Chapter 5
5.
I think of her again this morning, like always, and I am ashamed. Thinking of her is like the second of realization that one has broken a promise or forgotten an appointment. I just want to get her out of my head, or else have some real reason for her inclusion, i.e. her presence.
I sit in Ezra's kitchen, drinking tea out of Ezra's cup. I am totally stifled by this routine, strangled by this familiarity. He is a dog eared novel, not a favorite, but read over and over none the less, only because your teachers keep promising you that one day you will appreciate it. I long for a diversion, a lusty hearty adventure to quell my boredom. I want, desperately, to stop what I've started with this well-intentioned man.
Toward this end, I interrupt his e-mailing.
"I think I used to believe that deprivation was a good thing; that it built character. I wanted to be sad, hungry, lonely, deprived, depraved-"
"But that's ridiculous. That's the most ridiculous train of thought I've ever heard." His fingers are poised above the keyboard.
"Well, I think that it was somehow attached to my desire," I grope for words, "to be famous for something I was not-- ingenious, beautiful-"
"That is so dumb. You are beautiful. You are exceptional." He says, looking back at the screen.
A few minutes later, he looks up again. His brow is furrowed.
"You've got to start loving yourself, Ellie. Start accepting yourself. You are exceptional. You should be proud of those exceptions- thrive on them."
"Well maybe I'm scared that even I can't love me. Maybe I fear that if I really look, I'll find myself to be a very nicely decorated thumbtack or rubberband."
"Which would make me a fool for loving you..."
"No," I say warmly, "You are a prince."
"A prince who's in love with a girl who's too scared to let herself feel, to love, even herself."
"But I have a tendency to become fanatical, to get so obsessed over things that I stop living, but for that one thing. I put all my eggs in that one basket. I give them my soul. I make them into my sun."
"Like Nina, for example."
"Like Nina, like my art."
"And you just couldn't stand to be that fanatical about yourself? My ex-girlfriend couldn't do it either. She was too loving. She ended up depending on me too much. It was horrible."
"Does she have a name?"
"Who?"
"This ex-girlfriend. This ubiquitous ex-girlfriend."
"Veronica."
"Well, unlike Veronica, I am disgustingly selfish. I'd just end up hating everything about me. I'd end up...trying to control myself."
"Maybe you can release a little bit more of the control of your life to the cosmos."
"My mother controls my life now. I feel like this whole exhibit thing is not only because of her, but for her. Half of the messages on my answering machine are from her..."
"But she's not the one that's going to have to live with you. You have to live with you. Just be happy to be yourself. Fuck everything else."
And if the span of my hips grows too big to fit into my ideal, just find a bigger ideal, I suppose. If only life were so simple.
"I wish there were some sort of magic I could do." I say, but his fingers are already clicking against the keyboard, making words .
I sit, for the first time, on the patio outside of Her cafe. Spring is warming the air and there are now several tables out-of-doors, each with two chairs - his and hers?- pulled intimately up to it. I make lists of things to do on the scratch paper in my head.
I must buy some knee-socks, I remind myself. But I must wait until my knees do not look like those of an elephant and my legs do not look like those of a chubby, playful schoolgirl. How long will that be... as long as the day is tedious.
Others drink coffee with chums. They sigh about how the day smells terrific. The couples whisper sweet somethings. I don't want my father to fight my battles for me but... I sit. I take my coffee alone, in small doses, with no sugar. I smile a welcome at those approaching. I ignore those that are leaving. They already know. They've had their fun. The air grows cold and my pants are thin. The air is thin. I can walk away without leaving a mark.
The moon looks whole and self-contented. But it is not a full moon. The moon, too, has needs. It will not be a full moon for days. Will I be full when my knee-socks are bought and slide down my legs with forgotten elasticity? I will not be gentle with them. They will stretch as anything stretches, with use and mistreatment. Though I give it a good yank every few minutes, my imagination is gaping and keeps sliding down to my ankles. Eventually, I give up and kick it softly down the quiet street. It makes soft soccer-ball thuds that echo into the night, like children going home for dinner.
He made me breakfast for me today, around noon, with me pressed to his back like a naked papoose, watching him add to the omlette a touch of salt, a bit more cheese. When I bored of his domestications, I quietly detached myself and retreated to the living room couch to watch television between sun-drenched catnaps.
