand.”
“Do you want to kiss?” I asked. “I’m not sure if that is how you feel about me? Or maybe you just like me as a friend. I’m not sure.”
“Yes,” he said. “I want to kiss you very much.”
We kissed on the lips, gently at first. His eyelashes were thick and black and he tasted like the ocean. His lips were chapped from the saltwater, I guess, and it felt like I was kissing a flower. I licked each of them. Then he opened his mouth a little wider and I lightly put my tongue in the front of his mouth. He began to suck on my tongue and I felt that my tongue and the rest of me would go through him, like I was going to be pulled inside him as though he were a big fish. I got dizzy. I took his tongue into my mouth and I felt that I was circling through his body, but also through an entire life cycle of some sort. I felt that I was spinning forward.
He kissed my forehead and I laid my head back on his shoulder.
“So how old are you anyway?” I asked.
“I’m not a teenager,” he said. “If that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Will you tell me something about you? About what you were like as a teenager?”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Will you come back tomorrow? I have to go now.”
I wanted to ask where. Where could he possibly have to go? We had barely begun kissing. But since I had been the forward one, the one who asked him if we could kiss, I didn’t want to be too needy.
“What time tomorrow night?” I asked.
“Ten?”
“Kiss me goodbye?”
We kissed quickly and then I watched him swim off. I wondered if I had been too engaged in the kiss, too desperate and needy, falling down a hole. Maybe he could sense my addictive tendencies coming off of me like bad perfume. Maybe he was just sexually attracted to me? It was hard to say, but I assumed I had done something wrong, because, well, I always did.
When I got home Dominic was in the corner. I had forgotten to give him his medicine and feed him. This was what happened when I followed my desires. I couldn’t believe how quickly I had forsaken him. It was as though he simply ceased to exist while I was out frolicking on the beach with a stranger. Was going to the rocks a mistake? For a moment I wished that they weren’t so near to Annika’s house and that Theo hadn’t given me a time for tomorrow—that we couldn’t have a day or two apart. But of course, when the time came I knew I’d rush out there to be with him.
I gave Dominic a bowl of dehydrated duck and added a little water. I gave him some extra too, even though I wasn’t supposed to.
“I’m so sorry, Domi,” I said.
He ate hungrily, then licked my face. Then he started sniffing me, almost compulsively, and growled. Clearly he did not like the smell of Theo. I wondered if it was the scent of the ocean itself that made him angry. Perhaps he liked the ocean and was jealous that he couldn’t go there with me. I felt bad, but Venice Beach had a massive fine if you were caught there with a dog.
I washed my face and realized that I hadn’t eaten either, but was too tired to make anything. I thought of that song, I didn’t know the music, just the words, something like “When you’re in love you’re never hungry.” Was I in love with this swimmer boy? Or was I just completely crazy? It didn’t make sense that something could feel so good, holy, and spiritual—like the gods themselves had put it there—and still not be right. It must be right, a gift for all of my suffering. But what if Theo just wanted sex? I thought about whether he was an “unavailable” man, and it seemed unlikely. I mean, I had never spent time with him out of the water. But even if he was available, I was not available—not for long anyway. What would happen when I went back to Phoenix?
I fell asleep spooning Dominic and felt the kind of love I felt the first night I’d arrived in Venice. Only this was deeper, more tinged with dependency, like a heroin vibe, and I knew it wasn’t Dominic but Theo I was feeling.
29.
The next morning I awoke to find a long string of texts from Jamie. He must have been drunk and stayed up all night, because the texts were in varying stages of “I want you.” He could probably smell Theo from thousands of miles away, how absorbed I was becoming. Men could smell an opening and they could smell a closing.
He said he wanted to see me when I got back to Phoenix. He asked what I thought about giving things another try.
I figured you got a restraining order, I wrote.
I miss you Lucy.
I didn’t ask him about the scientist. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I didn’t want to burst the double bubble of dopamine I now had coursing through me, first from Theo and now from Jamie. I lay around in bed for an hour, high on the potentiality of both of them, texting languidly. Jamie’s texts seemed more urgent than they had ever been, asking me questions about my return date, if I needed anything financially, if I wanted him to come pick me up and we could drive back to the desert together.
