Boundaries

It was after their fourth or fifth time together that Nathan told Sarah, “I love you”. To be more precise, he said, “I think I love you”. He was sitting on her bed, pulling on his briefs. She was standing by the sink, naked, brushing her teeth. “You shouldn’t love me” she said. “Why not?, he asked. “Because to me love means fucking one guy in the morning, then another guy in the afternoon, in order to pour all the life from the second fuck into the first guy when you fuck him again the next morning”. “You’re crazy”, he said. “Of course I am. You wouldn’t love me if I were whole.” At that moment, her back, a sea of soft white, became hard and black, like burnt charcoal. “There’s such a thing as too much honesty in a relationship”, he said. “I didn’t know we had a relationship”, she replied. At that moment, they both knew it would be their last night together. He decided to fuck her hard until morning.

In the morning, they had breakfast together. The TV was on. They watched the news. “This was fun”, Sarah said, but Nathan smiled sheepishly when he closed the door, which she bolted behind him. She walked to the table and deleted his number from her phone. Then she lay down on her bed and cried. “I’m such a stereotype”, she thought, as she willed herself to fall asleep. The breakfast coffee had done its work though, and her consciousness refused to surrender. So she reluctantly sat up, then stood, and walked to the closet to pull on a sweater. There was much to be done that day: calls to be answered, research to be done for a paper she was to present at a women’s conference in Georgia…and then there was poor Mitch. Lately, she’d been so busy screwing Nathan that she’d completely neglected their relationship. So she picked up the phone. “Hey Mitch”, she asked, “want to come over for dinner?”. “Sure”.

They got halfway through the main course before Mitch cleared his throat and asked, “How are things going with Nathan?”.

Sarah laughed. “You can guess by my silence”, she said.

“So you broke up? He was a bum.”

“You’re just saying that to be nice.” she said.

He shrugged. “Hey, that’s what friends are for, right? Please pass the wine. By the way, the chicken is excellent.”

“Thank you”.

He knew that cooking, or rather, the quality of her cooking, was important to her– she was always trying to one-up her mother. Suddenly he realized that was oedipal. He shuddered. “What?” she asked. “What do you meant what?” “You just made a face”. “I was thinking about Freud”, he said. “Ah. I see”, she replied. She was always teasing him that it was because he was crazy that he wanted to become a therapist. He never argued, because he wasn’t certain she was wrong.

Afterwards, sitting on the couch, wine-glasses in hand, cake on the coffee-table, their talk turned to romance. Mitch had not been having much luck lately in that department. “I just don’t know what women want”, he complained, “When I share my emotions, they tell me I’m too soft. When I hide them, they tell me I’m too hard.” She giggled. “Sorry.” She patted him on the arm. “You’re just too good for them Mitch – besides, women are crazy; everyone knows that!” He snorted. “Some great feminist you are”. “I’m a woman. It’s ok for me to be sexist.” He laughed. It was nearly 1 am. “I should go”, he said. “Sure”, she replied, and he knew she was dreading sleeping alone that night. He knew because she had told him, two boyfriends ago, that that was the hardest part of any breakup. “Sleeping alone gives me insomnia”, she had said. He had told her to see a therapist. She hadn’t laughed.

“Thanks for coming over”.

“This was nice. We should hang out again when I get back from my borderline personality conference in Texas”.

“Sure. Call me.”

He did. They went out for pizza. Afterward, she asked him to come back to her place so she could show him a poem she had written; Mitch had worked for a famous literary magazine in his three years between college and grad school, so she respected his opinion.

So he read:

Let me lure you into the liminalities of my body, the forest-strewn borders of my thighs: A lion roars between these two freckles. Here, a monkey sticks his hands in the openings of a lover. Flowers with purple petals wilt over grass surrounded by pine-trees. Pine-trees – is that too phallic? No matter, we can start over: That is the beauty of borders, their snaking softness of unknown – In this jungle, we can forget the tundras we have crossed, axe-in-hand, to get to this new world in which your tongue crawls into my crevices, and your hands whisper words your teeth have forgotten. You may need a passport: Here, let me dot your arms with the ink of my kisses; Now sign my breasts, please. In order to get to the valley, you must cross the mountains. Mountains – is that also phallic? No, mountains double like the soul of a woman, or like your thighs. I am running out of words to put on this brochure. If I leave, you will not get a postcard. I hear that my cunt grows some awesome fruit. Take a bite, and try.

“Well?”

“I hate the word “liminalities”.

She rolled her eyes. “And?”

“And it’s good – it’s very good.”

“You’re not just saying that?”

“No, I’m not just saying that. I’m a guy –I’m honest, remember?”

She laughed. The football game was on, so they cracked open some beers.

“I always wanted to go to a sports-bar and do guy things”, she said.

“Guy things?”

“Yeah, you know – like checking out girls and making rude comments, and belching really loudly”.

“None of the guys I know do that.”

She shrugged.

“No, I mean really – which guys actually do that?”

She thought for a minute and said, “Guys from Long Island”.

He laughed. “You’re so lucky I’m a New Yorker, so I get that.”

“Yeah, it’s why we’re friends”.

“I thought you were friends with me for my charm”.

“No, actually, for your modesty.”

He laughed.

Afterwards they were silent for a while, except for the occasional groan related to the Jets’ performance.

Then, during halftime, she suddenly said, “I tend to collect broken men like stranded puppies”.

“I know – it’s why I could never date you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because then I’d be proving to myself that I’m broken, or stranded – or both.”

“But whether you prove it to yourself or not, that doesn’t change the truth”.

He shrugged. She leaned over, slowly picked up the beer can, and sipped it the way one would sip a glass of hot tea.

“Actually I could date you, I just couldn’t fuck you”.

She laughed. “Why not? Some men find me quite attractive, you know”.

“It’s because you use words like “liminalities””, he teased.

She laughed, but he didn’t kiss her that night – it would have ruined the effect.

He did not even kiss her on the night they watched Frida, and he let his hand roam the lengths of her body. It was cold, and she was wearing a sweatshirt. They had both drunk a bit too much wine. He started gently, stroking her back. She breathed like she was having an orgasm. She was not wearing a bra, and he could feel her softness, juxtaposed with the hardness of her nipples. “That’s what’s essential in every good work of art”, he thought, ”contrast”.

It was only the third time, right before he said goodnight, that he allowed his lips to skim hers, but she sucked him in, slowly, and he was melting into the wet vortex of Being. His consciousness was floating on some fourth plane that can only be charted by those who have loved.

The next day, he asked her, “Do you believe in love?”.

“I don’t know”, she said, “do you?”.

“I don’t know”.

They laughed. She popped in the DVD and fell back on the couch. He held her hand. It was rough, dry, and desperately in need of moisturizer, but he kept on holding.