Sex and Death in the American Novel

by Martinez, Sarah

  “Vivi, what are you doing?” Jasper said, his voice trying to maintain some sort of authority, and when that didn't work he gave me a firm look.

  I surveyed the landscape and swung my legs back and forth, loving the sensory illusion that I was part of the wind as it whipped through the gorge out to sea. Cars sped over the concrete and the metal above us, making soft booming sounds. Jasper jumped, his head twisting toward the direction of the noise.

  “There's something about the air here, it's full of energy from the ocean currents. Can you smell it? And something is hidden down there in the deep gorges and cracks in the earth. There's so much,” I tightened my thighs and lifted my arms out to both sides, “space.”

  “You're making me incredibly nervous.”

  I continued to hold my arms out. “Just stay where you are, hold your arms out.”

  He held my eyes, raised his eyebrows as if in doubt, then readjusted himself and slowly let go of the beam, raising his arms until they were level with mine.

  “Now close your eyes,” I said, already doing so and feeling the world tilt, reduced to the scents of fresh ocean air, wet concrete, rusty metal, and my own oily fear.

  “Wow.” His voice sounded shaky.

  I didn't respond, wanting him to appreciate the world's notes and harmonies without judgment. I wanted him to hear the man-made orchestra above, the varied sounds of the bridge adjusting, and nature's chorus below. The grasses and brush moving in the wind, the distant sounds of the surf crashing on the rocky beach far below, and the wondrous accompaniment of our own bodies as our clothing moved with every adjustment, as our breath moved in and out, and our blood pounded through every vein.

  I peeked with one eye to see if his eyes were still closed. “Can you hear everything? Just let it all in.”

  His face had grown peaceful; each time another car passed overhead, his forehead furrowed, then he let that pass and his face remained the same, his lips closed, his nostrils only faintly moving. I looked behind me to the deep green water below, and felt a pang of longing to see if I could make it all the way across.

  I crept toward him. He stirred and tensed at the forehead and his hands tightened over the beam but he didn't open his eyes. It took me a few minutes to reach him going so slow, but as I got closer I thought the corner of his mouth was fighting to curl up. His hair blew back, and I felt the same icy wind whip under my jacket.

  When I reached him, I got close enough so I knew he could feel me, but I didn't touch him. His eyes moved beneath his lids, as if he were searching for something. He braced himself with one hand, the skin stretched tight over white knuckles. I scooted forward, placed one hand over his, and braced myself so I could get close enough for him to feel my breath.

  With one arm and leg bracing me, I swung the other leg over his thigh, and he tensed and his eyes fluttered. He smiled but didn't open his eyes, understanding the game, something I'd done once already on the couch at home. Where our legs met, I swung the other so that I had both my legs over his and I held him so that he couldn't move his arms. He was all mine, and it was only my body shielding him from the elements.

  I enjoyed the delicious pleasure of holding him until he finally said, “How do you expect to get out of this?”

  “I don't care.”

  A laugh rumbled in his chest.

  He stroked my back and then put his hand behind himself on the beam to steady us.

  Sensing that he was ready to go I said, “Whenever you're ready.”

  He slid back several more feet to hop down onto the dirt and dry grass below. When he was on the ground he held his hand up. I braced myself on his shoulder and jumped.

  Near the foundation of the bridge was a path. When I got to a curve that dipped in behind some bushes I looked back and waved him on. I crept into the bush further and there was a small area where we could both sit comfortably. The grassy hillside slipped away only ten feet from where we sat on the edge of the world.

  My body still thrummed with adrenaline from sitting over the gorge. I grasped his neck and pulled him on top of me. He looked up from his position above me. “Anyone can see us from that part of the bridge.”

  “I don't want to wait until we get home.”

  He looked toward the bridge, said more to himself than to me, “No one's there anyway.”

  I secured him with my thighs against his slender hips, working his pants open with hands chilled by the wind. He gasped and laughed through our kisses.

  I worked my pants down, twisting my hips but keeping ahold of him, not wanting to break the contact. When he pushed inside I kept still, delighting in the transition. Now we were together, a second ago separate. This was the best part. I marveled that I was really holding him inside of me. I tightened my muscles around him. He groaned and kissed me harder, bruising my lips, then drawing away until I pulled him back with my hand at the back of his head.

  He ground himself against my hips, moving deeper. I pulled my hand from his hair, and held the lower half of his face as I kissed him, trying to hold him with everything I had so I could make the union last longer. Just then he tipped his head back and met my eyes. I almost looked away, his gaze was so intense. I had never let anyone look at me this way. He held me with eyes like the green gullies of Machu Picchu, like the stones worn by kings, like jade from the heart of ancient Amazonia.

