by Teddy Wayne
“What was the paper on?”
Your face was inexpressive in the weak candlelight but your tone was puckish.
“Nietzsche and ressentiment.”
“What’s it about?”
“How people from historically oppressed populations adopt a slave morality that pins the blame for their present predicament on their oppressor,” I said.
“And what was your take, exactly?”
“I argue that even if their criticism is valid, their perceived victimization prevents them from looking inward and taking responsibility for their station in life.”
“Sounds inspiring. Where’d you work on it?”
“Lamont.”
“I was also in Lamont last night,” you said. “Where were you?”
Sara looked puzzled by your sudden interest in my essay and whereabouts.
“The second floor.”
“That’s funny. Me, too.”
I poured some vodka into my glass. “It’s a big floor,” I said, grateful for the cover of darkness.
“How long did you stay?”
“Practically all night.”
“All night?” You jutted out your lower lip. “That’s no fun.”
“He’s a workhorse,” Sara iterated.
“Yeah, but college is about more than studying,” you said. “You don’t want to spend all your time in libraries like a perfect little Harvard student.”
“He gets out,” Sara came to my defense. “We do things.”
“I’m sure he gets out,” you said theatrically.
You were projecting your scorn for men onto me, making me squirm, trying to get me to confess or confuse my details. My white lie about where I’d been last night had triggered you, bringing up all the unresolved grievances you had with your father and Liam.
Mercifully, the interrogation ended there. “Well, guys, it’s been fun,” you said as you downed the dregs of your vodka soda. “But I’ve got to get out myself.” You disappeared into your room and came back wearing your jacket.
“You’re going outside?” Sara asked. “In the blackout?”
You put a finger over your lips. “Don’t tell your dad.”
“But you know you can’t get into any dorms unless someone opens the door from inside, right?” said Sara. “And if your phone’s dead, there’s no way to call them.”
“I’ll figure it out,” you said. “Actually, David, can you post one of the pictures of us to Facebook? I want to let people know I’m okay.”
I turned my phone back on and drew up the last photo. “Wait,” you said before I posted it. “Can I type the caption?”
I warily handed the phone to you, keeping an eye on its screen as you typed, “Hey it’s Veronica Wells writing. Phone dead. Safe during blackout with roomie Sara Cohen and her bf David Federman.”
You had publicly acknowledged me and the fact that we had hung out together. I would have altered the privacy settings to allow it onto my wall, except that any gains from my being with you were negated by Sara’s position in the middle, with my arm around my “gf.”
“G’night,” you said, disappearing into the darkness of the hall.
“What was that about?” I asked after the door clicked shut, hoping to inoculate myself against the same question from Sara. “Why did she keep asking where I was working last night?”
“She was trying to make me question your credibility,” Sara said.
I cracked my knuckles. “I was at the library all night,” I told her.
“I know. Where else would you be?” As Sara giggled at the absurdity of an alternative scenario—the implausibility of disciplined, workhorse David doing anything other than studying alone in a library—part of me wanted to enlighten her as to exactly where I’d been and what I’d done.
“I get the impression she had a difficult childhood,” she reflected. “Maybe it’s hard for her to be around a happy couple, so she responds by trying to sow dissension between us.”
“That’s a smart insight,” I said, and returned to working on my essay.
“Do you think she’s pretty?” she asked.
“Do I think she’s pretty?”
“Yeah.”
I lifted one cheek in deliberation. “She’s not really my type, but I guess she is, conventionally speaking.”
“What’s your type?” Sara asked brightly, joining me on the bed.
“You know,” I said, leaning toward her. “Brown hair, about five foot three.”
We kissed and I put the laptop away. Soon we were under the sheets, going through our paces more athletically than we normally did, from the vodka or the minor frisson you had sparked or the aphrodisiacal qualities of the blackout and lambent room. The dynamic hadn’t radically changed with you—for the better, that is—but all variables were primed for the breakthrough needed to lose my virginity. I tugged at Sara’s underpants.
“Not yet,” she said, escorting my fingers away. “When I’m ready I’ll let you know.”
Grabbing the lotion, I thought of Liam Barrows coming downstairs to let you into Adams House but faltering on a step in the dark and battering his beautiful specimen of a body. I did my business, irritated with Sara’s prudishness and her inviolable cotton undergarments. Not long after I came, the power turned back on, returning the room to brightness. Sara blinked in the harsh light before fixing her adoring gaze on me, as though I were the only person who mattered. The opposite of staffage.
The next day, as I was entering Annenberg for lunch with Sara, I saw you clearing your tray. Last night’s encounter had left me unsettled, especially coming on the heels of the previous evening, which had ended so nicely; my sense of well-being was entirely dependent upon our most recent interaction.
“Shit,” I said. “I just remembered I’m supposed to meet my Ethical Reasoning TF to discuss my paper.”
“When?” Sara asked.
“Now!” I adjusted to a look of playful concern. “I hate to leave you on your own. Can you handle the Marauders without me?”
