Erotica Artist Ch. 06: Blue Detour

"Okay," I concede, amazed at myself. "I guess I'll settle for what we have. If it gets too tough, I'll let you know."

"And I'll let you know," she smiles, offering me her hand to seal the deal.

A handshake. Here I am in my mid-thirties, going through hell on earth over a woman no one else seems to want, and all I get is a fucking handshake. I kiss her hand softly and escort her to her car.

I try over subsequent weeks to continue the friendship arrangement. I really do enjoy her company, and I know the feeling is mutual. I take her along to one or two concerts that I review for the paper and she asks me what else I write.

"I keep a journal pretty regularly. I write about you quite a lot."

"Really?"

"At first it was the only outlet I had. I was in a complete vacuum about you and I did a lot of speculating. Writing is my way of solving problems. I figured you had some kind of deep, dark secret before you ever admitted it to me."

"What else do you write?"

"I write about sex. Pornographic novels for a company in California."

This is the first time I've mentioned this to her, anxious up to now not to apply my infallible litmus test to someone as emotionally vulnerable as Varina. But now seemed to be a perfect time. At this point what did I have to lose?

"Really? Why do you do that?"

"Why do you think, Varina?"

"Deprivation inspires you? And I suppose I'm responsible for a big part of that."

"Yes. Though I was doing it long before I met you. Pornography has been my sanity valve for a very long time. I've had so little sex in my life and so I've written about it at length. And enjoyed every minute of it."

"But you'd prefer the real thing?"

"I suppose so. But you know I'm not all that sure anymore. I've rarely come across anything in real life that compares with the fantasy, what I come up with in my own imagination. Occasionally it happens. But not often."

"Is that why you're so passive, because you have so rich an imaginative life?"

"Passive in what way? Because I don't make a move on you? If I'm passive with you, Varina, it's because with every breath you take you tell me you're not interested in me, and so a pass would be tantamount to assault. Are you hinting now that you want me to make a pass at you?"

"Not in the least."

"I know when something is hopeless, Varina. I'm just trying my best to adjust to us being no more than friends. I'm hoping it's enough."

But of course it wasn't really. Without sex, what did we have? Companionship? But even that could grow onerous at times, for I had to listen to some pretty painful talk from her.

From the start her denials had frustrated me: her initial denial that I existed at all, her denial that she knew who I was, then once we'd spoken, her denials that she needed attention or wanted it. In moments of deepest frustration I wonder how anyone can not become emotionally involved with someone whose company they so much enjoy. Until I'm forced to admit that I've also failed in this area.

It hasn't happened often, but over the years there have been women who were attracted to me and let me know it. And I have been unable to respond because they held no physical appeal for me. What about Connie, for example? In many ways she would be perfect for me and I'd thought on occasion she was about to let me know it. But because I didn't find her physically attractive I couldn't have responded to her to save my life. I had no desire for her and no amount of wishing or trying would change that.

As for Varina, with all her negativity and denials of interest, she was still capable of surprising me. Almost in the same breath as her statement that she'd leave me in a heartbeat if she had any other offers that interested her, comes the admission she'd be hurt if I was seeing other women. One night she asked me point blank if I had a girlfriend. All I can do is stare at her.

"Varina I've been seeing you exclusively for three months. When would I find the time for a girlfriend?"

"Many men see more than one woman at the same time."

"I guess I'm just too damned sincere for my own good."

"Your big problem is you don't have enough confidence," she goes on, her negativity relentless. "I could never love someone who doesn't have enough confidence for the both of us."

"Enough confidence to betray you, you mean. Enough confidence to be a mean, aggressive, self-absorbed asshole who would cheat on you and treat you like shit and abandon you completely when the whim moved him."

She stares at me, cockeyed and speculative.

"You're right, of course," she admits. "I'm going to end up either totally alone or with a series of jerks, just as you describe."

"And you're content with that?"

