George
(mid- week)
in relation to the week of celibacy: you see, what it is forcing me to do is constantly address what was before a subconscious impulse; instead of leaning down and kissing you or taking your hand inside mine, i now have to merely register that that is what i want to do but exactly what i cannot do. instead i must retract, changing the nature of this impulsive habit into a thought slash action process of dealing with and avoiding these desires. it makes me feel less like you're my girlfriend, more like the beginnings to that stage of taboo we went through eighteen months back; where we want to act on our feeling but know that we cannot (we weren't so good at that). except now it is different because today i have experienced around twelve months of constantly fulfilling these desires, at least when in your company. back then i guess i couldn't fully comprehend what i was missing. and although it pained my crotch to say no, for a while at least, i managed it. but now i have begun expecting these physical relations, they have become second nature. and in this i don't want to seem like they've become force of habit, or just something to be expected, almost endured, that isn't what i mean at all. i crave them constantly. i fuck you at night, sleep beside you and dream about fucking you then wake up and if we have time we fuck again. it hasn't become natural in the sense of being predictable, it's become natural in the sense of we both want it both so much (in amount) and so much (in regularity) that's it's just obvious that it's going to happen. but now it can't. only for a short while, but this short while is still far too long; all of a sudden, those luxuries, which were once so regular now cannot exist.
(end of week)
Okay so I spoke midway through the celibate week but I’m going to speak again now to try and summarise what it taught me and how it made me feel.
I guess going into the week I was a bit overly confident. I was pushing for a month of celibacy, or at least a fortnight but within a few hours I was pleased we had agreed on 168 hours.
I knew it would be hard but I thought it may teach me to love you in a new way, or at least express my love to you in a new way. But I think all I ended up doing was to treat you like I didn't love you.
I’m an affectionate person; I like to hold you, to kiss you, regularly.
But without this outlet of physical love or appreciation, I struggled to find new ways to show you that I loved you.
It sounds pathetic really and I don't think I’m proud of it.
But when we caught eye to eye, I looked away as if I hardly knew you. For me it was a defence mechanism. Your eyes are often the first thing to pull me in. I catch them, sometimes just a fleeting glance, but the softness of them I cannot escape. Dark eyes have always aroused me.
The ways the pupil and the iris become almost one, so it's just like a dark pit. A mysterious puddle. And I have to dip my toe in.
So when you looked at me, I had to look away, I had to shield myself from your gaze or I knew our game would be up within 360 degrees of the second’s hand.
This meant we lost the smiles.
In the silence of a lecture theatre, that's what we share between us to show one another we mean what we do, or sat in the middle of a busy room. These looks are all we have, all we can offer each other as a token of our love. They stand to replace the physical contact that would inevitable come if we were alone.
But I could no longer give you these looks, I simply had to turn away, or else I could never make it through the week.
But with the vacancy of these looks there arrived an air of coldness about me, and yes this is something I know you must have felt, and I want you to know I felt it too.
I was cold and loveless. Nothing was demanding I stopped acting like I love you, all was asked was that I could not show that I did physically, but I could not.
I should have replaced the physical contact with words and with ears but I had little time for discussions.
I was brimming with testosterone and this made me tense and agitated.
I could not sleep. Each night I went to bed hours after you. I just sat up alone in the front room watching repeats of the world’s strictest parents at 3.30am.
I think this was potentially one of the hardest weeks of my life. I concede, in the grand scheme of things I’ve had a relatively easy life, but this really was a touch week.
But I think that in terms of research for this piece it has taught me a lot.
I think the most important thing it has taught me is that we cannot do a piece about our relationship, or about love, without some physical outlet. I’m not saying the outlet must be sexual in a literal way, but we must, in our own way express the sexual desires we possess. If we wish to create an honest piece of work about an honest relationship, then there is no way we can shield from the physical outlet which helps to hold or to pull everything together. We must respect that the week of celibacy has been maybe our hardest week together and that this obviously presents how the need for romance of just a regular fuck is urgent.
I guess going into the week I was a bit overly confident. I was pushing for a month of celibacy, or at least a fortnight but within a few hours I was pleased we had agreed on 168 hours.
I knew it would be hard but I thought it may teach me to love you in a new way, or at least express my love to you in a new way. But I think all I ended up doing was to treat you like I didn't love you.
I’m an affectionate person; I like to hold you, to kiss you, regularly.
But without this outlet of physical love or appreciation, I struggled to find new ways to show you that I loved you.