  A new sensation began; at the time, my thoughts shifted from having him inside me to the look on his face. It was in his eyes, in how close he was, in the sweet scent of his breath. An intensity began to build that was both familiar and not. I pondered the fact that I was close enough to be able to distinguish each short hair that made his eyebrows. And to feel his heartbeat, his life's breath—and a familiar rush of heavy pleasure that swept me at the beginning of any orgasm was there, but fuller. I could no longer feel the pebbles and specks of dirt that were an annoying presence seconds before. My eyes closed, shutting him out even as my limbs held him to me. He made a sound like he'd been hit, then he took several gasps of air. On and on it went; stars bursting behind my eyelids, beautiful curses, giddy laughter, until I became aware of myself again and let out a low laugh. When I began to get my senses back I could feel my bare skin against the prickly grass and the cold zipper of his jacket pressing against my side.

  “So strong,” he said into my hair.

  I slapped my hand over my eyes, sensing the absurdity of feeling shy. I laughed, drunk on the competing emotional and physical sensations, intense release and a childish awe.

  We lay like that until he said thoughtfully, “My ass is going to freeze off.”

  He pulled away and we spent several minutes knocking random bits of landscape from our clothing. His figure was a dark shape against the violet and pink horizon, and his hair blew around his head like a crown.

  He finally turned. “The way I feel out here, with you, it's so easy…I'm really happy. That, what we just did…everything feels so real.”

  He placed his hands on both sides of my head and said, “I feel so alive. Thank you.”

  He took a few steps back and spun around with his arms out, a huge smile on his face. “The world is totally different with you. So much possibility. I'm sure of everything, of me. The world feels solid.” He pointed to the water, then the trees, then the rapidly disappearing horizon and the waves that blew toward it into forever.

  In the morning, Mom slept in, as I knew she would, given the extra glasses of Tinto she consumed. Dinner had been pleasant. Mom asked Jasper all about his family. There was the weird moment when he explained that both of his parents were dead, but after he switched the conversation to her décor and the pork chops, the mood lightened again.

  Now we sat in the kitchen, working on large mugs of Mom's gourmet coffee. Jasper looked toward the hallway, as if he was worried she could hear us. “Do you think she will care that I didn't sleep in the guest room?”

  “Most definitely not. I think if you didn't, she would worry that I had already screwe
d things up with you. She just had to put on that whole show about setting you up in there for appearances. Something in her won't let her acknowledge I am sleeping with someone.”

  “Mom thing…”

  “Yep. And really, she hasn't had much practice with boyfriends. It's not like I've ever brought anyone else out here besides Eric. She is just adjusting.”

  He wrinkled his forehead. “But you've had boyfriends…”

  “Don't look so worried. It's not like I'm damaged, but I haven't found anyone until now that was worth bringing home.”

  “Sorry, you just continue to amaze me.”

  “Why? Because I fuck who I want? I do what I want and don't want to trade my freedom for routine sex and male insecurity; that's why you do the commitment thing.” To soften my last words I reached over and slid my fingers beneath his chin. “Nobody was worth the hassle until now.”

  He wrapped my hand up in his. “Vivi, can I see your brother's room?”

  My hands grew cold. “Why?”

  “There are several reasons. One being I would understand both of you much better that way. Second, I've been thinking that understanding what he took from me, what he processed that was like me—how he thought—maybe I could find some truth about the way I live through that.”

  “He thought you were so disciplined working all the time, all that pseudo-religious stuff around reading and work. He took everything too seriously.”

  He crossed his arms. “Does my life look as bad as that?”

  “One writer's group was all you could cite for fun and it doubles as your social life …when people are in town.”

  He shook that off. “Maybe I can understand the both of us better if I do.” He pinched my elbow and waited for me to respond.

  I turned and he followed me to the basement door. Our steps echoed in the tight space of the stairwell. The basement was dark except for dusty strips of light that filtered from the window wells. I pushed open the door to Tristan's bedroom with one finger. The swish as the door passed over the carpeting was the only sound until water rushed through the pipes upstairs. I entered the room and stood aside to let Jasper in.

  He moved through the doorway as if he were entering a church. He caught my eyes but didn't say anything and walked softly through the room with his hands out, brushing his fingers across the top of the television, then the nightstand with a stack of books on it.

  “That's how he left them. I worried that someday I would want to know what order he kept them in.”

  I stepped out.

  Jasper Caldwell followed me into my brother's study.

  He stood before the heavy oak desk and paused to examine a framed picture of himself on the wall beside it. A torrent of feeling rose in me, nausea.

  He reached out to gently touch the wood framing a photo that never looked anything like him.

  “I always wondered why you had glasses in that picture.”

  His voice was thick. “Only when I photograph. Or speak. My agent's idea.” He gave me a weak smile. “He thought I would look older and more serious. Now it seems odd, but when I was twenty it was important to look like I had my shit together.”

  He hesitated with his hand on the frame.

  I cleared my throat. “Go ahead.”

  He took it down and sat heavily in the chair, his head tipped to gaze at the image of himself. A hand went up to his mouth. Jasper ran his fingers over the glass and pulled a folded slip of paper from behind it. He caught my eyes and then unfolded the paper with two fingers. I wanted to go over and claim it, but right then decided I was done keeping him away from the darkest parts of my heart. Maybe now where my brother and the weight of his memory were concerned, I would be able to rest.

  I moved over to sit on the floor. Jasper's eyes moved over Tristan's scrawl and the room was silent. He leaned forward, covering his eyes with one hand, still clutching the paper in the other. He choked and there was this long, low groan.

