Diary
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Journal
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Passenger
More than any word, I loathe the word 'no'.
From her mouth, it was inconvenient. The cushion of impulse is one that I..for some god-awful reason, reject falling into. It's easy with everyone else in this world. Sever the tie, and salt the wound to prevent unwanted attempts at reattachment. Not her, It seems. Why?
No, in this case, was more than insulting. There are lots of things I have refused to tolerate, for my comfort, safety, and the preservation of certain levels of dignity. I don't for instance accept disrespect or dismissal, bad deals, or general clownery, and I don't tolerate being denied in front of people. That's when they start getting ideas about who to fuck over. It's always the guy who's been proven to be easily fucked over. I'm not. that. fuckin. guy.
The way that she did ALL of these things in one fell, balls-heavy swoop, without even questioning the way that it would go..was unwise for someone who purportedly cares for me in the way that she claims to. Especially considering that this was her idea in the first place, not one I'd have otherwise been sold on. To make a fool out of me publicly is one thing, but to do so in a space where I've been made comfortable, like the one between us.
It took herculean amounts of strength, and me nearly chewing my tongue off at the root not to let my knee jerk. If it had, and it'd been allowed to land... I wouldn't be able to forgive myself. Which is new. Because usually, letting my knee do what it does, and watching the unfortunate recipient of that knee choke on their metaphorical testicles is my favorite pick-me-up. But as comforting as it usually is, I fought it. Because I..for once, couldn't hurt someone who'd hurt me.
It makes me question a great many things about myself. The rejection does, too. Have I become too comfortable?
Was she right?
So many questions that I have to just..swallow down like they don't exist. I self-scabbed as best I could without falling into old patterns. I actively fought the impulse to push her away, while fighting the spread of the infection from the wounds her words had given me. I stayed busy. I worked on a house I bought, I worked in general. I slept at the house, I slept at the gallery. I slept anywhere that I didn't have to see her face and think about any of it. I wore my shiniest armor and drowned the noise in socializing. I painted, I played guitar, I studied.
When I felt healed enough to come home and sleep in bed with her, I didn't know what I expected to happen. I'm bad at emotional conversations. I want her, always. It's easier to talk without talking. But why would she..Sure, Ren. I love you. Not enough to want to make a person with you, but enough to share a house and hold your hand and also sit on your face.
Stupid sexy Lee.
I think I'm angry at myself. For wanting a baby in the first place. For entertaining the thought of it. For daring to say yes. And also for being naive enough to believe that love was some great redeemer, and that my perfect fucking lady adonis girlfriend would be able to keep up with me at the Winter Olympics. I guess I know now that I should never listen to anything she says during ogre rut season.
I don't think I can get over this immediately. But I also don't know if I will ever be able to be..separate from her again. The thought makes me sick with worry and sorrow. Shit. I guess I do love her. It seems unfair, but..somehow feels worth the pain. -
Lepidopterarium
With my own money, and some of Ashton's, I guess..I bought myself a space to work in. An office I'll convert into a by appointment gallery and appraisal space. Naturally the realtor wanted to show me sub par spaces, but I have my ways of getting what I want. Needless to say, I find my new office nicely situated in a good part of town more reflective of professionalism. I think my art clients & I will be exceptionally happy here. Lee's even helping me get it all put together.
Between working for Ashton, working for my primary clients, juggling the business and putting the office together, I've been no less busy. But I see a smidge more of my girlfriend, and that helps serve to balm me over and push me through. Being with her is a reprieve, it's something to look forward to. I do a lot of looking forward to it, if I'm being totally honest. We took a little trip to Austin and bought some fixtures from an old friend of mine. That was nice, and while it was still for work, it was the closest approximation of time off that I've had in some time. While we were there, it stormed so terribly that we needed to stay in on the first day. We built a blanket fort, which was admittedly a first for me, but precious and wholesome in about six different ways.
