the intergalactic space traveler's return

(este cuento en español)


Jumping back into the ring after five years of marital fidelity is akin to an astronaut’s re-entry after a long, arduous intergalactic mission: the blue planet is coming up fast, and as I punch in the landing sequence and pray that ground control hasn’t lost my coordinates I worry about my fate in a world grown unfamiliar in my absence and in which, hampered by a now quaint skill set, I'll inevitably be quarantined into geekdom.


My first discovery is that my knowledge of the boy-beastie is far from obsolete, because evolution has been a non-issue in the light years that I’ve been away. Case in point, the friend who hits on me four days into my separation, ergo while I’m still on the ground visibly hemorrhaging from multiple and aggravated wounds. I explain that look I’m really not up for this I hope you understand etcetera. He replies somewhat huffily what do you take me for, besides I’m madly in love with so-and-so and anyway I consider you a friend repeat friend stop and drops out of sight.


Anyway: What is a man…what’s a kiss…what’s sex? I wonder as, much like an amputee feeling her missing limb, I become aware of a blank, curious gap: something essential has been taken away, and while it doesn’t hurt, its absence, I know, makes me a cripple. Don’t worry, you’ll snap out of it. You just have to give it time my friends tell me kindly, in the tone people use to recommend chicken soup for a lingering cold. I nod, faking agreement, then run home to check my intergalactic space travel instruction manual anyway. God forbid I missed some key point in the landing sequence or, worse, an entire section titled MIND THE GAP. But all it says is: thinking is pointless, dancing essential. Like what I need right now is a freaking fortune cookie,


like I have a choice. Cut to 5am, my favorite nightclub and the stranger who lives by the motto my heart belongs to my girlfriend, but my body belongs to me. Since here I am floating in a tin can, convinced that my circuits must be dead, at first I overlook the signal coming in loud and clear that THIS IS GROUND CONTROL. He’s locked on to my ship, and he’s bringing me in. He's hot, he’s articulate, he gets me, I get a thrill, yes, cab, home:


as I step gingerly over the threshold with another man I’m fully expecting the earth to open up under my feet but the dreaded crossing is smooth, flawless, delightful, for ground control with his verve and grace, movie-star looks and wicked rock 'n roll hair, deep sexy kisses and whipsmart banter, has unquestionably been designed to spec and flown in from Paris exclusively for me, solely to be deployed at this precise moment and no other. con't.