Ball

by Tara Ison

  I carried her into Eric’s roommate’s bedroom—he was staying at his girlfriend’s, Eric had told me—and crawled with her into the unmade bed, into unwashed sheets with that odor of careless, straight, young bachelor guys. She dozed on the greasy pillow next to me, in her spine-defying, shell-curled way, her nose in my face. I tried to go to sleep. My jaw ached; I scratched away some flakes of dried semen on my cheek, craved a drink of water, but didn’t want to get up. My insides still felt stretched open, rooted out. My hips kept twitching in the rhythm I’d found sent him over. I’d already gotten to know the thick vein in bas-relief on the left side of his cock, and the exact, utmost length within me his fingers could go, and I wanted all of that back. I wanted that obliterating lust, heated and direct and unrefracted as rays of light through a magnifying glass, focused to burn you down to death. I heard Tess yawn, and I craned to face her, needing the comforting, starfish scent of her breath.

  I waited until she was asleep, then got up, stealthily closed the roommate’s door behind me, and crept back into Eric’s room. He’d thrown half the bedspread over himself and lay sleeping, sprawled out and mammoth and lustrous. I molded myself small up against the length of him and felt a flutter of pulse down his arm; I crawled on top of him and slid myself around until he grew big and hard and I could grip at that vivid, affirming burn one more time.

  In the morning we glanced disdainfully at each other and rolled quickly out of opposite sides of the bed. I retrieved Tess’s ball and hurried to free her from the other room; she kissed me wildly, whimpering, as though she’d feared something had happened to me in the night, that I’d left her forever. He watched me nuzzle her for a moment—I guess that’s the deal breaker, huh? he said—then shrugged and went back into his room. Dayna looked at me like a resigned, just slightly reproachful good loser when I came in, then shrieked a greeting to Tess, whipped her up to a leaping, hurtling frenzy, and swooped around the room with her. We spent the rest of the morning cleaning up the party’s dismal mess and playing Ball. Eric called me at home the next day, and I invited him over for the following Saturday night; he came bearing a single iris for me and a bag of pricey lamb-and-rice treats for Tess. He let her climb onto his lap, and she spread herself out happily for him, unguarded, unself-conscious, arching her head and exposing her throat to his fondling, stroking hand. He threw the ball for her that night, again and again. But after that I usually insisted on going to his place and leaving Tess with Dayna, where it was safe.

  I WAS CAREFUL never to sleep with him again, even after a year. I didn’t want to get slack, or too accessible, and actually sleeping together was hardly the point. The only time I did fall asleep, after that first grotesque night and morning, was just an accident, a slip. Tess was across the street with Dayna, and the plan, as always, was the requisite dinner with Eric while we watched a movie or a rerun of The Simpsons, then sex, and then I would leave. I just wanted pizza or Chinese delivered, something quick, because the dinner was not the point either, just a feature he liked to insist on, but I got to his apartment and smelled onions cooking, mushrooms, the acrid snap of garlic. He was making dinner. His roommate was out, and he was making an evening, trying to, out of a Lyle Lovett CD and a head of romaine lettuce and a jar of Ragú sauce spiffed up with fresh onions and mushrooms—Hey, come on, I really like to cook, my mom told me to add all these veggies, he said, nodding—and a gleaming bottle of red zinfandel. A boiling pot of spaghetti fogged the kitchen with starch; the table was set with melamine plates and paper towel napkins folded in big squares. Fine, okay. I started on the wine, had half the bottle down by the end of salad, and listened to him talk about some old college girlfriend, some Shannon or Nicole, whom he’d been with for a couple of years and really cared about but just was never ready to commit to and how he’d heard the other day she was getting married and he really did hope she was happy but it still really hurt, you know, and it was probably time he started really thinking about what he was going to do with his life, about what he wanted in life, and what did I think about all that? And what I was thinking was that it was getting late and we’d never had sex yet on his kitchen table and can we get going? And that Tess was waiting for me over at Dayna’s and I’ve finished my spaghetti and can we get going? I tipped the last of the wine into my mouth, got up, slid off my underwear from under my skirt, and he shut up. I sat on his lap, straddling him, pushed his hand down in the crotch of space between us, used my hand against the buttons on his jeans, and his breathing quickened. I traced the rim of his ear with my tongue, worked myself against his fingers, everything I knew would do it, and it did, his cock jutting out from his split-open fly and the table edge gouging my spine when he lunged forward at me. I leaned back with my elbows on the table, skirt raised and legs open, for him to get me up and onto it, but instead he picked me up—Uh uh, not here, he mumbled—clutching and carrying me like a sack of fragile groceries, kissing me before we even got to his room. He fell with me on the bed, fell onto me with a great, weighted crush, but when I squirmed to get up on my hands and knees for him he gently pushed me flat again, face down, nudging my legs apart, Good, I like that, I said, do that, and then twisted my shoulders around so that while he thrust into me from behind, lying on me, he had my face against his, or his face in my neck, still kissing me. That kind of twist was a strain, everything went taut and seized up until it hurt so I couldn’t stand it anymore; I finally had to pull back away from him, turn away. I pressed my face down into the pillow but he wouldn’t let me do that, wanted my arm around his shoulders or his neck, holding on, wanted me facing him, and twisted me back. It took a long time. He kept slowing down and every time I was about to come he wouldn’t let me, he’d just stop, still looking at me, and when we both finally came in the middle of a kiss that was like breathing straight into each other’s lungs we stayed like that, still, all twisted up around each other. When my spine and the rest of me finally relaxed, went aimless, all of my muscles eased into place and I strayed off to sleep. Eric still on top of me, holding me. A branch hitting the window lurched me awake well after midnight, and my first aware thought was a glad one, Thank God that woke me up so I can get out of here.

