Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (10 page)

Q.

‘It’s not as simple as that. At least not the way I see it. And believe me my way of seeing it is not that I’m a totally decent guy who never does anything wrong. A better guy probably would have told you about this pattern and warned you before we even slept together, to be honest. Because I know I felt guilty after we did. Sleep together. Despite how unbelievably magical and ecstatic and
right
it was, you were. Probably I felt guilty because I’d been the one lobbying so hard for sleeping together so soon, and even though you were completely honest about being uncomfortable about sleeping together so soon and I already even then respected and cared for you a lot and wanted to respect your feelings but I was still so incredibly attracted to you, one of these almost irresistible thunderbolts of attraction, and felt so overwhelmed with it that even without necessarily meaning to I know I plunged in too fast and probably pressured you and rushed you to plunge into sleeping together, even though I think now on some level I probably knew how guilty and uncomfortable I was going to feel afterward.’

Q.

‘I’m not explaining it well enough. I’m not getting through. All right, now I’m really freaking out that you’re starting to feel hurt. Please believe me. The whole reason I’m having us talk about my record and what I get afraid might happen is that I don’t
want
it to happen, see? that I don’t
want
suddenly to reverse thrust and begin trying to extricate myself after you’ve given up so much and moved out here and now I’ve—now that we’re so involved. I’m praying you’ll be able to see that my telling you what always happens is a kind of proof that with you I don’t
want
it to happen. That I don’t
want
to get all testy or hypercritical or pull away and not be around for days at a time or be blatantly unfaithful in a way you’re guaranteed to find out about or any of the shitty cowardly ways I’ve used before to get out of something I’d just spent months of intensive pursuit and effort trying to get the other person to plunge into with me. Does this make any sense? Can you believe that I’m honestly trying to
respect
you by warning you about me, in a way? That I’m trying to be honest instead of dishonest? That I’ve decided the best way to head off this pattern where you get hurt and feel abandoned and I feel like shit is to try to be honest for once? Even if I should have done it sooner? Even when I admit it’s maybe possible that you might even interpret what I’m saying
now
as dishonest, as trying somehow to maybe freak you out enough so that you’ll move back out and I can get out of this? Which I don’t
think
is what I’m doing, but to be totally honest I can’t be a hundred percent sure? To risk that with you? Do you understand? That I’m trying as hard as I can to love you? That I’m terrified I can’t love? That I’m afraid maybe I’m just constitutionally incapable of doing anything other than pursuing and seducing and then running, plunging in and then reversing, never being honest with anybody? That I’ll never be a closer? That I might be a psychopath? Can you imagine what it takes to tell you this? That I’m terrified that after I’ve told you all this I’m going to feel so guilty and ashamed that I won’t be able even to look at you or stand to be around you, knowing that you know all this about me and now being constantly afraid of what you’re thinking all the time? That it’s even possible that my honestly here trying to head off the pattern of sending out mixed signals and pulling away is just another type of way of pulling away? Or to get
you
to pull away, now that I’ve got you, and maybe deep down I’m such a cowardly shit that I don’t even want to make the commitment of pulling away myself, that I want to somehow force you into doing it?’

Q. Q.

‘Those are valid, totally understandable questions, sweetie, and I swear to you I’ll do my absolute best to answer them as honestly as possible.’

Q….

‘There’s just one more thing I feel like I have to tell you about first, though. So the slate’s clean for once, and everything’s out in the open. I’m terrified to tell you, but I’m going to. Then it’ll be your turn. But listen: this thing is not good. I’m afraid it might hurt you. It’s not going to sound good at all, I’m afraid. Can you do me a favor and sort of brace yourself and promise to try not to react for a couple seconds when I tell you? Can we talk about it before you react? Can you promise?’

B.I
. #48 08-97

A
PPLETON
WI

‘It is on the third date that I will invite them back to the apartment. It is important to understand that, for there even to be a third date, there must exist some sort of palpable affinity between us, something by which I can sense that they will go along. Perhaps
go along
[flexion of upraised fingers to signify tone quotes] is not a fortuitous phrase for it. I mean, perhaps, [flexion of upraised fingers to signify tone quotes]
play
. Meaning to join me in the contract and subsequent activity.’

Q.

‘Nor can I explain how I sense this mysterious affinity. This sense that a willingness to go along would not be out of the question. Someone once told me of an Australian profession known as [flexion of upraised fingers]
chicken-sexing,
in—’

Q.

