With the prostitutes, I remember the before, the fear, the anxiety, the excitement that turns to revulsion at myself once the conversation part—the “Hey, baby, how you doin’ tonight? You wanna date?” part—is over and the money has been exchanged. Then all I can remember is how fast I want to get done with this act that the prostitute is either bored or repulsed by. The women I’m involved with don’t ask about sex with former lovers, not once—only a fool asks to be compared with other lovers. Of course, we’re all fools, but not usually such foolish fools. So I don’t have to worry about having to remember the sex in other relationships. But about prostitutes, they ask. Do they ask every guy, or just me? They’re intrigued. They don’t feel a direct comparison; they want to know that I didn’t enjoy it too much or too little, that they can enjoy the whoremonger in me, that I can accept the whore in them. But I can’t say, “Yes, yes, I have had sex with prostitutes,” even though I want to.
What does this have to do with fucking Daphne? I’m not sure. I didn’t feel as if I were a john or she were a whore. In fact, maybe less so with her than with anyone else. Maybe it’s because Daphne was some converse of that—someone with whom I let go of something that never came back, for better and worse. The kind of experience that one imagines happening with hookers, or in the shacks and ships and secret rooms in dreams, anonymously, but that in real life, well, maybe just takes a certain kind of friend.
ANJA, 2007
I let myself picture a brunette, tall and lovely, who smells good at all times, with a deep, full voice. I imagine a sophisticated lady from the ’50s, something about that name, an evening gown subtly accenting her curves. She tosses her head and men wrap large, sleek cars around telephone poles. Then I realize I’m remembering a print ad from a book of classic Cadillacs. All that chrome. I hear a moan, see his hands tracing the curves of her now-naked waist, then hips, then it’s two pairs of legs moving with graceful, eager lust. What does he say to her? I can’t make it out. She moves with sleek, panther confidence during their sex, and afterward they lie in bed, smoking, of course, and laughing, his hand once again resting, now languidly, on that waist. How sweetly and hungrily he kisses her neck, ready for more, as is she. I look again at her smooth legs, akimbo on white white sheets—I trace them from ankles to knees to thighs to where they meet, and reluctantly admire where he has just been.
WHEN YOU SOLVE FOR “X,” IT DROPS OUT.
We roll around on the pool table, we rip off clothes. Daphne is sucking me on the pool table. I go down on her, her head hanging off the edge of the table—pure porn imagery. And then we’re fucking on the pool table. Fucking Daphne on the fucking pool table. Belly to belly, I try to let go and trust that all she wants is whatever we might do and I’m making my way, the best part, pushing my way inside her, and then, just when I’m really starting to get going, she stops me, says, “Jamie, pool tables are made of slate; pool tables are like rock,” and we stop. We get off the pool table and she says, “Do what you want. Show me who you are,” and again, “Show me the fucking Jamie,” and I realize that I’ve never done that in my life. I’m not a masochist, not a sadist. I don’t have to hit it hard or soft, I just like it all and I like to please; my pleasure is involved with making my lover happy. But she says again, “Be who you are,” and I’m frozen, perplexed, and we’re standing there, holding each other, leaning against the poolroom wall.
I look at her and she’s looking at me as if she knows exactly what’s going on in my head. And then she turns around and leans over the pool table and spreads her stiletto-heeled legs and I do what’s expected, what she thinks or maybe knows I really want, and pretty soon I’m feeling this is exactly what I really want, and we start to go at it hard and furious and fast and beasty and wet and I am fucking Daphne, fucking and fucking and fucking. I grab a handful of dreads and yank her head back. I slap her ass and she laughs, tells me, “You can do better than that,” so I do better than that, much better. And I stop thinking and grab her by the hips and just do. I just be—I don’t think about her pleasure, about safe fucking sex or the violence of penetration, about pregnancy or abortion or objectification or the male gaze. I don’t think about her feelings; I don’t think don’t think don’t think and I come and come and come and come and come. The room is spinning and Daphne is saying things I half-hear; she’s calling me “good,” calling me “baby.” I am good. I am her baby.
WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WERE HAPPY?
We lie on the pool table and we laugh. I get up and grab us waters and two more shots, and we drink the shots down and the water is cool and we lie there, our heads resting on the felt rail. We tell stories. Daphne pours some water on my belly and I jump and yelp and then worry about the pool table, and then I stop worrying about the fucking pool table and we lie there and talk and smile and giggle and eventually fall asleep for a little while. A man, a Daphne, and a pool table are one, more or less.
When I wake up, it’s 3:00 AM on the clock on the poolroom wall, which makes it twenty to three in nonbar time, about the time I usually lock up. At home my dog, Bess, will get up, sniff at the air, wander over to lie by the door and wait for me. After a few minutes on the cold kitchen floor, she’ll give up, wander back to a slightly worried sleep. At first, after Sarah left, Bess would just sit by the door all the time. After a few weeks she gave up—soon I did, too. When I get home, she’ll smell me thoroughly, smell fucking, smell Daphne.
Subheads and some italicized text culled from Daphne Gottlieb’s Final Girl.
“Anja” text by Anja Schutz, with the author.
MERGE
R. Gay
I started with a long poem, “Why Things Burn,” because it was the poem that reminded me most of Daphne, with ideas like ignition and cognition and burning and death and dirty things. I took these words into my skin on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon in October, always a good time of year for embarking on a new path. Instead of returning to my office after a lunch break, I went to a little-known tattoo shop in Berkeley and spent the next four hours having words like “fire,” “spit,” and “swallow” etched along the length of my back. The low-pitched buzz and incessant vibration set me on edge, made my nerves raw and tender. I distracted myself with thoughts of Daphne and screamed a loud, bloody scream into the palm of my hand. Despite the pain, I finally calmed and smiled, eyes closed. If Daphne were waiting for me that evening, if I found her in my living room, she could throw herself at me, push me onto my back, watch me ache before turning me onto my stomach. She could sate herself using my skin. She would be eating her own words.
My body is covered in a second skin that is part ink and part obsession. Each stroke of the artist’s needle bleeds into my skin, bridging the distance between Daphne and me. Though the skin is mine, everything else is hers. When I watched Daphne onstage the night after that first tattoo, my back raw and warm, sticking to the white cotton of my shirt, my thoughts were decidedly impure. I enjoyed the nausea and guilt I felt from wanting to slide my hands between her thighs as she stood, legs slightly apart, in a short skirt and high boots. I thought about the moisture I might find there, and the taste—bitter, perhaps, and full-bodied. As her lips approached a microphone, I entertained explicit thoughts about her mouth and the taste of tobacco. I imagined her swallowing the microphone whole, the sounds of her instantly amplified—I wanted to hear the viscera of her, the way her lungs collapsed and expanded, how deep her blood ran, her heart pulsing, her bones stretched, her muscles constricted.
I went through my days feeling smug. There was a certain satisfaction about being nothing like the person others imagined you to be. I worked as a financial advisor—telling other people how to spend their money, where to put it, and when to use it—without delving into the whys of it all. I liked the authority, possessing knowledge other people needed. And to have this knowledge—in my designer suits and narrow shiny shoes, all while carrying sublime secrets and obsessions beneath the starched white of my shirts and the knots of my ties�
�made my life worth living. It made me feel like I was the reflection of Daphne, who wore, to my mind, her secrets in the open, free to grow wild and unkempt.
When I realized the intensity of my feelings for Daphne—once the tattoo of “Why Things Burn,” had dried, scabbed, healed, once I no longer felt the comforting pain of her words being drawn into my back, not much time at all—I had “The Frightening Truth About Desire” tattooed over my breastbone, with tribal markings stretching across to my shoulders; twenty-three words (including the title) in compact rows, tight script, black ink. Sometimes, when watching Daphne perform, I would leave the top four buttons of my shirt open, hoping she would glance down from the stage, see through the dim light and idle chatter, see how I was making my body hers. She had a tattoo of a heart on her sternum, with green angels branching across the tops of her breasts. Sometimes when she was performing, she would tap the tattoo distractedly, as if she were reminding herself of something. I would watch and consider the possibility of tracing her ink heart with my fingertips, my tongue, the edges of my teeth.
