A Woman Making Water…

“In what direction do you wish to cultivate your death?”

It’s all I could think of as I swim underwater the length of the West Hollywood pool. I swim wanting to feel desperate for an inhale. Wanting the felt sense of my heart about to burst. Wanting to hear the voices saying, “You’re not supposed to do this when your 61”

The thing about women at the West Hollywood swimming pool is that it is rare that any of them are under the age of 40. Because they lack make-up, they are not insipid with their beauty. Their swimsuit straps portend mystery. Most wear one-pieces, are lithe, and barely breasted with chests more flattened than most. While some women are buxom this is rare.

Kat has a Roman nose. Barely breasted, she refuses to be a citadel to risk. Her large hands, firm touch, and broad shoulders bespeak a woman who once had dirt under her fingernails. Her one-piece is always indigo blue. Kat disdains extremes. She’d rather lean into the difference of things. Kat has a Roman nose.

She said to me before our first kiss, “It’s a world of “I don’t fucking know”. So just show up”

We settled on a time and never a day. As the French say, “The best part of an affair is the climbing of the stairs.” So, our assignations always come as a surprise. And if a lane is open, I’ll swim next to her. We pass each other well aware that unspoken desires yield nothing.

Nakedness will always spit into the face of fascism. When my Playboys were found hidden underneath my parent’s mattress, my mother predicted that one day I would go to prison. At that moment, I became a little liar. And, you know, it was fucked that I didn’t kiss Susie Spiekerman that summer evening when I was 19. You see, Susie was bouncy and had dimples the size of Cleveland. Susie was on the borderline of insipid and difference. I don’t know what became of Susie. I only remember the non-kiss. So, you see, I would rather not hoard suffering. I’d rather go where hate was a little less real. It’s unspoken between Kat and I that we would not become lawyers with our story. We’d act like the mammals we were meant to be. We’d enrich each other’s brain. Fuck each other to extremes to remind each other where our bodies ended and each other’s began. We’d paralyze Buddha to feel how life isn’t just about suffering. We’d rather ask each other “is today the day I die.” For we both knew that we would never be beginners again.

Kat lifts herself out of the water. As she walks towards the dressing rooms, she slips her thumbs under the wet spandex that covers her ass, pulls it further over her cheeks, and lets the elastic snap like a siren’s call. She closes the dressing room door behind her leaving it unlocked. I would make her wait often knowing she wouldn’t wait in preparation and risk startling different eyes.

I open the door. She sits naked on the toilet grinning like a Cheshire cat.

As I slip off my Speedo’s, she says to me,

“Darling, haven’t I told you to not walk in when I’m making water?”

Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn) Dutch
Baron Dominique Vivant Denon French

late 18th/early 19th century