Pageboy, page 17
If a part of you is always separate, if existing in your body feels unbearable—love is an irresistible escape. You transcend, a sensation so indescribable that philosophers, scientists, and writers can’t seem to agree on what the fuck it even is—if it even is. I often wonder if I have actually experienced deep love. I feel as though I have, but is it real if you were never there? When you have numbed yourself to the truth?
Love was unwittingly an emotional disguise, and my relationship to it is another muscle to be transformed. I don’t want to disappear. I want to exist in my body, with these new possibilities. Possibilities. Perhaps that is one of the main components of life lost to lack of representation. Options erased from the imagination. Narratives indoctrinated that we spend an eternity attempting to break. The unraveling is painful, but it leads you to you.
During my marriage I ignored therapy, and when we moved to New York City from Los Angeles at the end of 2018, I virtually stopped going to therapy altogether. It wasn’t until our relationship was falling apart two years later and my gender dysphoria so extreme that I sought out someone in the city. I was ready to talk.
I could barely find the words, but I did. As if they moved on their own, wriggling through and up my body, pouring out. My body knew, deep down I knew, and something had shifted. It was now or never. It was alive or not.
24
YOUR HEAVENLY DADDY
In the aftermath of coming out as gay in 2014, I wrote a list in my head of experiences I was unable to have before, certain activities that, regardless of desire, felt important to embrace. I had a burgeoning sense of ease in the world, a confidence. It was not ultimately where I needed to be, but I felt brave, properly so, for the first time in a long time. At that point in my life, it didn’t really feel like a choice, there was no other option. I had to choose to engage as my authentic self, or die not trying. There was a swell from somewhere else, inside, but beneath it all—a voice. One that would whisper again close to seven years later.
This is your life. You don’t need to believe their stories. Those are their narratives. This is your career. Why are you agreeing with them? Trusting them? They aren’t the right ones. They, in fact, are wrong. You don’t believe them. This isn’t a dress rehearsal. This is your life.
Not long before my heart was shredded by “Ryan,” I saw the superb, painful, and infuriating documentary God Loves Uganda, a film by the astounding Roger Ross Williams. The doc examined the role of American evangelicalism in Uganda, its ties to a recently introduced bill, the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act—which then suggested the death penalty for LGBTQ+ people—as it gained serious momentum. It follows missionaries, evangelical leaders, and the LGBTQ+ people of Uganda who fight for their right to exist.
These activists were standing up against vicious oppression, rhetoric, and ideas originally introduced and continuously perpetuated by the West. Concealed in “good deeds,” American missionaries created infrastructure for access to indoctrinate the populace, which fueled anti-LGBTQ+ violence and hate. These activists should not have to be doing this work, but the reality is that they have no other option, they can’t rest. They face extreme and brutal consequences, in large part because of the exportation of American evangelical anti-LGBTQ+ religious and social doctrine. It is true for those who are the most vulnerable in the States as well, it is simply disguised better. To some, people like me being on the cover of major magazines must mean things are all good. What could they possibly be complaining about? Pink washing works.
Ellen, look how much these people risk, how much they face. You’re a coward, I scolded myself. I felt I needed to call myself out for the selfish little shit I could be, especially when it is to maintain comfort and privilege. Perhaps I am being harsh on myself, because the road was extremely challenging, it did almost run me out, I was terrified and bloated with self-disgust. I can hold that and also understand just how good I have it, and knowing just how good should only enlighten the need for action, for care, to make the right choices, the uncomfortable choices. Stepping up is not just for the individual, and I am able to be out because of countless other people, ones who did not have access to what I have, who won’t end up on magazine covers.
You can handle simply telling people you are gay, I told myself.
Coming out was not easy, which is shocking to think now, but I suppose we (or I) forget the degree of change (and lack thereof) that has happened over the past decade. Going from a therapist’s office where I believed it impossible to be out as queer to feeling perplexed and furious that I had to deal with the bullshit for so long, that camouflaging my queerness was treated as the norm, my pain as a natural consequence. Pain that did not just live in my mind, but also loitered throughout my entire body, eating it out from the inside, forcing me to the ground.
