Though I expect severity, there is something else in your tone. It’s impossible for me to imitate, and I wouldn’t want to. There is a coldness. It suggests I am already dead. It seems only fair to wait to treat me as dead when I am actually dead, and otherwise treat me with the common respect of one human being for another. Surely we are not beyond that? I have made many allowances, yes, for you. You are a fragile, special case, and your relationship with your father . . . But we won’t go there. I know I’m not supposed to mention that. I know our relationship will never be equal. I know you require acquiescence, obeisance almost, and it is that stone coldness of you I adore. It reassures me. There is so much love and so much hate in it. I used to receive enough serenity from the severity of your look that I could sleep at night. But there is something missing in the way you treat me now.

If only I could see you . . . I know it’s impossible. Ironic that in an age when it is so easy, you would not allow me this. We could easily see each other and chat in cyberspace, but you won’t let that happen. And that is what I must accept. Again I am thinking perhaps I should come there — or will. Of course, there is the agony of flight. Can you imagine the cavity search? I don’t think the security staff could handle searching for my cavities, never mind actually searching the cavities themselves. I hear them asking: Does this monstrous mess have holes?

Well, I can make myself laugh; I hope I can still make you laugh too.

There are warning signs that go beyond the severity of your tone, things I want to challenge, because I don’t understand them. First, there is your use of the word prepare. As if I am to be prepared for something. Is this something academic, something to do with a final exam? But you and I are still bickering over the subject matter of my post-doctoral thesis — surely it’s not time yet to prepare for that. Did the word just slip out accidentally? Was I not supposed to know this? Because I can’t imagine what else I would be prepared for. I hope you are not keeping anything from me, because the one thing I like to imagine isn’t missing from our lacerating arguments is honesty.

I’ll get right to the point. If you can answer this question, then perhaps it will begin to bridge this gulf I feel forming between us. The gulf must be purely in my imagination. I’m pretty perplexed (or perhaps I should say not pretty at all, but I am perplexed) that you have found such tiny — one might even say hidden — ideas in my communication with you. And that you are so incredibly upset about it. I have sent you a missive with a long analysis and history of Dash King — who you barely mention, except to say that he is an immature individual.

That’s a start. But then you go on to speak as if we are beyond narcissism. Certainly when the plastic surgeon is so available — for all but the most ancient, who are typically told they are beyond help (like myself) — narcissism becomes irrelevant. On the other hand, what narcissism used to be, solipsism, has certainly not disappeared. One could argue, of course, that as people live less and less in what used to be called the real world, they have become less concerned with how beautiful and rich they are in actuality, and in this way become less selfish by default. But surely the virtual world is selfishness personified, now that people’s acquisitive romantic cyberlives have exponentially overtaken their tedious day-to-day existence? What I’m saying is, Dash just seems more immature than people today because he is concerned with his fortunes in what we used to call reality, with success and getting laid, notions we find antique because we can have whatever we want in the virtual world. The fact that people are still, in their own ways, immature does not mean that Dash is any less so. But it’s important to put his neurosis in perspective.

Then there is the issue of plastic surgery. It is completely shocking to me that when I actually address issues of addiction and suggest that I might be able to loosen up my routine, you decide to rail against the notion that I might have my head righted upon the end of my spine (or what’s left of it). In this last discussion, in case you have forgotten, I referred to the possibility that I might allow myself the odd cigarette, that I might not have to observe the rituals and routines that have kept my addictions in check for so many years, because I am now so set in my ways that I am not in danger of falling back under the sway of my addictions. This is a significant notion for an addict to entertain. However, you ignore these musings. I know you are cognizant of them (you miss nothing), but instead you become obsessed with my suggestion that I might get a little bit of plastic surgery. I don’t understand what is so outrageous about that.

You do understand that my body is crumpled to the extent that the “L” shape that I used to refer is fast becoming a “C”? As my head seems to bend more and more towards my chest, it becomes not only increasingly uncomfortable but I become more and more grotesque. You make jokes about my physical body and I do too (though it takes on a slightly different implication coming from you!). But is it too much to ask, that we might attempt to halt the daunting curvature of my spine, and at least set my head right upon my shoulders?

And then there is the implication that I would not be considering plastic surgery if I was not also considering venturing out. Maybe there is another reason. Perhaps it’s not just all about people seeing me, or being seen. You know well what could still happen if people look at me too closely, or stare at me. It’s still possible they might somehow realize who I was. But that’s not a big enough danger to warrant plastic surgery to protect me.

