She seems frightened now. “Ellie—you’ve got me all wrong.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. I mean, you do. I’m not into that any more—”
“Into what?”
“I’m not queer. I mean, not totally. I mean, I’m sorry, I mean, gay—or—”
“Fine,” I goad, feeling myself blush, and then I toss it straight at her—this arrow I’ve been saving all along: “Not even for Liz Chaney?”
“Dammit! I wish I’d never told you any of that.”
“But you did, didn’t you? And it wasn’t a lie.”
She heads for the door. Through it and through the front room of the suite, past a crystal-clean kitchenette, perfect window drapes drawn against the glass panes caked with winter, obscuring the far-below view of a quadrangled courtyard, a rich kids’ parking lot.
“And when you pulled me down on my very own bed, and you put your hands right here”—I pound the center of my chest until it hurts, but don’t stop yelling—“I mean, right here, Babe, all night, right against my tits—that was not a lie—”
The bed squeaks as I slide off it, CD blares too loud for a moment when I turn the knob, then shut it off with one quick push. Coughing up remnants of pneumonia, yelling after her anyway.
“And when you watched me watching Brenna Allen today, and you smiled, and winked—that was no lie, either.”
“Just shut up, Ellie!”
“Come on, Delgado—get a clue!”
It hurts, leaves me gasping for breath, but I run and head her off at the pass, block the closed door, turn to face her.
Here I am, trying to stop her from running out of her own room. Who do I think I am? And where does she think she is going?
I’m panting for breath, she’s panting in rage and frustration and a kind of fear, and we stare at each other. I watch the panic blaze high in her. Feel it burst open inside myself, like fever sweat, then diminish just enough so that I get dizzy. She has stopped. She tries to say something, but her mouth shuts agonized, the large dark eyes search mine. I lean back against the door, spread-eagled.
“No way, Miss Top Seed. Don’t run from this.”
“Look,” she pleads, “get out of my way.”
“Dare you,” I whisper. “Dare you to stay.”
She stops then. Puts her hands in her pockets. For a moment I can read her eyes; there’s trouble in them, and a big, dark question. I hear myself talk again, in the voice with a life of its own—softly firm, assured, yes, and oddly, shockingly arrogant—part of an Ellie Marks that doesn’t really seem as if she could be me at all, because she is so brazen, and big, such a champ, so unafraid.
“No one but queers get to call themselves queer, you know.”
She shrugs. Her face is sullen. The eyes are still troubled though, looking straight at me. Something rasps in my throat.
“But”—I cough—“I’ll tell you what’s really queer. It’s going through life without ever being able to love anybody. Without ever really trying your damnedest to reach out and get what you want. Or being, like, ashamed of yourself, when you try—or when you do.”
“You don’t know,” she whispers, and her voice trembles with rage, with sadness, “you don’t know how hard I have worked, Ellie. Not you, not anyone else around here—you can’t even imagine it.”
She starts to cry. The tears just roll down her face, across her cheeks and lips and chin, and she doesn’t blink, doesn’t even try to hide them. She looks so strong, then, standing there; so big and beautiful and noble, in a way. Watching her, something inside me shakes all over and almost breaks. The doorknob presses my rear end, hurting. And then I start to cry, too.
“God, Babe, you know, you are so incredibly beautiful. But you walk around like you think you’re some kind of freak. Like there’s about twenty feet of steel between you and everybody else in the world.”
“Well, maybe there is. But how would you know?”
I’m angry now.
Because after all, I tell myself, what do I need this for?
I lick my lips, feeling hoarse again, almost feverish. There’s this part of me, the old Ellie coming back now, that’s afraid to continue, but I know I sort of have to—and not just for her, but for myself.
