A Book of Memories (94 page)

So to avoid having to wait for the next moment, I cut through our shared time by making a move; and I did it simply because I was in pain, and while one escape route was closed to me, the car door behind me was open; the pain, unable to turn into joy, sought relief at any price.

But true to the movement of the pendulum, Thea was ready to swing forward as I was about to pull back; and she wouldn't allow her joy to turn into pain either
—this was her yes moment—and with her hand she had to turn the anytime I created with my move into a now.

When we are awake and fully alert, our jaws are conditioned to keep the mouth closed, the upper teeth resting on the lower set, and the upper lip lying neatly on the lower one; at this point, however, the jaw relaxed and reverted to its original, preconditioned state, easing the alertness and discipline which, except in the hours of sleep, maintain tension in the facial muscles; regulating the extent and nature of this tension gives character to the face, which, in turn, causes the tongue inside, arching sensitively from the rim of the lower teeth, to hover, and the saliva collecting on the tip of the tongue and around the impeding row of teeth to trickle back into the hollow of the mouth.

Heads tilt sideways, if one to the left, the other definitely to the right, because when two human mouths seek each other out they must avoid the collision of noses protruding from the facial terrain.

Once the eyes measure the distance, from the features of the terrain estimate the angle of the tilt, and from the speed of the mutual approach can also determine the moment of contact, then the eyelids slowly and softly drop over the eyes
—seeing at such close range becomes impossible and unnecessary, which of course should not lead to the conclusion that everything impossible is also unnecessary—but the eyes do not close completely, a narrow slit remains, so the long upper lashes need not descend and mix with the lower, shorter ones; in this way the eyes put themselves in a perfectly symmetrical position with the mouth; one is fully conscious now, but not quite aware; the amount of tension relinquished from consciousness equals the loss in awareness; whatever opens up here, but not completely, will shut down there, but not completely.

If one wished to say something specific about a kiss, the joining of two mouths, about the moment when the direct sensation of two sense organs turns into direct bodily sensation, it might be best to step into the open mouth, between the vertically grooved, tender skin of the barely touching lips.

If this were at all possible without the aid of a scalpel, the peculiarities of the living organism would force one to choose among several alternatives: should we follow the facial muscles rippling toward the interior of the mouth, or the intricate network of neurons, or the crisscrossing veins perhaps? in the first case we'd have to cut through the cluster of salivary glands in the lips and cheeks, traverse some connective tissue to reach the mucous membrane; in the second instance, it would be like being absorbed by the tiniest capillary roots of a tree and from there to reach the trunk and travel on to the nerve center of the crown; in the third case, depending on whether we took the red or the blue trail of blood vessels, we'd reach either the ventricle or the auricle of the heart.

Fortunately, it's only in fairy tales that out of three possible paths we have to choose the one that will lead us to safety; but since we don't need to be rescued and are merely yielding to simple, most likely superficial curiosity, we shall choose yet a fourth option and slip through the grooves of the barely touching lips; it won't be a smooth glide, though, because at this moment the surface is almost completely dry; the glands are producing saliva in abundance, but the insecurely hovering tongue is not wetting the surface; consequently, the longer it takes for the lips to meet, the more parched they become; sometimes they look like cracked soil in a protracted dry spell, even though in the hollow behind the lower teeth, under the tongue, a proper little lake of saliva has formed.

If we proceed along the craggy ridge of the lower teeth and, avoiding the little lake of saliva, clamber up the slippery back of the tongue to take a look at the distance covered, the sight greeting us there promises to be quite remarkable.

The undertaking is not without dangers: if we don't cling fast to the taste buds, we might easily slide down into the gullet, but it's all worth it, and where we are is actually a well-protected cave: over us stretches the palate's lovely arch, and looming before us, in the form of an obtuse-angled triangle, is the great orifice of the mouth itself; if we hadn't purposely invaded this spot to catch this breathtaking sight, we might cry out in astonishment, because from this vantage point the anatomical view of the orifice bears a striking resemblance to the conventional representation of the eye of God.

