A curious proposal.

A couple of days ago, Delilah* came round ours for dinner since she hadn’t seen our mutual university friend for a decade. I went out with her to get takeaway, and somehow our conversation got onto the subject of lesbianism. She told me that she and a friend have a lesbian joke going on at work, whereby she bounces her friend on her knee in the staff room. After a little while, male colleagues make excuses and escape elsewhere, presumably to relieve themselves.

“Would you ever do it with a woman?” I asked and Delilah* allowed that she’s keeping an open mind and willing to be swept off her feet by the right person.

I was in a most peculiar mood that evening. Perhaps it’s because I’d been taking an extended ‘sabbatical’ since my last relationship, and the frustration was suddenly catching up with me, but I found myself contemplating Delilah* from a different angle. “Is it wrong to find Delilah* attractive?” I asked Gabriel*, freshly divorced from her, and he didn’t think so, though he accused me of trying to make a move on his ex-wife ‘while the marital bed was still warm’. I wasn’t really; all I did was stroke her arm, and invite her to sit on my knee, but combined with my other behaviour that evening – making numerous remarks laden with innuendo, clawing Gabriel’s* leg and biting a wooden chair due to an overflowing of…something – it led Delilah* to believe that I really was hitting on her. She’s probably still traumatised. As for me, to borrow Isabel Allende’s words, I’m suffocating in the hair shirt of my own skin.

Though I’ve found women attractive since I was seventeen, I’ve never done anything about it because I find attractive women far more intimidating than men. Men are more straightforward, and as someone impervious to subtlety, I find them to be more on my wavelength. I also find it far easier to discuss sexually explicit matters with my male friends than with female ones, since the latter fall roughly into two categories: respectable married women or virgins. Triệu Thị Trinh* is an exception, she may be married, but ‘respectable’ she ain’t; she’s the bluntest, most graphic person I know. The other night, our household was assembled in our living room, and our newest housemate, eyes wide open, was listening to Triệu Thị Trinh* talk very matter-of-factly about how she doesn’t care to wear underwear and she doesn’t like to shave down there, either, before moving onto the topic of sex toys. That’s just Triệu Thị Trinh*; she doesn’t believe in self-sensorship; if her accidental audience doesn’t like what it’s hearing, it can go hang.

Tonight we were in London, having dinner with Hector* and his girlfriend Persephone*, whom I'd never met. I hadn’t seen Hector* for a year, and he emailed me recently to invite me to crash at theirs, saying that Persephone* was curious to meet me. She and I got on very well, sharing mugging stories (we’ve both been mugged by teenagers), visa denial stories (I was ‘removed’ from the United States, while she had to go before the king of Morocco after overstaying her visa), modelling stories (we were both nude models at our respective universities) and Jamaica anecdotes – it seems that Hector* has told her about our wild time in the Caribbean, four years ago.

Hector* popped out for a cigarette, and I received the following text message: “Threesome?” I thought it was a jokey allusion to our incestuous household in Jamaica, when he had something going on with another intern but was showing a considerable interest in me at the same time, which didn’t amount to much, since I was also involved with another intern, as well as feeling guilty about a long-distance relationship with Forrest, and fending off the advances of a randy fifteen year old boy at the same time.

When we left the restaurant, Hector* and Persephone* suggested going for another drink, so I let Gabriel* go home and resigned myself to staggering drunkenly through the underground – the only likely outcome of an encounter with three glasses of wine.

When Hector* went out for another cigarette, Persephone* leaned towards me. “Hector* and I wanted to meet up with you because we’re interested in having a threesome and we’re wondering how you feel about it.”

Gosh. The last time this happened, I was twenty one and it was after some crazy night in London, when I was too late to catch a train back to Cambridge for some reason and ended up crashing at Rio’s, the clothing optional ‘health spa’ at Kentish Town. I slept in a lawn chair, wrapped in towels, and found myself at a nearby café in the morning, being plied with coffee and croissants by a pleasant middle-aged couple, who talked about how nice it’d be to ‘get together sometime’. I accepted the coffee and fled.

Persephone* was refreshingly straightforward. She explained that she’s been wanting to try a threesome for a while, that she’s talked Hector* into it (difficult as that may have been), but that they didn’t really have much in the way of open-minded friends, and apparently ‘open-minded’ was an adjective used when he described me to her. He was also rather flattering in his physical description of me. I confessed that I wasn’t against the idea, but wanted a week to mull it over. Since none of us have ever participated in a threesome, we pondered the practicalities of it all – how much attention to pay to whom, what lines not to cross (i.e. no extreme pain or golden showers)…how it would all work, really. One of my exes told me about a threesome he took part in. It was him and two girls; in his own words, “it was bloody hard work”, trying to please two women at the same time. He gave me the impression that it’s something a man tries once, because it sounds like fun, and never again.

