Read Sex and Death for Free Online Page B

can’t even remember her smell. And Dad was just a stranger, you know? He was so formal, so polite. I always felt like I was meeting him for the first time.’
    He tried to sound like his father, like any father: ‘Hello, George, how are you? How was your flight? Well that’s grand. What’s your life like these days?’
    Pattern stared at him.
    â€˜Honestly,’ said George. ‘I can’t stand making small talk with people who have seen me naked. Or who fed me. Or spanked me. I mean once you spank someone, you owe them a nickname. Was that just me or were Mom and Dad like completely opposed to nicknames? Or even just Honey or Sweetie or any of that.’
    â€˜Jesus, George, what do you want from people? You have some kind of intimacy fantasy. Do you think other people go around hugging each other and holding hands, mainlining secrets and confessions into each other’s veins?’
    â€˜I have accepted the fact of strangers,’ said George. ‘After some struggle. But it’s harder when they are in your own family.’
    â€˜Violin music for you,’ said Pattern, and she snapped her fingers.
    He looked up, perked his ears, expecting to hear music.
    â€˜Wow,’ she marvelled. ‘You think I’m very powerful, don’t you?’
    â€˜Honestly, I don’t know. I have no idea. Are you in trouble? Everything I read is so scary.’
    â€˜I am in a little bit of trouble, yes. But don’t worry. It’s nothing. And you. You seem so sad to me,’ Pattern said. ‘Such a sad, sad young man.’ She stroked his face, and it felt ridiculously, treacherously comforting.
    George waved this off, insisted that he wasn’t. He just wanted to know about her. He really did. Who knew where she’d vanish to after this, and he genuinely wanted to know what her life was like, where she lived. Was she married? Had she gotten married in secret or something?
    â€˜I don’t get to act interested and really mean it,’ George explained. ‘I mean ever, so please tell me who you are. It’s kind of a selfish question, because I can’t figure some things out about myself, so maybe if I hear about you, something will click.’
    â€˜Me? I tend to date the house husband type. Self-effacing, generous, asexual. Which is something I’m really attracted to, I should say. Men with low T, who go to bed in a full rack of pyjamas. That’s my thing. I don’t go for the super-carnal hetero men; they seem like zoo animals. Those guys who know what they want, and have weird and highly developed skills as lovers, invariably have the worst possible taste – we’re supposed to congratulate them for knowing that they like to lick butter right off the stick. What a nightmare, to be subject to someone else’s expertise. The guys I tend to date, at first, are out to prove that they endorse equality, that my career matters, that my interests are primary – they make really extravagant displays of selflessness, burying all of their own needs. I go along with it, and over time I watch them deflate and lose all reason to live, by which point I have steadily lost all of my attraction for them. I imagine something like that is mirrored in the animal kingdom, but honestly that’s not my specialty. I should have an air gun in my home so I could put these guys out of their misery. Or a time-lapse video documenting theslow and steady loss of self-respect they go through. It’s a turn-off, but, you know, it’s my turn-off. Part of what initially arouses me is the feeling that I am about to mate with someone who will soon be ineffectual and powerless. I’ve come to rely on the arc. It’s part of my process.’
    â€˜You think these guys don’t mean it that they believe in equality?’
    â€˜No, I think they do, and that it has a kind of cost. They just distort themselves so much trying to do the right thing