by Doyle, K. T.
“Am I right?”
“You make me sound like an asshole.”
“I’m just saying there seems to be two recurring themes in your life—escapism and manipulation. Would you say that’s fair?”
“I don’t know, Freud. You tell me.”
“I just did. I’m asking if you think I’m right.”
He sighed. “I lend money because I like it and it’s fun, I have sex with you because I like you and it’s fun, and I play the guitar because I like it and it’s fun.”
“There you go. Now was that so hard?”
Matt grunted.
“Don’t be angry,” I said. “I just like to know who I’m screwing.”
He shook his head at me. “Do you analyze everyone?”
“No,” I said. “Just you.” I bumped his shoulder with mine. “If you don’t like it, you can find someone else to cheat on your girlfriend with.”
Matt smirked. “Aww, come on. You know you like it.”
He was right. In a crazy, masochistic twist of irony, I enjoyed being dominated sexually by a man I could never have emotionally. It made the sex better. In fact, the more sex we had, the better it felt. And it felt so good to be bad.
At first I was angry—with him for wanting to have it all, and with myself for letting him have it. But I realized it was best not to pursue a committed relationship with Matt. It was best that our relationship remain purely sexual. No commitment, no emotional entanglements. Better to have him in my life that way than not at all.
He made a sharp turn to the left in the direction of his dorm, Lind Hall. The Student Activity Center slowly disappeared from the corner of my right eye.
“Where we going?” I asked.
“You’ll see.”
“Are we going to your dorm?”
“Yes and no. I’ve got something to show you.”
I narrowed my eyes at him in suspicion. “I bet you do.”
Matt led me around the rear of Lind Hall to the parking lot in the back of the building. He took a few more steps and then leaned on the passenger side door of a dark blue Honda Civic.
“What do you think of my car?” he asked.
“Holy shit! This is your car?”
Matt beamed. “All mine.”
“Awesome! Did you buy it yourself?”
“My dad bought it…helped me buy it.”
I walked around the car to get a full look at it. “It looks brand new.”
“Just off the lot.”
I leaned against the car next to Matt. “Your dad must be loaded. What does he do again?”
Matt had never told me. We never made it past learning each other’s major.
“He’s CFO of a major corporation. He deals with money all day.”
“Interesting,” I said.
“What’s your dad do?” he asked.
“He’s a carpenter. He doesn’t have enough money to buy me a car, but give him some wood and he could build me one.”
Matt smiled, and then he said, “Wanna sit in it?”
We both got in the car. The inside smelled like rubber. I pulled down the sun visor and looked at myself in the mirror. Beads of melted snow moistened my brown hair. My nose and cheeks were bright red from the cold and a fresh blemish spread across my chin. Disgusted, I closed the sun visor and looked inside the glove box.
“Was it expensive?” I asked.
There was nothing inside except the owner’s manual. I gingerly pushed it shut.
Matt took his hat off and scratched his hair. “My dad’s good friends with a car salesman who gave him a good deal. He put a lot of money down so the payments are real low and the interest rate is reasonable.”
“Your dad’s paying for the whole thing? He doesn’t expect anything from you?”
Matt ran his fingers along the steering wheel. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“You know, if you charged all the people who owe you money five percent interest instead of three, you could easily pay for this car yourself,” I joked.
Suddenly Matt was in my face, staring me down with his green eyes. His eyebrows sunk down low on his forehead and his teeth crept out of his mouth. His breath was warm on my cold face. “Wanna go for a ride?” he asked.
I leaned back, startled. “Now?”
“Right now.”
“Where would we go?” I asked.
“Someplace private,” he whispered in my ear. “We could, you know, christen the car.”
I thought about taking him up on the offer. Sex in a car seemed exciting. Something new and different to try. The thought of physical intimacy in a tight, enclosed space was a turn on because it was deviant and perverse. Being bad never sounded so good. But it would’ve meant disrobing in 30-degree weather. Ultimately, I said no because I hate the cold.
“I don’t know, Matt. I really should get back and finish typing my paper.”
“Come on.”
“What about your dorm room? Can’t we do it there?”
Matt backed off. “Ted’s there.”
“Then we’ll just hang out. Besides, I’d like to officially meet Ted. Make sure you introduce him as Theodore.”
Matt thought about my proposition for a moment. “All right,” he finally said with a devilish grin. “Good idea. Let’s go say hello to Ted.”
…
Matt lived in an all-male dormitory.
The telltale signs were everywhere. Music blared from every room, trash littered every nook and cranny, guys skateboarded through the hallways. And the smell…
Matt’s and Ted’s room was on the second floor. Ted was standing in the doorway, calling to someone down the hall. He stepped aside for us to enter.
“Hey, Matt,” Ted said.
It was the first time I didn’t hear Ted address Matt as shithead.
Matt threw his book bag down on the floor and collapsed onto his stomach on his bed. “Hey.”
Ted gave me the once over. “Alex, right?”