I’ve made a habit of requiring a hefty push to the edge, almost over, in order to finally address “feelings,” and not just that, but also to simply acknowledge there are any. But even in my lowest moments, a piece of me, ever so small, becomes clearer and clearer. An opening, fragile and elusive. Instantly, it comes flooding in. It’s fleeting. Seize it. A whisper that sits waiting.
Close your eyes and step through.
After I came out, shockingly enough, the world did not end and my life improved, and now I had that as a reference in my chest pocket. If you can do that, you have nothing to be afraid of, I’d mutter to myself.
Once while driving north on the 101 to break up with someone, I listened to my coming-out speech, trying to not shit blood, a reminder—if you can do that, you have nothing to be afraid of. Embarrassing, but effective.
This time of firsts and newfound boldness was also, unsurprisingly perhaps, the most promiscuous period of my life.
I had never had a one-night stand. I had barely even slept with people casually. I had never had a blind date, or an out date. I wanted those things, those adventures, even if they were awkward and messy or ill-advised or out of my league. All of a sudden I could magically talk to women, I could flirt, a new self-assurance that I’d been aiming toward, hoping for. I was direct, not concerned with the potential rejection. If I felt timid or hesitant, I simply pushed myself to continue. Just keep talking. Half smile. A cute silence.
My first one-night stand has, to this day, been my only one-night stand. She was the first person I slept with after my relationship with Ryan ended. Heartbroken, but numb at this point, I had met up with my friend Shannon at a bar on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake, where we typically converged in the compact outdoor area. Vines curled over the top of the tall walls, as did the rising fog from cigarettes. We sipped tequila with a touch of soda and lime. I hoped a tequila or two would enhance my numbness. My friend did not know how badly my heart was broken, I could not tell her. She did not know I had been in a relationship for close to two years.
I slid over to make space for a woman to sit. She had long brown hair and curious, playful eyes that were paired with a mischievous grin.
“Hi,” she said as she sat close.
She already seemed a touch tipsy, leaning in on purpose or not?
“Hi,” I replied, with the tiniest of side smiles.
We began chatting, in that uncontrolled, organic way, where halfway through you catch yourself, puzzled at such ease with a stranger. She was hot, she was flirting, and I was flirting back. Another friend arrived, and soon after, Shannon and she split off, allowing me to turn my full focus to the conversation with my new pal.
We didn’t have much in common, but that wasn’t really the point and I think we both knew it. We sat progressively closer. Time passed. It was not until I got up to go to the bathroom and to get us another drink when I finally asked her name and shared mine.
“Ryan,” she said.
“What?”
“Ryan,” she said again.
I thought I misheard, like a quick cutaway in a film—the character imagining. Nope. She had the same exact name. The exact fucking name.
I squeezed between the crowd of hipsters, making my way to the restroom. I stood in line, waiting behind a woman in a cowboy hat who stared down at her phone.
Should I call it? I wasn’t sure. We had been talking for a while. She was attractive. I wanted to follow through. I wanted to be spontaneous, I wanted to have what I could not have before … but the same name?!
“Of course,” I said to no one as I locked the bathroom door, “of course her name is Ryan.”
I pulled down my pants and sat. Ruminating as I urinated. Fuck it, I decided to shrug it off, roll with it, poetry in action! I flushed the toilet with intent. This was my night.
I returned with drinks, but we left before finishing them. Her place was not far west, a two-story condo in an old low building. Built presumably in the 1930s or 1940s, its architecture was distinct, not art deco, not quite Craftsman, definitely quaint. We sat in the living room briefly, she drank straight from a bottle of champagne. No longer amid the cozy buzz of the bar, her energy shifted, she was frenetic, zooming from one topic to the next, pacing about. Only later was I like … oooh cocaine! I always forget about cocaine.
We went upstairs so she could “show me her room,” and the moment we walked through the door, we fell into bed together. Her kissing was fierce, no warm-up, clanging teeth. Clothes started coming off. She was dominant. Her tits were almost immediately in my mouth. I grabbed them, they were perfectly round and soft. I sucked and swallowed and teased her nipples with my tongue. I felt them get hard in my mouth, she started to moan.
