Grown Woman

by Jen Luerssen

  They expect me to be way more pissy about it than I am but I just can’t let it bother me. I’ve had people treat me this way before at the library and I just let it slide off my back because it’s almost never about me, it’s about them. I’m confident in myself most days, with some human days in between. Right now though? I’m delirious with joy, in total hot lust and probably head over heels in love with Javi, so fuck everyone else.

  “How can I get mad at her? She is so miserable and I refuse to add that to her life. I won’t be the one to change her behavior, it’s too ingrained in her. Maybe I look just like the woman her husband left her for or something. I don’t know her deal.” Both men look at me like I’m fucking bananas and I probably am.

  “What’s up with you, Lia? You are way too happy. It’s like you’ve been inhabited by an alien.” Mike looks at me closely and I laugh. I’ve been inhabited by Javi’s dick.

  “I mean, she drives me up a wall for Grace Slick’s sake but I’m taking a zen approach with her head on. She’s looking for me to fight her and I refuse to fall into her trap.” I feel Javi’s leg against mine and him knock my knee with it.

  “It’s official, you are a San Francisco hippie. You’re all peace and love,” Javi teases me and he knows it’s true because he’s the same right now.

  I make a peace sign. “I’m all about the free love, too.” I wink at the table in general, hoping I’m being fun and flirty not specifically in Javi’s direction.

  Mike shakes his head, drains his beer, and gets up, putting his jacket on. “I’m out of here, got another date with Shirley.”

  “Are you guys going steady? Did you give her your ring yet? Has she met Mrs. Cheang? Does she know how to eat your face?” I ask and when Mike bursts into laughter, I know he and I have turned a corner and are back to being buds.

  “I see how it is, you give me shit, but not Carol?”

  “It’s only because I care, the minute I stop making fun of you is when you should be worried.”

  He waves to us as he heads out the door and Javi and I are left all alone, ya know, except for the 20 or so people in the café. “Do you know how to eat his face?”

  I turn to Javi and he has an unfamiliar look on his face. Is it jealousy? “Dude, seriously?”

  “We never really talked about what went down between you and Mike so I can only speculate.” He finishes off his beer without looking my way.

  “That’s because it’s none of your business. Obviously, it didn’t work out though and you know why?” I say flicking him on the arm, and he finally turns to me.

  He shrugs like a petulant child.

  “Because I was really hung up on some other guy who I thought was too young for me and not interested. A guy, who, by the way, gave me a whole lot of mixed signals and then ended up ditching my 30th birthday to sleep with someone else,” I say growing angrier. “Fuck you, Javier.”

  He drags his hands over his face. “You’re right, it’s none of my business, but I am all in with you now, and it hurts a bit to see you flirt with someone you were intimate with. Think of how you’d feel if I flirted with Carrie in front of you.”

  “I’d hate it, you’re right, but Mike and I barely made it to second base, and the whole time I knew he was the wrong guy,”

  “I knew too, that things with Carrie were a mistake.” He takes my hand. “Mainly because I was really hung up on some other woman who I thought was way out of my league and not interested. So instead of facing up to my feelings and risking rejection, I ditched her party and slept with someone else. I never claimed to be the mature one.”

  He kisses my hand and I’m not angry anymore. I lean into his side and snuggle into him when he wraps his arm around me. “We are ding dongs,” I say softly.

  “Not anymore,” he whispers back as he kisses my temple.

  Cloud 11

  Three weeks of total bliss. I’ve been on “cloud 11” (the rock and roll version of cloud 9), endlessly cheery. I’m pretty sure even Paul wants to stab me in my face. He’s usually the sunshine human in our habitat but he’s been blue-ish, not full on blue, more of a blue-lavender since full on sad is impossible for my Paul. Javi and I have been a disgusting pile of love and affection while Paul has to put up with our little bubble of happiness. I didn’t think we were that bad but yesterday he snapped at me to find a chair as I went to sit on Javi’s lap for the 50th time.