I sat at the foot of Matt’s bed. “Nice to meet you, Theodore.”
Ted flashed Matt a look. “Thanks, douche.” Then he looked at me. “I hate my name.”
“I think it sounds regal,” I said.
He furrowed his brow at me. “Regal?”
“Don’t mind her,” Matt said. “She’s an English major.”
I smacked Matt in the leg. Ted laughed.
The walls of their room were covered with posters of rock bands and half-naked women. The left side of the room was Ted’s; Matt’s, the right. Their desks flanked a large window against the back wall. The view from the window overlooked the large expanse of the green lawn. A ratty green bed sheet was draped over the curtain rod. The beds were positioned lengthwise against the left and right sides of the room. Both beds were unmade. Clothes littered the floor.
“So you’re a guitarist, too,” I said to Ted.
“Yup. Matt and I trained together on rhythm guitar. Right, Matty?”
Matt nodded.
“But Matt turned out to be better than me, so I switched to bass guitar. That’s what I play in our band.”
Matt flipped over on his back and lay with his hands behind his head. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”
Ted was unfazed. “Yeah, Matt may be the better guitarist, but he’ll always be a shithead to me.” He smiled at Matt.
“Thanks, asshole,” Matt said.
The roommates eyed each other.
“Right, well, anyway…” Ted said. He grabbed a few things from his desk and put them in his book bag that lay on his bed. “Alex, see you around. Matt, catch you tonight.” He waved goodbye and disappeared down the hall.
Matt got up from the bed and closed and locked the door. He took off his coat and threw it on the floor. He sat down on the bed next to me. “Alone at last,” he said.
“What’s tonight?” I asked.
“What?”
“Ted said he’d see you tonight.”
“Our band practices Wednesday nights.”
“Cool. I should come watch you play sometime.”
He helped me out of my coat. “Sure, if watching’s your thing,” he said. Then he whispered in my ear, “Unless you’d rather play along.”
Those green eyes never failed to tempt me, his smile never failed to calm me, and his lips never failed to please me.
We christened his bed that day.
II.
There was a loud banging on my locker.
“Knock, knock,” a male voice said.
Startled, I peered around the open locker door.
It was Bobby.
I hadn’t seen him all summer. The last time we spoke was a day in August when I called him on the phone to dump him. He was the last person I expected to see on this, the first day of school.
“Hey,” I said, closing my locker door and hoisting my book bag up on my shoulder.
I wanted to rub in his face everything I learned about the so-called religion he believed in. I wanted to slap him for being duped by his father into believing that pre-marital sex was a sin. I wanted to yell at him for ruining what was supposed to be the most important night of my life. I wanted to hate him for loving God and not loving me.
These were all the things I wanted to tell him on the phone that day. I said none of it and dumped him instead.
“What class you headed to?” he asked.
I reached in my front pocket and pulled out my schedule. “Looks like Advanced Placement English.”
Bobby wrinkled his nose. “Sounds difficult.”
“Not really. All I have to do is read books all year and write papers about them.”
“Good luck with that.”
“What class are you going to?” I asked.
“Biology.”
“I hated Biology.”
“It’s gonna be awesome! I can’t wait! We get to dissect a frog.”
“I remember doing that two years ago. It was gross.”
Bobby rubbed his hands together. “It’s gonna be cool.”
“Sounds right down your alley,” I said. “Who do you have?”
“Mr. Binsky.”
I cringed. “Ew, Mr. Binsky. I had him.”
“What’s he like?”
“He smells.”
“Like what?”
“Dead animals.”
Bobby nodded his head knowingly. “Must be from all the formaldehyde.”
“You mean that greenish yellowish liquid in glass jars that all the dead things float in?”
Bobby laughed. “Duh. It’s a solution that disinfects and preserves samples.”
“Whatever. It stinks and it’s gross. But I’m sure you’ll have fun with your frog.”
“It sure beats sitting around reading girlie books all day.”
“Books aren’t girlie. Literature is one of the best art forms in the world.”
“If you say so,” he said. “So, which way you headed?”
I pointed down the hallway to the left. “That way.”
“Me too. I’ll walk with you.”
“I don’t think so, Bobby. I’m a senior now. I can’t risk being seen with a sophomore.”
I meant it as a joke, but he didn’t seem to take it as such. He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes and looked genuinely upset. “Funny, four months ago you wanted to give it up to me, and now you don’t even want to be seen with me. Makes perfect sense.”
“It was a joke,” I said, pulling on his arm. “Come on.”
We started walking down the hallway. Swarms of kids ran, walked and shuffled past us in all directions.
“Ha, ha,” Bobby said. “I’ll remember that the next time you need cigarettes.”
I smiled at him. Then I remembered something. “Happy belated sixteenth birthday.”
Bobby had turned sixteen a week after we broke up. I remember being unsure of what to do. Should I call him? Mail him a card? What happens when people break up? Do they automatically revert to being friends or do they go their separate ways and never speak again? Bobby was my first boyfriend and first ex-boyfriend. What’s the protocol when it comes to exes? I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know who to ask for advice. So I did nothing.