Once we made it back to New Versailles though, it was once again business as usual for me. Little slivers of sunshine laid into my schedule by way of her smile, a guilty pleasure. I know that parts of my brain scream at me to distance, to run, to seperate myself from this need for her..but I actively ignore them, The satisfaction of being with her so greatly outweighs the desire to be alone that I am drawn back every time. Like a moth to a flame, I can't get enough of Lee.
Still, we steal time from our schedules to at the very least sleep next to one another. On one night in particular, I was exhausted and still wanted that. There is hardly a time in which I don't want to be with her. Adjacent, even if we're busy or sleeping. Lee has this way of just recharging some part of me that I didn't even know required a charge. God, it's hopeless. My infatuation with her, it's this relentlessly oozy, fluffy thing and I'm absolutely powerless in the wake of these churning fuzzy feelings. I know it's dangerous, but plenty of things are. It's like I can see a catastrophic meteor headed right for us, but I refuse to move because the radiant heat that it puts off is so warm and I just..I've spent so long being cold. I just want to get a little warmer, just be warm a little longer.
On that particularly sleepy night, I got a text from her and thought she must be headed home. I normally would have been asleep by the time she'd texted but here I was wide awake. So, since Lee was headed home I thought that I might surprise her and meet her there. Admittedly, I did snooze a bit while I was waiting, but she didn't catch me. I just was so desperate to see her. Uck. I've never, ever been desperate before, but this is what this woman does to me and I am entirely helpless in the wake of that desperation for her warmth. Either way, we went inside and she decided that I should have a key, so that I can pop over whenever I want..and maybe not have to wake her up to get in, or fall asleep in the hallway waiting.
It's a step, but how many steps have we been climbing these past months without realizing it? It's sort of like walking and talking at the same time. You can be so engrossed in the discussion that you're having, that you walk such a long way, step over things, climb things, and don't even notice. I slept so well that night, but woke up to something I really hadn't expected. It's not uncommon of her to leave me little pieces of prose on notes when she leaves for the morning. Sometimes they're left on a pillow, but lately they've been texts. This particular day saw the sun shining into the room, and I was a bit surprised not to have been woken up by her dog. Instead, I woke up to a note on her pillow. Another piece of poetry, and just like every other morning, I eagerly bring it up to read.
It's..these poems have been the literal definition of daybreak for me. Waking up feeling that warmth, even when she's not around it..just does something good for my soul.
Lee wrote:
"today, I love you
and words ring true but
I should not write this down, I think
three words stand too bold and real
against a naked page
still, I do
because today, I love you
and it cannot be unwritten
I will probably love you tomorrow, too."
For a time I sit there in shock, I try to explain it away and lessen the importance of that word as it stares at me in pulsing neon. Vivid and vibrant against paper. It can't mean what I think it means. I look for a credit to some author, but it isn't there. I try to logic myself out of assuming that this is what it is. But the truth of the matter remains that she wrote this. She wrote this for me. I didn't know at first what to do with that feeling, something like a deer caught in headlights.
I cried. I cried for a long while that morning, using the shower as a perfect hideaway for said tears. I have a complicated relationship with the word love. The concept of love. How could she know that she loves me? No one loves me. No one ever has before, why would they now? I'm not so ignorant as to say that love isn't real. That love doesn't exist. Love exists in many things and in many varying capacities. It exists for people in relationships with others and with things, concepts, ideas. But never has the ideal of love existed in a way that's been directed toward me. My automatic response is to doubt. I've only been told by one person in my entire sixty one years that they love me. It wasn't love, it was a means to acquire. Since then, and maybe even before then..I haven't wanted to be loved by anyone. In fact, I've made it a point to avoid situations where the word is used.
But she..loves me. If ever I wanted to be loved by anyone..I'd want to be loved by her. I think that I love her, too. I get out of the shower and resolve not to talk about the note. Thinking foolishly that I can take the time I need to logically process the note, the reasoning behind it and my own feelings in regards to these things. But, through the usual morning I couldn't stop thinking about the note in my pocket, the sickening, dizzying vortex of rabid butterflies in my stomach. Maybe they aren't butterflies. Maybe they're carnivorous moths. Whatever this feeling is, it's exciting in a way that's scary and enticing. I want to keep feeling it. It makes my breath stutter in my chest and my head feel like three bottles of good champagne does. I can't help but to ask her how she knows.
