1
I’m a misandrist and a misogynist, I’ve got no patience for men or for women—I mean, nothing against them, as they say, I just don’t want anything to do with them, I never have anything to talk about, and I feel constantly like I’m being patronizing, either that or it’s them patronizing me. But I’m not a misanthrope, ’cause I do like gay men. They’re the one type of human you can properly get along with as equals. I just don’t feel comfortable in the milieu I got assigned to at birth. Just the thought of marriage and kids, the whole thing makes me want to puke. Biology is not destiny. Right here I could reel off all the reasons I’ve come to that conclusion, but it would sound dumb, and dated, and most of all I’d set myself up right off the bat looking like one of those idiot girls who just want a gay best friend of their very own. Gays aren’t pets. Seriously, get with it. And so, just to be clear I’m not one of those women, I’ll drop a word in Pajubá—intermediate level ideally, ’cause the basic words even my mom would know and advanced vocabulary would look like I’m trying way too hard. Either that or I’ll decide to tell some meaningful story, kind of like that time two of my friends who didn’t know each other were fucking in one of the Berghain darkrooms. Hey, aren’t you a friend of Vivian’s? one of them asked, I don’t know what stage they’d gotten to at the time. It’s good being part of a group. But whatever, I’ve got to get a grip on my anxiety, not go firing off these coded messages, sometimes even in the first few minutes of a conversation, ’cause a person who belongs is chill, they’re not making any effort to project an image, they just feel at home, and I really want to feel at home.
For a long time, I was living between Rio and São Paulo, depending on the job, sometimes permanent, sometimes temporary, always erratic, unstable, badly paid, when it was paid at all. But I’d put myself through it anyway, since each one of those experiences would represent gold stars on my résumé. I’m a freelance curator, I’ve worked in galleries, biennials, museums, studios, I’ve assisted on major exhibitions, been sole producer of smaller but significant shows, I write art crit for magazines and newspapers, here as well as abroad. And then people congratulate me, my parents give me some gift or other, like a trip to Berlin, a Comme des Garçons wallet, a Francesca Woodman photograph. I don’t work with painters, or photographers, because they’re straight, and every now and then the whole thing totally goes to shit, even if some of them can be charming, with that typical artist’s self-confidence. And before I know it I’m fucking the guy at the opening of his exhibition, locked in the gallery restroom, sharing a line from the night before, at eleven on a Saturday morning. When it’s over, they always emerge even more self-confident, after a quickie with a girl ten years younger, and I almost never come. Which is why I always preferred other kinds of artists, who, sure, they might also be narcissists, but at least they’re fun, so they don’t bring along any risk of emotional mishaps.
When my thirtieth birthday was coming up, my parents bought me an apartment in Botafogo, two bedrooms, hardwood floors, ninety square meters, twenty-four-hour doorman. And as a bonus, they also lent me a Sergio Rodrigues ‘Mole’ armchair (the dog had chewed some of the leather, they were supposed to take it back when they found a good upholsterer, but I think they’ve forgotten, it’s already been two years now). It looked good next to that huge João Silva photograph. That was a gift—I mean, I paid for the printing and the frame, but now my house has one more work of art, and it’s from the same series they’ve got at MALBA. That period coincided with an upgrade of my résumé. From then on, the one single criterion for choosing jobs was how they contributed to my career, disregarding any financial considerations. And if the budget got a bit squeezed, whatever that meant, well, I’d just rent out the apartment for a couple weeks and hang in my family’s spare apartment down in São Paulo. This plan was especially lucrative during Carnaval and New Year’s. That way, I got money for several months, which would allow me a break for a vacation, perhaps taking a course abroad, and, I dunno, maybe some Botox.