"I have no choice, Mason. I can't respond to you, can I?"

"So you keep saying. Yet you admit you'd feel bad if I saw other women. You say I'm passive and lack confidence, but you set up blocks around yourself that only an insensitive prick would try to break through. I'm not sure you know what the hell you want, Varina."

"I know I don't want to keep waking up feeling guilty mornings after I've seen you."

As she says this we're glaring at each other over the hood of her car, and I have the sudden realization that we could be on the point of either a breakdown or a break-through.

She's grown very fond of me, I know, in spite of her denials and negativity, and while I'm sure she'll never come close to my depth of interest, I know she must feel as safe as it's possible to feel with someone she's known just a few months. It's just that she doesn't want safety. She doesn't want anything I have to offer beyond companionship. What more can I say to her, except maybe "I love you. Marry me."?

Instead I quietly say goodnight. And the very next time we see each other my premonition of break-through or breakdown is fulfilled.

"I've been thinking over what we talked about last time," she tells me, "and I've decided I should tell you something about myself."

"Your big dark secret?"

"I suppose it is, yes."

"I thought you'd already told me that. You know, your father's suicide."

"That's a big part of what makes me the way I am, I suppose, but there's something else. Something to do with my sexuality, or what you would probably call my lack of sexuality."

She pauses and I wait, my insides tensing.

"Things have happened to me. I'm not... complete anymore. I was once involved in a relationship that left me damaged."

"Weren't we all?"

But this damage was physical as well as, you know, in my head."

"You were abused? You were attacked? What?"

"I was given a disease, and it went undiagnosed for a very long time. I can never have children, Mason."

A wave of tenderness pulses through me, and in spite of everything I want to touch her, to hold her. But I know she doesn't want it. She hadn't wanted it from day one, and she didn't want it now.

So that was her big secret. Sex as disease. For Nicole sex was life-enhancing, liberating. For Varina it's been limiting, life-warping, if not life-threatening. A twisting and perverting of the pleasure instinct. Nothing I had ever written could compare with this obscenity.

"That saddens me more than I can say, Varina," I say at last.

"I'm not telling you this to elicit sympathy, you understand? I just feel badly that I haven't been able to respond to you, and I wanted you at least to know one reason why. I know I've given you a rough time."

"You warned me at the very start. You were honest with me."

I know this to be true. She never offered me the slimmest hope, right from the beginning. Yet I nurtured my lunatic romantic daydream. I built it out of what? Out of scraps of my own fantasies of what I wanted to happen between us.

And now this. What a waste. Again. All the weeks, months, of emotional investment in a fantasy figure which bore not the slightest resemblance to the real woman. And now perhaps for the first time to meet the real person. All the negativity, all the denials finally making sense.

The romantic delusion of falling for someone, imagining a future together, maybe even having a family: all over now. Though had I ever, even for a moment, seriously considered the possibility of children with Varina? I had to admit I hadn't.

But to be told that she can't have children because some lout has given her a dose, and worst of all to know that this doesn't really make a scrap of difference to what's been happening between the two of us, that even if she could have children, she wouldn't want mine, that even though she has virtually nothing left to lose, she still doesn't want anything physical, anything romantic, to happen between us.

And if I remained her devoted companion for five years, ten, a lifetime, she would still leave me without hesitation for someone who impressed her, someone who had enough confidence to use her and abuse her and neglect her and maybe even make her sick and not even have the decency to tell her she's been exposed to something nasty.

This is still the 1970's, of course. This isn't HIV we're talking about. That scourge hasn't appeared on the scene yet, as far as we know. But it's a sexually transmitted disease, nonetheless, one that undiagnosed can still affect a life profoundly.

And this has to be the end now of all romantic delusion, doesn't it? My ideal of mature womanhood, the one I've thought of in terms of austerity, purity, and Christ knows what else, is barren, her femininity compromised by disease. What else do I need, to give up my romantic daydreams forever? How much more sordid do I need my life to be?

