The Clasp

by Sloane Crosley

  “Oh, I see.” Nathaniel burped into his fist. “I can marry you to her, too. If petite and anal is more your speed.”

  Victor’s eyes were still fixed on Kezia. Nathaniel removed a metal flask from inside his jacket, took a big sip, and passed it to Victor, who wordlessly took about two shots in one pull. Nathaniel waited until the alcohol had passed safely down Victor’s esophagus before speaking.

  “She’s not even fun. This we know.”

  “True,” he conceded.

  Nathaniel snapped his fingers and Victor passed the flask back.

  ELEVEN

  Victor

  Good evening, sir,” Felix exhaled.

  Victor had been staring at his shoes through the bottom of his glass. Felix’s voice was strangely booming, the harshness of German and the rhythm of Spanish bound and dragged over gravel.

  The German came from Felix’s mother, Johanna. She had come rushing up to Victor earlier in her pearl pantsuit, sorry that he couldn’t make the rehearsal dinner, oblivious to the fact that no one had invited him. The Spanish came from Felix’s father, Diego Castillo, a real-estate mogul and political activist in the seventies who had recently died of a heart attack. Diego Castillo had organized several anti-Castro rallies, one of which ended with his foot being so badly trampled, he had to lose a toe. The back page of the wedding program featured a picture of them—a mustached Diego sitting with Johanna on his lap, a stripe of cleavage at the center of her halter top, a dry cleaner’s promotional calendar tacked to the wall behind them. It’s May in the photo and it’s May out here in the world, thought Victor, wondering if this was intentional.

  “Solid wedding.” Felix clinked Victor’s glass, pointing his cigarette downward to protect it from fat drops of water.

  Felix and Caroline, were raised in families of compartmentalization, of tennis at two and tea at four. They were more summarizers than dwellers. Even in college, Victor could sense this awareness in Caroline, as if she were writing her own story: Now is the time I am going to create wild memories with my friends. Then, in a few hours, I shall stop being wasted, step off this piece of furniture I shouldn’t be standing on anyway, and pass out.

  “Congratulations, man,” said Victor, who was starting to feel a kind of cotton-balled frame around things.

  “Thank you, thank you. I did good. But you know what?” Felix continued, gulping down half his beverage. “This is crap.”

  He said it without an ounce of snobbery. It was more the way Victor might begrudgingly finish a greasy order of Chinese food because he had paid for it.

  “What are you doing right now?”

  “I’m at your wedding.” Victor checked his naked wrist.

  “I have a bottle of Macallan in my room but I can’t leave here. She’ll kill me.”

  Caroline was zigzagging her way across the tent on an air-kiss rampage.

  “It’s, like, fifty-year-old scotch,” he added.

  “Where am I going?”

  “Kitchen entrance, stairs, bridge, bang a right, long hall, my room’s the one that looks like I grew up in it.”

  Victor nodded and thanked Felix, even though it made no sense to. But he recognized the difference between being shooed away from a crowd and given a reprieve from it. He started on his course, passing a photo booth. Flashes of legs and loafers came through the curtain. Chunks of waterlogged feather boa lay soaked on the ground.

  Victor had a feel for the layout of the house. He located the bridge suspended over an indoor pool. The bridge spat him out in front of a floor-to-ceiling 1920s tourism advertisement for Miami, featuring a woman crisping herself on the beach: golden sunshine adds golden years! He strolled along the edges of the hallway runner, touching door handles as he went, letting the static rebuild and shocking himself. Finally, he spied the corner of a bed and pushed.

  The walls were painted with gold stripes. The bed was made to military perfection, covered in gold throw pillows. This was not the room Felix grew up in. This was his mom’s room.

  Victor pivoted dramatically toward the door in drunken amusement with himself. Then he stopped short, distracted by the thing that did not quite belong.

