I’ve been living a lie for months, years, now, but never so dramatically as in the past week.
Coming home late, covering hickeys, bringing you into my home I share with a girl who would literally jump out the window if she knew anything about anything,
driving all the way out to Salem, pretending I’m just a few miles away intently focused on some secret project instead, coworkers asking: “any fun plans tonight?” … just smiling and saying nope… because even if I could tell anyone anything, where would I even begin.
Just lying to everybody. Mom texts me How's it going with [girlfriend]? All good? Yes, of course, everything is perfect, I say as I’m renting an AirBnb far away in the middle of nowhere over Memorial Day Weekend where I will be fucking you, a stranger, no condom, falling asleep with you, on another retreat from my relationship, from my life.
Covering my tracks, barely. It’s a small world after all, it’s only a matter of time, some unlucky circumstance, nothing lasts forever. Who knows how long we have. But God it feels so good to come clean.
The Retreat
I showed someone my writing for the first time last night. The girl from the thing. She kind of forced it out of me.
Typically I curate these, screenshot them, send them to the appropriate person with the appropriate context at the appropriate time…
Last night she just took my laptop and started reading. Terrifying. It wasn’t until she had the laptop in her hands and started reading that I realized just how much tortured smut I produce about random Asian girls in cafes. That no one ever sees.
She’s just casually happening upon stuff like this, completely unedited:
There are perhaps thousands of notes like above.
She gave me compliments but I couldn’t hear them. My relationship with all these words is excruciating.
There are 6,500 notes in total, she got through a few hundred before her eyes started to burn.
It hurt how fast she read them. They take so much time to make. She’s just scanning for keywords, concepts that interest her, like people do when consuming social media.
All these notes amount to the most intimate dialogue I have ever had. Her rummaging through them kind of felt like a female rape. But I let her do it. I don’t know why.
Incredibly, she still likes me.
I forgot to mention that Jen is Chinese. She was reading through my notes and said “I KNEW you had an asian fetish!”
— which caught me off guard, because in my head I don’t… it’s just an unhealthy uncontrollable sexual fixation which follows me everywhere I go, even into my dreams and I can’t turn it off and I don’t even see them as people I just see them as vessels for my pointless lust.
There was one girl from college who could have been more than that but she saw right through me, we only knew each other for a few months— that was exactly how long it took for her to see that I am completely empty. She’s a writer now.
I think everyone realizes this about me eventually, just takes some longer than others. I feel bad for people who seem to like me — I have nothing to give. Sometimes I try to help people but then I give up halfway when I remember that everyone can only help themselves.
Sex is stupid
Last night we had sex in the woods. I was fucking her up against a tree. She told me she came so many times her legs were shaking. Good for me.
It wasn’t the best sex I’ve ever had. It wasn’t even particularly good, for me, since I did not orgasm. My spirit has been crushed by years of civilized life.
It was dark, about 10 PM on a densely forested trail up the hill from my AirBnb in the middle of nowhere, Oregon.
We walked up the path together, side by side. I walk much faster than her, by default. I couldn’t tell if she was nervous.
She should be, I am stronger than her. I could do crazy things to her out here if I wanted. I guess I could do crazy things to her in the house too, but being alone in the woods at night with somebody forces you to consider these kinds of things.
Even I thought, for a moment: what if this is where she gets me. What if it’s all been a setup, she Jedi mind-tricked me into taking her up here, so she could whip out a gun or a knife or a taser or some other kind of weapon and give me what I deserve for the way I’ve been acting over the past month. What if this is all a set up, or a game show. A ‘To Catch a Predator’ -type thing, but for particularly creative cheaters.
Nope, none of that. We found a suitable spot and disrobed, arousing one another other using friction and saliva and fear, and did what we came out to do.
She loved it and I loved the visual of her loving it. It was dark but the adrenaline gave me night vision. I didn’t cum, my feet were too cold.
Civilized humans got a lot of things wrong, but fucking on a bed is not one of them. I don’t think I’ll be having sex outside again until I need to.
I felt many things and most were not good. I felt as if I were acting as a character in a story. And not a good story, either, because my character has no motive. What is the point of this. To say that I’ve done it. To Have Experienced it.
I also felt this: sex is stupid. What are we doing. Yes this feels good but what’s the point. We’re just willing each other to orgasm. I felt like a stupid helpless animal, and not in a good way.