What I find more than odd is that in a long communiqué in which I talk about so many subjects, you get stuck on a tiny part of one sentence. And this is the sentence in which I say sex does not involve human contact at all “above ground, or commonly.” You go crazy about “above ground, or commonly.” I find this uncanny. In passing, I mentioned a truism, something everyone knows and understands though it’s rarely talked about. The fact is there are establishments in which some of the real and dangerous sexual activities (that we know from the past) are still perpetrated. It even comes up in the most polite conversations now and then. Although discussion of these establishments has not been banned, we realize that any detailed discussion of what actually goes on must be kept to a minimum.

I don’t think you’re afraid of censorship — in fact, you yourself occasionally enjoy flouting the authorities. You seem to think, and I hope you are right, that those who wish to censor, who warn us of our indiscretions, cannot and will not triumph over technology. It is technology itself that will decide whether or not anything can or will be censored. At any rate, it is the fact that you picked this tiny detail out of my letter (along with the notion of plastic surgery) that I wish to confront.

In this context it might be necessary to speak a little bit about Allworth. I am not going to apologize for our relationship. I don’t want to make you feel guilty — that’s impossible, anyway, and it would be out of character. Whenever the smallest spark of that emotion does creep into your psyche, it fills you with a kind of rage that is frightening to behold. Suffice it to say, I am not using Allworth to make you jealous, or to threaten you. He could never be you. Remember when we found that self-help book from mid-century that went on and on about codependence? Well, sometimes I think you and I are codependent. At least, I am too dependent on you. I know you have your women, and that some of them may mean more to you than you are willing to admit — though I know you don’t like me saying that. But isn’t there a moment when you are whipping them, or penetrating them with those dildos that you so ritually boil, when there is just a little tear in your eye? An ounce of affection? Don’t you ever, for instance, miss them? Do you never, ever favour one over another? I know you will answer “No” to all of these questions.

And just because I can’t resist a little titillation, have you ever tried electric shock? I found a great little porno scene (they are so very, very accessible now that I am integrated; I just press a button on my old head and there’s porn!) in which a very lovely young man was being shocked with some sort of electronic device. He was writhing quite deliciously. I think one of the things that attracted me to the image was that the man who was torturing him was hardly a man — in the sense that we used to think of a biological man. He was such a grotesque, withered thing. Now, I know that no one could be (and surely no one is) as aged and ugly as myself. But the reason the fantasy had such a profound effect on me was because I could see myself playing the part of the old man — crumbling artifact that I am. That I might be the one doing the torturing! It seemed so wonderful to me that the old man could have such an effect on the boy! Obviously it was not possible for the wizened old stick to actually shock the youngster with the thrill of love. Instead he had to resort to actual virtual electricity. I’m sure that I am not perceiving this cyberlovemaking correctly, and that you will tell me so. You sometimes urge me to take some photos of myself and have a little fun. You assert that there might be sexual interest, somewhere, in a lumpen heap such as myself — that I might enjoy some cybersex. Well, I certainly would have enjoyed becoming a part of the actual experience of shocking such a beautiful young man, along with the other, dribbling geezer. But I don’t think, try as I might, that I would be able to appreciate cybersex the way I could, or perhaps should.

Maybe this is part of my problem.

I know you think it is.

Or maybe I don’t have a problem. I know you think I still think of cyberspace as “fantasy” and still talk of it as “virtual,” and I know those are ancient terms. I know I should just be thinking of it as all there is, and that, in effect, it is all there is. But that brings me to my experience with Allworth. So you mustn’t be intimidated by him in any way. I know that if you met him you would ignore him, consider him not worth considering. In fact, you may have already met him in cyberspace if you’ve been trolling. He’s very promiscuous and quite an inveterate cruiser. He loves couples, or enjoys being an intermediary between two men who are married, attached, in love, whatever, servicing them, getting serviced. I’m not entirely clear on what he does specifically, and I don’t know if I want to know.

He is — that is, his personality is — your fundamental opposite. To say he is worshipful would be an understatement. In fact, he might actually make you nauseous. Now, I want you to know that this fawning, this obsequiousness, is something akin to a disease with Allworth. It is not related only to the fact that he has figured out who I was. Of course, he does know who I was, but you sometimes overestimate the effect of all that. Yes, I am these days a medical marvel — though more and more like me are being kept alive these days. I must be one of the oldest, however, because I am a kind of literal artifact, a relic of another era. But we both know that very little of what is considered valuable is from the past. Part of this has to do with the triumph of historiography over history.

