Tampa

by Alissa Nutting

  “So I’m seeing everybody get hit and fall onto a mat, right?” he’d continued. “One by one. Like Noah’s ark except we didn’t even get a partner.”

  He’d raised his brow at this point, as if to say, I’ll let that heady biblical reference settle into your brain for a moment while I chug down this beer. I’d crossed my legs, widened my eyes and leaned in, nodding in faux amazement.

  “Anyway,” he’d continued, “watching all these tasings, I’m getting sort of tense, right? Because when they’re hit guys are screaming. Really huge guys—Bill even pissed himself.”

  “You mentioned testicles,” I’d reminded him. “Were they directing the gun at your testicles?”

  “No,” he’d clarified. “Course not. That’s just the best description of how it felt … shit hurts.”

  At the time, it had struck me that this was a somewhat intelligent perception on Ford’s behalf—how arousal and pain share certain breakers on the switchboard of the central nervous system—even if he couldn’t quite parse the reasoning behind his word choice. All the anguish and fear surrounding the upcoming trial seemed to have settled into my nipples; they’d begun to spontaneously harden on the hour in the hopes they might be utilized as channels of release like in the past. If only I could be allowed a few minutes of Boyd teasing them with the sharp prongs of his orthodontia. As I supposed our criminal justice system knew, withholding an orgasm brought about by a second party was a hearty rattrap for pessimism indeed. It was a type of torture, only having myself for sexual stimulation: I could predict everything I was about to do.

  According to the news, I wasn’t the only one in confinement. Jack received six months in a juvenile detention center for his attack on Boyd. In moments of clarity, I was willing to admit to myself that I shouldn’t have taken another boy to his father’s house. But Jack also could’ve saved us all a great deal of agony if he’d simply had the consideration to call before dropping by.

  *

  Though personal effects in the same drawers as my hidden stashes of prescription pills did get boxed and delivered to me, none of my medications or high-end facial-contouring creams made the journey; this was no doubt an intentional fuck-you on Ford’s behalf. I often spent entire days drinking cough syrup and scouring the television stations for boys in Jack and Boyd’s age range, their images blurry and voices echoey, to join me in dreams as I nodded off to sleep. I still hadn’t spoken personally with Ford since the incident. I couldn’t deny this disappointed me for a variety of reasons. I certainly still held the hope that he might forgive me—that we could go back to our routine like normal. Now knowing the secret life I’d have to lead in the hours away from home, Ford could negotiate for greater benefits—I’d be willing to meet a more robust monthly sexual quota with him in return for letting bygones be bygones, and I could once again have access to luxury. But if not—if we were over forever and there was no hope of gaining him and his money back—Ford was the one arena where my having been caught was a victory; now he finally knew that in our own private battle, I had bested him. Despite his needling pockets of doubt, he had more or less believed the whole time that I was his distant and mercurial wife, not an actress whose talents were cultivated to hide a sexual aberration.

  I needed to play a part for the jurors, too. In order to appear as palatable as possible to them, Dennis wanted me to look as close in age to Boyd and Jack as I could. I often stood in front of the studio apartment’s dimly lit vanity mirror and practiced my courtroom expressions: doe-eyed and frequently surprised, often shocked; seldom blinking but with exaggerated motion when I did.

  Additionally, I worked to produce an overwhelmed and apprehensive shakiness in response to any loud stimuli, my moist lips puckered and hopeful with nervous hesitation. I also practiced speaking in a somewhat higher and softer voice. “When they came on to me,” I breathed, pursing the corners of my mouth as though it was a difficult confession, “the attention was nice. For whatever reason I felt so isolated.” At this point I would nod imperceptibly in order to seem like I was admitting the truth to myself before speaking it. “It sounds pathetic,” I would continue, beginning a reflective stare off into the distance, “but I think all I really was looking for in Jack and Boyd was a friend.”