  We are gross, I know this, but reason has flown out the window and I can’t help myself. Javi is just as sweet and affectionate and gross as I am. Technically, it’s not PDA since we don’t paw each other in public, too much. Paul ends up seeing the majority of it, then has to maybe hear us later when we go at it, and do we ever go at it.

  A few years ago, I got a copper IUD put in so Javier and I pay a visit to SF State’s health services to make sure our peen and vadge are clean. We are—I don’t even have a UTI—score! Now, we do without condoms and we do it whenever and wherever we want. I know, we are the grossest. Thank Bowie I got my period for like two days last week so we could give it a rest and let ourselves regenerate skin and whatnot. I mean, we did have sex in the shower both days, but compared to the five times the previous day it was tame.

  We do everything together. Javi pretty much lives at my apartment. He still feels weird about having me over because Carrie is pals with one of his roommates, Shawna. He’s on Shawna’s shit list still but he says he’s trying to get off the list. He is a charmer after all. Instead, we go adventuring on his bike, eat cheap noodles, study, work, register for classes (none together because ew), and of course fuck like armageddon is coming. It will all end in about a week when Javier leaves to go to Colombia for three fucking weeks to visit family for the fucking holidays. I’m not fucking upset about it at all. He leaves the day after our Bio final and I’m dreading it.

  Today is the last regular Bio class and Carol is taking us in small groups to see a real life human cadaver. I’ve got mixed feelings. I hate blood and anything to do with needles. A preserved cadaver doesn’t have either of those things but it’s still borderline for me. Carol calls our table and Mike, Javi, Shirl and I follow her down a hallway to a dark wooden door. She opens it to a cool, dark room that has a very strong formaldehyde smell. I try not to focus my eyes on anything in the room. There are jars of things and I look at the floor and then focus on the very dead, very nude man on the table. I don’t know why I thought he’d be dressed, he’s dead. We all gather around and I start with his toes, huge and hairy, was not expecting hair for some reason. My eyes peruse him (all of him) until I reach his neck, and jump, slightly startled. There’s no head.

  “This body was generously donated by the subject himself. He was 58 at the time of his death from liver disease.” Carol drones on about the different organs and I wonder who this guy was in life. He is clearly a well “used” cadaver as he has several cuts with heavy stitching done after death. I feel a little uneasy, I mean, donating your body to science is one thing, having amateur hour over here bring her non-medical students to poke and prod seems like a raw deal.

  “You will notice that he’s lost his head,” Carol quips and none of us laugh. “He doesn’t have to go far to find it though,” and she motions for us to look up at a head, floating in a giant jar. It’s gruesome. His hair floats colorless and fluffy. There are no eyes. “He was an organ donor and so someone else has his eyes now,” Carol adds. The face is swollen and his remaining features are abnormally large.

  “Not sure what the purpose of a floating head in a jar serves,” I whisper to Mike.

  “Captive audience,” he whispers back dryly and I yelp and cover my mouth.

  I get a pointed look from Carol. “It’s okay to have a strong reaction. If it’s too difficult you can step out, Ms. Kiley.”

  “Staying right here,” I say a bit defiantly.

  “I feel like I’m on the set of Young Frankenstein,” Javi comments.

  “It’s Frahnk-en-shteen,” I whisper and he high fives me.r />
  Carol clears her throat. “I thought that your group was mature enough to handle this, obviously not,” she cries and stomps out slamming the door behind her.

  “Great, you guys,” Shirley pipes in. “You know she’s dying to give us all Cs.”

  “Not gonna happen, Shirl girl,” I reassure her. “I’ve got the screenshots and the paperwork. My advisor knows all that’s gone down too. If she tries to spite grade me, it’s on like Comicon.”

  Mike pats her shoulder. “I wouldn’t worry, Laverne,” (he calls her this and thinks it’s cute, I think it confuses poor Shirley.) “She loves you despite your end of semester slumming with us.”

  We move to exit because it’s starting to feel creepy and hot in here. Javi tries the door and it’s locked.

  “Noo, she did not lock us in the cadaver room,” I growl and begin panicking. “We will be locked in here forever like some bad horror or rom-com plot device. I hate those devices, so manipulative. I don’t think I’ve read or seen one in a cadaver room, probably because it’s not fun.”

