“No, I made you run the full mile. At a half a mile you were pink; by the end your face was the exact color of the bunch of roses I sent to my mom for Valentine's day. You did finish.” He directed his next comments to me, “I can tell you this, when this guy starts something, he puts all he can in before he falls down on the ground with bloody knees…retching all over his size twelve sneakers.”
“Great description,” I said and kicked my feet up.
“I should probably take over or we'll be at this all night,” Jasper said with his chin resting on his knuckles. “I got up to three miles…just barely I think. When you finally let me lift weights I put on ten pounds.”
“Impressive for your skinny frame.” Alejandro said.
I leaned against Jasper, enjoying the feel of his voice rumbling through his ribcage, his occasional chuckles pulling me back to reality, then my eyes closed and my breath deepened, though I was still aware of the firelight and a sense of complete harmony.
Finally Alejandro spoke softly, “So, what's the deal?”
Jasper shifted, made a soft noise, and Alejandro said something low in response and said, “Whatever happened, this is great. Really. Looks like that two-by-four finally worked its way out of your ass.”
“She pulled it out,” Jasper's voice had only sounded this way when we were alone together.
Their words mingling together made soft sensual music. There was excitement in their talk, appreciation for one another, and after a while, companionable silence.
Warm hands worked their way around my arms, and I woke to find Alejandro in front of me, close, breathing words into my ear, “You were about to roll off the couch. It's three in the morning.”
Jasper was gone. I sat upright. “How long was I sleeping?”
“Not long, only two hours.” He smiled.
I stood, feeling shy at the way he looked at me. I steadied my voice. “Let me show you the guest room.”
“That would be perfect.”
He followed me up the stairs; somewhere below a door closed, and I looked over Alejandro's head. A light went out and soon I heard Jasper's footsteps on the stairs. I flipped the light on in the guest bedroom, grabbed Jasper's bag from the bed, still made. There was something strange nonetheless in making it official that he was sleeping in my room, so the night before we left his bag in this room. Jasper hadn't complained, the whole goofy thing made a certain sort of sense to him too.
As he joined us, Jasper rested his chin on my head. I took Alejandro's hand, squeezed it and said, “Thanks for staying here with us.”
Jasper's head moved, and then he was backing me out of the room and the door closed.
In my room, Jasper barely let the door close before he was on me, his entire body close and tight from my shoulders to the backs of my knees. There wasn't a place on me that didn't feel the press of his limbs.
He sat on the bed and pulled me to him, the light that slivered in from between the curtains lighting the places where his hair stood up and the side of his face. This was my favorite part. With great intention, I reached out and took his face in my hands. I took a moment to feel with my fingertips everything about his expression: the tension in his jaw, his drooping eyes, the dimple on one side of his mouth. He smiled a dopey smile, holding back to allow me to do this. This ritual reminded me he was about to be mine.
He lifted me up and flipped me over. I let out a squeak of delight; usually he was content to be on the bottom. The addition of the extra testosterone in the house had an excellent effect on him. Greedy fingers went under my dress, sliding it up over my head. I worked my panties off while he moved toward me. He flipped the clasp on my bra with impatient movements. Before I knew it, he had his arm around the back of my waist, pulled me to him and was inside thrusting hard. I matched the force by bucking my hips from below. I ran my hand over his face and he nipped at it, his teeth flashing in the dark before I pulled it away.
He flipped me onto my belly, and with one long arm pulled me up so that I was on all fours, and I flashed to a scene from an old porno where the main character is fucking these two girls, one after another at a frenzied, crazy pace. I had to bury my head in the blankets to smother a laugh.
When we were through, we lay together; the green glow of the clock said it was now 3:30 a.m. Jasper groaned. “Shit we're going to be wasted tomorrow.”
“Speak for yourself, love. Some nights I am just getting home at this hour.”
He rose up on one elbow, looked down at me, still short of breath and said, “I did just fuck you silly though, didn't I?”
“You were silly, that's for sure.” I stroked his chest. “I guess.”
He slid his other hand around my hips and pulled me toward him. “You guess?”
“Do you ever think about weird stuff when we're doing it?” I asked.
He moved his face close. “What do you mean, like think about other women?”
“No, nothing like that…at least I don't want you to tell me that. What I mean is…like totally random stuff.”
“Like what?” He paused and said, “You think I do that?”
“You want an example so you don't get in trouble?”
“That would be most appreciated.” He took my earlobe in two fingers and absently worked it, then slid his fingers down to my throat, giving me shivers where they landed.
I took a breath. “So when you had me like that,” I got up on my knees and made a mockery of the position, pretending I was him.
He laughed, “Is that what I look like?”
“I don't know; I can't get a good look at you from my angle.”
“Right.”
I continued, “So I was thinking about this scene from a movie where they were going at it really fast, changing positions, running around naked, laughing, serious.”
“Is that bad? I thought you were having fun.”
