"Now I am naked."
16 min read
The Undressing
Begun: Thursday May 30, 2019 6:54 am Finished: Thursday July 4, 2019 9:16 am
Now Playing: George Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue. It’s part of an array of patriotic music on the classical radio station, it’s Independence Day.
Early this morning, in the hours before I was entirely awake, I worried about him. My recent love. An image of him came into my mind and I drifted into it and it became a semi-waking dream. I was visiting him. He was unwell in his bed, his new bed, in his new place. It isn’t an unfamiliar image. It is one I have seen before. He is twenty years older than me, nineteen and a half, to be accurate, and so the notion that one day I would be visiting him in a hospital bed was something I had been acculturating myself to. This time, though, in this image, he was at home, in his new apartment.
It is unlikely this would happen. If he were actually unwell, I don’t know who in his life would contact me, no one has my number, and no one, including him, would find me an appropriate person to contact should he become ill or unwell in some way. This makes me sad. Before he dumped me I had wanted to ask him to give me his brother’s phone number and to give his brother mine. I wanted to make sure that someone would let me know if he was ever in danger or need. Before he dumped me he had told his closest friends about me, how wonderful of a match we were, how I loved him better than he had ever been loved. Back then, if he were unwell, I would have surely been one of his brother’s first calls.
This waking-dream allowed me to imagine that I could go to him. I would find him in his new bed, the bed we talked about sharing, in his new apartment, the apartment he got so we could be together, but was determinedly his own, a private space he had not had in many years. I would go inside and lock the front door. I would make sure we were not disturbed. I imagined his lying there unconscious, unable to communicate. This would not be all that different from his waking state, to be honest. Well that’s not fair. He communicates, he is a talker, he can talk a blue streak, actually—his war-stories from his work and his long life on the road. One of the first times he made me a salad at his place he spent an hour telling me every significant medical condition he had ever had. He can communicate when it is about himself. He just doesn’t know how to receive information or show genuine interest about others. “I’m a bad listener,” he often explained. Only recently has it occurred to me that it’s a strange solution—to tell people you are a bad listener. It seems to me that once you have that information about yourself, the better solution to being a bad listener would to be to learn how to become a good one.
When we first hung out in my small quirky place, in the moments before our first kiss, he was nervous. He talks more when he is nervous. Most of the time he has that buzz that comes from drinking a cup of coffee, or in his case, green tea. Not enough to come across as wired, but just enough to make you un-still. This time his nervous chatter was at a new level. He could not stop talking about anything and everything that came across his mind, from his car issues, to the last person he had a conversation with, to his collection of patterned socks, one of which was embroidered with little pictures of chef hats and cooking utensils. He was wearing those socks that day. They had been revealed as he took off his shoes and sat on my floor. When I noticed them he took a deep inhale and uttered the words which indicated I was in store for a long, winding, embroiled story, “Okay, so…the socks…”
I had wanted to talk about us, about being in love. I had wanted him to tell me on that day that he loved me. I wanted to tell him too. I knew it was early for us to say that, but we were unique, and intense, and facing some challenging circumstances. I felt a declaration of love was crucial in our ability to stay together when times would inevitably become difficult. I needed us to make this declaration, hopefully, right then, that night. But in order to do that, I needed him to shut up.
I picked up his eyeglasses which were laying on his stomach, and put them on top of my guitar amp. Then I slid down next to his body, and placed my arm over his soft round stomach. I put my head on his chest, and settled in for a warm, soft, delicious cuddle. I took a deep breath in, and then let a long breath out.
He stopped talking.
He put his arms around me.
He breathed too.
He seemed at ease for the first time since I had known him. Three years.
He was still.
He told me as he left that day, that anytime he was nervous, I knew exactly what to do to calm him down.
So this morning when I saw the image in my head of him, in, in some kind of non-contagious state of illness I thought I would go to his side.
I would go to his apartment. I would walk past his kitchen and his dining room turned into a workspace. I would walk to the back, into the bedroom he had once told me we would share. I would draw the curtains on the windows, close them. He would be there, in his bed, clothed, on top of the sheets, as if those caring for him had him dressed and ready for the moment he would wake up, as if to say, “It’s not that serious, it’s just a temporary stasis.” I would stand there, and look at him, clothed and waiting to wake up and go on with his life. See him, unable to see me. And I would tell him, as I had told him when we first noticed our connection—“I’m here now.”
