Polar Vortex

by Shani Mootoo

  He’s surely still a married man, I thought. His children are likely still at home. And yet he always finds me.

  Hi. Write me.

  Such assertiveness.

  At once I checked my home page and tried to imagine myself as Prakash, reading how I described myself in my profile. I read the few things I had ever tweeted and retweeted until then, and imagined him having gone through them, taking part in my life without me knowing it, imagining who I’d become. I resigned myself to the idea that it was best to turn myself in, as it were. To not put off what, there in the recesses of my mind, I now realize, I always knew was inevitable.

  · · ·

  * * *

  In hindsight, I can say that when I was with lovers BA — Before Alex — I saw not them per se, but my own reflection. I related my life to them in stories and I recounted past personal dramas in detail. I have no memory if any of them ever told me theirs. If they did, I might well not have been listening. They provided me with opportunities to hear my story every so often as I related to them how I’d grown in life and how each new experience gave me a finer understanding of how I became the person I now was. Lovers BA provided me, in other words, the chance to give form to myself.

  With Alex, on the other hand, the old tendency to command space and time with stories about myself dissipated. When she would ask about my past, I found myself newly bored by my own tales, the same ones I’d repeated elsewhere, wording and structures honed for desired responses; I wanted instead to be regaled by her. Such a thing hadn’t happened before. It unsettled me. This drive to know every detail of her past seemed more powerful than sex, and I knew instinctively it was a sign that she was the person for me, for life.

  But that morning when Prakash’s message arrived, the old shape-shifting that was once required of me to survive resurfaced. Even if I no longer need him, his reappearance, coming at a time when Alex and I have tended to be off in our own worlds, had the effect of igniting in me that old feeling that I could not let him get too far from me, for one cannot ever be certain about what one’s future may hold.

  Although I didn’t respond to him immediately, it wasn’t long after his name lit up my inbox that I began to wonder if the calm in which Alex and I lived was possibly a veneer, beneath which lurked a disquieting incompatibility. And in other moments I had an indestructible conviction that she and I were solid enough to endure the harshest of storms. There were moments, then, that I imagined showing her off to him and him to her.

  · · ·

  * * *

  Hi. Write me.

  I mulled over how and if to respond. A long-shelved memory from the time before I knew of his pending marriage bubbled up like gas escaping from something decaying on the ocean floor. He and I both lived in the city but had not been in touch for several months, during which time I was engaged in a torrid but short-lived romance. When it ended, I was depressed and lonely. Characteristically, as if he had an eye trained on me, he resurfaced just in time and invited me to accompany him on a business trip to San Francisco. He knew what I needed, he said: “Come with me. It’ll be a little getaway. We can commiserate about how women break our hearts.” He guffawed, saying that was something we had in common. “We’ll go to galleries, to Fisherman’s Wharf, a gay bar, anything you want, just name it.” Nothing denied, all expenses paid, he added.

  Neither of us mentioned the only other trip we’d taken together, in the last semester of our final year at university, to his parents’ home on the East Coast, but I certainly thought about it and accepted this offer of a holiday with him only after I was sure he understood I’d tag along as his good friend, his buddy, nothing more, and that we’d have separate rooms.

  He agreed heartily. “But of course. What are friends for?” he said.

  I remember San Francisco of that visit as a city awash in rust reds and golden light. After checking in at the hotel and depositing our luggage in our respective rooms, we headed out onto the street. My post-relationship gloom disappeared at once, a shadow hit by sunlight, and I felt a sudden shock of hope and lightness. I hadn’t heard myself laugh in weeks, and there I was grinning and ready to guffaw at his silly stereotypical comments about West Coast fads and fashions. Over a bowl of soup at a Tibetan Buddhist restaurant a few doors down from the hotel, we studied a map of the downtown area and drew up a tourism plan of attack. We hopped on a tram and playfully jostled against each other as it rumbled downhill. We hopped off at the Railway Museum and browsed souvenir shops. At one, I helped him choose a royal blue hoodie with an image of a tram and the Golden Gate Bridge. He had the shop embroider on the sleeve of the sweater P & P, BFF. Prakash and Priya, Best Friends Forever. It was as if I were with a brother I hadn’t seen in ages.

