Text: Christine Gaigg

Translation: David Tushingham

 

OBJET TROUVÉ, 1993

Peter is arriving on Friday night. I’m as excited as if a potential lover is coming. But I try not to expect anything. Whatever happens will be ok. At one, full of integrity, I ask where he wants to sleep. With me. It’s very dark. We start touching each other. Irritations arise. I think he’s just “mirroring”. A good trick. It’s too dark for him, he doesn’t want to get into the problem of contraception. Unsure who’s taking the lead. Eventually we fall asleep. In the morning we find our bodies intertwined and talk about what happened the night before. We have sex. The problem now is the condom. Eventually we drag ourselves outside. Rain. Cafe. Buy condoms. The sex is beautiful and long, the condom a success. The night before I thought: it’s really not a bad thing to breathe so intensively. Very heavy rain. We manage to keep in a good mood and go for a meal. In the cinema we hold hands. It’s a gay film, the woman is a vampire. Our familiarity seduces us into fucking again before the film. It’s what he wants, he asks for it. I actually think there isn’t enough time and it is too hasty. Three condoms tear. It’s not satisfying. Afterwards it’s somehow different. In a relationship I have options: a scene; saying ok, it doesn’t always have to be good and go on a long time. But here? It’s obvious that I can’t have Marc. He can’t belong to anybody. The game is to be independent and fascinating that way; I didn’t play it. It’s too much for Peter. I notice this but don’t know what’s going on. I can’t get Joseph out of my head. Not only his invasive manner of flirting, immediately setting up an erotic relationship, telling me straight out what I’m supposedly giving out: that I can only find my place within my body, that I behave as if there’s no time, that I refuse to establish my own story. That I need to find a place and a partner. But why does he tell me before that I need to spend seven years travelling? I felt found out, I didn’t want to be defensive, I wasn’t in the mood for jokes. Why does Marc call me to tell me he’s coming? And then not come. He didn’t feel strong. Does that mean he can only enter my sight when he doesn’t feel threatened? Not being allowed to turns me off. I lose all interest, everything goes blurry, soft. I try to be alert and friendly and sometimes I let slip a cruel remark. I’m exploding with guilt. Marc is not blameless here, it’s existential. The latest Biblical temptation that I will not give in to, more out of cowardice than principle, is called Adam. Dancing was pretty good, it would be good too, but then I think I might be promising more than I can deliver. But do you have to be able to fuck well if you can dance well? What am I suddenly afraid of? - Even if it didn’t deliver what it promised (but it’s often like that the first time) I fantasise. I ring Adam up, even though he’s not there. He is there. And pretends he doesn’t know who I am. – I experience a sense of devotion, nothing bothers me, everything is right: erotically, sexually, in terms of communication. Talk flows in, but it’s not always necessary, breathing, sounds. I love sucking dicks because then I can hear the man’s pleasure. Since when have I been so good with dicks? Sadness is all part of the weekend package but why is every goodbye a little abandonment? I know I can’t have him. Compared to Peter Marc is unloving, brutal and above all an act. Once he’s going he’s going, he can’t pause. With Peter, there can be pauses, he can fuck for ever. Not a second of it is manufactured or bluff. Arousal and pleasure are evident, tangible, can be recaptured instantly and are always there subliminally without being over-theatrical. My first ejaculation! It is like a deflowering with the difference that it wasn’t planned and no one was expecting it. It is very clearly a sharp white jet from a certain point deep inside and then it runs out hot. Today my pussy is still in turmoil, swollen, pulsating, my skin remembers your skin very well, there is something about your skin, the energy, it is responsive, adaptable, opens into the unknown. Your fingers inside my pussy, it’s such a pleasure, I can totally surrender to it, it’s such a wave! Yet I managed to masturbate. The carrots were too thin, the cucumbers too expensive, so I took a zucchini which was fairly small but did the job. Of course I know, the design of those weekends, the freedom, the luxurious attitude, contribute to it.  