The Heart's Pump

Five days after his Lexapro pill use ended Bill found himself staring at his fingers for the first time in months.  There they were, shockingly, his fingers.  And Bill, sitting on his bed as he prepared to sleep for the night, was busy observing how the cuticles had mysteriously crept up  onto his fingernails.  When had this happened?  He hadn't noticed this since. . .well, since before he began his anti-depressant regimen back in the winter.  For many months it seemed Bill had never bothered to look at his fingers and push the cuticles back down, as he had always done in the past.    
            For Bill this was startling: while on Lexapro there had been far less focus on his body.  In his taking the little oblong blue pills, not only had he felt generally planned down, reduced, quieted—but he also had no wish to contemplate his hands, or any other part of him.  Now, off the Lexapro, it seemed his body had returned to him. 

            And the next morning, a Saturday, climbing out of bed naked, he found himself with an erection.  Bill stumbled over to look at himself in the bedroom mirror.  Hadn't done this in months either, possessing an erection and staring at himself.  Hadn't even been aware he was not doing it.  Today, here he was, possessing a body, with a keen morning cockstand.  And he wondered if this earlier lack of awareness in himself, and this lack of seeking out a mirror to look at himself, had made him more absent from himself—which was good, he guessed. 

            On Lexapro it seemed he claimed a more-vacant vessel, and this vacancy in him, well, yes, he was pleased not to be filled with himself, to not hear a hectoring self in him.  In addition, his speech and his gestures were slightly slower, more circumscribed when he was on Lexapro; day to day he was taking things a bit less hurriedly, never looking out ahead.  He was not telling himself bad stories either.  Less impatience and less ugly thoughts about his future.  Indeed, he could now think of some good things about being absent from himself, especially after his divorce and his ensuing loneliness—though now, with his body back, he was being ambushed by erections again, which was also good.  Ambushed by awareness, by blood, by focus. 

            There in the mirror, looking at his erection, Bill thought to himself: It's been so very long since I've had an erection, since I have—in the puerile words of my youth—manufactured "good wood," the high quality beam and hardness from ancient forests, from real desire, from real presence.  

            Bill was awed at his product, with it yanking up strenuously at him.  A succulent feeling in him, a fine sight.  But then, after he walked over to lie down in bed to begin gently pulling on himself, reveling in his body's return, the phone rang and he let it ring.  It was his ex-wife call-ing, and he listened to  her voice echo on the answering machine as she informed him she would be bringing Bill's son by in an hour, on this Saturday morning. 

            That was it: he was flat again, as soon as he heard her voice.  His cock died in his hand, and could not be rejuvenated. 

            The rest of the day Bill was dead between the legs.  Even that night, ready for bed, with his son asleep down the hall, when he tried to raise himself, to find an erection again, he couldn't.  But two days later his wife left town for a vacation.  After a couple days without seeing her, without having to think of her or hearing her on the phone, he found he was hard again in the morning.  So, a long session of masturbating commenced for him, for over an hour, without coming, with him drawing close then backing away, just like the old days.  It had all returned to him: his stiff cock finding a life of its own, the great joiner it had always been, seeming to connect him to the circling stars, the waiting years, as well as the bodies of every women he'd known and hadn't known.  On and on he went, imagining the hiss of his breath when he first entered a woman, or her desperate clutching of him, her legs folded behind him.  With his cock in his hand, he could actually imagine this, for the first time in many months.  Shocking. 

            His cock had returned, the joiner of deed, of distances, as well as the grinning and glittering stars. . .along with the revamped heart, the heart-muscle and its wish to pump—to pump blood through him and through his cock too, to help him rejoin women, rejoin life.  Off the Lexapro, it seems he had a heart again, and so he had blood, and a muscular cock.  Once more sperm now leaped from him--into empty air, it's true--but he had come, actually spurted, after nearly eight months.  In all those months he hadn't even thought of coming; it was an absence he had never missed. 

            Off the Lexapro he was up—at least as long as he didn't view his ex-wife or talk to her on the phone.  But once she was back in town from her vacation, once she stood in his living room to retrieve his son, he was flat again.  All the life drained out of him; all the blood seeped away.  He tried to not even look at her, not a glance, and to curtail his words, keeping his hand on the top of his son's head as if he were some kind of protection for him, some kind of talisman or amulet.  As long as he didn't look at her, or address her directly, he might have a chance.  He remember noting how ugly she looked.  Never used to feel that way, but with her leaving him, her affair, and then his flat cock, she had turned ugly.  Same features as before, but seen completely differently.  Glancing at her, he tried being objective, and he felt he was, but it was always the same: her eyes had become little angry slits, her cheeks now puffy and slack, her hair grotesque in its new coloration ("divorcée blond" as a friend of his called it, saying all women's hair color goes toward blond as soon as she divorces). 