The apartment was perfectly located, it had vendors out on the street 24-7, always well stocked up with Heinekens. Darlene, whose spot was right in front of my place, told me the other side of the road was dangerous, there’s even been an execution, she said, grim business. I didn’t worry, I reckoned maybe she was just trying to scare off the competition. Having your own place is such an utter joy, I get to choose the color of the bedroom wallpaper, I turn what used to be the maid’s room into a spacious closet, I’ve got a kitchen just off the living room, noise-proof windows. I wanted to leave the bathroom almost identical to how it was originally ’cause I do love that aesthetic, that whole 1950s middle-class vibe. I don’t understand this universe of yours, with apartments just kind of appearing out of nowhere, said Marina Falcão. Every week we’d improvise some little party, I’d supply the fridge, the bags of ice, the speaker, the red light bulb, and everyone would bring their own drinks, their own drugs, their playlists of choice. The elderly neighbors would complain sometimes, but no biggie, like Alex used to say: They’ll be dead soon enough … either that, or they’ll have been gentrified out. Alex was responsible for bringing along the new generation of alt nightlife queers, every one of them so proud of their little acts of subversion, their colorful earrings, pink fingernails, maybe a distinctly feminine outfit, something I approve of and encourage. It makes the cast more diverse, it enriches the ambience.
That day, I’d organized a dinner here at home for my closest friends, after which we’d be going to a rave where Rodrigo was DJing. I was so glad he’d come out, including to his family, who were even more conservative than mine and who’d previously had high hopes we’d get married. A few years ago, he actually proposed that we start a fake relationship just so his parents would give him a break. And as a bonus, we’d get an awesome party and the use of their place in Paris. The possibility of a conventional heteronormative life did even seem a bit tempting then, for like fifteen minutes, but no more than that. In my opinion, Rodrigo should have dumped his school friends, those idiots who worked in finance, to meet more interesting people in the art world.
Rodrigo’s set was going to be the last of the night, not till morning, so we left home around two. The rave wasn’t in some dark, noisy little dive, with lasers, strobe lights, projections—it was free entry, in a square close to the Banco do Brasil Cultural Center. In reality the square was a kind of public courtyard with a fence and only one way in, with two security guards to make sure the numbers stayed under control, hand out bracelets, and keep an eye out for trouble. A specific niche, the wealthy gay crowd, mostly white, who despise traditional symbols of ostentation and are allied to progressive, liberal values, not necessarily those of the left, at least not in economic terms. As usual, there were vendors selling drinks outside the rave while people waited to get in.
To my surprise, Darlene, the vendor from my street, was there, though not selling beers, but caipirinhas. Next to her, a bad-tempered old man was selling Heinekens. I gave her a wave, smiling, and shouted: Hi! João Silva left our spot to give her a hug, kiss her cheek, ask about her son. He could do shit like that without sounding patronizing; I couldn’t. Which was why I preferred to be more discreet, maintain a more professional relationship, customer and vendor, scared I might say something stupid. And maybe ’cause in my head she worked outside my house every day, I hadn’t even noticed that on Saturdays she was somewhere else, she was someone else. And I certainly didn’t know anything about Darlene’s family. The line shuffled forward a few meters, but soon stalled, leaving us level with her mobile caipirinha stall. I thought you might be here! João Silva said. What the hell, João Silva lived in São Paulo, how come he knew Darlene’s professional itinerary? All this just from the times he’d been downstairs to buy beers at those parties at my place? It was taking forever to get in. Forty minutes without moving. Still, whatever, we were kept distracted, chatting with Darlene. She remembered details from before, asked about how earlier events had unfolded. She was smart, quick, funny, clued-in, even kinda cultured; she spoke our language, she wasn’t evangelical, she voted PSOL. The conversation was so enjoyable, nobody noticed the sudden arrival of the municipal police.
At first, nobody was too stressed about it, they were always harmless enough, but we were at a point in Brazilian politics when things were starting to get weird. The police van that appeared in front of us was not much different from those used by the more imposing, BOPE-style special squads. Five men with puffed-up chests positioned themselves in front of the line, radiating a hostility that was emphasized by their nightsticks, which were larger than usual. First they tackled the bad-tempered old man, taking all his beers, putting them in the back of the van. Hey, that’s stealing! yelled Marina Falcão, and the rest of the line agreed, with jeering so intense it muffled the sound of Italo disco from inside. This didn’t seem to hold the police officers back. On the contrary, it seemed to considerably increase their fervor, and they started to advance on Darlene real aggressively. Her cocktail-making gear got smashed up, along with her bottles of cachaça, which were tossed onto the ground. Darlene shouted and tried to extricate herself from the grip of the man holding her arm, and in retaliation received a whack from a nightstick. Alex tried to intervene, to put his body between them, with his earrings, his painted nails, his purple eye shadow, and he also took some blows, on his leg, his arm, and when he tried to retreat to us, his ribs. He wasn’t the only partygoer to take a stand, but the beating was directed only at him. In all the commotion, somebody threw a canister of tear gas at the feet of the people in the line, a meter away from the municipal police.