“Look, Babe, I come from a whole family of survivors, I could tell you a thing or two. Sure, you survived this incredible disaster, and sure, it’s a really, really big deal, and it’s going to mess you up for a while. Personally, I don’t think that’s all that ever messed you up—and I don’t think that’s all that ever will. But if you want to believe that it is, fine. I mean, it’s simple, it even fits. And you can keep telling yourself that things used to be perfect, just perfect, and everything, everything that ever goes wrong in your life is because you got so fucked up when that 747 went down—and because, for once, you grabbed onto something and held on, and you got what you wanted—I mean, what you and no one else but you wanted, really wanted, more than anything, which was to survive. And to live. But if you want to keep lying to yourself about it, if that’s really what you think is best, and, like, safest and all, then go ahead, go ahead and lie; about that, and about everything else. Only go do it around somebody else! Just get lost! Get lost now, and don’t come dancing around me any more, okay? Please! Do you understand?”
I breathe too hard. Throat constricts with a kind of pain. She’s still crying, staring at me with those hurt, complex, naked eyes again, and if I continue to meet their gaze I will come totally undone. I call up one last iota of strength. Then take the plunge.
“Because I happen to be in love with you.”
Force a snide grin, an old Ellie grin, through my tears.
“Or maybe just in lust.”
Then I can feel the grin disappear.
“But I don’t think so.”
I look away. At my feet; at the floor. There’s this minute, now, when I am sure I’ve lost. And I imagine myself moving aside, futile and dejected, Babe fiddling with the doorknob that has left an imprint on my ass, Babe stalking out of her own room, walking purposefully down the hall—although where she would go, I don’t really know—and leaving me for good. Saying Adios, muchacha. So that I think: Great, Mizz Mawks, you have blown it yet again! And I tell myself: Well, shit, why shouldn’t she walk around like there’s twenty feet of steel between her and everybody else in the world, huh? I mean, really, can you blame her? When once upon a time there was nothing, just totally nothing, between her bare body and death; when once upon a time things were so bad that the only way she could live through any of it was to separate in a way, pretend, hallucinate; say, This isn’t really happening after all, is it, it’s a bad dream and I will wake up soon, very soon. Who do I think I am, anyway—what in the world do I think I can offer, little me, stacked up against all that?
I am wrong. Completely wrong. She is right. I should step aside, and go straight to hell.
But when I get the guts to look back at her she hasn’t moved. The tears on her face are drying; there’s this embarrassed, almost foolish quiver to her mouth, like she wants to smile, or laugh—at me, at herself, I really don’t know—and the big, dark eyes don’t seem angry any more. She blinks. Then turns slowly, quietly away.
She heads for the CD and cassette deck, inspects the tuner. Stands at the crusted window a minute looking out at a snow-ruined courtyard, dull late-winter sky, looking out at nothing. Reaches with both arms simultaneously, like a bird fanning wings, and with one simple motion closes the curtains. Turns back with a CD in one hand, a cassette in the other, glances at me briefly with this pained, anxious smile.
“Would you like classical music? Something romantic?”
I can feel my eyes narrow uncertainly. I don’t reply, just watch her. A disc slots in, flashes rainbow fluorescence. Electronic lights burn silently awake.
Violins weave a warm, piercing cocoon. Gentle minor key. Baroque melancholy. She plays with the volume, adjusts it perfectly. Turns to me, gently mocking.
&nb
sp; “Something elegant, perhaps? For a lovely Jewish survivor of suffering and despair?”
“Fuck you, Babe!”
“Okay.” She smiles tiredly. “I’m waiting. That’s just what I’m waiting for.”
I reach behind—to double-latch the door, or to escape by opening it and falling backwards, I really don’t know. Metal’s cold against my fingers. My toes squirm inside tennis shoes and Thorlo socks. I feel very weak, now, and small.
Across the room she cocks her head. Winks. But I can’t tell if she’s smiling; I, for one, am not.
“Dare you,” she whispers. “Come on, big, big girl. Can you really, really deal? Well then, come on and show me.”
It’s all one motion: Unsteady walk across the room, not feeling my feet on the floor, sweating, dizzy, everything pounding crazy inside me; and this fumble of hands against hands, though I don’t even know if I’m reaching. But, yes, those are my hands, now, on her hips. Those are my hands, now, light and shaking on her shoulders, on the flesh of her neck; my thumbs, strong somehow, and full of want, caressing the lines of her throat. So swollen, she told me once, so swollen I couldn’t swallow, Ellie, my tongue was white and stuck out between my lips and it was bigger than both lips put together, I was on intravenous for two weeks.
