Sometimes when a friend makes some kind of sexual overture it feels hard, a tug back, a shortening
of the rope keeping your bullshit at bay but there, still, behind you. Imagine walking across an A-
road, you are in London, so it’s no joke, and for some reason, someone sees you coming, and slows
down – not so slow it wouldn’t hurt if they hit you, but not so fast that they’re not trying to make
some kind of point. You’re being offered something you could want, and there’s enough pressure on
the point for the blade to press uncomfortably against your maybe sixth rib down and it’s not fun
any more and you have no time and everyone’s staring at you, I say everyone I mean they are and
you are, on some level, just watching, and it feels like time is passing but also really nothing has
happened at all yet because the whole decision’s collapsed now into something you know,
something that you’ve done before, some groove or rut that reasons itself. I get the same feeling
when I have just watched myself eat twelve chocolate orange slices in a row and my throat is
burning and not even the first one tasted of anything but cardboard but my response is always
totally different then and here it’s always the same.
