Touch

by Courtney Maum

  Jin looked her in the eyes. Anyone else would have said, Come to Seattle!! Would have filled the silence with platitudes and premature invitations because that’s what people did. But Jin just sat there and let the sorrow pass from her cold fingers to his.

  “I’m probably going to quit, anyway,” Sloane said, “so it was nice knowing you.”

  “Well, that’s awfully premature.”

  “I can’t be—I don’t want to be forced to play some game.”

  “Do you actually have to work together?”

  “I don’t know how much together . . . he wants Roman to do the Roman show, and then me . . . he said he wants people to ‘choose sides.’”

  “So it sounds like you can say what you think regardless.”

  “He’s using me,” she said, her eyes narrowed

  “He’s using all of us.” Jin shrugged, not accepting her excuse. “But it sounds to me like you have carte blanche to run your own side of the show.”

  “Spoken like an optimist,” she said, a little cruelly.

  “You’re not? Can you be a trend forecaster and not be?”

  “Well,” she said, pulling her hand away. “Now you’re making me feel like I’ve been doing a really bad job my entire life.”

  “Is your life over?” he asked.

  Sloane looked at him, burning. Because he wasn’t letting her keep him at a distance. Because he wasn’t wrong.

  23

  After her exchange with Jin, which hadn’t been a meeting so much as a come-to-Jesus talk, Sloane needed air. She stuffed her coat pocket with the remaining notes from the suggestion boxes and headed for the street, no destination in mind, just a need for the wide and crowded avenues that would give her room to think.

  A woman with a double baby stroller passed her on 19th Street, her twins bundled up like fragile vases. Everywhere, brown bags and wrapped packages, the scurry of Thanksgiving preparations like an odor in the air. Millions of people preparing to go to that place described on doormats and embroidered novelty pillows, the all-important “home.” What if home was a scent treatment, something you could spray throughout an empty apartment, have your body and heart react warmly to it like a pheromone? What if the sense of home could be manufactured? The smell of just-baked cookies, the thrill of ironed sheets.

  Sloane would buy that shit—she’d buy that shit right up. She’d pay a boatload of cash to feel that home was indeed where her heart was, something she could carry inside of her, warm within her chest. As it was, home was a fractured concept, something out of reach. Or something she’d made very difficult to reach, which wasn’t the same thing.

  Here was the thing, here was the real thing, she thought as she hit 18th Street. If she really went Full Monty with her premonitions, announced that physical intimacy was the new Internet, she was going to have to live what she thought. She couldn’t very well preach the return of human interconnectedness and continue living her life closed off to the inconveniences of needing people and having them need her back. If she accepted Dax’s proposal—and really did it her way—she would have to do the work to get her family back. And what would that look like?

  And then there was the baby thing. There was the baby thing, again. Sloane didn’t know why she’d said what she’d said at dinner except for the fact that having a child was like an express pass to having your own family. She could circumvent making amends with her own relatives and start all over again. A baby would be a peacekeeper; bring them all back together without her ever trying. Or maybe she just liked their big, innocent heads. Or another possibility: Roman was right. Being this close to her family was making her nuts.

  At 16th Street, Sloane paused under an awning. Took the notes out of her coat.

  I like wearing long johns because it feels like someone loves me. It’s like I’m always being hugged. If that’s what second skin would be like, then I’m for it.

  I want to call my friends more. But I never call.

  I wish there was a way to transfer all of my thoughts and disappointments to my boyfriend so I wouldn’t have to talk.

  Well, hell, that would be convenient. Sloane supposed a lot of people considered that solution a public Facebook wall, but Sloane wasn’t on Facebook. If she wanted to approach the bridge between her and her family, she was going to have to use her voice.

  She ducked into an hourly parking lot wedged between two buildings where the wind was less tympanic, and took out her cell phone before she could change her mind. The number she wanted was still in “Favorites,” although she hadn’t used it in years.

  “Mom!” her sister cried after the second ring. “Could you get Everett cranberry instead?”

