The slip, p.1
The Slip, page 1
Contents
The Slip
Glimmer
Movements of the Soul
New Directions
A Woman, a Man and Another
Peduncle Slap
The Martini Effect
Brink Man
Farrow
Kinship
A Look of Extreme Festivity
Notes
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Copyright
The Slip
Life’s nonsense pierces us with strange relation.
wallace stevens
Only the scorned and the ridiculous make good stories.
djuna barnes
Glimmer
This morning there is dirty seafoam like a coffee stain along the lip of the shore. It trembles and collapses, calling to mind the time you had an affair with a married man. You walk along the beach, sometimes kicking up the abject froth so that it flies off in the wind, remembering how it happened. It was a while ago now, but you still think of him from time to time.
Next year, you will graduate. The creative writing program has taught you that the best short stories should contain a single grain of truth. You have learned to use bright adjectives and dynamic phrasing. You are supposed to be poised and precise. You are supposed to write what you know. Well, what do you know? You know that love has always been the most compelling source of knowledge in your life. You want to write about the affair but worry that your story, your imperative, is deeply unoriginal.
One of your creative writing teachers says originality is a redundant category: all contemporary writing, she says, already suffers from the affliction of intertextual polyvocality. You consider this and kick up seafoam. If you wrote it, you would have to change some names and dates and places. If you wrote it, it might begin like this.
One Friday there’s a party after work to celebrate the acquisition of a new, important manuscript. You work for a publishing company although you’re not a publisher, just one of the girls from Reception. Mostly, people look down on you. The women are too busy doing all the work to pay you much attention and the men are like most others. An older gentleman has asked you why you dress like a dolly. A junior publisher dropped a highlighter in between your breasts, claiming it was accidental. Another one, the man who hired you, said that it’s good to keep the pretty girls at Reception because it makes the business seem successful.
The man in question is different. If he thinks these things, he doesn’t say them. He is exceptionally tall, with very dark hair and very light eyes, a combination of extremes. His features don’t quite fit together, which makes him handsome in a peculiar way. And there is something unsettled in his carriage too; he seems skittish, a strange mix of confidence and nerves. You don’t know when it was that you first noticed him, but as he steps out of the lift tonight, he smiles.
The party is something you’ve helped organise and you are anxious for the whole thing to go well. You take photos of the happy revellers for the company’s socials, greet important guests and in the downtime drink champagne to calm your nerves. You should probably slow down but it’s expensive stuff, the kind you can’t afford, and you want to drink as much of it as possible. At some point in the night you catch his eye across the room and after that you can’t stop looking at each other. Furtively at first, and then with open wanting.
There are speeches to be made about the book. It’s the next big thing, a book of essays written by a hot young writer with a slick resume. Most of the essays are about partying, fucking, art and the sublime. The writer arrives dressed in black, sulks beautifully and never smiles, even though this must be one of the most important nights of his life. Everyone wants a photo. Marketing is palpably excited about adding his book to the company’s vibrant queer collection.
Even though you’re just a receptionist, you are not without your wiles. You persuaded one of the publishing assistants to let you read an advance copy and believe the book will be successful, even if its transgressions are more aesthetic than exciting. Still, you liked the bit about the birth of Aphrodite, how Kronos castrates his father Uranus and throws his balls into the sea, which roils mightily and churns itself to froth, and out from the foam pops Aphrodite. Aphros is actually the Greek word for seafoam, which turns out not to be a benign substance but the residue, so the writer argues, of erotic excess.
Eros is catching.
Professional standards are cast aside like useless garments and the night becomes debauched. A blonde woman takes her shoes off and starts dancing on the table. The bosses bring out more champagne. Singles start to couple and uncouple, while established couples take on thirds and fourths. In this spirit, you and the man flirt shamelessly. He invites you for a cigarette and you follow him down to the car park, where he licks the TALLY-HO paper and desire bubbles up like something primordial in your loins. Yes, you’ll use the word loins, because it’s funny and accurate. You will ask him if he’s read the book, but do not be deterred when he says he found it unoriginal.
‘Any wanker with an arts degree could have written that.’
‘Do you have an arts degree?’
‘English Lit. I thought I wanted to write novels—’ he drags on his cigarette, then offers it to you, ‘but they quickly beat that out of me.’
You’re not sure what he means about the beating, although you’re titillated by its kinky undertone. The way he laughs about his failed dream is quite endearing. ‘You must have read a lot,’ you say, all drunk and googly-eyed. ‘You must be a really great reader.’
He shrugs, finishes his cigarette. Then he steps right up and kisses you. To think that any minute someone might come down to get their car and spring you! He pulls you in and kisses you harder. It is difficult to breathe. You make out for a while and then he says he should go home.
Afterward, remember how he said I want you. You want him to say it again, even if it’s cheesy. Start noticing things that rhyme with I want you, many of them to do with cheese: cheese fondue, danablu, brocciu. But also, seafood stew, beef ragu, pad see ew. Oh yes, you want him to eat you all up! Would he be a noisy chewer or a silent one? Fear noisy. Dream the two of you are on a beach when a storm whips up a great big wash of seafoam and the man says he is hungry and bends down, suddenly, to scoop a palmful of foam into his mouth. I want you and your seafoam, too. What a weird dream. You wake and masturbate energetically, foaming and gushing like a mythical sea.