            Bill tried to get her out of his house as soon as he could, and when he did he found himself in the bathroom, pants down, pulling at himself.  Nothing.  It was amazing, for the night before he had no problem.  He told himself to back off, not think about her, and try to block her out, and to figure out a way where he would have no contact with her.  Yet he had a son; unlike many divorced people who never see their ex-spouses again, he had to face her. . .to be somehow connected with her, unfortunately, for many years ahead.   

            Email might be the solution.  No phone calls anymore.  So, that's what he did, writing her emails, not phoning, and in about three or four days he was back.   But he was desperate, in the ensuing weeks, that he not lose himself, as he had during the last year when his wife left and he got on the Pro.  He felt that more use of his cock guaranteed still more use, just as he learned years ago with women, before he was married.  As a young man he had discovered that the more times he grew hard in a woman, day in and day out, the more easily and luxuriously he'd stiffen again.  It was perhaps a peculiarity with him: if he was assured of something he seemed to want it even more, perhaps because in his mounting comfort he grow more fearful he'd lose it.  In his case, it seemed absence did not make the heart grow fonder. . .instead it was presence that did the trick.   

            Still, he had no confidence that his stiffness would continue to ambush him, or, even more frighteningly, that he could actually find another woman.  He had engaged in a little bit of internet dating, but found that the women there were more interested in peering in at men's faces and reading their profiles than actually writing back, or going out on dates.  Then again, maybe his profile was not good, or his picture not attractive.  Either way, finding another woman seemed a difficult prospect.  Increasingly to Bill, his ex-wife's presence, even the very thought of her, seemed to guarantee he would never find another woman.  In the days he didn't see her, his heart could keep his circulation flowing, send it coursing through him, top to bottom.  But as soon as his wife appeared in his house he lost his circulation.  And without a circulation he simply could not unearth another woman, or stiffness; he had nothing to present to a woman, not even a breath to take, or a heart to beat. 

            Bill had his son, a dear and close boy named Jonah who was with him, sadly, only half the time, whose presence he looked forward to, and yet Jonah arrived at his house every two weeks alongside the presence Bill greatly feared.  So, could he arrange a way to never encounter his ex-wife, never speak to her?  Perhaps that would wholly return his body to him.  How would he do this, though, especially with a son who knew this divorce was not his father's idea?  Bill wished to preserve his son's balance and foundation by not bad-mouthing his mother, by not completely shunning her, even though she had treated him abominably. Somehow he must show Jonah that his father could continue to live his life, including being in her presence. . . 

            Yet he couldn't be in her presence.  Not if he was ever to discover a new woman, or have sex again, to ever find a heart or be wielding a fine erection again. 

            Bill told himself that in order to locate the heart he must keep pumping blood into his cock, into his very life.  His heart, he realized suddenly in a fit of exaggerated clairvoyance, existed to pump blood into his cock, to always create new cockstands for him, and to seek new women.  In fact, at age 41 and a hope for more kids, he knew if his heart couldn't pump blood and make a stiff cock, there would be no future bodies.  What a concept!  No women, no babies, no awesome repetition with sex—no in and out, in and out—without a stiff cock to plunge into her, embroil her.  And certainly no heaving breath and release as he himself was embroiled in sex. 

            Now, unfortunately, his ex-wife would never leave him.  She had been unfaithful to him, dumped him, abandoned him, yet she came by his house, like clockwork.  And she wanted to be friends too!  Her awfulness was astounding.  Whenever she entered his house—their former house—it felt as if she reached into him and gripped his heart in her fist and squeezed it dry, like she once squeezed his cock, though unlike his cock, she wanted to wreck his heart now, not prolong it and strengthen it like she once did with his cock.  
            When they had been dating and got engaged, and even for years after they were married, it was as if she wished to extend his prick in order to extend herself.  Without his stiffness in her she felt she wouldn't ever find herself, establish herself—not without the hook of his cock to snare her.  That's what she told him repeatedly.  Snare me with your hook, she'd say.  Make it real.   