‘Bear with me a moment, now. Chicken-sexing. Since hens have a far greater commercial value than males, cocks, roosters, it is apparently vital to determine the sex of a newly hatched chick. In order to know whether to expend capital on raising it or not, you see. A cock is nearly worthless, apparently, on the open market. The sex characteristics of newly hatched chicks, however, are entirely internal, and it is impossible with the naked eye to tell whether a given chick is a hen or a cock. This is what I have been told, at any rate. A professional chicken-sexer, however, can nevertheless tell. The sex. He can go through a brood of freshly hatched chicks, examining each one entirely by eye, and tell the poultry farmer which chicks to keep and which are cocks. The cocks are to be allowed to perish. “Hen, hen, cock, cock, hen,” and so on and so forth. This is apparently in Australia. The profession. And they are nearly always right. Correct. The fowl determined to be hens do in fact grow up to be hens and return the poultry farmer’s investment. What the chicken-sexer cannot do, however, is explain how he knows. The sex. It’s apparently often a patrilineal profession, handed down from father to son. Australia, New Zealand. Have him hold up a new-hatched chick, a young cock shall we say, and ask him how he can tell that it is a cock, and the professional chicken-sexer will apparently shrug his shoulders and say “Looks like a cock to me.” Doubtless adding “mate,” much the way you or I would add “my friend” or “sir.”’

Q….

‘This is the aptest analogy I can adduce to explain it. Some mysterious sixth sense, perhaps. Not that I’m right one hundred percent of the time. But you would be surprised. We will be on the ottoman, having a drink, enjoying some music, light conversation. This is now on the third date together, late in the evening, after dinner and perhaps a film or a bit of dancing. I do very much like to dance. We are not seated close together on the ottoman. Usually I am at one end and she at the other. Though it is only a four-and-a-half-foot ottoman. It’s not a terribly long piece of furniture. However, the point is that we are not in a posture of particular intimacy. Very casual and so on. A great deal of complex body language is involved and has taken place over all the prior time spent in one another’s company, which I will not bore you by attempting to go into. So then. When I sense the moment is right—on the ottoman, comfortable, with drinks, perhaps some Ligeti on the audio system—I will say, without any discernible context or lead-in that you could point to as such, “How would you feel about my tying you up?” Those nine words. Just so. Some rebuff me on the spot. But it is a small percentage. Very small. Perhaps shockingly small. I will know whether it’s going to happen the moment I ask. I can nearly always tell. Again, I cannot fully explain how. There will always be a moment of complete silence, heavy. You are, of course, aware that social silences have varied textures, and these textures communicate a great deal. This silence will occur whether I’m to be rebuffed or not, whether I have been incorrect about the [flexion of upraised fingers to signify tone quotes]
hen
or not. Her silence, and the weight of it—a perfectly natural reaction to such a shift in the texture of a hitherto casual conversation. And it brings to a sudden head all the romantic tensions and cues and body language of the first three dates. Initial or early-stage dates are fantastically rich from a psychological standpoint. Doubtless you are aware of this. Any sort of courtship ritual, game of sizing one another up, gauging. There is, afterward, always that eight-beat silence. They must allow the question to [finger flexion]
sink in
. This was an expression of my mother’s, by the way. To let such-and-such [finger flexion]
sink in,
and as it happens it is nearly perfect as a descriptor of what occurs.’

Q.

‘Alive and kicking. She lives with my sister and her husband and their two small children. Very much alive. Nor do—rest assured that I do not delude myself that the low percentage of rebuffs is due to any over-whelming allure on my part. This is not how an activity like this works. In fact, it is one reason why I propose the possibility in such a bold and apparently graceless way. I withhold any attempt at charm or assuasion. Because I know, full well, that their response to the proposal depends on factors internal to them. Some will wish to play. A few will not. That is all there is to it. The only real [finger flexion]
talent
I profess is the ability to gauge them, screen them, so that by the—such that a preponderance of the third dates are, if you will, [finger flexion]
hens
rather than [finger flexion]
cocks
. I use these avian tropes as metaphors, not in any way to characterize the subjects but rather to emphasize my own unanalyzable ability to know, intuitively, as early as the first date, whether they are, if you will, [f.f.]
ripe
for the proposal. To tie them up. And that is just how I put it. I do not dress it up or attempt to make it seem any more [sustained f.f.]
romantic
or
exotic
than that. Now, as to the rebuffs. The rebuffs are very rarely hostile, very rarely, and then only if the subject in question really in fact does wish to play but is conflicted or emotionally inequipped to accept this wish and so must use hostility to the proposal as a means of assuring herself that no such wish or affinity exists. This is sometimes known as [f.f.]
aversion coding
. It is very easy to discern and decipher, and as such it is nearly impossible to take the hostility personally. The rare subjects about whom I’ve simply been incorrect, on the other hand, are often amused, or sometimes curious and thus interrogative, but in all events in the end they simply decline the proposal in clear and forthright terms. These are the cocks I have mistaken for hens. It happens. As of my last reckoning, I have been rebuffed just over fifteen percent of the time. On the third date. This figure is actually a bit high, because it includes the hostile, hysterical, or affronted rebuffs, which do not result—at least in my opinion—which do not result from my misjudging a [f.f.]
cock
.’