I warned Persephone* that in spite of my self-proclaimed bisexuality, I’ve had less experience with women than my sister (who had to snog another girl onstage during some drama production), which is a bit embarrassing, really. Does this make me a faux-bisexual? Persephone* hasn’t had any experience with women either, hence the curiosity. “I love the female form, especially breasts,” she told me, and I admitted that I like breasts too – one of my favourite words is ‘boobies’; I see them as fun objects and would probably go around groping my female friends if it weren’t for certain social conventions and if they didn’t seek to clobber me for it.

The offer’s on the table. My friends are not an unattractive couple, but I have to be clear about my reasons for either going through with it or not. It would be out of curiosity rather than desire, a clumsy and entertaining experience, perhaps, rather than an intense private one, but then again, I’m all for experimentation. Perhaps I should indeed have sex sometime soon before I forget which bit goes where.

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.

Thus complained Mick Jagger in one of The Stones’ biggest hits. I can relate to that.

The day before I fly home from Peru, I go on a quasi-date with Leo, my guide from Nazca, who happens to be in Lima on business. As luck would have it, he calls me just when I get to the dentist, and I’m two hours late due to having a crown fitted. Leo waits for me by the fountains of Larcomar with Peruvian patience and Hermes* takes off after the initial introductions so as to not cramp my style.

Those who know me well are perhaps not surprised that I developed crush on my guide back in Nazca while standing in the middle of the desert, surrounded by human skulls and fragments of bones. Appropriate, really. When Leo invited me to his house and we sat in his room, watching TV, I had to resist the temptation to run my fingers along the scar on the inside of his right arm. Not particularly because I wanted to trigger something of a sexual nature, but because I’m enthralled by different textures and I wanted to know what the scar felt like. As Hermes* and Gabriel* will testify, sometimes I rub my cheek against theirs, feline-like, because I love the abrasive texture of stubble, but randomly stroking the skin of someone I’d just met would perhaps have sent the wrong message…

I now understand why many people consider me cute because of my height; small people are cute. Leo’s adorably compact: he’s only two or three inches taller than me! I tend to like men who are taller than me (just as well, really, because otherwise I’d have to develop a passion for midgets), and Leo qualifies. Just.

What I initially liked about Leo was his passion for his job, his thirst for learning (he taught himself English and Italian, not having had funds to go to university) and his incredible local knowledge that made the ruins and the desert come to life for me. I was also touched by his humility and the touch of resignation when he talked about how when he retires, he won’t have the luxury of travelling around Europe the way his wealthy Western counterparts might travel around South America. I bet he’d get so much out of it, too; he’d love the ruins of Pompeii, the Sistine chapel, the English castles… “Oh well, for me, there’s always Google Earth”, Leo said, and I vowed there and then that if I can, if I ever wield power and influence, I’ll help Leo visit Europe sometime in the future.

When I told Leo that I’d like to treat him to lunch, I hadn’t envisaged the food court at one of Lima’s most touristy shopping malls, but I did tell him that it was his choice. It’s just that after he’d taken me to all the best local places in Nazca, going somewhere super-touristy is a bit of a comedown.

The lunch is pleasant enough. He tells me that he couldn’t sort out his retirement payments today because his paperwork was not all in order, so he’ll have to come back to Lima. He promises to take me to lunch the next time I’m in Nazca; “I’ll have my pension money by then!” he grins. When I started seeing Forrest, nine years ago, Xerxes* commented: “Now you can start killing your beaus and running off with their pension money.” Not quite true then, but spot-on now. I don't know whether I should be concerned that the age gap seems to be growing rather than shrinking. Xerxes* is convinced that I'll end up practicing necrophilia: "I knew it! I just knew it! You'll end up marrying a mummy!"

When the conversation touches on where Leo would like to travel, given the chance, he expresses the desire to go to New York and visit the Statue of Liberty. To me, that sounds rather…ordinary. I must’ve been expecting something more profound.

When Leo turns to leave, he gives me a hug, takes my hands in his and makes me promise to write to him. He then leans towards me, pssibly aiming to kiss me on the cheek, but managing to half-catch my lips. Hmm. I then realise that I’d forgotten to take a picture of him and sprint after him. He asks a taxi driver to take a photo of us. Afterwards, I turn to him to say goodbye, and he plants a smacker right on my lips, presumably encouraged by the fact that I didn’t run away screaming the first time. As I turn to leave, I see his hand reaching towards me out of the corner of my eye, but I’m already gone.

And just like that, the power balance shifts. The body language in the photo is quite revealing; Leo’s got his arms wrapped around me in a proprietary fashion, and though I’m leaning towards him, I’ve got my hand on his chest, partly to steady myself and partly pushing him away.