  I pulled away from Eric and called Dayna—Yeah, Tess was okay, she was right there on the pillow next to her. I told Dayna I was coming over, I’d be there soon. Proof I was a good friend, always there for her, this guy doesn’t mean anything to me, see, and she wasn’t just a babysitter. Eric tugged on the phone in my hand, No, come on, don’t leave, she’s fine, but I shook my head at him until he let go. He was angry, I could see in the light from the streetlamp through the window, and that pleased me. I could imagine him thinking there was something wrong with me that I’d leave him to go running off to my dog. He rolled over to the other side of the bed, a big, spoiled baby, Fine, go, his back to me; I got up and straightened out my clothes and left without saying good-bye. He needed to learn, I thought, that he can’t have everything he wants. That he was only there to fuck, I’d never be lulled, and in the end, if he ever pushed me, I would always choose my sweet little dog.

  WHEN I WENT to Sausalito, Tess stayed with my mother. An artist friend asked me to house-sit for six weeks while he went to Eastern Europe to study iconography; I decided leaving town would wave a giant Fuck You flag at Eric, a banner of my insusceptibility. I decided it was time for a more sporadic arrangement, that it would keep everything fervent and honed. I told my artist friend I’d love to get out of town for a while. The only problem: no dogs. He was wildly allergic. I insisted to him that poodles don’t shed, and that Tess was mostly poodle, I thought, but he wasn’t about to come home to dander and tracked-in spores. He was apologetic, but that was the deal. I decided it was worth it, that Eric needed to be reminded what this was, and I reminded myself that contrivance works. It does, I’m telling you. Dayna was hurt and upset, as if I were abandoning her. She was also upset she couldn’t take Tess—her hours at the lab made it impossible. So I packed up Tess’s fo
od and water dishes, her special high-quality food the vet had recommended, her leash, her blue rubber ball, and drove her over to my mom’s. I started crying when I hugged Tess good-bye—Don’t worry, honey, she’s my grandchild, isn’t she? I’ll take very, very good care of her—and she burrowed her face in the crook of my neck. I was a terrible mother, to do this to her, and for what, for him? I pushed my nose into her charcoal-colored paw pads to breathe in the salty, furry, puppy-sweat smell, then forced myself to leave. I cried for a few hours afterward, choked with guilt, still seeing her forlorn, confused face as I drove off without her.

