Deep Love Culture
Fiction
Deep Love Culture by Gordon Glasgow
Peter loves Larissa. But Larissa doesn’t love him back, at least not anymore. Peter finds this very sad. He’s all distraught about it. He’s confused as to why Larissa doesn’t love him back. Is it because she’s all caught up in her own world, fears, desires, self-misunderstandings, or that she’s simply, merely repulsed by him? He doesn’t know, and it’s eating him alive. Peter’s confident of one thing, though: it’s not indifference, which is of course the opposite of love. Larissa slept with him all these times, sucked him off, pissed in his mouth, licked his armpits, belly button, toes; all these dirty, dirty acts of sexual lust. There’s not a chance, Peter thinks, that Larissa could’ve done all this out of abject horniness. She must feel something toward him. And if it’s not indifference, then Peter exists in a liminal space within Larissa’s soul, that could, possibly, develop into love. How exciting, how moving. In his heart of hearts, Peter believes he has a chance. And how fucking adorable is that?
Peter’s wrong. Larissa is abjectly horny, a true and real nympho. Re:Peter, she has a pattern of this behavior. Luring men in, sleeping with them all she’d like, in the most grimly tarnished of ways (chem-sex, rimming, etc.) and then from one moment to the next, she disappears, or ‘ghosts’… as they say. Larissa is empowered in her behavior and doesn’t believe in accountability. Why should she be or feel accountable? Men have done what they’d will, what they’d like with women for centuries upon centuries, those brutish, sexy pigs. This is the stupid, simplistic foundation of Larissa’s psyche, but so be it. It’s a ‘not getting mad but getting even’ sort of thing, accomplished in the pursuit of sexual gratification, libidinal desire above all else. Suck and fuck all you’d like. No man would be autistic enough to Me-Too her, daring to do the effeminate act of putting a post online about her emotional manipulation, her endless search of hardcore-fuck-fun under the guise of adoration and romance. She’s done it all this Larissa: love-bombing, false-promises, subtly made-up hints of feelings developing, allusions to a future that’ll never happen. She believes this is necessary.
In New York City, this rat-filled microcosm, this place of big egos in tiny apartments, Larissa would, at one point in time, hit up men on Instagram, Twitter, dating apps, saying: ‘Wanna Fukk?’ through all random hours of the day. And nine times out of ten these drooling, under-screwed men would indeed like to fukk. They’d pathetically saunter over within an hour of getting the message, ejaculate prematurely, before just kind of staring at Larissa like a sheep who’d lost its clan, all wide-eyed and sorrowful, looking to her for solace. And nine times out of ten, Larissa found this form of sexual recruitment to produce only mediocre results. It’s true, Larissa wasn't sure if the mediocrity stemmed from the man being bad at sex or if it were, actually, a lack of perceived connection. Being a woman, Larissa knew, knows, that the psychological game is a vital part of the sexual experience. That’s why the virile, horny woman takes so little pleasure out of the ‘Wanna Fukk?’ fucks.
Larissa developed a better system, the strategic bureaucrat in her was capable. She began to go on these long drawn out dates. She’d use her god-given beauty and buttocks, her naturally ponderous and helpless disposition, her seductive yet curious gaze, altogether laconic and coy, to lure men into falling for her, for wanting more than just sex and sex alone. She’d feign innocence up until acquiescing to go back home with the man, and then, as if a grenade came in through the window, an intense sexual eruption would occur; her incandescence would reveal itself immaculately. Given her performance at drinks, or often even dinner, the man would think: it’s me who’s brought this out in her, she’s only like this with I, she loves me, she loves me, what a connection we have! And they’d fuck, and suck, and slither in the muck, and come, and come and come and come, so passionately, all night long… and then Larissa would never call the man back again. Sometimes she’d answer a text or two, wean them off like an annoying and brief addiction to a new designer drug, before disappearing completely. Fuck were they going to do about it?
Some of the men didn’t care; they were just as depraved as she was. Peter did care. He developed endless hypotheses regarding Larissa’s blatant desire for intimacy, spinning in his head, going loopy with fascination. Peter actually wasn’t so into all that nasty stuff they got up to. He liked to fuck and come in missionary, now and then from behind. It was Larissa who initiated the face-sitting, the anal, the religious cosplay and the ‘eight hours of edging.’ They’d hung out on four separate occasions (more than Larissa’s usual pattern), and each time was more intense than the last. After the blindfolds and incense came out, this Peter's attempt at kink, Larissa decided she’d finally had enough, and vanished into oblivion.