It’s interesting how far ahead of his time Paul de Man actually was. And interesting, too, that there is a point at which Dash King gets obsessed with de Man, (as with Philip Larkin and, amazingly, Barbara Pym) near the very end of his papers. You do remember the de Man scandal? He was accused of being a Nazi, but at the same time he was a kind of deconstructionist, and a friend of Derrida. Derrida had to deal with the scandal after de Man died and the truth came out. Derrida was a Jew, and this saved him from suspicions of being anti-Semitic. It’s an odd assumption, that those who are of a group cannot hate that group. You and I both know that it was the homosexuals who killed gay. Once they finally had enough of it they said, We are assimilating!

The de Man scandal was focused on the notion that this man, who argued for the deconstruction of history and reality, a man whose arguments could have been used to challenge the Holocaust, was in fact a Nazi sympathizer. Or, at least, at one time he had worked for the Nazis. Or, at the very least, to be completely accurate, he had written anti-Semitic articles, or articles that could be construed as anti-Semitic, for a Nazi newspaper. Paul de Man committed this crime during the Nazi occupation of France, when French intellectuals were being pressured to toe the line. Sure, some bravely did not collaborate. But de Man did. And then he went on to proliferate arguments against the notion that there was any such thing as truth and history.

Self-serving? You decide.

De Man did ultimately prove to be right, whatever his wartime ethics. It makes perfect sense that we study history as fiction now, and that we look at it as romantic rhetoric — the way we might read a fantastical story. The whole idea that one should read history because there are lessons to be learned from it is a fallacy. One wonders how this idea could ever have had any credibility when history constantly repeats itself. As Alan Bennett once memorably said, history is “one bloody thing after another.” Today we know what looking for lessons in history means: it’s just reading our present into the past. So, instead, we now live in the present and the future — ignoring the past. These are the only places to live. This is a part of my problem when I look back at Dash King. How I proceed with King’s text has a lot to do with whether I treat it as history or literature. And it’s important that I treat it only as literature. History does not exist. This is something you must remind me.

I will now remind you of this in reference to Allworth. I am returning, at last, to this ubiquitous person. I call him ubiquitous because there have always been Allworths in my life. But to imagine that Allworth idolizes me because of who I once was — who I am no longer — is forgetting the modern world that we live in. And you do this in a manner I am too often prone to do. This is one of the reasons I am thinking of . . . Well, I will reveal it.

I, in fact, have ventured out to places where I might not have gone before, because it has finally come to the point that I can be invisible.

I mean, do you actually imagine that if I could be found out — that if someone were to notice the way I held a cigarette or (God forbid) remarked upon a quaver in my voice and said, “That’s her!” — can you really imagine they would tackle me and try to get an autograph? Gay is over, thank God, and I am no longer an icon of a mercifully brief movement. Ah, you might say, “the voice” lives on — in recordings. I don’t want to listen to the recordings. I refuse to listen. My own records at one time obsessed me, but that is in the past. No, all I can say is that if Allworth or some other pathologically depressed and historiographically arrested person were to become obsessed with me because of who I was . . . Well, it’s too bizarre to contemplate. And he’d certainly deserve his fate. One couldn’t be frightened of such a being.

I can’t believe it’s taken me more than 110 years to accept that I don’t resemble a tragic in-between any longer. How long it takes for our self-conceptions to dematerialize! The fact is that I am not in-between anything. I am not on the verge of attractive, as I perpetually was — once. When I see pictures of myself, I marvel at how gorgeous I was, even when I was fat. How was it I couldn’t see that then? No, I have fallen into the hole. And it is not a rabbit hole. It is a cancerous pile of mulch.

Once and for all, I am a creature from a black lagoon. It is impossible to recognize me. Even if I speak. Even if I were to sing — which, of course, I can’t. And wouldn’t. But more than that, unless he is lying to me, and I’m sure he is not, Allworth’s adoration for me — which does seem over the top — is not just related to a curious antique affection he has for a fiction of the past. And Allworth does realize that the past was a fiction. No, his obsequiousness is related to a congenital condition.

Allworth is an apologizer. He believes he is doing everything wrong, and acquiesces at the drop of a hat. This is partially due to his upbringing. He comes from an Asian father and a Scottish mother. He does quite charming imitations of them that make me laugh out loud, which is something I do rarely, because it actually hurts. But ultimately the laughter does me a lot of good.