Torn between panic (Paul would be really angry and throw me out if he knew) and a certain determination to take control of my life. This time I’m not hysterical and desperate because Peter hast left, just sad, yearning, still very sensual, devouring myself. It’s time for me to dance again. The only way of transforming the pain and not repressing it. Paul does not think we are evading problems by fooling around. It seems we use the same tactics: wait and don’t stress yourself. Now is probably the time when meeting Peter becomes self-destructive. He’s got no reason to come back to me except one, which I’m clutching at like a straw. Twice he’s left me for someone else, then wanted me back, but on the side each time. Was I ever anything else? Isn’t it absurd, that Peter has accused me of being obsessed with sex? Rang Peter, he answered immediately and was not unfriendly. I’m completely confused. When I ask him how he manages to readjust, I expect he’s also going to say “with difficulty”. So it’s a blow to the pit of my stomach when he says “normally, but not this time”. What does that mean? I also make the mistake of selling myself short. I talk about sex too much. I need to make my point in a different way. Met Adam the same evening. I’m his first “older” lover. His friends think he should have gone for the “junior sister”. This “junior sister” looks like his girlfriend. I decide I’m not going to carry on. He’s quite frustrated, uptight, which confuses me: he keeps telling me the same things. He knows odd people, no wonder he’s got a distorted image of Europe if rich women from Afro classes at the  fitness centres keep picking him up. He doesn’t know why he likes me (does that mean: someone who’s not especially beautiful, not especially young, not at all rich, doesn’t have her own apartment?) What do men mean by “emotional“?  Letter from Peter. Physically the same but: 1. physio-chemical dependency, 2. sex with ex-lovers is a kind of regression 3. would more than two days be the breakdown of an illusion?  Confused, confused.  What’s that supposed to mean? Regression? Who says? Dependency? When he’s so good at readjusting? Does he want to end it? I keep thinking about this all day. The idea that Marc can be overcome by Peter is an illusion. Peter is good love-making, Marc is a challenge. - I don’t know if I should do it. Afraid of my expectations, of what goes with it. Of the consequences of punishing myself. Suddenly I’m generally very tired. After dancing I’m tired but I feel good. I don’t want to call anyone. After teaching I’m on an adrenaline high, suddenly I want to do forbidden things, live it up. And it hasn’t happened again. This time I’m frustrated. If only I could stop. I’m fed up of calling up and speaking in code. The code is something I only understand in retrospect. Talked to Paul, just before it gets sentimental I’m sexually aroused. Lisa tells me about her adventures. I seem to bring evil into the world. I’m so candid others are infected by this. This means I’m now trusted by two people who belong to each other, which is something I can learn a lot from. For example, Rainer thinks he’s the evil one, who wants to have every woman, the womanizer with something to prove and thank God Lisa isn’t like that. Whereas she’s adapted her behaviour to his: no, I’m not interested in this guy, no he’s not sexy, no I won’t see him. Since I turned Peter down for a spontaneous night in Zurich in mid-December, the sex with Paul has been phenomenal. This is how I imagine grown up fucking: none of that erotic fumbling but a lot more intensity without the effort. It’s like one step closer to ecstatic sex. Despite this success I’ve not made any promises. Peter has just been put to one side, Adam has invited me to his birthday party (I was ill) and Marc is back in my mind, especially in connection with nature, with mountains. I feel like a loop of circulating hormones. So many men, so many different patterns for relationships. I cannot say that one is any better than the others. I’m gradually ruining my reputation among my friends. Once again I’ve rung all of them for a love nest. I’d agreed to see Adam but he wrote down the wrong day. I’m furious. The next time in class I often catch myself, the way I look at him and he looks back at me. Then I immediately look away. I’m not really in control of my behaviour. Of course I’m still hoping he’ll take the initiative. Overall I’m in sensual heaven again. Every day sex, dancing, emotions, powerful hormones. It’s excellent with Paul. But I’m not in a system where I’m no longer interested in Adam. I want to present myself to Adam as blossomed woman. Now it’s happened, but way below the level I expected. Not interesting sexually, incomprehensible, so cut off from the other levels of feeling we have. Does it all have more to do with imagination, hunting, fantasies? I have been harbouring the (hitherto unconfirmed) cliché, that musicians must be good lovers. But it wasn’t really sensual and it wasn’t passionate either. Marc was an exception and it must have been the same for him, I can’t imagine it differently. Overall I feel like Cinderella. I seem to be clinging to illusions, living in a fantasy that is above my station. Last night had dinner with the married couple: Joseph and a certain Harry were there too. It was quite amusing, although for long periods they talked about people I don’t know; artists and gallery scene. Would I go to bed with Joseph? I don’t need 85 kg in bed, so from that point of view: no. But his advances towards me are not unwelcome. I’m sitting in a cafe and see a