The security guards working the rave rushed everyone inside. Only the vendors were left on the street. Maybe the cops were intimidated by the idea of going into a party for the elites, it could have been for their own protection. It never even crossed our minds that the vendors might have been there to attend the rave themselves. In theory it was a free event, and there was no reason they should have stayed outside, especially because, by that point, their drinks had been confiscated. But there was a mutual understanding, silent and unanimous, that they did not belong in that setting, and that was all.
Alex went home, slightly injured but okay, and the rest of us stayed at the rave through dawn, since the acid had already started to take effect. Forget about it, Vivian, said Marina Falcão. But the moment I’d gone in, I knew something serious was still happening outside. I tried, unsuccessfully, to make my way back through the people who were crowding in. The protective railings, along with my poor eyesight, worsened by the tear gas, obscured my view. A shape was writhing, struggling to move, nearly on the opposite corner. I sensed it might be Darlene. Had she been beaten extra violently in those ten minutes of confusion when everyone—that is, all of us, the usual partygoers—was pouring into the square? Or was it just some tramp, a street kid, a crackhead? Maybe. Ten minutes is long enough for one hell of a beating. But if it was Darlene, somebody in the line would surely have yelled, would have protested, and not just followed my steps in toward the Italo disco beats.
2
We were a group of twenty friends, if not more, some genuinely talented, others in vaguely creative professions, all successful, all photogenic, all kinda nice-looking if not extremely nice-looking, which is something that matters to me. The most significant among them, at least in my life, were João Silva, Alex, Marina Falcão, and now Rodrigo. I might not be the best art curator, but I know for sure I’m the best curator of people. That’s my proudest work. It’s allowed me to create the life path I’ve always wanted. Sometimes when we’re all together I feel like I’m the main character in an imaginary movie that takes place over the course of a single night. The blue and red lights on the dance floor, which we often re-create in our homes, reduce our physical defects and highlight our best qualities, and we can pretend we are perfect. But sometimes my morning-after memory retains only those scenes I’d rather discard: all my excessive effort shows through, like an actress who never disappears into her part, too worried about getting recognition for her performance, and that’s pathetic. I’d love to be naturally the person I seem to be.
The other day, at the end of an after-party, I think it was Monday, I was chatting with one of those friends, finishing a few leftover lines on the dining table while watching the morning sun gain in strength. Both of us wearing shades, smoking at the window, my red lipstick still solid, my black lace bra acting as a bikini top, silk blouse hanging from the bookcase, high-waisted pants hiding the bit of flab on my stomach, which wasn’t exactly photogenic in that brightness. Over the course of the night, we’d gone downstairs at least three times to buy beers, this time on the other side of the street. Having an after-party on a weekday is super classy, I always think it’s subversive, anti-capitalist. Or maybe it’s an aristocratic habit, something only the rich do, I couldn’t say, maybe somewhere between the two? Alex was in the study, deep in a spanking session with the door wide open, I couldn’t even go to the bathroom down the hall for fear of glimpsing his upturned little butt. Might have been, I dunno, some artist friend of João Silva’s, maybe? I couldn’t even keep up a conversation with the one remaining guest who still had half a bag of cocaine, ’cause every few words we’d hear this “Pam! Pam! Pam!” like somebody was punctuating our sentences. In those days, some variation of that scenario was a frequent occurrence, in the pantry, in the utility area, in the maid’s room, on the living-room sofa, to the point that it started irritating me, since I’d only just moved in and hadn’t even had my own first go on the bed with anybody, and there was Alex, scoring more sexual partners than me.