            Then about a year ago that all ended; she went cold on him and found someone at work.  Seemed she had discovered someone else to make her real.  Now that she was gone, Bill was flat and, like her, began to suspect she had made him real too, and was now taking the realness away, destroying him.   

            The stiff cock, Bill realized, brought the woman, and not the other way around.  He used to think the woman brewed up the stiff cock in him.  Nope, instead the hard cock showed the world he was were ready, and that a women would pick him: gotta be stiff in order to be picked.  So what brings the stiff cock?  Bill had no idea.  He was was only aware of what takes it away.  In glory and trepidation the stiff cock stands over the world, embodying the active principal, the hustle and bustle that the world and that women require—and that the world subdues too, for motion and energy always dissipates.  To be the active principal is tenuous, at best, easily subjugated, easily stymied.  The cockstand is initiator—though it is fickle and prone to despair, prone to nerves and collapse if it lacks confidence and blood and heart.  Women know this instinctively.  They look for the man who stands, not the man who has fallen down.  Cunt finds its forte, its strength, when cock is up.  Cunt perhaps needs stiffness to have a reason; cunt, in order to continue itself, to continue the world, is not forced to stand and, in its standing, risk its mortal enemy: falling.  With cunt, there is less to go wrong, because less is asked of it, though cunt, of course, can always find more than enough in itself or in the world to go wrong, to despair. 

            Still, without stiffness in the world, women are reduced to a world of vibrators; perhaps that's all the world is now: legions of vibrators humming.  life is reduced to a world of women with their vibrators.  Still, even with stiff cock, as many as half of women find difficulty finding orgasms.  But if there's no stiff cock then essentially there is nothing at all in the world.  Cock, and its standing, is the moving blood of life. 

            Bill couldn't believe it—his saying this to himself, repeating it often.  It came from where, exactly?  He'd never thought about this before.  But maybe when you're flat, Bill told himself, is when you see the world best.  Or maybe that's when you see the world worst, see it as a blind man.  Seeing nothing, knowing nothing, not even your own pain and what causes it.

Miserably for Bill, witnessing his ex-wife, even for a minute, he felt a sloughing away of life in him, of emotion, of blood.  At these moments there was no blood moving in him.  I'm dead, a zombie, he told himself, as I shamble forward, arms out, feeling nothing, frozen in my limbs. 

            So one late night, when his son Jonah wasn't with him, Bill decided he must find a live woman.  He was fearful that nothing would change, despite his stiff cock vibrating keenly in his hand now that he was off Lexapro.  This confidence here in his hand always felt short-lived, temporary, for soon he would have to once more confront his wife's face.  But perhaps a woman other than his wife could set him straight.  He didn't want a date, for that was too difficult on the internet.  Bars were too difficult too.  Middle-aged women, whether on the internet or in life on the streets, didn't really want to date, they only hoped to fall instantly in love and sprawl there, wallowing in a man's total commitment and focus, even before they'd met a man.  The whole process seemed backwards: they couldn't go to a man unless they already loved him.  Though maybe, Bill thought, they were like him: they were looking for their heart, and not finding it.

            So he called up an escort service.  This was only a couple hours after he had gone by his wife's house to drop off their son, whereupon she and he briefly argued about finances and her unending ability to spend money, which had become a major problem in their marriage, and contributed greatly to its dissolution.  It seemed that if money was spent by her she somehow felt she was still loved, or in love.  If the money was not spent, then there was no love. 

            Their little argument about money and child support, with no heated words, lasted a total of five minutes, before he broke it off—but when they were done Bill felt laid low.  So, like a scientist, he wanted to establish some kind of baseline: a new woman, any new woman's body, perhaps would yank him sufficiently back into his body.  With a real woman, even a prostitute, he could find the strength to keep a hard cock, even when he had very recently been in proximity to the Gorgon.  

            He wanted this to happen away from his house, so Bill got a hotel room and made his call, to one of nearly a dozen escort agencies in the city.  He was shocked, and then quickly not shocked at the number; perhaps there were many men who had to escape from the flattening in their lives, the loss of a heart.  And he picked a woman who would be very much unlike his wife.  "Make her a bit punk," he said on the phone, not knowing where this had come from, though he remembered his early love for punk music when he was in his 20s.  

