Jealousy

I think about sleeping with people in an oblique way, something that is a possibility, but remote.

Sometimes if I am in a lift with a stranger I wonder what would happen if the lift broke down and we were trapped in there for days. would we fuck each other or eat each other, or both, one thing after the next as we became more and more desperate for survival.

I have always thought about these situations with my friends, measuring the smoulder of desire that I feel for everybody because they are warm blooded and human and there is a distant whiff of sex lurking somewhere. If there was a nuclear war and we were at work, who would I fuck and in what order? It passes the time.

It is interesting to notice that the smallest heat of a possibility can be fanned into the full blown crackle of desire so easily.

"The more you reject me, the more I want you," I said to a reluctant lover who could not win either way. Both abstinance and sex encouraged my attentions, but abstinance left me more fiercly ravenous.

My friend points to a girl and he says that she is pretty. He would like to sleep with her. My relationship to him has been like my relationship to anybody, a slow burn of possibilities that might be whipped up by a nuclear war or a major lift failure.

I look at the girl and I see someone that I am not. She is young and cute and shy and well-dressed. Understated. Someone who is other than me. The object of my friend's desire. Here is the wind to the spark and I am engulfed by sudden flame. I waste an evening in restlessness, wondering why I am not and will never be the one that he would choose.

My friends who I do not particularly desire, do not desire me either. They desire other girls. I suddenly know that I am not and will never be that cute, shy girl and because of this I want my friend to want me.

This is the magic of jealousy. I have been tricked into long and complicated relationships by it before. It is the button that, when pressed, will set off the deafening ringing note of self-doubt. It is a familiar sound, but it still has me running in circles at it's cry, shrieking pick me! pick me! even if I am not particularly interested in picking or being picked. It is not a game I wanted to play. I have a more satisfying game in progress but the button has been pressed, the alarm has been sounded and I must close my eyes and cover my ears until the embers of desire return to the cool friendly place before he pointed and said she was pretty.