I go home that evening wondering if I've ever felt lower. The Kirsten non-affair was painful. The Dawn Webb experience was a nightmare. But did either one of them sadden me this much?

And I realize finally how much of the misery I've experienced in my dealings with these three women was self-inflicted. If I'd just relaxed with Kirsten, and just displayed a modicum of poise, I may have had the affair of a lifetime on my hands. If I'd never gotten involved with Webb at all, admitting from the start what would have been obvious to a spotty youth of fourteen, that she was a frigid alcoholic with a lifetime of neurotic hell in her future, then I'd have remained at peace.

And likewise with Varina. If only I'd had the feelings of self-worth, the feelings of - yes, goddammit - confidence which she so often said I lacked, I would have known at once that this woman was not interested in me and would be nothing but trouble if I allowed myself to think otherwise.

And so I admit defeat at last. My romantic delusion is shattered. Feeling bludgeoned and bruised, I allow myself several days of despair, of mourning for my youthful innocence, intact for so long. And then I refuse any longer to feel sorry for myself. I determine to press on with the confidence she says I don't possess. If anyone needs feeling sorry for, it's Varina.

I make a point of seeing her again, knowing all the while what must happen soon now. I even develop a curiosity as to how the thing will end, as I know it must. But even as I'm preoccupied with this particular ending, another termination comes out of left field. I arrive home one evening to find a notice on my penthouse door from the conglomerate that owns the building: the entire high-rise is to be renovated and tenants have three months to vacate.

I read it over and over, stupefied. But I've lived here more than ten years, I keep repeating to myself. I love my apartment. I'll never find another like it at the price. I wanted to stay here till I croak. This can't be happening.

But it is, of course. It is.

And as I prepare to renew my life of isolation I begin the tiresome search for a place to be isolated in. It turns out to be a deeply depressing exercise.

I try to keep busy with people other than Varina, I go with Connie to two excellent concerts in one week without inviting her, and when she phones late one Friday night to invite me to yet another concert set for Saturday atop Grouse Mountain, I decline and tell her I have to work.

Two days later she shows up at my apartment and I immediately sense a curiosity in her. I've never turned her down before for anything. She asks me about my week and I tell her about the concerts. She's shocked that I didn't invite her.

"Varina, I have to start withdrawing from you," I admit. "You're not interested in me. You never have been. I'm convinced at last, okay? I may not be phoning you for a while."

She's immediately contrite. She admits she goes too far in her friendships. She's too frank. In my case, too brutal.

"I'm sorry if our last conversation upset you. But I didn't want you to have any illusions left about us."

"I don't."

We spend the next ninety minutes, first in my apartment and then as I walk her slowly to her car, saying goodbye. For the first time I sense a hesitation in her, as if she's only now realizing that this could be the end, if not tonight then soon. What she's really wanted all along.

She wants to know what I find so appealing about her and I actually make an attempt to put it into words. Her maturity, I tell her. Her vulnerability. But this only brings from her the accusation that I'm patronizing her.

"I patronize you on the one hand, and on the other I don't have enough confidence for you. I really can't win with you, Varina, can I?"

"I feel like such a bitch with you," she goes on softly. "I wake up feeling guilty for the way I've treated you. And yet you're such an angel..."

"I'm no angel, Varina. I'm a pornographer, remember."

"I don't want you to have to change your feelings about me..."

"Varina that's what you've wanted from the very start. It's too late for this kind of talk. Maybe I'll be in touch when I'm feeling better, Maybe not. I may be so lonely I'll call you the day after tomorrow, but I doubt it."

I open the car door for her and she climbs inside.

"A gentleman till the end," she smiles. "One day I'll probably rue letting you go, Mason."

"I don't think so. You'll find that asshole, I mean that strong, confident fellow, and be much too busy."