And then I would undress.
I would take my clothes off slowly, piece by piece, somehow never taking my eyes off of him. I would start by wrangling out of one of my ever-present cozy cardigan sweaters, maybe the long brown one, or the thick grey one. I would look to the chair on the other side of the table next to his bed and start the pile of my clothes there. Then, I think my boots. I’d put them under the chair. And then the knee socks which drove him crazy with the desire to crawl up my legs. Bare-legged, then I’d unbutton and unzip my jean skirt and let that fall to the floor. I wouldn’t pick that up. It doesn’t feel right to bend down and stop looking at him, even for a moment. I’d leave the skirt on the floor, just step out of it, maybe kick it to just behind me. That would leave me in my tank top which just barely covers the sexy dark purple lace bra and black lace underwear I bought when we first realized intimacy was immanent. I’d pause there and wait a moment.
It isn’t about sex.
Every time we made out, he told me it wasn’t about sex. I hadn’t asked him that question, but it was on my mind. The sexual attraction between us was so strong and he loved talking about it. It had been a long time since I had had sex, longer than him, but his desire for it was much stronger than mine. “I really, really, really, really want to have sex with you,” he would declare, always adding, “but my feelings for you are not about that.”
So I would pause here to remind us both, that it wasn’t about sex.
He’s never seen my naked body. We never got that far. He’s only pulled my tank-top and bra away to kiss my breasts and gently do god-knows-what to my nipples. He had a way of putting his lips on me that was beyond anything I had ever experienced. A few kisses on my body were enough to sustain me for the weeks between our encounters and well beyond. I still think about those kisses. The best lovers I have had have given me that incredible feeling of What the heck are they doing to me? It’s wondrous. It feels like magic. It feels. It feels. Sex can be so predictable that it can become a routine thought process—Oh, they’re doing that thing again. So those who can suspend my mind, and ignite pure feeling, have always been special to me.
Standing by his bed, now in just my bra, panties, and tank top, I would breathe. I am making the choice now. I am doing this.
I would slip each of the straps from my tank top off my shoulders and let it fall to the floor. I’d kick it near my skirt. I would reach both hands behind my back and unhook my bra. I’d feel that moment where the tension of the elastic around my chest is suddenly released and my small breasts expand from the compression which holds them at attention. I’d toss the bra behind me onto the chair. There’s just one item left. My hands slide down my torso onto the skin of my hips, tucking my fingers into the lace of my underwear. My hands slide down, and down, my underwear with them, down the skin of my thighs until the panties are loose enough to fall to the ground.
Now I am naked.
I would breathe again. Because in this moment, I would have to admit to myself, that I still love him. Not with the hopes and expectations with which I loved him before, but with a kind of purity which only he and I can understand, maybe only I can understand. It always came as a surprise to him that anyone would feel the way about him that I did. There was something about the way I loved him which was pure and total acceptance. That was my greatest gift to him. That seemed to heal him. And that is what I want to give him now, in his moment of his incapacitation. I want to heal him.
I would crawl onto the bed, put my head on his shoulder so he could feel my breath against his neck. I would lay my arm over his belly, bending at the elbow so I could rest my hand where I could feel his heart beat. I would squeeze my breasts up against the side of his round chest. And I would lay my leg, my thigh, across his body, just below his belt, but not low enough to arouse him. I would stretch my leg as far across as it would go, so that I could feel the cool air on the warmest, wettest parts of me, and so, that somehow, in that position, that is how he would know, unconscious or not, that I was completely bare, completely there, completely present with him.
I would lie there, until the sun went down.
I keep recalling that photo of naked John Lennon wrapped around Yoko Ono’s clothed body. That was the moment he let the world know how much he loved her and that he would do anything for her. That he was unreservedly dedicated to her. That he would be entirely vulnerable, bare skinned to the world, in order to allow her her integrity, the shelter of her clothing, and the protection of his infinite love. It is one of the most beautiful and disturbing photos ever taken.