Every fuck took place at Peter’s sad little studio in Prospect Heights, he actually had no idea where Larissa lived. He realized, when thinking about it, that one time she said Williamsburg and another the Upper East Side. What a freaky little sociopath, he thought. And although Peter didn’t really know what love was, what love is, the difference between true love and lust, love and fetishization, fascination, infatuation, he said to himself: Larissa, that crazy, lying bitch, ignoring me for weeks now, oh… how I love her! This is what God, the universe has condemned me to! And so be it. He even once took to his green leather moleskin and penned — ‘The definition of love: extreme admiration and care and a willingness for self-sacrifice in order to accomplish something for the person or thing you’re in love with and for nothing to be expected in return other than the experience of love itself. Self-sacrifice, self-sacrifice, self-sacrifice, self sacrifice. Larissa, Larissa, Larissa, Larissa.’ And then after writing that he miserably jerked off, thinking of other women, of Larissa getting jealous, coming all over his somehow flat-yet-flabby hairless stomach, passing out with tartan pajama pants around his ankles, snoring, Spotify Discover Weekly blaring in the background. Muhahahah, life can be so depressing, can’t it?
Peter developed a neurotic yet somehow interesting theory on the situation, which going through his diary I can only sort of summarize. Jabbering and slightly redundant, Peter writes about how intimacy is hard to come by in our isolated, siloed, tech-dependent world. Relationships, authentic human relationships, have become more and more rare. Everyone is a narcissist, completely caught up in a loop of their own pleasure-seeking pathologies. In the absence of love, of a deep love culture, of real human connection, people begin to piss and shit on each other, not figuratively, but literally. In the sexual arena, people think, unconsciously, that these insanely primitive acts of disclosure will bring the same sense of intimate pleasure as what is truly desired: the up-close intimacy of living with a partner, the banalities of hearing each other fart and piss and shit with the door open. These boring yet essential domestic trivialities don’t exist for Peter or his generation. And to fill the void, sex has become an act of perverted desperation. The dirtier the better, the dirtier the more possible to feel close to the illusion, to the instinctive desire for a place of safety, of dull conjugal intimacy, in short—to someone other than one’s self. And this is why all the young kids are fisting and brutalizing. This is the reason Larissa is so pathetically screwed up, this is why she wouldn’t call him back, Peter believed. And he could save Larissa from herself, from her distorted thinking, by announcing, in person, a real desire to consummate their relationship — not through anything physical, but through the act of commitment, possibly one day marriage. Her unknowing desire could be met, even if Peter, with this whole theory, didn’t actually know what he wanted other than to have his texts recognized and returned. And in reality, while Peter’s theory does have merit, the opposite could also be true: monogamous couples choose to live together in such an invasively intimate way out of a latent desire to commit acts of obscenity. Peter, in his narcissism, didn’t, and frankly couldn’t, go further than his initial argument. It was all about concocting a scenario that would serve his mistaken will, the world he was unknowingly projecting.
On a Tuesday in the middle of winter, Peter decided to take a sick day off work (production manager at the film studio A24) to finally find and confront her. Though he didn’t know where she lived, Larissa was idiotically public on LinkedIn. In the afternoon at around 2:00 pm, Peter showed up at her workplace (receptionist for the accounting firm KPMG), with a bouquet of yellow, red, orange, and white flowers, as well as some jewelry, a $380 bracelet from Mejuri, to show his affection and devotion. When, through those large corporate glass doors, Larissa saw him arriving on the elevator, she nearly gagged. She became lightheaded and dizzy. After almost eleven months of this behavior, Larissa hadn’t faced any consequences other than a bout of chlamydia, which she’d undoubtedly spread around before taking doxycycline.
