mmmcdi

there’d be a del, and there’d be a ______

and a real room to
organize high noon
can not come a
moment too soon.

“what about my job?”
i ask at a quarter
past seven, not sure
he realizes what he’s

saying, “nah, i’d have
a job,” since we’d
need to get married
for him to have a real

job. but i forget this
is what most everyone
wants. he’s more a
mused about it all,

particularly what he
expects would be
the incessant ‘tidy
ing up’—what we

don’t know of each
other excites me as
much as it frightens
him. i wonder how

truly worrisome this
is. probably not much?
but ‘if you don’t know
me by now, you will

never, ever, ever know
me.’ he’s not amused
because he really does
n’t get it. is this honestly

where experience comes
into play? i remember be
ing young. i remember de
ciding almost immediately

to find a way to exist under
the same roof of a dorm, a
studio, or a real apartment.
i remember it working out

wonderfully, just fine and
a bit terribly. like having
sex for the first time, you
find out almost immediate

ly something incredibly
strange, almost insur
mountable, something
definitely out of the or

dinary and NOT with
in your realm of expe
rience or even expect
ation. and you wonder

“can i do this?” a few
months later and what
seemed almost like a
dealbreaker has become

something incredibly
endearing, perhaps the
one thing you look the
most forward to, an as

pect of your life toget
her that has become
almost necessary. and
then, with no warning,

the quirk is no longer;

your partner’s moved
on. oh, no. what hap
pened? is the love

gone? what did i do
wrong? so then comes
the moment of truth,
the first real fork in

the first real road.
maybe you decide
to stick with it, to
learn to be fine with

out that one original
quirk, thinking it’s
time to find the next
exciting quirk. may

be there’s actual work
involved in the process,
but oh, when you do
find it! what becomes

obvious at that moment
is that anything, that
everything is possible.
so you want to keep

doing this, right?
sure you do! abso
lutely! let’s find
every single idio

syncrasy, every
fetish, let’s work
our way deliber
ately toward ev

ery possible kink.
that’s when these
words have nothing
whatsoever to do with

sex. only...what is
your partner’s do or
die? pay attention!
it can matter. it

does matter. fur
thermore, and more
importantly, how
far along are they

in this process that
you’re experiencing?
are you experiencing
it together? simultan

eously? probably not.
“what’s my motivation,”
said that the actor to
the acting coach. “you

‘re a book,” says the
coach, “and the job
is to determine how
many pages separate

your page from 
that of your partner’s.