After a while, watching Daphne wasn’t enough. Entertaining my perverse thoughts wasn’t enough, and I was running out of skin. After seeing a particularly emotional performance, where Daphne spoke so loudly that her voice became hoarse and tears streamed down her face, I had “Feminine Protection” tattooed across each of my inner thighs in red ink. When I sat naked in bed, the bottoms of my feet pressed together, I was comforted by the words: “A girl never knows when she’s gonna need to soak up some blood.” A guy could say the same thing, I thought.
I approached her after a reading that was lightly attended by hipsters in vintage peacoats and Diesel jeans who wore Buddy Holly glasses to be ironic. I carried all of her books, with their worn covers and ink that had faded from the intensity of my gaze. “Sign these?” I asked.
She smiled, her teeth gleaming white in a perfect row. “To whom should I inscribe these?”
I swallowed, hard, but kept my voice steady. I admired her choice of words. “Gabriel, not Gabe, who would like to take you to dinner tomorrow.”
Her left eyebrow arched and she took the pen I offered, signing each book with a flourish. “Why would I want to go to dinner with you? You could be a very bad man.”
I closed the short distance between us. I was close enough to smell her lipstick and to see her pupils widen slightly. I unbuttoned my shirt halfway down my chest. “There are worse things than bad men.”
Daphne nodded, then tapped the books as she returned them. “My number is in there,” she said.
I waited to call Daphne. I waited as long as I could stand—until the need to hear her voice burned more than the pleasure of waiting. As I dialed each number, my cock stiffened, pressing uncomfortably against the seam of my slacks. She picked up after the first ring. Without waiting for Daphne to say hello, I said, “This is the bad man.”
“The one who’s taking me to dinner?”
“The one and only. We could have takeout in my office.”
“Are you too cheap to take me to a restaurant?” Daphne asked. “Ashamed to be seen with me?”
“I want to fuck you over my desk.”
There was a pause. “Where are you?”
I gave Daphne my work address and continued waiting. I watched the administrative assistants and low-level analysts streaming toward the elevator, fluorescent lights flickering off as the emptied office settled in for the night. From my window I watched the sun set. I took delivery of several greasy cartons of Thai food that I set on the conference table in the corner of my office. I refused to look at my watch. Fifteen minutes before I expected Daphne, I took off my jacket, straightened my tie, and sank back into my chair, crossing my legs, still tender from the most recent poem, “Dirty,” tattooed on the back of my left thigh. While my eyes were closed, Daphne appeared in the doorway, wearing a short, silky dress with straps that crossed from her chest over her muscular shoulders. Her multicolored dreadlocks draped down her back and her lips were painted bright red.
I cracked my knuckles. “I’m not so much bad as I am determined.”
Daphne took a seat at the conference table, inspecting the food. “Can’t you be both?”
“I can be whatever you want me to be,” I said sharply, realizing as the words fell from my mouth that I sounded too eager, desperate.
Daphne’s face fell. “What makes you think I want anything from you?”
She opened the carton of goong gah tiem with her fingernails, picking idly at pieces of shrimp. She popped a medium-size shrimp into her mouth, then licked her fingers clean. I stood and approached Daphne. I slid a hand behind her back and began wrapping her locks around my fingers until my hand was lodged against the back of her neck. I crushed my mouth against hers, tasting garlic and cigarette smoke. Her lips parted and I growled deeply. My grip tight, I moved our bodies toward my desk and I pushed her down, wondering how my stapler and telephone and paper-clip dish felt beneath her back. I lifted her skirt and slowly slid my hands up her thighs, marveling at the strength I felt in her body. I did not speak kind words. I pulled her panties to the side and stepped closer, unbuttoning my slacks and letting them fall around my ankles. I spit on my hand and lifted my cock toward Daphne’s cunt. I let myself fall into her body and I fucked her. I was, despite my best intentions, both eager and desperate.
