Let me tell you what it is like to be in love with a perfect liar. You may think, oh that sounds awful, who would want to love a liar? But the truth is you want to be lied to. Truth is a vicious slanderer and an infrequent bather, the kind of dinner guest who picks his teeth at the table and tells you your potatoes are lumpy. You'll be on-again off-again with the truth for years, until you have a big blow-up over something inconsequential like your temper or whether you're clever or obnoxious when you're drunk, and you will find yourself hiding things from him. When you and a coworker have a falling out and you're so angry your teeth hurt, and he asks, what's the matter?, you'll say nothing, dear, because the last thing you need to hear is that it's your fault. The worst thing is, when you finally sit him down and tell him "it's not you, it's me", he will agree.
But let me tell you what it's like to be in love with a liar. He is strong and handsome, with a commanding jaw and soft eyes that never quite focus on you. He has hands that grip firmly but don't quite squeeze, and when he grabs you by your arms, just below the shoulders, your head snaps up to look into his eyes automatically, and your mouth opens a little with you even thinking about it. You love the way he never quite smiles, but hints at it, plants suggestions on his face and leaves you to fill in the pieces.
"I love you," he says, over and over, as often as you ask him to, and though the love you feel towards him is more of a fierce, almost unbearable jealousy and a sick despair, you wholeheartedly love the way the words on his breath feel against the back of your neck. "Say it again," you say. "I love you," he says. "Say it like you mean it," you say. "I love you," he says again, and you close your eyes.
He never answers his phone. Instead his voicemail becomes a close friend, first one that you tolerate, then despise, then find yourself talking to in the middle of the night, hanging up before the beep cuts off his voice. He calls you back at odd times, the middle of the workday or 3am, and says "I want to see you" and you believe him. You've tried saying no to him before, or not calling and waiting for him to call you, but the phone stays stubbornly, pointedly silent and you find yourself telling half-truths to his answering machine, abot how you wanted to see how he was doing, that he can call back if he wants but it's no big deal.
Your friends ask why you keep seeing him, and you say, he's not that bad, and you wonder why you say this but think that maybe it's because he's rubbing off on you. The truth is you don't want your friends to know why, not exactly, because they will discover that you are vain. The truth is that, together, you are fucking hot. He walks with his back straight and head high, and even though he never holds your hand he touches you in ways that tell everyone back off, she belongs to me. His clothes are cocky and rude, but fit him nicely, and they complement yours. When people's eyes flick your way to give you that brief up-and-down, you see them light up with something delicious, like lust or jealousy, something in between, and you thrust your chest a little more forward and slip your hand into his back pocket.
He always tells the best stories at parties. Everyone's eyes watch him, and their laughter follows the tone of his voice. Sometimes the stories are about you, and you laugh to show that you don't mind, but your stomach sinks when you realize that none of them will look at you again without hearing him imitate your bedroom noises or thinking about the abortion you had when you were twenty-four and should've known better. You wish you could return the favor, but you hardly know anything about him, so you content yourself with holding his arm and saying "honey" in a low, worried voice. He delicately removes it from his shoulder.
It's not that you haven't asked him about his past. When you do, he deflects the questions with easy non-answers or kisses. Bits and pieces of him come out in conversations, and you hoarde them to ponder over later: he seems to know a bit about horses, he's alluded to some time in the military or maybe prison, when a friend asks about flowers he mentions the kind he had at his first wedding.
"Oh? You were married?" you ask.
"On and off."
"What was she like? Or they? Was there more than one?"
"None as pretty as you," he says, and playfully slaps you on the butt. It makes you feel warm and frightened, and when you picture him in your mind he is surrounded by a cloud of lovers, tall women with faded sunburns, heavy smile lines and their roots showing. In your head, you hold conversations with them, about the weather and work and weather or not he called them whore when they were fucking or if it's something he just does with you. You compare notes about his foibles and come to the conclusion that he's a good man, just a little broken and in need of love. It comforts you that they feel this way, too.
After a while, you get good at telling yourself stories about him. "No, not into salmon anymore, I wore out my appetite for it when I was sailing," he says, and you picture him as a sailor, grease on his hands and salt in his eyelashes, his nostrils distended as he strains to keep the nets steady, throwing around fish by the armful as they flop and twist in his arms. "This reminds me of Cuba," he'll say at Salsa Night at a bar you've dragged him to, and you see him in the arms of a Latin teenager, learning how to tango.
The thing is that honestly, after a while, he starts to make you a
little crazy. He tells you that you look fine, but his glance avoids
yours and when you picture him as he must see you, you feel filthy,
your skin crawls under your clothes and you feel like you need to
shower and change. He tells you that you're smart and you never feel
dumber. When you confront him about it, he asks you, "just tell me
once -- one time -- I've told you you're stupid" and you're at
a loss. So you try to anticipate. Before you say things you examine
them from all angles, until you're sure that they're as sophisticated
as they sound in your head. Each morning you check your clothes in
your mirror before you leave for work. You scrutinize you your face
for flaws, and you slather it with lotion and makeup. He'd like you
more, you think, if it weren't for your low libido, so you fake it,
offer him parts of yourself you'd rather hide, let him think your
flinching and moaning is from pleasure. When you think of him when you
masturbate it turns you off, but you keep rubbing until it doesn't feel
good anymore, and then you keep going until you start cry from
frustration.
When you start to feel really crazy, you tell yourself stories about you. He'll call back, you say, and it feels so good you keep going. He'll call back, and he'll tell me to meet him down by the pier, and he'll be on time and when I get there he'll be looking at the bay and I'll watch him for a while, because I think the serious expression he gets when he thinks nobody's watching is sexy and a little bit silly, and then I'll call his name and he'll turn and his face will light up. I will feel natural in his arms.
He'll tell me he's been thinking, and he doesn't want to put any pressure on me but that he wants to be more serious about us, about our relationship, and I'll tell him that I don't want to commit until I really know him, and he'll nod and say fair enough, and we'll talk for hours about who he is, who he's been, he'll tell me about running away to join the Navy, about the girl he got pregnant in college who decided to abort the baby and how that had always left a hole in his life where a little boy or girl belonged, about how spending that year in India had changed him, about his partner who had figured out early how to make money off of the Internet and who had just needed someone with his combination of people skills and business savvy. I'll tell him the little secrets I'd been keeping for myself, about my secret crush on Joey from 'NSync, about how I had cried more when my hamster died than when my father did, about how I still picked my nose when I was sure nobody was watching. He will really listen, and he'll nod, then he'll hold me and even though we're both clothed we will feel closer than we've ever been, and I'll say, okay, let's give this a shot.
He'll be sweet and understanding. When he looks at me I'll see love reflected in his face. He'll propose a year later, while we're backpacking in the Sierras, on a ridge overlooking a lake, with a ring he's smuggled into the corner of his sleeping bag. I'll say yes.
We'll be married that winter, a December wedding, and I'll wear a dress that looks like a snowflake. He'll make love to me gently, and we'll fall asleep watching the fire together.
We'll grow old together. He'll be perfect. I'll be perfect.
That's the way it has to be.