  Johanna’s dresser, old and dark, put the newness of everything else in the house into sharp relief. It had the feel of a treasure chest. He’d been so blinded by general wealth that he hadn’t bothered to categorize the wealth. There was, for instance, a fiberoptic peacock statue in the foyer. This dresser was not in conversation with that peacock. A round mirror framed in wooden roses was attached to the back. The wood was scratched all over and worn at the edges; stiff brown ribbons bled from the bottom of the mirror onto the surface of the dresser.

  Victor put his empty glass on the floor. On top of the dresser were framed photographs, some in color with people relaxing on boats, some in black and white with people relaxing in living rooms. One, in sepia, featured Diego Castillo holding an Uzi under one arm and a baby pig under the other.

  “Normal,” Victor whispered.

  Another photo: Johanna and Diego and a tiny Felix in Hawaii, standing barefoot on a volcanic reef, a cloudless sky behind them, Felix burrowing into his mother’s thighs and crying at the sight of a distressed blowfish. Another photo: Johanna as a little girl, standing with her leg on a woven café chair, pulling up a kneehigh sock and smiling slyly at whoever took the picture. Even then, those were serious legs.

  Beneath the photos were so many little drawers, the dresser could have doubled as a card catalog. A pile of silver keys lay in a mother-of-pearl shell. Victor touched the corresponding keyholes, pushed his finger into one of them until it left a mark.

  An Abyssinian cat came out of nowhere and jumped up on the dresser.

  “Fuck!” Victor screamed.

  The cat meowed, a jumping-off point for a conversation.

  “Can I help you?”

  The cat sniffed around at the objects on the dresser, checking to make sure that nothing had been altered, rubbing the corners from chin to cheek. It sniffed Victor, sending in its whiskers as twitching emissaries before ramming Victor’s hand. Victor sneezed and made a mental note to not touch his eyes. The cat rolled over, rattling the dresser with a big amber thud, knocking the shell of keys to the ground.

  “Some guard dog you are.”

  Victor picked up the keys. He reasoned his reward for tolerating a hive-inducing, box-shitting animal was to test a lock at random. From the scratch marks around the openings, it was clear he wasn’t the first to try. No luck.

  He removed a crystal golf tee from a decanter, sniffed and combined the contents with whatever was already in his glass.

  Then voices caught his ear, floating up through the open window. He checked the time on his dying phone. The first bus back to the city, as they had been informed back when everyone’s ties were tied, would depart at 12:00 a.m. sharp. The second wouldn’t go until 2:00 a.m. Victor removed his jacket, leaning on it like an arm muff. Mostly he heard the sound of women complaining about their feet as they waited to board the bus, but the sound of familiar laughter sliced through the banter. He pushed the curtain aside. Kezia. Kezia convulsing into fits of hysterics induced by the subliterate witticisms of a himbo named Judson.

  “It’s like, why would you ever?” Her face was scrunched.

  “I know!” Judson stopped to double over. “It makes no sense!”

  What makes no sense?

  “Where is the logic there?”

  Good question.

  “So funny.”

  Yes, so.

  “Seriously so funny.”

  Was it? Seriously?

  “It was,” Judson concurred, “it was seriously so funny.”

  Oh, fuck everyone.

  He sat on Johanna’s bed, rolling his jacket into a neck pillow and lying back. He emptied his breath. When the cat jumped up, Victor shooed it away. The cat came right back, getting into position more quickly this time. He should go back downstairs, he thought. But by now Felix had surely forgotten the
errand. He had a bride, money, a job, a sense of purpose, a mother he didn’t mind, people bringing him drinks. Victor blinked, alternating with the cat.

  “So. Many. Lids.” His voice sounded funny, distant.

  He put his hands on his chest and removed his glasses. The command center in his brain told his fingers to do a quick round of strumming, checking for paralysis. His eyelids collapsed swiftly, as if someone had kicked them from behind.

  TWELVE

  Kezia

  The sky had cleared by the time Kezia and Judson returned to the hotel. The stars were out. Not in droves, but in visible constellations. Judson gestured up, nearly tripping on the valet curb.