And while looking out through this opening, and seeing everything suddenly turn dark
—for prompted by simultaneous pushing and pulling, yielding and receiving, another triangle clings not quite symmetrically but somewhat aslant to the triangular opening of our hiding place, in sum, a kiss is happening—we get the feeling that in the darkness of the two interlocking caverns, God's one eye is looking into the other eye of God.

We tend to dampen the joy of this discovery with pangs of doubt, asking even at this exalted moment whether the joining of two pairs of lips is really an event of such significance, during which God's single eye looks into God's other single eye?

When grappling with doubt, we try to dig up useful knowledge and experiences with which to deny or confirm our doubt, but to unearth evidence in this instance, we must first explore the body
—anyway, we are in it already!—and take a look at those organs that play a role in one's love life.

A close inspection of these organs and their properties will lead us to the curious and for some people no doubt scandalous conclusion that sexual pleasure, though a prerequisite of our instinct for self-preservation, may be induced in any individual, male or female, through the manipulation of the sexual organs and, by means of self-stimulation, orgasm may be achieved without the presence of another individual.

Isolation and self-gratification, touching oneself while fantasizing about touching another, is something we all know from personal experience.

Neurotic, inhibited, or bashful individuals do not even have to touch their private parts to be aroused, it's enough if the palm of a hand grazes their naked thigh or belly or pelvic region; there the friction between the body and its own skin produces, accidentally as it were, the mutuality needed for sexual excitement; in the case of women we might include touching the breasts, the nipples, and the dark areolae, which may be followed, or accompanied, by stroke-like pressure applied to the mons veneris; without intending it, the stroking will grow more rhythmic, and that will increase the blood pressure, quicken the rate of breathing; this pressure corresponds, in the male, to the gentle groping men begin at the root of their thighs, and then transfer to the testicles and bulb of the penis; women can touch the tiny body of the clitoris, though not its supersensitive head, which at times can be painful; similarly, men can also take hold, with a slightly rougher grasp, of their hollowed member and, rhythmically pulling back the foreskin, free and then re-cover the bulb of the penis, the motion causing the excitement that releases the tiny valves through which arterial blood rushes in to fill the hollows of the shaft.

And since this is an individual activity to suit personal needs, and promises private satisfaction, the activity's form and the methods used may vary greatly.

The variety of ways used to induce physical pleasure cannot obscure the fact that, from a strictly somatological point of view, the same process takes place in every instance and in every individual; at most its intensity, efficacy, and, above all, results differ, for the process itself always creates a physically predetermined and closed organic unity, and it seems irrelevant whether the act takes place between two individuals of different sexes or the same sex, whether some external stimulus or mere fantasizing is at work, or if the same result is achieved by fantasy-induced self-stimulation.

Yet, however closed this unity created by the factors responsible for inducing, maintaining, and gratifying physical pleasure, certain effects appear even when the process seems entirely self-generated
—in the case of masturbation or in nocturnal seminal emission—and these effects disrupt the apparently closed and from a physiological point of view perfectly self-sufficient system.

It is as if nature opposed a system that completely isolated the individual from others; during masturbation imagination steps in, and during nocturnal emission a dream is at work; imagination and dream connect the individual, and the ostensibly self-sufficient act, to another individual, or at the very least presuppose the presence of one.

This is the most, and also the least, that can be said of an individual's dependent relationships.

We might add, though, that an impulse is also at work in all of us that manages to create simultaneously feelings of isolation and self-absorption and of openness and dependence on others; isolation hampers while openness fosters the establishment of relationships, and the two feelings function in an inseparable tension that makes up the whole of the impulse.

If two individuals unite those of their organs which, though meant for another, can also function in isolation, if, in other words, two individuals wish to relieve or overcome their own isolation not by relying on imagination or dreams but in the possible openness of the other, then the resulting meeting is that of two closed units, each consisting of identical elements maintained in the tension of openness and closeness.