  NOT WAKING UP to Tess was awful. I walked through Sausalito two or three times a day—gift shop, gallery, gift shop, gallery, driftwood seagulls everywhere—and when I found people with dogs, I would befriend them. Guys with dogs thought I was coming on to them, but I just wanted the dogs. One Sunday I met a retired policeman from Oakland, walking a docile, regal borzoi. This was an odd dog for a policeman to have, a guy with a movie cop’s burly swagger and black kangaroo-leather shoes. Long before Tess, I’d thought of having a borzoi one day; they’re hugely magnificent Art Deco dogs with dear, shy temperaments, but they’re also congenitally stupid. This one was skittish, too, and pulled nervously from my greeting—the guy told me she’d been part of a case he’d investigated, that she’d been abused and abandoned by some volatile, coked-up perp, and afterward he’d adopted her. Cynthia. He said abused dogs broke his heart, even more than abused kids, because dogs are even more vulnerable and trusting, their lives are in our hands and they know it. And they are like kids; they even love the people who abuse them, you know? There’s that innate instinct to adapt, adjust. He’d like to see animal abuse laws toughened up. Cynthia was his baby now, Yeah, my precious little girl, Daddy’s always gonna take good, fine care of you, uh huh. She bumped her long muzzle into his stomach, leaned against him so fully and hard he almost lost his balance. She trusted me to pet her for a while then, and I ran my fingers through her long, sheening white coat, wishing for Tess. The guy looked like he maybe wanted to keep talking, or go for coffee, but I just wanted to pet Cynthia. Yeah, I told him, because animals had purer souls than human beings—everybody has his own agenda and wants something from you, even friends, even lovers, even your mother, and you can’t let your guard down, ever, that’s when they get you, hurt you—and so animals were more honest, more deserving of love and care. I told him I had a little apricot cockapoo I just loved to death, who was everything pure and innocent and sweet in the world, whom I’d do anything for, and the idea of actually getting married and having actual children was revolting to me, because you couldn’t fully ever trust a human being, a friend, a parent, a lover, they love you, they hurt you, you can’t even trust yourself, whereas a dog like Tess would be there for you, always. I told him I shouldn’t even be away from her here in Sausalito, I should hurry home, because I was just wasting six weeks of her life—she wasn’t a puppy anymore, she was a grown-up dog, and I’d sacrificed six precious weeks of her life away from her, just to be here alone, a big, gaping crater of a person with nothing to hold inside. I told him I felt I could never get close enough to her, keep her safe enough from harm, because I wasn’t really worthy of her, and because the world and everyone in it was so profoundly fucked. I asked him if he wanted to go get coffee or a drink or something, but he tugged a little on Cynthia’s leash, and said it was nice meeting me, but they had to get going.

  MY MOTHER ALWAYS apologized on the phone that she couldn’t possibly give Tess the kind of attention I gave her—she just couldn’t play Ball all the time, it was too much. It was like having a child in the house again, Like when you were little, honey, she’d say, Always wanting attention, so needy, a person could go nuts from it, from the constant demand, a person can’t help losing her patience. A person can’t help losing it, now and then. Sometimes something just snaps, she would say, her voice a remembered echo, a long-lost refrain. And you can’t give in to giving them love all the time, the real world’s not like that, and they have to learn. If you do, it just spoils a child, they learn how to be manipulative, and Tess, well, she is a little spoiled, honey, she could use some discipline. And she was acting maybe a little depressed.

  I assured my mother that Tess loved being at her house and I knew she was taking very good care of her, doing the best she could, but part of me felt a little nervous and protective. I drove home a week early; I sort of expected to find Tess ragged and thin and hungry, like the orphans at the beginning of Oliver, and my mother snapping, clutching the hairbrush, a spatula, a coiled fistful of telephone cord. But Tess was fine, hurtling herself at me in joy, whimpering when I clutched her, quivering with unrestrained love. On the way home in the car she lay down with a happy exhalation and put her head in my lap.

  Her ball, however, was on its last gasp. Somehow the hard rubber ball I’d left her when I went to Sausalito had gotten lost, and my mother had bought her a flimsy yellow plastic one with fake, porcupiney spikes. I’d been so clear with my mother about this, very specific about what Tess needed in a ball, but of course she hadn’t listened, my mother. I should never have trusted her. The plastic had split under Tess’s vehement play, and only an inch or so of its circumference seam held the ball together—it wasn’t even really a ball anymore, it was an asymmetrical yellow plastic flap. But for some reason, Tess was madly in love with it. When we got home and I gave it to her, she ran around and around with it, the chewed yellow plastic flapping from either side of her mouth.