  “Well, that’s not the worst sight in the world.” He put his arm around her.

  “That’s Orion’s belt,” she said, “and that’s Cygnus.”

  “It sounds like you’re saying ‘sickness.’”

  “It means swan. It’s part of the Milky Way.”

  “The Milky Way has parts?”

  “Yeah, it’s like a section of the ocean. Certain stars live in certain nebulas. Like how there’s a whole set of animals that live around Australia. Sharks, men of war . . .”

  She could hear how she sounded but the thought of not sharing information for the benefit of the male ego made her want to burn her bra. Though the bra she was wearing now was not priced for protest: $50 on sale.

  “Is it man of wars?”

  “That’s actually . . . I have no idea.”

  She was about to have sex with this person. It had been six months. She was starting to fear the kind of desperation that turned old ladies orgasmic when they got their hair shampooed.

  “A group of jellyfish is called a smack!” she practically shouted.

  A taxicab pulled up and released a group of tightly dressed youths, fresh from the club and ready for the second act of their evening on the rooftop bar.

  Judson took her by the hand and pulled, forcing her to trot after him. They crammed themselves into the triangle of the revolving door, shuffling in tandem.

  “Well.” He scratched the back of his head.

  She rubbed one foot against her calf. Streams of white fabric hung from atop the atrium like crestless medieval flags. Eventually they made their way across the linoleum floor to the elevator bank, her pressing the button, Judson pressing it after. She thought of the crosswalk button at the airport. Was life merely what happened between buttons?

  “What floor are you on?” he asked.

  “Three. You?”

  “Six,” he said. “They must like me better.”

  He pressed six and only six. They were of one button.

  Once inside his room, which somehow smelled of him even after such a short period of occupancy, she excused herself to go to the bathroom and apply body lotion to her thighs and armpits. Hotel lotion was essentially scented mayonnaise. When she emerged, Judson was sitting on the bed, playing with the TV remote.

  “These buttons should just say ‘porn’ on them.”

  “I know, right?” Kezia said, even though she didn’t.

  Because the TV was off, the buttons did nothing.

  “Okay.” She clapped her hands together. “I’m going to take my clothes off now.”

  He looked at her as if she’d been beamed into the room.

  She let her dress drop into a navy moat around her feet. She unhooked her bra, slipped off her underwear, and stood upright. He started with his belt, followed by his jacket. He kissed her and they stayed like that, locking lips even as they fumbled with the lighting. Her mind raced with nonsensical concerns once they were on the bed. Under the covers or over? A nonissue in a civilian bed but you had to be an amateur weightlifter to pull back the sheets in these hotel beds. She crouched on top of him. He kicked his underwear off with surprising speed, moving the elastic over the hook of his penis.

  “What is that?” She sat up straight.

  Even in the half dark she could see that something was amiss between his hip and his groin. He looked down, alarmed, concerned about growths.

  “Oh, that? That’s a tattoo.”

  “What of ? The pyramids? Is that the Louvre? No, can’t be . . .”

  Kezia leaned her face down, momentarily oblivious to the proximity of a dick swaying in her face.

  “It’s the Fortress of Solitude.”

  “You got a tattoo of something made of clear crystals?”

  “It’s where Superman goes to think.”

  “I know what it is.” She sat up again. “I guess I always thought therapy would be more convenient for him.”

  “True.” Judson’s stomach muscles vibrated.

  He began kissing her again, developing a kind of intensity that Kezia recognized. Men clicked over, went through stages. Women were more consistent. Whatever level of sexual intensity they felt for you when they met you, they stayed there for about twelve hours. The duration of an allergy pill.

  “What’s wrong?” Judson pulled back, his head sinking into the pillow.

  “Oh God.” She covered her face with both hands and spoke through her fingers, her voice like a flashlight.

  “This is my cue to say, ‘nothing,’ right?”

  “Is it nothing? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  “Oh.” Kezia dismounted and lay on her stomach. “Please don’t say that.”

