Amy Sohn – on long-distance love.

Brooklyn, New York
September 13, 2000

Dear Sam,

A long time ago, when I was having problems with Matthew, I said to you, “I wish I lived a thousand years ago when people stayed together through famine and war. Then I’d never have to deal with idiot boys who want to end things as soon as there’s the slightest strife.”

You said, “A thousand years ago people’s life spans were thirty years, and when you caught a cold you’d be dead in a week, so be happy you live today.”

Well, I took you seriously, and eventually I figured out the slightest strife wasn’t really so slight, and the relationship ended soon after. But as hard as I tried to adapt to modern times I never stopped feeling like I’d been born in the wrong era.

I’d go out and meet a guy at a party, and we’d hit it off, and the next day I’d send him a three-page letter about the incredible depth of my affection. Or, after one pretty good date, I’d try to think of the perfect gift, spend hours hunting it down, and deliver it personally to his door. I kept hoping one of the guys would turn out to be wrong-era too, and not only appreciate my obsolete romantic spirit, but fall in love with me because of it. Instead they all freaked out and blew me off – maybe because they could tell my desire to be a time traveler was stronger than my desire to be with them.

So now there’s this new guy, Ethan Allen, who I definitely desire to be with, and it turns out he lives in another town. And suddenly by necessity I have been catapulted into this Victorian letter-heavy life. We’ve been having this long-distance affair, with emails and phone calls, and only two face-to-face meetings in a month and a half, and as agonizing as it occasionally is, mostly I am loving it. What’s funny is that he doesn’t even live LIVE there, he’s there for the summer and is coming back soon, and he’s only two hours from the city, but in my mind he’s on the battlefront and I am pregnant with our unborn child, writing impassioned missives and counting down the days till I see him next.

How it happened was this: The first time I met him I was taken, and though I didn’t cheat I wanted to. He asked for my phone number but I gave him my email instead, and for the next few weeks our only contact was electronic. I would go on in this faux chaste way about every aspect of my life except my relationship and he would refrain from all the questions he wished he could ask. But there was a tone underneath of longing and lust, and I think he knew it wouldn’t be long before my situation had changed.

My very first night as a free agent I called him up and told him so. I mentioned that I was lying on the bed and when you mention that you’re lying on the bed you’d better be prepared for what happens next. One thing led to another and before I knew it we were P.S.ing. (I call it P.S.ing because Matthew used to call all dirty things by their initials and phone sex is definitely a dirty thing.)

The P.S. started out textbook delicious but about a half hour in I found myself confronted with a terrible case of urination anxiety. I had really bad U.A., P.S.-inhibiting U.A., and knew I had it, but what could I say? You can’t pee in front of a guy before you even go on date one. I kept talking and rubbing and hoping I’d just pee when I came and it wouldn’t matter, I’d clean the sheets, but nothing was doing.

Just as I was beginning to despair I heard this running water noise on his end of the line. “What’s that?” I said.

“I’m peeing,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all!” I screamed. “Now I can too!”

He laughed and I ran into the bathroom and went and then I got back into bed. I told him I wanted him to come first and he did. And then I knew I was going to, but I was nervous. So I said, “I’m going to put the phone down for a bit and you won’t hear anything for a while, but then I’ll pick it up again and you will.”

“All right,” he said.

I set the receiver on the pillow and kept going, and four or five minutes later I picked it up to tell him. “I’m coming!” I shouted. He didn’t say anything, which I found surprising, and then I realized I’d picked up the phone wrong. The mouth was in my ear and the ear was in my mouth. I flipped it around and said, “Hello? Hello?”

“Yes?”

“I SAID I’M COMING!” I repeated joyously, and he moaned along with me, and that was our Very First Time.

Since then there’s been more P.S., and lots of e-pistles, which got progressively steamier as everything progressed, and agonizingly long, late-night phone talks. Sometimes he calls to tell me what the moon looks like out his window and I look out and try to see it from mine, which isn’t very easy since I live in a street-level apartment. Other times I’ll ask him to describe the layout of his cabin and he’ll ask me if I’m wearing a fancy bra or an un-glam Minimizer. Although he often laments that we’re so far away from one another, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to trade in what we have. If we were both here and caught up in the drama of urban life, we’d never have the luxury of long phone conversations and we’d never want to spend the time sending detailed, mulled-over messages – but because he’s away we can.

As much as I love the P.S. and epistles, though, the best part of the distance is the drama of the visits. The first time I went was a few weeks ago. We were both busy and I arranged to come up on the train and stay just one night, arrive in the early evening and leave mid-morning the next day.

The day I left was so sweltering I had to take two showers not to smell. I put a dab of White Musk behind each ear, and around my neck I hung a white and blue puka shell necklace I’d been wearing all summer. I shaved my pubes to make a really neat triangle and went down the street to the Korean woman who waxes my mustache, and when I got home I dressed in this 1940s flowery high-waisted dress I bought at the Village Scandal. It fits me perfectly and reminded me of what women used to wear on trains back in the day when everyone dressed up to ride the trains.

I packed my bag full of overnight clothes and a tank top to sleep in, a tank top that makes me feel like a centerfold in the very best way, and my book because he wanted to read it, and four condoms. I didn’t want to be overoptimistic but I figured it was best to be prepared.

When I got on the train I sat by the window and for the first hour I just read and spaced out and looked at the greenery. Before I knew it we were twenty minutes from his town and all of a sudden I got choked up and sweaty. I kept seeing myself bounding down the platform toward him and my heart and throat got tight. I felt like it had been years since we’d seen each other, instead of weeks, and I wanted to fast forward to the moment of our hello. But even as I wanted to fast forward to it I also wanted to postpone it as long as I could so I could be staring out the window, filled with expectation, for the whole long rest of my life.

The conductor announced my stop and then he walked down the aisle and took the seat tag from the luggage rack above me. I pressed my face to the glass to look for the platform, and straightened the creases in my skirt. The train started to slow and I reached up for my bag and moved to the door. All the other people getting off at my stop were middle-aged hippies, and I wondered who was waiting for them, how often they took this same train, whether I’d see their faces again the next time.

As we pulled into the station I looked out the window and saw him through the window, looking away, down the platform, expecting me to come off from somewhere else. He seemed anxious, which made me relieved. I didn’t want him to be cool and collected. I wanted him to be as nervous as I was.

My door opened and the conductor hopped off and put a yellow stool under the bottom step. A man got out in front of me and then I did. Ethan was right smack in front of me, leaning against a pillar, and I bounded down the stairs as fast as I could and barreled into his arms.

“Hi,” he said, and I kissed him hard and sweet, and we stood there for a long time embracing and sighing. All the people who’d gotten off with me were greeting their lovers too, and I felt like we were all in cahoots, playing this mysterious, tantalizing game of travel love.

When we got to Ethan’s minivan he opened the door for me and mauled me for a while in the seat and then he went around to his side. I leaned over to open the lock like Kyra Sedgwick does for Campbell Scott in Singles, but it was automatic and already up so I didn’t have to. He noticed that I’d made the effort, though, and said, “You tried to open my door. That’s a very good sign.”

“I know it is,” I said.

He turned on the engine and as soon as we got on the road he pulled my knee close to his. He pushed up the skirt a little so the knee was out, and he squeezed it softly. I don’t have great knees, they’re bulbous and slightly bruised, but the flower pattern looked good against the tan of my skin. He held onto that knee almost every second of the half-hour drive to his place, and much later when I got back home I could still feel the imprint of his hand.

Amy