He came out of nowhere like an old Jewish ghost, those that people call a dibbuk. I was sitting there quietly, trying not to bother anybody, discussing my future with a sweet Daddy Dom from old England. I was thinking about applying for a teaching post in a small College in London. I had made adequate connections and was already planning my future activities and autumn festivities. The London community seemed pretty dead, just munches and silly games with fish-hooks and such. They could definitely use a good dose of D. Besides, I was looking for new material, as I wanted to finish the last book of the damn trilogy, the one with the catchy title, ”The Steel of Desire”. A bildungsroman should ideally be completed, and I was approaching the end of my journeys.
But what I was not eager to discuss with my Daddy Dom (who would actually be the second chef of my career) was that I felt like the late Elizabeth Taylor. And here I was, getting ready to climb into the pickup truck of a love affair with Larry Fortensky - instead of waiting for Richard. What was I to do? Settle for less again? Maybe for a while? Did I have the right to do that?
No, I did not. The real problem, as everybody knows, is not to find someone with matching vices. No. What we need to do is to find someone with whom we can discuss the Concluding unscientific postscript by Kierkegaard, which is much more relevant to this entire business of slavery than anyone might imagine.
And so I answered:
Is it possible that I have found what I have been looking for in the past four years? “Out upon the deep, over seventy thousand fathoms of water, still preserving my faith…” What surprises me most is that hope never dies. A slight rekindling, and there, after all the betrayals and the disappointments, the ashes come back to life. I should be delivering seminars on the art of losing. And here I am, starting all over again.
These are the words that were missing….
I am a bit reluctant to talk about myself as if I were some item on the shelf, to be picked up and examined. But that is what I am. So, pick me up and look at the box and the label. It is a small box, pink, with a golden top. On the side it says "fragile", but the fine print says "This will last a lifetime". Open it (if you know how). Inside the box you will find all the pleasures and all the pains of this earth, wrapped in the fragrance of the most exquisite female secretions. A healthy sense of cynicism is dancing hand in hand with a fierce romanticism, to the tune of a French accordion. And right in the middle of the box, where its heart should be, there is the emptiness of the unowned slave…