January 3, 2004

• I don't write enough fiction. Of course, after reading this, you may think I write too much fiction.

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  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m married. I have two kids. Remember?”

  “Like I said: Why not?”

  “How can you say that?”

  “Because. I know you’re crazy about me, and because I know I’m the best thing that ever happened to you. I know that you’re not happy with her. I know that you buy a lot of porn, that you’ve slept around in the past, that you’re overwhelmed with the guilt and shame. That you’re loyal to your kids and not to her. That you hate yourself over this. And, most importantly, I can say in all honesty, that this level of infidelity really turns me on.”

  “You know I’d screw around on you, too.”

  “I value your self-awareness. But I also know that what you really really want is to be with someone different all the time. There’s Viagra for when you’re with your wife, and Ritalin for when you’re with me.”

  “That’s funny. But I still can’t.”

  “I’m not going to try to convince you any further. I’ve laid out my cards. It’s all here, transparent for you to see.”

  “Would you screw around on me?”

  “Of course. And you find this intoxicatingly attractive.”

  “I need to know. For real.”

  “Of course for real. And it turns you on.”

  “I’m sitting here on my couch and I’m sipping a beer, and I’m listening to you talk about me leaving my wife and joining up with you and your merry band of...”

  “The Church Of Infinite Complexity.”

  “Yeah, your little cult of people who want to spread the genes all over the place by fucking and fucking and fucking... And...”

  “It turns you on.”

  “No, it doesn’t turn me on. You turn me on. That you’re in this little club which I hold in such disdain is part of what’s sexy about you. And that you’re hooked in with all the cool kids... I mean, you know people who wear black leather and answer to ‘Spike.’ That’s certainly alluring, isn’t it? But what’s it all mean? Where does the real you begin?”

  “[sigh]”

  “Yes, the real you. We’ve been doing this for years now and you’ve never let your guard down.”

  “The real me is just as dangerous as the real you. You’re hiding behind your wife, and what a shame that she won’t let you in from that direction. But seriously, folks... Go ahead, tell me that there’s not a part of you that wants to run off with my little circus.”

  “Of course there is.”

  “So why not? Why not free what’s trapped back there?”

  “Because it’s not really me. And what’s alluring about you is that you haven’t even really been intimate with me.”

  “Ahem. Pardon? We've been having a freaking affair for two years...”

  “That's it, isn't it? Intimacy is the most frightening word in the universe as far as you’re concerned. You fear yourself, which is why you’re on a mission to erase racial differences by going around and fucking and getting pregnant out of wedlock. That’s what’s alluring about you: You’re so vulnerable you'd commit to something called the Church of Infinite Complexity.”

  “I don’t know whether to be touched or pissed off.”

  “Exactly. So I have an idea... You come over and meet my wife, and I’ll tell her about you, and we can all get it on.”

  • 5:07 am
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