America Is Not the Heart

by Elaine Castillo

  I never said that.

  Rosalyn threw her weight to the side, shoving Hero with her shoulder. She straightened, touching her own cheeks and forehead with the back of her hand like she was feeling the temperature of a feverish child. That was the point at which Hero knew she shouldn’t have said yes, when Rosalyn had asked her to come out.

  Did you have the Santacruzan in Vigan? Rosalyn asked.

  Yes.

  Were you ever in the pageant?

  Yes.

  Rosalyn perked up, eyes gleaming. So who were you?

  Hero closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. Reyna Judít, usually. They made the head of Holofernes out of papier-mâché and I played it so many times they let me just keep it in my house and reuse it every year.

  Cackling, Rosalyn hugged herself. Reyna Judít, shit. That’s so you. Some dude’s head in one hand and a sword in the other.

  When I got older, and people knew I wanted to be a doctor, I got to be Reyna Doktora.

  Reyna Doktora, Rosalyn said, no other comment, just rolling the name around in her mouth like she liked the taste of it.

  They watched as Reyna Elena, a lipsticked girl of about thirteen with large breasts displayed above the low neckline of a wrinkled satin gown, appeared at the rear of the procession, bringing the pageant to a close. The parents started to cheer, the flashes of cameras reaching a frenzy though people had been taking photos and videos from the beginning. The whole thing had gone by fast, faster than Hero remembered the procession going when she was a child.

  When she turned her head back to look at Rosalyn, she saw that Rosalyn had been studying her for longer than she’d been aware, arms around her knees, the gaze alert and considering. She looked at Hero like she’d looked at her this way a million times before and would do so a million times more; like she was looking at something she was used to but not tired of, something she could trace on paper with her eyes closed.

  I wish I coulda seen you back then, Rosalyn murmured, her voice just loud enough to pass in the space between them, and no farther.

  It would have been easy then, for Hero to just lean in, tilt her chin down, sip the breath off Rosalyn’s mouth, in a parking lot full of people they didn’t know, who weren’t even looking at them. It took more effort not to do it than to do it, they were that close. It took more effort, but Hero put the effort in. She turned back to watch the people gradually disappearing into the Pearl of the Orient, where the celebratory pabitin for the children would be taking place, in the restaurant’s enthusiastically advertised BIG BACK GARDEN, GREAT FOR EVENTS! The people left in the parking lot were leaving, so Rosalyn cleared her throat, mumbled, Yeah, okay, let’s go.

  In the seconds that it took for Hero to clamber awkwardly off the hood and walk toward the passenger door, she had a calm, demented moment of feeling completely content, consoled even. Thinking, of course it was better that they didn’t, reminding herself that it was a bad idea, and she hadn’t wanted to, anyway. Hero knew well the feeling of spinning a lie to herself to keep going; she’d done that for two years, telling herself she hoped no one she loved would endanger their lives and come looking for her. No one came looking for her, and now she was here, sliding into Rosalyn’s dirty passenger seat, kicking aside an empty soda can and a cracked cassette tape.

  It would have been easy on the hood of the car; that was the moment to do it, and the moment had passed, it was over. Hero moved to put her seat belt on, and had it halfway across her body when she caught sight of Rosalyn clicking hers in place, face carefully blank, avoiding Hero’s eyes—and instead of just letting it go and doing the same, Hero leaned forward, straining over the armrest and the cupholder filled with balled-up napkins. She brought Rosalyn’s face back up, and kissed her.

  Hero heard a brisk click that she realized was Rosalyn fumbling with one hand to pop her seat belt off in a frenzy, throwing herself forward, backing Hero up against the passenger seat even though that meant the armrest was jabbing her in the stomach, one hand anchored in Hero’s hair behind her ear, the other on the headrest but twitching so much Hero could see it even out of the corner of her half-closed eyes, like Rosalyn wanted to slide the hand down and cup Hero’s face but was too nervous to go through with it, unsure if what was happening was really happening. Hero felt a shudder that didn’t start in her body but ended there, deep down her throat and in a fizzing line to her groin like a quick-burning fuse.