  If that were true, it would rule out 99 percent of her daily activities.

  “It’s okay,” he said, stroking her back, well on his way to meaning it.

  “I just feel weird. This is weird, right? I just met you.”

  He stopped moving his hand. “Umm, I guess it depends on your definition of ‘weird.’ We’ll see how you feel later.”

  Her heart sank a little for him. He thought her prudishness was a temporary condition. But once she started down the path of uncertainty, it was tough to turn back. Meredith and Michael had been right—there was a hot single man at the wedding. But he would have been better off with Marlene, the Magic Cherry Stem Bridesmaid.

  Bodies were shifted, pillows adjusted. Soon he was asleep. Bored of staring at the ceiling, Kezia got up from the bed. In the dark, she removed the paper cap from a glass, poured herself water, and stood on the balcony, naked. Her hair blew everywhere. She leaned forward on the railing, looking past the slope of her narrowed boobs. Strips of brightly lit pavement framed the pool. The hotel was in the shape of a horseshoe and she tried to locate her own balcony, wondering if she’d spot Victor on it, also unable to sleep. Then she dumped the water and headed back inside.

  Judson was on his back and lightly snoring. He roused slightly, spooned her, and began kissing her neck in a pointed fashion. Maybe now was “later.” “Do you know any riddles?” She pulled his hand to her chin.

  Judson took his arm back.

  He rubbed his eyes, as if trying to squish them together.

  “The only one I know is the one everyone knows,” he said. “Sid and Nancy are dead, surrounded by water and glass. Who are Sid and Nancy?”

  She flipped to face him. “Well, there’s no riddle there.”

  “Yes, there is. Sid and Nancy are fish.”

  “Those are real people. Sid Vicious stabs Nancy Spungen multiple times and the ‘bowl’ is the Chelsea Hotel. Then he dies too. End of riddle, start of fact.”

  “They’re fish.” He sighed. “Those are the names of the fish.”

  “I think you should name them something else when you tell people that riddle.”

  “What does it matter?” he asked, not entirely kindly.

  “It’s confusing.”

  “Fine. Bonnie and Clyde.”

  Kezia indulged herself by giving him a dirty look in the dark. She could guess how Judson would retell the story of this evening. When things were finally getting good and naked, this chick had pulled the plug and decided she wanted to play children’s games. But she didn’t quite care what he thought. She just wanted to kill time until they were exhausted enou
gh to fall asleep.

  “Okay.” She leaned on her side and cradled her head. “Okay, watch. A man is lying dead next to a rock . . .”

  Like all riddles, this one was of more interest to the riddler than the riddlee, but she liked to observe the natural direction of someone else’s thoughts. It was like watching someone else try to calculate the tip.

  “It’ll be fun,” she lied, “and I’ll give you a hint already: The answer to the riddle has to do with something we were talking about earlier tonight.”

  “How we lost our virginities?”

  “After that.”

  “About bikini waxes?”

  “That wasn’t me.”

  “Okay. I give up. Go.”

  “A man is lying dead next to a rock. Who is he and how did he die?”

  Judson examined her face, trying to ascertain if there would be sex waiting for him at the end of this nonsense-paved road.

  “Was the man murdered?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Really?” Judson lifted his chin. “A ‘kind of’ right off the bat?”

  “I don’t want to lead you in the wrong direction.”

  “Is the man old?”

  “Good. But no, not old.”

  “Did the rock fall on the man?”

  “No.”

  “Did the man provoke the rock?”

  “Um, no.”

  “Is the rock alive?”

  “Why would the rock be alive?”

  “Because Sid and Nancy are goldfish, that’s why,” he snapped. “I don’t know.”

  He scratched himself thoroughly between the sheets.

  “Is this man a real person?”

  “No!” She slapped his arm in excitement. “Good one.”

  “Did someone shoot the man?”

  “No.”

  “Did the rock fall on the man?”

  “You already asked me that.”

  “Is the man a carpenter or a welder?”

  “No and no.”