            A half hour later, when the perky young hooker, with her spiked hair and tattoos, knelt in front of him in his fresh-smelling hotel room, he could not get hard.  Surprisingly he wasn't too bothered with this.  The failure made sense, unfortunately.  Bill then found himself saying to to the woman that he would try it it again after a few days had passed.  "I think I'll locate it," he said, finding the humor.  "It's kind of like looking for a wallet I misplaced.  It's around here somewhere." 
           His humor and distance was very surprising.  Again, he wasn't sure where it came from. 

And she nodded blankly at him, perhaps having heard this many times before from men.  

            In the days afterwards there was no contact with his ex-wife, and Bill brought himself up repeatedly in his hand, as if practicing, or, better yet—as if working out in a weight room, raising his heart rate.  Now he felt confident he could get hard again with his escort girl, so he called the service up and asked for the same girl.  Soon there she was, standing in front of him in the same room, the punk girl with her jelled hair, a short purple skirt and a dark t-shirt emblazoned with the words: Who, Me?

            Very appropriate.  Yes, you. 

            "Time has passed," he said to her, like some wayward poet, "the heart is now ready."

            She laughed, with no feeling in her voice, and still clothed.  "We all need a heart," she said, suddenly placing her fist over her breast, as if feeling her own heart.  She stood teetering in front of him in platform sandals, her toe nails painted black.

            Bill said, "Feel my heart."

            She wouldn't touch his chest.  Instead she said, "Let's just get things going." 

            But he insisted.  He said, "It's actually here, beating in his chest.  I haven't seen my ex-wife in five days, so now my heart thumps again.  I have confidence in the world, and in my heart: I can feel it pumping blood.  The heart is what gives me a hard-on.  It puts the muscle in my cock."

            "Oh, it's not me?" she asked, placing her hand on his chest. 

            And already, in his standing in the same room with her, looking at her, and also perhaps talking about his problem, he found he had a hard-on.  He said, "You arrive to make my cock complete its task, and to give it belief it can do it again later." 

            Lifting her hand from him and linking her arms up behind the back of her head as if she was a bit bored, she said, "It's a plan."  And he noticed, with her arms up, that her tight little black shirt had a skull and cross bones stenciled under each armpit.  What a message: death in the arm pits.  She was perfect for him. 

            He felt that if you're going to locate the body, perhaps you're going to confront death too.  Or maybe death came in the form of body odor?  Again, like her words on her shirt, it was a wonderful, sly touch.  This girl was full of messages to him. 

            So, here with a real woman standing in front of him, a woman slightly bored, he needed to see if he could stay hard and place himself in her, and maintain the heart. 

            "These days," he said to her, "I feel my blood will stop flowing at any second and I'll die." 

            She shrugged.  "You'll need CPR."

            Relieved by her rumor, he suddenly had an idea.  He said, "I want to see if just your presence is what does it for me.  I want to be naked, and you stay clothed.  Don't want you to touch me, at least not yet." 

            "So do it," she said, making undressing motions with her arms. 

            And when he was naked, standing in front of her, holding his semi-hard cock, he wanted to pursue his idea.  He said to her, "You be my wife: tell me you're leaving me.  Walk out the door.  I'm wondering if my heart will still beat." 

            They stood staring at each other.  Bill loved his brave words and his sense of play, given out to her cool, low-key disdain.  And he found himself pointing to the door, telling her, "Go ahead, leave, slam the door.  Tell me you're gone, and you don't love me.  I can take it." 

            "Let's quit with the bullshit," she said.   

            "Do it, please," he said.  "Then come back through the door.  I'm sorry—I'm not into weirdness, but I just now thought of this.  Leave and count to ten, then return."  

            She did what he asked, saying, with some vehemence as she opened the door,  "I'm leaving you," and even giving him the finger.  And in the few seconds that she was gone, he stood there, naked, wondering about himself, gripping himself, while with his other hand he touched his chest to feel his beating heart.  And in those few seconds Bill sensed it was his cock that was the heart, that his cock actually was pumping blood to his heart.  Perhaps it was the cock that was the heart's heart, the cock created the heart and everything else?

            When she came back in, seeing him with his hands—one hand touching his chest, the other cradling his still-erect cock, she was smirking.  "Success," she said flatly, with just the hint of a smile.  
            "A frontier has been crossed." 

            "Okay," she said, kicking off her heavy sandals, making them tumble on the carpet.  "Let's." 

            Soon he found her sitting atop him on the bed, his cock sprung rigidly in her as she moved her hips on him.  But then, with Bill understanding what was happening to him—that he was joined to a woman for the first time in over a year—he felt himself beginning to fade.  

