Daniel Friedman - Riot Most Uncouth

“A poet mustn’t live by the strictures that govern ordinary, conventional lives. Propriety is anathema. Art is about testing limits and reveling in the joy of unrestraint. I am not the man you want to face your regrets with later. I can only offer to share this moment with you.”

She stretched her neck toward me, so my mouth was near to hers. I looked into her eyes and saw that they were full of tears. “Perhaps, for the right woman, you would change your rakish ways?”

I smiled. “Perhaps. For a month, or two, or even three. But before too long, I’d meet another right woman, and off I’d go, racing after her. A poet’s heart is not a thing to be owned. A lover’s love is too wild to be tethered in one place. I am fated to chase my desires, irrespective of other obligations. The world is full of beauty, and I want to taste all of it.”

“Some things that look beautiful are poisonous, you know.”

“I fear I shall not live a long life. But I would not live otherwise.” I tried to kiss her, but she pulled back from me and retreated across the room, so her bed was between us.

“And what of faith and fidelity?”

“If you want those things, you oughtn’t flirt with poets. Faith and fidelity are the province of the prudent man. Someday, you’ll meet one of those, and perhaps you’ll marry him. The prudent man is the most proper of suitors.”

“You speak as if prudence is a distasteful thing.”

“Not at all. Prudent men have the wisdom to resist the possibilities of now. A prudent man knows that the combination of two fortunes will yield greater comfort to both parties. A prudent man will understand that he desires children to carry his name. A prudent man will recognize that he wants companionship as he ages, that he wants tender hands to care for him as he grows infirm.”

“He sounds like an honorable fellow.”

“He is honorable, and it is upon a sturdy and honorable foundation that he builds his life and his future. And I, the poet, the lover, am most dishonorable. I don’t build anything. I care only for pleasure, and I behave as though my actions have no consequences. I am profligate with money and amass debts wherever I go. I keep dangerous beasts as pets. I am lazy in my studies. And I am rumored to be incapable of sexual fidelity.”

“You could be more prudent. You could be faithful, for a woman who understands you, for a woman who inspires you.”

“I don’t want to change,” I said. “And I know that if I changed, you would cease to love me. Maybe you should preserve your virtue for the prudent man. He deserves it more than I. He shall remain by your side, and he’ll always be faithful. If you grow ill, he shall hold vigil at your bedside. If you should predecease him, he shall weep at your funeral and bring fresh flowers to your grave. But you know what I know; love is not a lifetime of fidelity, and love is not a prudent combination of interests. Love is a single, sublime moment, transcendent but fleeting. You know there’s a kind of love so intense that you can’t look at it directly; so bright that you still see its shape when you close your eyes. And you know that a prudent man can’t love like that, because he’s too heavily invested in later to commit himself to now. He can commit for life, but I can only commit to right now. You may forsake true love for the fidelity of a prudent man. But you will recognize his faithfulness is dullness and his honor is weakness. You will know that he is boring.”

“But why can’t I have both the now and the later?”

“The very thing that makes me radiant and desirable will carry me away from you. I need to rove. I will sleep in castles on cliffsides and listen to the ocean crashing against rocky shores. I will watch the sun setting behind minarets. And I will carry my love for you to all the places I will go, but my love will never be yours alone. There will be many other women and probably a few boys, and I’ll love each of them as fiercely and wholly as I love you right now.”

“But if you really loved me, you would forestall your own selfish pleasure to protect me from pain.” She stepped backward again, into the far corner of the room.

I shrugged. “If you really loved me, you would not wish to deny me any pleasure. The minute you’re out of my sight, you’re no longer part of my now. The first time desire tempts me, I will succumb to it. My heart is an insect, drawn to the nearest flower by forces beyond its comprehension.”

“And as you flit to the next flower, I shall be left all alone to wilt and dry out and rot and die.” She crossed her thin arms over her breasts. “You’re not a poet or a lover or a drunk or a hero, Byron. You are none of the things you claim to be. You are a changeling. You are always playing a role. And you have assessed me frightfully well, preying upon my unspoken desires and stoking my romantic impulses while dismissing the solid virtues of Mr. Sedgewyck. It’s funny, the choice between a good man and a bad one ought not be so wrenching.”

I resisted the urge to tell her what I knew of Sedgewyck’s virtues. “I would not go so far as to say Mr. Sedgewyck is a bad man.”

She laughed. “You clown and jest, and you’re so quick with your magnificent tongue. But I’m sure you know that you are not the good man in this scenario.”

I circled around the bed and moved close to her. The wall was at her back, and she could retreat from me no farther. I touched her warm, pale cheek with my hand. “Why? Because I am imprudent? I am sure you know that a prudent man like Mr. Sedgewyck will never love you in a whole lifetime as much as I can in a single passionate embrace. It’s not that he doesn’t wish to; he is a sensible man, and loving you is a sensible thing to do. But he is incapable of my kind of ardor. He lacks the imagination to even realize such a thing could exist. You want me because passion is the opposite of prudence; its heat and its light attract you, though you know a thing so volatile can never endure.”

Her face rubbed against my hand, and she closed her eyes. “Is that the poet’s gift?”

“Yes, but not the only one.”

“What else have you got?”

I moved my hand from her cheek and caressed her long, white neck, bringing my thumb to rest in the indentation at the base of her throat. “My magnificent tongue has uses beyond jest and clowning, and I can fuck you until your thighs shake and your toes curl up,” I said.

“You have a high opinion of your abilities, Lord Byron.”

“In a thousand years of tongues and fucking, there’s never been anyone better.”

She pinched her eyes shut again, and exhaled with some force, and her breast heaved beneath my persistent caress. “That might be true. But I think I must decline your offer.”

“You think you must,” I said. “But what do you really want?”

“I don’t want to endure a lifetime of shame as penance for a single imprudent act, while you bask in your infamy and write mock-epic poems about your conquests.”

“The present slips away while you fret about the future. You must choose, dear Olivia, to seize your now. I know what you want. I can give it to you. And it’s better than you can possibly imagine. You need only to ask for it.”

A lingering silence passed between us. I wanted to use this as an opportunity to gather her in my arms, but the moment seemed wrong. Even with my confidence bolstered by drink, I knew that her desire was not tilting my way, and conquest was not at hand.

“Mr. Sedgewyck-” Olivia began. Her voice was soft and husky, and tears welled in her eyes.

“No, that’s not what you want,” I said, uninterested in hearing whatever she might have to say about that unpleasant gentleman. “Turn me away if you feel like you have to, but don’t ever lie to me.”