black woman with an incredible figure, like in The Crying Game, on the borderline between both sexes. I’m generally jealous of the world. Altogether a slight lack of sex leads to a constant hunger. In Time magazine ‘The Chemicals of Love’ confirms all my theories: certain chemicals for the first 2 or 3 years, definitely gone after 4, then there are others. It’s all set off by mental and genetic imprints, and smell. (Why is it intellectuals stick to those four years?) Anyway: feeling excellent physically, very sexy, with a certain deficiency. Every generation has its men. Ours: narcissistic, and manic depressive. Peter called me. I find it astonishing that he suddenly admits he wants to see me, that I’m in his sexual fantasies. It has aroused me, this conversation. He’s in my fantasies too and I’m sure that continuing our sexual exploration won’t do anyone any harm. I miss Paul, I miss Peter. It is possible to love two people at the same time, at least when both of them aren’t there. In the end it doesn’t matter if I call it sex or love, if it’s not happening I go crazy. Sometimes you long for someone to redeem you, to take me away from control and thinking, and sometimes the Redeemer calls. Peter is arriving on Thursday night! - It’s true I had the most enormous expectations which means I then feel downgraded if it’s called “just” sex. “Just sex” includes everything, we’d agreed on that. This time I’m not so sad that he’s gone, maybe that will come later but I can feel the sexual desert approaching again. Proper fucking is still the best thing there is. To be at the level where scratching and biting are highly arousing but pain has been switched off. There’s got to be an emotional kick there even if it’s a row. If things slip away from me, then they slip away from me. While we’re eating we talk, about my letters, about relationships, about ours etc. I hear things that unsettle me: that I’m someone to have sex with (but nothing deep) what we want is “just” sex etc. Things that were never said but are just left there all the more portentously. Afterwards when we’re having sex I remember these things, in contrast to what I felt. My high expectations, the moment, our conversation, my insecurity about whether I’m allowed to feel all this made me almost faint. I need to be overwhelmed. He hugged me tight, like with a child that’s having a tantrum, and then we started having the wildest sex we’ve had together. I was fucked the way I dream of: wild and violent but nothing hurts. In this state scratching is the greatest pleasure, weirdly there are no marks. It’s the perfect example of an “altered state”. How can you repeat that emotional impact? Every sexual relationship is an unequal one. But perhaps I’ll also be happy with my set up. Happily cheating. With Peter for example all I can imagine is what we’re doing now, meeting up occasionally dedicated to fucking, eating, movies. Fantasies of a relationship definitely don’t exist. I met Marc in Havanna. Just when the brilliant young dancer starts flirting with me, Marc comes up. His girlfriend was there too. We talked and cuddled, he kissed me. He says it’s nice to feel that tension. He begins the game of control again. He can still control things now  (like his erection), but if we were to go any further we’d both want it. “I want to fuck you so badly.” He wouldn’t want to meet me because he’d always want to sleep with me. Then a passionate kiss outside the toilets again. I desire this man so much that anything else is unimportant next to it. When he says he wants to fuck me, when he goes at me and kisses me, a wave rises up through my spine that I never experience otherwise. Driving home in the rain: why aren’t we fucking, damn it? What is the point of this control game? And why does he have to keep telling me about his views about monogamy-or-not? I acted along well this time. My desire was clear but I agreed. Afterwards I couldn’t get to sleep for hours but I didn’t masturbate either. I’d rather delve deep into this inner pain, this burning all the way down my spine, than masturbate for relief and then descend into a hysterical crying fit. That same night a dream: I have to drive a car to Salzburg, it’s a downhill curve and an uphill curve back. I manage to do it both ways without a licence, I’m amazed I can do it. And I’m also proud of myself. Then I get to my building which three black men (identifiable from Havanna) want to enter. I close the door and push them out but they break back in again through the skylight (I hadn’t thought of that). The situation then isn’t threatening, however. If I had thought it would be better not to sleep with Marc to commit to Paul or if I’d taken Sophie’s advice to use Marc as a fantasy seriously, then I was deceiving myself. None of it works. Don’t know what to do. Kill off Marc inside me? Stop meeting Peter? When I talk to Paul about sex, which unfortunately I do all the time it’s somehow weird that important experiences have nothing to do with him. He feels he’s being messed around or thinks