The Interview

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Bendory is a writer of screenplays, short stories, novels and non-fiction. Her recent essay, in “Midlife on Fire,” tackles what it means to embrace motherhood in midlife and how that impacted her art. Listen in:

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The sordid tale of Jeffrey Epstein, and partner in crime Ghislaine Maxwell, never seems to fall far from the news agenda. Legendary journalist Barry Levine separates the conspiracy theories from the truth. Listen in.

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If you are anything like me, then, quite a lot keeps you up at night. A raging pandemic. Climate catastrophe. Civil and political unrest. In this episode of the Interview, Esoterica speaks with Bethany Browning, horror and mystery writer, on why we turn to scary stories even when the world seems scary enough. Listen in!

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Happy New Year?

I say that with hesitation, since, in Toronto at least, we are back in lockdown. The eternal optimist in me never imagined we’d start the new year this way. However, here we are and lucky for you, you have Esoterica as an antidote to the endless doom-scrolling.

Near the end of last year, Esoterica published an excerpt from Jonathan Papernick’s latest novel, "I Am My Beloveds.” Listen in to the our interview with the author, where he discusses open marriages, loneliness and sexuality in a book he characterizes as “chick-lit for guys.”

Until next week, my lovelies.

Leah

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Esoterica has been on a psychedelic kick lately. If you missed it, check out Psychedelics and the Holocaust: A Journey into Ancestral Memory by Seth Lorinczi.

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By Jonathan Papernick

Ben sat alone on his and Shira’s sensible microfiber couch, laptop propped on his knees, entirely miserable. Shira was out canoodling with her girlfriend again, while Ben scrolled through a dizzying carousel of profile pics on Tinder, leaden heart thudding in his chest.

It was Shira’s night with Liz, and the two of them were at a Pi Day party at some down-market rental in Jamaica Plain. Shira had baked a blueberry pie and dressed for the occasion with a handmade  symbol stitched to her sweater. No matter how innocently it began, the night would end with Shira in Liz’s bed.

Ben thought he had put this nightmare of doubt and longing behind him when he had married Shira and they had started, in earnest, to build a life together. Shira had always been there for Ben when it counted most, offering warmth and comfort and love. He had done the same for Shira, and that finely calibrated construct of falling and catching, falling and catching, felt as if it would carry them through to forever. But this past year had been the hardest of Ben’s life since the year his parents died. During those endless nights when Shira was out doing things with Liz Bird he wished not to imagine, it felt as if Shira had spirited away some essential element of himself, and that he was disappearing amid the middle-class trappings of their well-appointed suburban condo. Ethical non-monogamy was supposed to be a good thing for them, but Ben felt as if he had drawn the short blade that cut deeper with every passing day.

Aside from going for another run, the only way Ben knew to fill the emptiness he carried in his chest was to drag himself back to the apps and the confounding wilderness of online dating. He could never quite understand what cis and genderfluid and sapiosexual were supposed to mean, or whether he was ISO a GF or FWB, a LTR or just some basic TLC as he stumbled his way into a world in which size queens took sole measure of worth in inches and girth, in which bondage and domination was considered an asset, even a kindness, and every new human connection was a disposable thing with more, always more and greater possibilities, strutting their stuff just over the digital horizon. The apps were never the magic Sorting Hat Ben wished them to be, but that didn’t stop him from returning again and again to the illuminated screen of his phone in search of someone, anyone, who would make him feel less alone. Maybe finding a girlfriend of his own would make Shira realize that he was still a man in full. Not a roommate, but a husband worthy of her attentions in the bed and out.

Over the past month, Ben had sent out no fewer than twenty-seven personalized, grammatically correct messages to various women on Tinder, OkCupid, JDate and even Ashley Madison. His screen name was simply Benarchitect, not Patsfan69, 420guy, or whosyordaddy, so he already had a leg up on some of his competition. That, and the fact that he never began a conversation with a gross come-on line about the awesome ramming power of his monster cock or his desire to go down on her like the Titanic, but, rather, with a thoughtful callback to something meaningful from each of their bios. Because he looked non-threatening in his brand-new cobalt-blue polo shirt, fixed smile plastered to his face, he soon found himself juggling several hopeful conversations with KristinOKC, KristinTinder and Jen#4. But these conversations often went nowhere as Ben’s charm abandoned him, or the women read deep enough into his profile to figure he was married, and they disappeared.

