picture of a lovegod

My Lovegod did write. Often. And we hatched a plan for me to come to Brussels at Christmas for two glorious weeks of being in love. To me it seemed like the most romantic plan possible. What better way to, ahem, become a woman, finally? It never occurred to me that I could have saved a lot of travel time and money, not to mention the hassles I had to go through to convince my parents that this was a perfectly sane thing to do, by going to just about any bar in New York and putting up a red flag. Perfumed, of course.

Well, the first night there the deed was done and afterwards I looked around to see where this lovegod actually lived.

Brussels is very gray in winter. And cold with a misty rain falling all the time. His apartment was on the third floor. A walkup. It had a tiny bedroom and a smallish living room with very basic furniture that came with it. There was no kitchen except for a two burner hotplate. A sink provided cold water. The bathroom, which was a toilet with a door and a separate shower with a door that had a hook on the back for your clothes, was on the second floor, shared by three other apartments, all inhabited by Belgians who spoke only Walloon. Try telling one of them to put the seat down after going.

My lovegod was perplexed by my lack of enjoyment of our main sport, the reason for my visit. Though not for lack of trying on his part.

Lovegod: “Every woman has trouble in the beginning.”

Me: “What kind of trouble do you mean?”

Lovegod: “Well, there are lots of kinds. You know, frigidity has many causes.”

Me: “What is frigidity?”

Lovegod: “Oh, come on. You know what we’re talking about here.”

Me: “You know. I don’t.”

Lovegod: “Just be patient with yourself. It’ll happen in time. Just relax. Let’s try again.”

So we tried again. Lots of times. He had a great two weeks. I returned to New York with a few small gifts from Lovegod. It took me the next two weeks in my well-heated apartment with its own bathroom to thaw out. Maybe the weather and the cold water flat had been to blame. In order to try out this theory I advanced a plan to meet up for the entire summer and travel through Europe together. The plan was accepted by Lovegod. In mid-June I was on a plane heading back to Brussels.