I’ve got a lover, which is not even ten per cent true. On the other hand I have panic attacks about losing him. It’s true, he keeps me balanced. How long can I afford to go on wanting it all and keeping it all going while not being able to stand it? How Joseph explains my dream: car = metaphysical aspect, death, farewell, death of masculinity, violence. The three black men: witnesses, because they are so different. But because I know them: not even three men can compensate for it. It’s not me that drives the car (I don’t have permission), but my pleasure. I want to be in a different situation. It’s about separation. Other interpretations of the dream: the three black men are desire. It’s all desire. I can try as hard as I like to keep them out but they are going to get in. After I’ve filed my nails and am looking out of the window I notice myself pulling the file out of its red case and pushing it back in again and how this movement takes on a certain rhythm, getting faster and faster and how my pussy reacts to this. Tom has a crush on me. I like it, but there’s astonishingly little physical reaction. He holds my head the same way Marc does (he’s the choreographer), but it doesn’t really get me going. Nevertheless there are some plus points: he just stands up and kisses me, in front of the jealous Juliette, in front of Joseph and Sophie. If the chemistry doesn’t work like this, then I can play the resistant one, well, the untouched one, at least I don’t come across as really pushy. Love life, always the same pattern: Marc turns up, keeps me busy, Paul arrives, Marc keeps me busy even more, suddenly all sorts of men are reacting to me but only to a certain extent, no sexual indulgence, it’s all complicated and then I move on. Reacted stupidly to Sam, passive compromise. I’m sick of his black rhetoric. Dissatisfied and blocked. Am I only ever happy, when I’m producing or when I can fuck? Why are some people able to concentrate on something else when they’re not having any sex and why do I have to spend the whole time thinking about it while my boobs get smaller, my bum bigger and my aura gets vague? There was a girl at Katharina’s birthday, a tomboy actually, who turned me on so much I couldn’t stop looking at her. It’s not really her body, it’s her energy, or hormones (she had acne). How does Marc get the idea I’m dominant? I’m a Milchmädchen. What really gets on my nerves is that I don’t say anything. Does Paul only stay with me because while I might not give anything (since I’m not there) I don’t demand anything or push him? I want to be sexually dependent on someone again. You always look for the most intense feeling, in the end no matter how. Full moon. In 24 hours I’ve passionately kissed at least five men or been kissed by them. I’m tempted to start something with Fadel, even though I find it totally absurd to hook up with someone in the disco who looks older than he is, is very demanding and makes such a show of being in love. It‘s tricky because it’s the opposite of with Marc. I could probably kiss another ten men and it would always be pleasant simply because I’m open and self-confident but it will never be like it is with Marc. I’d like Peter to be available, Marc to call, I’d like to go dancing quite normally again [apparently I can’t go to Havanna any more because I snogged Sam and Fadel]. So many men around, I must be a nightmare right now. Something attracts me to Fadel and convinces me, something else scares me. In the light he looks kind of psychotic, the shadows round his eyes and the line round his mouth. Ok, he kisses better than the others, the sex probably isn’t bad either. On the other hand dangerous (“allergic to condoms”, hard childhood, mother…). I’m just a petit bourgeois girl with a sheltered upbringing and little experience of life. Why does everybody have to tell me I need to make up my mind? And why don’t I? Went to the park with Fadel yesterday, almost had sex, but then didn’t take him home. Though it would be safest when Sophie’s at home. What isn’t so may become so. Of course I’m horny, of course I can imagine it being good. But I’m somehow unsettled. When I’m almost determined to go ahead with it, the feeling fades within a couple of days. It would be good to be able to forget Marc, to cope with Peter. Peter has been travelling a lot and has not thought to call me. That hurts. Ok, he’s got her with him, but the fact is he really hasn’t called. Fadel does male advertising. Talks about himself and his character. Asks me questions though he doesn’t really seem interested. He hasn’t talked about love any more and I’ve not talked about sex. Sam and Fadel are talking to each other again. ’m looking forward to the night with Fadel. Peter has rung and put off our conversation. Wy is Fadel suddenly coming on so sophisticated? Perhaps he’s not planning to fuck me any more, perhaps I’ve overstretched things. Marc has rung, I just wasn’t in. Of course talking about it in the group was exposing. I’m shaking, I’m worked up and misbehave. Rudi, an example