I enjoyed being coy now, the elusive one for once. The independent one.
That’s ok, I wrote, really, but thank you. I will see you when I get back.
Then I got another text. This one from Claire.
how shall I kill myself?
I grabbed Dominic and got a car to her apartment in West L.A. I saw, for the first time, where she lived. It was not at all what I expected. I knew that her ex-husband had kept their home in Pacific Palisades and she had taken an apartment, but I had imagined a grand courtyard with a fountain: something small yet charming, Old World Spanish with luxe modern interiors. But this reminded me of my place in Phoenix and that I would be going back there. The complex was big, old, and musty, and there was a pool drained of water. A sign hung on the gate read CLOSED.
When I went in she looked completely different, her hair greasy, unwashed, and piled high on her head in a bun, instead of the flowing curls I was used to. Under her eyes were big circles, the faint purple color of the underside of a shell. They were deep and I imagined lying down in them. She was wearing a T-shirt inside out and sweatpants, no bra. Her breasts sort of hung there, facing down.
Depression is real, I thought. It’s a real disease.
I don’t know why I thought that then. Like, that it just dawned on me. I’d had depression my whole life too but more of a dysthymia—a general malaise. I had never thought of it as an ailment that manifested physically. At least, it had never affected my physicality in the way that it seemed to have affected Claire’s. Or maybe it did and I simply couldn’t see it. Maybe this was what I had looked like when I broke down after Jamie. Maybe this is what people saw when they saw me.
“Are your kids here?” I asked.
“Arnold has them, thank God.”
I was a little scared of her. Even when she said she’d been harming herself there was still a bit of Claire in her, some of the humor and charm, as though the depression was something she could slip out of when she needed to engage with the world. When she needed to protect me from seeing it. But now she was clearly gone. I wondered if it really had to do with David or Trent or any of the men, or if the two just coincided. This seemed so much greater than men.
“You’re going to be okay,” I said. But I wasn’t convinced.
“I’m gutted. I really just don’t see the point of going on living,” she said. “It just seems so insane. Like, why would you?”
“Do you want to kiss?” I asked. “I’m not sure if that is how you feel about me? Or maybe you just like me as a friend. I’m not sure.”
“Yes,” he said. “I want to kiss you very much.”
We kissed on the lips, gently at first. His eyelashes were thick and black and he tasted like the ocean. His lips were chapped from the saltwater, I guess, and it felt like I was kissing a flower. I licked each of them. Then he opened his mouth a little wider and I lightly put my tongue in the front of his mouth. He began to suck on my tongue and I felt that my tongue and the rest of me would go through him, like I was going to be pulled inside him as though he were a big fish. I got dizzy. I took his tongue into my mouth and I felt that I was circling through his body, but also through an entire life cycle of some sort. I felt that I was spinning forward.
He kissed my forehead and I laid my head back on his shoulder.
“So how old are you anyway?” I asked.
“I’m not a teenager,” he said. “If that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Will you tell me something about you? About what you were like as a teenager?”
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Will you come back tomorrow? I have to go now.”
I wanted to ask where. Where could he possibly have to go? We had barely begun kissing. But since I had been the forward one, the one who asked him if we could kiss, I didn’t want to be too needy.
“What time tomorrow night?” I asked.
“Ten?”
“Kiss me goodbye?”
We kissed quickly and then I watched him swim off. I wondered if I had been too engaged in the kiss, too desperate and needy, falling down a hole. Maybe he could sense my addictive tendencies coming off of me like bad perfume. Maybe he was just sexually attracted to me? It was hard to say, but I assumed I had done something wrong, because, well, I always did.
When I got home Dominic was in the corner. I had forgotten to give him his medicine and feed him. This was what happened when I followed my desires. I couldn’t believe how quickly I had forsaken him. It was as though he simply ceased to exist while I was out frolicking on the beach with a stranger. Was going to the rocks a mistake? For a moment I wished that they weren’t so near to Annika’s house and that Theo hadn’t given me a time for tomorrow—that we couldn’t have a day or two apart. But of course, when the time came I knew I’d rush out there to be with him.