  Hours later, back at the hotel, we parted outside of the elevators on the sixth floor, and I went to my room to freshen up and change into appropriate clothing for dinner at a dressy restaurant reserved for us by the hotel’s concierge. We had agreed to meet a half-hour later, but before fifteen minutes had passed, he was at the door knocking. I had him wait while I pulled on my clothing, and, imagining we’d head out at once, I threw my bag over my shoulder, opened the door, and stepped into the hallway. As the door was swinging shut behind me, he stepped aside me, pushed it open, and entered, saying, “Wait a minute. What view did they give you?” And he walked across the room to the window. As I waited at the door, he said, “Just a minute. Come here, come see this.”

  The door shut as I joined him and looked where he was pointing.

  “It’s a very different feel this high up. Just look at that,” he said, as he put an arm around me, onto my shoulder. He continued pointing to the busy corner way below, to billboards that were almost eye level with us, and to rooftop gardens, and tried to figure out down which street and in which direction we’d walked earlier.

  Blood rushed to my brain, and I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. There was something new in his voice and manner. I’d heard and seen it before, but I couldn’t remember where or what had happened. My brain seemed to slow. He pointed things out and spoke, but he seemed distracted, and I, too, had become distracted and couldn’t make out what he was saying. His voice gradually became hoarse, and he cleared his throat several times. He moved behind me, and with one arm already on my shoulder, he rested his other hand on my elbow — in effect, embracing me. And it was this particular weight, this tender, trembling touch that brought me back to myself.

  “And we’re wasting precious time. Let’s get out of here,” I said, angling from him.

  He caught my hand and stopped me from moving away. Then he placed his hands on my shoulders, turned me to face him, and drew me closer. “A little hug, come on,” he said.

  I looked up at the ceiling, I shook my head, I sucked my teeth in a show of mock irritation, all the while smiling, and threw my arms around him for a quick and muscular bear hug, drawing back at once.

  “Oh, come on,” he said. “Give me a proper hug.”

  I felt a kind of defeat, but the smile remained on my face. Contradicting thoughts raced through my mind, the first of which was, Priya, you damn fool, nothing is free, didn’t you learn that at least once already? Was helping him choose a hoodie an intimate gesture, an indication of something I didn’t mean to suggest? And then, You’ve known him for years, there’s no harm in a small hug. And, You’ve known him for years, which is exactly why you should have known better. And, Why are you accusing him when nothing has taken place of which to accuse him? I became unsure of myself, worried that were I to push him away or chastise him for asking for what might really be a harmless hug, I’d cast a pall on our little holiday. I jutted my chin toward the door.

  He was looking at me, but I felt he was not seeing me, and the muscles of his face had gone slack. He said, “Yes, yes. We’ll go in a sec. A proper hug. Come on.”

  I relented, and I remember it was as if, in that instance, I shrank in size,
in strength, in my understanding of who I was. In my mind flashed images of past girlfriends. Of my lesbian friends in general. Of the compliments meant when they called me “boy.” And I felt diminished. He pressed his body against mine in the cold room, tightening his arms around me, his breathing close to my face. The pressure, I told myself, was not exactly menacing, but it was enough to make me rest both palms on his chest to keep some space between us.

