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There is a kind of love called "maintenance." Something isn't right, yet you go on as normal, listening for funny noises that predict a stalling or a sudden loss of power. You hear a grinding or a popping sound and stop, cock your head, list the soft inner workings of you both and consider might be the trouble. Then you go to your tool kit to find the temporary comforting ooze of,
"I Love You" or Sex, or -- only to be used in case of emergency --
Need, as in, "I don't know if I could live without you."
He did not come with a warranty, but then, I had not thought to ask. I was a first-time buyer. I saw him and knew that if I kept a little back each week I could have him. First I kept back my drinking by way of Diet Coke. I kept back my body shape by way of starvation, my sexual rigidity by way of porn, my dark times by way of Prozac. And eventually, little repression by little repression, he was mine for life. Or so I assumed.
At first he made everything easier. You must understand I wouldn't commit to a unit with such maintenance requirements without feeling that it would improve my lifestyle. And he did, insulating me from the cruel parts of life, the tiring parts. He made the joyful parts seem better because he was shiny and new, and I saw happiness reflected and believed it.
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