Ben’s smartphone address book was a graveyard of lost hopes: Two Abigails, two Kellys, three Megans, one of whom Ben kissed as a Red Line train roared into Park Street station, and four Jens, punctuated by a solitary Chelsea, Heidi, Kat, Lisa, Millie, Sam, Suzy, Theresa, Violet, Zoey, and a woman who insisted Ben call her Khaleesi, Mother of Dragons. Most depressingly, Jane had blocked Ben months earlier when he told her he and Shira had opened up their marriage and he was looking for someone special *wink* *wink*, telling Ben she was uncomfortable hanging out with him, that the flirting had been fun when it felt safe, and that she cared about him, but she needed to step back both for herself and her husband, who would be freaked out if he knew Ben was willing to cross the line from friendship to sex.

That was why, when Ben’s phone lit up with a simple, unexpected text from KristinOKC saying k, meet you there @9, Ben’s heart, his tiny, battered heart, filled his chest with relief.

Ben stood a fit six-foot-one with a straightish white smile, solid shoulders and a flat stomach. His eyes were a neutral brown, his aquiline nose well proportioned. There was nothing particularly distinguishing about the way he looked—he’d been mistaken more than a few times for that guy from that place—but sometimes, from the right angle, with just the right lighting, he believed he looked downright dashing. But he was losing his hair, mousy brown and prone to curling. Not by the handful, but enough he could see his hairline creep back a few millimeters every couple months. Ben still had most of his hair, but he was sure he’d be bald by forty. In his profile pictures he managed to artfully crop himself mid-forehead, rather than relying on the obvious baseball cap to hide his most glaring flaw, so he hoped his receding hairline wasn’t a dealbreaker with KristinOKC, as he suspected it had been with some of the others.

KristinOKC, sporting a sleeveless sequin minidress, an auburn side braid tied at the tip with a purple ribbon, and thick-framed librarian glasses, sitting at the crowded mahogany bar of a hip Davis Square nightspot, looked exactly as advertised.

“Heeeeeeeey!” KristinOKC said, spotting Ben approach. She greeted him with a friendly hug and an air kiss which Ben took to be a good sign as he slid into the chair next to her. Ben’s lungs ached, as if they were filled with wet sand. As good as KristinOKC looked, she wasn’t Shira. He wanted to be with Shira, only Shira. Every date with a new woman followed a familiar pattern: hope, then longing, then sadness. But Ben was determined to do his best to show KristinOKC he was the fun, kind, chill dude he promised in his profile.

“Must be nice to get out of the lab and relax for a while,” Ben said, at the very moment he realized he had mistaken her for KristinTinder, the postdoc at MIT, who had surely ghosted him after he seemed to confuse weather and climate during one of their conversations. He knew the difference and had been trying to make a joke that obviously fell flat.

“The lab?”

“Yeah, I mean, isn’t the entire world just a great big laboratory?”

“That’s a bit of a general statement,” KristinOKC said. “But sure.”

Alcohol was always best at times like this, so Ben asked KristinOKC what she wanted to drink. “Gin and tonic,” she said.

It took a few tries for Ben to flag down the bartender, and when Ben turned his attention back to KristinOKC she was deeply immersed in the glossy screen of her phone. KristenOKC, belying her nickname, was swiping right on Tinder.

“Libations have been ordered,” Ben said, forcing cheer into his voice.

“Oh, sorry.” KristinOKC turned her phone over on the bar top. “I just swipe right on everyone, see how many matches I can get.”

“That’s interesting.” Ben hoped he wasn’t furrowing his brow. He looked like a middle-school assistant principal when he did that.

“Not really. It’s part sociological experiment. Hey! I guess you’re right about the world being a laboratory.” KristinOKC laughed, or, rather, ha-ha’ed. “I know it’s crass and gross and shallow, but the other part is pure ego gratification and I can’t help it. I’ll probably end up in the bad place, but it’s just too much fun.”

Their drinks arrived and they exchanged the usual. She was from Gray, Maine, received her Masters in Library and Information Science from Simmons College, and worked at a not-for-profit promoting literacy among refugees and …

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Welcome to the first instalment of The Interview, where Esoterica Magazine gets to know San Diego author Judy Stanigar. Judy talks about being raised by Holocaust survivors, about immigrating to the United States as a teenager, and about how her early professional life, where she worked at a methadone clinic inspired her new book, Marika’s Best Laid Plan. Listen to it here.

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