  “Calm down, nutso,” Javi teases and pulls his phone out and texts someone.

  Less than five minutes later, we are sprung by Javier’s friend from his math class, Jack. He is mid-laugh when I whack him in the stomach and push past him, “Outta my way, Jack.”

  “Some thanks, Lia,” he kids with me as I take big gulps of formaldehyde free air.

  “That was horrifying,” I say, a tad dramatically.

  Javi and Mike laugh at me but Shirley looks a little gray around the gills.

  “You okay, Shirl?” I ask holding her elbow.

  She nods, turns to me and then projectile vomits all over me, like in my mouth, down my shirt, probably in my hair.

  “Oh shit,” I hear before I turn and run to the nearest bathroom. I just make it to the toilet before I also lose my lunch. A reassuring hand rubs my back and sweeps my hair back out of firing range. When I finally stop, spit one more time, and stand upright, I realize my helper is Javier.

  “Oh Jimi Hendrix, I’m sorry you had to see that.” He grins and leads me out to the sink. I’m the hottest of all messes. I splash water on my face, rinse my mouth out and accept a piece of gum from Javi, bless him. I try to blot my shirt but it’s a lost cause so I take it off use the dry part to wipe my abdomen and cleavage. I’m standing in my black bra as I watch Javi take both of his shirts off, a button down Dickies shirt and a white undershirt. After I’m dry and clean-ish, he pulls the undershirt over my head, unhooks my bra and removes it, placing it in the sink with my shirt.

  All of this happens in silence and I’ve never felt so cared for. I turn into his bare chest and hug him with all my might.

  “You have barfy hot dog chunks in your hair, Diva,” he says warmly.

  “I love you,” I say because there was nothing else to say.

  Can’t Help It

  Nope, he did not say it back. To be fair, Carol walked in right after I made my proclamation and railed into us about appropriate places to fool around. Javier tried to explain what happened with Shirley as he put his shirt on. She reluctantly believed him. She also ogled the fuck out of my boyfriend (I think he’s my boyfriend although maybe not after my word vomit and actual vomit).

  I went home so I could shower the whole day off of me. I could barely look at Javier as I high-tailed it out of there and hopped on a bus that came at the perfect time, taking me far from my humiliation.

  The shower is heavenly. I bag my soiled shirt and bra in a plastic bag to take to the laundry later. Surprisingly, Javier’s undershirt is puke free and smells only like him so I slip it back on over a clean pair of boy short undies. I call up Fucking Frank to cancel rehearsal and he actually laughs when I tell him the event of my day,

  Finals start Monday. I have to hang with Jack and Diane tomorrow sing Saturday and Sunday nights so tonight I will start to study. I spread everything out on the coffee table and start with my psych notes and English Lit.

  I must have passed out because I wake to voices and it’s dark in here.

  “Li Li, you home?” Paul calls as he flicks the light on.

  “Yep, over here,” my voice is scratchy from sleep and purging my stomach contents earlier. I sit up and notice Javier walking in behind him.

  “Hey, Diva, I’ve been trying your phone. I was worried about you.”

  “No need,” I dismiss, just now realizing I’m barely dressed, except for Javi’s shirt. Busted. “I was studying so I turned it off. Obviously, I was riveted since I fell asleep.”

  “You look beautiful,” he says and bends to kiss me, lingering longer than I expect.

  “Thanks, I was too tired after my shower to choose clothes and this was still clean.” I blush a little but honestly I don’t care that he caught me wearing his shirt. I told him I loved him in the women’s bathroom in the science building in front of Carol. My threshold for embarrassment is low today.

  I curl my legs into myself, hugging my knees. Paul is nowhere to be seen, probably headed to his room sensing the tension. Javi sits down next to me and scoops me up and plops me on his lap. He strokes and plays with my hair and it feels so good. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone. I think about you constantly, want to talk to you about everything, sleep next to you, be with you. Do you feel the same?”

