A Working Theory of Love (18 page)

We agree to meet at
her
place. When I let myself in, I find her sitting at her kitchen table in a satiny
green dress, her legs spread, not like a porn star but like a boy, a baseball player.
She’s chewing gum.

“I don’t know what’s come over me,” she says.

Me either. I’m salivating. And when I put my hand on the back of her neck she unfolds
like a book, pressed open by the flat palm of her desire. She looks up at me, as if
begging for her life.

I grab her under the arm and haul her toward the bed. She stumbles like a drunk. I
pull my shoes free and drop my pants as she works out of her underwear. She unbuttons
my shirt while I’m already on top of her. She pinches my nipples with her nails.

“Don’t come inside me,” she says, wrapping her legs around me.

“You’re so wet,” I say.

“Your little phone call turned me on,” she says. “You couldn’t wait, huh?”

“I was so hungry.”

“Yes. Harder. And faster. And hold it.”

“You want to do it porn style?” I ask.

She’s breathing heavy. Her regular face is struggling inside her ecstatic face, like
a person underwater. “I’m going to come. I’m going to come.”

I pull out and straddle her chest, and I see that lostness, that same expression from
the girls online. I think, who is this? I don’t know her at all.

“Jesus Christ,” she says, hiccuping, laughing. She rolls over, feeling blindly for
the bedside tissue box.

“Hold still,” I say. I pull a tissue and dab her face with care, the way you look
after a child’s scraped knee. I’m sorry, I think. I’m sorry my heart flinched. I’m
sorry we’re strangers.

She mentions that the humming class I attended—it sounds like humming—was really successful.
“You’ve definitely got the stroke down.”

“The stroke? Thanks.”

“The way you applied your index finger to my clit.” She pushes up to her elbows to
study me. “I’m supposed to say ‘clit,’ right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know, the VAM Method. I’ve been reading up on Pure Encounters.” She says this
sweetly, as if it’s a gift she’s giving me.

“They teach you how to finger your girlfriend at Pure Encounters?”

“I didn’t know it was limited to your girlfriend.”

“What’s pure about that?”

“Don’t get upset at me.” She puts her hand on her heart. “
I’m
not a member.”

“Neither am I,” I say. What the hell? The VAM Method?

“You don’t know what a ClickIn is.”

“I think it’s like group therapy.”

“How about unifying?”

“No idea.”

“Wow.” She falls back on the bed with a thump, blowing out a deep breath. “You really
have no idea. I’m kind of afraid to admit this, but I’m having this really strong
feeling right now. Relief—I feel relief.” She nods, amazed at herself. “You don’t
think this means I’m, like, falling for you?”

I remain exquisitely still. Anytime the eagle of another’s heart soars, whatever you
are—mouse, toad, snake—don’t move. From such great heights, it might not see you.

16

T
HE BROCHURE FOR
P
URE
E
NCOUNTERS,
which I take from Jenn’s house, features only one couple—an older woman and a slightly
younger man holding hands and striding down the beach, feet imprinted with sand. The
other four pictures are of people alone, looking contemplative or laughing with revelation.
The point seems to be that Pure Encounters start with no encounter, and that even
single people should come to study “mindful touch” to achieve a “deeper limbic click”
in their lives and relationships. This is all old information for me, but there’s
also an undetailed, enthusiastic description of a core spiritual practice—the VAM
Method. They don’t describe the process, but assume the pamphlet-reader has heard
all about it. “Despite appearances, the VAM Method is not intercourse, it’s an inner
course.” There’s a bit more jargon tossed around: “unifying,” “click,” “reverse love.”
But I can’t find any sense of what these classes are like, and what happens to women
or girls—or, let’s face it, Rachel—when she goes to this. From Jenn’s description
it sounds like a cross between a Lamaze class and an orgy. Men and women team up as
“intimates” for a session, and the man fingers the woman for an hour or more under
the supervision of a sexpert. I can’t imagine what makes these encounters pure. They
don’t even sound psychologically stable.

