this morning i woke up at 8 in natalie's apartment, with the sound of the trucks on lawrence in my ears. the bed is right next to the window, with no screen, if i rolled around a bit i would have fallen out onto the sidewalk three floors below. across the street is a huge decaying art nouveau building that now houses old folks. when i take a shower in the claw foot tub that has no shower curtain, the window is open, and if anyone across the street was looking, the window just happens to frame the part of your body from your belly button to your knees, the part you would probably most want to keep private, but you like the window open. it's just old folks anyway. they probably never leave that place.
natalie's living room doubles as her dungeon, and one of her friends, another dominatrix, was going to see a client at 9, who is a friend of natalie's (the lines are blurry sometimes). the dom hadn't shown up yet, so when the doorbell rang i was instructed to go downstairs to let the client in. i unlocked the door and said, "i'm natalie's cousin. she said to let you in." (i don't know the protocol for these interactions). he was dressed in an expensive suit and looked rich (she said he was an executive). he also looked like mr. bean. i felt a little weird running up the stairs in front of him wearing my short grey skirt (could he see my underwear? does it matter?)
he sat down in the living room/dungeon to wait for the dom. he wanted to get to know me. he was very sincere and looked me right in the eye. we talked about various things. he seemed intellectual and cultured, but also kind of slimy, too friendly, and i couldn't stop thinking about what natalie told me about him (he's a foot fetishist. he gets naked, lies on the floor, and masturbates while licking the dom's feet. he visits often. they charge $250 an hour.)
after the dom showed up, she put a screen up at the end of the hallway and started the session. she was punk looking, wearing ratty pajamas, but her feet were perfectly manicured and she was wearing stylish heels. natalie and i got ready to go, and she whispered creepy stories about the guy, like his web of lies about his personal life, how he's obsessed with knowing everything about her, and more that's too long to explain here.
i could hear him and the dom talking in the next room. they make small talk during the session, although she sounded vaguely threatening/teasing.
when we were leaving we had to walk through the dungeon room, so natalie said to the screen, "can we walk through?" the dom asked the guy, "can they walk through here?" i heard him say, "yeah." then she said, "close your eyes. close your eyes until they go through." i walked in, not knowing what to expect. he was lying on his back on the floor, naked, she was sitting in a chair above him. he had his legs up and in her lap, her feet were on his chest. his eyes were closed.
i walked through to the kitchen and out onto the porch. natalie followed. the guy yelled something after us. we walked down the stairs. i said, "what did he say?" natalie said, "he asked if you were disturbed. i said you were. that's the kind of thing he gets off on. he wants to be disturbing. he's going to ask me a million questions about you next time i see him." i said, "tell him i was disturbed. no, don't tell him that. tell him i was bored. i was so bored i fell asleep. i wanted to be disturbed, but i was so disappointed." she laughed.
natalie's stories about her clients, and the experiences i have around her work, constantly transcend what i can hold in my head as "really fucking weird." i like being in that world (temporarily) because it gives me the feeling of something so large and bizarre i can't grasp it all at once. i could listen to her stories all day and only know a fraction of the strangeness of it.
we drove to downtown and picked my mom up at marshall field's and we all went out for lunch at a classy place near the gold coast. natalie told us about all her neighborhood activism and national conferences she organizes and such. she is really amazing. she wants to run for city council.
she dropped my mom and i off in downtown again and my mom took me on a walking tour of outdoor sculptures around state street. picasso, miro, caldar, etc. my favorite was a huge chagall mosaic. i took a lot of pictures. i also took a lot of pictures of 20 floor fire escapes, dark impossible alleys, and the view down streets between colossal skyscrapers, in the mist. there are so many ornate cast-iron gothic buildings. chicago is like a 1940s future city, like brazil (the movie). i could run away there and never find my way out.
we walked to the amtrak station, where my mom had checked her luggage already, and got on the train to st. paul. trains are the fucking best thing ever. you can pretend it's 1940. on the train i tried to decide if pretending it's 1940 is a productive thing to do.
i have been clean for a week and a day.
i don't think about heroin constantly like the other time i quit.
but when you do a scan of my brain, this is what it looks like on the videotape:
an erratically flickering light in one part of the grey matter.
we have isolated the area that won't give up hope.
it darkens, then brightens again, wavering, flashing, like
a nervous tic, like static electricity, a reflex, a bad habit.
i couldn't stop myself from asking natalie,
trying to make it seem offhand, if she had any dope.
and it wasn't disappointment i felt when she said no, it was quietly
holding myself inside myself staring at nothing on the floor.