  “Leila?” Sloane asked, softly. “It’s me. It’s Sloane.”

  “Oh?” Sloane could just imagine Leila pulling the phone away from her ear to double-check. “Sloane?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You okay? Where are you?”

  “Work,” Sloane answered. “Or kind of. Are you not in Florida?”

  “Oh my God,” Leila said, “not yet. Our super-direct, super-expensive flight was obviously delayed. Everett, don’t eat that! What even is that? Harvey, I’m on the phone here—could you? Jeez! Don’t fly with children,” Leila said, her voice louder. “Don’t. So!” Leila followed this quickly because Sloane hadn’t responded to the advice she couldn’t take. “What’s up?”

  “Oh, well, you know, nothing,” she answered, watching a nearby man pat himself down for his car keys, before remembering that he’d handed them over with his car. “I just wanted to call.”

  “You did.”

  Sloane chewed the inside of her cheeks, debating whether to leap.

  “Leilee?” she said, using their old diminutive. “Roman and I broke up.”

  “You, sorry, you what? Everett, I swear to God here . . . Harvey, it’s my sister. I don’t know. Find Mom.” There was a moment of padded silence while Leila presumptively moved somewhere else.

  “You what?” Leila asked again.

  “We’re separated. I kicked him out.”

  It was dignified of Leila not to cheer. She disliked Roman even more than her mother did.

  “What happened?!”

  “Well, he’s coming out with a manifesto against penetrative sex. You know, inspired by his experience of us not having it. And my boss just hired him to work with me. So.”

  “Hold on,” Leila interrupted. “I don’t know where to start. I mean, listen you know we never really got each other with Roman, but lots of couples go through periods without sex.”

  “No, but it’s not just us, Leilee, he’s convinced that people don’t need other people anymore. He just wants cybersex. Check The New York Times.”

  “Oh Jesus. Oh shit.” Leila sounded out of breath. “When’d you find out?”

  “He just told me. I just read it. But . . . it’s my fault, really. I mean, you must know about the Zentai suit. You must have seen the pictures.”

  Her sister drew in a long breath. “Well, what are you gonna do?”

  “I can’t work with him,” Sloane said. “I can’t.”

  “Well, no, obviously. You can’t.”

  “But I have to. Otherwise, I mean, Leila . . . they’re just going to be producing all these creepy devices and gadgets so that people can have, like, sex with centaurs.”

  “Centaurs!?”

  Sloane fell silent, clocked by the temptation in her sister’s voice. It was true then: Sloane was losing her cool factor.

  “Sloanie, I’m kidding. It’s terrible, what you’re telling me,” Leila said. “But you’re . . . listen, you know I don’t know anything about this kind of stuff, but you’ve got something special. You always have. Remember when you told me you knew exactly what kind of paintings Mom would do after Dad died? I mean, it was uncanny.”

  Sloane leaned a
gainst a stranger’s car, unimpressed, if touched, by her sister’s attempt at flattery. “It wasn’t really. Those tiny paintings just gave her a sense of control.”

  “It was spooky, Sloane. Some archaic Indian tradition and you called it. Listen, I don’t really understand what you do, but I know you’re good at it. For what that’s worth.”

  “Thank you,” Sloane said, wanting to add that it was worth a lot.

  “And you know, you shouldn’t have to feel—I wish you’d told me sooner, that things were the way they are. Why don’t you . . . come with us? I know Mom told you you were invited. Especially now.”

  “You guys don’t really want me there. You’re just being nice.”

  “Well, I don’t know. It sounds like you need help.”

  Sloane felt suddenly defensive, wanted to say, Would you not love me if I didn’t? But it was true, it was the truth of it. She needed help.

  Sloane watched a parking attendant accept another pair of keys. Why not do it, join the ranks of people telling taxi drivers to take them to JFK?

  “Leilee,” Sloane asked meekly, “when’s your due date again?”

  “February fourth.”

