“At the heart of love
a la francaise lies the idea of freedom. To love truly is to want the other
free, and this includes the freedom to walk away. Love is not about possession
or property. Love is no prison where two people are each other’s slaves. Love is not a commodity, either. Love is not
a capitalist, it is revolutionary. If anything, true love shows you the way to
selflessness.
In his recent book,
“In Praise of love,” the French philosopher Alain Badiou reminds us that love
implies constant risk. There is no safe, everlasting love. The idea that you
can lock two people’s love once and for all, and toss the key, is a puerile
fantasy. For Mr. Badiou, love is inherently hazardous, always on the brink of
failure and above all vulnerable. Embrace its fragility, wish your beloved to
be free ad you might just, only just, have a chance to retain his or her
undying gratitude, and love. But don’t ever dream of locks and throwing keys
overboard, especially not in Paris.”
- An affront to love, French-style by Agnes C. Poirier
----------------------------------------------------
He sat on a straight back chair; he was dressed, in her
favorite shirt, a bespoke shirt, small checkered print, blue on white. His back
was erect. He was just sitting. In his own apartment, he sat by a lonely chair,
all alone.
“Are you going somewhere?” She came up to him.
He sat there, patiently, like a gentleman caller. It looked
like a scene from something she’d see in PBS Masterpiece Theatre, production of
BBC, something from the bygone era. So formal and proper, as if he was
waiting for the arrival of his lady friend, or surveying a roomful of dancing
people. He was simply content, and waiting. She was shocked by the contrasting
imagine from just half an hour ago, and feeling a tenderness she’s not felt
before.
“No, I am waiting for you.” Man answered.
“Oh.” She came up to him, straddled him and draped her arms
around him. She was the person he was waiting for.
“Let’s go to my bedroom.” He took her hand and led her back
to the bedroom. Bed was not made and it was a bit of a mess.
Her hair was wet. She had freshly showered. In the
shower she’d been in before, in his bathroom. This was his apartment; she had
taken a confined space in a confined time interval. She was part of his décor
like the antler’s horn on his wall.
He was wearing the same shirt, the same pair of pants, all
dressed up, ready to go. She knew that he was going somewhere. She had, despite
her best effort not to be in tune with him, had become in sync with him. She
knew more than he wanted her to know. She
knew him more than she thought she knew.
And she knew he needed to leave soon, which meant she needed
to leave soon.
He let her put her wet head on him. She
carefully extended her hand through his shirt, resting on his bare
chest. He grabbed her hand and made sure that it was only on his chest
and not down below. He was spent and he needed a break. He was satisfied with
what just took place.
The room became quiet. The window was
cracked half way, and she could feel the cool, summer fresh air, blowing in
from the bay. She had gotten to know this place, this place that had become,
strangely, a home away from home. She recognized the blue toothbrush. She
sometimes used it when she was in his place. She knew enough to know
where he kept their toys. She knew enough to know – in a rather strange, and
limited way, he had carved a piece of his world for her. And she fit right in,
in that small box with her initials on it; and in return, she had carved out a
piece of her world, just for him.
“I love you.” She heard a strange voice, coming out of her
mouth.
“And I love you.” He touched her wet hair.
“I like spending time with you. Lying here.” He said.
She was drifting into sleep. Never could she feel this
restful with anyone else.
They stopped doing reverse date, as of late. A reverse date
was a term that he invented for the two of them. When they first started seeing
each other, they barely left his apartment, and on rare occasions, when they
felt compelled, when they needed food desperately after, he and she would go
and grab a bite to eat. It was a reverse date, because the date portion of it
started after they’d already spent hours, devouring each other. The last
reverse date she could remember, was at a Belgium restaurant, after they had unexpectedly
exchanged “I love you’s.” She remembered it well because it was in the shower
stall he blurred it out, after she had just returned from the east coast, and
he had asked her if she missed him while she was in Boston. It was his other home. Ever since she’s met
him, she knew he spent significant time there.
It was not a world that she knew, but she knew enough that he had a life
out there. She did. She missed him and she was frantic. He declared “I love
you,” and she found myself crying and said “I love you.” And the rest was a
blur. She pondered the meaning of the word and it caused a terrible heartache. She
had failed to see it coming, and the aftershock paralyzed her for sometime. She
believed that was the reason that they did not see each other for weeks on end.
When they had finally did meet up again, they had reset. New
rules were created. They had proper dates. Man took her out for dinner, then a
show, and they spent a lovely evening together that night. She was quiet. She
had no voice of her own. She had decided at that moment, what went wrong was
caused by that impromptu declaration of love for each other.
The subsequent meet up was sporadic, short in duration and
never again in that uncalculated risk-taking mode.
One time she told him, “You know what
went wrong? I said ‘I love you,’ and I’m not good with the word love. I can’t
do love.”
Man was listening carefully and held her tight, and
said, “I know, baby.”