When I came, I shouted her name and then lay on her motionless body, feeling sweat soaking my dress shirt. After a long while, Daphne pushed me away and straightened her clothes. I could see sweat stains from my body across her torso. “That was interesting,” she said. She took the opened carton of goong gah tiem and she left. She said nothing about her words, my body, but I saw the flicker of recognition and then the revulsion and fascination as she realized, I hope, who I really was.
I pulled my pants up, grabbed my keys and jacket, and followed Daphne home. She walked fast, as if she knew with certainty what was behind her in the darkness. I practically had to run to keep up yet stay hidden. I spent the night crouched in shadows, watching her windows. I murmured her poetry under my breath and, inexplicably, I cried. When the sun rose, I went to my tattoo shop and had the name Daphne tattooed over each rib. I waited, again, until these new wounds were healed, then I called her again.
“It’s the bad man again,” I said when she answered. “I want to fuck you in my bed.”
“Where are you?” Daphne asked.
I gave her directions to my apartment. I didn’t bother with food or other pretenses. I made sure her books were displayed prominently on my end table, and I changed into a worn pair of jeans and a white T-shirt. As I waited, I paced the wooden floors in bare feet, rubbing my toes along the spaces between each slat. When she knocked on the door, I inhaled deeply, running my fingers through my hair. I padded to the door, stepping aside as Daphne entered. She smirked at me and began undressing, stepping out of her shoes, black satin pants, black leather corset, and white shirt, as she found her way to my bedroom. She stripped until she was wearing nothing but ink and heavy silver rings on her fingers and a handful of black bracelets around her right wrist. Daphne lay on my bed, covered in soft white cotton sheets, and spread her legs. She pointed to the space between her thighs and I climbed up, kneeling as I looked down. I saw her ink heart quivering and I bent down, pressing my lips to the bright red, then up the column of her throat, flicking my tongue against the underside of her chin.
I pulled her lower lip between my teeth, chewing, not so softly. I traced her cheekbones and dark lower eyelids. I kissed her forehead and slid my tongue into her mouth, rudely, until she gagged and dug her fingernails into my shoulder. Our teeth and lips tangled until they were bruised. I paused and removed my T-shirt. I sat up so Daphne could see our latest work. She hissed, pulling me back to her. I slid my hands between our bodies, grasping at her breasts, heavy in my hands. I brought my teeth to her nipples, pulling them away from her body until she winced and arched her back. I turned Daphne onto her stomach
and licked the length of her spine, using my fingers to spread her thighs, sliding two fingers inside her, wanting to reach farther than I thought possible. I unbuttoned my jeans and pulled my cock out, stroking it softly as I stared at naked Daphne, her head to the side, eyes wide open.
“I’m going to fuck you now,” I whispered harshly. Then I penetrated her and waited, feeling the blood rushing from one end of my body to the other. Daphne lifted herself toward me and I began to move my hips slowly, leaving the tip of my cock near the pulsing entrance, slick and warm.
I wove my fingers between her locks, pulling her head back so that the muscles of her neck strained, reddened. I sank my teeth into the exposed skin there, biting until her body shifted in protest. She reached back and grabbed at my side, holding me against her. I slid deeper into her body, imagined my chest merging with her spine, our organs coalescing. I fucked her harder and harder until her head was pressed against the wall and our bodies could move no farther. Her ass and thighs trembled beneath me. Each of her words throbbed and swelled, the canvas of my skin a mass of sensation. I felt her cunt opening wider. I was moved by the violence and tenderness of it all. I could feel something building in my feet, crawling up my legs and into my cock. Again I cried her name as I came, then slid off, lying on my back, one arm tossed over my head as I tried to catch my breath. I told myself that she had come, too.
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