Lee is the only person I am really open with about my feelings, and myself. Sure, there's Beau too..and I'd have gone to her with it but there is part of me that wants to preserve the illusion that I have my shit together and am a moderately well adjusted lady for her sake. I want to preserve that. I asked Lee how she knew and she was able to explain it in a way that made sense to me. It whipped my moths into a frenzy, but we had a good conversation. I explained that I was sure I felt something similar. My desire to be with her constantly outweighs my urge to run away. But all of the small and large things I feel for her, they sometimes register in my mind as foreign. Hard to decipher and quantify. They aren't neatly packaged emotions. Love isn't something that you wake up and understand. It isn't a clear notification that we get. We know when we're hungry, know when we're sad, angry, horny..these feelings all come easily and they're instantly able to recognize. This is different. Love is..different.
I love her, and though it takes me nearly a whole day to tell her this, I do. It felt like the right time, Lee makes me feel things. It's an accomplishment to make me feel much of anything, but beyond that she's able to make me feel things I've never felt before. Beautiful things that I'm not even sure I'm worthy of. She too is beautiful, she's another part of my life that I don't know whether I'll ever truly feel worthy of. But I mean it. I really believe it, deeper than I've ever believed most things. I love Li Ling, and I think that I have for a long time. I think I've loved her since...I can't nail it down. It's just been this slowly growing flower. It kept getting bigger and bigger until there was no longer a chance of keeping it contained.
So, I guess that one could say things have become quite serious.. -
Cruel Summer
I'm not going to pretend that I haven't dropped the entire ball on updating this thing. A summary of just what's been going on in my life might not be as precise as it normally is, here. I'll do my best to recount everything, though I'm sure with so much going on, there's going to be a metric ton of it that I'm leaving out. I guess I'll pick up somewhere after Italy, and the official proclamation of having a girlfriend. Shortly after this, work picked up for me and I even got a new client. Ashton..
Ashton was something outside of the decided normalcy of my clientbase. Yes, I'm aware that it's probably a pseudonym. I'll take this opportunity to remind you, reader- That I'm essentially a luxury hooker. It's not uncommon. While my clientbase has always been diverse, he was attractive. I have a thing for jawlines, and I'd be a liar if I sat here and didn't mention his being one of his few redeeming features. On the surface, the rest of him could be considered attractive too, a well maintained body and a lack of discrepancy about just how much money he spent. Seemingly cultured and maybe even a bit intellectual, there were more than a handful of things that made Ashton easy to be around. He followed all of my rules, and never questioned them or tried to weasel around them. This was also good. Despite my schedule having been so full, Ashton continued to surpass my expectations by fast tracking my tiered payment system and throwing money into my account for more of me. He did this all so quickly, and held a level of detachment that made the work comfortable enough.
Ashton made seeing Lee difficult, because I felt like whenever I had a set amount of time off, he'd send an email. If there was an opening in my schedule to be consumed, he'd consume it. Usually the tiered system discourages that, but it isn't the first time something like this has happened. It is however the first time that something like this has happened when I have other things I'd rather be doing. Please don't misunderstand me when I say that money is vastly important to me and the life I live. But Ashton nearly had me resenting my job. I missed her, and the immense enjoyment that I used to get from social manipulation or neuromancy as it were..well it was diminished a bit. I used to live for those moments when I was so empowered that I could talk a shrewd man out of his wallet, sense & pants. Make him eat out of my palm if only because I was bored.
