The other man I made love to while laughing had no idea where he came from.
I thought he was from Canterbury. If asked, he would say yes, I am from Canterbury. And my father was a lawyer. My mother… well no one says what their mother does because it’s a given. Aashish says, my mother is a Finn. He doesn’t say, my mother used to put gin in her orange juice.
When I am sick with drink his mother is patient with my stupidity and brings me a basin. I stay in the guest room for several nights, too ill to step down the reeling hallway to his room. I’ve just learned that it’s true what they say about grain and grape. At 24, I’m a late drinker and an early riser.
“I never liked sex much before,” he says.
Laughing I say, “Why was that then?”
“Let’s do it again!”
Aashish exists amidst a tight clan. The nuances of his sharp friends escape me, their shared stories and codified phrases. He is the lantern center of these gatherings. Unconventionally charismatic - his teeth are an unruly bunch - the superficial doesn’t hold much sway here. History, says their gaze, shared secrets! You gotta be made of vellum! They cast a swathe round Aashish impossible to penetrate.
He invites me to the Shraddah rites on the two year anniversary of his father’s death. Aashish walks through the ritual. Aashish wears white. I’m sure I shouldn’t be here. Someone asks Aashish if I’m his sister. We look alike, while his actual sister looks much as everyone expects her to look. Aashish contracts, gestures to a black and white photograph of his Indian grandfather, “He had blue eyes, like me.”
We could be happy. How do I know this? Osmosis most likely, of the seminal kind. It’s hard to believe we ever used condoms because I still remember his skin. We used one the first time. I know this because when I’m asked if there’s anything I regret in life, I say that I have only one regret. It involves this condom and it’s not what you think. (see part 3)
We are Londoners. At least I am sort of. If you give blood, they test your blood for AIDS. Righteously we give blood and await our booklets. Receiving just a booklet and not a summons is the silent negative one desperately hopes for.
I like to approach things from the side, which is why I’m writing about condoms when I want you to know that I remember his penis. The remembering is notable because I remember very few. It’s to do with we could be happy.
I lived with a man for 17 years whose penis was a thing I couldn’t love. The penis was not at fault. It was that we couldn’t be happy.
Here I am with Aashish. I hear in his voice his slight stammer highly interesting to me if I heard it for the first time yesterday. We chatter constantly when we have sex. When I am wearing a short black dress he takes me to the design studio at his University. We have sex on a desk. We have sex in the bathroom stalls. Gamahucherie always. He tells me a story about living in India and working for his uncle on an ad campaign for a cooking oil called Golden Showers, everyone in the office oblivious to the reference. Aashish means blessing, and he tells me he loves me. We are lying on a four poster bed at the house of one of his friends. The threads of a future unfurl in my mind.
Aashish is unusual amongst the men I’ve loved up to this. He is a loyal friend, funny, garrulous, tremendously smart, talented, visionary, a good listener, boasts of my talents, extremely affectionate. And principled. To a certain degree.
We’ve never had an argument. Until we do. An explosion amidst the inky darkness of the jewel-lit street, rare as the London snow - come in time for Christmas. He is drunk and tearing me a strip, this gentle man. The world tilts under my feet. I am aware of how tall he is as I become small. I think, “I am like the cat.” The cat who has no relationship to the Wedgewood platter shattering on the floor as it passes.
My error being at some remove, I fail to grasp it. Weeks ago, I told him something I shouldn’t, about a former lover, a thing about their childhood. I can’t remember why I told him. He’s never met my former lover. Yet here he is, weeks later on a sudden enraged.
“Why tell me that? Something so intimate, so personal! There is nothing, nothing more important in the world than discretion.”
“But you don’t know her.”
“I might meet her one day! How would she feel if she knew that you’d told me? My mother is the most discreet person I’ve ever met. Tell her anything she’ll never breath a word. A sacred trust. What’s wrong with you!”
I have no idea why he is talking about his mother. It will be many years before I read The Invisible Presence.
He doesn’t say, “I’m afraid I can’t trust you.”
If you’re reading this Aashish, remember that I asked you. I said, “Can I write about this?”
“Anyone who’d be affected is dead,” you said, “So yes. You can.”
If I could write like someone other than myself, I'd want to write like you. It's not just the content, it's the feeling of of reality and honesty that comes across. It doesn't matter if it's fiction or autobiography, and I'll never know, you are always believable. You are one of the few people in this world that I would like to sit down and talk with.
I like the structure of the piece, showing little glimpses of your relationship that paint a much fuller picture than if you just described everything in a long essay. Nice read.