I've been watching "The Treatment" this evening. A vur' clever little Chris Eigeman film. Witty, smart, fun. Chris Eigeman's character is at the mercy of a possibly-imaginary Argentine psychoanalyst. I'll note that Buenos Aires is a stronghold of Lacanian analysis--- always a scary thought.

I've never had an Argentine analyst, not even an imaginary one. I did once have an ex-Argentine cavalry officer show me how to use a sabre and a lance on horseback. I think that may be better for me than having an analyst who says things like---

Dr. Ernesto Morales: "I suppose, maybe, I guess." Constructing passive sentences is a way of concealing your own testicles lest someone cut them off.

or...

Dr. Ernesto Morales: I am the last great Freudian, Mr. Singer! The last in a line stretching from Moses to Aristotle, to Cicero, to Milton. Moral visionaries!

Still... I do identify with Chris Eigeman's characters in his films, all the way back to "Metropolitan". I'm a major Whit Stillman fan, and Eigeman is perfect for Stillman's style. I bought Stillman's own novel--- "The Last Days of Disco, With Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards" (2000) ---and I heard Eigeman's voice all through the book. I do identify with Eigeman's characters--- and I probably do look a bit like him. I need his ability to wear tweed jackets well, but I do look like him. I just wonder what that might mean to lovely, literate girls...

There's a critical study of Stillman's films called "Doomed Bourgeois in Love", and Chris Eigeman fits in perfectly. I do wonder if girls see me in a Stillman-esque category--- and what that might mean.

The rather intriguing Fifidellabon at Diaryland wrote me to ask if I remembered places in New Haven: Mamoun's, Durfee's, Clark's, Clare's Corner Kitchen... Yes--- absolutely. I do remember getting falafel at Mamoun's at two in the morning and getting sundaes at Durfee's. There was always a Lorna Doone there in the sundae; I'll always remember that. Kefta kebab at Mamoun's...perfect at two in the morning. I wonder if Fifi remembers Naples Pizza... And of course I wonder what she was doing in New Haven...

There are people I miss out there on the aether, people who've gone to join the Missing. Kelsey at clush vanished, and so did Christian at McEarstix. Katy V. in San Antonio, too. And Winona at phryx. Jessica at CityOfGlass. Libet at Aeka. All of them among the Missing. I miss them. And I'll miss Adelie at soft_melodies, too... I'll miss soft_melodies' tales of Paris, and her thoughts about travel and returns...

I do hate it when voices on the aether go silent. I hate it when blogs go silent, or when they vanish. I hate it when Stories go silent.

Lissy at emigree writes about lying naked in bed with her soldier-lover and talking about discovering and embracing her own sexuality. Lissy is a lovely and passionate and talented girl--- I do hope she can explore her own sexual skills and sexual delights...

I do envy Lissy access to trains--- Amtrak runs through Baltimore. She can try train sex, just as Jess at bella_sumision and Ioana at winterbymorning can try train sex in Europe. Lissy writes of going by train to Montauk to rendezvous with a lover. I've been going over train routes in my head; I can't remember how to get from Baltimore to Montauk. I can't remember Montauk at all--- Long Island is a memory I've lost.

Barry Gifford's novel "Landscape With Traveler"... That does make me think of a Long Island of myth. Andrew Holleran's "In September the Light Changes" does, too.

Lissy whispered to her soldier-lover that she'd spent time caressing herself on the train, delighting in her own wickedness and courage:

'So,' you said, 'did you really do that on the train?'

I played coy. 'Do what?'

'You know---' increasing the pressure of your fingers, 'This.'

'I did.'

'You're a bit of an exhibitionist.'

'Yes. Is that strange?'

'No, no. I really like it.'

You asked me to tell you all the places I had done it, all the circumstances of threatened privacy, all the risks of getting caught. I kissed your ear as I finished, whispering, 'I only thought about you when I did.'

You groaned softly and my body tensed in the beginning stages of orgasm. 'What would you have done if you had been on the train with me?' I asked.

'Of course I would have helped you, my love. We would have curled up under a big blanket and made like we were sleeping.'

'It was crowded.'

'All the better for a challenge.'

'Perhaps we could have made to read a newspaper.'

'Perhaps I would have bought us business class seats so we could have more privacy.'