“Lots of fun,” I said, running my hand up the back of his neck and into his hair, enjoying the way the texture changed from damp to dry beneath my skin. “But it was like it was more fun imagining that while I was with you. Not like I wanted someone else, but thinking that made me want you more…does that make sense?”
He got quiet and stopped his stroking and probing for a long minute. I was about to ask if I was the one in trouble when he said, “I did think about one thing for just a second.” The way his voice got deeper and serious, and softer, like he was afraid, perked my ears.
“Yeah?” I said.
After another long minute he said, “Your boxer story…weird huh?” he said.
“You thought about that?”
I lay down beside him.
“That's cool, actually. Which part?”
“Different parts. You carried it off exceedingly well.”
My stomach leapt to my throat, and it was hard to speak. Though I denied it, though I constantly reminded him that I had more fun than he did, now that it was here, the small words of validation felt incredible.
We lay there until I thought it had been a long enough time before I said, “So Alejandro…I still can't believe you just moved away.”
He was still for a long time. “College was very draining. I was never comfortable around that many people. Also, I had to see how far I could go, if all the attention I got from my work was just a fluke, or if I could really do something. I had to be alone so I could focus. He's so outgoing. It took a certain amount of energy to be around him. If I had tried to keep up with him my life would have gone in a different direction.”
“Did you see how he handled Mom's friends? And he's a really good dancer. Were you jealous?”
“Is that what you were going for?”
“No,” I said. “But it was so much fun to get to dance like that again.”
“You were enjoying yourself. I love watching you that way.”
He sat up and pulled me into his lap, so that he sat crisscross and I rested in the middle with my legs hanging over, and his impossibly long arm held my shoulders
and back near his face. He placed one hand between my legs. “I met you first. You are mine, okay?”
Something about the way he said this so sure of himself, not egotistical, just stating a fact, made me go weak. He began working me, speaking to me, watching my face. “He was falling all over himself to impress you.” The sound of his voice was conversational and serious as if we were talking over dinner, as if he were speaking to a stranger, almost. With each movement of his gentle fingers I was reduced to nods and murmurs. He got closer and spoke so that I felt his breath, like the inside of him; deep and moist and clean. He worked his fingers inside me, held them there, and worked his thumb along the outside parts which had grown slick and puffy. “I understand it. So well…”
His voice got distant when he swept his eyes over my face, my breasts, then lingered and watched his hand work, watched my hips rise for more. “I remember how I felt when we would stay up late just talking; he knew about everything, and when we ran out of things to talk about that I was familiar with, he would start up about something I never imagined I could be interested in.” The way his voice changed when he talked about Alejandro was more erotic than any tone he had ever used before. I wound my hands around his neck and pulled him to me when I was close so he could kiss me. When my body began the familiar tingles and powerful convulsions at my center, he laid me down and entered, holding himself up so he could watch every arch of my back, every wrinkle of my forehead, every twist of my neck, every turn of my shoulders. He held himself still until I was done.
I never felt as treasured as when he watched me come.
Chapter 12
I lay beside Jasper the next morning and studied his pose. His long neck stretched across the pillow. I followed the line to the soft set of his jaw, up to his ear and the creases and coves within. I ran my finger lightly down the length of his nose, which he wrinkled, so I stopped. After I got tired of running my fingers though his hair and smoothing his eyebrows, I finally got up and got dressed. The light outside the window showed that it was still early, but I felt completely awake.
The aroma of fresh coffee hit my nostrils when I reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Mom?”
Alejandro's voice came from the living room. “In here.” He sat with a silver laptop on the coffee table before him. “Hope it's okay I made coffee.”
“More than okay.” I went in and poured myself a cup and stood hovering in the space at the edge of the living room.
“This is fascinating stuff,” he said, pointing at the screen and picking up his coffee mug.
I moved over to sit a few feet from him on the couch and leaned in to see what he was looking at. It was my blog, and an old post at that. My eyes moved from his expectant face to the words on the screen.
COMMITMENT TO FREEDOM
You men and your freedom. Marriage is a one-sided contract that includes unlimited freedom for one party and none for the other. Look what my mother got for all her sacrifice, her loyalty. When I was sixteen I walked in on my father banging one of their dinner guests—a young woman who served as assistant on one of my Dad's many advisory committees. He held the title, Mom did most of the work, as usual.
I don't begrudge my father the fruits of his labors every once in a while, but in my mother's house? When he left, he cited my mother's clinginess, smothering and something I didn't understand at the time: withholding.
The raw nerve still astounds me. She gave up her dreams of being a literature professor and author for him. She couldn't do all the work required for a PhD, type up his masterpieces and be available when he needed to ‘go over something’. She gave up her entire life for him. He was the one who had smothered her dreams. Six months after they separated he married another woman. Couldn't live on his own, though he needed his freedom.
The rant went on several more paragraphs, ending with my manifesto-style declarations to stay single and free forever. “Probably time to take that one down.”
“When did you write this?”
“After he stood my brother up when he got his MFA from the University of Montana. It was a good excuse to get a lot of things off my chest.”
