going to swipe my cash. I said, you want some money? He melted into my arms. Things became simple, almost tender. My father is unaware of a big part of my life. He’s an upright man, very attached to filial relationships. A genuine, good Jew. I often think about him. I feel freer since I started paying. My position is more legitimate, although I have to redress the power imbalance. I talk with some boys. I ask them questions about their lives, I show them respect. I address my father mentally, I say, well, there certainly is the occasional detour, but generally I stick to the main road. On Saturday evenings or sometimes duringthe week, after I’m through seeing patients and there are no meetings to attend, I go to the woods, or to the movie theaters in parts of town where the right kinds of boys can be found. I say to them, I like big dicks. I demand to see theirs. They pull it out. It’s stiff or not. Recently, when I’ve chosen someone, I want to know if he’s into slapping. (I don’t offer to pay more for slapping. Slapping mustn’t be part of the negotiation.) It used to be that I’d ask the question in the car. These days, I ask beforehand. It’s an incomplete question. The entire question would be, will you hit me? And immediately afterward, will you comfort me? You can’t ask that question. Nor can you say, comfort me. The farthest I can go is, stroke my face. I wouldn’t dare say anything more. Some words have no place in such a setting. It’s a strange command,
comfort me
. One can imagine giving all the other commands – lick me, hit me, kiss me, use your tongue (many don’t) – but not
comfort me
. What I really want can’t be stated. To be struck in the face, to offer my face to the blows, to present my lips, my teeth, my eyes, and immediately afterward to be stroked, caressed just when I least expect it, and then to be struck again, with the right rhythm, the just proportion, and after I come, to be embraced, supported, covered with kisses. Maybe that perfection doesn’t exist outside the kind of love I don’t know. Ever since I began to pay and thus became able to control the order of events, I’m free to be myself. I do what I can’t do, and get what I can’t get, in real life. I kneel, I abase myself. My knees sink into the earth. I return to total submission. Money binds us as well as any other attachment. The Egyptian put his hands on my face. He held my face, he pressed his palms against my cheeks. My mother did the same thing when I had an ear infection, shetried to cool my burning fever with her hands. Otherwise, in normal life, she was aloof. The Egyptian licked my mouth. He disappeared into the night, like the garbage collectors in days gone by. I walk along the side path, I plunge into the woods. He’s not there. If I make an effort, I can still feel the dampness his tongue left on my lips. A dizzying summary of some knowledge I don’t have. Jean Ehrenfried, a patient I’ve grown attached to, gave me a copy of Rilke’s
Duino Elegies
. He said, a little poetry, doctor, would you by chance have time for that? He opened the book in front of me and read the first lines (I noted in passing that the timbre of his voice had thinned since his last visit): “If I cried out, then who among the angelic orders would hear me?” It’s a small book. I keep it near my bed. I’ve reread those lines, thinking about Ehrenfried’s diminished voice, about his combinations of polka-dot ties and fancy pocket handkerchiefs. For weeks those poems have been waiting under my bedside lamp. I get up at six-thirty every morning. I see my first patient an hour later. I can see around thirty in the course of a day. I teach, I write articles for international journals of oncology and radiation therapy, I go to fifteen or so conventions a year. I have no time to put my existence in perspective anymore. Sometimes friends drag me to the theater. I recently saw that Beckett play,
Happy Days
. A little umbrella
comfort me
. One can imagine giving all the other commands – lick me, hit me, kiss me, use your tongue (many don’t) – but not
comfort me
. What I really want can’t be stated. To be struck in the face, to offer my face to the blows, to present my lips, my teeth, my eyes, and immediately afterward to be stroked, caressed just when I least expect it, and then to be struck again, with the right rhythm, the just proportion, and after I come, to be embraced, supported, covered with kisses. Maybe that perfection doesn’t exist outside the kind of love I don’t know. Ever since I began to pay and thus became able to control the order of events, I’m free to be myself. I do what I can’t do, and get what I can’t get, in real life. I kneel, I abase myself. My knees sink into the earth. I return to total submission. Money binds us as well as any other attachment. The Egyptian put his hands on my face. He held my face, he pressed his palms against my cheeks. My mother did the same thing when I had an ear infection, shetried to cool my burning fever with her hands. Otherwise, in normal life, she was aloof. The Egyptian licked my mouth. He disappeared into the night, like the garbage collectors in days gone by. I walk along the side path, I plunge into the woods. He’s not there. If I make an effort, I can still feel the dampness his tongue left on my lips. A dizzying summary of some knowledge I don’t have. Jean Ehrenfried, a patient I’ve grown attached to, gave me a copy of Rilke’s
Duino Elegies
. He said, a little poetry, doctor, would you by chance have time for that? He opened the book in front of me and read the first lines (I noted in passing that the timbre of his voice had thinned since his last visit): “If I cried out, then who among the angelic orders would hear me?” It’s a small book. I keep it near my bed. I’ve reread those lines, thinking about Ehrenfried’s diminished voice, about his combinations of polka-dot ties and fancy pocket handkerchiefs. For weeks those poems have been waiting under my bedside lamp. I get up at six-thirty every morning. I see my first patient an hour later. I can see around thirty in the course of a day. I teach, I write articles for international journals of oncology and radiation therapy, I go to fifteen or so conventions a year. I have no time to put my existence in perspective anymore. Sometimes friends drag me to the theater. I recently saw that Beckett play,
Happy Days
. A little umbrella
Similar Books