of how you can be relaxed in someone else’s presence, get on well but there is no, absolutely no attraction. How can this man talk so much about fighting and yet have absolutely no sexual drive? I just don’t understand how he’s got two kids. Marc’s mother, I could sense it, she’s powerful, she loves and admires her son. And then my dream! I’d forgotten it: I marry Marc, his mother is a sadist. The whole ceremony is extremely unpleasant. A prison. I can tell I’m making the biggest mistake in my life. I’m curious how long this state will last: Marc buried, I don’t want to see Peter any more, relieved that Fadel is finished. I don’t think about sex. Marc called, from Berlin. I needn’t mention that I have failed on the long distance call front. I neither revealed anything about me nor got anything out of him. He has problems with his relationship, with being faithful, with her ex-boyfriend. When he calls I immediately note physical changes: my boobs grow, my lips get softer. How can Fadel spend weeks concentrating on me and then on the last night dance with all sorts of women? Though I’m proud of my strategy of keeping him at arm’s length and waiting, I now go back to my attitude of: do-it-now-suffer-later. Peter has called. And since then all I can think about is his dick, sex with him. Yesterday I had an orgy of lust with myself that left no wish unfulfilled. I really want this sexual relationship, it’s got to be possible without hurting anyone. I want to be seduced and fucked by him, to be screwed, scratched, chained, beaten, to taste the entire spectrum. Hear his laughter, have him place his arm round my waist and his hand at the back of my neck. The film A Winter Tan is certainly effective. The woman is incredibly ugly, old and super athletically thin. How can anyone look like that? Who is supposed to find her attractive? And then her attitude, horny already, when someone asks her a question. Repulsive on the one hand, yet understandable. Machismo. How the men’s behaviour is plucked out of the air and how much of a blow it is to her all the same. Her addiction to fucking, so close to my mark I find it embarrassing. Playing the woman rejecting can be really difficult, if not impossible. The horniness is in the eyes. Could I fuck the sixteen year old or the guy in the office? All not my fantasy, boyish types. Before I initiate someone I need another full-grown affair with a superlover. I yearn to be sexually dependent on someone! Was it necessary for me to call Peter? Today I read something on the toilet door. It must be new, this is a toilet I use regularly:  9 1/2 Weeks with 2 (!) men. Not only does it make me horny, I’m also envious and jealous. When is something like that going to happen to me again? Are other people preoccupied with this all the time too? I miss Goran (is it just the toy that’s been taken away from me or fantasy that tints everything?) Looking into each other’s eyes for the first time was like jumping into the clear green sea. He was always so incredibly excited and on the go, always had a hard on, the way he stands there, a bit hunched but so beautiful, his flat flat stomach, the power of his arms, the way he sucked my fingers. I have been holding myself back from every kind of physical contact in line with Paul’s lectures on cultural differences. The message of the Römerquelle ad is clear: in that kind of situation it’s better not to drink any alcohol. I was more drunk than is usually possible after two glasses of wine, and horny all the time. I found Paul very attractive too. Are they linked? Do I always need a second man to desire me? Being desired by two men is the bomb chemically. Paul has never desired me more than after the accident, fucked like an animal. Is it the level of adrenaline? Does something always have to happen before the animal can be released? Peter’s going to call and I’m nervous. What I’ve done is just insane. While I was ovulating! How can anyone be so irresponsible? What is it that always blows my fuses? I hope the pill works. What can I do? Who can I call?  Calling them means informing them. I find lying stressful enough. But it was good. Of course now I have no idea what happens next. Morally I don’t have a problem, on the contrary, I think there are different forms of love including sexual love and there are some forms that can’t be lived within a relationship. At the moment in sexual terms I yearn for more violence and animal desires. Sentimentality, insecurity and caution don’t do anything for me. The thing with Peter has reached a certain point. Can we really carry on behaving as if this isn’t a relationship (= not work?). I think we should just have sex, sex for our wavelength, and then talk about it. And I don’t want to always keep excluding the other relationships. It doesn’t have to be a double life, it can be experimentation with someone who is an ideal fit sexually. It becomes clear to me that this isn’t magic, it’s sexual dependence. After Marc left, between 8 and 9, I half slept, had breakfast, made some decisions