He imitates his father in a full Asian accent, very fawning, very apologetic, and one can see where one could learn the apologizing from that culture. (At one point there was some speculation that the world’s culture would become East Asian. Many people learned Mandarin — and this seemed oddly comic to us at the time. Interesting that it’s Turkish, now, that everyone is so eager to learn. I am, of course, not saying anything against the Turks — I never would. I owe my allegiance to the Modern Ottoman Empire, and this from someone who comes from an era when that phrase would have referred to the holdings of a man who had made his fortune marketing resplendent stools. And that was not sarcastic — I would never be sarcastic about our government. But we all know it doesn’t really make much difference who is governing. Because, of course, ultimately, they are not. . . .) So Allworth’s tendency to apologize, and to try to meet my every need, is partially related to a cultural inheritance from his father. But he is also an obsessive-compulsive. He was diagnosed in the test tube, actually. They knew he would come out that way. And his obsession takes the form of apologizing. I often wonder if he was born apologizing because he was sorry for being obsessive-compulsive! He is eternally sorry, and eternally worried that he has offended, gone too far, talked too much, been inadequate, overadequate, whatever. I might find it irritating if I didn’t know it was a disease. This explains why Allworth acts the way he does. Yes, he knows who I am, and this has only the tiniest effect on him. But he is not obsessed with me. He is obsessed with his obsessions.

So, I must get on with it. But I hoped that if you knew what Allworth was like, then perhaps you wouldn’t feel so horrible about the trip we took — the escape from my apartment! Of course, Allworth and I first met in the cyberplayground. But I quickly got the itch to meet him outside of cyberspace. Why? you may ask. I suppose it’s an old superstition: people so often misrepresent themselves in cyberspace. So if I want to get to know a person, I’m interested in what they actually look like. Again, I know this is an antique notion (the idea of actuality). And even though after meeting him, I assume, for instance, that Allworth is an attractive young man (which he seems to be, to me), he could have been born something else. He could have the wrong chromosomes. Though I have heard they have been able to fool with that, too, so much so that it is actually impossible to test someone to discover their original biological gender.

I can’t logically explain it. It doesn’t make any rational sense — I can feel you bristling — but I wanted to meet Allworth in the flesh. This is mainly because I wanted him to know that I am who I am, not a fantasy creation. Of course, that makes even less sense, because why would anyone represent themselves in cyberspace the way I do? Why would anyone wish to disguise themselves as a coagulated blob with eyes, covered with a dress-like thing (it’s very hard for me, as you know, to find a dress that fits). I would have to be real, only because no one has an imagination grotesque enough to make me up.

So Allworth came over for tea. And don’t worry, I had cleaned the shelves of all memorabilia. I did leave up an Al Jolson album cover that I have great affection for — just because it’s so antiquely “racist.” (Remember racism? These days it’s quaint, and if anyone is to be a victim of even the memory of it, it is us.) But I didn’t expect someone as young as him to make the connection to Swanee . . . and he didn’t. No, it just came out. Being with him is sometimes like being in a media interview. Of course, I am very skilled at those and used to enjoy them immensely. This is just because, as you well know, I’m best at first impressions. I’m not as good in the long haul, but I make a helluva opening night.

So, because he was asking so many questions, it seemed rude not to be just a little bit honest. “Yes, I was a singer,” I said. And when he asked me how old I was, it just slipped out. When I said I was 138, he said, “You don’t look a day over 134!” It was only an old joke, of course, but it was a relief to tell someone. So when he found out how extraordinarily old I am — he had never heard of anyone living past 130 — he knew there had to be some reason why extraordinary medical measures would have been used to keep me alive. I had to explain.

There is no need to worry about Allworth. He is sworn to secrecy. And he is so incredibly frightened of me, and indeed of everyone, that you need not fret. Also, he is not the type of person to sell the information to a media outlet. I really do believe he is my friend. Frankly, I don’t know what all the hysteria is about anyway. I mean, coming from you — who want so much for me to move into the future. You want me to forget the past. But you are actually accentuating the power of the past by imagining that the revelation of it would have deleterious effects. It is a fantasy of yours that the past holds a huge fascination for me. In fact, I’m through with it all. And I hated it, actually. And I am perfectly happy to live in the now. If only I understood the now a little better.

Anyway, the kinds of questions Allworth asks are always about feelings, illnesses and disabilities. For instance, he asks me about walking around, and why I choose the cane over a wheelchair. He doesn’t ask me leading questions that would suggest he is urging me to become who I once was, or some such nonsense.