"Oh no. That's all over for me. But I've enjoyed what we've had over the last few months. It's meant a lot to me."

She starts the car. She stares at me seriously for a long moment. I have no more to say.

"You're just like me, Mason, aren't you?" she adds before driving off. "You have nothing to live for."

"I'm not like you at all, Varina. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

I really did plan to see her again. That was fully my intention. But as more and more days passed without her I just never did get around to it. It seemed pointless. Did I really need her immense negativity in my life? And friendship with her would never be enough for me.

I kept busy packing up my possessions and looking for a new place to live. If I thought of her at all it was with bitterness and resentment and amazement at my own stupidity. I cultivated these feelings, stressing over and over her negative points: her coldness, her self-indulgence, her barren self-absorption. I purposely let die any sentiments of compassion and tenderness. She was a broken and pathetic creature and it was a measure of my desperation that I'd allowed myself to get involved with her in the first place. In choosing her I'd lowered my sights, just as I had with my writing career. But with so much less success.

With Kirsten I'd been too passive and pathetic and had let go my best chance at reciprocation. With Dawn I'd been wisely reluctant, for if I'd hung in there with her I'd have gained nothing except perhaps an alcohol problem of my own. With Varina I'd tried to be assertive and had ignored all the negative signs. I was astonished now at my dogged stupidity.

Now it was over I felt healthier. She may well have been right about my lack of confidence with women: with my appalling lack of success what did I have to feel confident about? And yet I had confidence enough for this: to know when a thing was hopeless and painful beyond bearing and to cut the source out of my life without a backward glance.

I swore never again to allow a search for romance to be the main focus of my existence. I would work, I would write, I might try to get laid. Forget the fucking romance.

My romantic delusions were always divorced from my sexual nature anyway. They were set apart from reality. They were, after all, delusions. The romantic longings I developed for Varina, for Kirsten, even to some extent for Dawn Webb, were as much fantasy as my erotic yearnings. They were just more painful, more destructive, more difficult, if not impossible, to satisfy. The safe life was one of erotic fantasy.

My vivid imagination had been my salvation and my curse, I realized. When I let it loose on the more basic aspects of life, like sex, it could relieve my deprivation and absorb me totally. My basic appetites were satisfied. But when I allowed my imagination loose on the yearnings of the heart, it led me astray, again and again.

The world of erotic fantasy was irresistible because the stunning young women were always available and always so willing. They were totally crazy about sex and ready to perform any time, any place, with a variety of partners, as if it were the easiest and most natural thing in the world.

They were the antithesis of the women I met in the real world, Nicole excepted. They weren't demanding teenagers or frigid alcoholics, You didn't have to listen to endless neurotic ramblings about emotional involvement or commitment, or other men or disease. Sex just wasn't a big deal. It was fun.

I tried to imagine Varina or Dawn letting go of their massive hang-ups and just plunging into sexual activity for the fun of it, for the therapy of it. What a release it could be! What a flight into freedom!

Nicole in her way may have been just as messed up as Dawn or Varina, but she had a healthy outlet for her neurosis: sex. She enjoyed it without guilt, letting her spanking fetish relieve her old obsessions. I really missed her sometimes. Sex could be fun. Was that so hard to grasp? Was it, Varina? Was it, Dawn?

It must have been. For I knew they would never let go. And not just with me. I doubted they would be capable of such a release with anyone.

It had been blind romanticism that had allowed me to get involved with these women, but now finally I had learned my lesson. Hadn't I? Hadn't I? No more. No more.

And so as I prepared to move out of my precious penthouse I reverted to my life of erotic fantasy, determined to stifle any romantic tendencies. And I was successful, for six months, a year, more. Until one day the word was made flesh. And it would not be romantic delusion that would be my undoing this time, not totally anyway: it would be reality. Although, irony of ironies, at the hands of a fantasy figure come to life, a walking wet-dream so potent as to turn my world, both real and imagined, upside down forever.