  Hero grasped Rosalyn’s unsure hand and yanked it down by the wrist, even though she didn’t know what to do with it now that she’d caught it. She ended up holding it, tangling their fingers, in a way that only further numbed out her numbing-out hands, delirious, roving, full of ideas. Sounds were coming out of Rosalyn’s mouth that were muffled against Hero’s mouth, then against her jaw, the long tendon in her neck, sloppy and hot, all over the place, like someone who hadn’t been kissed all that much and hadn’t learned to contain her excitement when it happened. Only when she and Rosalyn were mouth to mouth again did Hero understand—with what at first she thought was pure horror but which then revealed itself to be a white-hot lick of scalp-to-toe arousal—that the sound she was hearing in the background was Rosalyn begging, beside herself, distraught with need, voice lower than a whisper like she wasn’t really talking to Hero at all, like she didn’t even know what she was saying and would be mortified later when she remembered it: Please—please—please.

  * * *

  It took them a while to leave the parking lot. It’d been years since Hero had just made out with someone, and that was all she thought was going to happen, until Rosalyn buried her face in the steering wheel and then said into the space where the air bag was stored: Nobody’s home right now.

  Hero leaned back, mouth puffy. She put her seat belt on, and gestured with her head. Rosalyn squeezed the steering wheel, hard, like if she let go she’d wake up.

  What Hero had only speculated on before turned out, in practice, to be true: Rosalyn hadn’t slept with that many people and in all likelihood hadn’t ever slept with a woman. She had enthusiasm in spades, but enthusiasm alone, historically, wasn’t generally what got Hero to come. She’d never pretended to be someone who could come with penetration; her enjoyment of penetration had always been separate from, though related to, her need to come. More often than not she found herself annoyed and distracted when a well-meaning partner tried to thumb at her clit while inside her, smug and charitable; combining the two sensations dulled both of them and took her out of the moment. She liked the pressure, being filled up, being taken someplace and never getting there; there was a world of pleasure in that. But after the world was over, she needed to come.

  That was what she thought, and thought, and thought, and thought, her mood souring, as she lay in Rosalyn’s childhood bedroom and felt Rosalyn sucking ineffectively at her labia for the nth time since they’d started. She should have gone down on Rosalyn first, but by the time they’d stumbled into the bedroom, Hero already sore between the legs with wet, clutching desire, Rosalyn had barely been capable of coherent speech, shaky and wild-eyed, so turned-on Hero almost told her to calm down and breathe, refraining only because she knew how condescending it would sound. She wasn’t all that calm herself, but seeing Rosalyn go to pieces before her put Hero in a responsible frame of mind.

  She’d let herself get pushed onto the bed, let Rosalyn take her pants off, let Rosalyn push her shirt off, then closed her eyes and waited. Let Rosalyn go at her own pace. Jumped, when Rosalyn touched the four-year-old pockmarks on her belly and didn’t let on whether or not she could tell that they were cigarette burns. Jumped again when Rosalyn kissed them, and moved down.

  It—well. Hero was a patient person, generally, but this was testing her patience, and worse than that, the longer it took her to come, the longer it took Rosalyn to figure out how to make her come. It wasn’t that Rosalyn was ignorant, she manifestly knew where the clitoris was, onl
y she kept adorning her movements with unnecessary flourishes rather than just staying in one place like a decent human being. Which unfortunately gave Hero time to start thinking, which was usually how things fell apart.

  She let herself lie there for another few minutes, calm with the knowledge that she’d tried it, they’d tried it, but it hadn’t worked out, the, the, the chemistry wasn’t there, if that was the way to put it, and better to find that kind of thing out at the beginning. She put her hand on Rosalyn’s shoulder to tell her to stop, only to feel her entire chest cavity jolt with sudden and total refusal. Then, instead, she heard herself say: Could you. use your hand.

  After getting out of the camp, Hero had masturbated extremely infrequently; even when her hands were healed, she lacked the dexterity to keep going the way she needed to, and she hated the feeling of just rutting desperately against her own palm or wrist, settling for any friction. There were girls she knew back in college who said they could come just from sitting cross-legged in the jeepney, rumbling down España Boulevard and trying not to let it show, but she’d never been one of them. She liked precise movements, and she couldn’t give herself precise movements, so she went up to the city with Jaime for the closest thing—which wasn’t that close at all, but it was better than nothing. It was mostly better than nothing.