The teas have become a weekly thing. And I know at this point if you admonish me I will say something that sounds like emotional blackmail. But it isn’t; it’s just the truth. What am I supposed to do with myself? How am I supposed to entertain myself when you are thousands of miles away? You left me high and dry. I understand that you have a life. And that life doesn’t revolve around me (though I don’t doubt your love). But do you expect me to remain in Toronto and wilt on the vine? Or, at least, wilt more? I won’t try to persuade you to come back, because I know you never will. I’m just saying that I’m a very old blob and I have a huge amount of time on my hands.

During one of our teas, Allworth began telling me about his sex life. It entertains me — and, of course, I don’t have one of my own. He gets himself into the kinds of situations that promiscuous people so often do — because he is interested in people for sexual reasons only. Then he finds himself hanging out with excessively boring folk for one reason only: to have a look at their private parts. There isn’t much he hasn’t done. And his main challenge in life is getting out of the cybercompartments of those he has had sex with. Most of his social life seems to revolve around extricating himself from these sticky wickets.

Allworth found out about the place that he ultimately took me to through his work. His work, if I haven’t mentioned it already, like everyone’s today, involves codes. Like the rest of the world, he spends most of his time refining and recreating the digital language we all speak. One of his co-workers introduced him to a place called the Tranquility Spa — which is neither a spa, nor tranquil. The gist of the story is he took me one night and nothing happened.

The “Spa” in the name is a ruse. It is set up like an ordinary throwback to the turn-of-the-century-style aromatherapy massage parlour. You know, one of those relics of the past they allow to exist — with strict no-sex rules, of course — as museums of ancient racism and perversion, authentic even to the point of being staffed by pretty young Asian girls. There’s the doorway where you pay your fare to get in, but when you go behind the curtain it’s no longer government-approved. Suddenly all is dark — it reminds me of a beatnik club I once went to, even down to the odours. Believe it or not, that beatnik club was called Hernando’s Hideaway — like the song! Well, this modern version, on top of everything, stunk of urine. I haven’t smelled that stale smell for a long time — I think since I peed my pants, drunk and high, so many years ago.

As I say, nothing happened at the Tranquility Spa. No one recognized me. There was no mad rush to figure out who I was. One of the fascinating things about the place is that it is peopled by very strange, lost creatures. One isn’t sure why they are the way they are, or even exactly how they actually are, because it’s so dark. But what struck me was that many of the creatures had something shockingly askew. The people were not immediately monstrous — they were monsters upon second glance, so to speak. I was the most evidently monstrous person there — the one whose monstrousness was immediately discernable to the naked eye. No, a number of these people had only partial disfigurement. For instance, many were fine but for one part of their body, where the skin was no longer being held up by the bones, and you could see inside, behind cellophane or a sort of antiseptic plastic. One had the curious experience, when entering the bar (I used my cane, and you know how slowly I walk), of finding these creatures with holes in their bodies whipping themselves around — as if they didn’t want you to see their somatic aporias as you inched along beside them.

These people seem to be plastic surgeries gone bad; I’m not sure what brought them all to the same bar, but like does attract like. Then, upon closer inspection, there were individuals who were held together with putty and paste. I sat beside one and was unnerved to recognize this when she turned towards the light. There was very little light except for laser beams aimed at the floor and ceiling and walls, which I noticed most of the creatures were careful to avoid. When the light hit her, she became translucent. I could see something underneath her skin; it certainly appeared to be traces of blood and bones and organs. So she was a walking — or, in this case, sitting — skeleton. And for whatever reason and by whatever method, the skeleton had been covered over with putty and paste that had become see-through in places. I noticed she was wearing a kind of cape. Indeed, many at the bar had pragmatic head coverings. There was certainly no indication that this character was a vampire, but it did occur to me that she might melt if exposed to the light.

There was also a lady and a gentleman who were both missing something — in one case hands, and in the other case a neck. The person whose head was sitting directly on her shoulders fascinated me. I thought perhaps it was the result of a botched transplant. The head transplantation, as you know, is an operation I long refused to have. Seeing her — and surmising that her deformity was the result of one — discouraged me from further consideration. It was encouraging, though, that she could turn her head, even though she had no neck. The handless man was very odd. He seemed to be making some kind of statement. After all, artificial hands are easy to come by; the technology is virtually seamless. It occurred to me that perhaps his condition was the result of plastic surgery, that he had lost the proper attachments for the nerves and musculature of hands. His arms ended quite anticlimactically. There was simply nothing there, or it seemed that way. Then I saw there were pieces of clear plastic over the end of each arm. This would have meant, of course, that you could see inside each arm. This might have proved fascinating, in its own way, though the man did not seem to want to have the ends of his arms exposed by the light.