“Why do you think he was unconscious?” I can hear the voice of my friend who is a finishing her psychology Ph. D. No, it does not surprise me that I would create a scenario where this lost-love of mine was unable to say or do something that could hurt my feelings. That is the only way I could be that physically and emotionally naked with him. This is why he has never seen me naked. I did not yet trust him with my body, not completely. I have had fantasies where I was undressing for him piece by piece as he told me what to take off, but I knew those could probably not come to reality. He could not give me the kind of emotional safety required to be that vulnerable to another person’s desire. He is one of those people who climb my pleasure as some kind of task, or purpose they have accomplished. His touches felt more like advances toward a goal, rather than a mutual and shared sensual exchange. He became proud of himself. I wondered if he was even really thinking about me, before, during, or after.
I told him that every time we have sex I want it to be making love. Love was the thing I wanted to experience in sex, the one sexual adventure I had not had but was still curious about, still hopeful for. He answered in writing, “Every time I touch you or have touched you it is with love.” But his touches didn’t feel that way. And he never actually told me he loved me. Not in any direct way. He seemed patently afraid of that. Instead he teased me with plenty of indirect references to the idea. “It’s the L-word,” he said once on the phone. “I could fall in love with you,” he said over dinner. Phrases that circumvent making a direct claim to actual feelings to which might have a deep impact on another person. So when he wrote me that his every touch was with love, I didn’t really believe him.
* * *
“She’s…she’s great.” He said, looking down as if concealing a blush. His mouth curled into a boyish smile, the kind that reveals that there’s a crush brewing. That smile that shows he’s thinking about new exciting inside tingles that are thrilling to feel but scary to admit. His eyes lit up. His eyes lit up the way they used to when he used to tell me, “You…you’re wonderful.”
It was our last conversation. He sat in my window seat. We sat there. It was the second time he had come to my small humble home. He is one of the few people to come here at all. He is the only person, other than me, who has used my composting toilet, which he calls “the litter box.” He’s funny. I miss that. His jokes made me feel as if he accepted me the way I was. We sat in the window seat this time. The first time we sat on the floor. We sat on the floor because I wanted us to touch. We did. It was the first time we touched. Now it was our last conversation. We sat in the window seat where it is not possible to sit close to each other. It is narrow, and it works best if two people sit in opposite corners of it and face each other. We did not. I sat facing him. He sat awkwardly with his back to the window, facing the rest of the room, his profile to me.
I think of that moment too often now. It makes me want to vomit.
He was talking about his therapist.
He has found his source of healing. He does not need mine. He has found a woman to pay full and dedicated attention to him, with no expectation of reciprocation. No concern for her feelings are necessary. He probably doesn’t even pay her himself, insurance handles that. It is his perfect relationship. It is what I tried to be for him. I tried to be for him a woman who did not have any feelings, needs, or expectations of him. It is a mistake I make.
That was the last time we spoke. We left it with my declaring my earnest desire to be friends. At first he seemed equally interested in this new phase of our relating to each other. He nodded. He began a sentence, “I…” and then he looked at me and stuttered, reconsidering, “…I need some time.”
“I’m just trying to heal my broken heart.” I had told him, after making a joke about his dumping me via a text message. He raised his eyebrows. Could he be surprised that I am in pain? There are two possible reasons for this. The first is that he has not, after a lifetime of relationships, learned how to see and understand that he has a genuine impact on others. I see this everywhere in his life. So to think that his actions caused me hurt, was something to which he could say, “I know, I’m sorry,” but never really take in the truth of it, not enough for his apologies to be meaningful. The second is that I pretended over the course of our interactions, for each disappointment, each moment of neglect, each time I felt so sad after some way he treated or did not treat me, I pretended that I wasn’t in pain. And so I played the part of a person who was not impacted by his actions. To this he said, “You’re so cool.”
I am embarrassed to miss him still. He does not miss me. He does not think of me. I am sure of that. I learned this when he agreed three times he would call me on a Saturday to have a dignified conversation about our parting ways, something more than the text message he had sent me to say, “I have to work on my relationship with myself, I hope you understand.” That Saturday that he did not call. That Saturday I spent crying and wailing and grasping at my chest. When, later, I finally was able to ask him why he did not call, his answer was, “I spaced it.”
I do not understand what it is I have done to be so forgotten so easily. I do not know what it is that has relegated me to a state of exile. I do not know what it is about me that makes it so difficult. I spent all my energy to be easy for him. To be accepting. To be understanding. To be on his side. And he does not deny any of that. He still told me, that last time we spoke, “You…you’re wonderful.”
