‘What gets me off is male hierarchy and my place near the bottom of it.’: an extract from Jackie Ess’s ‘Darryl’

Jackie Ess’s debut novel Darryl follows its titular character and a cast of libertines in a disarmingly funny and unabashedly intelligent look at a community of people parsing masculinity, marriage, sex (and love) on their own terms. Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby, calls it a ‘Pilgrim’s Progress refracted by queer internet culture’.

Tabor

Last Saturday I drove up to Portland with a plan to hike Mount Tabor, but I didn’t do it. It’s one of those things you always say you’re going to do, but in the moment you find you don’t really want to. It’s a tiny thing, barely deserves the name of a mountain and I like to climb it just for the joke of it, to imagine myself as a mountaineer – ‘because it was there!’

As a kid I always went for the alpine adventures, not sure what that says about me. Maybe nothing at all. Just where my dreams take place. I had a cousin who belonged to the ocean in the same way. I saw the James Bond film Thunderball at his house at least twice and I’m sure he must have seen it a hundred times. The main thing was harpoon-fighting underwater. I never thought about the ocean. My dreams were all in the mountains, their peaks crowned with clouds.

There’s an episode of Get Smart where Maxwell identifies the Swiss villain by the habitual slalom of his walk. I pictured a place that was all vertical and you’ve got to move like a skier or a billy-goat. The real Switzerland is nothing like that. I once spent a summer there, in Lausanne, that’s why I know a little bit of French. Mostly I remember going out on Lake Léman with my weird cousin who was obsessed with James Bond and his dad who’d let us drink brandy, which I thought was crazy. I had to mix it with coke and they made fun of me for not wanting to take it straight. There were mountains nearby, but there are mountains here too. Europe is overrated. It’s like here, more of here but it’s more expensive. Everything in America is bigger anyway. I think I’d have to get a job if I lived there. I don’t see my inheritance as being enough to run with the Strasbourg set. I’d run out. Mainly I couldn’t take the house with me. But I wonder if it’s true that they’re more enlightened about cuckolding in France. People are always saying that and it makes sense. Just with how they are.

I didn’t end up hiking Tabor but I drove out there for a few minutes. Figured why not take in a little nature with my coffee. I’m not really a nature guy, which is a shame, living out here. Everybody else is, but I think maybe they don’t mean it, they’re doing it because they’re supposed to. One foot in front of the other until they’re at the top of the hill. Then what? Walk back down?

I saw a guy at the top. That felt good. It was enough for me that someone had climbed it, and that I got to see. I waved to him, just a little hiker’s salute, then wondered if he wouldn’t think that was weird. But I probably looked like an ant to him, it doesn’t matter. He probably wasn’t even looking this way. Tabor is actually even smaller than the hills around Eugene, it’s just funny to me that it’s right in a city like that. It’s the opposite of nature, and so weak. Apparently it used to be a volcano. Maybe he was going to throw himself in like that Greek guy, Empedocles? Don’t worry, it’s dormant.

***

Freedom

I believe in meritocracy – in the bedroom. But seriously, I don’t see the relationship between the political things people say online and what I do in the bedroom or watch through a crack in the door or listen to with a glass to the wall.

I was thinking about what positive cuck representation would look like. I heard about the Bechdel test, but I don’t think that would work for us. We’re most ourselves as cucks when we’re focused on others. There’s not really any way around that. There can’t really be a cuckold community. We’re stuck on the edge of everybody else’s. It sucks. I was talking about this yesterday with Oothoon, how we’re not ‘queer.’

I feel really lost sometimes. The insults don’t help. I do have a sense of humour about this stuff, anybody who knows me knows that, and some of the jokes are funny. Actually before I was in the lifestyle I used to hang around 4chan and places like that with these young guys and laugh a little too hard at the jokes. I think there are a lot of guys like me on there, and a lot of guys like Clive. Some of them seem to know way too much about the lifestyle. From experience? Or just fixated?

I wish it was easier to talk about what it felt like. To be a dude who felt at odds but not yet ready to be a cuck. Or not even conscious, not knowing what it is or that it’s you. I figure most of us weren’t born knowing. God knows I wasn’t. Another way it isn’t like being gay. I wonder how many of those guys would be happier like me.

I don’t think I can really advertise my point of view, since I wear it on my sleeve that I’ve got problems. But you know what? We all do. There’s not a formula for happiness but I can’t tell you how much better it is to be yourself. What would my life be like if I couldn’t watch Mindy with guys like Bill, Patrick, the bikers – hell, even Clive?

Honesty is the best feeling ever, dude. Let the truth set you free!

***

Women

Clive pointed out that I don’t seem to think very much about women and that’s true. Maybe I’m not taking them seriously. There’s Mindy, and Oothoon, who’s a trans woman, I think that counts. It definitely does. If you’ve got an attitude about that, take it elsewhere. I’m an ally. But basically, I live in a male universe. Most of my life is thinking about other guys, especially in the bedroom. What gets me off is male hierarchy and my place near the bottom of it. I think that maybe isn’t very feminist – it kind of turns women into tokens in a game we’re playing – but I’m not trying to be. My wife has a lot more fun than she probably would if I was a more ‘enlightened’ guy. So, so much for feminism. Happy wife, happy life, I always said. So I found a lot of big strong guys to stick it to her. I think that’s going pretty good.

I just wish the people in my life were easier to talk to. Clive is always talking online, he’s kind of a frogman, it’s all very right wing. Or maybe just against political correctness? I think they’re against people. It freaks me out. Mindy isn’t very online and neither is Bill. Me neither. I just read, I mean now that I’ve got some stuff to read. Oothoon is online too, but very ironic and ambiguous.

I should get to know more women, maybe my perspective is fucked up. I guess I’m always a little afraid that they’ll make me feel guilty for how I see the world. I’m really open to talking to everyone as long as you can respect me, as long as you understand that being a cuckold is not up for debate.