sugar

"I just want to know alot of different women"

Mike Ryko's voice is higher than the average but still has its own authority. He talks quickly and you want to listen.

"this is not something I can help - its my body, my time, my temperature. i'm hot right now, my muscles are itching, my skin crawls. I want to kiss every last one of them. and what better time than now? these are the years for doing that right? but its gotta be hot, its gotta be pulling towards eachother under umbrellas, i say sweet words and they melt in my arms. i want to taste different skins, to know different mouths. don't you know what I mean? i walked down the street the other day completely dumbstuck by how many women there are - beautiful ones! ones spilling out of their dresses or looking down their glasses, walking quickly with their arms crossed I want to know them all! I just stood there and smiled, laughing even. this, my friend, is a time of life. and what are you doing? sitting in here smoking your pipe? don't you know what your missing?"

he has sat up onto the arms of his chair by this point. he likes to work himself up like this and I like to let him.

it is late into the night now but Mike has only been here for twenty minutes maybe, thirty. a hot night in my tiny studio apartment and so I had the fire escape windows open and heard the metal ratting that meant he was coming up. It would kill him to use the front door of course.

i was spending more and more time here now. this was a Friday night and i'd spent it alone - listened to a few records, thumbed through a book of photographs - it didn't bother me. when people wanted to see me they would come and if they didn't I was fine - completely content to spend the time writing reading listening or just being in silence. I'd been here more than a year now, in my quiet little hole, and never once felt too big for it.

"and so you met another girl tonight. or you're tired of Lynn."

"Lynn man? Lynn's a bother. shes a weight. following me around to wipe the crumbs from the edge of my mouth, doesn't she have her own business to attend to? her own friends to harass? did I tell you she still writes me letters almost every day? we practically live together for crissakes and I'm still getting the little envelopes stuffed with her feelings - doesn't she want to talk to anyone else?"

"She loves you Mike"

"I know she loves me, and goddamnit I love her too but she's gotta give me some space to breathe man I can't hack it under her pressure."

"two months ago you were in that exact same chair telling my you wanted to marry her."

"and I probably will marry her too, that how much she gets me. thats how crazy it is to be with her. but thats exactly my point don't you see? I don't want that right now - i can't stand it. I've gotta be out there man, i want to shake the trees and see what fruit falls! You don't have something to drink do you? God its awful hot in here."

it is not a secret that the human mind will never be satisfied. in however long I've known Mike Ryko there has always been this conflict; 'what'll I do man, i've gotta have a girl, I'm burning up without one, going crazy in my own head' or else its this - he's finally charmed someone till she's eating out of his palm and now he wants nothing to do with her.

my own romantic situations were never so tumultuous - I site the inherent logic and utility that is part of being a man. i would have a friend over, we would drink wine and take off our clothes and when the sex was over we could just fall back into conversation. none of this unbearable tying up that seemed to always happen with women. it was simple.

Mike had found a beer and was a third of the way through it before he sat back down in his chair. I lit a cigarette and looked around for my ashtray.

"I saw this chick today man. Aw, you dont' care about this - whatever. It was at Oscar's, I had coffee and an egg for breakfast and then outside I bump into this girl with the most beautiful color man, she was a dark cinnamon rust, some kind of island blood maybe but beautiful and I caught just the shortest glimpse of the skin at the bottom of her t-shirt and I thought I was going to go crazy. Crazy man, i had to see her, i wanted to know her whole body, to find my hand along its curves, everything inside of me was ripping up. don't you know what i'm talking about? a little bit?"

my whole life i've spent alot of time inside my own head and alot of time with this subject. I'd come to see sex as a distraction, something to stir up your blood but never to any end. The more you fed the fire the hotter the coals burned. I did know this feeling but tried my best to squash it whenever possible.

"So what're you going to do about Lynn? Tell her you're burning up for all these other women and that she's just holding you down?"

Mike would never say this. Always entirely reluctant to sever ties, he dragged these girls along by the thinnest threads - giving them enough so that they'll stay in love with him but still keeping his distance and insisting his freedom.

unfinished.