v u l v a l i c i o u s Celibacy? 2003-10-01 // 8:39 p.m. She wrote me an email saying that she had broken her vow of celibacy. I felt like someone had smacked me upside the head with a heavy sack and left me for dead in front of a too white computer screen. What does it mean when thinking about you causes someone to do something they wanted, but didn't want? What does it mean to be in a relationship with someone who is celibate? I feel as though she accidentally manipulated me on purpose. She tells me she likes it when I tease her, and that I do it well. I do, really. On the phone, I don't tell her that I'm masturbating until she tells me she has to go, just so I can hear her voice crack. Somewhere along the line, I became a slut; this pleases me greatly. But I don't know where to go from here. I don't know what to tell her. I know what I did tell her: I'm not sorry; people make mistakes, and that's what you did; I feel like I'm a test on this strange spiritual quest you're on. I could have said, simply: I don't understand. Instead I said, you should tell me more. She does not realize that I don't know what her journey was, that there were all these blanks that she never filled in. Meanwhile the other girl, the one I've loved for what seems like so long now, has come around. She emails me back; she invites me to be where she is; when I am leaving, she seeks me out to say goodbye. She has hugged me twice, strange, socially awkward jestures that tell me what I am to her. I am her friend, which is more than I thought I could ask her for. Somehow I have replaced her ambiguity with a new one, a different one. This one I do not like so well. back-forth