For the first two years, I kept myself busy exclusively with Luiz Felipe: engineer, pothead, surfer, vegan. A Copacabana boy, angelic face, who meditates every morning, dreams of traveling around the world, selling his car, going everywhere by bicycle, public transport at most. He’s not the most attractive man I’ve ever had sex with, he’s kinda dumb, charmless. His good looks are standard, they’re sort of Rio Classic, the type you find by the dozen on the beaches, tanned, curly blond hair, blue eyes, with the naive self-confidence of someone who was the best-looking boy in school but didn’t know how to, or chose not to, make the most of it. Luiz Felipe is unpretentious—he quotes self-help books with Eastern leanings, sometimes he’ll give me one as a gift and believe me when I tell him I loved it, when in reality I mock his literary repertoire behind his back, reading bits aloud to entertain guests, laughing through the early hours at his superstitions, then snorting coke off the cover of a Deepak Chopra. But one way or another, that philosophy must have some effect, ’cause there’s a kind of wisdom in that boy I can’t pin down.
On the sofa at my place, before I unbutton his pants, during our standard five-minute chat, he would confess his overburdened conscience, how all he wanted was to contribute to the world, do something positive. But if he quit his job for some more altruistic venture, without his salary from the construction firm, he wouldn’t then be able to realize his dream of surfing in Australia. I would kiss him, hold his dick, shut him up. He does have the most beautiful body in the world, just well-defined enough, strong but lean. The message I wrote after our first meeting was: This is Vivian, from last Saturday. I’ve got a bottle of wine at home and four hours to fuck. Luiz Felipe answered yes, asked my address, the time, no hesitation. He’s different from the others, he doesn’t call me beautiful, only hot, or sometimes “you little slut.” I like it, I find it just sweet enough, even affectionate, sort of tender, kind of adorable. Is it possible that I fell in love with a guy with such a dull profile just because he slapped me, because he spat on me while we fucked and happened to have a special talent for fisting? I always said my greatest fear was to end up married to an investment banker, but a civil engineer might actually be worse, it’s just so generic. The first time we fucked, I cried in my cab home, 5 a.m., after seven uninterrupted hours of sex. It was almost romantic, the city lights at night, the back seat of the car, my recent memories, the whole sense of novelty, like something special had happened that might not happen again, and there was Roxette playing, or it could have been some other band but let’s pretend it was Roxette. Statistics show it’s normal for a woman not to experience orgasm till age thirty, and I’m fine with that, I’m not frigid, repressed, someone who’s just in desperate need of a proper fuck. Luiz Felipe says I’m the only girl who doesn’t get scandalized by his fantasies, but I’m not sure I believe him. I’d be waiting for him all week, like a nice monogamous girl, while he must be out dancing forró, kissing some basic girls with no personality, with their mundane chatter, their tacky little blouses, standard-issue femininity, probably totally square in bed, conventional as their ordinary appearance, or at least that’s what I’d like to think.
Luiz Felipe said that one time he’d invited a buddy of his to join him in fucking his then girlfriend and they double-penetrated her. The idea turned me on, but he didn’t feel comfortable about fucking again with another guy around. So I had to content myself with having a vibrator in the role of the extra element. It wasn’t as thrilling as I expected. Still, over the course of our encounters, we went on doing it, maybe in the hope that it might, at a certain point, suddenly become spectacular. Except that one day, instead of an orgasm, I had to deal with getting the vibrator stuck inside my anus. My first attempt to retrieve it ended up making things worse, and I thought, ugh, I’m so fucked now, it’s going into my gut. I couldn’t stop thinking about Sylvia Plath. The character in my favorite book has this hemorrhage when she loses her virginity. She needs to go to the hospital with the boy, who’s a stranger. It was the fifties, I explained, scared I might suffer the same fate, but he’d never heard of Sylvia Plath. Finally, after around fifteen minutes of contorting, me trying to reach for the vibrator up my ass, while he was pushing on it from inside my vagina, it all worked out, I didn’t need to go to the hospital, and we went back to fucking.
I was sure I’d never see Luiz Felipe again after that. There was a three-week hiatus between the double-penetration incident and our next contact—it was horrible, I got anxious, I felt guilty. It was the only time he didn’t message to ask if I’d gotten home okay. Maybe the most important things in a relationship are horniness, respect, and affection, along with communication that’s clear, light, and effortless. I think other people’s opinion is secondary next to what happens à deux. I was even missing the white porcelain floor of his little apartment on Rua Constante Ramos. But Luiz Felipe had only gone away to visit with his grandparents in the interior of Minas Gerais. When I told him about my paranoia, he laughed and said something like: What BS!