The one who fascinated me most I call the Doll Boy. The Doll Boy was very, very tall, slender and pale. He wore loose-fitting pants and an open-collared shirt. At first I though he was translucent too. But then I realized his case was precisely the opposite. He was opaque. He was overly smooth and white — unreal, plastic like a doll, surrounded by a completely solid casing. One wondered about his history; he might have been a burn victim. He did not look real but like a mannequin. But there was also something unreal about his gestures, his general demeanour. He was long-limbed and moved with a sly grace. This suggested someone painfully conscious of taking up space — perhaps too much space. Someone who knew he was being looked at, and didn’t want to be.

What struck me most about him was that he could have been — and this is completely my personal fantasy — the material embodiment of the tragic in-between. One of the logical explanations for his condition, it seemed to me, was that he was indeed a burn victim who had not reached the final stage of getting the realistic flesh glued on top. I know, in fact, that what he was walking around in was the underflesh that lies directly beneath what seems like the real flesh of someone who has had cosmetic surgery after being scalded. I know this because I once knew a burn victim who received a cut, and he didn’t bleed. But his coating of fake protective underflesh was revealed. In other words, under his realistic flesh was the doll flesh — which was all that this boy had. The Doll Boy was a sad and dignified figure, at once vulnerable and distant. I couldn’t help identifying. I, myself, am sad but undignified, and had for so many years felt unfinished — not quite there — as I came to terms with the fact that this body was all that God ever had in store for me. There would be no divine improvements, only human interventions.

Anyway, this gives you an idea of the place. The music, as you might guess, was retro. It was so old I could barely identify it. Then I recognized that they were playing a lot of freaky monster music, for instance Lady Gaga and Klaus Nomi and that Icelandic singer Björk. And Yma Sumac — do you remember her? She claimed to be a Peruvian princess, I think. But it turned out she was from . . . Brooklyn? Well, as you can see, the place suited my taste. And nothing happened. The gist of it was I was fascinated and hypnotized. And yes, I had a cigarette, but no booze. The oddness of the place was accentuated by the sale of booze. When these days all can — and do — often choose from an array of government-approved partypills if they wish to go that route, this was certainly an anomaly. But I was not interested in the booze and did not even think about it. I enjoyed a tonic without the vodka and watched the black lights make things glow like in the old days.

Indeed, my attraction for these people may have been purely because they were old, like me. If I was right and they were most of them victims of botched plastic surgery, then it is more than possible, indeed likely, that some were old (though none as old as me). Allworth seemed to have a good time observing me and giggling. I think he was pleased that I was pleased, but was also intimidated by — and perhaps jealous of — those who talked to me.

Two people chatted with me. One was the bartender, and the other an elderly woman who had unfortunate silicone injections that had slipped drastically. She appeared to have two sets of cheekbones on one side. Or was that a growth? The bartender, who was shirtless, was memorable for having a large masculine chest with no nipples. Again the questions: was he once a female who had breast-reduction surgery but whose nipples had been misplaced or forgotten? It’s odd about nipples. The old adage “useless as tits on a bull” might be appropriate here. But useless or not, when we look at someone who carries all the signals of maleness — i.e., the musculature and the body hair — but is without the climactic nipple at the end of the pectoral, what are we to think? Well, useless or not, it looks very odd indeed.

The bartender was inquiring, as bartenders do, about where I had come from and where I had been hiding. I told him (lying) that I had been hanging out in cyberspace. As I talked to him, the lady with the cantilevered face (for it certainly looked as if there were different balconies or levels jutting from it) tried to join the conversation. The bartender was dismissive of her, as if she was boring — or perhaps someone who had the habit of butting into conversations because she was in need of some undeserved sympathy. One ordinarily would think that sympathy was surely her due. But in this place certainly no one had the right to special attention, that much was clear. There could be no crying over spilt milk — the floor would have been a swimming pool of salty tears.

So that’s all of it, my darling. I promise. And I know you have been waiting for a climax, a something, a tragedy — at the very least an occurrence. You have been imagining that something or someone would pull me back, or that I would be seized with an irresistible impulse. I’m sure you already have a theory that there is a suspicious subtext to what I say. In fact, I am prepared for this. I wish you luck. I know your disapproving nature — which is also very loving. You will not be satisfied unless you find something to worry about. And it is this worry that I have learned over the years to accept as love. Judgement, correction and warnings have taken the place of an embrace. I know, for instance, that if I were to mention (and I am going to) that Allworth pointed out the dark room at the rear of the Tranquility Spa, then you would undoubtedly take this as a dangerous sign. The alarm bells would ring.