  Hero’s entire body remembered those tiny facts when Rosalyn’s middle finger touched down, sure, and sent a flare of pleasure through her body so severe she screamed. Starving, stripped-bare and keening for it now, unfastening everywhere but where she was gripping at the sheets, ignoring the pain it sent all the way up to her elbows. The pain helped to ground her, as it always did, but then it turned out that the feeling of being grounded only ramped her up more, teeth rattling, and worst of all, Rosalyn was suddenly being uncommonly and infuriatingly sanguine about the whole thing, her words and movements now unrushed and confident, like she knew what she was doing—but that was the problem. She did know. It turned out she did know.

  Hero had been told before, not always in a complimentary way, that she was loud when she came—near-silent panting all the way through, and then deafening, devouring cries when it happened. Since arriving in California she’d toned it down, couldn’t let herself go, thought she’d changed; she was a medical professional, she knew well enough that all sorts of physiological changes happened when you got older. But when she finally came, slick-lipped, lifting her hips to grind her clit shamelessly against Rosalyn’s finger so that every point of skin contact between them was live-wire, galvanic, endless, she felt Rosalyn physically startle at the volume of her cry, fingerhold briefly slipping, before she rallied and rubbed Hero through it. When Hero’s cries petered out to a whine, Rosalyn slowed down to a bare flutter, just for few seconds, only to gently wind Hero back up again, circling, no mercy, so it didn’t take long for Hero to give it up a second time, growling, annoyed—at how good it was, at how much she’d missed it, at how much more she wanted. Shit.

  She tipped her pelvis away slightly, a sign that Rosalyn could stop moving if her hand was tired. Rosalyn stopped, but didn’t take her hand away, said only,

  More? And Hero turned her face into the sheets with a grimace, found out. Silently she tipped back up.

  After that, Hero didn’t remember how many times she asked for it, how many times Rosalyn gave it to her, how many times she tried not to be greedy, how many times she told herself she’d had enough, how many times Rosalyn wordlessly told her otherwise.

  When she woke up, Rosalyn was awake, leaning on her propped-up hand and looking down at her, smiling benevolently.

  Hero jolted upward, an apology in her mouth before she’d even fully opened her eyes: she’d passed out, she hadn’t even gotten Rosalyn off.

  Ears ringing, she heard herself saying, in a voice hoarse from use Sorry, I’m, I’m sorry, but Rosalyn looked exceptionally pleased with herself, in a way that Hero knew she wasn’t going to be able to live down anytime soon.

  Am I—a genius? Rosalyn began, leaning back so that Hero could take a better look at her breasts. I mean, I made you come so hard you passed out, so I think I—might be a genius. Like, this is why I flunked out of every class in high school and college. I coulda been valedictorian if I’d just majored in handjobs.

  Hero leaned over, kissed at the seam of Rosalyn’s mouth. Murmured, Let me eat you out, and Rosalyn shut up, face ashen. I—okay.

  When she touched the flat of her tongue to Rosalyn’s clit, penitent, Rosalyn nearly strangled her with the force of her thighs, convulsing, so Hero put a steady palm down on one of them, keeping her spread and still, to which Rosalyn responded with a fervent Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, oh shit.

  She came just once, taking a long time, longer than anyone Hero had ever gone down on before, her entire body locked up like she’d been petrified that way, like she was afraid of what was happening to her and had to put it off as much as possible, one hand clenched in a fist at her hip and the other hand reaching for Hero’s head then pulling back to cover her own face instead, Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck-fuck God—and then, after a small forever, going bucking and silent, an atoll of relief.

  Afterward she slapped at the bed like a wrestler tapping out, closing her thighs, tendons sore from being stretched open and taut for so long, hand still tight over her eyes. When Hero dipped her head low, chin wet, ready to go again, Rosalyn whimpered and let her try, before laughing like it was being clawed out of her throat, Wait-wait-wait-stop, too much, too much, too much, fuck.

  Hero decided not to push her on it. Everyone came differently, who was she to judge. And then it was six o’clock, and she had to go pick up Roni from Charmaine’s house.

  Hero dressed slowly, feeling the tension between them thicken with every article of clothing she put back on. Rosalyn was still in bed, though she’d put on just a pair of sweatpants, and was sitting there, cross-legged, breasts bare, watching Hero warily, the way one would watch a horse that might spook.