            And with her feeling him fade in her too, she leaned over him, and began performing CPR on him, pounding on his chest and crying, "Live, damn it, live."  

            She didn't quite believe in showing her humor: no smile on her face, and she wouldn't even look at him.  But these motions of hers and her words were very funny. 

            So he pretended he was dying.  "Bring me back," he whispered to her.  "It's getting dark, too dark to see. . ." 

            He wanted to laugh as they enacted their routine, but seeing her blank face he couldn't manage a laugh.   Instead he allowed his head to loll, and he shut his eyes, though he was now raging in her, a re-stiffened bow. 

            "Maybe he's brain dead," she sneered, reaching behind herself, gripping him.  "The brain is gone, but the prick is right here. . ." 

            "Only want body," he mumbled.  "Want no brain telling me bad stories." 

            "Maybe cock tells all the stories," she said. 

            "Body is here," he whispered, sighing deeply for her to see.  "Now the wife is gone for good." 

            "Famous last words," she said.  "The wife is never gone."    

            He liked this hooker, how she was standing up to him, arguing with him, and playing along, and of course she was right: his ex-wife would never leave his life.  But here, inside this woman, he felt he had a fighting chance. 

            He asked her, trying to provoke her, "But what would you do without men's wives?"

            "I'd be out of work," she said.  "But wives don't go away." 

            Then he told her about his rediscovery of his cuticles on his fingers, how they'd returned to him, along with everything else.  "And now, rising like my cuticles, I'm lifting a stiff cock into a woman.  I'm brought back to life." 

            "No, you're not," she said, still pushing on his chest.  "Your heart could still give out at any second." 

            Shaking his head at her, he said, "I think you've broken the spell." 

            She was smiling, with her spiked hair and her tattoo on her shoulder and on her lower belly and back.  "But who knows really?  Everything's temporary." 

            "Now I just need to come. . ." 

            "So come." 

            "Then I can die after I come.  I don't care." 

            "That's what they all say," she told him.  "But they just keep on living."  She laughed, for the first time tonight.  "And after the divorce they get married again."  

            He said, "Just like I will want to come again, after this first time with you.  The heart always creates one more beat."  Then he said to her, grabbing her hand to place it on his chest, "My heart, feel my heart; it's been brought alive by my cock." 

            "Whatever you say, big guy," as she slapped her hand to his chest, imitating him.    

A week later, back in his living room with his wife, Bill stood facing her, his son at his side.  He felt ready for her.  He'd been busy for the last two days having dialogues with himself, telling himself to be brave, trying to assure himself that he would survive this, survive the next months, though these dialogues were only part of his repertoire, for he was also telling himself he couldn't go on, couldn't stand the loneliness, or his ex-wife's face.  With a stiff cock—and off the Lexapro—came the downside of it all: his surety that he could not tolerate the future.  Bleak words to himself.  But he had kept visiting his hooker and gripping his erection while he had his bad thoughts, or as he eyed the bottle of Lexapro in his medicine cabinet.  There in the bottle was the way to no bad words, no more worries—and no more body, and no stiff cock or orgasm.  No more woman crouched over him, beating her thighs at him, telling him, as his hooker did, that he'd be back to her, or to some other woman. 

            He knew he had to keep away from the pills and also, unfortunately, keep reciting his ugly words about himself, as he held his cock, with it feeling as if it were a kind of shield against his bad words. . .or a pump to keep the blood flowing.  Because maybe the faster the blood flowed the more he could stand up to the world, and his bad words, as well as to his ex-wife.  The more he could keep his heart a strong muscle, a muscle getting strong use, with lots of reps, all courtesy of his cock which kept him standing, kept him wheezing, kept the blood pumping.  How very much his heart depended on his cock, and how he did too, to stand up to his ex-wife. 

            Addressing himself to his ex-wife in his living room, he asked her a question about their son: "Did you pack his dark pants?"

            He was holding the travel bag she had brought with Johan's belongings, as his poor son slunk away from them to his room, preferring not to be around when his parents talked, when his parents stood together, soon to separate, as his mother had wished.  

            Bill said to her, "I think he told you he has a concert tomorrow night at school; he needs his good pants.  Also, he prefers the electric tooth brush.  He told me you'd pack it this time."

            His face was held level to her, his voice even.  Though he didn't want to do it, he couldn't help touching himself through his pants.  Everything was still very tenuous, though his heart beat strongly.  His cuticles were all pushed down.  He was present.  He waited for her reply.