and finally took the pill. His irresponsible behaviour is bewitching. Where does he get all this irrationality from? To put everything aside to get closer to that perfect moment. You should be able to stop and talk certain things through, especially if it doesn’t click (even if it does click, but that’s a different story). Why do I want to put myself at the mercy of someone who doesn’t deserve it? That’s exactly what I want, to surrender, to give myself completely, but that requires more and I don’t want to be left stuck in mid-air. Why does he have to be so attractive? After the sexual ecstasy with Paul the hormone flashback. I don’t know if sex is so good, it distracts me. I didn’t care if I was pregnant or not, even worse, it would not have mattered to me. Now I think differently about it. Maybe it’s the Catholic. If I have a lot of incredibly good ecstatic sex I feed off it, dream about it, I’m charged with energy. Now, after a lot of incredibly good orgasms I’m depressed, have to stop myself masturbating, have to keep myself working, feel guilty somehow and don’t know what for. The whole dilemma is starting all over again. Do you perhaps have to choose not only between child and career, between relationship and profession, but also between sex and success? I dream about Peter and two days later he calls me. - Peter’s not coming. He left his passport in the car and his car is in another city. Why does he torpedo unproblematic weekends? It’s unproblematic for me. I don’t know how it is for him. I am angry, disappointed, furious, determined to get the sex I’d been hoping for somewhere. Sexually I’m running at full speed again. I am so needy, so dependent on an intensive weekend, I’d do anything for it. - Peter was here. Is my sexual nature so exaggerated that I stress out other people? If the sexual drive is strong enough it finds a way of getting around the condom. It’s complicated. If we now say we’ll keep in touch but not meet for sex, we might relax so much that it becomes sexual again. With Rudi sharing something like wisdom. Of course you don’t fall in love with someone who’s so obviously good. Sex on the side really isn’t possible any more. Three times in a row major condom problems, it stops being any fun. I have a relapse. I’m no longer so interested in being relaxed and calm, love and sex only in combination. Now I want to have affairs again because of the excitement and the complication. Am I never going to have these intense feelings again? They used to enslave me, now I miss them. When I’m in a good mood I want sex and not the kind that’s to do with love. Steve picked me up so skilfully, I had to give him that. General conversation, while boxing me in, though without any touching, followed by unambiguous offers: “You really deserve a good fuck.” My guilty conscience was stirred because I knew it was going to happen, that I would meet somebody. I stuck my ass in front of his camera to give him a subject. As Fritz correctly observed, I really don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t sleep with everyone I like. With Steve you can’t say he’s good looking but the sex sounds good. Though I did refuse it first. When he talked about how his wife’s attitude had changed since their child had been born and he was looking for regular sex on the side I was rather stunned. I will not be the one, you know that. Because I had thought that my attitude to sex had changed and that I would only combine love and sex with Paul. Except if the attraction is so strong, but then, just once… He has discovered that you have to listen for what someone doesn’t want. I don’t want to become his lover, so… Harmonious from the initial conquest to the first fuck. Interestingly Paul immediately fucks more aggressively if there’s a tiny suspicion that I’ve slept with someone else. I lie by not admitting I didn’t sleep at Maria’s but I tell him everything else like it’s the truth. Organising the lie is tricky, you really do have to think through every detail. The fatigue, the red eyes, the effort of staying awake have aroused the conviction in me that this time the lying does it. It is enough of a punishment to follow a weekend programme all day including the evening without collapsing. As long as the sex and everything is right, there’s no reason to say anything. Now I’m occupied with organisational issues, it takes whole nights. Whatever this guy does, it’s right and even banal rhythmic movements always bring me to the edge of orgasm. To me the link between sex and war is obvious, the vocabulary makes it clear. Chronically horny, aggressively horny, in a night with Steve I alternate between female and male orgasms. I find myself in a kind of holding pattern. If it continues, that’s fine, if it doesn’t, that’s fine too. I don’t want to have Paul’s blessing for what I’m doing here. My guilty conscience arrives when the effect of the hormones wears off. Since quickies don’t do it for me, I could stop the whole thing. Also I suspect that sexually aggressive men are defensive and stubborn in the rest of their lives. It’s so easy to qualify it all. The unknown, the surprising, abandoning yourself, relishing everything that happens, and you can never know what is going to happen, of course that increases my arousal. Am I too intense, too horny, too easy to have? Does that mean: ultimately not enough for someone who’s fucking for his ego?  