Rebecca

October 2002

Dear Rebecca,

Its been a while since I’ve seen you and I’m not sure where to begin. Heck, I’m not even sure if I have the right address for you anymore. But I figured if it didn’t try to get this off my chest that I would go into a spiral of depression that would make the black hole of Calcutta look like a kiddie pool.

When you left me I thought for along time about what went wrong. What it was about me, what it was about you what it was about us that we couldn’t make work.

I thought for a while that it might be my obsessive compulsion to vacuum. I realize that its a problem. I know that it is weird to finish having sex and then want to tidy up. I realize I said this at the time, but I should say again that it didn’t mean that I thought having sex with you was dirty, it was, but not always, and not in a way that I felt like I was trying to get clean. Anyway after we stopped seeing each other I started seeing this girl that really was filthy, not in bed, just in general and it turned out that it really worked for both of us, She was not really that great in bed, but her apartment was so filthy that I got just as much of a rush from running the vacuum. She just got rid of her maid service and I would have probably moved in with her if it hadn’t been for her dog. She let the dog kiss her in the mouth too much and it was too weird for me. But anyway, I was trying to say that I spent time trying to figure out what went wrong with us.

After her I spent some time going to group counseling, which was kind of a singles party for the emotionally depraved, it was great. I met this girl that while not very attractive had such low self esteem she would do anything to keep from being lonely. I hadn’t eaten that well in years. She was for obvious reasons a little on the big side of fat, but its what’s on the inside that counts, right? I guess it wasn’t just that she was morbidly obese that it didn’t work out but when she broke one of my ribs I figured that I really needed to find someone that I wasn’t afraid would smother me in my sleep.

There was a time that I thought that maybe I was gay. What with the cleaning and the problems with girls and figuring them out. I thought, hey, at least I know what guys are thinking. It didn’t last very long, maybe a month. I went to some clubs and tried to fit in to the metrosexual crowd, but firstly, I didn’t have the wardrobe and secondly all the guys wanted to open up and talk about stuff all the time and I figured that if I had to listen to all that junk from a man I might as well go back to dating girls.

So I went out of my way to date girls again, but I managed to control my urge to clean by only having sex with women by staying in a hotel rooms. The relationships, I guess that’s not the best word since they almost never called back after at most three dates, were filling a void in my soul I think. I always felt that though it was brief that I was making real progress in discovering something about them and about myself. There was this one girl from Tulsa that I met in the airport lounge that I swear looked like Drew Barrymore that I thought was the one. We spent most of the time laughing and drinking. By the time we got to the room we were laughing so much we almost couldn’t have sex, but we managed. Then just after we finished she farted. I wasn’t sure if I was repulsed or turned on. But she just started laughing again and then so did I and I was really in love. Until the next morning when I realized she had shit the bed. Then I left while she was in the shower.

I was celibate for almost 8 months after that. Not by choice, but because after the shit in the bed I couldn’t get it together, if you know what I mean. Every time I thought about being intimate I flashed back to that night and remembering that I was lying in poo all night. I remember thinking that it was the longest lasting fart of all time, the memory of it lingered even longer.

Then I met Charlotte.

She was even more anal than me, which is really tough to do. She helped me get through the case of the dirties for the first month she insisted that we only have sex in the shower. She cleaned while we were having sex. I was overwhelmed.

So anyway, Charlotte and I have been together for about six months and its going pretty good. But I have been trying to clean emotional house lately, hence my writing. And I feel like I have to write to you just to ask one thing. Can I get my old vacuum from you?

Sincerely,

Henry