Sexeteria

And that is it in a nutshell--I can say with no exaggeration that we were both uncontrollably drawn to each other in a way we could not explain or resist. We knew it almost right away, and acknowledged it. We were initially hesitant to do anything more than quietly acknowledge it, due to a friend in common who had introduced us and was staying with us, who we both knew had feelings for him (though they had never had any romantic attachment). But even with this, we could not stop wanting to be near each other. So, long before we truly touched each other, after everyone else in his flat went to sleep, we'd stay up, laying in the dark on the floor of common room, incredibly close but not quite touching,in front of the electric fire. And we would talk to each other all night and into the morning, sharing each other, absorbing each other's thoughts and beings like food we'd been starving for for longer than we could remember. It was, in its way, more intense and sexual and profound and bonding than any physical act could have been. In part, because the desire to touch was so strong. But also because of something else. I remember those nights the feeling of being literally shaky with recognition--that sense of we've found it: of discovering the person who, without explanation, understood everything about you, knew you, inside and out. It felt, we agreed, like we'd always known each other. Like we were supposed to know each other. Or like, as he once said, I was him in female form, and vice versa.

In short, we bonded with the kind of intensity that left me reeling and without any label for what I was feeling. I remember walking down a gray street one morning, grasping to put a name on it. It didn't feel like simply sex, though there was intense desire. And it didn't feel like love, the way I observed love to be in others, though there was a deeply intense love and understanding there. But it wasn't exactly either of those two; it felt like all of that, but much more than that--almost so much more that it almost negated the rest. I remember asking myself if perhaps there was something went beyond both sex and love, something deeper and older and more mystical. It had the feel of that; of fusing and becoming whole and therefore somehow transcendent. I remember worrying that moving it into the "sex" or "love" realms would somehow destroy it; and it felt too precious to be destroyed.

I still have difficulty finding words to express it. And going back now to try to tap into those feelings I closed off long ago in order to attempt to describe it here is almost painful. So I will stop. But in any case, I've never felt that connection with anyone before or since.

It sounds ideal, but there were problems. Transcendence is for souls only, not for entire humans, and we were, like everyone, human. We were young; and what we experienced together was hard to handle--so incredibly intense. We had not had many partners. We had not much to compare it to. Our human sides warned us to be careful, so instead of fully celebrating what we had, we tried to minimize it. We had sex, lots of it. And we never called it love, not to each other. Or rather, we called it a certain kind of love, but not another kind. We never made promises to each other. We avoided confronting it head on. I pretended I cared less than I did, because he pretended he cared less than he did. Eventually he felt the need to escape caring so much, and to prove to himself certain things I couldn't help him prove. He cheated. He told me in a public place. I laughed, coldly, as I felt something inside me break. Then in private I cried, and my tears rusted down the broken thing, so that it was never to be healed for many, many years. And still may not quite be.

For a brief time, we both pretended we could still be together, and then I finished it. We decided to--needed to--be friends, though. Neither of us could quite leave the other one. And at first for me that transition was very painful, but eventually, I absorbed it and accepted it, as did he. We eventually lived far away from each other, across an ocean, and this made it easier, too. He visited a few times, but then that stopped. I moved a lot, he stayed in one place. Our lives became more separate. We had other lovers, who we were sometimes serious about, and which we told each other about, matter-of-factly. I convinced myself my feelings had faded to the practical, but I knew some small part of me still yearned for what we once had; and that perhaps I would never be able to wipe that feeling away completely. Because if someone is you in another form, the one person on earth who understands exactly how you are, how can you let that go?

And this was how it was through the years. We lived far from each other, but there was this spotty correspondence, this reaching out here and there...until he disappeared.

Well, disappeared is not really the correct term. "Removed himself" might be better.

I suddenly started to hear of major events in his life not through him, but through others old friends who had been invited to be involved in these events. Meanwhile, I had not even been told of them. Major things we normally would have shared--a family death, his marriage, births, illnesses--passed by with complete silence on his end and I found out about them only months after the fact. I didn't understand why he would make this choice. But eventually, I came to terms with it. I put it down to one of two things: 1) I had always felt more strongly than he had, and I had been deceiving myself, or 2) whatever he had felt for me at one time, he no longer did, even on a friendship level. Whichever of the two it was, the only conclusion I could draw was that he no longer felt he had any use for me, so I had become redundant in his life. He had let go.

I was initially hurt. No matter how long between communications, I would have never blocked him out completely; I couldn't believe he could do so to me. But then, once I began to believe that he would never speak to me again, that he obviously had lost all his feelings for me, it became almost a relief. I, too, could finally let go. I was no longer responsible for holding on to a part of this person's soul for him. Because that is what it felt like--as if I had been carrying something for him, promising to keep something for him, some allegiance that he could rely on--something. It's hard to describe, but it's something like a small lick of flame he could view in the distance, something he knew was there to light his way if he ever got lost and needed to remember who he was.

And this, finally, felt like the full break. He was no longer lost in his life; he had separated and found himself and no longer needed me for a reminder of who he was. He had built a whole out of his half, without me. And so now I, too, could entirely, completely move on. Find my own direction, without him serving as my reminder. He didn't care; so I didn't have to, either.

I chose to accept he never gave me a second thought anymore. It felt lonely, like a death, but it also felt good. It really did. Like a release. I felt absolved of responsibility, somehow. And it felt good to finally let go of all of it and move on with no expectation he'd ever be involved in anything, complicating anything, again. To be my own whole, with no doppelganger haunting me across the ocean.

So that's the history. More on the present, referred to in the first paragraph, next time I write.