I had forgotten all those Saturdays of A-Team and Knight Rider and Dance Fever. Of Love Boat and Fantasy Island. I had forgotten the complete idleness of a day, the thoughtless decadence of doing nothing. The simple grace of the sun, setting on a day in which absolutely nothing was done. When all was undone and forgotten.
Although his energy is devoted to washing dishes, washing clothes, I feel completely loved. In my boyfriend's house, catching occasional glances of his body, clad only in boxers and socks, bustling about in the next room.
Yet there is a falseness in all this comfort. I don't really know this man. This man that I welcomed into my body, into my heart. There's still so much to share... We are acting out the roles of boyfriend and girlfriend, when all that we are is lovers.
But this lie is so delicious. Imagine, I feel loved.
Any day now I'll be happy to be alone, I promise.
Any day now I'll cherish my solitude like a lost love, I pray.
I am slowly resigning myself to my lot.
"You need a diversion."
I look at him. I wonder if it was an accusation.
"So pack a bag. We're going to the country." He smiles at me. How sweet to have my needs met without even articulating them.
April 16-
Dear diary, when did my dreams become his? In the country: with powdered, birdless skies, when did this boy become the one that I chased beneath the tree boughs? At the beach: roaring ocean, greasy french fries and kisses, when did he become the one that pulled the salty hairs from my face? In the cabin: with twilight creeping in, a whirring fan above me, when did he become the one that lay beside me, fast asleep? And at night: when did he become the one that held my hand, sweaty or not?
When did I know that he would never let me fall? I ask you, dear diary. I think that you might know.
I have put on some weight. My skin dimples from obesity. All those fatty eggs and dinners at restaurants. I stand in his bathroom, naked. I have stopped throwing up, and I now my body is growing cushioning. I shouldn't have stopped. I was so close...
I am startled by the knock on the door. "Wait," I yell, frantically pulling a towel around me.
"Okay." I say, gripping its ends as the doorknob turns. He enters. He smiles. I try to smile back, clutching my towel all the while.
"What's up? Are you taking a shower? Can I watch?"
"No. I mean, no. I was just looking in the mirror."
"Oh." He puts some toothpaste on his toothbrush and turns on the water. I guess he is planning on staying in here. That's okay. Invasion of personal space is a part of every relationship.
I sit on the sink, watching him. He looks at me.
"Problem?" he says through the mouthful of foam.
"No." I smile. He keeps brushing.
He looks at me. I smile. He spits and rinses.
"What's up?" he asks again.
"Do you...like my body...?" I smile. Please let him say yes.
"Fishing for compliments?" he asks. He puts his toothbrush in the holder.
"No, I... just answer the question." He doesn't understand me.
"You sound like my fucking ex-girlfriend." He kisses my forehead patronizingly, "Yes I like your body. I love your body. I love you. Can't you tell?"
How can he be so perfect and so absolutely wrong all at once?
I am fucking him with everything I've got. I am fucking out of spite. I am on top. I am dominating. He is moaning uncontrollably because I am fucking him. He must be fucked because he must learn a lesson. He must learn that he is mine. He must be fucked.
"Do you love me?"
"What?"
"Do you love me."
"Yes."
"Say it."
"I love you."
"Say my name."
"I love you, Ellie. I love you."
He comes. I climb from on top of him. I curl around him, my head resting softly on his chest. I can feel his heart, still beating uncontrollably as I close my eyes in sleep.
He's mine. He told me so.
Sometimes (in the hopes of diversifying the range of emotion contained within one's passion) the need to spark controversy beckons with its alluring little fingers. Hence, we are having our first fight. I started it.
"I wish we wouldn't have sex so much."
"What?" he says, looking up from his laptop.
"I feel cheap. Like that's all I'm good for-"
"You should really think about what you say before you say it. You really should." He keeps typing.
"Is that all you want from me?" I ask, hoping. I am hoping so much.
"You... You know what? I don't even know how you could say that. Don't I try to meet your every need? Do I not do enough? I don't know, is it me, or are you being absolutely unreasonable?"