  Dennis was meanwhile losing no time launching a battle of public opinion. When I watched him on the news, my heart would leap with a sort of near-patriotism; never before had I felt such pride in my country as I did now in considering its justice system. There he was, immaculately dressed and persuasive on my behalf, simply in return for an exchange of money! The impeccable linear geometry of his mustache made him appear unilaterally calm on camera, never moving or changing formation.

  “My client is guilty of nothing more than poor judgment,” he’d often repeat. “Details about the alleged sexual misconduct will come to light that paint a far different picture than what the prosecution is claiming.” He knew we’d never be able to win over the soccer moms, but for those who might be open-minded enough to accept it, he began to lay the foundations of a commonsense defense: I was young and good-looking, and adolescent boys would want to sleep with me. On one talk show, he sat with the commentator while a picture from my early college modeling days appeared behind them on a large screen—I was bikini clad, lounging on the hood of a sports car, my blond hair fanned back in the wind. “If you were a teenage male,” the commentator began, pointing a leering finger back at the photo, “would you call a sexual experience with her abuse?”

  Dennis did a purposefully bad job of restraining a smile and cleared his throat. “I think that’s a fair question to ask in terms of this case,” he answered.

  Though droves of shock jocks and sensational newsmagazines offered lucrative sums for phone interviews or to bring their cameras inside my apartment for a sit-down chat, my attorney worried it might interfere with his construction of my Pollyanna image. “You’re very sexy,” he explained, “but what I want the jury to see is that you’re not necessarily aware of it.” His secretary brought the clothing I’d wear to the proceedings over to my apartment for a fitting—jumper-style dresses, Mary Jane shoes with a low heel—and went over the rules for makeup.

  “Pretend you’re going on a date and have to walk past your conservative father to get to the door,” she said. “Transparent peach blush, a hint of neutral lip gloss. The one thing we’ll play up is your eyes. Very clean eyeliner, super-thin lines. The mascara is so important.” It’s ironic to note that her own makeup looked like that of a prospective showgirl who was escorting until her big break came. “It has to be fresh. If your mascara clumps on you, at this trial, it’s like, ‘She’s guilty.’ You know what I’m saying? You can only use the lightest kiss of it. But that tiny amount will also make all the difference in the world.”

  *

  Given the reason for their interest, when the trial finally rolled around I thought I would find the reporters unappetizing. But after weeks of being sequestered, it was nice to be outside and have photographers vying for me to look at them. For the most part they were persistent but not cruel—what they wanted most was for me to give them a coquettish smile, which of course I couldn’t do; instead I worked on seeming uncomfortable with attention of any sort. I clung to my attorney and acted as though I had never before been aboveground: never seen a camera or even other people before, never heard my name said aloud.

  I have to confess that in the courtroom that first day, even though I truly wanted to pay attention, I caught no more than five words of the opening arguments. Instead I was creating fantasies that incorporated the prison environment instead of ignoring it: they involved the new holding cell I’d be taken to that evening. The image that immediately came to mind was being woken from sleep by the approach of a horde of famished, emaciated young men—orphans, perhaps, in tattered clothing with Oliver Twist accents who approached the bars of my cell and began sticking every erotic appendage they had in between—in my mind I could see them lining up to form a
row of erect penises in various stages of growth. Their groping hands would reach forward on arms extended out to where the shoulder’s bulk strained between the metal, their tongues wriggling and searching from eager mouths, as though they viewed me as a food source. How delightful it would be to make my way down their queue, giving each a different treatment: sometimes bending down to suck as the fingers of multiple owners greedily fought to cram inside me, other times turning around to be penetrated while my neck received the frenzied licks of deer tasting salt. At one point I was able to look up and return to the courtroom proceedings when I noticed the prosecutor, a man named Delany, pointing at me with a villainous, outstretched finger: I peered over at the jury with a hurt look on my face that insisted Delany and I had once been best friends but now he’d turned into a terrible gossip. I, on the other hand, sitting silently, had taken the high road.

