an ideal relationship

i read this while i was in bermuda, and it stuck with me. totally sexy.

"she was tall and smooth and strange, like an alien with impossibly long limbs. you couldn't keep from staring at her, picturing her in certain situations, all tangled in the sheets. she was the wife of someone i used to know. they got married when she was eighteen or nineteen, i think. he used to stand around guarding her all the time, as if he was shielding her body from a blast. she'd have this look on her face that was sort of bored and panicked at the same time. it was like she was a hostage and they were trying to find a place in the world to hide her. i pitied them in a lot of ways.

it was a few years later when i saw her again. at a dinner party. their marriage had fallen apart, i never knew the details but she was alone. i think by then she was trying to make up for some of what she'd missed, marrying so young. but it was hard for her. she stood out, she was too immaculate in way, she had some kind of gawky elegance that made it difficult for her to get properly defiled.

i told her i couldn't explain why but that i only wanted one thing from her, and that was to make her come with my mouth while she as watching television. and ideally while she smoked a cigarette, too, but she wasn't a smoker. it was just something to talk about the first few times. i'd talk and she'd listen, and laugh at me. she had this deep laugh, you didn't know where it came from because she had a normal, mild voice, but then this stomach-based laugh would chuckle out of her, like she was laughing at you with her whole soul. the laugh was revealing, but what it revealed was her distance. it let you know how far away she'd gone to hide from her body and from the world and the responses of all the men she'd met.

one night i guess she got tired of laughing and saying no and she took me to her apartment, this huge place she'd lived in during her marriage. once she'd decided, we didn't discuss anything. it was a somber ritual, as if we felt answerable to some third party we didn't want to disappoint. she had a television but no cable, so we put in a video. her former husband was a film scholar, he'd left all these videos behind. it was in another language, something scandinavian. the glow was the only light in the room. i guess she was reading the subtitles. i couldn't.

it took a really long time. i think she must have watched half that movie. and when it was over she was still and quiet. i could tell she was just waiting for me to leave. i assumed that was the end of it, but she called me about a week later and told me i could visit again if i wanted. this time it didn’t take so long and when she came she started laughing at me, that same fathomless lunatic belly laugh. i was just kneeling there in my clothes between her long legs and i guess i looked sort of stupid. she sashed up her robe and just started laughing.

it became a regular thing for a while. i’d visit her apartment and she’d put in a video and sprawl on her chair in front of the television, it was a ratty yellow armchair, and throw her robe open. and she’d laugh afterward. she’d just look at me and laugh madly, and i’d laugh too. it was like i was escorting her on some long passage from where her reserve and her beauty had exiled her, only the voyage could never be finished for her. she’d come and laugh and then it would be time for me to go.”

--jonathan lethem, ‘you don’t love me yet’