The Undergraduates

by Steven Snell

  “I was going to say tattooed private parts but that’s very 1994/95.”

  “If fetish-value is what makes your dick hard or your vagina wet, innovative products have to be bigger or smaller or have more features.”

  “I hate technology.”

  “I know. 40 inch TVs are for dead libido souls.”

  “People need marketing buy-in for the 60 inch.”

  “The first to shave their pubes are the product Innovators – cock rock-hard and vagina gushing with wetness. Then we get the Late Innovators followed by the yawners General Consumers, who buy the 50 inch when it goes on sale to make showroom shelf space for the 70 inch. And then there are the Laggards, the eventually to get off buyers – flaccid penises and stone-dry bush. Once at this last stage, the fetish-value is dead and the product is just a product. Nothing. So the razor needs more blades. The toothbrush needs more bristles. The watch needs more time zones. Same products but more blood rushing to the sexual organs of the Innovators. Fuck-you 40 inches!”

  “I think the next innovation in breasts implants will be inflatable and deflatable versions. A girl will be able to adapt her breasts to accord with the market demand for breast-size.”

  “Breast sizing on demand!’

  “Big rack for nights out. Small rack for yoga. Big rack for the job interview. Small rack for when your colleague is hitting on you.”

  “Beautiful.”

  Jacob leans forward and looks outside then back to me. “Breast manufacturing offers a nice metaphor for market stimulation. As goods are introduced, consumed and exhausted, the next commodity is introduced and so continues capitalism’s infinite expansion of finite resources. Unlike pubic hair though, old-growth forests and mountainsides don’t grow back or renew so quickly. So as the new purse becomes boring, as the new car becomes slow, as the new dress becomes, well, old – so does the kitchen table and double F-cup breast size; so too does the Japanese restaurant down the street; so too the Ethiopian roast coffee. And in comes the new, as trumpeted by the Innovators. So we get floral patterns and pink shirts for men and carbon fiber dildos and Scientology and hand-moisturizing dish detergent and gas leaf-blowers and fashion accessories for dogs. Change for change’s sake. And like women freed from house work through technological innovation, freed into the working realm to make money to spend on necessary home technology efficiencies that freed them from the home in the first place. Technology advances and makes more stuff to spend more money on and longer hours are worked to afford time saving technologies so the time at home away from work is more relaxing so that home is more like it was before work was ever sought because what one does is the most important first date question, because it’s how we’re defined, because it determines how many goods one can afford to be more bangable than the Late Innovator standing beside you in the checkout line. So competition perpetuates and we’re back to natural-selection. Back to Darwin and the simple life of banality. Talk about irony.”

  “But you still slept with people in Cambridge who look like everybody here.”

  “Oh, of course. Consuming and banging are the only way to ensure one exists in society and not on its margins. It’s the only way to fit in, really.”

  “I hope the small cock look makes a comeback.”

  Jacob laughs as he goes to help a customer who just walked it.

  My phone beeps. It’s Beth. She must be done selling condos for the day. She’s written, “Now?”

  “I should go to work”

  “Its Saturday”

  “Yes”

  “Im taking this personally!!!”

  Why do I perpetuate this? “Some of us have to work”

  “Unlucky U”

  I look at my watch. It’s just past 1:00; 18:00 GMT. 1 PM on the watch from Beth. I shake my head and think yes I’m an idiot or an asshole or both.

  I say bye to Jacob and head to work.

  There’s two people in the office. Obed from Washington DC is working. I’m the other person.

  “How’s it going?” I ask.

  “I’m in the office on a Saturday and my family is at home.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  He shakes his head and laughs. “You young people.”

  “I just don’t get the family thing.”

  “It’s very simple – it’s called love and, well, I hated the dating world.”

  “So do I.”

  “Really? Then why do you continue doing it?”

  “I wouldn’t call what I’m doing dating.”

  He laughs again and we return to working.

  21.

  Karen is beside me. We’re in my bed leaning against the headboard. It’s raining, dark. The only light on in my apartment is the light above the oven, just enough light leaking in to outline Karen, our shapes, us shoulder-to-shoulder.

  It’s Wednesday night. We haven’t seen each other in a little while. She went to Mexico for a week with her husband. Then other things. Went out with her girlfriends. Had a class. Another class. Other things came up. We messaged. Said hellos. Said, “I want you to touch me”

  Said, “Tonight?”

  “Cant”

  “Another?”

  “Of course”

  “Good!”

  “Yes”

  “Picture me naked”

  “I am”

  “Promise?”

