A Seduction Addict

We have an excerpt from a piece in the Times titled "Confessions of a Seduction Addict".

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Soon enough, and sure enough, I might begin to see that man’s gaze toward me change from indifference, to friendship, to open desire. That’s what I was after: the telekinesis-like sensation of steadily dragging somebody’s fullest attention toward me and only me. My guilt about the other woman was no match for the intoxicating knowledge that — somewhere on the other side of town — somebody couldn’t sleep that night because he was thinking about me. If he needed to sneak out of his house after midnight in order to call, better still. That was power, but it was also affirmation. I was someone’s irresistible treasure. I loved that sensation, and I needed it, not sometimes, not even often, but always.

-- Elizabeth Gilbert at The New York Times

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Dreaming

A good sleep last night, of which there have been too few over the past weeks. I know it was dream-rich too, but had forgotten them all, until one scrap of dream came back to me. The household is composed of me and Pop, but with Jack as well. This is not the first such dream. It seems that there is a part of my subconscious that likes to keep track of that parallel universe in which Jack and I are still brothers and are the closest thing we have to friends, like he never got that job at H.E.B. and never made the social leap outside the family, never had a girl, much less a wife and kids. Maybe I regret, more than I know, losing my one friend in the world, even though, truth be told, it was not exactly a great friendship before Jack made that leap.

In this dream, Pop is getting ready to leave for work (and it is an amusing fact that in this parallel universe Pop apparently never retires but continues with his job), and I want to go somewhere, and we are trying to negotiate a way to do that. I realize that I can just catch the bus while Jack stays home. If it were the three of us, there would be greater freedom like this, but it is not as though I suffer a deep longing for such freedom, not having anywhere to go, not having any dough, and having this busted face.

In the end, it is kind of a sickly state, the family in this parallel world, with two deadbeat adult sons instead of one, two sexless sons at that. It isn't pretty, and there is a "Deliverance" vibe about it. Maybe the dream is a mirror showing me what I look like, particularly as I look at a hollow Jack in it, in this real world, but I cannot see myself doing anything about it.