Irene
There is this smell of clarity in her bedroom. The bed is perfectly made, sheets are bleached and ironed. We are in the heat of foreplay and suddenly I find myself in the bathroom; she is washing and disinfecting me thoroughly. Back in her bed: she is touching me without conviction. When she is doing it orally she makes me feel as if I was committing incest with her. It's directly followed by a solid toothbrush. Then the act: a military exercise. After I leave her house she gives hygienic first aid to the bedroom, as if someone died of contagion in there. She washes the curtains and sterilizes the walls.
*
This is me, on my therapy. I'm telling my daydream, my day-mare to Edward, my psychologist. This is my second year of therapy with him.
*
- But you never touched her.
- No, I couldn't. It all ended on our second date. I couldn't touch her after seeing this day-dream.
- Do you think she was frigid?
- I don't know. She was just…German.
- Do you think that Germans are frigid?
- Well, they're not very famous for their passion, are they? That's what people say: they are rigid and accurate. They like order. Sex isn't about order, is it?
- Did you tell her about these fears of yours?
- Yes.
- How was her reaction?
- She was deeply offended. She told me that as a matter of fact she thinks about white supremacy while having sex and screams 'Heil Hitler' when she is coming.
- Then she left you.
- Then she left me.
*
In two years Irene was my sixth failure. My love life is a failure.
Do I have friends? Yes. All of them are married.
In Edward's opinion I have this condition. I think it's somewhat similar to the condition of a Tourettes patient, who all of a sudden starts to swear like a trooper, without control.
Edward says that whenever I start to get involved in a relationship with a girl, my ethnic prejudices get the upper hand of me, and I can’t control them anymore.
Well, Edward doesn't call it a condition. He calls it a 'neurosis'. I prefer the word: 'condition'.
*
Heli
There is this joke about how a friendship grows with a Finn: in the first three years she looks at her shoes while she is speaking with you. After the third year she looks at your shoes while speaking with you.
So there was this Finnish girl, Heli. She was quite relaxed and outgoing when she was spending time with me. Still I was quite nervous about taking her to meet my friends for the first time. I was deeply worried about her social performance.
- Please, try to open up! – I told her in the car. – Just relax!
- What is your problem? – She asked. – I’m completely all right. It's you who should relax.
Six friends of mine were sitting around the dinner table. Friends: the lords of life and death when it comes to a new relationship. They were engaged in an intense debate about the moral dilemma of abortion in a case where the mother has been sentenced to death.
- Say something! – I whispered to Heli.
- I would say something if you were not pushing me to say something! – She replied.
I watched her struggle to liberate her fish of bones for a while. I waited for some initiative from her. Nothing.
- You still didn't say anything. - I mumbled to my plate. – The dinner is almost over.
Her hand flinched. The fork landed on the floor.
- Tell them the story when you were a child, – I whispered, - and you were lost in the supermarket.
- For God’s sake! – She hissed.
I clapped my hands.
- Hey everyone! Heli wants to tell us a story. Go on, Heli!
Well, Heli went on indeed.
I never saw her again.
*
Edward says that I'm using my prejudices to escape from commitment.
*
Lara
I just called her 'My Norwegian fjord'. We broke up at a very sad moment in my life: on the day when my mother died. She had been cold enough to go to the hairdresser on that day.
- How could I have known that your mother would take a heart attack while I was at the hairdresser? – she argued when I demanded an explanation for her unacceptable behaviour.
- Old people can die at any moment, you know that perfectly well!
- So shall I stay at home staring at the phone and praying just in case something wrong happens to someone I know?
- At least you could have come home when I called you!
- My hair was just only half cut when you…
- The only thing you care about is your beauty!
Suddenly a picture appeared in my mind: Norwegians massacring baby whales. The babies are crying but the Norwegians don't hear it: they all have ice-floats in the place of their hearts.
- You, you… Snow Queen! – I yelled.
I shouldn't have called her a Snow Queen. She had suffered serious trauma from reading too much Andersen at the age of six, becoming aware, too early, of how cruel mankind can be. She never wanted to see me again.
*
My mother always told me: my son, you deserve a perfect girl. Where is that perfect girl you have been talking about, Mother? Was she just a fairy tale like Snow-white, Jacqueline Kennedy and all the others?
*
Dora
My Polish girl. She was beautiful, smart and kind. I was considering proposing to her, when, on one day after having sex she turned to me:
- Let’s marry! Let’s do it now! Let’s go to the municipality!
And then I had this flash in my mind. Suddenly the picture was complete. What my grandmother was always speaking about. 'Their men come here to take our jobs and their women come here to marry well and take our men! God save us from Eastern Europeans!'
Fool I was: in the name of intimacy, I told her how I felt. She was shocked, but too rational to raise her voice.
- Look, I have a PHD and a better paid job than yours. I’m really not in any need to marry well and depend on your money.
- Haven't you ever asked yourself if your well paid job could be taken by a local citizen who is now begging for money on the street and drinking from the canal? You are just trying to justify…
- I’m not trying to justify anything, I’m just trying to fix what you are ruining with an enormous speed…
Fixing, always fixing! Fixing, repairing, plumbing. I couldn't marry her. Not the daughter of a plumber.
*
Dalia
My girl from Sicily. I truly loved her. But on one night, while sleeping beside her, I had a dream:
In my dream I woke up with a horse-head in my bed.
- Who are you? – I asked the horse-head in terror.
- I’m the horse-head. – The horse-head said.
- What are you doing in my bed, horse-head?
- Well, I guess I'm just horse-heading around. Once I was a whole horse, in the good old times. My mother always told me that if I don't behave well, one day I will wake up in a bed without my body, under a sheet with an ugly guy. So finally it happened. It is indeed an awful ending.
The day after I sent a written claim to Dalia, asking for the police record of each member of her family back to the 18th century. So this is how it ended.
*
Here I am.
Slightly bald. Slightly desperate.
*
Catarina
She was not speaking much to me lately.
I didn't know anything about the nature of Portuguese people, so I googled them up in the office and read an interesting article on the famous Portuguese melancholy, originated in the shocks of the Portuguese history.
When I arrived home, she was in the bed, reading a book. No greetings, no kisses. I had tried everything in the last few days: flowers, dinner, gifts. When maybe what she needed was just some intercultural understanding. I wanted to learn from my past mistakes. So I lay down beside her and asked her:
- Are you thinking of the past victorious discoveries of your nation, my darling?
- No, my darling, I’m just trying to read this book.
I was examining her expressionless face. She sighed and turned her back to me. I embraced her and whispered in her ear:
- Are you sad because of the loss of your colonies, my love?
- No, sweetie, I just want to finish this chapter.
I got up from the bed, went to the kitchen and made myself a tuna sandwich. She didn’t join me. I returned, held her hand and asked her:
- Do you want to sing Fado? About the empty streets of
- It’s almost over, just two more pages!
- Look, I know how hard it can be that once you were a big nation and now you are only a small village at the ass of
- JUST LET ME READ!
I was so worried about her!
So I called her mother and asked what kind of antidepressants she was taking when she was a child. While I was on the phone, Catarina got dressed and left the flat. She left a piece of paper on the table for me: 'I'm off to buy something for my sister's birthday. Kisses.'
I felt strange after she left. No, I wasn't worried about her walking alone on the dark streets of our bad neighbourhood. What made me a bit concerned was that she didn't have a sister.
*
And now I’m with this girl from
Help me, Edward. I can’t afford to lose her. All my friends are married. And I'm getting bald and desperate.
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