  I soon found that my actual holding cell did not fit the specifications of my daydream. Its entrance was a solid reinforced door that had a rectangular slot for a food tray to enter. This opening was not of a preferable height nor angle for a budding youth’s penis to reach inside, a design flaw that had the effect of irrationally increasing my panic: my hands protectively reached down and held my crotch as I realized how long my obligatory stint of sexual castration might last. Rather than sleeping, I sat in the dark for some time after lights-out and wondered how many months I could reasonably go without any adolescent physical contact, not even the ability to give a shoulder squeeze or a lower-back pat. Prior to arrest, my record on the outside had been perhaps six or seven weeks—though such a drought was heavily supplemented by porn—before I’d go indulge in a flirtatious conversation in the cereal aisle of the grocery store or hit the mall and at least have the visceral pleasure of being close to adolescent males. Even these tame encounters powered up a source of electricity inside me, whether or not our bodies ever touched when we spoke or walked past one another in a crowded store. More than the sexual attacks and harassment I was sure would come, I’d never be able to make it in prison for this reason alone; there’d be no oxygen for the affliction that burned inside me.

  The lights in my cell suddenly came on at this epiphany. This supernatural effect was multiplied by the fact that it was the middle of the night—for a moment I thought some divine force had just agreed with me and my cell door was about to crack open, allowing me to tiptoe out and escape. The doorknob did in fact turn seconds later, but there was nothing magical about it: no orgy of foundlings in tiny white briefs grappling for sexual consolation filed in; no masterful escape plot unfolded. Instead, Ford opened the door.

  chapter eighteen

  I was still sitting upright in bed with my knees bent open, both hands clutched between my legs.

  Ford was drunk, but not as drunk as might’ve been advisable. This was completely Ford’s style: coming finally to make contact at this hour, in this place, to display his wide range of privilege. In fact this was the very first thing he addressed.

  “I have some buddies who work the night shift,” he explained. I thought about removing my hands from my genitals but realized somewhat amusedly that their position might give the impression I’d recently been sexually assaulted in the shower room, and it didn’t seem wise to dismiss whatever combination of jealousy and sympathy that might produce in him.

  I said nothing; what he wanted most was for me to speak.

  He produced a long exhale that was noticeably sharpened by gin. I wished to avoid any scenario where he might start crying; he wasn’t entirely comfortable with tears, so he felt they required long justifications. Now that he was actually in front of me again, all the previous curiosities I’d entertained—that he and I might reunite in the harmonious arrangement of my needing money and Ford’s needing a stunning wife, or the romantic notion that his breakdown might fill me with a sense of victory—disappeared entirely; he was as annoying as ever and I simply wanted him gone. He appeared to be more tan than I remembered, which brought out his wrinkles; he’d doubtlessly been staying home from work to drink conciliatory liquor by the pool. Each one of his square teeth, made highly visible as he squinted in an attempt to withhold emotion, seemed like a separate deficit. They were unmistakably the teeth of a man, and the muscles warping his thin V-neck T-shirt attested to a brute strength that felt obscenely zoomorphic, more animal than human. I realized that Ford, alone with me in the cell, could do whatever he wanted—beat me up, rape me; it might even be possible, if the paid mouths of his friends were shut tightly enough and a plausible story was created, for him to kill me and get away with it.

  I actually would’ve welcomed any nonfatal form of battery. I wouldn’t be able to report that Ford had done it—his family, after all, was footing the bill for my attorney—so the implication in the courtroom would be that I’d been beat up by guards or fellow prisoners. This leverage could bring compassion in the eyes of the jury and media, and might possibly allow me to argue for a transfer into a nicer holding area, something less severe than a jail cell.

  “Why?” Ford finally shouted. His fists were flexed, ready to pick a fight with the mere idea of what I’d done. Now that we were at the point of artifice finally being over, I saw no need for dishonesty.

