The one feeling I tend to get after sex is often the same feeling I get after I defecate: The complete and utter shame of being alive. Both of these have always seemed like perfect times for me to come face to face with my own existential dread.
All the beauty in the world seems to dissipate after I either shit or fuck and I begin asking myself all the big questions. I mean, really, why am I here when all my existence ever seems to boil down to are the pitiful excretions my body makes?
I tried to explain these feelings to Karen one night, but, of course, she couldn't relate to them at all. We had just had sex and she told me that I always pull out too fast after I come. This wasn't just a casual observation of hers. There was something in her voice that said she was really hurt by my actions. I figured I owed it to her to at least try to explain why it was that I always did this.
"It's your generation," she said, reminding me that she is nearly twenty years older than myself.
"That's fucking stupid. There are plenty of people, regardless of their age, or anything else for that matter, that have the same thoughts that I do. It has nothing to do with my generation, or even your generation."
"Well, I don't know anyone else that thinks the way you do."
"Maybe that's part of the problem," I said, reaching across Karen for my Parliaments.
"Can I have a drag of that?" she asked after I lit one.
"But you don't smoke."
"I used to. Sometimes. When I was younger. I probably haven't smoked a cigarette since I was your age, twenty-three or twenty-four."
"What did you used to smoke?"
"Marlboro Ultra-Lights. Just let me get a drag already. I wanna see if I still like it.
I handed her the cigarette then stood up next to the bed.
"Look," I said, "Are you happy with the way you are?"
I began pacing a little.
"That should be a question I ask you."
"What do you mean?"
"Are you happy being so miserable?"
"I'm not miserable I'm just aware."
Karen looked away from me.
"If you're not miserable then you're just strange. You have strange thoughts. You like strange things. Like this music, this is strange, what the hell are we listening to?"
"It's the Velvet Underground," I told her. The Gift had been playing on my record player.
"This music is as old as you." I stopped myself. If she couldn't understand the things I felt then why even try to explain to her who Lou Reed is?
I was tired of this. Tired of this conversation. So I got back into bed and tried to fuck her. She didn't want to at first but she finally gave in when I got her arms over her head. I fucked her but I couldn't come.. Not at all. I couldn't even come when I tried fucking her in the ass, so I got off of her, and went over to my book shelf.
"That's it?" she asked.
"Yeah, that's it I guess."
"What are you doing? Are you going to give me something to read that will make me as miserable as you?"
"No, that's not what I'm doing. And I'm not miserable. Jesus Christ. Don't be such a fucking cunt."
I always did this. I still always do this. I hid a piece of foil with some heroin on it inside of a book and couldn't remember exactly which book it was. That night it turned out to be Finnegan's Wake.
I took the foil and sat at the edge of the bed, completely naked, and took the last few hits of heroin that I had. Karen knew that I did drugs but this was the first time that she had ever seen it.
"I want to understand you," I heard her say.
I knew then that Karen would never understand me, though, because she couldn't even understand the one thing that I wanted her to that night: That the worst feelings in life usually come after the best experiences.
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