  Sloane nodded silently, as if her sister could see. “I don’t know about coming down there. I don’t want to . . . intrude. But what if, what if we did something for Dad? In December, when you’re back. Do you guys still do Remo’s?”

  Remo’s had been one of their father’s favorite restaurants: a dark, Italian steakhouse way up on Long Ridge Road with prehistoric lobsters scuttling in an aquarium and entrées that came with tinfoil baked potatoes bursting from the heat. When she’d been little, they always went there for his birthday. Filet mignon and Shirley Temples, a tiramisu cake roll. She knew her family had been going there on the anniversary of Peter’s death for sixteen years now—since she’d left for France.

  “It closed,” Leila said. “Two years ago.”

  “Oh,” Sloane said sadly, her shoulders slumping against yet another loss.

  “So we’ve just been doing it at Mom’s.”

  “Right. Well . . . if there’s room for me then, if you want to ask Mom . . .”

  “Sloane,” Leila said, her voice changed. “There’s room.”

  Sloane stayed silent several beats.

  “Leila?” Sloane asked, after a silence. “Thanks for answering the phone.”

  “Well, make it ring more often. Listen, I gotta get back. Harvey’s giving me the drowning man wave. We’ve basically lost Mom. You send her to Starbucks for plane snacks and she ends up buying fifteen Christmas mugs.”

  Sloane laughed.

  “I’ll call you when we get there,” Leila said. “And think about it. Come.”

  Sloane nodded into space again, almost hypnotized by the fact she might.

  “Okay,” Sloane said. “Give my love to everyone. Tell everyone I love them. And, um, happy Thanksgiving.”

  “Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.”

  When Sloane hung up, she stared forlornly into her phone’s screen, wishing that she could be teleported through it to her sister’s side. Apple juice on the kids’ chins, doughnut crumbs under fingers, an entire tote of toys that would not be played with in-flight. Instead, she got a push notification that #sexisdead was the fourth trending topic in the nation. Roman’s article had gone live.

  24

  Too cold to stay outside in the parking lot, Sloane took refuge in the nearest café and sequestered herself on a stool with a hot tea and her phone. Sitting alone and isolated was a bad place for her to be as Roman’s words washed over the country, but that Wednesday was a catch-up day for her—with most people running to catch planes or already on them, she had devoted the entire day to making amends with Daxter and answering e-mails, tasks which seemed respectively impossible now.

  It had only broken thirty minutes earlier, but “After God Goes Sex” had one hundred and forty-seven comments on The New York Times already. Six thousand, three hundred and thirty-three mentions on Twitter. And surely, scores to come. Sloane set her jaw in hopes that she’d find the words of people outraged, but those who disagreed with Roman were few and far between.

  I would rather masturbate than have sex with someone ALWAYS. Masturbation is the time-saver of my life. I’m a really busy man and I work my ass off, and when I have free time (which is hardly EVER), I think I work hard enough that I should be able to do whatever I want. All day I do things for other people. After masturbating, I can get takeout. I don’t have to talk to anybody else.

  Finally, a fast I can support! If a penetration hiatus can lead to selfish, ignorant people having fewer children, then I hope that all the yuppies will go from being gluten-free to sex-free.

  I think self-love is the most important thing to start with. You can’t love anyone else until you love yrself, and anyway, if you’ve ever seen it, seminal fluid is gross.

  I love being penetrated! I think this article is a joke! None of you have ever had good sex, clearly! I hope all the stupid people saying that sex is over get a dildo up their ass!

  Sloane took a moment to bemoan the rape promoters: the immortal newts of online bogs. But even their blind enthusiasm for physical violence paled in comparison to the majority of commenters who wanted no physicality at all.

  I have been feeling over sex FOREVER. It’s, like, what’s new? I can tell you with no regret that online is where I live. It’s where I have my best sex, it’s where I have my fantasies. It’s where I have my best orgasms, too.

  No sex is the safest sex. Save yourself for God!