  And then I watched myself, in mere seconds, come undone by the scent of cologne and the warmth of a strong, firm body meeting mine, and a thousand thoughts ricocheted in my brain, my body wanting and terrified at once. We were both grown-up, so to speak, experienced in ways we hadn’t been in our university days, when I had spent that long weekend with him at his parents’ house, for instance. And we were anonymous in San Francisco, I reasoned. I’d always felt a kind of love for him, and here in this hotel room I could try it out. No one need ever know. I could use this as an opportunity to see if I felt anything deeper for him than the love of a brother, a buddy. And as I entertained the whys, the hows, and the how muches, my body raced ahead of me and answered yes, yes, do it, just do it. It’s okay to be — no, it’s good to be, fine to be, necessary even — to know, to see. Here and now. If anyone, him. Yes, with this very person.

  He walked me to the foot of the bed. With the bed behind me, he held me, and I relaxed, perhaps even tilted my pelvis toward him. I felt his hardness even though no clothing had been shed, and I believe I moved in to accommodate him, to grant myself the pleasure my body now insisted on. I parted my lips when he put his mouth to mine. The bristle of his moustache delivered electric waves of desire and I wanted to explore his mouth with my tongue. But before I could, he’d taken over and it was his filling mine; I was to let go and receive him, I understood. I was forced into an unrecognizable and unpleasant passivity, but my mind and my wanting body were too confused to bring a halt to any of this.

  He began to tremble, and it was the strangeness of the trembling body, his sudden weird intensity, the animal smell that emanated now from his face, that tongue not in conversation with mine but seeming to want only what it wanted, that awoke me from the bargaining in my head. I’d wanted warmth, a back and forth, the push and also the pull, the hard and the soft, the fear and pleasure, the dangers and the playfulness that were my experiences of having sex, but there was none of this. It was as if I abruptly awoke, and I pushed him hard. He stood for a moment, confused, and then his face became contorted by a mix of anger and hurt. Neither of us spoke. I turned my back to him and covered my face with my hands. He picked up his jacket and left the room. Dinner out had been, of course, derailed.

  I ordered dinner through room service and, with the television on, picked at the food on the plate. I could not pay attention to what was on the screen, but it was enough of a distraction to temper my distress. A couple hours later he telephoned to ask if I’d please go with him to an Indian restaurant in the Castro. If we were to rescue the next few days spent in a foreign city, I knew we had to talk, so I agreed. Seated at the table there, he began to apologize, but I stopped him, saying only, “Please, don’t do that again. How many times must we go through this? I won’t continue this thing — this whatever — with you if you won’t take ‘no’ for an answer. You said buddies. That’s why I came with you.”

  He said, “I know,” and after an awkward silence, he stumbled with words as he added, “Priya, you almost — you seemed — why did . . .”

  Before he could say more, I said tersely, “You should know. Our own bodies so easily betray us. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to you, and I’m sorry to me. It’s not what I want. I thought you understood this.”

  Remembering what had happened on that trip, I considered not only not writing him back, but also blocking him from access to my account.

  But — and there are always buts with Prakash — there was another side to the man behind the words in the Twitter message. A couple months passed after that trip, and he turned up again, as if no breach between us had ever occurred, and treated me as if we were precious family or the closest of friends. I felt small-minded, petty, a prude, to have banished him from my life. And I let him in; at the time I was jostling a constellation of rebukes — I’d lost a part-time job, I’d been turned down by a gallery for an exhibition, and by an arts-funding agency to which I had applied for a grant — and I sorely needed a little kindness from someone who wasn’t going to judge me for these failures. He was an unusual friend. A soft drug. He had a way of healing me, making me strong again.

  It seemed ungrateful, callous, to delete his message.

  · · ·

  * * *

  Hi. Write me.

  · · ·

  * * *

  I am with Alex now. This is both reason to be okay with seeing him again and reason I probably should have kept far away from him. But if he’d found me on Twitter, it was only a matter of time before he learned where I lived — perhaps I’d have gotten lazy or too comfortable and unthinkingly posted a picture of some recognizable place or thing in the area, like one of the many farmers’ markets or craft fairs, or the popular “Taste” events or our Christmas parade.

