by Jade Sharma
After he apologized, there was an awkward silence.
“How are the goats?”
“Great. The mother gave birth. Goats aren’t the brightest animals,” he said.
“How dumb are they?” I said, in that cheesy comedian way. He didn’t laugh. He thought I was just suddenly talking like a silly man. It really would be better if I stopped talking all together.
Peter appeared in his running shorts with the elastic waistband, the ones that always made me think of his cock somewhere in there, curled up. Men with their stupid balls always hanging there. When they run, their balls must bounce a little, and when they pee and shake it, the pee couldn’t all come off, so there must always be little spots of pee on their underwear.
“Love you, hon. Text me and let me know what happened at the doctor’s, okay?” he said before he left.
His kiss felt like nothing. The same thing that used to get the serotonin charging through my body left me empty.
“Be back soon.” Door slam. The ring stood in the air for a minute.
Last week I watched Peter stand in front of a mirror and put his sunglasses on different points of his nose for fifteen minutes, and I thought, This is the person I am spending the rest of my life with.
I watched Peter pick his nose. I watched Peter really itch his ass, like get all up in there. I watched Peter burn warts off his feet. I watched him spread mayonnaise and hot sauce and peanut butter on a single piece of bread and eat it.
Droplets of sweat ran down Peter’s nose as we lay in bed and watched Stephen Colbert.
Once, Peter got angry and said he wondered why I didn’t get bedsores because he hardly ever saw me move. I knew by the way he said it he had thought it a million times.
The bottom of the bathtub was grimy and sticky because the water took forever to drain. The hot water made me feel cold and then warm. Soaped up my chest and stomach and face. Got soap in my eye. Stung. Imagined the rabbits the Johnson & Johnson people tortured Clockwork Orange–style with soap just so they knew you couldn’t go blind that way. Soaped up my pussy, legs, and ass. Wished I had a cock. I had to rub myself on stuff. Bet it would be fun to jerk off in the shower. Took the razor and put my leg up on the side of the tub, shaved, and then shaved the other one. My sinuses started to clear. I blew snot out of my nose. Shaved the outside of my pussy, covered my clit with a finger and shaved inside at the top where there was always hair and inside the lips and then all the way through the middle and then all inside the ass. Kept feeling with my fingers for those stubborn hairs I had to keep going over. The water felt like someone spitting at me.
The bikini area was a bitch. Ingrown hairs or razor burn. Those lucky bitches back in the seventies could let it all grow out into a giant bush.
Sometimes the present seemed just as dumb as the past if you imagined what it would sound like in the future: In ancient times, the female would rub a bladed tool over her genitalia to slice the hair growing from the body even with the surface of the skin, from where it would grow again. I plugged in the laptop and brought it from the coffee table to the couch to watch porn.
The way they characterized the women like different breeds. Black bitch. White cunt. Asian slut.
The line of spit from the cock to the woman’s mouth.
A woman blew two guys. When she took them both in her mouth at the same time, the cocks touched. I wondered if that made the men feel a little gay.
A gangbang scene. The men looked pathetic, jerking off as they waited their turn, and then this one dude rubbed his cock in the woman’s hair and then wrapped some of her hair around his cock and jerked off with it. Men are so weird.
A girl swallowed and then opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue so you could see she really did swallow it all.
An asshole, a wrinkled, gaping hole spitting back the come like an awful little volcano, and you thought to yourself, Why would anyone on Earth want to see that? And yet there it was. Someone on Earth wanted to see just that.
The men were bullies. Pulling, slapping, ordering the women around.
I put the throw pillow underneath me and started to fuck it.
I liked watching the scenes where the women really didn’t look like they wanted it. Like they were just doing it for the money or drugs or whatever.
When I came, I came wanting it all. In one way or another, I wanted to be the men, and I wanted to hurt the woman. I wanted to hurt like the woman, and I wanted to hate the men for hurting me. I wanted to be the man at home jerking off wanting to be the man wanting to hurt the woman. And then I wanted to hurt more.
Isn’t it a little sad we can’t do a little of everything there is to do? I’ll never know what it feels like to jam my cock into a tight little asshole.
I woke up and looked at the clock to see how late I was. Every time I looked at a clock, I hated myself. I grabbed my iPod, threw it in my purse, put on my big purple sunglasses, and ran out and got into a cab. Put my headphones on. Lucinda Williams sang, “Lemon trees don’t make a sound.” Then the iPod died.
Should have showered after I masturbated. My jeans rubbed against my shaved pussy and made me feel wet and gross.
In high school, I went down on a girl at a party in a field. Her hairy, gnarly pussy on my face and the pussy juice all running down my neck. It tasted like pennies.