The tension, in this case, uses its openness to match itself to that peculiarity of the other's closeness, namely, that the closeness in the other is also open.

The meeting of two self-contained entities results, therefore, in a common openness that transcends their individual openness, creating a new, shared isolation; within this shared isolation they can step out of their individual isolation, and conversely, their individual openness is enclosed within the shared isolation they had opened up for one another.

If this is indeed what happens, it would mean that the meeting of two bodies signifies far more than the aggregate of two bodies; they are present in each other in a way that adds up to more than their individual selves.

We are all slaves to our own as well as to other people's bodies; we signify more than we actually are only to the extent that freedom signifies more than slavery, and the community of slaves signifies less than the community of free men opting for slavery.

And nothing proves this more strikingly than a kiss itself.

For the mouth is the same kind of physical window of the body as the imagination is the spiritual window of the mind, both connecting one to the universe.

Within the closed system of the body the mouth is a functionless, in and of itself neutral sexual organ, possessing no inherently usable properties; only by coming in direct contact with the body of another individual can it realize its potential for the most sensual stimulation, display its exceptional sensitivity and its very close and intimate relationship to all the other inherently excitable sexual organs; we might even say that it is the only sexually active organ that, within the closed system, is naturally open, physically and universally, since there is constant, if dormant, readiness in it to be open to others; in this sense the mouth is the physical counterpart of intangible imagination.

The mouth, then, is a bodily organ that, because of properties it lacks, differs from all other organs involved in the procreative act, whereas the imagination is that faculty which ensures the functioning of the sexual organs even in the absence of a sexual partner.

Because of its unique and in some way deficient character, the mouth differs so much from other sex organs that in a certain sense it cannot really be classified as one, if only because the meeting of two mouths is neither a prerequisite nor a precondition of two individuals' sexual union; mouths can even be excluded from the closed process of such union; yet it is no accident that two individuals, imagining the openness of the other's body, showing mutual readiness to unite the closed systems of their respective bodies, prove their readiness and wish by first uniting those organs that are not indispensable to the union but are open to begin with: their mouths.

Naturally, and luckily for me, I wasn't thinking about all this in the car when Thea put her arms around my neck to prevent me from getting out; I am thinking about it now, while filling this page which, considering how these reconstructions work, is a rather perverted form of thinking; but back then I couldn't have thought of anything like this, because around the age of thirty you have a pretty fair idea how these organs function, you know from experience that they work more or less the way you want them to work, though you are also past the stage when you still act blindly, without control, and you are past it even if you allow instinct and experience to take over; in reality you flounder among associations and comparisons floating about in your memory, which is also a kind of thinking
—so I can't claim that I wasn't thinking at all.

Teetering on the border of sheer abandon and conscious control, I decided that this was what I wanted now.

Or rather, I yielded to the weight, to that curious heaviness, that at moments like this gets hold of one's head, pulling by the forehead and pushing at the back of the neck, toward the other person's head, as if you had voluntarily relinquished the mechanism that normally allows you to see, breathe, and think; you just want to fall into something, give yourself, entrust yourself to something, and above all not to ask why, though in most cases that would be the right thing to do.

There is a half-open mouth before you, which is the question the other's body is asking you, and your mouth is also open, that's where you'll get the other body's answer; and when the two mouths meet, on those other lips you will find your breathing again, yes, you can consider it an answer, and there you will also recover your lost sight as well; you draw your breath from the other mouth, from the breath you gauge the possibilities of the body that is now turning toward you, the inner landscape of that body is unfolding before you, and that is just what the other person offers you: a void, a hollow space that can and must be filled, and that puts an end to the falling sensation, because the lips, caught on the rim of the hollow space, touch fragrant, slick, warm, rough, cold, and soft live matter; touching so many different things at once and at once in so many different ways that our mind, conditioned as it is to act, is properly stimulated.