“You finally decided to buy a condo,” Raj says on the phone. “They’re moving fast.”

“Actually, I’m calling about VAMing.”

“I know. I was just kidding. Look, I can’t explain any of this stuff over the phone
without it sounding
completely
crazy. So why don’t you come up here this weekend, for the men’s retreat. You can
learn all about it then.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I say. “But I’m not going to be an intimate or whatever
with a man.”

“You’ve been doing your homework—great! But we won’t be doing the VAM Method. VAMing
is strictly man on woman. This is totally, one hundred percent hetero. It’s a men’s
retreat. Fire in the belly—all that. It’s about being stronger and more self-confident
and more assertive. And, look, it normally costs twelve hundred dollars, but let me
make you an offer. Why don’t you come for half price?”

There’s no way I’m going to a retreat. I don’t even like the word, with its sad air
of military reversal, of turning tail.
Retreat!

Then again, how else will I find out what they’re about? And can I really call myself
a true San Franciscan if I’ve never gone on a retreat? So I head off to Marin, to
the Dry Earth Ashram. It’s actually outside Fairfax, and I stop on my way to see if
Rachel is at work. She’s not. I order a coffee and sit in the window contemplating
the possibility that she’s off getting “stroked” by strangers. Excuse me—getting her
clit stroked. I thought the upfront language was just some weirdness on the part of
Jenn, but she told me that the Pure Encounters group prefers “clit,” “pussy,” and
“cock”—they find the words more “powered up.”

I’ll try again: perhaps at this moment Rachel is off getting her clit and/or pussy
stroked by strangers. I feel the coffee hot and awful in my stomach. I sit very still—I’m
an experienced practitioner of the art of falling apart on the inside while appearing
catatonic. It’s one of my proudest adult skills. I take another sip of coffee, consider
brown sugar. I will not contemplate ways to work “cock” into the image, though happily
Jenn tells me that cocks don’t get much attention during the VAM Method. Actually,
any attention. Does this make me feel better? A better question: who am I to feel
better or worse? I’m barely an ex-boyfriend. I’m not even her “friend.”

I dump my cup in the trash and walk to the Subaru. I head west, out of town and into
the dry country, where the hills are as bare and worn as an old lion pelt. I can still
be concerned about Rachel, of course—something beyond jealousy. In fact, feeling protective
of her was (at least in part) what made me call it off. If Jenn wants to do that,
fine. Jenn’s a professional in her thirties. Rachel—younger and a deeply betrayed
person—is a more combustible mix.

To the north the trees run out. It’s a good half-mile of barren hills before I hit
the turnoff to the ashram, a dirt path that leads to a rowdy wooden bridge lined with
Zen-like sayings. A yield sign that reads
YIELD TO THE PRESENT
. That kind of thing. At the cedar guardhouse, which looks like a sauna with a window,
an imposing bald-headed monk asks for my confirmation printout. He might have been
a bouncer in a previous life. I hand it over and he nods, walking out to a catapult-like
structure that is the vehicle gate, where he leans on a stone counterbalance to raise
the long wooden arm.

The cars in the parking lot suggest a crowd from many walks of life. Sporty-model
Beemers, beat-up Hondas. There’s also an old Porsche, a beauty, which must be Raj’s.
I park and follow a steep wooden staircase up to the ashram, which is a large, homey
cabin encircled by a high stucco wall. As I walk along the porch to the glassed-in
board with the weekend’s events posted Baptist-church style—“Old Energy, Old Hurts,”
“Unifying,” and “Pure Encounters”—I remind myself that I’m here as a researcher, a
detective, but I can’t avoid a flash of terror from the seclusion, the hopeless earnestness
of any weekend gathering of adults.

Raj comes out of a set of French doors, dressed in slacks and an Oxford but barefoot.