After I stood there forever, smoking cigarettes and calling Ogden’s phone and getting sent to voicemail, Ogden finally turned the street corner. It always felt like he came out of nowhere, like it was some kind of magic trick when he appeared.
He said he was sorry. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a hundred years. It felt nice to be pressed against the cool leather of his jacket. When love came easy, it felt like it would last forever.
“What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?” he asked. He took out a pack of American Spirits. “Want to smoke?”
“Sure,” I said. I tried smiling. My teeth felt soft.
We walked down the street. When his hand came near mine, I held it, but then he pulled his away and put it in his jacket pocket.
Robert Lowell wrote, “What woman has the measure of man / who only has to care about himself / and follow the stars’ / extravagant, useless journey across the sky . . . / Because they cannot love, they need no love.” The stars don’t need anything. Men do, though. Just because they can’t love doesn’t mean they don’t need love. They need more, usually.
The first time I spent the night with Ogden, I lay on the sofa drinking wine while he hung paintings. All of the paintings looked as much like nothing as you could think of. He stepped back and asked me if one was crooked. I asked him if I could watch television, and he said, “Whatever.”
I passed out at some point. I woke up in the middle of the night on the couch, freezing. The streetlight shone through a window. I couldn’t find the light switch. I walked down the hallway with my hand against the wall. The floor was cold. I woke him up by punching him in the shoulder. “How do you leave me on the sofa with no blanket or sheet or pillow or anything? Why didn’t you wake me up and take me to bed?”
“Sorry,” he mumbled into the pillow.
“Is this your first day on Earth?” I asked him. I found the light, which made him sit up with his eyes squinting. He picked up his glasses from the bedside table, like, “Let me put these glasses on so I can deal with this bullshit.” He asked me to lower my voice. How many times in my life was someone asking me to lower my voice?
“I came here so we could spend some quality time together, not to watch you hang up paintings and then leave me passed out on the sofa. This is the most boring masochistic thing ever.”
“Maybe I didn’t want to deal with whatever crisis you have this week and then have sex with you. I am an actual person,” he said.
“I’m an actual person too. Not a thing you leave on a sofa, for Chrissake. And why is this fucking house so cold?” And then I broke down crying. Then there was silence, and I said, “I want a father
figure, not an actual replacement for my actual father who actually neglected me. This isn’t Freudian. It is retarded.”
Sometimes I thought the only natural ending to our relationship would be a homicide/suicide. Anything else would feel like a letdown.
That afternoon after Thanksgiving, we went to a bistro on Eighty-First and Park. He asked the host about sitting at the bar, but I said I wanted a table and pointed to the corner booth, only for the host to walk us past it.
“That’s a four top,” Ogden explained. We had a choice between three different tables.
“Want to hide behind the column?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said.
“Do you want to hear the specials?” the waitress asked. He didn’t answer. She picked up the specials menu and pointed at each item while she read it out loud. After she left, he looked at me and said, “What the fuck was that about? She read what was on the menu.”
“How’s your dog?” I asked.
Ogden went on about his car breaking down instead. All the crying messages I had left for him echoed in my head. I wanted to run out of the restaurant and throw myself into traffic.
“The car broke down and I had the dog and the cat with me and I had to take them to a motel . . .”
After we ate, we ordered another round of drinks and then went outside to smoke. It looked like it was going to rain. I had always loved dismal weather. I found it comforting. I wrapped my arms around him.
“Let’s go back to your place,” I said.
He stared at me
“Do you have any pot? I want to get stoned and do it,” I said, almost whining.
“No, I don’t think you should come back with me tonight.”
“Why not?”
“I think we should cool it for a while.”
“Why? Peter doesn’t know anything, I swear.”
He shook his head. “That’s not it.”
“What did I do?”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“When did you decide this?”
“A while ago.”
“We can’t just fuck?”
“Nope.”
“We can’t even make out?”
“No.”
“Do you love me?” I asked.
“No,” he said. Extras passed us by, glancing at us. What was the story line they imagined? That old man was hurting that young woman.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” My voice rose.
“I’m not being cryptic.”
“You never did?”
“Why do you think I never said it back to you?”
“I thought you didn’t want to confuse everything because I’m married.”
“I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”
“Do you care that I love you?”
He looked at me like I should have already known the answer. He looked at me like he didn’t want to have to say it, and then he said it. “No.” Right on cue: the lump in my throat and the tears down my face. He looked at me like he really didn’t want to be going through this bullshit right now.
“Are you attracted to me?” I asked. Throw me a fucking bone.
“Not as much as I probably should be.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
He opened the door for some woman with a stroller and then nodded at me. “Let’s go back inside.”
We sat down. I cried. There was no point in trying to hold it together anymore.