Pushing me back on the bed, she lifted the short skirt she had been wearing and climbed on top of me. Riding and grinding, her head was back, arms straight, propping herself up with her hands on my shins. She rose and caught my eyes. She stared down at me with that vacant glare, pupils dilated, looking right through me. Placing her hand on my throat, she squeezed and squeezed as she continued to rub and pound, her coked-up eyes squinted callously.
Now, I don’t mind a hand on the throat, some pressure, a squeeze, that’s fun. But full-throttle choke? First time?… Nah. I didn’t say no. I’ve almost never said no, and times when I have, it didn’t do a whole lot, or made things worse. I wanted to stop it but couldn’t make a sound—not just because of her hand. It was like a dream where you need to yell but your mouth produces silence, like a dream where you go to run, but your legs remain still, feet locked to the ground. Her hand tightened harder and harder, preventing my breath from flowing until she came on top of me. Loud and distant. Her body folded forward, her head landing on the pillow next to me as she rolled off.
I lay in her bed as she slept until light glowed around the perimeter of the curtains and the new sun guided my way out.
My first properly out date was more successful. We were set up by mutual friends and met at a bar in the Bowery. She looked like Jean Seberg. Her short, crisp blond hair and natural sense of style exuded an ease and elegance, it all felt like an afterthought. We sat inside, engaged in conversation. Life, art, books. As time passed, we crept closer. Such a simple action, a casual chat in a bar, just simply a date. But it was monumental for me—the anxiety, the over the shoulder, the can they tell?… evaporated.
We stayed until the bar closed. I suggested we get a room at a hotel because I was crashing with a friend. I know, a ridiculous splurge for one evening, but this was my first out date! As we walked north up Bowery, we put our arms around each other. Coming at us down the sidewalk, I heard the characteristic calls of some drunk bros calling out to us, to which I responded with a new defiance, “Fuck you!”
Turns out my date was a black belt, and what I should have done was not engage and move on. Like a duck, let it roll off my back. Peacefully extracting oneself from the drama and toxicity instead of throwing kindling on the fire. After we walked away, she showed me self-defense moves on the sidewalk. Demonstrating how, even though small, I could fuck someone up. She flipped me over her back (gently), twisted my arm, made me submit. It was comforting knowing skills were available to me that, despite my size, could render an attacker useless. Educational foreplay! Lifesaving foreplay!
We checked into the Bowery Hotel. It was all so different from being with Ryan. It was thrilling, in fact, a scene in a movie I never thought could play out in real life. With Ryan, we once asked for a cot at the front desk of a hotel when only a room with a single bed was available. With Paula, we would have separate hotel rooms because she was my assistant. What odd things to do, when this way was a possibility, I thought.
We sat in the room at a tiny table and talked more. Thick velvet drapes were pushed aside, leaving the old, large windows visible. The city lights filtered in.
“I like your cadence,” she said.
Time paused. I swallowed her words, feeling them at the base of my throat, the vibration traveled down. Her voice, smooth and clear with bedroom eyes that I wanted in.
She leaned forward in her chair. Placing her hand on my leg, she kissed me and I kissed her back. We were soon in the bed and stayed there until the morning light greeted us. Awkward at first, as it always is, struggling with buttons, subtle tumbles while removing tight jeans, bodies reading each other, working to connect, to sync, to find that flow. It felt spontaneous and safe and, most important, open. A new world.
We fell asleep, but not for very long. Shockingly, we awakened hungover and hungry. Checking out, I dropped off the golden key with its red tassel at the front desk and said goodbye, and we left in search of food. We found a place around the corner from the hotel for breakfast, a hip, rustic restaurant in a basement on Bond Street.
My first out breakfast with a girl.
Rad.
This used to feel impossible.