Well, let them.

Allworth pointed out the backroom as a courtesy. He has a very sexual nature and it would have been rude of him to assume that simply because I am one of the very oldest creatures alive I would have had no interest in such an area. As it turns out, I don’t. But I appreciated his acknowledgement that I might have such feelings somewhere still in the mottled mess of my flesh. What interested me more than anything about this backroom — which was signified by a tattered old burgundy velvet curtain that twitched tantalizingly in the slight breeze initiated by an old ceiling fan — was that at times the bizarre creatures of the bar would actually retire there. Though none did this while I was at the bar. Later I asked Allworth if he had ever been behind the curtain. He smiled in an indulgent way and said, “But of course!” I did not find this odd. Allworth still has his own youthful body, and that’s good for him — as it is good for anyone — while it lasts. It would seem he’s enough of a sexophile to want to explore adventures that are outside cyberspace, even with partners who are nature’s rejects.

Well, now that you know the truth — for I wouldn’t keep anything from you — I hope you will not blow the whole thing out of proportion. I hope, instead, you will try to understand that I want you to have all the facts, because you care. After all, our relationship is unequal. I get only tidbits of information about your sex life. And I have to drag those out of you. God knows what you are up to — and I don’t admonish you for it, whatever it is.

This monologue has been quite extended and digressive. But I want you to know that I am still working on my thesis. And I am still obsessed with Dash King. So, here is some further scholarship from one of his later papers. The passage is dated immediately before his papers become completely personal (and even more fascinating and revealing). The discussion here reveals that King’s scholarship could conceivably have grown into something interesting. There is no particularly rigorous argument in this excerpt, but there is the germ of an idea. By that I mean a generalizing, quite grandly around a particular, which, as you know, can be an academic advantage, but also sometimes not. Fortunately, perhaps, it is not possible to discern from this fragment what direction he might have taken with this germ for good or ill. I am interested in Dash’s musings because they are relevant to my own writing. Sharing this with you is an earnest attempt to inform you and keep you up to date, but like all earnest attempts, it can certainly betray itself and become something unintended. Dash King goes on about something called the “queer feminine.” I believe it is his own concept, and it might have proved interesting if only it were more thoughtfully developed:

If I was going to write about something, I would write about euphuism. I don’t see much point now in writing about anything. I am discouraged by the responses to the first drafts of my thesis. I know I’m not supposed to take any of this personally. I remember when I did get a bit insulted with Professor Hawkins’ analysis of my first draft. He said, “This is an undergraduate response.” I asked him why. He said I sounded hurt by his criticism. Well yes, I was hurt, and why can’t a graduate student be hurt like anyone else? But also it really bugged me that he wanted to take everything personal out of my style. This is the heart of the whole matter, as far as I am concerned. I am a big believer in the idea that style is content; and I think this is a very gay idea. I know it’s not fashionable to talk about gay ideas anymore, especially in terms of history, because gay is not supposed to be a transhistorical thing. I guess it’s not — but I think it is. But on the subject of style it just seems to me that there is a house style for academic essays and that house style is Foucault. I know we’re not supposed to speak against Foucault and of course I wouldn’t dare write anything against him, even though he makes me bloody mad. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy his writing sometimes. But don’t you think it’s kind of suspicious that everyone writes like him these days? Absolutely everyone? Or they write like Judith Butler. Is it just a coincidence that all academics write in the same style? Let me quote you a passage from Homi Bhabha, whose name might as well be Blahblah, as far as I’m concerned. Professor Hawkins made us read it in his course last year and I just gave up: “Levina’s parenthetical perspective is also an ethical view. It effects an externality of the inward as the very enunciative position of the historical and narrative subject introducing into the heart of subjectivity a radical and anarchical reference to the other which in fact constitutes the inwardness of the subject.” What? I don’t get it and I don’t want to get it. Words like enunciative, I know, are semiotic code words. I should know them — but you know what? — I can’t be bothered. I can’t be bothered because it’s just bullshit jargon. You made the mistake of supporting me in my attempts to write in an understandable and straightforward fashion, and I am grateful for that. I thought it was great when you said to Professor Hawkins, “You’re right, Dash’s thesis proposal is far too readable, he must make it less so.” I know I’m privileged, because I’m white and all. But I’m still a faggot — even though that doesn’t seem to count as a minority status anymore.