  The days before I responded to his tweet, I avoided Alex. When I did engage with her, I was distracted, unnecessarily gruff, or it was from the position of feeling “weirdly” ill, of having a “strange” headache. Hence the long showers, the long solo drives across the bridge to the town on the other side, the sleepless nights I lay staring into the darkness. I thought about the meaning of friendship and the meaning of commitment, about expectations in both, about trustworthiness, loyalty, honour, and dishonour. I thought about what it means to be human — that humans are social animals, and we are supposed to be cognizant of and care about consequences, we have the capacity to feel sympathy, empathy, and gratitude. And, on the other hand, we are a random formation of far less consequence than we imagine. An accident of molecular attraction and repulsion. That consciousness, and having a conscience, might define us as humans, but they are, too, our downfall — because, in the end, living is indeed a matter of the survival of the fittest — you take care of yourself first, put on your oxygen mask before you try to help anyone else — and at times a matter of each for herself, himself, themselves — everyone else be damned.

  I couldn’t go on like this. I felt I had no choice. The time had come.

  Hello! Long time. So happy to hear from you. Where are you? I finally wrote back. Enthusiastic yet innocuous. As if it were nothing at all.

  I barely pressed the Return key, and his response sprang back: You’ve moved. You changed your email. DM it to me.

  I instantly felt I’d done the wrong thing. What had I thought? That he’d just write back and say, Oh, there you are, I just wanted to say hello. Hello! I’ll leave you alone now?

  I should not have responded. I should either have deleted the Twitter account or just ignored his message, and if another came, I should have ignored that one, too. Before I knew it, I was giving it all up: this is my email address; here’s where I moved — more space to think in the country, more room to work, quiet, less expensive for a still-struggling artist. And perhaps it was an automatic reaction, the kind of pleasantry one engages in without actually meaning it, that I added, Come visit us sometime; I want you to meet my partner.

  It was meant to be the same Come visit us sometime I have said repeatedly to friends from the city and to certain family members. I meant it to suggest I was so unaware of any reason I should be nervous about having been tracked down that I would not only happily and easily give my contact details, but might actually want to entertain him in the house I shared with my partner. And that us bit — an announcement upfront that I’d set myself up with another person. Something he’d never seen me do before. And, if that were not enough, that phrase, my partner. Two words that expressed an idea he’d never heard me utter before, with its inherent notion of commitment. And o
f exclusivity.

  I hadn’t expected he’d take up the invitation, and I especially hadn’t imagined he’d act on it, precisely because I’d thrown in the fact of my partner.

  · · ·

  * * *

  There isn’t an actual thing, a specific thing, I can go to Alex with and, in a sentence or two, explain, or for which I might apologize. Is it reasonable — more to the point, is it fair — to have to defend actions taken, a life lived, before we met?

  I don’t want her to see how powerless and frightened and alone I had often felt. That there were times I allowed this man a kind of closeness because of it, and he was there, willing to give me what I needed. That when I was on my feet again and didn’t need him, I pushed him away. I don’t want her to know that I engaged in such a push and pull. Would she scorn me for this? I couldn’t bear scorn from her, or even an ounce of her love for me to be predicated on pity. Surely all people have a little lockbox, if not a full closet, that contains shards of shame.

  So who will I be when Prakash gets here? The person he once knew, or the one Alex lives with?

  · · ·

  * * *

  Every time I have that dream it’s almost pure repetition. The groom, and me. All that red. It keeps grabbing hold of me, pulling me under. The altar, the tassels. And his penis, fleshy and firm at once, in my hand. The feel of him, hard and directed, urgent, pressed against me. The desire so intense, even well after I’ve awakened.

  I mustn’t. Not today. Not this day. Who was it who said the chariot comes out of the mouth? Life should be simpler. Our big brains don’t really serve us well. That’s what’s wrong — our brains. Our minds. All this consciousness, and for what? I wish I could just go back to sleep, stay right here for the rest of the day.