Read Online A Working Theory of Love by Scott Hutchins - Free Book Online

buy—at
     sex stores. For sixty-nine ninety-five you get a strap-on, some lube, and an instructional
     DVD. It shows women how to do their boyfriends up the butthole.”
    “Gross,” Rachel says.
    “Why would a woman want to do that? Seriously? Because she’s totally desperate. They
     go home—Arctic winds. They’re not
clicked
. Some company says, ‘Give me seventy dollars and I’ll get you clicked. Just stick
     this thing in your boyfriend’s back door.’ And bam they buy it. It’s corporations
     exploiting our fears and our weaknesses. You say it’s not as bad as a war, but it
     is a war. And we’re losing.”
    Rachel stands to brush the sand off her legs. “I’m checking out the water.”
    “I’ll go with you,” Trevor says, leaping to his feet.
    She holds out a flat palm, waves no. “You stay here and talk about back doors,” she
     says.
    Trevor makes an exasperated noise and throws up his arms. He returns to us men, smiling.
     “There’s something wrong with me.”
    “You’re too strident,” Raj says.
    “I shouldn’t have been talking about that stuff in front of Rach.”
    “Strap-ons?” I say. “Or war?”
    “She’s a special young woman,” Raj says, pouring us the last of the wine. “I’ve liked
     her from the first day she came to a meeting.” He’s looking at me. “Neill, you should
     come to a meeting.”
    The gratuitous use of my name always makes me nervous—it’s a tactic learned in cults
     and MBA programs.
    “I’m a very tolerant person,” I say. “As long as I don’t have to be involved.”
    “I know Pure Encounters has a reputation, but none of it is true.”
    “I didn’t think it was,” I say. I’ve never heard of Pure Encounters.
    “It’s not about sex. It’s about connection—clicking.”
    “It’s, like, a spiritual practice,” Trevor says. “It’s about purity of the self—the
     only way to have purity in your encounters. And about resistance to these fucking
     corporations, these fucking soul-sucking . . .”
    “Trevor,” Raj says.
    “I’m sorry, dude,” Trevor says. “I don’t know what’s got into me.” But he smiles and
     leans back in the sand. It’s clear he knows
exactly
what’s gotten into him, and it’s a good thing and he likes it.
    “If meetings aren’t your thing,” Raj says, “come to a retreat—we do a whole men’s
     retreat thing.”
    Not a chance. I fought off Southern Baptists for the first twenty years of my life,
     and am now unconvertible. I don’t believe in purity, and I hate the word “encounters.”
    “Rachel is a member?” I ask.
    Raj nods. “Pure Encounters isn’t for everyone. But it’s made for people like Rachel,
     who’ve had some, you know, impure encounters.”
    I don’t think he’s referring to the youth hostel, an encounter so pure it was almost
     distilled. We watch a mutt—is it possible to have a pit bull–Dalmatian mix?—thunder
     by, in pursuit of a tennis ball. Rachel is in the distance, picking up a shell. The
     water races up, surrounds her ankles and wrist.
    “She’s got an old soul, your girl,” Raj says.
    My girl?
    “Yeah,” Trevor says. “But she’s got a few roadblocks. We have to be truthful about
     that.”
    Here she comes, walking back from the water, her Converses dangling from her fingers,
     sand on her feet. She crosses her ankles as she walks, an elegant, wayward stumble
     that communicates shy surprise. I understand why I’ve been invited out here to the
     beach after our unceremonious beginning: she’s a crazy person. She’s been in California
     for less than a month, and she’s already joined a cult.
    •   •   •
    B ACK IN THE PARKING LOT, it turns out Trevor hitchhiked and Raj has a two-seater Porsche. So it’s my responsibility
     to get Rachel to the pizzeria. Once we’re there, neither Raj nor Trevor shows up.
    “They just wanted to meet you,” Rachel says.
    This means I’ve been discussed. Maybe in depth. Can a person as