I pass my thumbs up and down the throat that seems so vulnerable now, so human, shockingly soft. And I can feel her swallow. Breathe. Choke back little sounds.
They’re hungry sounds.
Starving, I think. She was sick, and starving.
And then I think: So was I.
But neither of us has to be. There’s this difference between fate and choice. In my life, in hers. It’s like, biology, genetics, the Holocaust, the plane crash—these things that helped form us, in one way or another—they were fate. The rest of it, though, is all choice. My choice. Hers. To accept what we are, and the tricks fate deals us. But to play them as we choose; I mean, with love or without, with lies or with truth. Because, in the choosing, we form ourselves.
I move my arms around her. How many times have I daydreamed about doing this? Only, in my daydreams, I was healthy, and stronger. In my daydreams I was taller. And never so afraid. I knew just what to do then. Now, I’ve forgotten.
Her hips and thighs rock forward, into me, roll back, and I think, breaststroke. And begin to remember. But from all the daydreams, really, and nights spent alone; not from what you would truly, truly call hands-on experience—although I guess there is room for debate. Baroque strings pierce the background, change to major key. Her hand moves under my shirt. Circles my rib cage, my shoulder blade and back, pulls me full against her, but slowly, gently, so that this breathless tingling sensation gushes through me, and I think for a second I will melt, totally, then just disintegrate, and I can feel myself move too, without even knowing how: rhythmically, thoughtlessly, rocking into her and back. Now her lips kiss an eyelid. Breathe into my ear.
“Feel good?”
“God, Babe. Is it real?”
“I think.”
“Are you sure? Jesus, I’m afraid.”
“Of what, Ellie?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Of winning.”
“Well, I’m afraid of losing. But I’ll tell you a secret—”
“What—”
“They are both just habits. You know, it’s like, behavior mod. You train yourself into one or the other. But you can train yourself out. It’s all just what you’re used to.”
Her lips find mine. I hold her face, feel her sweat, her fear, but sense somehow in the middle of it that she knows what she is doing, yes, knows just how to do this; and I am learning fast. I taste the tip of her tongue, go crazy dizzy again, hear both of us moan.
*
Time goes by but I don’t know how much of it. Maybe just seconds. Maybe hours though, too—my thighs are stiff with fatigue when I finish unbuttoning my shirt and let it drop off, finish unbuttoning hers and move the folds aside to see a shadow of scarred flesh, then feel the slow, slow hands circling up past my shoulders, down over my breasts, her hands unclasping the stupid, dainty, maddening hooks of my bra with effort, until it falls to the floor too and my breasts are free, nipples hard and tingling, each one supported in the palms of her hands. I lean toward her, pull the dark-haired head down next to mine. Then I struggle with the bra clasps riding the center of her upper spine, feel clumsy to break the rhythm this way, curse them—because there’s this thing I want, this desire centered absolutely in my mouth, on my tongue, to pull her breasts gently in to me and hold the nipples between my lips and kiss them, just kiss them. The clasps unclasp and the unnecessary cloth gets pulled away and I do, I do, and, one by one, I can taste her nipples hardening into firm tight mounds.
We have covered territory, many feet of floor, half undressed. She sits on the edge of her bed and looks up at me and I think: Oh, God. Oh, God. Nothing else.
“Ellie,” she says, “you have to do the rest. Don’t stop. Don’t make me explain. Please, just hurry—if you stop now, I’ll freak.”
“Babe—”
“No. Don’t even talk, just keep going. Otherwise—”
“Hey,” I whisper, “I don’t want to hurry.”
“—It’ll stop,” she blurts, “and I won’t be able to start it again.”
I hold her head against my torso, stroke her hair. “Start what again, Babe?”
“This. This feeling.”