  “It’s just what I like.” At this point his eyes moved down to my clasped hands. He seemed to be anxiously waiting for me to remove them, like my vagina was a mouth ready to confess to all sorts of atrocities and I was merely gripping it shut in order to silence its cries.

  The muscles in his forehead began to move in opposing directions; for several seconds I watched its various folds come alive like rows of earthworms, each one moving independently from the others. “You’re some kind of pedophile?” he asked.

  “I’m not pilfering the elementary schools,” I pointed out. “They’re teenagers.”

  “But you married me,” Ford spat. In his grief it was hard to tell if he was simply worked up or if he’d prepared himself for our meeting with a more proper dose of alcohol than I’d originally thought. “It wasn’t like we didn’t have sex,” he countered. As if the thought was too absurd to even speak, he chuckled a little, though it was dry and unsmiling; he knew that once he said it, he’d likely have to accept it as true. But the part of Ford that hoped I’d immediately proclaim the statement to be lunacy and chime forth cries of denial did finally compel him to say the words: “What we had together wasn’t fake.”

  I suppose I could’ve given him what he wanted, apologized and said that it wasn’t him, claimed to be sick in the head. But the boxy gold rings on his fingers were too much a reminder of the nights I’d had to sacrifice a part of myself to placate him. Now that there was no further reward for pretending, it simply felt too difficult.

  “You should go home, Ford,” I said, as gently as I could bear it. I felt a surge of injustice at the irony of it all: Ford was completely inattentive to the unlimited sexual potential he could leave my cell and start enjoying. How simple it would be for him to walk into a bar and find a partner of legal age whom he was attracted to, take her home and proceed to orgasm. Yet he had no sense of appreciation for this liberty. Instead he’d go home and drink and sulk. Perhaps make an ill-advised intoxicated drive to a late-night gun range. While I’d have given anything I still owned for just an eyedropper of Boyd’s semen to play with, there was nothing stopping Ford from running off to taste the full spectrum of the Kama Sutra rainbow, but he didn’t even care.

  “Do you love me?” he asked. When this question failed to gain an answer, he soon began looking for a consolation prize. “Does any part of you love me? Did you ever?” I didn’t mind anger, but his expression was turning to one of injury and it sickened my stomach. His pain seemed like such an internal, private thing, no different from excrement—something to be dealt with in private. But here he was, putting it before me and making me smell it.

  I realized his eyes had grown wet with disbelief; he was truly seeing me for the first time but couldn’t reconcile it wit
h his memories. He seemed to need some verification that I actually was the same person he’d lived with for several years—that his authentic wife wasn’t trapped somewhere, kidnapped, while I acted as her imposter. So I lay down on my cot, finally rolling away from him toward the wall as was my usual custom when we’d get in bed at the same time. With an air of normalcy, as though we were at home for one last evening together, I uttered the words I’d said so often in our bedroom. “I’m tired, Ford. Could you please turn out the light?” As I closed my eyes, the question brought on a nostalgia for my soft pillow, for my nightstand of applied creams set to begin working as I slept, repairing any damage done through daily exposure to free radicals.

  I held myself taut awaiting his reaction; my buttocks involuntarily clenched, partially expecting him to attack. Instead he stood there for what seemed like hours, staring at my back as I kept my eyes fixed on the wall. “Fuck,” he finally exclaimed. He then began a loud bang on the metal door that echoed indefinitely and had the effect of making it seem like we were inside a submarine. Moments later the door buzzed open and everything grew quiet.

  It was the last time I ever saw Ford. The light inside my cell stayed on all night.

  chapter nineteen

  Whenever the prosecution rattled off a list of the physical acts that comprised “lewd and lascivious battery,” the judge’s face held a look of delighted interest suggesting he wasn’t the least bit bored by the details of my trial. In general, his constant expression was one of content inquiry, his eyebrows raised expectantly like a tourist sent to the future who was trying but failing to comprehend what he might see next.