It was different now, each stupid trip, each repetitive party or function..all I could do was think about her. I fought this at first. I couldn't let her impact my way of living any more than she already had. I tried very much to force myself into the enjoyment of my work. No matter, it all felt resoundingly empty. Hollow. It's funny, or maybe it's not. I spent so long priding myself on being the master of puppets in a universe full of wooden headed neanderthals. But now that I share this endless world forest of wasted potential with someone who can see me pulling strings, all that I want is to be seen by her. To feel that sameness, that sort of intensity that comes from not being alone in the universe. Pullign strings doesn't sate me like it used to. It still serves a little purpose here and there, but she's always at the back of my mind.
I send her little gifts. I send lunch to her office and flowers to her apartment, because I know that I'm working way too much to be a good girlfriend. I send her pictures and updates, I do everything I can to squeeze just a little bit of that feeling out of each day that we're apart. I miss her. I don't know that I've ever really missed anyone for reasons that aren't material. My missing of Lee had me resenting Ashton. He'd never have any idea, of course. Even if he had, he just continued paying me, so I kept spending time with him. Ashton transferred money to me and made his way through the gauntlet of stopgaps in my tiering to get my pants off.
I know what you're thinking, and I'm thinking it too. Work isn't so bad, you get to fuck this hot guy who's actually rich and not super disgusting. I thought that would be a perk too, but as always I catch myself feeling absolutely nothing. Really? He's hot, right? This should be remotely enjoyable. No, it really isn't. He has no idea, but do they ever? The vampire fangs and the manipulation have always been the crutch that makes this tolerable, but there aren't any fangs here. Just that painfully stupid expression on his face. Ever had a one sided hate fuck? I hate him, and I shouldn't. He's a client, one with zero idea that he's eating up time that's precious because it could be spent with her. Regardless, I exact a flawless performance, playing the part of someone who is enjoying themselves. That's what they like, that little bit of useful feeling.
Once it's all over, I actually have the free time to go and visit Lee but I don't. It's just too uncomfortable of a transition. A normal dynamic would see me going to visit her and talking about my day, but this isn't a normal dynamic. This is me, spending the remainder of my evening in a shower that's gone cold. This is me realizing I had my 'Oh, well I guess I'm gay.' moment while bouncing on a dick made of money. In essence, it's been an exceptionally strange passage of time. Between Ashton eating up my free time, I barely even see her except for those nights when I make it over to her place in time to text her awake so that I have the opportunity to crawl inro bed next to her. I just miss her, and I want so much for everything to slow down if only for a few days. -
Tides
I have had a particularly LONG week convincing myself that Li Ling is finished with me after our time in Italy. It's more likely than the alternative. It helps me compartmentalize my own hurt. If I tell myself that it was nothing to her, maybe it will be to me, too eventually. This has not been an easy task. I had started to believe it. Just enough, and then she punched one of my clients in the face after a week of silence. Lovely.
I genuinely cannot make this up. Why would I? I stared at my phone in disbelief, but didn't answer. What she just did was supremely unwise. Thankfully, Gordon's arrogance will never connect the broken nose to me. If he had even one more brain cell, I might be worried. Still, i'm mortified at the possibility. Not the brain cell, but the other thing. If it got out that people who commission my services are getting popped in the nose or just popped in general- it's going to be very bad for business. She had no right to do that, zero. I'm nowhere near naive enough to say.. Oh, well it must have been something else! Golly! Please.
I know that he must have mentioned it. That's what my clients do, and sometimes that word of mouth is extremely lucrative for me. 'locker room talk' is disgusting, reprehensible, et cetera. That's a fact, but money talks, and I'll listen to it before I listen to anything a man has to say about me or what I do. I sell fantasy. Let them spin it however they want, so long as the transfers clear. If she can't handle that, we're far better off having parted ways. I am what I am. That much has been obvious from the very start.
I don't reply to him, I don't text her. I ignore the extreme shitshow going on in my life right now and bury myself in my work. I have some annual appraisals coming up for a private collector, I should be gathering those materials. Not fretting over this complicated mess. It's hard to focus, but I get into the swing of things and start the contacting process and contract renewals, everything is coming together. Two days passed, I was painting in my back room when I heard a knock on my door.