  When he was finished he looked at me with red-rimmed eyes. “I am so sorry.” His voice was thick.

  I didn't go to him like the girls do in the movies.

  He wiped his nose on the inside of his wrist and handed me the note.

  I should have stuck to music.

  His voice came from far away. “I never got any letters, Vivi. I checked.”

  “You told me that.” I held his gaze.

  He came to sit next to me and I rested my head on his shoulder, letting it all come so I might finally move beyond the emptiness, the fear, the nothing, back to hope.

  PART III.

  Fiction that isn't an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn't worth writing about for anything but money.

  —Jonathan Franzen, Ten Rules for Writing Fiction

  There is a vibration which takes place in the erotic realm, which translating it into something else, demeans it and destroys it. You need real poetry to talk about that sort of thing.

  —Marco Vassi, A Driving Passion

  Chapter 11

  Jasper was upstairs when I heard my mother on the phone. “Just a few of us. Got to show off my daughter's latest conquest.”

  Later in the afternoon they began to arrive, to chat and help Mom set up. The romance writer Susan Winthorpe, one of mother's oldest friends, arrived first. She encouraged my mother to make the move to the island a few years ago. There were two other people: Marion Hartley, a professor from the English Department at the University of Washington whom Mom had known for years. Her husband, a slim old guy with a gray beard who used to teach mathematics, shuffled in after her. Now he never spoke, only inhaled a loud breath or gave a soft chuckle to indicate he had registered something someone said. Every so often he would rest his eyes on me and smile a dopey grin that reminded me of the way my father watched me when I was small.

  Marion had also announced to Mom on the phone that afternoon that she had gone ahead and invited her teaching assistant, Cindy, and that she was bringing a date. Mom kept her voice cool. “No problem. None at all.”

  Even though she was on the phone, she kept a smile on her face. Her eyes shot to the perfectly portioned out catering boxes she'd already picked up.

  When Jasper and I returned from a walk around the property, she and the ladies were setting out the appetizers, wine and beer.

  “I hear you drink Guinness,” my mother said, beaming. Back in please-the-man mode. Dad would take the beer and retreat with Marion's husband, or sit in front of the TV watching a game until dinner started.

  He held up a hand. “I'll drink anything as long as it has alcohol in it.” Laughter all around at this. “Can I help with anything?”

  “No, no, no. You make yourself comfortable. We'll be fine.” I led Jasper into the living room and sipped off his beer. I was beginning to develop a taste for the dark malty beverage. A cold gritty version of dark coffee or espresso.

  “Why don't you get one?” he asked.

  I waited and held up a finger. Mom called from the kitchen, “Vivianna, would you mind coming and helping us in here?”

  I grabbed the remote and placed it in his hand. He glared at it first then gave me a slow smile. When I came back to check on him he was watching a technology show on the History Channel with his arm slung across the back of the couch. Marion's husband joined him not long after.

  I set the table and helped put the food into serving bowls and plates. I avoided the intimate questions with a coy smile and a glance toward the living room. After that their talk degenerated to English Department gossip interspersed with dry book talk. The very light changed in the room when they began using words like hermeneutics and discourse, and phrases like rhetorical use. Once their backs were turned, I cut out for a smoke.

  While I sucked in the calming fumes, I rocked in one of the wicker chairs watching the sky change color and the tops of the pines scratch against it, as if they could halt the coming darkness. Faint pricks of light behind them suggested the brilliance of the stars to come. The
pines swaying in the wind made a gentle duet with the swish of cars passing far away on the road below. I played over the look on Marion's face when she'd mentioned a character from one of Jasper's books, her voice low and conspiratory. In the seventies she had published one novel that was ‘drier than burnt wood’ my father had once said, and since then had published regularly in drier literary journals. The thought of her judging Jasper made me shake. “God. I fucking hate academics,” I said in a voice so filled with emotion I surprised myself.

  Just then I heard gravel crunching on the driveway. “Do history professors count?”

  “Shit,” I said, cringing at the fact that I'd been overheard, especially by someone from the Necropolis.

  In the light from the porch, a man stood like a vision from Neighbours, like a dark version of Vlad, but so much more. He wore a beige-colored knit sweater and dark slacks. His skin was dark, deep sepia and he wore a goatee—baked clay under molasses. His eyes were lively dark gems. His hair was closely cropped to his head, short and hardly there, but you could see if it was longer it would probably be coarse and tightly curled. He held a twelve-pack of Guinness in both hands.

  “Is this where Francine Post lives?” he asked, amused but didn't seem to want to move further until he had gotten that down.

  “Sorry,” I said. I stood and moved from the porch to the driveway. “You're in the right place.”

  “We missed the first ferry and had to take the later one,” he said moving to stand beside me. “By two cars.” His breath smelled like cloves and nutmeg. He was solidly built and had a kind, intelligent face.

  “Where did you park?” I asked.

  “Down the hill,” he said. “One of the drawbacks of showing up late.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  He stood beside me, facing the dark driveway.