Monday morning: everyone at the office looks seedy or sheepish. You send an email on the office server, something admin related though covertly suggestive, and when he replies you agree to meet for drinks.
You arrive at the appointed spot a little early, which makes you seem overeager, and then he is late, which makes you think he isn’t coming. Clinging to the bar stool as the corporate crowd gets drunk and then goes home for dinner, you read your book and try looking serene, as if reading alone in bars is just something you do. Think: I am cool. I am a very cool person.
About forty minutes later, just as the date is beginning to seem lost, he walks in wearing cowboy boots. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘we couldn’t get the kids to sleep.’
It’s distinctly unsexy, as far as openers go, but you can’t help admiring his bold choice of footwear. His jeans are lightly tucked to expose the high stiff leg, the tall curvaceous heel and shining cherry leather; they make him stand a little taller. He looks sexy and desperate: a hot literary cowboy part way through a midlife crisis.
‘You look familiar,’ he says.
‘Do I know you?’ You look around the room. ‘Have we met before?’
He gives you an indulgent smile. ‘What are you reading?’
It is Lorrie Moore’s Self Help; the first story is called ‘How to Be an Other Woman.’ Allow yourself a nervous smile. Tell him that the narrator is sharing a Reuben sandwich with her colleague, making a lot of tragic puns.
‘Yeah, I’ve read it,’ he says. ‘Not really my thing.’
Feel embarrassed. Accept his offer to bring you, next time, something better to read.
A routine is established: he lends you books and you interpret his reasons for lending them as you would decipher code. He prefers the type of künstlerroman which has gained cachet in recent years; it’s your suspicion that he fancies himself a secret Knausgaard or perhaps a Cusk. Even more than this, the man admires feminist autotheory, and you can’t decide whether this is evidence of his good taste or a studied pose to get you into bed.
In any case, it is an education. While reading, you take a pencil and underline suggestive passages. You spend a lot of time with I Love Dick, trying to impress and arouse him with your coy marginalia. At other times your messaging is pretty obvious, such as when you underline, in Chelsea Girls, I only like getting drunk and being in love. Above all, you understand what Maggie Nelson means when she writes about the pulsing of a pussy in great need of fucking. You know that he will flip through the book when you return it and read your desire all the way through.
For the sake of character development, consider the difference in age. He is older than you by fourteen years; enough to make it thrilling for being hardly inappropriate.
Sometimes you think of his domestic life, the one he carries on without you. It is easy enough to look up his address at work; coincidentally, it is not far from your house. Walking to the shops one day, you cannot help but travel past it. There is a lemon tree, an SUV, a family of bicycles, some planter boxes and a cubby house in the front yard. A fluffy cat sits in the window, glaring. You hate his car. You hate his cat. You wish you hadn’t gone there. From now on, even when your curiosity is meowing at the window, do not ask about his artist wife and two small children, whose names are Sebastian and Claudette. Glean this in passing, like any good mistress. But don’t think of yourself as his mistress, because that character arc is limiting and has been way overdone.
Instead, think about your part in a long hysterical you mean historical tradition. As an aspiring writer it’s a rite of passage. You’re in it for the story. You’re gonna write the next Karenina or Bovary or whatever, this is an experiment, it’s autotheory; you’re Chris fucking Kraus.
Sex itself is hard to coordinate; in fact, you’ve not got around to doing it at all. That’s fine – deferred pleasure creates narrative tension, multiplying and sustaining it, urging it toward an exquisite, unbearable climax. Whenever it gets too much, relieve this tension with steamy kissing scenes in one of the usual locations: cars, bars, shady alcoves on frigid nights when your mouths are hot and hungry and the air glitters with July mists.
Walking home from these encounters, warm despite the chill. Taking off your jacket thinking how it all makes sense, the books and poetry, the lies and exaltations, even though you can’t explain it to your sisters or your friends. Sneaking around, guarding your perfect little secret, confirmed in your opinion that life is not about what you achieve but what you can get away with.
Weeks pass.
You steal glances at work, smoke in the car park and occasionally touch. One day you ride the lift together and he kisses you, swiftly and intensely, before the doors open on your floor. You meet in bars and drink. You send some sexy emails where you each describe, in heightened formal language, all the ways you’d like to suck and fuck each other basically to death. You think you’ll die of wanting. Nothing’s really happening, and yet you’ve never lived as greedily as now.
It’s time to coax the narrative to crisis. This part might involve some liberties with the truth but that’s okay since this is fiction. You have grown a little sick of waiting when he finally emails with the news that his wife and kids are visiting her mother in another city. Meet me after work tomorrow, he writes, and I’ll dash you off to my country estate.
The next day he picks you up and drives you down the coast in a hired car. Why the hired car? You assume he wants no trace of you discoverable in his own car, like a stray hair or bobby pin, or the wrapper from an ice cream he wouldn’t normally choose. (Wives always know which ice cream their husbands choose.)