I assume it's the neighbor girl, come to sit and chat with me for a while or pet Gustav. But no, It's Li Ling. She looked beautiful, as always- but equially terrible. There was a low boil of sadness and confusion just beneath her armor, and I could sense it. Sure, that blazer had sharp lines, everything on her person was neat and collected. Her visage was the same as always, but the inner bits that project such confidence were dampened by that boil. I didn't quite know what to say, so I just invited her in. I stood there, stewing in my own anger while she explained that she'd assumed she was okay and then nearly collapsed someone's face.
Gordon's face. I remain steely as I can until of course, she said something that took down all of my walls. "You've fucking broken me, Ren." I was afraid of this. I spent a week afraid of this, that sick feeling intensifies as soon as she confirms my fear, one I'd long since tried to banish. No, I fucked up. She hadn't been 'done with me'. Just in the same way that I hadn't been rid of the thought of her. Then I did something I never do. I leaked. From my eyes, tears. In front of a person. It was embarrassing, and I felt that, but that feeling paled in comparison the rest. A jumbled, jargled amount of words left me in the thick of it, broken by stammers and grasps at air I wasn't getting.
I wasn't crying for me. I was crying for her. I never wanted to hurt her, and that hurt is written all over her. Seeing it is like a hot dagger through my chest. I just can't take the pain. I shouldn't have cried, because she did, too. It all felt so terrible. She'd seen a part of me that she couldn't bare to unsee, there was no going back to normal for her. I tried my hardest to explain that I can't have something like what we had in Italy. Not for real. But then she, unable to accept my self deprecating as an answer to the problem, said something..beautiful.
"I want you, I want the secret, soft you as much as I want the other sharp, bold parts. I don't want to lose you, and if I can't have all of it, then I want the parts of you they can't have."
I understand that despite her willingness to overlook the obvious, there are still a plethora of reasons that this isn't a good idea. But for the first time in a very long time, the logic path that keeps me far from the grasp of potential pain is not the one I want to take. I want so much to believe that this will work. I want so much to stop the ache in my ribs that I..abandoned the notion of a clean break from this.
She understands. More than just me. More than what I am. Li Ling said something about how life is incredibly long, and her being confident in mastering detachment was no match for the match we found in one another. She has no idea just how much I identify with that particular statement. She said all of the things that my stammering failed to. It has been so difficult to remember the rules for fortifying myself against attachment when I want nithing more than to touch her cheek, hear her voice..It's impossible. I'm powerless in the wake of this attraction to her. It's stronger than anything I've felt before.
I played a song for her, something I've been tooling around with for some time, because I am painfully incapable of expressing emotions with a conversation like a normal person might be. It'd kept me company while I was trying to decipher my own emotions, and I thought..why not now? Why not share it while I'm all red faced and sniffly. Why not make myself look even more pathetic while I'm here.
And in the wake of the tempest we spent time articulating terms, boundaries..the things that neither of us had the foresight to discuss before. Things that had felt so gated behind the pretense of extending the pretending. I feel apprehensive, but that apprehension is successfully overpowered by something else. Happy. I feel..happy. Girlfriend isn't a word we're using, because it's sort of youthful for both of us. Until we find a proper term, anyway. I'm not sure it needs a word. People want desperately to put labels on things, and maybe some just aren't meant to be labeled. -
Bed of Roses
CONTENT WARNING: SELF HARM
Surely I seem like I don't care, and that couldn't be further from the truth. I need to uphold that illusion though. I don't call. I don't text, I don't send flowers, or stop by. I can't do this anymore. It was fun and cute when feelings weren't involved but now I fear that I'm out of my depth. It's for her own good, I tell myself. The only thing I can see when I close my eyes is her getting into that car alone..
So you see, I am to blame. I knew better, and yet I still let my selfish desire for her presence outweigh the consequence glaring at me from the corner. I spent the next week sick to my stomach, because my chest was even more afflicted. That sickness began once we had made it back to New Orleans. I can't describe it correctly, and I'm quite sure that the word empathy doesn't fit. There was just this strong sense of dread that took me. A bad vibe, as we'd have said in the 70s. Bad energy, a storm of it between our lips when we kissed goodbye confirming it's presence.
