Passed an ex in the garden behind the ice cream parlor. She cheated on her then boyfriend with me a few years for exactly one year. She has a daughter now and I have a son. Her daughter is about one year longer. I know she’s no longer with that boyfriend, cause he couldn’t have kids. 

I don’t know if we are both pretending not to see each other. Three weeks ago we crossed the same zebra crossing. I was alone, she was with her daughter. I recognized her by her voice first. She has a very strange voice, I can’t even describe it. A quick look around confirmed it was her. 

I can’t tell how one goes from licking a woman’s most intimate parts to orgasm multiple times a week to pretending not to know each other. It’s something that shouldn’t fall apart like that. 

We never fought in the way that we’d be like ‘I hate you’, we had arguments, but nothing major. At a certain point she had very stressful exams, her final exams to become a physician. Looking back I see she carefully planned to have an afternoon of rather hot sex with me one last time and then she slipped away. She wrote something that orgasms distracted her from studying. I was quite sad about this because giving orgasms to this traumatized, intelligent woman was at the time one of the few things that truly made me feel happy. I think it made me feel accepted and wanted. Am sure at the time I didn’t fully realize she was important to me. I would have been even nicer to her had I realized then. 

‘Maybe am one of those narcissists who only appreciates things after they are gone’, wrote Kurt Cobain in what many suppose is his suicide note. 

I consider writing her a message. Am with Bruno, I often leave my phone at home so am more focused on him. I bleed a little inside when I see parents drag themselves forward scrolling on their phone. 

At home I do write her. 

Simply: 

‘How was the ice cream at xxxxx?’ 

I don’t want to give the address, a zionist might bomb it. Many kids there and close to a Church and a school. That makes three prime targets. 

It sounds stalkerish, but she responds. 

She explains how she is happy now. That in the years after she’s read all books by Gabor Maté. That she mentions this makes me suspect I introduced her to his work. 

I tell her I went to his conference on the 14th of September 2024. I remember cause the 14th of September is the birthday of my first girlfriend, the birthday of what was once my best friend, and it’s the birthday of a Rabbi in Jerusalem I had some kind of tolerably friendly exchanges with on Palestine-Israel. 

By that am probably trying to say part of me looks for cosmic signs everywhere, while other parts find that nonsense. 

Back to the woman.

Eva. 

She tells me she assumes she was raped as a child. 

‘Your father?’, I ask. 

She says yes. 

That’s already the second woman just this year who tells me this. 

In Eva’s case am not entirely sure. She says she remembers next to nothing from her childhood. I know it’s easy to make people believe they have memories they don’t have. 

I don’t tell her that. 

A lot of her behavior is entirely compatible with a woman was raped by her father. Perfectionist. Never feels good enough. Accepted toxic behavior from that boyfriend she was with years ago. Got into all kinds of weird situations with competent, driven people who were hurting. Me being one of them. 

She sometimes wanted to be worshipped down there while on the phone with that boyfriend. 

Near midnight she writes: 

‘by the way, you helped me a lot when I was going through my dark period and for that I am also grateful’ 

I say: ‘It wasn’t hard, in fact it was the complete opposite.’ 

Which is as true as true can be. 

I still feel some restorative affection for her. To be good to her felt like being able to be me. It’s quite crazy that what I have to offer is rarely accepted and she did greedily accept. I’ll spare you the details, but being between her legs felt like serving the Gods. 

The strongest emotion I feel though is this: 

How did I go from having a life that was a little mad, but very alive to having one that is externally dead, any aliveness only existing in me, in what I write, or in my son, how did I get cut off from anything and anyone alive in only 7 years? 

I tell some other ex lover, very practical and extremely down to earth, not quite as deep or emotionally and physically vibrant, or as majestically open to pleasure as Eva, and she only says: ‘It’s because in your job you don’t have colleagues.’ 

If I ever run into someone who makes me feel like am not a solitary ship at sea looking for a harbor to deliver the treasures in my hold, it will be a miracle. 

You can disagree with that image, but it’s how I experience existence right now. 

Acutely.