"All I do is sit around here, waiting for you to come home, talking to my mother and Paolo about this art shit. I don't even create anything worth a damn anymore. All I do is wait for you so that we can have sex."
"Wow, I thought we were making love, I thought you needed me as much as I need you. I didn't know that all we were doing was fucking-"
"I didn't say that!" What have I started?
"- so that we could get our rocks off or something. I cannot believe that anyone as warped as you exists."
Uh oh. "I didn't mean that-"
"Save it. You are being unreasonable. When you come back to earth, we'll chat." He starts typing again.
I retreat to a dark corner where I sit scribbling all my sadness onto the pages of a legal pad. I put the pad on the table and get my coat.
"I'll be back in a while," I don't wait for a response, though I wonder if it ever came.
I hit the pavement with a whimper.
'And so he knows,' I think, sighing resolutely. 'And if he kicks you to the curb, to that curb you'll be.
'And you'll like it there, honey. Because city lights and certain smells belong exclusively to you, the urban chick, the urbane chica with more attitude than any one girl would ever need.
'And your cement stomping, well turned heels will click only at night as your cigarette burns alphabet through the sky. Nobody has legs as long as a city skyline and spunk that makes newspaper headlines. Nobody has what you've got.
'So if you get kicked to the curb, you know already to stick your heart in your back pocket and keep on truckin'.'
Ezra,
I am being unreasonable. I cannot expect you to understand all of the unpenetrated layers I haven't shown you. I guess I thought that if you penetrated me, somehow you'd understand.
I don't know if you know what it's like to have your spirit broken. To be a wild and unrestrained creature and to have that wild unrestrained spirit slowly, painfully, broken.
My boyfriend used to come over to my house every weekend. I would have to be there. Mandatory attendance. I gave up my weekends so that I could be there when he came to fuck me. Or at least that's what I felt, going out with an enigma. I never understood him, understood what he wanted from me. I gave him love, to the greatest extent that I could, but I'm still not sure that was what he wanted. He wanted to be a man, my man, yet he wanted to be totally dependent on me. He wanted me to depend on him too, but that was a bit too much to ask of a wild, unbroken spirit. I couldn't give him my soul, for I didn't know then that it was part of the bargain. He accepted my body in the exchange.
So he would come, every weekend for seven long months, and we would make love and watch T.V. and make love and have dinner and make love and go to sleep and make love before my mom awakened to lovingly make us breakfast. Maybe he just didn't have the money to take me out. Maybe times were that tough. But when you never see the light of day with someone, never go to the park or the movies or just for a walk until it's far too late, you start to wonder if it's just the body, the worthless, spiritless body, that keeps him coming back.
And when he tells you that he cheated on you, you are shaken. This boy who has broken you, trained you, made you, has taken the thing that you thought made you special (your home-made love) and made it with someone else. It's kind of like taking the sand castle that someone has built for you and stepping on it. Gingerly at first, then stomping on it with hearty thuds.
You begin to question who you are. And you realize that the soul you were unwilling to relinquish has been pulled out from under you like your questionable grasp on reality.
And you simply cannot, can not make love to him anymore. The idea that there was another girl underneath him, engulfing him, is really just too much for you to handle. This act that you thought was so fucking special and so fucking exclusive no longer embodies those stupid, stupid ideals. Sex does not have to be the most intimate act that two people can share. You do not own a part of that person and they, you realize, do not own poor little broken you.
So, as he cries in front of you, you realize that your man is not a man. He is a weak and deplorable creature. And you swear never to put all of your eggs, all of your hopes, all of you, in one stupid fucking basket again.
You slowly break your own heart trying to resolve this issue.
Then, out of a heavenly blue, comes a boy so special that your head spins. A you. But I won't love this one, you swear. He can't be special enough to deserve my love, you think. For it was love that broke you that first time.
But here he is, caring and stuff, and here you are, really starting to care about him too. He's not like other boys, you think. And you really believe it. So you do it. You love him. He doesn't realize how much, but you love him up to gazoo, as much as you can. You kind of wince every time he mentions his ex-girlfriend, because the stories of their times past seem so pleasant, so unlike yours. But there was pain, he promises. The was too much of everything and too much dependence in particular, he swears. Yes, but was your spirit broken?