  “Begun”

  It might have been a symptom of us not having seen each other in a while, touched in a while; it could have been something else. I met her in front of my apartment. I was walking home from being out. She locked her car looking at me and sheepishly smiled and said “hi” and I smiled and we hugged like she just returned from a trip, disembarked a plane, I was a friend picking her up at the terminal and she was wearing a backpack from her travels across Europe, Asia, Latin America. I followed her up the three flights of stairs and made us tea. We talked facing each other sitting on the counter in the kitchen. She talked about Mexico and I complemented her on how relaxed she looked. She asked about work and I said “next topic.” She smiled. She talked about her friends saying that they don’t get her anymore or she doesn’t get them anymore. She has a life that is all standard and normal and she wants to not be standard and normal anymore. She has a secret that no one knows but us and it makes her no longer standard and normal, accepted, right, good. She said her husband only talks about work and trying to be promoted and already never around and thinking about more training, more classes. She told him that she would support that decision. What she didn’t tell him was that it had nothing to do with his personal growth, but rather his absence from home and her presence with me.

  She talked and spoke of things as though thinking out loud and we sipped our tea and left the light on the stove and without discussing it walked into my bedroom and sat back leaning against the pillows.

  She held her tea to her chest and sat in the atmosphere she created, reflecting on herself, looking at herself through a lens, an observer. I looked outside. Looked at her. Outside. Her. Her.

  She’s talking and I just want to feel her, have her warmth against me, Karen’s warmth against me. I want to slowly slide her out of her clothing. Her sweater, her jeans, her white socks. I want her to stand up on the bed and look down on me in her bra and underwear. I want her however she wants to take me. I want I want I want. I’m utterly enthralled by her. How she adjusts her hair. How she plays with her tea bag. How she rubs my leg with her toes. Only her at this exact moment. No one else. No one exotic, faraway, of grand stories in distant places. No Mexico. No classes. No husband. Nothing else. Just me and her. No great thing. No immaculate. No right. Just her and me, raw. Just her and me and what we say, what we don’t. How we touch. How we don’t. What we’re anticipating. Just us. Our story, stories. Story. A narrative arc where she stands up half-naked looking down on me as she slides my shirt up with her toe.

  “Maybe I should make a change in my life,” I hear her say.

  “Maybe,” I
hear myself reply.

  She takes a sip of her tea and leans across me and puts her mug down on the nightstand. She rests her head on my shoulder pulling her hair back over her ear. She speaks, “Do you think we’ll ever be together?”

  An imperceptible jolt of surprise. “Aren’t you married?”

  She places her hand on my chest. “… Do you like me enough to be with me between the times we sleep together?

  “…”

  Her disposition changes. “… How long … I don’t know. … How long those moments are I don’t know. But … I like you. Is that so bad? … I just want you to want me. That’s not selfish, it’s reasonable, isn’t it?”

  I look up, watch the ceiling fan slowly rotate. Her hand still on my chest. She’s trying, she’s trying to find comfort. She just wants comfort. Her kind of comfort. Her comfort where someone finds her comfortable. We’re sitting here talking and wanting and we’ll share a moment. We’ll cum as we want each other to cum. We’ll lie here and our bodies will be pulsing and we’ll be wanted, or have wanted. We might talk more, we might not. It’ll be what we make these evenings to be. Me escaping, her escaping. Me, something figurative. Her, something literal. Me, my life. Her, her life.

  She breaks the silence, “It’s normal to think that after sleeping together for as long as we have been, even if it’s not right or whatever it is … sometimes, sometimes the place escaped to is better than where one calls home.” She pauses. She places her hand beside her head on my chest. She continues, “I like my home. It’s just not fulfilling. … You’re … a vacation.” She draws tiny circles on my chest. “Home still has benefits and conveniences and a claw-foot soaker tub,” she smiles, “but the vacation destination is just so warm. I like it here with you.”

  I smile. She tucks into me. “I want to spend more time away – more time here – less at home in routines, in the same things, in knowing where I’ll be when the seven-year itch happens.”

  I chuckle. “So, I’m a timeshare for you?”

  She sits up and looks at me.

  “Yes, a high rent one, and a divorce lawyer lives next door.”

  I grin. “Am I close to the ocean? Can we smell the sea? … Is it sunny out? Do I have a sandy or rocky beach, how about shore frontage?” I touch her thigh. “Are there beautiful girls in bikinis? Tell me I’m surrounded by many beautiful bikinis.”

  “Just me, Shawn. Just me. But you get me out of a bikini too.”