“I’ll do my best.” She raised her eyebrows and smiled slightly. It wasn’t in Sara’s nature to put people down, but it was clear she wasn’t as infatuated with them as they were with one another. Maybe she, too, would someday muster the escape velocity to liberate herself from their gravitational clutch.
“So we missed a golden opportunity last night,” I said as I pulled abreast of you in the Yard.
You startled at the sound of my voice. “We missed a what?” you asked, stepping up your pace a little.
“A golden opportunity.” I looked around; no one was near us. “To murder Sara.”
Your expression was equal parts confusion and horror.
“You brought it up the other night,” I continued. “I assumed that was your plan. To get her drunk during the blackout, then murder her. You and me, together.”
I waited a moment.
“I’m kidding!” I said. “Now you’re the gullible one.”
“That’s funny,” you said.
I bit my lip to control my glee. I needed to start acting like this more often around you—bolder, insouciant.
Walking in our direction was Scott Tupper with a friend.
“What’s up, Veronica?” he said with a chin-up nod.
“Hey, guys,” you said.
I turned my head after he passed and saw that Scott was likewise looking over his shoulder. For a second I thought he was scrutinizing me, his competition, or perhaps he had finally recognized David from elementary school. But he was simply checking out your ass. My fury was mitigated by the oddly consoling thought that you’d never choose yappy little Scott over strong, silent Liam.
“Seriously, though, you doing okay?” I asked.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You seemed a little off las
t night.”
You didn’t respond.
“And the night before you sounded kind of upset,” I added. “At the final club. And after.”
We were almost at Matthews. Sara would be at lunch for a while. Maybe we could continue the conversation in your room.
“It wasn’t a big deal.” You pulled a pair of earbuds out of your bag, inserted them, and plugged the cord into your phone. “I just drank too much that night.”
“I know what that’s like,” I said.
“I have a meeting,” you said, veering away from our dorm.
There was no Excuse me, I’ve got to run, no Nice talking to you, no See you later. I was a plaything you picked up when you wanted to be worshipped and callously discarded when you grew bored.
Back in my room, I got your belt out of the dresser and climbed into bed with my laptop to look at porn. My usual videos weren’t doing it for me, though. I perused the panel of thumbnails on the side, clicking on one labeled “SPH,” which I discovered stood for “small penis humiliation.” An Amazonian blonde addressed the camera, laughing at the viewer’s tiny dick and how it could never satisfy her, it was like a baby’s, she would make me watch a real man fuck her.
It worked. I got hard, mummified myself within the belt, and indulged in a commingling of sensuous pleasure and fiery anger that, upon completion, promptly curdled into clinical disgust and smoldering shame.
These are the kinds of things to which you reduced me.
“Halloween is just an excuse for girls to dress like sluts,” Sara told me. “And, yes, I’m aware that by using that word I’m complicit in their objectification.”
After finding out that her new friend, Layla, was going to an upperclassman party up in the Quad, however, she decided to lift her boycott. She drew a map of Virginia on a shirt and bought a cheap wolf mask. The Matthews Marauders were also attending; at Steven’s behest—and because it required no work—I went as him and he as me.
“But our clothes aren’t distinctive,” I’d initially protested. “And they’re not even that different. No one will figure out we’re going as each other.”
“That’s exactly the point!” He cackled like a criminal mastermind. “It shows how similar we all are underneath everything. We’re just collections of matter that are constantly being recycled.”
Despite her contempt for the holiday, Sara, ever the diligent student, became invested in her costume, sketching out neighboring states and drawing them to scale on the Virginia map after dinner. I sat on her bed wearing Steven’s jeans and T-shirt (LET’S GET PHYSICS-AL).
You came out of your room in regular clothes, above the juvenile imposture of Halloween; you didn’t need a costume to attract attention. Sara and I were among the mob of spectators who lined the parade route, sheepishly masking ourselves and wishing we were the anointed ones waving from the float.
“How late do you want to stay at the party?” I asked Sara before you reached the hall, so you would know we had, for once, exciting social plans, a party, we were young and hedonistic, who knew where the night might take us?
“Not too late,” she said, and sneezed four times.
We trekked to the Quad with the post-pregaming Marauders as they concatenated inside jokes. Those real bonding moments, most of which I’d missed, had taken on mythic proportions in their retelling: when Ivana had eaten four sleeves of Oreos, the night they all stayed up and watched every episode of Star Wars, the time Kevin had passed out from drinking and they drew penises on his face and took photos.
Out of habit I reached for the snipped piece of belt in my fifth pocket, panicked when it wasn’t there, and remembered that I was wearing Steven’s jeans. Because they were tight on me, I’d put the silk in the more spacious but securely snug back pocket.
“Where’s Carla?” I asked Sara as we lagged behind the others.
“She’s going to Halloqueen,” she told me. “The BGLTQ party.” Carla had come out as a lesbian a few weeks ago and was spending more time at events hosted by that student group.
“I almost wish I belonged to a marginalized community so I’d have a safe space for all occasions,” I said.
