always like a fumbling idiot . . . i swear you grew more limbs when the lights went out

I’m never quite sure how these things begin.

Jules and I are having a conversation over the phone about sex. It’s not uncommon for us. Although it does feel a bit wrong at the moment, as we’ve both been placed on the off limits lists by the other people in our lives. We’re talking about his new girlfriend . . . candy . . . or melody . . . or some other offensive name that shouldn’t belong to a real person. [That’s overt jealousy, by the way, and something that I only allow myself to feel for Jay and the women he consumes. It’s because I love him tremendously, and know, at the same time, that I never ever want to be with him.] I ask him if he enjoys having sex with her, and he says,

Well, what do you mean? Yeah, sure, I always get off.

And I shrug at him through the receiver and close my eyes, even though I understand very clearly that the gestures, like my question, will be lost on him. He’s saying other things about her “smoking body” and offering other details about their lovemaking that I’d rather not ever revisit. But it’s an honesty that I appreciate and hold to dearly. These are the kinds of conversations I can deal with. I know how these physical things work. I try to ask him if there’s anything else there – if he sees a difference between “getting off” and sexual experiences that go beyond that. I say,

I could get off with lots of people, but I wouldn’t really want to.

We argue for awhile about sex and what it means and if physicality is always a manifestation of other deeper emotions or if it is mostly just bestial urges that we’ve attached significance to. In the end, we both agree that even though we’ve been in situations where we’ve convinced ourselves that we never want our partner to touch us again. That the idea of being under those hands or being kissed by those lips makes us want to hurl ourselves from the top of a building – we always cave at the idea of having the sex itself – however wretched it might end up being. He snorts and tells me that I am being wishy-washy in my position and that at the base of it all – I only care about getting off too. It’s really more complicated than that and has a lot to do with time and progressing and knowing how to make all the buttons work quickly – instead of fumbling around like an idiot. But he won’t understand that right now, and I can’t hardly disagree.

I tell him that I woke up this morning from a dream in which I was having an affair with one of my recent professors. It was a sexual dream, but not an erotic one, and it confuses me quite a lot. I don’t think I’ve ever had waking or sleeping fantasies about someone that I hadn’t already seen naked. And I don’t really have a crush on this person. Well, maybe an intellectual crush. Yeah, maybe that. But all Jules really wants to talk about are the sexual benefits of his new partner. I could set an egg timer for how long that fascination will last. Instead, I put on the kettle to make tea and sit and listen – because he says he’s happy and that makes me happy too.

We have to get off the phone quickly when she returns from aerobics class or church or some other unrealistic activity, but I don’t mind. I drink my tea, blackberry sage, and think about the way Jules used to kiss me when we thought we might want to make something other out of ourselves than friends.