The young cook had a powerful body. She was present unlike myself. I asked her questions to get traction. Her face was flushed. I liked her.
My wife didn’t want me to give her a neck massage. I gave it to her
because her neck needed it. It was full of knots and resentment.
I didn’t want to exercise. I wanted to forget I had a body. It got
away from me when I neglected it. I had no idea what it looked like.
I thought it looked average, but I wasn’t sure. I thought it gave me away
as a depressive who neglects himself in the worst way.
I devised a method of exercise that was dubious and possibly made me look suspect.
He appropriated poses and stances from Yoga and Tia Chi and high school gym class.  What is the body? How did I see it with my mind? I felt painfully like everyone else and painfully not like everyone.
M wife was convinced that she wasn’t happy and that I was a culprit. I wasn’t convinced that I was unhappy even though I despaired and thought I would never make it through a day without feeling ashamed.
He accepted the headaches and nausea. They would abate or I would simply die.
Sue’s parents were journalists. She wanted to be a musician. Her parents wanted her to be a writer of some sort, probably a journalist. She
played the flute and hadn’t been able to master her stage fright. She
gave up being a musician to be a cook. She studied at a culinary school for four years,
which as far as I know is inordinately long to get a cooking degree. I have never
tasted her cooking nor do I want to. She describes keeping all kinds of food
in jars to make stock. She reads the NY Times because her stepmother, not her evil mother who was abusive, always read it and did the NY Times puzzle. S also does the My brain freezes when it is asked for information that doesn’t have to do with necessity. She likes to talk to and through me about the days topics. There is nothing she doesn’t have an opinion on. She is liberal. We agree on pretty much every political and social question except sex.
She hates adults who exploit other adults for sex. She has a rigid moral code when
it comes to others’ pleasure. I thought about giving myself to her even though she
was seventy.
Hadn’t the sex workers I had seen done the same for me? Hadn’t they out of pity and need given their body to me. Shouldn’t I see to it to do the same for Sue?