“I just got here,” he explains. He has me take off my shoes and shows me down a long
wooden hall to my room, a cell bare enough to please Saint Bernard. The ceiling is
low, the walls in arm’s span of each other. The mattress is rolled and tied in one
corner. It seems to have been stuffed with gumballs. But the astringent smell of eucalyptus
blowing in from the window makes everything feel fresh and healthy.

“Is that your Porsche?” I ask.

He nods. “It’s a 1972,” he says. “Awesome? I’ll have to detail its awesomeness sometime
later—we can’t really do unstructured talk right now. But about the weekend, I just
wanted to say that I think this can be a transformative event. I love it. I come up
here for a total recharge. But it may not be your style, and that’s cool. Participate
when you want, don’t participate when you don’t want. The ClickIn might seem a little
strange your first time.” He laughs, his clean even teeth bright in his reddish face.
His background is truly sun-averse, Irish or northern German. “Maybe a little confrontational?”

“I just want to confirm that I won’t have to touch or stroke anyone.”

“There will be no touching or stroking,” he says, punching me in the shoulder. “We’re
going to be diving down deep. This is about authentic masculinity.”

Oh, boy.

•   •   •

W
HAT HAPPENED TO US
American men? There we were, joyfully plundering the world like openhanded pirates,
and now that we have it all we sit in half-lotus on the edge of paradise, the most
beautiful county in the most beautiful state in the luckiest country under the sun,
to meditate on loss and resentment.

We’re breathing in, we’re breathing out. We’re keeping our minds loose, simply observing
thoughts as they come up. The men in the room with me—ten in all—have degrees from
good schools, do interesting work, earn their way in the world. Yet each one of them
is trailed by the cymbal crash of bafflement. It shows in their bright, uncomprehending
eyes, and in their striving. They struggle to breathe at the right pace with the right
ujjayi breath—a wheezing effect you get by constricting your windpipe. The man next
to me, an intellectual property lawyer, sounds like Darth Vader in a steam room.

Our meditation leader is a short, pasty-faced man named Larry. He owns a popular pizzeria
in Berkeley. (I get a burble in my stomach thinking about it; they haven’t fed us
a thing.) He’s talking about Old Energy, Old Hurts: “Focus on one pain you’ve caused
in your relationships. Maybe it’s infidelity or just a mean insult. Maybe it’s negative
intentions. Now breathe in and on the exhale let go of that roadblock. Let it go.
Good. Now let’s think about pain you’ve been caused. Focus on one pain. Just one.
Breathe in and on the exhale let go of that roadblock. Good. I can feel it, men. I
can feel that old energy releasing to the air.”

It’s true there is a new smell in the room. Crackly and chemical, like fresh dry cleaning.
And it’s also true that I can see how this might benefit Rachel. I just hope that
when she thinks of pain done to her, she doesn’t think of me.

We’re asked to visualize some time when a “partner”—that dreaded word—has done something
hurtful to us. I take my ujjayi breath, and try to get past my gut feeling that the
project feels mean-spirited. I’m not a sentimentalist, I hope—I don’t whitewash my
father’s suicide; I don’t whitewash my ex-wife’s behavior in our marriage. But I don’t
blame in any cosmic sense. The only person responsible for my problems is me.

I guess I should think of Erin, but instead I find myself thinking about the time
before I met her. It was my last year in college, and I was having a fling based not
on passion, but on friendliness. My father was recently dead, and this turned me a
click in a different direction. Before this time—before his suicide?—I wouldn’t have
dreamed of getting entangled with less than a full heart. But I found that this cooler,
maybe sadder arrangement suited me well. Sophie—the partner in my love affair—was
very pretty, with short red hair and fair skin. She had freckles and drove a little
used BMW and listened to lots of girl punk. Her best-kept secret was her unclothed
body. It was stunning. Long, pale, gentle, with breasts so perfect I’m not sure, in
retrospect, they were real. I made love not to Sophie, but to that body. I loved that
body, its feel, its vistas. I don’t know who or what Sophie was making love to, probably
the absence of the boy she was truly devoted to, who had moved to Seattle.