Q.

‘Again, please note that I do not possess or pretend to possess specialized knowledge about poultry or professional brood-management. I use the metaphors only to convey the apparent ineffability of my intuition about prospective players in the [f.f.]
game
I propose. Nor, please also note, do I so much as touch them or in any way flirt with them before the third date. Nor, on that third date, do I launch myself at them or move toward them in any way as I hit them with the proposal. I propose it bluntly but unthreateningly from my end of a four-and-a-half-foot ottoman. I do not force myself on them in any way. I am not a Lothario. I know what the contract is about, and it is not about seduction, conquest, intercourse, or algolagnia. What it is about is my desire symbolically to work out certain internal complexes consequent to my rather irregular childhood relations with my mother and twin sister. It is not [f.f.]
S and M,
and I am not a [f.f.]
sadist,
and I am not interested in subjects who wish to be [f.f.]
hurt
. My sister and I are fraternal twins, by the way, and in adulthood look scarcely anything alike. What I am about, when I suddenly inquire, à propos nothing, whether I might take them into the other room and tie them up, is describable, at least in part, in the phrase of Marchesani and Van Slyke’s theory of masochistic symbolism, as
proposing a contractual scenario
[no f.f.]. The crucial factor here is that I am every bit as interested in the contract as in the scenario. Hence the blunt formality, the mix of aggression and decorum in my proposal. They took her in after she suffered a series of small but not life-threatening strokes, cerebral events, and simply could no longer get around well enough to live on her own. She refused even to consider institutional care. This was not even a possibility so far as she was concerned. My sister, of course, came immediately to the rescue. Mummy has her own room, while my sister’s two children must now share one. The room is on the first floor to prevent her having to negotiate the staircase, which is steep and uncarpeted. I have to tell you, I know precisely what the whole thing is about.’

Q.

‘It is easy to know, there on the ottoman, that it is going to happen. That I have gauged the affinity correctly. Ligeti, whose work, you are doubtless aware, is abstract nearly to the point of atonality, provides the ideal atmosphere in which to propose the contractual scenario. Over eighty-five percent of the time the subject accepts. There is no [f.f.]
predatory thrill
at the subject’s [f.f.]
acquiescence,
because it is not a matter of acquiescence at all. Not at all. I will ask how they feel about the idea of my tying them up. There will be a dense and heavily charged silence, a gathering voltage in the air above the ottoman. In that voltage the question dwells until it has, comme on dit, [f.f.]
sunk in
. They will, in most cases, abruptly change their position on the ottoman so as suddenly to straighten their posture, [f.f.]
sit up straight
and so on—this is an unconscious gesture designed to communicate strength and autonomy, to assert that they alone have the power to decide how to respond to the proposal. It stems from an insecure fear that something ostensibly weak or pliable in their character might have led me to view them as candidates for [sustained f.f.]
domination
or
bondage
. People’s psychological dynamics are fascinating—that a subject’s first, unconscious concern is what it might be about her that might prompt such a proposal, might lead a man to think such a thing might be possible. Reflexively concerned, in other words, about their self-presentation. You would almost have to be there in the room with us to appreciate the very, very complex and fascinating dynamics that accompany this charged silence. In point of fact, in its naked assertion of personal power, the sudden improvement in posture in fact communicates a clear desire to submit. To accept. To play. In other words, any assertion of [f.f.]
power
signifies, in this charged context, a hen. In the heavily stylized formalism of [f.f.]
masochistic play,
you see, the ritual is contracted and organized in such a way that the apparent inequality in power is, in fact, fully empowered and autonomous.’