The following contains partial nudity, adult situations, and something that I don’t normally talk about.

Remember the deer in Stand by Me? The narrator discovers a deer and keeps it a secret. This is that kind of secret. It’s not shame that stops my lips, not nearly. It’s just that this secret is more magical because it is mine. I don’t think I’ve discovered anything new. Probably scientists and experts know all about this. They’ve got words for things I don’t know. Still, I reveal it cautiously because it is beautiful when it is just mine.

Sometimes after I’ve gone to bed, I realize I’m not tired and I won’t sleep. I lie in bed on my back and rest my hands over my chest something like a corpse in a coffin. But I am a happy corpse then, an aware corpse. I close my eyes and listen to my heart beat under my hands. And I force myself not to make lists. I force myself not to think of all the things I have to do. I try to make all of that living waking stuff dissolve. It is, like any other mental reckoning, easier with practice. And in the quiet and the dark of my bed, the easiest way to override the noise of the brain is to listen.

I listen to my heart beat. I listen for the blood pushing through my veins. I try to feel my pulse in my toes. I pick a random toe and I wait until I feel it. I pick a random finger and I wait until I feel it. I feel my pulse, not just the noise of my heart beating but the noise the blood makes moving through. I feel the sound throughout my body, not just in my chest where my hands are. The sound engorges my ears. The sound overwhelms my body and my brain. I try to be conscious of my breathing. Inhaling raises a color in my head. Exhaling raises another color in my head. I push the color through my body. As I say, this is probably nothing new. I’m sure it’s a kind of self-induced hypnosis. I don’t move my hands. I try not to move my body. I don’t open my eyes.

When I get it right, it’s tremendous. I try to pay attention to everything, to all of the machines inside that I ignore and take for granted. The heart, the lungs, the oxygen, the blood coursing. My body becomes aware of itself. My body can feel itself. The sound of everything overwhelms me. Awareness is a sound that becomes a color, sounds that become colors. Awareness is a delicious synaesthesia. I feel like I’m floating. I’m not touching the bed. My electric body is all color and sound.

I’m not awake either. But I’m not sleeping. My body courses. I am filled up with color. I vibrate. It feels as if my head nods to the music, the music of the machine of my body. No, not nodding, not like you might nod to the beat of a song. But that on my pillow, my head is a little left of where it actually is. Center again. A little right. And the noise in my ears takes over everything. But it’s not painful, not painful like a spasm. It is a controlled vibration, a joyful shifting.

My breath, my pulse will speed up, as with sex, as with really good sex. Warmth spreads over me. Light spreads over me. I float, as I said, but I also feel engorged. Not just locally as with masturbation, but engorged everywhere. I expect that if could see me, my entire body would be pulsing. And it is as if I can see myself. And it is as if I am pulsing, everywhere. And if it is an illusion, it is a complete illusion, a whole illusion because the trick fools the magician too. I feel as if I orgasm, but in waves, over and over and over with the orchestra of pulse and blood and breath and the crescendo of popping flooding light. There is no evidence, or not much evidence, after, of orgasm. It’s better that way. All of the pleasure, much more of the pleasure, without the mess. Ejaculation is a common thing, sometimes too quick and too joyless. It’s not about getting off. I can get off faster. Sometimes the waves slow and stop and the sound of my pulse steadies, returns to normal. I ride the vibrations and the electricity back down. Until I can feel myself, once again, lying on the bed. But that is uncommon. Usually, I think, I intervene. I gasp and catch my breath and interrupt and force myself to breathe deeper, longer. Sometimes, I have to move or open my eyes. If I move, if I turn my head, if I shake my foot, if I bend my knee, I can end it and summon my regular kind of consciousness. I don’t know why I intervene, I don’t know why I end it, except that right there in the middle of it I feel like I can’t take it anymore. It’s too much.

The next day I always feel uncommonly relaxed, uncommonly well-slept. And, while I haven’t tested it widely, if I have occasion to have sex, even if it’s with myself, it’s always stunning.

SS