PERHAPS WE CAN LEARN FROM EACH OTHER: FROM AN ELECTRONIC-MAIL MESSAGE I ALMOST SENT TO ELISE (December 28, 2000)

As you can imagine, your name pops up all over my book, which is ever closer to the one-million-words mark. This is especially true of the early years, starting in 1976, but there are many recent pieces about you, too. A good part of that is not on the website, of course. The main reason for self-censorship is Lauren’s jealousy, which is partly understandable, as well as partly justifiable, but I do not wish to embarrass you or Marko, either. Much of what I have written will have to wait for many years to come… Anyhow, I would like to be able to share some or most of it with you. You are an intelligent and observant woman, and you know how to express yourself in words. I would like to learn about your side of things. And, predictably, I would like to fold your own words into my book. As you well know, I have been obsessed by you as a woman, as a female, as a sexual creature, from the first day I saw you thirty years ago. That obsession dominates my writing about you. Perhaps enough time has passed since we split up for you to help me understand much more about my own mores. More, perhaps we can learn from each other. Your feedback to my Residua, both on the website and beyond it, is therefore something of great importance to me. It goes without saying that our exchange on this topic would be a sexual experience in its own right, as witnessed by the physiological reaction this proposal is causing at this very moment, but I hope we can both deal with it without getting into trouble. What do you say?