The Pisces
Page 24

Now I was laughing so hard that tears formed in the corners of my eyes. He was grinning and treading water.
“That’s privileged information,” he said. “I feel like we’re not intimate enough to go that far.”
“Ah, okay, I understand. Good that you have your limits,” I said.
“I don’t, it’s just—we would need to be more close for me to disclose something like that,” he said, smirking.
“What would be more close?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Like if I had touched you before or something.”
I felt surprised. I don’t know why I am always surprised when a man is attracted to me. Maybe because he was so beautiful and young. But I guess it made sense. Why else was he hanging around these rocks?
“Do you want to touch me?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Where do you want to touch me?” I said coyly.
He swam over to the edge of my rock. I suddenly felt nervous.
“Hmmmmm,” he said. “Would you let me touch your ankle?”
“My ankle?” I laughed.
“Yeah, your ankle.”
“Okay,” I said. “You can touch my ankle.”
He ceremoniously lifted one hand, wiggled his fingers like a pianist, and gave my calf a little squeeze. I laughed. Then, he lightly cupped my ankle and massaged it gently, looking up at me. I stopped laughing. Slowly, he ran two fingers up and down the middle of my foot bone. He pressed each of the toes, one by one, and made his way around to the back where he gently massaged my Achilles tendon.
“You have such cute ankles,” he said. When he was done massaging he sort of patted the top of my foot like a child’s head. Then he hugged my calf with his hand and head. It was weird as hell but it felt so good.
“No,” he said. “I’ve never shit in a wet suit.”
25.
“Doesn’t Venice make you want to shag everyone?” said Claire the next afternoon. “They’re all so scrummy.”
She was getting her nails and toenails done at a salon in my neighborhood, preparing to meet David for their first real date—not just sex. I was sitting in the pedicure chair next to her but not getting anything done.
“Beyond scrummy,” I said.
“Well, I’m relieved to hear that you haven’t totally retired your pussy—at least in thought,” she said.
“No,” I said. “Actually, I’ve been hanging out with this swimmer.”
“A swimmer,” she said. “Like an Olympian?”
“No, like ocean.”
“Show me his Facebook.”
“I’ve only met him a few times and I don’t have his number or email or anything. I don’t even know his last name. He meets me at this rock pile, these breakers, on the ocean. Like, he swims up at night.”
“What do you mean ‘he swims up at night’?”
“He swims up at night. And we talk. Also, he touched my foot.”
“He touched your foot?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh so he has a fetish. Like Sara from group.”
“Sara touches her own foot,” I said.
“More like caresses,” said Claire. “She really makes love to that foot. Maybe she’s replaced men with her own foot?”
“Ha! No, it was more like he thought my foot was special. Or like through the foot he was touching my soul.”
Claire stared at me.
“It’s not as weird as it sounds. And I think it’s safe for me emotionally, like, I’m not getting romantically obsessed, because I sort of just know now that he will show up. I can rely on him not to ignore me. It’s as though he is more of a friend or something. Granted, I don’t really want friends. And he’s gorgeous and looks like he is twenty-one.”
“Twenty-one!” she squealed. “That’s brilliant.”
“But I think he does like me. I mean, with the foot touching there was an indication that he is attracted to me in some way, though maybe not, because the way he touched it was sort of sensual at first but then it was just sort of friendly. The point is—I don’t feel crazy around this one.”
“Well, that’s what matters,” she said. “That you’re happy.”
“Yeah, I don’t even care that I don’t have his number or email or even know his last name. I just feel like, I don’t know, like the universe put him there to show me—”
“The universe?”
“Yes, that the universe put him there to show me that I can have some of that male energy in my life without going totally insane.”
“The universe is a wanker,” she said.
26.
“There’s a light on in your eyes,” said Brianne. “Have you been doing inner-child work?”
“Definitely not,” I said.
“Trauma work?” clucked Chickenhorse suspiciously.
I shook my head no.
“Must be the self-dating,” she said. “You actually look alive for once.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
I let them know that I was doing well and had blocked Adam and Garrett in my phone. I made no mention of Theo or the rocks, as the group would deem it poor self-care that I had been wandering around there so late at night in the dark. Chickenhorse would probably call it self-harm.
But everyone was suffering too much today to focus on me for long.
Chickenhorse had been forced to move back in with her parents, which was traumatizing for her. Actually, she said it was “retraumatizing” and calling up trauma from earlier in life.
“My mother doesn’t accept my pit bulls. Or, she accepts them, but she doesn’t like them. Which is exactly the way she was about me as a child. She just tolerated me. But she didn’t think I was special. Also, now that I’m living at home I obviously can’t start conscious-dating anytime soon.”
“Your feelings are certainly understandable. But with regard to the conscious dating, I don’t know if that’s necessarily true,” said Dr. Jude.
“Of course it’s true!” neighed Chickenhorse. “You don’t know my mother. She has no boundaries. She’ll want to know exactly what’s going on, who I’m with, what family he is from, and then she’ll find some way to involve herself. So, sorry, now that I’m homeless we will have to put off dating again.”
Brianne’s dating life was going no better.
“Things have gone a little south with the man from OkCupid,” she murmured, adjusting one knee sock. “He sent me an email the other day letting me know that he couldn’t return to the States yet, because he was waiting for a business deal to close and temporarily was out of funds. Then he asked if I could loan him some funds.”
The group gasped in unison.
“I’m not sure what to do. One of the items I put on my vision board is that I want a man who is financially stable. I don’t want to compromise my vision board. I’m supposed to be manifesting. My life is simply too abundant to take on someone who is living a life of lack. But at the same time, because of that abundance, I can’t help but think that it might be the kind thing to help him out—especially if it will allow us to go on our date.”
“Mmmmmm,” said Dr. Jude. “I would strongly suggest setting a boundary with him.”
“Do not send the money,” said Chickenhorse. “He’s probably a catfish!”