If you look closely at most academic writing, you’ll find that not only is everybody parroting Butler and Foucault, but most of them don’t have anything half as interesting to say. (You can wade your way through the Foucault and Butler jargon, but at least you get a payoff now and then.) The people who are parroting Foucault and Butler are usually women and non-whites. I know that sounds sexist and racist, but all I’m saying is that these people have a lot at stake; they are outside the academic establishment and they think by appropriating this lingo they are going to get in.

All of this accent on style makes me think about Shakespeare’s ultimate style play, Love’s Labour’s Lost. It’s a kind of satire on the academic modes of the day. I guess you know that some people think the play is actually a parody of Lyly. I’m pretty fascinated by Lyly and I think I could write about him if anybody was willing to listen. (I know they’re not.) Those who think Edward de Vere was Shakespeare also think that the young Shakespeare was John Lyly, meaning that he wrote under that name. Euphues, Lyly’s book, is about his Italian travels, but it’s also about the love of men for men, and how that love is much higher than the love of false, promiscuous women. It’s all very gay in a David and Jonathan biblical way. But what’s interesting about Lyly is that his style defined an era and we don’t hear much about him now. Why? Because it’s an effete, antique style. But if you read Shakespeare closely you can see that it has its origins in Lyly — the style is characterized by overwriting, endlessly repeated comparisons, a long list of figures of speech. It is a very busy, rhetorical, heightened, over-embellished style that became fashionable for ladies to read in the late 1500s.

Here is an example: “Love is a chameleon, which draweth nothing into the mouth but air, and nourisheth nothing in the body but lungs. Believe me, Eumenides, desire dies in the same moment that beauty sickens, and beauty fadeth in the same instant that it flourisheth. When adversities flow, then love ebbs, but friendship standeth stiffly in storms. Time draweth wrinkles in a fair face but addeth fresh colours to a fast friend, which neither heat, nor cold, nor misery, nor place, nor destiny can alter or diminish.” It’s all about alliteration and exotic images, and a list of images and comparisons.

This is Shakespeare to a tee (only not as good, not as deep), which makes you think this could be a young gay Shakespeare, cavorting about Europe before he became more profound and turned this overdone, overflorid style into something that represented something. But I see it as part and parcel of what I call “the queer feminine,” a sensibility that looks at the world in a feminine way; that is, overdoes it — overdescribes it, overdecorates it. It’s interesting that in the nineteenth century when euphuism was briefly rediscovered, it was scorned as effeminate and associated with Swinburne and Wilde — in other words, with gay literature. Yes, style is substance, and in the case of the gay writer the style is not necessarily hiding something. It is a response to the world that is historically (and this is what I would love to prove through an analysis of Shakespeare) grounded in an almost pathological need to compare, contrast and paint pictures with words. I don’t know why it’s gay and I don’t know what it means — but that’s what it is. I can’t talk about this in terms of Shakespeare, even though it makes sense to do so, because I would have to put it in jargon. (In other words, I would have to talk about style in an incomprehensible style that would make it unreadable and inaccessible.) And anyway, no one in academic circles would allow me to suggest that John Lyly was a young Shakespeare. I give up. My best is just not good enough.

I think this passage is interesting because it shows King’s last gasp at creating a queer aesthetic at a time when all things gay were on the wane. But also it’s all about style as substance. I wonder if I myself am not a queer feminine character — though I suppose I am more feminine than queer, especially these days, having forgotten where my sexual organs are. But I do find the need to go on and on sometimes. I think that is where I live, in my words. At any rate, in my words to you. I don’t know where all this is leading in terms of writing about Dash. I am almost on the verge of saying, “Maybe nowhere.” Maybe for me he is just a kindred spirit, and I don’t know why. Need there be a why?

You, who are always so always logical, will say yes.

I’ve gone on endlessly. But maybe that’s because I am so afraid of your reaction. I am, as always, enraptured. And the distance between us makes me feel closer to you than ever. I know that is a frightening and very romantic statement.

One more thing. One of the elements I love in the Euphues passage that Dash quotes is that it is based on the notion that chameleons live on air — that it is their sustenance. I don’t get much from you and that makes me think I am sometimes like the Early Modern chameleon. Others live on love; I live on air. But whatever you give me, I promise to love it, as I am yours, always.