When Steve says this sex was the best, what it actually means is: we both notice that it’s more than good sex. Sometimes I think he’s like me, waiting for chances to withdraw from the affair and then not being able to. If openness is something he is looking for and getting with me, that’s alright with me. In reality he picks up more on my impatience, insatiability and fears of loss than anyone else. I’d have to respect his availability. What choice does he have other than fucking his wife immediately after I’ve left? It’s what I do too. At the thought of no longer having any adventures because they only make my mouth water I don’t feel comfortable either. Since I talked to Steve on the phone, the whole thing has started again. Now that he’s still fixated on me, I’m torn. Do I want to carry on with it? When I’m addicted, I can no longer decide of my own free will. I love Paul and never want to hurt him, that’s unthinkable. I love sex with Steve and see no reason to stop. - I was so sure that I would stop with Steve, because I don’t enjoy sexual power (exercised on me), and because with Alex it was a bit different. - Steve and I have had sex again and it was just right. We’re friends and sometimes we behave like animals. At the moment the only thing I’m interested in is being fucked properly. Sexual withdrawal is driving me crazy. I fuck Steve in the park first, “train is leaving”, I hope not dangerously. Then I go to the theatre, smile at Vincent, he responds. Why is it that you go out of the house, not noticeably more attractive than usual and all the men react? Is it purely biological, ovulation? Of course it was stupid with Steve and the fact he reacts so defensively makes it even clearer that I can’t continue that relationship. It’s always good as long as nothing happens but they then give way in the danger zone. If it’s got nothing to do with love, sex has to be dealt with carefully and rationally, that means: condom, always. It seems almost useless pursuing Vincent any further, it’s not really transcending. Whether I’ll keep going on with Steve, who calls me all the time, I don’t know. Probably not. And not with Vincent. And not with Adam either. Dealers in the subway. If I was an ex-junkie, I’d make a play just out of their code of glances.

 

SAMPLES, since 2013

There is a scene I recall from The Comfort of Strangers: she and her boyfriend go to Venice to refresh their love. She wants him to move in with her and her children. He’s not so sure. They are lying on the beach, she goes into the water, swims out and when she comes back, he wants to, but she doesn’t any more. He saw her moving away, she has tasted freedom. // There is a man walking with a woman and a child, quite obviously a family. But then: the man and I look into each other’s eyes from a distance and it goes right through me. This is new, a look of desire in my eyes and not at my body. Still, I need a sense of freedom, I’d like him to be less invasive and possessive. I don’t share his view that I can only have his fiery love when it is packed together with ownership. I can give myself completely in a sexual way without being some all-or-nothing sweetheart. // We hugged as if we wanted to devour each other or had to save each other from drowning, but his wife was never more than five metres away. Being painfully in love I breathed away like you breathe in contractions (well, good luck with the birth pangs) but the wish and desire remain. There is a reason why the hug felt like preventing from drowning, because what he clings on to is an insane concept of fidelity. // In a review of Arno Geiger’s novel All About Sally: “And does sex (which is described rather crudely) really matter so much in our mid-fifties?” – Where a large portion of world literature deals with men of this age who hope to prolong their lives with exactly the sex that suddenly everything depends on! If it’s a woman for whom everything depends on sex, then it is suspicious. The similarities with Sally, her animal drive and her addiction to men, her fear that this orgasmic high could be her last, are almost uncanny, yet Geiger doesn’t know me. // Not even past the front door the electrician sends a text: “Hope to see you again soon.” I’ve as well spent the whole time checking his arms and at some point we looked into each other’s eyes for longer than necessary. According to Facebook he has a wife and a child.  