I continued to read, remembering with burning clarity the hatred with which I'd typed the words.
“What did your mother do with this?”
“She was not happy, she cried. She begged me to take it down before Dad saw it. I was pretty sure he wouldn't find out about it until someone told him. She just wanted to pretend they amicably parted.”
“So what happened?”
“One afternoon I got calls from two of my mom's friends, Tristan—my brother—and then Dad. They were all trying to get me to take it down before he had to call. Couldn't inconvenience him or anything.”
“Holy shit.”
“I haven't thought about that one in a long time. It was only in the beginning of the blog that I posted so much family stuff. I used my real name so…you know…everyone would know what an asshole he was.”
“You were really angry.”
“Me, angry? No. That was Dad when he stormed and threatened and I still didn't take it down. That was angry. People always did what he wanted, let him pretend he was perfect. Until I saw how little he cared about even my brother, and nobody else would stand up to him, so I felt I had an obligation.”
“So what did he do?” Alejandro leaned back, watching me and shaking his head.
“He threatened to disinherit me. He didn't though, not then, not over that. The end came when I published my first short story using my real name. A gay gang bang. I think it was well rendered, there was even a golden shower at the end.” I smiled but felt like crying to remember the disappointment in my father's eyes and the disgust with myself for caring about what he thought.
Alejandro continued to watch me. “So then what?”
“When I wouldn't ask the publisher to pull the story—and yes, I get this part…I really do. I was actually amazed that he didn't follow through the first time. He calls me one morning and lays it down. ‘Vivianna, if you do not end this campaign against me, I will be forced to call the bank…and speak to my lawyers.’ Like that was all that I cared about. He thought the trust he set up for us somehow meant he didn't have to be around. Like you could replace real feelings with money.”
“That had to have been hard though. I can't imagine knowing I was set like that and having it taken away. Why?”
“What else could I do? And anyway, it wasn't that much money. Enough to buy a small house on Queen Anne, maybe. Unlike my mother, I was not going to live in his shadow and pretend that leftovers were enough. I wanted to live my life and do what I wanted. People thought I wrote because I was trying to piss him off. The truth is I write what I write and still do because I like people, I love men, and in there I can be free. I threw off limits every time I used my name…I was affirming,” I looked back to the screen, “…that I am free. I will not be limited by stale thinking, by assholes with no imagination, and not by fear.”
“That's the most radical story I've ever heard.” The look of awe he gave me was almost comic.
We sat for a minute watching each other until Jasper came padding down the stairs.
On the way to the ferry we showed Alejandro around the island. I drove, watching the hills roll away from the road, cursing the drizzle while still finding comfort in the mist.
Alejandro spent at least an hour going over the angst with which he made the decision to move across the country, to a new school. He wanted a change; he'd visited enough places to know the west was where he wanted to spend his time. Seattle, with its lively literary and cultural community, seemed like a perfect fit.
After a while, talk moved to books; I listened until they spent way too long talking about some long Russian thing I had never even heard of. The War and Peace discussion I could tune out. “Okay, so if I am going to drive, you two are going to have to keep me awake. Please explain to me the allure of these long-winded tomes. Are you guys really just t
rying to impress each other or what?”
While Jasper watched the scenery dash past, Alejandro continued to lean forward, listening, his head tilting to look out the window every so often.
“My brother loved these guys who took ten times longer than necessary to say one thing. I know what was most important was how they said it, I get that, but I would rather just cut to the chase. In my world it's flat-out rude to waste someone's time like that.”
“She sounds like one of my students,” Alejandro said to Jasper, who surveyed me while running one finger over his top lip like he wasn't sure how to begin.
“Think about this. The experience of reading is a very intimate one. When you read a book you're giving the author your time, your thoughts, giving him access to your most intimate place. It's like sex. If someone isn't prepared to put their best forward in a situation like that, why should I give them my time?”
“So I assume you've read Vox?” Alejandro asked.
“Oh, wow,” I said. I turned back to gauge Jasper's expression. His eyes danced and I knew that he knew I really, really wanted to keep talking about this. He shook his head with a low laugh and ran his hand over my hair, my shoulder.
I turned back to Alejandro. “You just don't know. Nobody talks to me about books like this.”
Alejandro only smiled and kept the look of expectation on. “I thought it was very well done though the ending seemed a little weak. What did you think of it?”
“The best thing about Vox was how he celebrated the female point of view in sex. The female orgasm meant something to him. So many times in movies, and books, even the ones written by women, the focus is still on the man. Nothing the woman does matters unless it furthers the man's enjoyment.”
Alejandro's eyes lit up, it seemed there were several different things he could have said and held them back. “I bet you didn't know I read his litty stuff,” I said to Jasper. “So the other thing he did in this other book—U and I—was he talked about this really special relationship you have with a writer, how you feel you know them because of the experience of both reading them and of thinking about them. I hadn't expected that. I loved that surprise. In a lot of what I read you more or less know what is coming.”
Sex and Death in the American Novel Page 22