Lust & Wonder by Augusten Burroughs
Colin told Mitch, “Did you know ‘I fucked my mother’ is an anagram of your name? It’s true. I figured it out in the green room today.”
“You are such an idiot. There’s no F in my name. What’s the matter with you? And I don’t like the idea of you sitting around thinking about my name so much; it’s disturbing. Just don’t think about me.” Mitch pointedly angled his body away from Colin.
Colin laughed and gulped his cocktail.
Famous Author Friend had secured a huge table in the center of the room. Goldie Hawn was at the table across from us, and Cindy Crawford was downstairs, near the door.
Mitch pointed her out when we first came in. “She has to stay downstairs here in the common bar area because of that terrible movie she made with Billy Baldwin,” he said.
The waiter looked at me with disinterest because I was the only one at our table who was not famous or sitting next to someone famous. Despite this, I managed to catch his attention.
“Can I have another cosmopolitan?” I asked. This would be my fourth.
At the word cosmopolitan, the entire table, every head, turned toward the waiter, and all at once, everybody began barking out drink orders, which at first seemed to panic him until he realized everybody was ordering the same thing, cosmos all around.
Martha Stewart stopped by the table and whispered something into Famous Author Friend’s ear and made him laugh.
I spent the night with my arm around Mitch, dressed like a good old boy from the South, with my Pabst trucker hat, which I had seen on several other people recently and therefore would have to stop wearing soon. I felt very relaxed and content. I even thought to myself, Life is kind of wonderful now.
Later in the evening, though, after I had consumed several more drinks, Mitch and I got into an argument over, of all things, Brita water filters—the kind you screw onto your faucet. Mitch had one and thought it was the most brilliant invention ever. I didn’t like it at all because it slowed the water too much.
He took it personally.
“They’re not slow. What are you talking about? That’s just plain wrong. You’re crazy.”
I said, “Well, they definitely slow down the flow from the faucet. But I like that they take all the shit out of the water. So I agree, they are pretty great overall. If you have the patience for the trickle.”
And that was the word that really sent him off.
He shouted, “Trickle? How can you even say that?” He’d never been mad at me before, but he sure was now.
He was so loud that Famous Author Friend suddenly turned away from whatever other conversation he was having and bore right into our fight. He said, “Are you talking about Brita filters?” His eyes were penetrating and intense. But the corners of his mouth were turned up ever so slightly into the hint of a smile. He looked spectacular.
Mitch kind of coughed and took a belt of his drink, which by this point was a neat scotch. “It’s ridiculous. He’s saying they slow the water down too much so he doesn’t want one, which is nuts and annoying.”
The glass in Mitch’s hand was actually trembling, he was so upset.
Famous Author Friend said, “Augusten is right, Mitch. Brita filters practically stop the water flow.”
Then he smiled at me.
And that’s when I realized he was the one I wanted to have sex with, not Mitch. But then I immediately told myself, That’s bullshit star-fucking.
Mitch turned to me and said, “Hey, baby, I’m sorry.” He was smiling, but he looked desperate, and this broke my heart a little.
I turned away from Famous Author Friend. “I love you,” I said to Mitch, trying to look like I meant it, because I did.
“I know,” he said back to me. “I love you, too.”
We left Moomba at a little past midnight and went back to Mitch’s apartment, where we climbed into bed. We were watching CNN and wearing underwear. A baby was dead because the mother shook it, and now she was in jail. The CNN anchor appeared to be on the verge of tears, personally horrified by the story she was reading off the teleprompter.
Suddenly, Mitch rolled on top of me, grabbed my shoulders, and shook me hard.
“Don’t shake the baby. Don’t shake the baby,” he said, and then he gnashed his teeth and grinned.
I laughed really hard and thought, This is why I love you. Because you’re random and funny and weird.
He stopped shaking me and looked intently into my eyes. His own eyes appeared gentle and drunk, the eyelids heavy, lashes suddenly moist.
I was not at all expecting it when he lunged forward and began kissing me. But because I didn’t see it coming, instead of a kiss, it was more like his open mouth was covering my lips and he was sliding his tongue over them.
My body was fighting with itself because I wanted to shove him back, wipe my mouth on my arm, and say, “Oh my God, no wonder you were single for so long if that’s how you kiss.”
But of course I couldn’t do that, so I was trying to just breathe through my nose and not freak out.
He reached down, and my dick was soft, which made me think, Well, yeah. But he was hard and grinding against my hip bone in a high-pressure spiral. His hot, wet tongue was frantically searching my mouth, looking for fillings. My tongue was crouched so far back in my throat I thought I might actually swallow it.
Finally he raised his head, eyes tightly shut. “Oh God!” he cried. “Jesus fucking Christ!” And he came with a violent tremor against my femur. His body relaxed on top of mine, all his weight on my chest so that I had to take shallow breaths. After a few leaden moments, he rolled off me and fell asleep.
The next morning, Mitch was tense.
His face was etched with fine shadows in the bright morning light. He’d been awake for hours by the time I opened my own eyes at six. His forehead was sweaty.