  In an age of rampant disease and overpopulation, I think this article is very sensible. In the eighties, people learned just how much trouble can come from sexual encounters, but I think people are only now really seeing the light in terms of germs.

  The photographs of parasitic orbits of subway bacteria bloomed into Sloane’s mind. All those beautiful netherworlds created from the prints of people’s hands on subway poles. Germs could be disgusting, sure. But germs were human life.

  omg Roman Bellard I love ur Zentai series. I would totally have virtual sex w/U any time U WANT!!!

  Sloane shook her head, her tea forgotten. And we’re off, she thought.

  Roman Bellard is married to a famous American, you guys. I read her article about reproduction as environmental terrorism, and as someone who has a next-door neighbor with three toddlers, I have seen terrorism myself! Anyway, I think the two of them are really on to something. It took people a while to get used to recycling bins, but I think everyone will come around to sustainable sex, too =0. It’s too bad that the author didn’t list any places where we can go for augmented adult fun, or maybe they don’t exist yet. I don’t know, I’m just starting out exploring “sexuality” online. Neo-sensualists, unite!

  Reading this, and other jubilatory embraces of a post-sexual existence, it occurred to Sloane that she might not have the liver strength for this millennium. But as much as people’s pigheadedness made her want to crumple, this was not the time to back down. If she really thought—if she really thought—that the greater part of humanity was going to turn against technology in favor of physical connectedness again, then this was a now-or-never time to let her thoughts be known. Dax hadn’t fired her, and she hadn’t quit. Certainly, he had a demented sense of ethics and an equally demented agenda, bringing Roman onto the payroll, but Jin was right—her life wasn’t over. Nor was her career.

  Sloane headed back to the office, a reinforced energy charging through her. Fuck Roman, and fuck Mammoth’s dehumanizing products: doing her job, her real one, would be her best revenge. Sloane was feeling buoyant and indomitable until she made it back to the headquarters. As she walked through the lobby, people adjusted their postures, cut conversations short. She saw side-eyes and heard whispering, people pointed at their tablets. Everyone who hadn’t known about her connection to the
“Sex Is Dead” author did now.

  This suspicion was confirmed by the barrage of e-mails and voicemails needing attention at her desk. Sloane had barely sat down to steel herself to answer them when the phone calls started to come: Deidre, who had a reporter from The Wall Street Journal on hold; did she care to comment? Another call from The New York Times. Sloane was taken aback—and not a little impressed—with how quickly things were moving. She knew that things went viral, knew how things went viral, but she’d never been a part of the virality herself. It was indeed a sickness, quickly come upon her. All she wanted to do was fall to the ground.

  But there were inquiries to answer, comments to refuse. The e-mails kept on pinging. The Mammothers were “reaching out” and “checking in,” “following up” and “circling back” regarding Roman’s article. The e-mails came in various lengths and tonalities but they all had the same question: If sex is dead, what now?!

  The Mammothers’ embrace of Sloane’s touch-centric agenda had been temporary and tentative: they were throwing themselves with pent-up unreservedness toward a post-sexual bent. Freedom from sexuality was the new sexual radicalism. Who knew?

  From Jones, the most vocal member of the beauty team: Dax and I were thinking in light of your husband’s article that it might be really fun to throw together a few “cybersexy” look tutorials for responsive virtual tech fans? LMK? We’d like this to happen while there’s buzz!

  More damning, Allison had written her on behalf of the electronics department: Allison, her open-minded, rarity of a mom. Her inquiry at least had the tact to be unsettled: Hi there, Sloane. How are you? Sorry to bother right before Thanksgiving, but when/if you get a chance, we’d like your take on how we can incorporate the “onanism” trend evoked in your husband’s article into our Denizen line of electronics? Some of us were thinking we need to expand from the kitchen to the bedroom. What kind(s) of electronic conveniences would virtual sex aficionados need, etc. I really don’t know the first thing about this kind of lifestyle, so your input is much needed. lmk?