Man knew what went wrong was what went right. But man was
afraid of losing what they had. He knew he had to let her be, for she
could be leaving and never be seen again. Man was falling in love. Man didn’t
want woman know how he felt at that moment, when woman wanted to stay away from
love. Man held the woman tight in his arms, and put his hand on her head,
rubbing her head gently, and said “I know.”
Woman knew what went wrong. The act of declaration of love
for each other was alright, but it was the expectation of change. Neither one
of them wanted anything to change. They were creatures of habit; they had
routines, lives outside of each other and circumstances, changes, would not alter their lives, but of
those others, others they cared about, others they’d call as their families,
respectively.
For his birthday, she bought him cufflinks. One set was made
of German stamps, represented man’s heritage; one set was made of Iceland
flags, represented the country man wanted to move to if he had a choice; one
set was made of actual Legos, representing man’s pastime game with man’s young
son. In a birthday card that had bicycles on the
cover, which represented man’s favorite sport and commuter venue when man’s not
with the woman and driving, it wrote the following: “I think I love you.
In a I-don’t-want-anything-to-change and I-am-glad-you-are-in-my-life way. And
not in a jealous, possessive, suspicious, clingy and traditional way.” Woman
wrote the paragraph in pencil, she presented the card and said, “If you don’t
like what I wrote, I can still change it.”
Man read the card, and smiled. He reached over the dining
table, and grabbed her hand, and said, “I love the card.” She smiled.
Then, the unexpected happened, he said, loud and clear, “And
I love you.”
Man did not ever declare emotions in public. Man was always
thoughtful, reserved and emotionless.
Man said “I love you” in three occasions. The first was just
after Christmas, She thought she heard it wrong and laughed it off. Man didn’t
want to repeat it, it was too soon. In March, man said “I love you” and
disappeared from her life for a while. She thought man changed his mind. And now, in
August, it was clear, and it was natural.
For once she found her voice again, and without trembling or
hesitation. She knew. She found what powered their relationship, and what
fueled her creative freedom. It was not the prediction of known; it was the
expectation of unknown. Love and passion lived in a world of unknown, for
if we were at risk of losing both, we’d make a conscious effort to preserve
them, treasure those feelings, and not take each other for granted. She
finally knew, because she had learned the French way of love.
She was also finally willing to set him free. Not that he
was never not free before, but she had learned to relax, and knew in her heart
to love someone she must let him be free, she must be willing to have him walk
away anytime, and be okay when he denied her. It was until then could we
value love as we ought to - precious, fleeting and unapologetic ally
overpowering. It was the only way. The French way.
Along the way she thought he found it to be a disrespectful
way to treat her. He wanted to right the wrongs. He stopped asking her going
over to his place in the middle of the day. To have sex and then go back to
work. To stop those booty calls. Along the way he started to treat her like
someone he truly cared, with respect and with a tenderness that often broke her
heart. One could always tell a man was
falling in love. A man felt in love in ways a woman couldn’t comprehend. One
moment man called all the shots and dictated how the game was played, and
another moment he put a woman on a pedestal and wanted to treat her like a
princess.
Man started to care, to want to please
a woman. He did not know when it happened; man thought it would be a perfect
little game. Fuck her, use her, and he could do whatever he wanted to do
outside of that arrangement, it was a lustful relationship. Man did not expect
to fall in love.
Woman thought love was a complicated
matter. It involved heartache and sorrow. It involved the absolute faith; faith
woman did not think she had. But love, as it turned out, was a simple math
equation. Love equated setting the other person free. That was it. It was
logical and mathematical. The ingredient to love was freedom. Love made one
become selfless. Love was not an act of demand, or even a commitment, it was
the act of generosity. The act of letting go; let the man she loved be free,
free of doing whatever he wanted and whenever he wanted. Woman found her
rhythm in the end.
He told her once, “Good things in life are often
free.” He was jokingly referring to a specific kind of sexual act, which she
promised to perform. But she realized that it applied to love also. Love
was free. Free of expectations, free of jealousy, and free of sadness. In the
end, it was just that simple.
Exactly a year ago. A note that carried a simple hello
set everything in motion.
A year later, they began, again.
Man produced two white nylon ropes. Woman looked at the
rope, puzzled.
She said, “No.”
Man paused, “No?”
Man would never have considered what woman wanted, man
usually just said “yes,” but not that time. Man stopped what he was doing and
looked at her, genuinely concerned.
Woman looked at the ropes longingly. It had been sometime.
Woman had not been fucked for a while, and certainly not in
a way only he knew how.
She appeared frightened. This was the game they often
played. He was always forceful, and she was never quite sure what could happen
to her next. Sometimes she wondered if her life would be threatened, and how
long she’d endure the pain. They had never established a safety word. She
thought for a short while and wondered if they should.
But instead, all she said was, “Yes.”
And then the game began.
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