"What would you do if Eric came back?"


The Amazon and I are having brunch. I'm lucky that I am already half way through a bloody mary when she springs this on me.


I've been explaining to her that I have never taken a man back. Oh sure, some of them have thought I was taking them back. I'll snuggle up to them, kiss them, fondle them, arouse them, and then leave them so not only can I sleep at night knowing that I've left them on my terms, but knowing that they have at least begun paying back their karmic debt in fucking me over.


The odd thing is they all come back. Not so odd really. If you consider how anomalous I am both physically and psychologically, a man who wants what I have isn't likely to find it anywhere else. That is the upshot having a rareified commodity.


Sure some of them take their time coming back. Somewhere between 8 hours and 8 years. Who can put revelation on the calendar? Occassionally it takes some time for the little Bunni toxins to eat away at the self-control center of the brain. But they all come back.


Well, not all. Only two have continued to resist. Both of them said they would love me and never leave me. Both of them called me the love of their lives.


Don't love me that much.


Still she has a valid question.


I tell her I wouldn't take him back. I'd like to think I wouldn't. Even if it was my only chance at happiness. That is the kind of sick person I am. I would deprive myself of happiness if it meant I could deprive him too.


But really who can say? When we were still together sometimes at night I would try and imagine how I would re-act when he left. I didn't really think it would happen. It was like how some people imagine torture. How would I re-act? Would I keep my dignity or die in a puddle of my own piss? I don't think anyone anticipated that I would dissolve into a quivering mass of tears. I, who had in acting school been the last hold out, the only actor not to burst into tears on stage, suddenly cried everywhere the subway, my desk, christ I almost cried while teaching class a couple of times. And I, who had always prided myself on only sleeping with men I cared deeply about became the whore of 85th street. All those rules and regulations I had been living my life by, if you do this, follow that, stay within the lines, have colored coordinated outfits, don't wear glittery eyeshadow to work, speak in a way that reflects your intelligence, don't hold yourself back with other people, wear comfortable shoes, always have an umbrella, living my life by so I could be happy. Gone. Finished. No more rules. No more delayed gratification. No more worrying about what other people would say. Fuck them.


I did.


But I could have never guessed that was how I would re-act. And certainly others were shocked. I had survived cancer, disability, my father's insanity,and his quasi suicidal death. How could I be undone by something so pedestrian? My friends tried to talk me out of it. A simple "This can't be worse than cancer, it just can't be." But this is the nature of tragedy. What shatters each of us is idiosyncratic. Cancer was nothing to me, heartbreak ruined me. The next person could be ruined by a bad day on the stock exchange or not getting her kid into the best private kindergarten. Most people don't know what it is that will ruin them. They imagine it's something huge, something epic like the Titanic. More likely it's something simple. It's saying I love you to someone who looks you in the eyes and says "Thanks." A quiet moment that leaves no trace of the destruction it breeds.


It's impossible for me to know what I would do if he came back. Just like it was impossible for
me to know what I would do when he left. Really it doesn't matter.


He's not coming back.