This is life: You walk down this path and people join you. Then they leave, and you’re alone again, and you keep replacing them. Then those people leave too.
“I don’t want to be with you. You need to accept that,” he said.
“I learned it a second ago,” I said.
“Look, I’m not abandoning you. I do care about you.” This was part of the speech he had rehearsed so he could come out as clean as possible. So he could say to himself, “I didn’t just abandon her.”
“Are you seeing someone?”
“There isn’t another woman,” he said.
“Give me another chance.”
“Believe me, it’s better if it ends like this than if we had a big blowup or if Peter found out. This way we can always be friends, okay?” He smiled.
“I thought you loved me.”
“I didn’t love you and I never have,” he said, staring directly into my eyes. “I didn’t chase you. I didn’t lie to you.” He was being a lawyer. He had all this evidence. “I never said I loved you or made you any promises. I’ve always been honest with you.”
“Stop it. Look, I only like to be treated badly in a hot way.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m not your husband. I didn’t make any vows to you.”
“You’re a great teacher, by the way. Some of the lessons were repetitive, like what a giant fucking asshole you are.”
“You came on to me!”
“Right, the innocent sixty-one-year-old teacher who was taken advantage of. Ripped from the headlines of Asshole Magazine.” My voice got louder. People were staring. I was officially making a scene.
“I only answer you when you text or e-mail me first.”
“Like that proves anything except how fucked-up you are. You led me on and you know it.”
“Fine, I wanted you then, but now I don’t. Clear?” He blinked, and then he glared at me. I could feel him hating me for not going along with the script. I wasn’t supposed to fight back. I was supposed to cry and say I understood.
“If you never heard from me again, would you care?” Fuck it. If he wasn’t going to have sex with me, then what was the point of trying to be cool about this?
“I would be concerned.”
“Concerned like they’re out of milk at the store, or concerned like my child is missing?”
“In the middle,” he said.
“Why did you start with me?” I should have shut up and left. There were no answers that would make anything better.
He shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”
“How is it possible I’m sitting here dying, and you’re sitting there like nothing?”
He shook his head. “We’re living in two different universes.”
“Did you sleep with other people when we were together?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it was none of your business.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to be with someone I can be with be with. Someone I can marry.”
“But you’re old and completely fucked-up. Why would anyone want you?”
“Great point. Why did you want me?”
“Because I could tell you were sad.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Can’t you, like, grandfather me in to this new life of yours? Fuck me till you find a wife?”
“Grandfather you in? You’re funny,” he smirked. “C’mon, let’s be friends. This is the worst.” He never said anything was “the worst” before he met me. He was using my own language to manipulate me into not making a scene. He deserved to be embarrassed.
The waitress came by, and I asked for a dessert menu. I was making it uncomfortable for him by making him sit there. I was willing to endure the pain knowing at least I was making this difficult for him.
“Will you share with me?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said.
I ordered the triple chocolate mousse and banana ice cream. “You are a deceitful selfish asshole.”
“You’re the one who is married, and I’m the one who’s deceitful?”
That was good. I hated him. I kind of wanted to make out with him. Why was he doing this? Why couldn’t we just go and fuck and be happy?
“I’m married, so I’m always the villain and you’re always the innocent one, right?”
He grinned. “Why did you want an old guy like me anyway?”
I could tell it wasn’t an act. Never seeing me again didn’t mean shit to him. Take that, self-esteem. “
Is this the only way you can get off anymore?”
“Keep it up, and I’m gone,” he said.
“Fine, go. I’ll go, actually. You are officially boring the shit out of me.”
I stood up and threw my napkin in his face and knocked over my water. Before I could take his glass and throw it at him, he jumped out of his seat, and then I left. Tears running down my cheeks. I called Elizabeth, blubbering. She said, “Just come here.”
Behind every crazy woman is a man sitting very quietly, saying, “What? I’m not doing anything.”
* * *
It was inevitable from the moment we met that Peter would leave me.
After we returned from visiting his family, things cooled between us. It was obvious, but he wouldn’t admit to anything being different. A common tactic of men—denying they are behaving differently so you feel like you’re just going nuts.
He would wake up early, go for a run, do sit-ups as he watched The Colbert Report, then go to work, and then come home. Instead of pawing at me drunkenly like he usually did, he would pass out facing the wall. I tried to kiss him but would get a cheek instead of his lips. When I said, “I love you,” he said it back like a robot. When I asked him what was wrong, he said he was busy. I chose to believe him.
We had been together for so long we had gone through cycles, and I wanted to believe this was just another one. I tried waiting it out. There would be a day when he would feel lonely or sad and then he would come to me. If I pushed too hard it would just start a fight. He would scream, “Dammit, Maya, I am exhausted.”