I am embarrassed to admit that so soon as I got home, I broke a little inside. Frantic searching for understanding in a foreign place, a sinking chasm in my core. I can't find the tools that I need to assess this hurt. Why does it hurt? I made a mistake, I should have never assumed that there was someone out there like me. Someone who had severed their own heart strings and was completely fine living that way. The way that I cope is simple. It's through work and ample distraction. Usually, this works for anything and everything that could ever qualify as emotion. Busy. Even still, there are these remote twinges, and they hurt. Little thoughts, sometimes I even swear that I can smell her?
I knew better, I knew as soon as she showed me those photos of her wife. She was capable of connecting to others in a way that I am not, and have never been. No, I knew sooner. I knew when she wanted to kiss me on the mouth. I told myself that this was a bad idea. I tried to leave, but I wanted it too. Her. I wanted her, she'd seen me and I was so taken with her. Infatuated by the same things in life, our similarities at the start were so blaring that I mistook them for an understanding of principle. How could I have been so careless? It was a mistake, and not just a little oops. I ignored that, I pushed it down- then I just kept playing this game with her. Italy, why not go to the most romantic place on earth? I am an actual idiot. How could I have been so ignorant? Further- Why do I care about how she feels? I've never worried for sparing a client's feelings, but hers..I want to protect them. I want to protect her from them. WHY!?
I spent the week's duration of sickness in a few ways. I drank my weight in champagne, and when that didn't even remotely quiet it- vodka. When that didn't work, xanax gave me at the very least a few hours of sleep. I still felt it. The weight. That terrible weight. I felt like a piece of me had been lost, I grieved for something I know I can never have. Further, I got angry with myself, because I was absolutely not at all entitled to such feelings. How could I be? I am the one who knew better, and I let that knowing slip. I let that mask slip. Being with her as a work thing would have been better than nothing at all. I've ruined our friendship. I've ruined everything. I always ruin everything. I am destruction. I am poison. I am the bad thing. Me. No one stays. Nothing stays. Why give it a chance to? Why entertain the thought? I knew then that she probably wasn't thinking about it. That had to be it, and that thought carried me through.
When my hands were shaking, when I cut lines of striking crimson into alabaster and watched the pain leak out in a way that I could actually comprehend. That was my thought. I had to think she was fine. She was done. Cigarettes found their end, embers snuffed in my forearm and momentarily, I'd find some clarity. I'd find some secret respite where I could for some time feasibly believe that she knew how to turn it off. That it'd been the plan all along. This pain, the emotional pain- it'd been self inflicted. This heartsick, it was all my own fabrication. No one wants me. I knew that. I know that. I punish the thoughts that skew outward. I extinguish them with a pain more legible. I tell myself that she's fine, and that she will be.
I continue working. I put on my mask every afternoon just as I always have. Even the subtle psychological games give me no solace. I thought for a moment when I was using the crop on Rhodes that I felt something. No, false alarm. I met with an older client, and he couldn't afford much. Maybe I was feeling charitable, or wanted to get out of my head for a while, but I went to his stupid dinner party with him. Waspy laughs all around. Chest touches, secret hair pulls, that whole thing. Gordon is a real scumbag, but he likes to be controlled. A lot of them do. His cologne is dated and offensive. I hate the way his hand feels on my hip. I'm miserable the entire time, a piece of me is dying inside, rotting. But yet I am stood there laughing at a joke about ex wives. If you played your cards right, you could be Gordon's future ex wife, Loren. Is there anything more disgusting than the name Loren? I have mentally scoffed thirty five times before dinner. I slide Gordon my panties under the table, because it's the only thing he can afford.
I go home, I lay on the couch, I start the cycle of destruction over again. A few days pass, and I get a text from Gordon..Oh. GREAT..Somehow things just got worse.
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