“We need to talk,” he said.
The only thing worse than having “the sex talk” is having it with the sun in my eyes before I’ve peed and brushed my teeth. “What do we need to talk about?” I asked, even though I already knew.
“Why do you withdraw from me when we make love? I mean, what specifically goes through your mind?” he asked.
I sat up and told him I didn’t know. “It’s just like something blank, a wall rises up and blocks everything. Or like a coma,” I said.
“Having sex with me is like being in a coma?” he said.
I said, “I didn’t mean it that way.”
The problem was, I just couldn’t tell him the actual whole truth, because that would ruin everything.
I thought back to what I told my shrink. “I don’t find Mitch sexy. And I keep thinking I will. I’m waiting for that attraction to kick in, but it hasn’t. And I can’t tell him this, because then it would be over, and that’s not what I want.”
Finally, Mitch said, “We’ll figure it out. I love you.”
“We will,” I agreed. Then I got dressed and walked the few blocks home to my own studio apartment, where I crawled back into bed.
I couldn’t fall asleep, though, because I felt resentful and angry at my own brain. Why should I have to be attracted to Mitch simply to have sex with him? I’d had sex with people who repulsed me before.
It just didn’t seem fair.
* * *
“It happened again the night before last,” I told Dr. Schwartz.
“What happened?” he asked, yellow notepad poised to take notes of my illness and transgressions.
“The not-having-sex thing. It happened again, and it’s getting worse. He’s talking to me about it. I keep telling him that it’s always like this for me, that it takes time. The other morning, he said, ‘How much time? It’s been three months, and I’m worried.’ Everything is so right between us except this.”
I liked that first therapy session way more, before we started talking about sex.
“What do you think the reason is?” he asked. “Why are you pulling back from him?”
I was annoyed with Dr. Schwa
“I don’t know,” I said.
“But you love Mitch, correct?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said quickly. “I do. I know I do. He’s perfect for me. We are like two pieces of the same puzzle; we fit together. I know that sounds trite, but many true things are.”
He considered this. “It doesn’t sound trite,” he said. “It sounds good. That’s what mature love is.”
“But shouldn’t mature love also involve sex?” I pressed. Had he forgotten what I just told him?
“Yes, sex is a part of a healthy, loving relationship. It’s a way to express love for another person. But not the only way.”
This struck me as something a person trapped in a sexless marriage would say, as opposed to a psychiatrist. I looked at his hand to see if he was wearing a wedding band, and in fact he was: thin and platinum. I imagined that this last comment was what his wife told him sex is like for her.
“Please, darling, stop. There are other ways for us to express our love. Would you hand me my book?”
I imagined him looking at amateur porn on the Internet and jerking off into a Kleenex while his wife read a novel in the other room.
“Are you okay?” he asked me.
“I’m fine. I just spaced out,” I lied.
“Did you experience another disassociation?” That was the first time he had labeled what it was that I did, the temporary coma thing.
“Yes, I went blank. I go blank when I think about sex with Mitch. I need to fix this. I don’t want to fuck up the relationship.”
He looked at the clock behind me. “Well, we have to close for today,” he said. He reached down on the floor for his appointment book, which was leaning against the base of his chair. “Friday, same time?” he asked.
“Fine,” I said, but as I left his office, I felt irritated not to be fixed already.
In the cab, it occurred to me that Dr. Schwartz would look gross naked; smooth and kind of gray, like a dolphin. Why couldn’t I practice having sex with him, right there in a clinical setting? Afterward, he could show me how to transfer it all over to Mitch.
Even though I didn’t think mine was a “sex is currency” issue like some people have, sex really was a form of currency, and a universal one at that. Occasionally, it was the only way to get someone to shut the fuck up and stay with you.
* * *
In the dream, we’re in a Jeep—I think it’s green. I’m the passenger; he’s the driver. I’ve never seen him before; he’s not somebody I know in the waking world, but here, I do. Jeep Guy is driving up a nearly vertical trail somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. The canvas top is down, and the doors are off. Though normally I would rather serve time in a federal prison than in nature, I am totally at ease and filled with the sensation of wanting nothing more.
This is not a feeling I have in my non-dreaming life. I always want something else.
The sun is incredibly bright and hot because we’re so close to it.
I glance over at his strong, handsome face, which has a weathered ruggedness about it, like he’s been on this trail many times before. He has thick, straight blond hair that’s swept up and back. I have never dated a guy with blond hair, though I am aware of a sense of inevitability. Like, of course he’s a rugged blond dude.
I also feel lucky. I have a sense that he’s more handsome and robust and capable than anyone I have ever known. Appropriate (for me) thoughts like Where the fuck are the doors!? or A mountain lion could just leap right in here at any moment! are not of concern. I am not thinking about the lack of airbags, the steep drop on my side of the trail, rattlesnakes, skin cancer, brake failure, or dehydration.
We’re not talking, but I’m not paranoid about what he’s thinking. Does he hate my hair? is not in the front of my mind like usual. There is nothing to add or subtract, nothing to change or wish for. I am just exactly and perfectly fine.