Our weekly encounters, which became ever more surprising and exuberant, somehow managed to relax my normally rigid judgments and make me pay attention to what he said. Luiz Felipe gave no signs that might make me consider him an intelligent guy. Which is why it was a surprise whenever I did get to see him as kind of sensitive and observant. Our exchanges, even the most existential, almost philosophical ones, were more fluid than those with the photographer whose work I admired, or with the screenwriter of my favorite movie, both of them failed relationships, in sexual as well as emotional terms. I liked the idea of being with those men, that was the sort of couple I imagined for myself. Except that when it happened, it wasn’t actually all that cool, I got mistreated. With Luiz Felipe, the whole thing was good, the chat, the kissing, the sex, the spooning. Even the morning after, which was always an awkward moment with other guys, was lovely—he’d make breakfast, the best green juice in the world, then head out to surf while I got a few more hours of sleep.
Luiz Felipe knows he’s the best sex of my life, that I’d never come so intensely, that my exes were selfish in bed as in life, and he can’t get why I stayed with them. Luiz Felipe said if the best thing about those guys was their photos or their movies, wouldn’t it be smarter just to keep those, the way you do with other artists who are already dead, or like, living in some other country? I felt so adolescent when he said this, you idiot, idiot, idiot. This isn’t the best sex of my life because you call me a little slut, or because of the orgasms, I told him. It’s the best sex of my life because it’s like I’m returning home—not to the home where I grew up, with all its rigid rules, but to another home, beyond my unconscious, like I’m returning to a place I truly belong, a place where I was before being born. Luiz Felipe hugged me, kissed me, we had sex one more time, and I experienced that same feeling again, even more powerfully.
Maybe being so totally dazzled sexually was affecting my cognitive judgment, not least because every conversation happened in gaps between the sex, the two of us naked in bed, our bodies intertwined. Marina Falcão would say I was in love, but there was something mocking in her diagnosis, which put me on the defensive, and I’d reply, Impossible—he doesn’t even have any proper books in his house, and he only watches the big blockbusters. Luiz Felipe would have nothing to talk about with my friends—I mean, can you even imagine? If they were talking about the Anthropocene, he’d reply with something about reusable shopping bags, and straws, and bicycles. But you don’t stop smiling, Marina Falcão insisted. Maybe I really am so far gone that I don’t even give a crap about Alex’s comments about him: So he’s some kind of right-wing environmentalist? Girl, I think that might be even worse than being a right-wing queer. And yeah, Alex is correct, I have no idea what role this kid will play in my life, and maybe just getting a good fucking from a good-hearted boy isn’t enough? It’s just, I’m too insecure not to be superficial, I need to cling on to any material things I can, which serve as my points of reference, this is me, this is my world, these are the laws that guide me and those around me. If I think about feelings and sensations and immaterial things, I’ll be lost, adrift. Life without a handrail seems as mysterious to me, as inconceivable, as life in outer space, or life after death, or whatever we were before we were born. Luiz Felipe and I reached a point where even the tiniest contact between our skins produced a small ecstasy, reminding me of my adolescent loves, when the most erotic thing of all was that chance contact, skin to skin when handing over a book, a pencil, a workbook, a scarf, opening up a whole universe of senses; the memory of my last orgasm the week before got all muddled up with that memory from adolescence, part rejection, part discovery, part passion. Even after weeks, months, almost a year, he only has to touch me, and I guide his hand to where I want it, I feel pleasure instantly, and I can’t help thinking there’s something to it that’s more than physical. The next day, I push away this flow of memory, tell myself it’s just sex. Love doesn’t happen in a vacuum, in a bedroom, it’s not only those one-on-one moments, in the privacy of the home, which start out seeming so very precious, with such a strong emotional charge, but end up getting rarer, drowning in banality, or, at best, mere nostalgia. Love is also in the world, and Luiz Felipe doesn’t belong to my world, ergo, this must not be love.
Copyright © 2022 by Clara Drummond
Copyright © 2024 by Daniel Hahn
