Half his time he sat staring out the window, as if on a submarine, like the only reason to open it was to be drowned by the rush of water that would flood in. God, if only there were a thousand pounds of water pressing into that pane of glass. It would never hold and he’d be swept up in the wave and carried at its crest, up through the wide living room chimney…
He watched a lot of nature documentaries and his favorites were about aquatic life. He owned a full collection of the films of Jean Panleve that he watched at least monthly, especially the octopus one. “The male octopus turns white with fear as the female approaches” reads the subtitle at the screen bottom. The female is at least twice the size of her counterpart and he retreats from her approach. The film’s narrator makes much of the male’s obvious fear and the degree to which he is outmatched. But then the male goes ahead and inserts his reproduction tentacle into her receptive center for the hours-long mating process. It’s kind of the boy’s fantasy, to be the male octopus, except, of course, as a boy and with the female octopus being a girl.
But in a few key ways the boy’s fantasy is very true to the spirit of the octopus’s sexual encounter. In it, he’s much smaller than the approaching woman and shrinks back at her initial advance. She’s gorgeous, but about 12 feet tall, so also terrifying. Plus also the fantasy is underwater.
Half his time he sat staring out the window, as if on a submarine, like the only reason to open it was to be drowned by the rush of water that would flood in. God, if only there were a thousand pounds of water pressing into that pane of glass. It would never hold and he’d be swept up in the wave and carried at its crest, up through the wide living room chimney…
He watched a lot of nature documentaries and his favorites were about aquatic life. He owned a full collection of the films of Jean Panleve that he watched at least monthly, especially the octopus one. “The male octopus turns white with fear as the female approaches” reads the subtitle at the screen bottom. The female is at least twice the size of her counterpart and he retreats from her approach. The film’s narrator makes much of the male’s obvious fear and the degree to which he is outmatched. But then the male goes ahead and inserts his reproduction tentacle into her receptive center for the hours-long mating process. It’s kind of the boy’s fantasy, to be the male octopus, except, of course, as a boy and with the female octopus being a girl.
But in a few key ways the boy’s fantasy is very true to the spirit of the octopus’s sexual encounter. In it, he’s much smaller than the approaching woman and shrinks back at her initial advance. She’s gorgeous, but about 12 feet tall, so also terrifying. Plus also the fantasy is underwater.