Then I woke up, and my heart beat a couple of extra times with the shock of suddenly being transported from the Rocky Mountains with my ruggedly handsome blond Jeep Guy to my pathetic studio apartment on Third Avenue in Manhattan with one dirty window overlooking the ass end of a bunch of other apartment buildings.
And I was crushed.
It was the worst tumble-to-earth sensation, the harshest of rude awakenings I’d ever had. And unlike normal dreams, it didn’t evaporate around the edges as soon as I awoke. It remained fixed in my mind, like a memory.
I showered and wondered, Who is he? I thought about telling Mitch over dinner, because it would give us something new to talk about instead of the state of his writing career. But then I realized, I can’t tell Mitch, because he can’t compare with Jeep Guy, and he would see this in my eyes.
* * *
It was spring. Mitch and I were having medium-rare steaks with a peppery crust and dry martinis at the Old Homestead restaurant in the meat-packing district, sitting in a deep-red leather booth and talking about sex.
When he asked if there was something different I would like to do in bed, he raised his eyebrows, and I knew he was trying to ascertain if I had a secret fetish I’d been too shy to confess. Like, if only he would wear a giant raccoon-fur suit, then I could get it up. It was both touching and annoying, and I was tempted to tell him the truth: “What I would really like to do in bed is be a girl so I could just lie back and fake it.”
When this line of questioning led nowhere, Mitch finally told me, “I spoke with Morgan about us.”
“You told Morgan?” I said, at once excited and horrified that his friend, the star of a top-rated prime-time TV show, now knew I was unable to get or maintain an erection in the presence of my boyfriend, who also happened to be my favorite author.
“It was a really good talk. I felt much better,” he said as he chewed a french fry down to a stub and then popped it into his mouth.
I felt relieved, as if I had been acquitted.
“What did she say?” I asked, extremely interested because my future now seemed dependent upon the prime-time television star’s words.
Mitch balanced his knife on the rim of his plate and looked across the table into my eyes. “She was sexually abused as a child. She told me that when she and Steve first started dating, she couldn’t sleep with him. It took her six months.”
I wanted to call Morgan, I thought. I wanted to tell an actress about my problems instead of telling the therapist. I wanted Golden Globe advice.
“Everything’s fine now between them,” Mitch told me.
“That’s good, yeah. It really is just a matter of time. I’m just fucked up sexually,” I said, offering no depth or insight into the conversation, which actually seemed perfectly acceptable to him, because he smiled and picked up his knife.
The waiter asked us if everything was all right and appeared surprised when we ordered more drinks, as he had just served us two fresh martinis moments ago and now only two sweaty, empty glasses remained.
We didn’t say anything for a while. It was not the silence of two people who are so comfortable with each other that they don’t need to clutter up their ease with words. It was two people who are quiet because they are concentrating so hard on believing that everything is okay.
Mitch was negative, but he wasn’t cynical, somehow. He contained a purity of character, and maybe this was the thing I admired most about him. He had retained a toddler’s good nature, but it had been molested by an old man’s bitterness. Yet this wasn’t really the problem. I can get into bitter old men. I was extremely confused. I found his darkness alluring on the one hand, but maybe I didn’t find it sexy?
* * *
Later, back at his place, Mitch was lounging on his nubby plaid sofa, and I was kneeling on the rug giving him a blow job. I was thinking, I’m gay, so this is supposed to be fun.
&nb
I felt more relief than if I had come, too.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said. As if I had scrubbed his kitchen floor with Murphy’s Oil Soap.
“I love doing it,” I said. Then I stood up and sat next to him on the couch, looking at the wet spots on his T-shirt.
“I need to change out of this shirt,” he said, standing up.
Alone on the sofa, the relief I felt was now being replaced by a sucking sense of unnamed dread.
When he returned wearing a fresh T-shirt, he sat at the end of the sofa and turned to face me. “You did that to please me, I know you did. And I know you didn’t enjoy it, and it scares me.”
I wanted to smack him. The whole point of the blow job was so that we would not have this very conversation. “I’m getting more comfortable, I really am,” I told him. Then I thought, So will you please shut the hell up?
Mitch looked increasingly agitated. “I feel rejected that I can’t make you happy in that way, that I don’t turn you on.”
On his face was the exact same expression he had when he talked about how Little, Brown turned down his novel.
I stared at the dark television set, and then he looked away from me and stared at the TV, as well. It was as if we were willing it to come on by itself, as if we were waiting for something—anything—to happen.
He left the couch and climbed into bed, which was just a futon on his floor. In less than a minute, he was asleep.
I was wired now from having had all those martinis at dinner followed by the frustrating oral sex and then the messy discussion that followed it. The thought of sitting quietly on his sofa watching the TV on mute or reading a book was unbearable.
So I quietly snuck out the door and walked the three blocks home. It was handy that we lived so close to each other.
I had several more drinks in my apartment, enough to put me in a rowdy mood. Enough to make me pick up my phone.
* * *