Sex is when two people in a house make a baby. The Mormons know this. I know this. But still I waste my time trying to make it something else.
And that sentence should be the end of my story with Jen. But it won’t be. Because I know I’ll want her again, badly, all I need is time.
Afterwards she told me about all the places she’s fucked and I said wow many times. It kind of cheapened the experience for me: I’m a narcissist, she’s a whore.
We did other things besides have sex. We went out for pizza. Watched the first half of Twilight. Built a campfire and told stories. Apparently she has a dead brother. Loves conspiracies. Raised Catholic. Feels bad for me. Me too.
She’s Gone (for real this time)
Was it something I said. My first reaction is always that it’s me. In reality it could be anything. Maybe she found real love someplace else, maybe she died. Who knows, not me, so I must move on.
I use this word, “pathetic” a bit too much. But it’s truly pathetic how much I care about the fact that Wen isn’t texting me back, for days, which feel like years, knowing how addicted to the phone we all are. I imagine her receiving texts from me and thinking Oh god, not this again, get a hint, please leave me alone.
And I’m thinking that’s not an unreasonable reaction, after all I’ve said and done. I’m lucky she doesn’t care, it could be much worse: she could care a lot and cause a lot of damage to my life very quickly.
Jen has finally stopped replying— for good. Jen is not even her real name, she never told me what her real name was, probably to protect herself, but in my head her name is Jen, and that’s good enough.
At one point she asked if I even wanted to know her real name and I said “No.”
At first I thought I must have said something that finally turned her off for good, but then I considered that she has a whole interior life I know nothing of, she could have finally developed the self respect to ignore me, it could be anything.
Maybe she got into another accident, or she found Real Love, maybe she told a friend about this whole situation and god forbid even showed them any one of the notes I sent and they said what the fuck you need to block this person and delete them from your phone and never think about them again, this is scary and insane. You didn’t tell him your name right? No. Thank god. Now let’s find you a normal guy who doesn’t do or say anything like this, Lol.
There I go making it about me again. Maybe she died. Maybe she finally found what she was looking for. Maybe she saw how pointless this is, maybe she saw how pointless everything is.
Maybe that note where I said “you will never be my girlfriend” hurt as much as I thought it might, though we’re both well past stupid concepts like that. Or maybe she didn’t care at all, she was just using me to entertain herself until a more promising candidate came along. Could be anything.
The goal is that I don’t care. Me sitting here typing about it is not exactly supporting the I Don’t Care initiative, but I have to record it while it’s fresh in my mind— in a week or a month it won’t be so clear.
I know from experience that the best way to get over an old girl is to get under a new one. But I can’t do this any more, and I really mean that. I can’t seek out another girl to cheat with. It’s only a matter of time before I get brutally burned.
Jen, I must see you again.
Jen, I’m sick of fucking my perfect skinny little girlfriend. I want you instead, you fat whore.
Jen, I want a handful of your breast in my mouth. I want to fuck you so hard you start to drool. I want you to forget about whatever new guy you’re seeing and I want you to swallow my selfish possessive reckless dick whole. You do it so well.
I know that this kind of “I need you” language is terribly unattractive, but I am just sitting here in my bed recording some good honest thoughts I was having throughout uninspired sex with my girlfriend about 10 minutes ago.
Here’s another thought I had: what if I hired some guy to seduce, or romantically inherit my girlfriend so I don’t have to ruin her life by breaking up with her, and she doesn’t have to ruin my life by staying with me? Stupid or genius?
Now it’s late June. Yesterday at volleyball I saw a girl who looked like Jen, the girl from that crazy thing that happened a couple months ago— I couldn’t stop watching her.
She had the same solemn facial expression, the same athletic body, hidden under the same kind of long t shirt, hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, bobbing in the evening sun.
I was in a game and the ball rolled out to her, she was sitting out in the grass, I went to retrieve it and it was ambiguous which of us was closer to grab it and she looked at me and said Oh my gosh I’m sorry, like girls do when they’re flustered, and I just said It’s Okay, and I wished she was Jen.
I wished that Jen had secretly moved to Gay Liberal City, or just happened to be in town that day and didn’t tell me, that she just happened to be here on this field with me again tonight so that we could get in my car and drive somewhere remote and pick up right where we left off. No lessons learned.
Why do you love Evangelion so much
I mean I have been known to defend the show but you literally only use pictures from Evangelion
Alhamdulillah