Larissa gathered herself. She attempted to manifest her charm, but the ignition didn’t seem to be working. The glass doors still locked, Peter standing there as if looking for a train that’d never come, she motioned him to go back downstairs. He shook his head. Larissa became scared, uncertain if this man who she’d hardly thought of was about to kill her. He waved the flowers toward her again and looked at her with longing. But Larissa gagged even more, finding his look performative, disgustingly cliche’d, like a John Cusack character from a terribly dated rom-com. Larissa picked up her cell-phone to text him, but through all her recent courtships she couldn't even remember his name. He was, after-all, just another anonymous fuckstick. Larissa thought further, and decided to open the Notes app on her iPhone. In size twenty-four font she wrote, ’GO DOWNSTAIRS, WILL MEET YOU THERE IN 10’ and showed it to him. Peter squinted but couldn’t see what was written. Larissa got up cautiously from her desk. Peter became excited. She edged towards him, the phone raised out in front of her as if it were a shield. She took seven steps forward. As she moved closer and closer, she could see him slowly making out what was written, until finally he smiled, nodded, and got into the elevator. Larissa sighed and for a reason she couldn’t understand started laughing. She walked quickly back to her desk and picked up the phone to call the building’s security, explaining with surprising patience that her stalker was downstairs with flowers. When security approached Peter, he almost started weeping with astonishment. Out of fear, he dropped the flowers on the floor, put his hands up, and said, ‘I’m leaving, I’m leaving,’ and walked backwards toward the exit. One of the security-guards didn’t have the patience for this and took the initiative to fully humble Peter, grabbing him by the waste and dragging him out of the building — ‘I’ll slap the fuckin’ shit outt’a you if you come back up here again!’ And Peter thought about asking the security guards what they would do for the love of their lives, what measures they would go to, but unfortunately he couldn’t get the words out quick enough, they’d already walked away.
Much to my surprise, Peter tells me over coffee that he made one last attempt to get in touch with Larissa; such is the disquieting power of male desperation. He’d found her address through some city-registry and decided to mail her a letter. ‘Short but to the point,’ Peter said while drinking his cappuccino, I think with oat milk and a dash of cocoa powder. He pulls a copy of the letter out of his jacket and looks at it slowly, before demurely trying to explain the contents of the note and his intentions when sending it.
‘Can I just see it?’ I asked.
Peter rolled his eyes and said, ‘ugh, writers can be so pushy… you and your agendas, the invasive lack of respect.’
I nodded, and he acquiesced, placing the letter in front of me with mournful timidity.
Dearest Larissa,
I’m sorry for intruding on your personal space, your safe-space, your workplace. You were absolutely right to have me thrown out. I was out of line and I admit it.
I wanted to write a few words to you about perversion. The Dutch artist and critic Kate Sinha, who I once worked with at A24, says that perversion is the inability to enjoy something beautiful and pure without having to distort it. A pervert creates moments of beauty in order to destroy that very moment, like you did with me. This is why ugliness and the destruction of beauty are very much related to perversion. At the same time, though, I don’t think perversion is excluded from the realm of beauty: this is what art is all about, turning things around, flipping elements on their head, transforming something ugly into something beautiful and vice-versa, finding pleasure in it all — the perversion of socio-cultural tropes which can eventually lead to a certain freedom, a certain purity. I think, given your behavior, that you’re an artist. And because you’re an artist, you’re addicted to perversion. But, as I just mentioned, you don’t have to be so pernicious. I’m a producer at a film studio, as you know, and, given the nature of what I’m good at, I can help you harness your talents to create as oppose to destroy. Perhaps we can even write a script together, if it’s good enough, I’m sure I know of a person or two who would be interested in directing it.
So what do you think, eh? Perhaps there can be a happy-ending to this madness, a resolution to our entanglement. Take as much time as you need to answer this. I’m here, and I’m waiting.
With lots of love,
Peter
‘Did she answer?’ I asked.
Peter showed me a text on his phone.
You fucking loser, I’m blocking you on every platform you can think of and notifying the post-office to make sure no letters from your name or address can arrive. You’re a lonely pleb creep and it’s that simple. Also an opportunistic blowhard. If you get in touch with me again I’ll ruin you in ways you couldn’t imagine. By the way, you were a miserable lay, from what I remember. You’re both frightening and easily frightened, what an awful combination—how could someone even be both things at once? Now fuck off and die, piece of shit.
‘Oh yeah.’ I said. ‘I’m sorry to ask this, but do you think there’s something about the embarrassment and indignity of the situation that you’re attracted to? Like a humiliation fetish?’
‘No.’ Peter responded. ‘I really loved her. I really fully fell in love with her.’
For a moment too long we looked directly at each other. It felt like a funhouse mirror. His eyes were extremely relative, familiar, yet at the same time eerie, spooky; they were bright, if not clear, with an element of something murky and suspicious, malevolent and plotting, a subtly warped gaze it was. After another few seconds I smiled at him, and he smiled back, before getting up to use the bathroom. On his way back I saw him buy a chocolate croissant, which he brought to our table and started eating.