But he does not contact me. And I miss him. I miss the simplicity that we were before we tried to be something we could not be. I miss the small jokes. His stupid sense of smart humor that made me laugh at little things, little plays on words, for days.
This silence feels so much like the silence that choked me while he was making the decision to discard me. Waiting. I was waiting for him like a man on trial waiting for a jury to come back with a verdict. I spent a lot of time waiting for him. And I am still waiting. That feels unfair. I know, obviously I have given him too much power over how I feel about myself. He is not my jury. And he will not come back with a verdict. His verdict, this trial, was about him, not me. It all always was. All of it. And he has gone away to deliberate about his life, and he has a new woman to help him with that. And when I do see him again, there will, as it was before, not be any conversation about me, my feelings, my needs, my heart. It will be as it always was, about him. I know all this. And I don’t want to hear any of that. I do not care how his life has evolved or what childhood traumas he has catalogued as reasons for his behaviors. I do not care about the life he has cast me out of, and I am, if I am honest, glad not to be a part of it. I did not want to be what I would have had to be in order to be with him. I know all this. What I am waiting for, I do not know.
The silence feels like air on an open wound. Time will eventually heal it, but when the air blows over it now, it merely reminds me that I am wounded. I feel fine and then I am reminded that he is not speaking to me, and I get angry. Why am I still being punished? Why am I being treated like the one who hurt him? An open gash. My open wound. I want it to be over. I want the new skin to form. The new skin of an easy mature, no-big-deal friendship. All I want is the silence broken, the occasional hello, how are you doing, to trade a joke again, to be able to say I thought of him when I heard his favorite composer. The exile and gag order on me lifted.
And maybe this wound is why want to go to him, undress and wrap my body around him. In my fantasy he is unable to speak, unable to irritate my wound. In my fantasy, I get to take what I need from him, which is his acceptance of my love. That’s a funny sentence. I want to take from him his acceptance of my love. Funny, because that can only be achieved if he is incapacitated, it seems. I have to force it. Force him to let me love him, just for a moment. Just for a moment I want to be able to give him the love I had for him and not be rejected, have it not scare him, not make him worry that his life will be turned upside down. I want to lay there beside him naked, just to feel accepted, welcomed in all my vulnerability. And I could just be there, at ease, not trying to be anything. Not trying to be nothing. Only able to be my bare self. That is why I am naked in the fantasy. I want a moment between us where I am not pretending to be what he wants. I want a moment to be with him, to be completely accepted without pretense, illusion, or cover. It is not him that I want to heal. It is myself.
My wound is not one he caused. It is my own. All I ever wanted when we began this liaison, is for us to declare our love for each other. To be able to say it. It was powerful from the beginning. It was consuming. It clawed at my heart in a way I had never felt before and he never felt at all. I suppose every jilted lover is left unresolved—we never get what we wanted—the person who discarded us. But I do not find myself wanting the person, the relationship, the life we imagined and he cast aside. I just want a moment, a few hours, an hour maybe would suffice, to lie by his side and feel as if, just for a moment, just for that hour, that my loving him, was not despicable, not wrong, not unwelcomed, not rejected. Just for a moment, just for maybe an hour, I want to feel as if the fact that I loved him, was okay. After all this time, and all these words, all this writing (five songs three stories so far). After all those words, “okay” is the word it comes down to? I checked my inner thesaurus for some other word, some other feeling, some other description for what my heart and body aches for but there is none. There is one, actually, one that I find hard to admit—permission, allowed. (I guess there are two). I must feel guilty. I must feel wrong. His rejection then and his silence now has made me question myself. I feel I was wrong to love him. I must have been wrong. I made the wrong choice. I loved someone who in the end, did not, does not love me at all. That is the wound. It is all my own. After all of this, all I want, is permission. To be allowed. To give myself this. It isn’t him I want to give to, that will not heal either of us.
I have shame. I feel ashamed about allowing myself to be so overtaken by that love, love that was not returned. And my mind knows this. It admits it, even though now, right now, as I am writing this, this is the first time I have spoken that shame.
And so my wiser subconscious has given me in this fantasy. A moment where I am shameless, completely vulnerable. As I lie there, naked to the air, my body wrapped around this person who overtook me in a way I have never felt before, my desire is simple.
I want to feel—that my love for him—was okay.
Photo by Ron Hank Raschke