I gave Dominic a bowl of dehydrated duck and added a little water. I gave him some extra too, even though I wasn’t supposed to.
“I’m so sorry, Domi,” I said.
He ate hungrily, then licked my face. Then he started sniffing me, almost compulsively, and growled. Clearly he did not like the smell of Theo. I wondered if it was the scent of the ocean itself that made him angry. Perhaps he liked the ocean and was jealous that he couldn’t go there with me. I felt bad, but Venice Beach had a massive fine if you were caught there with a dog.
I washed my face and realized that I hadn’t eaten either, but was too tired to make anything. I thought of that song, I didn’t know the music, just the words, something like “When you’re in love you’re never hungry.” Was I in love with this swimmer boy? Or was I just completely crazy? It didn’t make sense that something could feel so good, holy, and spiritual—like the gods themselves had put it there—and still not be right. It must be right, a gift for all of my suffering. But what if Theo just wanted sex? I thought about whether he was an “unavailable” man, and it seemed unlikely. I mean, I had never spent time with him out of the water. But even if he was available, I was not available—not for long anyway. What would happen when I went back to Phoenix?
I fell asleep spooning Dominic and felt the kind of love I felt the first night I’d arrived in Venice. Only this was deeper, more tinged with dependency, like a heroin vibe, and I knew it wasn’t Dominic but Theo I was feeling.
29.
The next morning I awoke to find a long string of texts from Jamie. He must have been drunk and stayed up all night, because the texts were in varying stages of “I want you.” He could probably smell Theo from thousands of miles away, how absorbed I was becoming. Men could smell an opening and they could smell a closing.
He said he wanted to see me when I got back to Phoenix. He asked what I thought about giving things another try.
I figured you got a restraining order, I wrote.
I miss you Lucy.
I didn’t ask him about the scientist. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I didn’t want to burst the double bubble of dopamine I now had coursing through me, first from Theo and now from Jamie. I lay around in bed for an hour, high on the potentiality of both of them, texting languidly. Jamie’s texts seemed more urgent than they had ever been, asking me questions about my return date, if I needed anything financially, if I wanted him to come pick me up and we could drive back to the desert together.
I enjoyed being coy now, the elusive one for once. The independent one.
That’s ok, I wrote, really, but thank you. I will see you when I get back.
Then I got another text. This one from Claire.
how shall I kill myself?
I grabbed Dominic and got a car to her apartment in West L.A. I saw, for the first time, where she lived. It was not at all what I expected. I knew that her ex-husband had kept their home in Pacific Palisades and she had taken an apartment, but I had imagined a grand courtyard with a fountain: something small yet charming, Old World Spanish with luxe modern interiors. But this reminded me of my place in Phoenix and that I would be going back there. The complex was big, old, and musty, and there was a pool drained of water. A sign hung on the gate read CLOSED.
When I went in she looked completely different, her hair greasy, unwashed, and piled high on her head in a bun, instead of the flowing curls I was used to. Under her eyes were big circles, the faint purple color of the underside of a shell. They were deep and I imagined lying down in them. She was wearing a T-shirt inside out and sweatpants, no bra. Her breasts sort of hung there, facing down.
Depression is real, I thought. It’s a real disease.
I don’t know why I thought that then. Like, that it just dawned on me. I’d had depression my whole life too but more of a dysthymia—a general malaise. I had never thought of it as an ailment that manifested physically. At least, it had never affected my physicality in the way that it seemed to have affected Claire’s. Or maybe it did and I simply couldn’t see it. Maybe this was what I had looked like when I broke down after Jamie. Maybe this is what people saw when they saw me.
“Are your kids here?” I asked.
“Arnold has them, thank God.”
I was a little scared of her. Even when she said she’d been harming herself there was still a bit of Claire in her, some of the humor and charm, as though the depression was something she could slip out of when she needed to engage with the world. When she needed to protect me from seeing it. But now she was clearly gone. I wondered if it really had to do with David or Trent or any of the men, or if the two just coincided. This seemed so much greater than men.
“You’re going to be okay,” I said. But I wasn’t convinced.
“I’m gutted. I really just don’t see the point of going on living,” she said. “It just seems so insane. Like, why would you?”