“Thanks,” Bobby said. “You could have at least called me on my birthday. I know we had broken up by then, but still…”
Bobby didn’t seem to acknowledge our via-phone breakup at the time. Probably because I hadn’t dumped him in the traditional sense. It was more like, we were talking normally about nothing important and I blurted out something like, “Yeah, so, this isn’t working, I think we shouldn’t be together, has your mom taken you back-to-school shopping yet?” And then our conversation continued on as usual, like the breakup was a brief hiccup in the course of a typical conversation between two teenagers. Bobby said nothing about it, so I’d assumed he was okay with it or relieved or glad or shocked and dismayed, maybe. I was hoping for shocked and dismayed because in spite of my own devastation, I wanted to appear to be the stronger person. And anything less than shock or dismay on his part would’ve meant that he still had all the power.
In any case, Bobby was finally acknowledging our break up, and I was ill-prepared to deal with it.
“I’m…I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“I came to your seventeenth birthday party, spent my cigarette money on your present…”
“I know,” I said.
“…watched your mom cry on the cake but ate it anyway,” Bobby continued. “…pretended to like hanging out with your silly girlfriends…”
Was it getting really hot in the hallway? Or was it just the unexpected nature of our confrontation? Were the voices of all the students getting louder? Was Bobby shouting at me, or was he just trying to compete with all the noise?
“I know,” I said, fanning myself with my class schedule. “I know.”
“…and I did it all for you because I like you, Alex. And all you had to do was call me on my—”
“You broke my heart!” I blurted out.
I came to an abrupt stop and squeezed my eyes closed and balled my hands into fists and hoped my outburst would shut him up, shut down my thoughts, shut off the world. Then I waited. The hallway suddenly felt cool, as if someone had switched on the air conditioning. The noise in the hallway returned to a normal din. Things seemed back to normal. So I opened my eyes and looked at him. “You broke my heart,” I said.
Bobby stood there staring at me, blinking, his mouth slightly open like he wanted to say more but couldn’t or didn’t know how.
“I didn’t mean to,” he finally said.
“What was I supposed to do?” I asked.
Bobby shrugged. “I don’t know. We could’ve talked about it. You didn’t have to break up with me. And over the phone, no less.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You must’ve really been mad to dump me out of the blue like that.”
“You turned me down the night of the Spring Formal.”
“I figured that’s what it was.” Bobby thought for a moment. “At least you can’t say I only wanted you for sex.”
“I know,” I said. “But that’s what I wanted.”
“You wanted me to use you for sex?”
“Not exactly. I just wanted my first time to be with you. That’s all.”
We continued walking. Bobby sighed. “I know. I did what I thought was right. I knew it would hurt your feelings.”
“You don’t have to explain. I get it.” I rattled off what Saint Paul had said to Timothy in the New Testament. “Flee the evil desires of youth, blah blah blah.”
“And pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace,” Bobby finished the quote.
We arrived at Bobby’s biology classroom. He stopped in front of the doorway and looked at me with large, unblinking eyes. Students pushed passed him to get through.
In that moment he seemed so much shorter. I didn’t have to raise my head as high to look in his eyes. Had he shrunk over the summer? Or had the str
ength from a healing heart made me grow taller?
“Cut me some slack,” Bobby said. “What do I know about love?” He rummaged through his book bag and discretely pulled out a pack of Marlboro Lights. “Cigarettes?”
I didn’t tell Bobby I had quit smoking during the summer. I sensed it wasn’t merely cigarettes he was handing to me.
I quickly took the pack and put it in the front zippered compartment of my book bag. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. You know I keep cigarettes around for times like this.”
“I know. To break the ice and make friends.”
Bobby grinned. “Yeah. But this time it’s more like, to re-break the ice and re-make friends.”
I smiled. Bobby Fraser always had an answer or a solution for everything.
CHAPTER 13
I.
Lisa smelled the withering bouquet of red roses that sat wilting on her desk, then sat down cross-legged on her bed to read. I was stretched out on my stomach on my bed, a textbook on art history open in front of me. It was a brisk, sunny day and we were both studying for midterm exams.
“How’s Matt?” she asked.
“Fine.”
“Did you do anything for Valentine’s Day?”
“No.”
“Not even a romantic dinner?”
I laughed. “Where can you do that around here? Kilmore Diner?”
“You didn’t do anything at all? Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Why not?”
“Because Matt and I are just friends,” I said. “And besides, Valentine’s Day is a scam. Greeting card companies, chocolate makers, and florists all conspired together to invent a holiday so they could mark up their prices and boost profits. It’s a sick marketing ploy. ”
Lisa was silent for a moment, as if unsure how to respond. “Well, I think Valentine’s Day is romantic.”
I pointed at the flowers. “Of course you would.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. Then she said, “Still insisting you and Matt are just friends?”
“Yup. Just friends.”
Lisa sighed. “Whatever.”