  I checked my voicemail messages, something I’d airily refrained from doing the entire time I was away. One, from Dayna, of course, welcoming me home. I hadn’t called Eric to tell him I was leaving, but Dayna had mentioned to him where I was. I assumed he’d learn I was back, or when I was coming back, in the same way. I’d assumed he’d call, want us to get together. Maybe he’d call later. Call me, call me, call me, I chanted to the phone. I dialed his number. His roommate’s voice answered, and I hung up. Tess perked her ears and hopefully dropped the plastic flap in front of me, expecting it to roll like a ball. When it wouldn’t, she just made do, picked it up again, dropped it closer so I could reach, and shoved it my way. But my spine was petrified from the long drive home, and I decided to go in the jacuzzi; that way, when Eric called, I wouldn’t be just sitting there, waiting for him.

  The hot water sent up pungent steam; I’d poured in way too much chlorine before leaving for Sausalito, and it was now like boiling myself in disinfectant. It felt good; I let the jets pound on my back. Tess trotted up, dropped the yellow ball-flap at the jacuzzi’s lip—No, honey, not now, I said—and then shoved it into the bubbling water; it swirled around then flapped closed, trapping in the water’s weight, and sank slowly to the bottom. I ignored it, but Tess went wild, whining desperately to have it back. I had to dive under to retrieve it, the heat and the chlorine searing my eyes, then tossed it back to her with a firm admonition—That’s it, Tess, no more Ball, not now—but she did it again, then again, in that relentless, needy Ball! Ball! Ball! way, just when I needed something, to relax—Stop it, just stop it! I snapped—then again, just to get me, I knew it, until finally I came up with it, burning, just in time to hear a phone ring’s trill. Or, I thought, listening for it. The jets were loud and I wasn’t sure I heard a ring, but then I was sure I did, but then Tess barked at me, crying for the ball I still held, and so then I wasn’t sure. But then there was nothing. She began to whine and whine—All right, you want it, you want the fucking ball?—and I threw it as far as I could over the backyard fence, probably into a neighbor’s yard or garage space. Go get it, go! She whimpered pitifully, and I hated her, suddenly, wanted to punish her for all the obsessive, manipulative Ball bullshit, her pathetic, obvious need for love that I’d always given in to and had made me such an idiot, had cost me so much. I shoved her hard away from the edge of the jacuzzi, ready to snap her spine, ready to make it all stop. She just looked at me, bewildered and wounded, and meekly rolled over
on her back on the jacuzzi-splashed concrete, her crooked little paws raised in supplication.

  The only message on the machine was the old one from Dayna. I hurriedly got dressed, got Tess back in the car—she crept into the backseat this time, burrowed herself down behind my seat like she’d done a horrible, inexcusable thing—and drove over to Dayna’s. Eric’s car was parked in front of his place, but if he saw me, hey, I was just there to see my friend Dayna. But she had someone over, a guy, some short, rabbity fellow biologist from the lab, who smiled and poured me a glass of wine but kept gazing at her with a moony, indulgent expression. She didn’t even marvel at Tess, just let her jump up once or twice, then told her nicely to get down. I waited an hour to ask her if she’d seen or talked to Eric recently, and she mentioned something about their going to the grocery store together a few times, a jog in the park. He’d taken a weekend trip to La Jolla with some buddies, but that was a few weeks ago; he’d told her the trip was great, they’d all gotten laid. And she’d seen him a few times since with some really cute girl, coming or going from his building. She looked at me, smugly, I thought, maybe sort of challengingly. As if I’d tell her anything. As if I’d tell her I pictured him fucking some moist-skinned twenty-two-year-old, spreading her legs and eating her on the velour playpen couch or the kitchen table, telling her Fuck me, his look saying Suck me, I’m hard, and It’s specifically, singularly, because of you, and how it made me want to drive nails into both of them, all of them. It was pretty late, and obvious Dayna and her biologist wanted to be alone, so I picked up Tess and we left. I was glad Dayna had found someone, but it seemed just a little sad to me, pathetic, that she’d grabbed at the first guy not smashed flat by the plunging, falling safe of her need.