A Record of Forgetting

Un, deux, trois...

The pool has an abandoned, wintery feel. The blonde woman carefully cleans it with a skimmer net, removing dead leaves and bugs. The chlorinated cold will be a shock, but she is determined to do this late October swim, probably the last of the season. Her fingertips will go numb, and her toes. It will feel good to be anesthetized.

Everyone in the apartment complex has their blinds drawn. Blind eyes are facing the blue and the woman. After her swim—five laps, then ten, and finally forty—she wraps herself in a large Turkish towel and sits on the blue chaise.

She smokes while watching the tall cypress trees, like sentinels, the blameless blue sky, hoping that something will disturb its monotony, but nothing does. There is no breeze and the heat is stifling.

She decides to read her book about a French writer collecting penises, but only in the “palace” of her imagination. The men do not matter. There is no significance to their faces, their voices, their desire, their platitudes, their aggression, or their embarrassment.

The French writer has hundreds of encounters in sterile hotel rooms. But only the penises remain. The French writer describes their folds, their veins, and their glans. The woman keeps reading with disgust. She has to look up the word “glans.”

A limp, drooping ennui wraps itself around her like the towel after the swim. Her limbs feel heavy, especially her legs. Once in her bedroom, she takes off her bikini and lies on the bed naked under the ceiling fan. She is annoyed that she has shaved everything off for C. He did not even notice. Now there is ugly stubble and two ingrown hairs. She had told herself not to do this again.

The blonde woman lines up the men in front of her, her mind’s eye. The recent ones. Unlike the French writer, she does not focus on the penises but on everything else. She lines up M., Giulio, “Gru,” the Professor, C.

Some memories are unpleasant. She met M. for lunch on a lovely patio with Mexican cuisine from D.F. They talked about politics. He spoke a lot about how awful the East Side is and how sloppy women look in Los Feliz. She sipped her Paloma with growing irritation.

After lunch, he walked her to her car, parked on a side street around the corner. The day was very bright, very sunny, and very hot. He kissed her. She was surprised. She kissed him back, just a little, with lips pressed closed. Then he grabbed her left hand and put it on his hard c%$& in broad daylight, in view of moms and kids and strollers. She pulled it away in disgust.

Giulio. He had a pretty little girl. A daughter. He wanted her to call him Daddy. Then “Gru.” She never saw his penis. He was so sexy the day they met for appetizers, another hot summer day. They sat inside La Casita del Campo, in the cool air conditioning, and talked for five hours. He brought her a gift, a necklace he had made for her that said: “just let go.”

Afterwards, they threw pennies in the wishing well and hugged outside in the parking lot. She felt like she loved him. He called her his “Minion.” They spent a whole weekend together where they did not touch. He slept on the couch. They napped together, apart. When he was finally ready, she did not want him anymore.

The Professor, she wanted. Even though he was so blonde and fair-skinned. His chest became very red, and it almost had what looked like hives. She did not mind. His pubic hair was reddish blond. That was a novelty. His chest hair, too, was so close to her own coloring.

He was a fantastic artist and had done some covers for the New Yorker. One day after brunch, where they laughed a lot, he said, “I cannot do this. I need to focus on my work.”

C.? They met at Café Figaro and had too many Negronis and got super high in his car afterwards, blowing smoke out the sunroof. She liked that he could effortlessly switch from French to English to German.

They discussed Houellebecq and Yorgos Lanthimos, make mushroom tea and stay up all night. But when he called her a sentimental romantic, she stopped seeing him.

Who remains? She does not want to rummage around in her past. All these men are sinking into forgetting. She has put a lot of effort into forgetting. She pets her cat. Closes her eyes. Makes a pact: no more men. Not ever. She says it like it is a spell. It sounds final when she says it. It even feels final for a moment.