  So we’re good, Rosalyn said. This is—we’re doing this? I guess?

  I, Hero began.

  Hastily, Rosalyn added, You know. Uh. What I said before still stands. We don’t have to be. Exclusive. There’s no pressure.

  Without waiting for an answer, Rosalyn put her shirt on, baliktad, and picked her keys up off the floor. I’ll drive you home.

  She passed Hero, went to open the door. Hero reached out to tug at her shirt. Rosalyn let herself be pulled like she’d been waiting for it, anything, her face cracked open. Hero felt bad; she hadn’t meant to tease her. She yanked gently at the tag on the back of Rosalyn’s neck. This is inside out.

  True Love Comes for Mine Fujiko

  The first time you ate a girl out was in 1985, somewhere south of Echo Park, your first time out of the Bay since you’d arrived from Manila when you were five. You and Jaime had more or less broken up by then, and in three years or so, you guys were going to go back to what you’d been at the beginning, which was: friends who’d lie down in traffic for each other—beyond family, beyond lovers, more like warriors in arms, medieval in your loyalty. By the time of the breakup, you’d known you were going to have to drop out of school; it’d never been your thing, not really, even though you’d gone into it optimistically, some dumbass dream of becoming the American Nora Aunor still hanging around in your heart, deathless. But you soon figured out that just because you majored in theater and always memorized your lines didn’t mean anyone was going to give you any parts, at least not any good ones, and definitely not the leads. At best you kept getting cast, again and again as: the evil witch, or as some white girl’s friend with one or two kinda funny lines, or more typically, as the port whore picked off right at the beginning of the play. That last one was even written by another Pinoy at San Jose State, some aspiring screenwriter who told you that you looked a little like Lea Salonga, only not as light. His play was knockoff Miss Saigon, but at least you got really good at
primal screaming—now you knew the technique of how to do it so that your vocal chords wouldn’t be ripped to shreds the next day. That was the last thing you ever learned about acting.

  You moved backstage, where, it turned out, all the Pinay and Vietnamese kids had been hiding the whole time. That was how the makeup thing started, and to your surprise, you liked it even more than acting. You started doing it on the side, for neighborhood girls—debuts and cotillions and graduations and weddings, shit like that. Your theater hookups meant you knew where to find the professional makeup stores dotted around the Bay that sold stuff like Ben Nye, Kryolan, mixing mediums, and you came up with workarounds, like how to add yellow pigment—sometimes food coloring, when you were desperate—to some pink-as-hell foundation a girl came to you bearing like a grail, convinced it was her shade. Ading, they don’t make people in that shade, you replied.

  You liked it, liked the feeling of being the one to put a girl’s first armor on, even though sometimes, admittedly, you didn’t always like the kinds of armor you were routinely asked to provide: how to shade and lift a flat Pinoy nose, how to buff shadow around an eye to make it look bigger, how to make a heavily talc-based pink blush not look like chalk on a morena’s cheeks. You pushed back on some of it, got a reputation for being stubborn, but at the end of the day, you served your community: when a client wanted a white nose, you gave her a white nose. Soon enough word got around, from Milpitas to Frisco: Rosalyn Cabugao makes you look bomb.

  By the time you knew you were going to drop out, you were bored of the house parties, the break dancing, hovering around while some shaved-head moreno who used to put his hand down the front of your skirt in kindergarten DJ-ed to an audience of worshipful acolytes, using equipment mostly paid for by his nurse mother. When you went to L.A. for the first time with some theater buddies, you ended up fucking a white girl who touched your hair too much but not in a sexy way, and kept saying, I wish I had Asian hair, it’s so silky. It was your first orgasm with a girl; you faked it. Then you couldn’t find your underwear on the floor so you’d had to go home without it, denim chafing your ass the whole car ride from Los Angeles to Milpitas, where your theater buddies—the friends you’d been so desperate to make at San Jose State just to be able to gossip with people whose mothers didn’t work with yours—spent most of the ride smirking at each other without looking at you. None of them lived in Milpitas. They dropped you off at home with promises to call and get together soon. You told Jaime; you dropped out of school; the buddies never called.