and complain about my nerves; I promise to be very careful. When I stab at her again she is furious with me and perhaps, without realizing it, fearful. She no longer looks like the Akiko I remember courting so assiduously. She spends the next hour alone in the kitchen soaking her hand in hot, salty water, easing the splinter out bit by bit. I do not ask if I can help her. I go running instead. There is a full moon, and the trails are clearly visible. I like to feel my muscles move; I like to feel my body ache with movement. There is an eros to running. After all, one is running toward the future, the next encounter.
The encounter materializes as if cut out of the air. But this is ridiculous; after all, I had scheduled David Swancourt in. But there are people, you will have noticed, who astonish us, whose presence in the world seems miraculous. And David Swancourt is a creature of dream, or even a creature of dreamtime. What I mean is this: he entered the downtown cabinet as if conjured by a magic letter. As if he were the materialization of desire. As if he had been summoned by my fascination.
So: here he was again. Boyish, lithe, as edgy as a caged cougar, all of it. I thought: when David Swancourt enters a room, reason dissolves. The world begins to dream. I thought: this one is a woman. A woman coiled within a man the way a cock coils upon itself within a pair of silk panties. A beautiful woman—of this I was certain—about to surge from her shell. And then, as if he were able to read the progress of my thoughts, as if he had been reading my thoughts all along—and he had! He had been reading my mind—David Swancourt closed his eyes, almost as though he were keeping back tears, and in a whisper said:
“Ah. Shall I. Show her to you.”
“Yes. Please.”
“You will not betray us.”
“No.”
“Ah …” He sighed again, as if in a fever of his own. He said: “Watch this.” So I did. I watched him rise up from the couch and stand before me. I watched in a joyous panic, although I did nothing to reveal my joy, nor my panic, but sat very professionally in my linen suit, forefingers pressed to my lips as is my habit when I am considering something very seriously.
“Look at me,” he insisted, although I was. I said: “I am.”
“You are …” he waited.
“I am looking at you,” I said.
And then almost imperceptibly, instant by instant, atom by atom, flame after flame, I saw him changing. It seemed every particle of light in the universe was careening toward him, this shimmering youth who was in the process of shedding his skin like a garment that fell to the floor only to pool among the shadows before dissolving altogether. Yet the room was free of shadows, but for the shadows he evoked and the darkness, like a heavy weather that rose up within me, or I was sinking into; I was sinking into a passion once again, except …
Except that when she stood before me now, naked but for a teal-colored string, her diminutive breasts studded with tiny sprays of silver stars that trembled as she breathed, falling like tears or foam so unexpectedly against her skin, I was overcome as I had never been before, of this I am certain, and gasped for breath, but only once. Which elicited a light laughter. She said:
“Don’t move.” She crossed over to where I sat and, leaning over, with her thumb caressed my cock strangling in my pants like a snake on a noose, and then, wheeling away: “Ah. But my time is up.” And bending over, so that her ass was for an instant suspended within reach, took up her disguises and eclipsed out the door that leads to the back hall, the restroom, the street.
That evening my wife taxes me with strange questions apropos of nothing: she wonders why I call my patients clients and not patients.
“Because ‘clients’ is more democratic.”
“Since when is ‘doctor’ and ‘patient’ classist?”
“Elitist, then.”
“It makes no sense,” she says. “I mean, the relationship
The encounter materializes as if cut out of the air. But this is ridiculous; after all, I had scheduled David Swancourt in. But there are people, you will have noticed, who astonish us, whose presence in the world seems miraculous. And David Swancourt is a creature of dream, or even a creature of dreamtime. What I mean is this: he entered the downtown cabinet as if conjured by a magic letter. As if he were the materialization of desire. As if he had been summoned by my fascination.
So: here he was again. Boyish, lithe, as edgy as a caged cougar, all of it. I thought: when David Swancourt enters a room, reason dissolves. The world begins to dream. I thought: this one is a woman. A woman coiled within a man the way a cock coils upon itself within a pair of silk panties. A beautiful woman—of this I was certain—about to surge from her shell. And then, as if he were able to read the progress of my thoughts, as if he had been reading my thoughts all along—and he had! He had been reading my mind—David Swancourt closed his eyes, almost as though he were keeping back tears, and in a whisper said:
“Ah. Shall I. Show her to you.”
“Yes. Please.”
“You will not betray us.”
“No.”
“Ah …” He sighed again, as if in a fever of his own. He said: “Watch this.” So I did. I watched him rise up from the couch and stand before me. I watched in a joyous panic, although I did nothing to reveal my joy, nor my panic, but sat very professionally in my linen suit, forefingers pressed to my lips as is my habit when I am considering something very seriously.
“Look at me,” he insisted, although I was. I said: “I am.”
“You are …” he waited.
“I am looking at you,” I said.
And then almost imperceptibly, instant by instant, atom by atom, flame after flame, I saw him changing. It seemed every particle of light in the universe was careening toward him, this shimmering youth who was in the process of shedding his skin like a garment that fell to the floor only to pool among the shadows before dissolving altogether. Yet the room was free of shadows, but for the shadows he evoked and the darkness, like a heavy weather that rose up within me, or I was sinking into; I was sinking into a passion once again, except …
Except that when she stood before me now, naked but for a teal-colored string, her diminutive breasts studded with tiny sprays of silver stars that trembled as she breathed, falling like tears or foam so unexpectedly against her skin, I was overcome as I had never been before, of this I am certain, and gasped for breath, but only once. Which elicited a light laughter. She said:
“Don’t move.” She crossed over to where I sat and, leaning over, with her thumb caressed my cock strangling in my pants like a snake on a noose, and then, wheeling away: “Ah. But my time is up.” And bending over, so that her ass was for an instant suspended within reach, took up her disguises and eclipsed out the door that leads to the back hall, the restroom, the street.
That evening my wife taxes me with strange questions apropos of nothing: she wonders why I call my patients clients and not patients.
“Because ‘clients’ is more democratic.”
“Since when is ‘doctor’ and ‘patient’ classist?”
“Elitist, then.”
“It makes no sense,” she says. “I mean, the relationship
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