“The whole world is your safe space,” she snapped.
“Not true. I shopped a feminism class and didn’t feel particularly welcome there.”
“I’m assuming that’s a joke?”
“Fine, bad example,” I said. “But I expect I’m going to be uncomfortable at this party, for instance.”
“That’s not about your identity; that’s your disposition,” she said. “And join the club, by the way.”
We found the other member of our club hiding in a corner of the party. Layla’s glasses kept fogging up in the steamy room, and every few minutes she took them off to wipe the lenses on the apron of her Raggedy Ann costume, during which time she turned her head when spoken to with the twitchy movements of a finch on the lookout for predators. The two girls had the fluid if formal rapport of a job interview that was going smashingly: bilaterally curious, overlapping interests, a dash of good-natured humor.
A football player was dressed up as the subject of the big news story that week: a pregnant Miami trophy wife who, it was alleged, had arranged for the murder of her husband for the insurance payout. Sara and Layla discussed her pending court case.
“It’s really messed up how men receive almost all of the death sentences,” I said.
“Are you saying she should get the death penalty?” Sara asked.
“Well, I’m against it in principle,” I said, “but I believe in equality. She shouldn’t get off just because she’s a woman.”
“Some people think he abused her,” Sara said. “It’s possible you would’ve done the same thing if you were in her position.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said, wishing I’d never brought it up. But I felt the need to stand up for myself. “Even if I somehow had it in me to kill someone, I’d never be the type to do it just for money.”
“That’s just it,” she said. “You think you have to be a type. Maybe we’re all the type, in some small way, and that’s why we’re so fascinated by the scandalous details, like whether she was having an affair with the guy who killed her husband or if she had a history of mental illness.”
“I can’t believe you’re defending her,” I said. “Did you see her eyes in the mug shot? She looks completely insane.”
“I’m not defending what she did. I’m saying we’re not thinking about her as a human being. We call her ‘completely insane’ and turn her into a thing you can dress up as for Halloween.” She pointed at a zombie-scientist walking past us. “Just another monster.”
Sensing I had lost the debate—if not for rhetorical reasons, then relationship ones—I volunteered to retrieve us all drinks.
Scott Tupper was present, dressed as Fred Flintstone. He had become the nucleus of a pack of boys that was seldom atomized. Tonight his arm was curled around the exposed lower back of a sexy Wilma. I could understand other guys being drawn to him, but it was bewildering that Harvard girls didn’t find him noxiously repellent.
The room was exceeding its carrying capacity, to use Steven’s term. It occurred to me that if somebody were to call out “Fire!” short Scott might be one of the victims of a stampede.
I refilled our drinks at regular intervals. (“He’s such a gentleman,” Layla gushed.)
Kevin lurched our way. “David!” he screamed in my face, spraying me with spit and shaking me by the shoulders. “David! You’re here! You’re actually fucking here!”
“Yep, I’m here,” I said, trying to placate him. “I walked over with you.”
He teetered woozily. “You’re a funny guy,” he said, and left.
We were all deep in our cups. Even Sara was speaking loudly and clumsily, more animated than I’d ever seen. A few times she slurred her delivery—�
��the Scandanissas—wait, nist—the Sandi-nistas!”—and doubled over in hysterics.
When Layla went to the bathroom, Sara looped her arms around my neck and rested her head on my chest, rocking off rhythm to the up-tempo song. I pulled closer to her to avoid being hit by an unbridled dancer and, interpreting this as a romantic gesture, she craned her neck and puckered her lips. We’d never done this before in full public view. She kissed with the suction of an airplane toilet’s flush.
“You taste good.” She licked her lips in an unprecedented display of sexual initiative. “Like alcohol.”
“Let’s get out of here,” I proposed. If there were a night to expand our bedtime repertoire, this was it. “I want to have you all to myself.”
“All right, mister.” She shimmied her shoulders. “Where’d Layla go?”
“To the bathroom,” I reminded her.
“We have to wait for her,” she said. Raging drunk and still unfailingly considerate.
We continued swaying and kissing. I closed my eyes as the music throbbed around us and the alcohol gave me the floating sensation of riding in a car over a bump, feeling lordly for once at a party. I was making out with a girl on a dance floor in college. Then I remembered that moment at the final club when I realized you were facing the bar to make it look like you weren’t speaking with me. To avoid slipping down a rabbit hole of self-doubt, I recalled our parting that night, you crying in my arms. But then you were cold to me, if not outright hostile. Your mercurial nature was maddening, absolutely maddening. The next time the pendulum of your affections swung my way, I’d take hold at its apex and not let go.
Sara’s arms came down and she burrowed her hands into my back pocket, squeezing my butt. When she withdrew them she was holding the snipped piece of belt.
“VMW,” she read from it, one eye closed, and looked up at me for an explanation.
“BMW,” I said, grabbing it back from her and wedging it in the small pocket so she couldn’t take it out again. “You’re not seeing straight. We should get you home.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s ride in your BMW all the way home.”