Fourteen: Sex

Well, we didn't have sex, that's for certain. The reader may ask how this can be--how, after all that has been shared so far, and with such clarity of purpose, just how can it be that intercourse did not announce itself at our chamber door, beg pardon for the delay--it had come direct from an engagement in the South Bronx--and conspire to remedy the situation posthaste? It is a hard thing to make sense of, I will grant you that. Many have been the evenings since when I have pondered this mystery; to my best estimate, all the component parts were in place, to say nothing of the political justification provided by the war. Of course, it is all too easy too blame oneself in these things--for my rather embarrassed station in life, say--and that is why I prefer to blame my date instead. She seemed persistently in a state of not having sex with me for the entire evening, and in retrospect it strikes me as grossly inappropriate.

On the other hand, when it comes to sex I am not very persuasive, not even to myself, and doubtless this contributed rather centrally to the outcome. Sex is excellent in theory. Unfortunately, in practice it is even better. This is a tremendous injustice when you haven't had any practice since the Carter administration--doubly so when the only thing you were practicing was Catholicism. I want no truck with Catholicism; it is a discussion best left for another time. And what can be said of sex in this particular circumstance is pitiful little; as such perhaps the reader will grant me reprieve for the duration.