It sounds pathetic really and I don't think I’m proud of it.
But when we caught eye to eye, I looked away as if I hardly knew you. For me it was a defence mechanism. Your eyes are often the first thing to pull me in. I catch them, sometimes just a fleeting glance, but the softness of them I cannot escape. Dark eyes have always aroused me.
The ways the pupil and the iris become almost one, so it's just like a dark pit. A mysterious puddle. And I have to dip my toe in.
So when you looked at me, I had to look away, I had to shield myself from your gaze or I knew our game would be up within 360 degrees of the second’s hand.
This meant we lost the smiles.
In the silence of a lecture theatre, that's what we share between us to show one another we mean what we do, or sat in the middle of a busy room. These looks are all we have, all we can offer each other as a token of our love. They stand to replace the physical contact that would inevitable come if we were alone.
But I could no longer give you these looks, I simply had to turn away, or else I could never make it through the week.
But with the vacancy of these looks there arrived an air of coldness about me, and yes this is something I know you must have felt, and I want you to know I felt it too.
I was cold and loveless. Nothing was demanding I stopped acting like I love you, all was asked was that I could not show that I did physically, but I could not.
I should have replaced the physical contact with words and with ears but I had little time for discussions.
I was brimming with testosterone and this made me tense and agitated.
I could not sleep. Each night I went to bed hours after you. I just sat up alone in the front room watching repeats of the world’s strictest parents at 3.30am.
I think this was potentially one of the hardest weeks of my life. I concede, in the grand scheme of things I’ve had a relatively easy life, but this really was a touch week.
But I think that in terms of research for this piece it has taught me a lot.
I think the most important thing it has taught me is that we cannot do a piece about our relationship, or about love, without some physical outlet. I’m not saying the outlet must be sexual in a literal way, but we must, in our own way express the sexual desires we possess. If we wish to create an honest piece of work about an honest relationship, then there is no way we can shield from the physical outlet which helps to hold or to pull everything together. We must respect that the week of celibacy has been maybe our hardest week together and that this obviously presents how the need for romance of just a regular fuck is urgent.
Chloe
(end of week)
I suppose I thought to some extent it might be progressive, that instead of snogging we might find time for talking. Not that we don’t normally talk, but sometimes fears of death or failure get sidetracked for orgasms. I remembered that time in the first lesson when I had to stand at the top of those stairs and say those three things I was preoccupied with, and someone turned round and smiled at you to say like ah that’s your girl but you were just clueless. Sometimes I don’t tell you the dark things.
Maybe I thought we would replace the catharsis of fucking with the outlet of discussion. That we would wrap each other warm with our words, kiss each other neat with adverbs; maybe I thought that it would make us closer.
I suppose I was being idealistic. Because right now I’m not in a place to tell you all my dark thoughts, all my secret fears. I have too much work to do. Instead I need you to put your body against mine and be a recreation. We both need to be lost in those kisses as a space to forget our worries.
When I first arrived back from Brighton it seemed a cold welcome home, not being able to greet you as usual. I noted how you barely looked me in the eye. It felt from then on that no affection week was a week we were fighting individually. There would be no sense of joint displeasure, instead frustrations would amount and we were on the course to self-implode.
Obviously there is more to us than sex and holding hands, if our relationship was purely physical we would have given up long ago. It wouldn’t have been worth the trouble. There is so much more to us, but only now do I understand how crucial the simple things are.
When I was seventeen and thought I was heartbroken, I wrote extensive diary entries about how my body felt alien. I wrote about how he had livened it and now it was fuse less, dead, cold; just matter no longer a lover. Since then I reclaimed my sense of self, I can remain whole when I am untouched. I own my body and I know that. So when we stopped touching, I did not cease to feel myself as a figure capable of loving, of enjoying, of needing. Maybe the opposite, my new innate understanding of my body’s right to pleasure was paramount.
All the things I know I am bad at; being calm when I don’t want to be, letting other people get on with things, understanding that other people prioritise things differently to me, were more obvious during this week. Because many of the things I am good at became off limits; giving blow jobs, stroking you to sleep, silently saying I am sorry. I discovered what I never knew; I am essentially a tactile person, I am a physical person.
My love of reading and compulsion to write made me believe I would not feel no affection week as coldly as I did. It made me re-consider myself. Forever I have thought I am an awkward person (this I know is still true) who works better with words than with hands. But now I know that being responsive in love means so much more than saying nice things. It might be dirty, animalistic and base- but love cannot exist without touch.
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