  “I like you not in a bikini. I like you naked.”

  “Good.”

  I turn to her and roll her to her side and we’re spooning and together look out my window and watch Wednesday evening. She lets out a long breath. “It is as it is and if that’s how it has to be, it is.”

  “And I’m the academic?”

  “I’m not sure where I got that, probably from you.” She smiles and pulls me tighter. “I work 50 weeks a year. Two weeks off for vacation. Then sick days. I wish I had more days off – more days in your timeshare – or more days of your timeshare in me. That I would like.”

  I laugh with her. “We’re brutal.”

  She rolls over to face me. “Yes Shawn, we are. … Can I go on vacation now?”

  I pull her on top of me. She kisses me, holds my arms over my head against the headboard and we shutter the windows a tropical storm is starting to roll in.

  22.

  I’m looking at myself in the mirror bedside the front door. I’m not going anywhere. It’s near midnight. I was sweeping the floor. I couldn’t sleep so I was going about my apartment putting things in other places, reading postcards, scanning books on my shelves, but I didn’t feel like reading so I went somewhere else. I watered my plants and stood on the balcony watching things in the night. I listened to traffic and the music coming from my apartment. Something wistful and beautiful. A guy on a guitar singing about a grey room and being sorry and wishing for home while sitting in a grey room in his house that didn’t feel like a home any longer. Maybe home is with someone. I left the balcony and slid the door closed and went about sweeping. I saw the broom in the space between the fridge and cabinets so I pulled it out and swept the tiles in the kitchen and moved towards the entryway. That’s why I’m now looking at myself in the mirror by the front door.

  There are dark shadows under my eyes. Maybe it’s a lack of sleep or a lack of vitamins, maybe I need more sun.

  My hair could use a cut. My hair could use a cut and a shampoo. It’s pulled out in random directions, not for a style but as though I’ve been unconsciously pulling at it while doing other things, listening on my balcony, looking at my books, watching the news, pulling at my hair.

  I haven’t shaved in a few months. I guess I have a beard now. If I was a professional I’d look unprofessional. Maybe I’ll let it grow. I scratch at it. Maybe I won’t.

  I sniff and turn away and finish sweeping and return the broom to the wedge of space between the cabinets and fridge. I open the fridge and look for something to eat. I don’t see anything. I pour myself a glass of orange juice and return the jug beside a carton of eggs and go and sit down on the couch.

  I look at the large clock. I let my head tilt back against the wall and stare at the ceiling. I can hear footsteps. Vanessa’s footsteps in her apartment above me. I’m no longer on my couch. I’m thinking of her couch, her blood red leather couch and we’re watching a movie and drinking white tea. Her knees tucked up to her chest, her hair pulled back, laughing or crying or smiling or angry or whatever mood we’re watching. I look at her and she turns to me and says, “I hate you for making me watch this … I love it!”

  I go somewhere else.

  I’m wrapped in a sleeping bag sitting on the ground camping. There’re mosquitoes, the smell of fire and my dirty hands and crisp air, the stars above and tales from camp counsellors.

  Another place.

  I’m on a beach in San Diego. My feet are buried in the sand and my legs are flayed open. I’m watching surfers and wishing I could surf.

  More places.

  I’m on a train to Dusseldorf.

  I’m in a taxi in Montreal.

  I’m in a car in Mexico City visiting a friend I don’t see enough. He showed me the “broken parts of the city” saying “if I get shot in the head lean over, grab the wheel and stomp my foot on the gas.” I wasn’t sure if he was serious but I told him I thought drug cartels are only made in Hollywood and he replied saying his sister used to work in a bank and was kidnapped and locked in the trunk of a car for two days and then abandoned in a dirt road town. She was found because a driver who had too much to drink swerved into the car which was parked on the side of a road beside a gulley. The trunk popped open and she was weeping and shaking and emigrated to Arizona.

  Another place.

  I’m on my couch and Gabriella is on my couch, our couch. We’re cuddling and bantering about our day. We’re comfortable and easy. She just moved in. Our first week together. Our first week when it still felt surreal and comfortable and easy. She and I on my couch and I don’t want to be alone. I want someone right now but it’s too late not to be alone. Karen’s in bed with her husband and and and and who else can I think of?

  I go to my bedroom and pull out books and flip them open looking for letters and random pieces of paper I use for bookmarks. I put back a book. I pull out a book. I want to be attached to someplace. Go to that place. I pull out another book, return that book. Again. Book book book book. Open close open. A letter. Two folds I open it, a letter from Gabriella. I sit down on the edge of my bed, a slight shake in me, I start to read it.