He doesn't know. And I won't mention any of it, you warn yourself. Does he know from my defensive statements every time we discuss Veronica's anorexia that I was sadly and happily bulimic until he started loving me? Does he know that when I lost control of my spirit and my sexuality that I tried to regain it by disappearing? By absolutely and literally disappearing? That the thighs and the ass that he appreciates were measured every day, in the hopes that I could vomit them out and somehow render my body asexual so that nobody would want to have sex with me, the way it was when I was younger? Does he realize that the reason that my statements sound so much like Veronica's is because we have so very much in common? Does he realize how much time I've had to spend only loving myself, in spite of the boyfriends, the most beautiful of girlfriends, in spite of the love thrown my way, just so that I could mend my poor, beautiful, once-stupid, never-again-to-be-broken spirit? Has he had his spirit broken?
He never wants to deal with such an ordeal as that again, he says. And neither do I, you say, happy that you can finally eat pizza and meat and potatoes without thinking yourself a failure. You have become a whole person again. You are you. So glad to have you here! Won't you please sit down for some cookies and cocoa? Yes, I will!
I am being unreasonable because there is so much that I want to tell you, so much you should know. But I do not want to scare you off. I care so much about you and like so much about you and, simultaneously, care so much about me and like so much about me, finally (!), that I do not want to tell you about the boy who stole more from me than my virginity. I do not want to tell you that I used to hate every inch of the body that I love having so close to you. I do not want to fuck this up.
So much of my time has been spent in the past (perhaps in the present?) holding up a very heavy and cumbersome facade of Ellie-ness. The very little and scared girl that lies behind it is so used to her pitiful lot in life that she never imagined what living would be like. And here you are loving that little and scared girl. And here I am living.
Please don't think that I'm fishing for compliments when I ask you if my body is pleasing to you. My longest lasting relationships were ones in which I was a living doormat. It is very novel for me to feel appreciated by anyone besides myself.
I need you, Ezra. I need you so much more than you know, so much more than I thought that I could or ever would. You mean a whole lot to me. I am being unreasonable. Because you just don't know and I don't want to fuck this up.
Gee, complete honesty. How friggen' novel. I have yet to be this honest with myself. And here I am, sharing all this shit with you. Go fucking figure.
-Ellie
End of April fools, I guess-
Dear diary, why must these angels spit reality in my face like hellfire? I need to be someone's everything. Simplicity, happiness, a puritanical non-lesbian love that perpetuates myth, that's all I ask of you, sir. You help me lock the doors. You help keep the demons out. In.
I know that I can be all that you'll ever need. Though I love passion, I fear passion, for in passion my own ugliness becomes glaringly apparent. I prefer to pass the time giving. If I do it long enough, it becomes routine.
Brain freeze, heart numb, soon the only thing I will be able to feel is happiness. Soon.
Take me away, lover. I dream of escape. Kiss me, hurt me, break me, anything but complete, please. Make me a whore, please, but make me your whore. Own me, posses me (before the demons do).
Take me lover, take me. The wind can't howl your name the way I do.
I am making love to him with everything I've got. This time, I am fucking out of love. I am beneath his musky weight. I am making love because he must learn a lesson. He must learn that I am his. We must make love.
He comes. He rolls from on top of me. He curls around me, resting his head gently on my chest.
"Do you love me?"
"Yes. I love you Ellie. I love you."
"Well, I love you too."
I can feel my heart, still beating uncontrollably as I close my eyes in sleep.
I went to the museum today. To see the Rodins again. They're the only ones that don't stare vacantly. Through me rather than at me. They're the only ones that seem to care. I didn't even fool myself into thinking that I would look at anything besides them. Didn't dawdle in the Early Impressionists as I usually do, trying to get up the nerve to confront that greatness.
I can't imagine ever being as good as Rodin. I can't imagine being as passionate as he was. Even with my life as fucked up as it is now, even when I was painting Nina with more emotion than I thought I had, I never achieved the intensity that Rodin had. Maybe it's because my muse sucks, quite unlike Camille Claudel.
When I got home there was yet another letter from Her. My name, scrawled in her bubbly feminine cursive, hovered in blue ink above the swelling rectangle that contained her love. I threw it casually on top of the growing pile of unopened lovesongs.