Scenery passes by the window. You try to make small talk but he is taciturn and preoccupied. This makes you anxious. You try to think of conversation points but can’t decide which ones are right.
‘How long have you been married?’
He pauses. ‘We’ve been together since we were sixteen. Yeah, I know. It’s lame.’
‘No, I think it’s … I think it’s …’ but you can’t think of what to say. ‘So have you ever, like, done this before?’
‘What? Snuck off down the beach with a beautiful young woman? Not exactly. I’ve had—’
‘Affairs?’
‘Kind of. Not really. Affairs of the lips, maybe. Affairs of the heart. But I’ve never, well …’ he trails off.
Both of you are silent for the rest of the drive. Pretend it didn’t give you the ick when he said ‘affairs of the lips.’ Pretend that everything is fine. Ignore it when his wife rings and he takes the call over the Bluetooth speaker, urgently miming for you to be silent so as not to give yourself away. Ignore the humiliation. Ignore your better judgement, which is used to your neglect.
By the time you arrive it is dark. The driveway to the house is overgrown and everything feels haunted.
‘Do you come here often?’ you ask doubtfully. ‘How long have you had this place?’
‘It’s Trisha’s. Her dad left it to us when he died.’
Inside, there are pictures of her as a child next to pictures of their children. There are hats and raincoats hanging in the hall. There are boogie boards in the garage. Her shoes are lined up next to the front door. Her feet are smaller than yours and all her shoes are dainty; little boots and pretty sandals. You want to ask him why she dresses like a doll. Instead you say, ‘Nice digs. But ah, I think we have a problem. It’s a little warm in here.’
‘Oh really?’
‘Yeah. I think I’m wearing too much clothing.’
He looks concerned. ‘Are you uncomfortable? Here, I’ll turn the heating down.’
‘Wait, no, I’m fine. Take off my coat.’
He unbuttons it. Underneath, you’re wearing only lingerie. ‘Wow,’ he says, standing back and looking at you. ‘This is … this is …’
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry. I’m just really tired. Can we leave it ’til the morning?’
He gives you a chaste kiss on the forehead and shows you upstairs. In the bathroom, you brush your teeth side by side like a couple in the movies, you still in your coat and lingerie and him in his pyjamas. Struggle with a sense of unreality. Try not to laugh. Try not to cry. They are navy blue with pizzas on them. Try not to see this as depressing and absurd.
You go to sleep spooning, which is nice, but you keep wondering if you’re sleeping on her side. He says he’s happy that you’re here. ‘Thanks for coming,’ he whispers, ‘I’m so happy that you’re here.’
‘Me too,’ you say. ‘I’m really glad I came.’
But then you wake in the night feeling disoriented and lonely. You feel the biggest, widest, most impossible loneliness you’ve ever felt. Beside you he is sleeping deeply and you feel that in this sleep he has abandoned you.
In the morning you feel irritable and ill-used.
You decide to nurture this feeling – he is married, after all. So you stoke resentment’s mean little fires, even when he gives you the best head you’ve ever received. You nurture it even when you have sex in the shower and afterward he washes your hair using fancy shampoo, which foams madly and smells like flowers, and his body feels so nice against yours in the warm slip of the water, and he wants you wants you wants you, and his eyes are burning blue.
At breakfast he chews loudly, eating muesli like a horse shoving its head into a bag of oats. Between mouthfuls, he tries to initiate a boring conversation about some colleagues. While he munches, watch his mouth and try to muster up some feeling, either affectionate or sexual, but end with indifference. The day outside looks freezing, and as you gaze out at the bitter morning, desire leaks from you and puddles at your feet.
Feeling desperate, you try to shake things up by doing a kind of burlesque with the croissants, rubbing a butter knife over your nipples and being naughty with the jam. You giggle and flounce, lolling across his lap like the nude Parisian girls you saw once with your friend at Crazy Horse. He asks you what you’re doing and you say, ‘Would you like to butter my croissant?’
Now he’s talking about his children. He can’t help it – he misses them, it’s the first time he’s been away from the baby for more than a day. It’s pathetic. ‘Call me baby,’ you suddenly say.
‘What?’
‘I want you to call me baby. I’ll call you Daddy.’
Despite himself his face is flirting with a smile. ‘Don’t. It’s not funny.’
Say, ‘But it’s not not funny, is it Daddy?’
‘What’s wrong with you?’ he asks. ‘Why are you being weird?’
Keep calling him Daddy until his smile is completely gone. He ignores you and starts texting. You realise that the two of you have nothing in common besides books, longing and a vague sense of shared dissatisfaction.
The morning continues darkly and from time to time it rains. Trisha calls again and while he’s talking on the phone you slip into her raincoat, which smells faintly of BO; it’s almost like wearing her skin. Feeling like another woman, walk toward the beach, the mist like spittle on your face. What the fuck have you been thinking? On the one hand, your romantic getaway is turning out to be a load of shit. On the other, you can admit you are a bit in love with him already. It’s impossible. You don’t know what to do.
