again.
“You mean, he came home one day and said, ‘You’re stupid?’ ”
“Not exactly.” It hadn’t just been one day, and it hadn’t been expressed so eloquently.
Ray touched my hair, and we looked at each other for a minute or two without saying anything.
“Were you ever happy with him?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. I thought I was. I remember being happy at the beginning and then a few flashes in the middle and at the end. I loved him and he loved me, and at the time I thought being in love and being happy was all the same thing. But I guess sometimes it isn’t.”
Ray moved on top of me and took my face in his hands. “Are you happy with me?”
I stared into his eyes, eyes that were kinder than any I had ever seen looking back at me. “Yes,” I whispered. “I’m happy with you.”
[ MATING SCENE DELETED .]
POST-COPULATORY PHASE:
STAGE II THE BLISS OF MATING
When two people find each other attractive, their bodies quiver with a gush of PEA (phenylethylamine), a molecule that speeds up the flow of information between nerve cells. An amphetamine-like chemical, PEA whips the brain into a frenzy of excitement, which is why lovers feel euphoric, rejuvenated, optimistic, and energized, happy to sit up talking all night or making love for hours on end. Because “speed” is addictive, even the body’s naturally made speed, some people become what Michael Liebowitz and Donald Klein of the New York State Psychiatric Institute refer to as “attraction junkies,” needing a romantic relationship to feel excited by life.
—Diane Ackerman,
The Nature of Love
It is, of course, bliss to mate!
It is beyond description!
The ecstasy of it!
The rapture of it!
There are no words, really, or maybe, there are too many, and they’ve all been used already, so you should just shut up.
But you can’t.
You won’t.
You are a New Cow now, and the whole world must know about it!
You tell your friends, you tell acquaintances, you tell strangers—all of whom, you suspect with pity, have no idea what you’re talking about since
they
have probably never
really
mated, not like
this
, anyway.
They look at you like you are mad, possessed, and you are:
You have New-Cow disease and it shows
—the inexcusable clichés, the ridiculous hyperbole, the disgusting earnestness, the incessant messianic need to enlighten the unenlightened:
You can’t imagine …!
It’s the most amazing …!
It’s impossible to put into …!
If only you could hear yourself: your complete lack of irony, your complete lack of humor, your complete lack of wit, all those fucking ellipses … and
italics
and exclamation points!
But you can’t. The sound of your own mooing is deafening.
And so we were happy.
Blissfully, ecstatically, elatedly, annoyingly, cloyingly happy.
During the ten days that followed we’d pass each other in the hallways or in the studio, trying not to let on that anything was going on between us since everyone knew about Ray’s engagement status—one aspect of Ray that Joan didn’t like much.
“Why is he keeping you such a secret?” she’d ask me, and I’d tell her that as soon as he told Mia, we wouldn’t have to be so sneaky. Which made sense to me even if I didn’t like being hidden and even if I didn’t know exactly when he planned on telling her.
In the evenings he’d stop by my office, and we’d make a plan for how and when and where we would meet next. The nights he had to stay home with Mia I’d pace around the tight square of my apartment with the phone, listening to Joan script ultimatums, but on all the other nights we’d meet at my apartment, where he would always tell me, early in the morning when we’d first wake up, or late at night right before we’d fall asleep, that I made him feel things he’d never felt before.
“It’s like a dream,” he would say in a whisper.
And it was.
It was as close a place to heaven as I had ever imagined, and those first two weeks,
“You mean, he came home one day and said, ‘You’re stupid?’ ”
“Not exactly.” It hadn’t just been one day, and it hadn’t been expressed so eloquently.
Ray touched my hair, and we looked at each other for a minute or two without saying anything.
“Were you ever happy with him?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. I thought I was. I remember being happy at the beginning and then a few flashes in the middle and at the end. I loved him and he loved me, and at the time I thought being in love and being happy was all the same thing. But I guess sometimes it isn’t.”
Ray moved on top of me and took my face in his hands. “Are you happy with me?”
I stared into his eyes, eyes that were kinder than any I had ever seen looking back at me. “Yes,” I whispered. “I’m happy with you.”
[ MATING SCENE DELETED .]
POST-COPULATORY PHASE:
STAGE II THE BLISS OF MATING
When two people find each other attractive, their bodies quiver with a gush of PEA (phenylethylamine), a molecule that speeds up the flow of information between nerve cells. An amphetamine-like chemical, PEA whips the brain into a frenzy of excitement, which is why lovers feel euphoric, rejuvenated, optimistic, and energized, happy to sit up talking all night or making love for hours on end. Because “speed” is addictive, even the body’s naturally made speed, some people become what Michael Liebowitz and Donald Klein of the New York State Psychiatric Institute refer to as “attraction junkies,” needing a romantic relationship to feel excited by life.
—Diane Ackerman,
The Nature of Love
It is, of course, bliss to mate!
It is beyond description!
The ecstasy of it!
The rapture of it!
There are no words, really, or maybe, there are too many, and they’ve all been used already, so you should just shut up.
But you can’t.
You won’t.
You are a New Cow now, and the whole world must know about it!
You tell your friends, you tell acquaintances, you tell strangers—all of whom, you suspect with pity, have no idea what you’re talking about since
they
have probably never
really
mated, not like
this
, anyway.
They look at you like you are mad, possessed, and you are:
You have New-Cow disease and it shows
—the inexcusable clichés, the ridiculous hyperbole, the disgusting earnestness, the incessant messianic need to enlighten the unenlightened:
You can’t imagine …!
It’s the most amazing …!
It’s impossible to put into …!
If only you could hear yourself: your complete lack of irony, your complete lack of humor, your complete lack of wit, all those fucking ellipses … and
italics
and exclamation points!
But you can’t. The sound of your own mooing is deafening.
And so we were happy.
Blissfully, ecstatically, elatedly, annoyingly, cloyingly happy.
During the ten days that followed we’d pass each other in the hallways or in the studio, trying not to let on that anything was going on between us since everyone knew about Ray’s engagement status—one aspect of Ray that Joan didn’t like much.
“Why is he keeping you such a secret?” she’d ask me, and I’d tell her that as soon as he told Mia, we wouldn’t have to be so sneaky. Which made sense to me even if I didn’t like being hidden and even if I didn’t know exactly when he planned on telling her.
In the evenings he’d stop by my office, and we’d make a plan for how and when and where we would meet next. The nights he had to stay home with Mia I’d pace around the tight square of my apartment with the phone, listening to Joan script ultimatums, but on all the other nights we’d meet at my apartment, where he would always tell me, early in the morning when we’d first wake up, or late at night right before we’d fall asleep, that I made him feel things he’d never felt before.
“It’s like a dream,” he would say in a whisper.
And it was.
It was as close a place to heaven as I had ever imagined, and those first two weeks,
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