I wander off with a spring in my step, but my mind is churning with unbidden thoughts. Take a long walk along the misty cliffs of Miraflores as an equivalent of a cold shower. Gabriel* has told me on several occasions that he’d like to spend a day in my head, convinced that I live in some alternate universe, so I shall attempt to record my thought process.

Leo kissed me. That was nice. He’s clearly interested. I could probably have my wicked way with him if I wanted to. But now that the imaginary scenario in my head has the potential of becoming a reality, do I even want it? The thrill of the chase is over.

At lunch he was looking at me as if I were a unicorn. I’ve seen that look before. What if he’s falling for me? He should be wary of me. I’m bad candy. I’m a heartbreaker. I won’t be able to return his feelings. He’ll end up pining away and hurting, and it’ll all be my fault.

Does he like for my charm, my wit, my radiant inner beauty, or is it because my skin still fits me pretty snugly and he hasn’t had much attention lately from anyone under the age of thirty? What if he sees me as just a nice piece of meat? What if I see him as just a nice piece of meat?

The age difference is a concern. For Leo to be described as middle aged now, he’d have to live to be one hundred and thirty. That’s a bit older than I normally go for, though since he was born the same year as my father, I technically wouldn’t be breaking the ‘no older than my parents’ rule…Why do I even have that rule? Does age even matter? Well, maybe for procreation purposes, but otherwise… I’m curious…do people in their mid-sixties even have sex? Surely they must call it a day at some point. Technically, women can keep going forever, but men? What if I give him a heart attack? That’d be a fun one to explain to Peruvian authorities.

What do I want? A bit of slap and tickle, a profound mental and emotional connection. Am I likely to get it from Leo? Maybe the slap and tickle, but probably no more than that. Am I getting cold feet because he’s taken the initiative and therefore control? Hermes* reckons I should wrest that control back by taking the initiative myself by booking a hotel room and dragging Leo in with me. Now there's an idea.

I’m wondering if what I’d enjoyed in the desert in Nazca was, in fact, just the feeling of longing and being next to a man made attractive by what I’d perceived of his personality, coupled with the desert setting and the familiar darkness of Leonard Cohen’s music. Leo even visually resembles a short, bespectacled, Quechua Cohen, but I should do well to remember that he’s a real human being and not the embodiment of the spirit of the desert, or that of dark, powerful music. That’s a heck of a burden to project onto a diminutive Peruvian.

And so it continues, this endless cycle of thoughts, with my alternating between taking responsibility for the hypothetical feelings of someone who barely knows me, and pondering the ethics and practicalities of actually getting him into bed; whether I actually want a fling that’ll go nowhere and thus be ultimately unsatisfying. Gabriel* is wrong: my wondering whether Leo will fall for me and whether I’d ultimately end up hurting him is not a manifestation of great arrogance. I don’t think I’m all that. It’s a manifestation of my control-freakism, my trying to take control over something that I have no control over.

I like this man, and he likes me, so what the hell is my problem? When I was in his house, and he wasn’t showing any overt interest, I was dissatisfied. When he kissed me, I was dissatisfied for different reasons. Am I simply doomed to perpetual dissatisfaction? In fact, have I ever felt satisfaction in any of my romantic entanglements? The short answer to that is ‘no’. The long answer is ‘nooooooooooooooooo’. Angst? Yes. Stress? Monumental amounts of, yes. Happiness? Hmm. During the most deluded periods of my life I may have persuaded myself that I was ‘happy’ with Forrest or Pantera, but I honestly can’t remember. Had I even asked myself that question during that time, I’m not convinced I would have been able to answer them:

There you are, you think you’re high
You can’t ask yourself, ‘cause you’ll only lie…
Prince, “The Holy River”

My past love life seemed to fall roughly into two categories: either I went out with troubled men with psychological problems, and feel no great loss when they finally vacated my life, or I fell in love with amazing people, like, say, Apollonia* from afar, knowing full well that I’d never do anything about it because I became acutely aware of my inadequacies and limitations when around them:

You see, I’m just another snowman, standing in the rain and sleet
Who loved you with his frozen love, his second-hand physique…
Leonard Cohen, “A Thousand Kisses Deep”

Also, they were too important, and I was not willing to risk anything that would compromise their place in my life, nor could I cope with their rejection, whereas the people who fell into the former category ultimately mattered little.

Where does Leo fit into this? I like him, and I think we could be friends. I’ve been taking a long sabbatical since the unravelling of my last relationship, and though I did buy a pack on condoms in December, with the full intention of using them before their expiry date (i.e. in the next 18 months), that’s not reason enough to rush into anything. In his latest email to me, Leo promises that ‘we will spend more time alone together’ in the Nazca desert, and though there’s nothing like being surrounded by sand dunes and human remains to get one feeling a bit frisky, luckily, it’s not a decision I’ll have to grapple with for some time.