‘Do you want a bite?’ He asked.
‘No I’m OK.’ I responded, wondering what I was still doing there.
‘I have one of these TV’s,’ Peter began, flakes of pastry on his lips. ‘I have one of these TV’s connected to a wall mount that can pull away and swivel in several directions. And, you know, I noticed something interesting the other night. I have to pull out my TV from the wall and tilt it toward my couch in order for me to properly watch it, otherwise it’s tilted in the other direction. Sometimes I’m too lazy to tilt it toward the couch, and instead I just sit down after a long day of work at A24 and watch the TV while it’s not perfectly facing me. If I’m fed up by my own laziness and I get up to tilt the TV toward the couch, I notice when I sit back down that I’m not as engaged in whatever I’m watching. I’m much more into the TV when it’s harder to watch, when it’s sort of facing the other direction.’
‘That makes sense.’ I said, starting to put on my jacket and look at my phone.
‘It means I take pleasure in what I can’t h-’
‘No I know, I get it.’
Larissa’s behavior continued until she finally spent a night with a man more sadistic than her. The inevitable had occurred. One evening, through some awful compulsion, completely out of nowhere, a buff and bald gentlemen punched Larissa right in the face while she was on top riding him, breaking her nose. She lost consciousness for a few minutes. ‘I think I’ve had enough,’ she thought to herself following an intensive, exorbitantly priced rhinoplasty. She took a break from dating for a while. I find it interesting that it was this—not HIV, Herpes, or the blossoming of a deeper moral conscious and self-understanding—that shook Larissa off her habits. A brutal punch in the face by an Italian from Rhode Island. ‘From what I remember, he worked as an engineer for SpaceX,’ she told me.
A month or so later, Larissa began seeing someone from her office, casually, but he was married and eventually called it quits. Peter started dating his dog-walker, but she left him after being accepted to a fully-funded PHD at a new university in Dubai. Both Larissa and Peter are still single, and I wonder if they’ll ever cross paths again.
On the phone, I found Larissa charming and quite personable. I could understand her seductive qualities. She detailed a lot of her sexual odysseys in an objective, matter-of-fact way.
‘It’s all very simple and doesn’t need much analysis.’ She concluded. ‘I had a desire, and pursued it. In the pursuit of my desire, I had to shift and re-strategize several times, until I felt satisfied. After a while, my satisfaction would wane, and I’d re-strategize once more, reassess my desires, take breaks, then cyclically, continue the pattern. Eventually, I, like, sort of became tired of it all. It wasn’t even really being stalked by that film-guy or getting socked in the face by the CrossFit dude. I think it was, like, you know, consumer fatigue. Have you ever been shopping all day and kind of done nothing but feel really tired and hungry at the end? And your body is telling you you’ve accomplished something but deep down you know you’ve done nothing fulfilling enough to deserve to feel tired? I felt like that after every sexual experience. I feel like that still. But I know I’ll get over that feeling, that the desire will return, and I’ll do it again. Maybe this time with a little more awareness, with a little more intention and sense of protection. My desire will never go away, though, and if it’s there, I know myself enough to say that I’ll always find a way to pursue it, to fulfill it.’
‘I guess that’s pretty self-aware,’ I said disingenuously, feeling kind of aroused, breathing a little heavy into my iPhone’s receiver. At the same time, I felt Larissa to be a coward, Peter to be a coward, and so too myself, I’m not an innocent observer here. There’ve been times where I’ve behaved like both of them. And the whole thing is awfully poignant: all of us chasing desires somewhat blindly, too timid to confront the truth of ourselves, and even further, to reveal that truth to the person we’ve already damaged, the result a perennial loop of harm to both the self and the other, endless pain in a wasteland of delusion.
Larissa continued.
‘Self-aware, yea sure, but to an extent. And I honestly don’t care to go any further. I’ve trained my algorithm on TikTok and Instagram to not show me any of that mental health, self-betterment crap. I skip right past it. I use those platforms for entertainment. If I want help, I’ll get it from a professional, like a psychiatrist or something. Pretty much all my friends are on anti-depressants but me. Maybe one day I will be too. At the moment, though, I have to say I’m fine. I’m getting pretty tired now and have work in the morning. Can you tell me when your article will be published? The pseudonym Larissa works, right? I kind of like it, feels spunky, a bit me, a bit alter-ego. And sorry, I guess I should ask before I hang up—Do you have any last questions?’