Jackie Ess

Darryl Cook is a man who seems to have everything: a quiet home in Western Oregon, a beautiful wife, and a lot of friends to fuck her while he watches. But as he explores the cuckolding lifestyle, he finds himself tugging at threads that threaten to unravel his marriage, his town, and himself. With empathy and humor, debut author Jackie Ess crafts a kaleidoscopic meditation on marriage, manhood, dreams, basketball, sobriety, and the secret lives of Oregonians. "Underneath the sharp satire and hilarious sexual irreverence this is a deadly serious book: a brilliant novel of a seeker, like The Pilgrim's Progress refracted by queer internet culture." -Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

Darryl

Lindsay

But in sex, it’s all wild abandon, and he likes to take us face down anyway. I like that too. I think of face to face sex as kind of like sixty- nine, a compromise for no one in particular. Who has time for that much feminism? Or it isn’t even, you know, it’s just attachment to an idea of equality of effort, or equality of focus. I hate that. Just fuck me hard and get your rocks off. If I’m on my knees, I’m serving you. It’s about you. You can do something for me later, but even then it shouldn’t be in a spirit of exchange, never because you feel like you should. I don’t think it’s the mark of a caring lover to be hung up on equality like that. Just fuck me into the bed and have the decency not to ask me, “was it good for you?” It was, by definition.

Maybe the only things we know how to call real are the things that force us to acknowledge them.

I do sometimes wish I had a more self- sufficient kink.

I wish I could belong to a world of women, but I don’t. I belong to whatever’s beneath the world of men, which some people think is the world of women, but it isn’t at all. How could anyone look at someone like Kit and see that? If I thought women were weak, I would think that I, who am weak, was a woman. But women aren’t weak, Kit’s living proof. Some people are weak. So I’m in this null zone that has no name, I’ve fallen out of masculinity, but I never landed, just falling forever. I think I’m too much of a feminist to be trans. But some women are losers too, what if I was like them? That’s something to think about, I guess. I can’t rule that out. All the women in my world are actually pretty cool. What would a woman on my level be like?

Where on this punishment orb called Earth is a friend who’s going through what I’m going through? I know you’re out there.

Simpler isn’t better. I’m not gonna be powdered sugar on a cosmic pancake. I’m gonna face my life and figure it out. I have people who care about me and we’re going to make it. All of us together. I can take the waves.

Whatever’s going on with me seems totally different. I’m so sensitive that I can never seem to hold it together. It’s hard to imagine a life.

I wish I had more situations where I was allowed to be broken where I’m broken and it wasn’t wrong to feel like I feel.

In regular situations I just crumple. According to Clive, borderlines do that too, they’re very sensitive to rejection and invalidation, and fight with feelings of unreality and emptiness. Often suicidal, but not out of sadness, it’s a way to get a grip on the situation. That sounds familiar, but all the stories in the stuff I was reading were way too extreme. I don’t have borderline. Growing up meant learning to delay that crumpling reaction, shape it, so I don’t just run home crying anymore.

I don’t think I’m the way I am because of what happened to me as a kid, but I just feel like there’s this hypersensitivity I‘ve always had. This way another guy could make me feel like I’m not real. Even if he wasn’t trying, and I don’t just mean the bullies.

It’s such an intense feeling. I remember thinking, “I’ll never be a real person.” And you know, I wasn’t totally wrong about that. Sometimes I feel like a character in a book.

Nobody expects white guys to be able to dance, but I’ve got my moves. In a way it’s kind of goofy that I can’t dance, I always feel like I’m getting attention for fucking up and then I wonder whether that’s right. Is that fucked up? Then I freeze. High school all over again. All these black guys actually know how to dance, but I don’t think it’s from natural rhythm, I think it’s because nobody thinks it’s cute when they don’t know how. They have to execute.

All these guys, the alphas I mean, are kind of insecure. That’s not the word. They’re used to being Roman numeral one, numero uno, in any room, rumor is they’re number one in the room, y’know? When they get the sense it might be otherwise they can’t really cope. They never had to learn how. It’s actually kind of cute, even when it seems aggressive. Like seeing dogs play.

I think the right wing obsession with cucks and other forms of failed masculinity will outlive the homophobia that used to be their game.

He told me to read The Ethical Slut, and I suggested he read Marquis de Sade.

Maybe watching and listening are the bravest things a guy can do. Can you face your own inferiority? Can you watch yourself be replaced?

That’s one mood, but I want to feel more alive, lighter. Maybe guys like me can’t. That feeling of aliveness was always what I was interested in when I read about psychology. Who gets to feel alive? What makes us light up?

She reads novels, much more than I do, she just never talks about them. She consumes them. Sex too. It’s all yummy. Women are so good at that.

Maybe every guy like me just needs a best friend with a big cock. That’s how we feel alive.

Is everybody else simpler than me or is that just the view from the inside?

Mostly I’m just tired all the time. I wish I had a friend. I wish I was a priest, or a woman, or nothing at all. Actually I don’t wish any of that I just wish I didn’t have to be what I am. How do you get motivated to make a change? Hypnosis?

And I’m lost too, in this kind of ecstasy of shame that takes me out of myself, and deeper into this kind of ocean roar feeling.

Maybe what I like so much about being in nature sometimes is seeing this level where it’s all automatic. Does that make any sense? It’s confirming and it’s relaxing. There’s a feeling of being left behind by all of it. By people too. It’s intense, humiliating, and kind of numb.

personal library, bought from greenlight bookstore fort greene

Patricia K

Extraordinary. I miss him already! Perfect ending, too. If you like this you might like 'I'm a Fan' by Sheena Patel and 'Luster' by Raven Leilani.

Darryl

Reviews

Highlights