That tingling before orgasm, he’s never felt anything like it. I’m a witch: I’ve put a spell on him. I’ve given an ex-junkie his first cocktail of endogenous drugs. The sexual gaze is a gift, it goes beyond class. How else could an ex-junkie from the orphanage and I find each other? Through parship.at? Now he’s playing dead, probably because he’s got a problem with infidelity. The first time you can say it happened to you, the second time you really need to think about it. The day before yesterday I got a text: “Hi, my orgasm goddess! I can’t forget what you did to me! I want more!” Then yesterday at quarter to six “Sorry I can’t make it today. My daughter is ill! I’ll be in touch later!” At that moment I am more disappointed than I can stand. Of course kids can get ill, and it can happen very suddenly, but my first thought is that he’s scared and is retreating (doesn’t he know that you really shouldn’t get used to lying to two people at once?). He arrives at half nine, we start immediately, well, he’s the one who starts immediately. Till he stops again because he “can’t switch off his head.” He’s thinking of his wife and children. Children?! He’s had a son too. At the time he says that I don‘t work it out, but: when we met, his wife must have been very heavily pregnant! He didn’t tell me anything about that then. He’s got a guilty conscience. I respect that but of course I’m disappointed and I don’t want him to leave. What follows torments us both yet it helps me understand a little better why we are so compatible sexually. There’s something: little touches that aren’t technical, an ambivalence between torment and desire, a capacity for sexual experience that’s been increased by guilt, fondling and entries from the encyclopaedia of sexual fantasies, moments of coercion and objectification, acts of desperation and aggression filled with desire. // Searching on the internet I come across the claim that for women desire and arousal are two distinct pathways. They would like sex but nevertheless hope it won’t come to that. Hard to imagine, but I’ve also read this at Charlotte Roche. Must be odd, a live as a woman. // Yesterday he wrote that he’s been thinking about me a lot and his dick is hard. I didn’t even have the time to respond. // In Erica Jong’s feminist classic Fear of Flying sexual encounters raise the stakes on both sides: jealousy, striving for freedom against security, the desire for adventure… it all plays a part. At present, however, that seems to have become separate: sexual positions and techniques are what matters. // He sends a text: would I shorten my pubic hair, then he’d fuck me. When I don’t respond he kind of retracts this. The sex isn’t as sensational as the first few times when he didn’t yet allow himself, then the fact it was forbidden added an extra sexual tension. But his heart is still racing now too, where he has obviously come to an agreement with himself that extra-marital sex is ok. When we come together I ejaculate in a torrent, definitely the largest amount I’ve ever ejaculated. In an old-fashioned Falter article about sex and relationships I read the usual clichés but what specifically annoys me to the extent of being politically offended is the expression grandma sex, for example Demi Moore with Ashton Kutcher who is 16 years younger. Grandma is not an age, it’s not even a term for life experience, it describes a family relationship. No one ever heard of older men having granpa sex with young women. While falling asleep I think about whether he, 16 years younger, might regard our get togethers as “special interest grandma sex”. I  don’t realise that while I’m thinking about this he’s sending me a selfie of his hard on, because I’ve switched my phone on silent. // I have such a huge yearning for my animal self that I can’t achieve alone, from breathing to ejaculating. // Late at night a text, he’s been in Bratislava all day. I write: “then you’re probably tired, aren’t you?” “Yes, afraid so! For you I need all my strength! Oh when I think of sticking my hard cock deep down into your pussy!” The effect is incredible. I feel what he says about strength as a compliment and masturbate myself into rapture. I no longer even need to imagine anything, a short text is enough to get me super horny. Slightly hungover today as a result (perhaps at some point we will discover that an orgasm is a sort of emergency operation by the body, just as the release of endorphins while running is not originally intended to keep you fit).  The fact that he doesn’t get in touch is puzzling to put it mildly. Have I fundamentally misunderstood something? There is a massive difference between reading a pornographic text from someone who wants you and the same text from the same person when they are no longer communicating. Then it’s banal and doesn’t work any more. // Watching the film Non-Fiction by Olivier Assayas makes me want to be in a couple, be with friends, have affairs. To be in a couple just so I can have a life full of exciting affairs. Affairs aren’t exciting if you’re not in a couple. // Being drawn towards the abyss and finding strategies to keep away from the abyss. Having spent months managing not to be drawn in, in a moment of weakness he thinks: I’ll just get in touch one teeny tiny time, that’s got to be ok. 

2nd nature © 2019