Hi all. It’s been a while since I wrote. For the last four weeks or so, I’ve been in bed with Covid and its aftermath, and I’ve not really been able to do very much. Most days, I’ve had difficulty being out of bed for more than about ten minutes at a time, without getting dizzy. I’ve had memory loss as well as a complete loss of focus. So, I’ve not been writing, and I’m sorry about that.
Today, though, I felt able to write for the first time in a while. I was talking with my friend and editor Claire about that odd moment during the 2016 Republican primary when Ted Cruz attempted to distinguish himself from Donald Trump by saying that a man who didn’t begin each day on his knees wasn’t fit to be president. There was a lot of fun to be had at the time imagining Ted Cruz as a serial sucker of dick, which is funny because of course Ted is a vicious, sex-hating fascist bigot. But anyway, speaking with Claire, I got kind of snagged wondering how Ted Cruz actually feels when having sex, and then felt inspired to write some pornography about it. This thought was especially fun, since Claire is due to have a baby any minute now, and wouldn’t it be amazing if she were induced to give birth after reading some steamy prose about Ted Cruz?
So, this post is for my beloved friend Claire, wishing her a safe, invigorating, and beautiful labor, and the happy delivery of a baby that I know will be the luckiest one in all of New York City.
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Ted’s Nut (Ted Cruz Tries to Keep Still While Getting Head)
We thank You Lord for the gift of matrimony and the many gifts it has to offer that lead to the fruitful sharing of joy between man and woman. We thank You Lord for the gift of knees and hair-crowns, atop which we place the hand a-blessing. Lord we thank You for the stars and the heavenly baby Jesus who came from them, and not from the bowels of a manual laborer or agricultural worker. For Jesus this most grievous sin I confess, that when I was a child I was tempted by thoughts of carnality and I meditated thereupon with the blessed image of the Trinity and the mysteries thereof. For just as the sacred cross is made of three elements—vertical, horizontal, and central—so likewise the Godhead protrudes in three directions. First it points upwards, as the eyes rolling back in the head. Second as it wraps outwards, as the lips of the mouth which stretch between cheeks, opening space and exposing the openness within. Third as it circulates in diffusion across the spheres, and guideth all the sweet motions of the world as though upon an axis. Even so I now endure the sweet temptation into fleshly pleasures that accompanies the spiritual compensations of a prone helpmeet, in aspect as of prayer, a duty to which the charge of sodomy is not put. For with each sweet organ of her body it is woman’s part to soothe and comfort him whom she serves, just as the Church which is the bride upon Earth of thy Sacred Heart, and serves You, O Lord, upon its knees and in all of its hearts. The Church begs upon Her knees to be filled with the Spirit and made whole.
To clarify: it does not befit a man that he serve the Church merely for Her own Sake except if it be for the greater glory of Him by whose blood and wine I am redeemed. For now a man must be received in the crevices of woman kind, the organ of song and prayer, which in men serves but two functions (prayerful song, nourishment by bread) but unto the bodies of women the Lord hath offered a third use, by which is indicated the service of her husband in acts of tender devotion. And so she looks at him and makes eye contact with him and he wonders what is to be done. For pleasure twixt husband and wife is a heavenly phase of being in which the presence-at-hand of the Kingdom of God is felt, and each other temporal chronology recedes. Thus, a pleasure-hymn offered to the Glory of the Lord (as, for example, “Smoke on the Water,” as chanted in observation of the somber lenten robes of Deep Purple) can stretch into the time of angels, perhaps hours, because in the act of wifely obedience the clocks melt and time itself liquefies into the stream of godly sensation. He feels his nose twitch and he considers plunging it to the back, but he holds himself steady and still, in honor of the blessèd moment.
The mother of his children, borne in the light to the Lord, born under a star, visited by wise men from distant lands. The Blessed Virgin received the Annunciation by ear, and not a finger was laid upon her sacred head or puffy lips. No angel dreamed of swelling her cheeks, as swelled the womb of the Mother of Christ. No force impelled the Sacred Word to enter into throat or canal, save the physics of the Lord by which that which is written may be transmitted onto flesh, for true Flesh was the Son, upon whom is written what has been written without sin. Her flesh was without sin, I mean. Like, of course the Spirit which filled her to swelling—it is not. It is not complicated.
Husband gaze descend wonder “love?” debauch love resist force carriages hold peach grip hands, maybe? Fingers tighten in bleach-dried hair, hard; perhaps, if the husband blesses her with his own rhythm he removes from her the burden of service? From service to receptacle, priest to chasuble, but he must stay. When uncertainty appears in the interpretation of Scripture man looks to the Church which is the sole appointed authority to teach the meaning of God’s language on earth. And in the morning he (Ted, that is me myself—though it pains me to recognize myself in the moment, as though it were me into whose mouth the sacred implement were thrust—and yet how else, at this moment, to delay beyond the time of trial that moment of unknowing at which the devil, Satan, the lord of lies—and flies—has his momentary triumph; how, fearing the imminence—and immanence—of the tempter, to keep his worms at bay; how, but to picture the man, Ted, Rafael Edward the humble servant of God—not as rod but as river, not as cross but as Calvary—but here too—); switch, and find the plan again: tomorrow morning, to appear on his knees to Father Ted, saying the words of the rosary and touching the shrine of bones with his hand. It is not a metaphor; it is Not a Metaphor; it is NOT A METAPHOR and the hand hath the power with which God endowed the sower, and yet.
Spray face, throat, for he has avoided pushing and the Hour of the Demon is at hand?, but even that word, “hand,” as though her face was not the Vehicle of the Eye of God (is that right? that feels made up) but the arid ground, dusty ground, stony ground––oh but aren’t there so many places where one must not sow one’s seed––and so few where one should; the Church; the Mouth of God; perhaps the ear. Perhaps the ear. Perhaps the ear. Perhaps he will spend in her ear.
And he bends her face to the side, and the moment has crested.
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