I kneel between her legs, make her stare at me face to face. Then, when I talk, it’s the Ellie I hardly even know yet who talks, and says words I could not possibly have known to say; because they’re the words of someone who understands a lot, and is wise, and tender; who is familiar with love, and used to winning it.
“But it’s not just you, Babe. I can start this feeling too. I mean, I already have.” Then, calmly, surely, as if I’ve done it all my life, I take her face in my hands and kiss her. It occurs to me, then, that starting this won’t ever be a problem—at least, not mine. The biggest problem will be trying to stop. But, then again, maybe I don’t have to.
This is what it is, I know now for sure; what the others always talk about in cafes and hallways, in front of mirrors, dripping sweat in saunas, behind locker room doors: this dizzy, wet, electrical moaning feeling that moves you ahead with it, doesn’t ask for permission, dripping liquid fire.
Let it happen, I tell myself silently. Let it rip.
Not that I need any encouragement.
I guide her down along the length of the bed, both of us still half dressed. Lie on top of her and feel us move a little, together, back and forth. Nothing has stopped. I’m not even afraid any more. But she told me I must do the rest and so somehow I will, I will. I kneel beside her on the mattress, unbutton her pants.
“God,” she says, “I hope that you love me.”
I love you, I tell her, I love you, I love you.
And want you, and want you, and want you, and want you.
More time goes by, but I don’t know how much of it. Somewhere in the air baroque melodies play, over and over; somewhere there’s a light, glowing dimly; she is naked and I am naked, and I’m lying next to her touching all of her scars, thick raw rounded tissue built up around shoulders, ribs, hips, ankles, knees, and she is crying.
Then the whole thing moves me forward, bright wet electricity pounding through my head, and I love her and can’t stop it, want her and can’t help it, and don’t care that I can’t stop it, or help it, it feels so very, very good. No one taught me what to do next. No one told me how. I did not find it in the movies, or on TV, or in books. But I am not worried. I am not even thinking. I move over her and across her and caress her and kiss her all over by instinct, and the whole thing of it teaches as it goes, moves me just right, strokes her into a matching motion too until her legs move apart and for the first time I move myself all the way forward, and feel just what it’s like inside her, and I can taste her too, and smell her, and it’s so beautiful, so beautiful, so creamy and livin
g and good.
Maybe, somewhere, there are voices, telling me this is wrong. But the voices are far away now, small, insignificant, nagging, bleating, piteous. They have nothing to do with this, or with me; I feel sorry for them. And triumphant about what I am moving forward into, becoming part of now—all these pretty, good, living things that the owners of those voices never saw in books, or movies, or on TV.
Because they don’t even know what they’re missing.
She shudders, presses up against me. “Faster,” she breathes, and I do, I do.
*
Your left triceps, she tells me, is bigger than your right. And I tell her, Mmmmm, yeah, breathe to my right, left shoulder takes it, faults under water I have never corrected, all that freestyle.
Arms, arms. Everything seems to be arms now: mine around her, hers longer and larger encompassing me, everyone getting snarled in the bedsheets. Even now, at her most vulnerable, she is so strong. It’s a big, smooth, firm, fleshy strength that I love, that I want, have loved and wanted all my life. Now, calmer, I can see all the parts of her. Quietly, examine them in detail. There are these veins that run the length of her forearms, crossing over the wrists to pump along the backs of each hand. Tracing them with a finger, I remember how she always worked her forearms so much in the weight room, and I wondered why; then she told me it was this feeling she had, just a feeling, unsubstantiated by science—when she began to work her forearms extra hard, her times in the 50 and the 100 improved a little; and if it works, even just psychologically, you don’t question it much, you just do it. I have daydreamed every physical part of her. Now, though, these forearm veins amaze me. I decide, for a second, that they are the part I love best. Then I think: No, I love her breasts. Shoulders. Thighs.
The mattress is unyielding, too small for us both. Therapeutic, she says, I have to sleep pretty flat or before you know it my shoulders and neck and lower back mess up. Too late in the season. Can’t risk that.
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