  Shawn,

  Last night I slept wonderfully. Even in your absence, I felt your heartbeat next to mine, your hand on my back, your breath moving my hair like a slight breeze. You are everywhere. I can’t wait for us to live together.

  I’m happy, so happy. I’m happy that you are my happiness and I miss you more than I care to know. You are my everything. I will become a field that you can play in. I’ll dance f
or you. I’ll perform for you, move so you can see my every inch. I’m vast, natural, green and just for you.

  You are a thousand radio waves humming in my mind searching for a signal that wanders the night sky farther away than anyone could ever touch, but close enough to know that it is there. You are here.

  If I had the skill, I’d paint you a mural of a blossom and we’d be toeing the edge, about to dive into the nectar.

  It’s raining here today, as it always is. I can’t remember the last time I saw the sun. The sort of climate you read about in magazines and wonder if it could be real. Confirmation: it is, but I still love this place. I’ll miss it. Sigh.

  I’ve been keeping busy with little things. Work, friends, going out for dinner. There was a special screening of The Big Lubowski on last night that I caught with a couple of girlfriends. DO YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS LARRY WHEN YOU FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS!? I’m not sure if I got it, but it was funny. My friends didn’t appreciate it. Maybe I have a guy’s sense of humor.

  I miss you. The way you smile, just stay with me for a few moments longer and smile, smile, smile. Lie beside me and I’ll whisper all the words I know to say over and over again. Promises are for you.

  Inside of you, I’ll hold your heart in the palms of my hands and help pump blood through your body. The sweetest taste drips from you. Oh to ingest you would be divine. The taste of you on my lips in only two months from now.

  I must get back to studying.

  Know that I’m thinking about you, all of you.

  Love you. Love me,

  Me.

  I look at the page. Her words, her handwriting, her flourishes with her capital letters. Fuck I miss her. I fold the letter and close my eyes. I wait. I wait and wait and wait, wait for her. Minutes pass and I begin imagining her. She comes to me. I lay back on my bed and cross my legs at my ankles. I take long long breathes and breathe them out through my nose. I yawn and breathe again. Air drifts through my cracked open window. The music coming from the other room like a breeze and the two currents meet above my body culminating in a white fluffy cloud. I close my eyes harder and let them relax and imagine her, her curves and ingesting me and me waiting for her to ease down on top of me. I picture her. The doorknob turns and the front door opens and first her arm and shoulder and then her auburn hair and a smile and those eyes that could stop Sisyphus. She looks at me sitting on the couch. She places her brown leather bag beside the closet door. Hi, she says. Hi, I reply. She slips out of her red shoes and she walks to the kitchen angling her head over the sink and starts to wring out her hair. You look chilled, I say. I am. Get you something? In a moment. She pats her face with the dish cloth and I look back to the front door and beside it leans her forgotten umbrella. Spring rain? I ask. Spring downpour, she says. She hangs the dish cloth back on the handle of the stove and crosses the room to where I sit. She says something but it’s not what she says but how her mouth moves when she says it. Her white blouse clings to her breasts and stomach. She settles down on top of me. Hi. … Hi. She pushes her wet shirt against my chest and kisses my forehead and then with both hands tilts my head to face her chest. You have goose bumps, I say. Warm me, she replies. She lifts her shirt over her head and drops it on the floor and then moves her hands behind her back unclasping her bra and takes my hands and places them on her cool breasts. Her nipples and a sigh spills out from her lips. Warm me. I pull off her wet bra and drop it on top of her shirt. She looks at me. She kisses me and then moves to the side of my neck and kisses her way down to my chest. She pauses for a moment to pull her drenched jeans damp against my waist and she pulls them from each hip and then each leg and she drops them to the pile on the floor. She kisses me and then slides off the couch and my hands on her shoulders as she pulls off my jeans and underwear. Then warmth as I feel myself inside her mouth. A spot of saliva drips to my thigh and runs down the inside. She comes up to kiss me and I feel the heat between her legs. She shakes a chill out of her. Her pubic hair brushing my waist. Hold me, she says. She’s on top of me. I’m inside of her. She pulls me forward and turns me and lays me down. Then she’s soft on me and down on me and up and crawling up me and her vagina against my tongue and then we roll and roll again and again attached and moving under her beside her on the couch and in her through her on top and below and then quiet moans and a warm shake to deep exhales and we climax and sink and lay together and her breasts down to my chest and her head gently against mine and then she asks how was my day.