Blood sugar up, caffeine in the veins, our new destination was McNally Jackson Books, an independent bookstore on Prince Street in SoHo, only a five-minute walk away. She wanted to get me a book, Maggie Nelson’s Bluets. This would be the first time I read Maggie Nelson. Bluets, a contemplation of Nelson’s love of the color blue, feels impossible to categorize—nonfiction, a mixture of memoir, heartbreak, history, philosophy, theory—all of it seamlessly strung together through poetry and prose. It’s staggering, heart opening. It was the perfect book to receive then and there.
It started to rain, but that did not stop us. We continued walking and talking until we found ourselves on the other side of Manhattan in the West Village. She suggested a coffee at the now closed Cafe Gitane in the Jane Hotel, a historic hotel on the corner of Jane and West. The café was charming and chill, with a black-and-white checkered floor underfoot. It had a Parisian vibe, intermixed with unique decor choices, such as an alligator on the wall. I sipped an Americano, my stomach could only handle half. This was the moment we both started to fade, fatigue catching up, we finally brought the date to a close. We stood, said goodbye. And she kissed me. Right there in the café. A first.
These moments were beautiful, however complicated, for their significance in my life.
But the first person I really fell for after having my heart broken was Kate Mara. She had a boyfriend at the time, the lovely and talented Max Minghella. I met them both at a small dinner. That first night, I didn’t think much of it. Kate was charming and gorgeous, of course, but she was sitting next to her boyfriend. Mostly, I was eager to follow up with Max, hoping he’d accept a role in a film I was producing and acting in. But then I met Kate a second time.
It was awards season, and a friend, Kiwi Smith, was throwing a party at her house in Los Feliz for Adèle Exarchopoulos, the star of Blue Is the Warmest Colour. This is something people do during awards season, they have parties for people and films, inviting members of the Academy, hoping the support will lead to votes. These were the kinds of things I went to every night in dresses and heels and makeup, where older men sat too close and were too drunk and said through beading sweat, “Your dreams are coming true.”
This party for Adèle Exarchopoulos wasn’t like that though, it was genuine and sincere, like Kiwi. It was to celebrate an actor, an unforgettable performance, to welcome her in a time that must have been overwhelming. In a city that will suck you dry, it was an alcove, not a trap.
I’d been broken up with Ryan for only a few months maybe. We slept together occasionally after breaking up. Of course, it was too complicated and painful, but I kept convincing myself and her that it was totally chill. It’s okay, we can just be present with each other, I’m fine, I want what is best for you and me … a bunch of bullshit. I was a complete mess until it stopped. We hadn’t talked in a while.
I missed her something awful. Her smell, that mix of sweat and sunscreen, her smile, the way she moved her hands, how they danced with her thoughts, her brain, her laugh, her elusiveness, her eyebrows, her work ethic, her curiosities, her lips, her sounds, her art, her neck—how it stretched, her nerdiness, her wonder. Her eyes, the way she looked at me. I missed every single damn thing, and I couldn’t stop, it wouldn’t stop. I was desperate to forget.
“Above all, I want to stop missing you,” writes Maggie Nelson in Bluets.
I, too, wanted to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that shit right out of me.
I arrived at Kiwi’s, walked through her entryway with its high ceilings and impressive staircase, her smaller, Gothic-esque dining room and her narrow, bright, and beautifully designed kitchen into the backyard. It was bustling with partygoers, with catering and professional bartenders. I scanned the space. Confirmed. I’d be flying solo with my heartbreak, none of my friends at the party knew I had been with Ryan, including Kiwi. I prayed Ryan would not show, despite being the only person I wanted to see. Not sure I can fake it tonight.
Kate was standing in a circle of partygoers, chatting, organic. She held a glass of red wine in her right hand. Her profile got me, that jaw. Welcoming me warmly, with a look in her eye I didn’t remember from the dinner before, she invited me in. She seemed looser, but not because of the alcohol. Her wine moved about her glass as she spoke, and I wondered if you could consider the liquid’s movement inertia. I reminded myself that she had a boyfriend. When she started flirting with me, I thought it was a joke. Regardless of the boyfriend, I could never imagine Kate Mara would want me.