Every touch felt much more intense than before when we talked like this. I felt like I was letting you into a part of me I was afraid you would never see. I loved the way you so eagerly embraced my sexuality, the way you would weave stories with me.

'We should take a late night train down from Montauk,' you said, 'Nearly empty. Would you like that?'

Another spasm hit. I groaned and thrust my pelvis against your fingers. 'And if our hotel has a balcony, one that overlooks the ocean. I will bring you out at dawn and lay you down, and we can be slow and sleepy.'

My hands gripped your arm hard. 'And the ocean, of course. We'll find a place near the tall dune grass, bring a blanket, make love under the moonlight.'

You spoke about our old spot, a large flat rock by the lake in Pennsylvania, where last summer we would kiss for hours well into the dusk. I suggested the floor-to-ceiling stalls in the bathroom of Vantaa Airport in the early morning when the place is empty.

'What if we took a walk up to your school again one warm night?' you said.

'The stone archway.'

'Yes. It's dark in there. You could lead me into a corner.'

'You would have me against the wall...'

'Liss.' You pulled my chin down to be level with yours and kissed me deeply. 'I never knew you thought like this.'

'But I do. I like stories.'

'Why it never occured to me, I don't know. You're a literate girl. A literate, brazen, sexual girl.'

'Will you really do those things with me?'

'You have no idea how much I look forward to it.'

I miss those conversations. I miss the conversations more than the sex. There was a time when girls saw me as a way to explore Wickedness and Adventures. Lacey told me that--- that my great skill was making girls believe that they had the ability to find delights in the dark, to be able to explore their own passion. The Lost Liz Farrell told me that, too. And Ms. Chang. I lack so many things--- any of the things that SATC girls might want. Looks, ripped abs, social standing, a black AmEx, an Audi A-6, a career. What I used to have was a voice. I'm not fond of my voice as such--- too nasal, too light, possibly inflected (or infected) with a regional accent. But I could be a voice on the aether. I could be a voice in the dark that spoke to girls and persuaded them to explore the idea of wicked delights.

That was my one clear skill--- building scenarios, building memory palaces for lovely girls. Not just late at night, I suppose. I was good at lecturing to classes, good at calling up other worlds and times for students. I knew how to do that--- to build memory palaces and walk my students through them. I've spent a lifetime living inside my head, telling myself stories of other lives and other places. I could talk students into being there on the Kahlenberg in 1683, arming to ride to repulse Kara Mustafa before Vienna, or being there with Octavian after Actium... I could do that. And once upon a time I could talk girls into believing in themselves and their own passions.

I don't know where Vantaa Airport is. That just occurred to me.

I miss conversations about erotic games and scenarios and the possibilities of delight. I miss the look in a girl's eyes there in a hotel bed when she begins to thrill to the idea of being Wicked. "You made me think I could do...anything," Lacey wrote me. Katy V. spun out months of stories from her Incestuous Siblings fantasy, stories that carried her from violated middle-school girl up through university and running away with her Imaginary Older Brother to live together in San Francisco and find a Happy Ending ("Reader, I married him..."). I miss being able to construct Stories. I miss being valued--- if not as a lover-in-the-flesh, then at least as a guide to memory palaces.

Emily at iminhell tells me that the Gramercy Park is her favourite NYC hotel for hotel sex. I do need to have lovely girls tell me about their favourite hotel-sex hotels, about Adventures and Encounters they've had or want to have. Gramercy Park... I am thinking of the Rose Bar and the Jade Bar there, of lovely girls having drinks there and picking up Beautiful Strangers... I'll have to ask Emily--- is the passion fruit mojito the correct Jade Bar drink for seductions?

The lost soft_melodies introduced me to the phrase "lost girls and love hotels". There's a novel (Catherine Hanrahan) with that title... I do wonder if Alessandra at bel_ebat or Lissy at emigree have read it... It's in the same genre as "Stratosphere Girl" or Gralla's "The Floating World". I've been recommending Elaine Dundy's "The Dud Avocado", and now I hope I can recommend "Lost Girls and Love Hotels" and get feedback...

I do keep thinking of Chris Eigeman's characters in "Metropolitan" and "The Treatment" and "The Last Days of Disco"... They are rather like me. Though I don't know whether that's good or bad.

But I will miss reading soft_melodies...