We got along well. She had a good sense of fun—we went to concerts, we went to a hockey
game in Tulsa. Then we’d get back and make slow, kind, sad love.

If I ever jump over the railing of the Golden Gate Bridge it wouldn’t be for the impact
that would stop the plunge, but for the plunge itself. That’s how I felt at the time—not
suicidal, but plunging into a bottomless hole. I could have asked for help, but I
didn’t know I needed any. The plunge had its odd pleasures. Not caring about the day-to-day
demands of life may be a sign of depression, but it’s also a mark of freedom.

But freed to what? Slow, kind, sad love to Sophie. My last classes. Hard work at my
restaurant job. This was my life, and it wasn’t bad. It was the kind of unthrilling,
manageable existence I expected to end with, not to begin in.

I still went to Mass sometimes, but despite myself I was slipping from the church’s
grip. My father’s funeral had revealed to me that I was at best a cultural Catholic.
And then the hot sun of disbelief bleached the meaning from the prayers, the rites.
For me, Mass became an absurd spectacle. All that dress-up, all that kneeling and
standing and kneeling again. And the atonal Catholic singing—why didn’t we at least
learn how to sing? At least there would be that for us, the faithless.

When I graduated, I threw a little party, surprised that I did have some friends.
I invited a couple of people from work, a few fellow English majors, and Sophie. For
posterity’s sake, I record their names here: Brandon, Justin, Patrick, Luke, Amie,
Rebecca, Van, Jennifer, Brian, and Josh.

We set up in my backyard, drinking cheap gin and beer. We got very drunk, and at one
point I made out with Rebecca in the hall. Then Patrick stumbled through the bamboo
fence into the landlord’s compost pile, and we called it a night. Some partygoers
walked home; some stayed in my living room. My head was spinning when Sophie and I
got into bed. Hers, too—she had to get up and vomit.

“I’ve never been this drunk,” she said.

“I have,” I said.

She pulled my arm tightly around her. “I’m going to miss you,” she said.

I waited a while, sorting through my own feelings. It was very important to me to
be completely honest. “I’ll miss you, too.”

“If you stayed,” she said, “would we still date?”

“I think I would want to.”

“I think I would want to, too.”

We were quiet. I thought I heard a noise, some shudder of sorrow.

“Are you crying?” I asked. I reached up to touch her face—but it was dry.

“No,” she said. She pulled my hand back down to her ribs, patted it in place. Out
my window, the moon was gone, and the stars hung heavy in their forgotten patterns.
It was one of those nights when the world seems full of ancient messages, intended
for a people long since dead.

“Are
you
crying?” she asked.

I considered coaxing myself to tears. My father, after all, was an amateur astronomer.
He’d
never forgotten the stars’ patterns. But tears would have suggested I desired something,
and I didn’t know if I could reenter the world of desiring things. I was left with
cheap catharsis, or worse—manipulation—and I had made it so far without stooping to
either.

•   •   •

A
FTER DINNER,
I’m as jittery as a wet bird. All that deep breathing was supposed to take me someplace
calm, but my inner pilgrim made a wrong turn. The edgy, coppery-bright beginnings
of a panic attack are crawling around my chest.

Raj approaches me on the porch, where I’m rocking in the big swing. “Chilly out here,”
he says, sitting next to me.

We rock back and forth, his long runner’s legs powering us. I can see the guardhouse
from here, the hulking monk as still as a chess piece.

Raj pats me on the knee. “Let’s go for a walk.” We head up the road and then off on
a path covered in fallen eucalyptus leaves. It’s a little dark to be entering the
woods, but stretching my legs feels good. It reassures me of the great truth of life:
today didn’t take that long and tomorrow will be just as short. When we reach the
top of the hill, Raj glances behind him, then pulls out a pack of cigarettes.