  I nod. “I feel like I’m bursting with you. I don’t even care about anything else. All I’m aware of is you and how close you are to me.”

  “You love me?”

  I nod. “I do.”

  “Then since we feel the same way, I must love you too.”

  “We feel the same,” I say.

  “We do, I can’t help it.”

  “Did you want to help it?”

  He chuckles. “Maybe at first but hearing you say you love me was like a drug, I want more and will do anything to get it. Your choice of location wasn’t the most romantic but it was real and it was us.”

  “It still is, I love you, Javier, so much,” I say and he leans into my touch as I cup his cheek. “Barf and Carol-interruptus won’t change that.”

  A week later, finals are done. I passed them all I’m sure, even Carol’s train wreck. It was a total flashback to the first day. 20 pages not collated, not stapled or numbered. No rhyme or reason, just like Carol. A fitting end to our time with her. She pulled me aside after I handed in my haphazard pile and wished me good luck with my young man. Did she leave it at that? Oh no. She also told me that I better maintain my figure and that he’d get tired of someone so much older. I smiled and said, “Bless your heart, Carol, (fuck you) I hope you find happiness one day (bite me).”

  Mike, Shirley, Javi and I are at the coffee shop toasting the end of our time with Ms. Lee, finally free.

  “Thank Steve Tyler she only teaches one subject,” Javi says.

  “Yes, I didn’t even take a science class next semester to reduce the chance of running into her,” I chime in.

  Shirley frowns, “Oh, Lia, she wasn’t that bad.”

  “Dude, she called her a hooker at least five separate times and locked us in a room with a cadaver,” Mike says, defending me.

  The cadaver room hits home with Shirl and she full body shivers. “You’re right but she’s not a monster.”

  “She pulled me aside after I handed her that nutso final and asked me which beach I surfed,” Mike says with a grimace and Shirley’s face looks pinched. “I told her Baker.”

  “That’s not a surf beach,” I say.

  “No, no it isn’t,” Mike replies.

  “Ah, well done, Spicoli,” I tease. “Did she pull you aside Javi?”

  He looks at me with alarm. “No, not really.”

  “What?” We all say at the same time.

  He looks into his beer and mumbles something.

  “Come again?” I ask.

  “She stroked my arm and told me she’s a fan of my Tumblr page,” he says teeth clenched. “Then she gave me her card in case I ever needed anything.”

&
nbsp; “Holy inappropriate Batman,” I say. “I may barf again.”

  “You have a Tumblr page?” Mike asks.

  Javi turns beet red. “No, but there are pages dedicated to men’s arms I guess and I have fans.” He glares at me. “She must have recognized my wrist cuff.” Javi sometimes wears this sexy leather cuff with designs tooled into it. It’s very distinct and also makes his forearms even hotter.

  “Don’t look at me, HFA, it’s all Paul. I can ask him to stop if it bothers you. It really is a violation but he is harmless and I know he never posts your face.”

  “HFA?” Shirley asks.

  “Paul calls Javier, Hottie forearms sometimes, so HFA.”

  I can see Javier growing more uncomfortable and Mike looking at us with suspicion.

  “Wait, Paul takes secret photos of Javier’s arms and then posts them on Tumblr without his permission?” Mike is affronted.

  “Well, he did it sneakily at first but then asked me if it was okay to continue. After he showed me some of the comments on the pictures, I was flattered and agreed. I guess there are fans of forearms from all walks of life.” He shrugs and we all laugh. “It’s more than just a creepy fetish.”

  Javi and I leave after I have another glass of wine and he has water since he’s driving his bike. Mike and Shirl seem to accept us leaving together and me hopping on the back of Javi’s bike like I live on it. I am so past caring at this point. I just want to be alone with him and be naked until he has to leave tomorrow. I’m in denial a little. He and I have been inseparable for months, even before we got together and now I have to cope with three long weeks without him.

  My grip on him is probably tighter than it needs to be but I’m not letting go until I have to. After he parks the bike we walk to my apartment holding hands, quiet. Paul is traveling again and will be back tomorrow, thank Zappa, so he can keep me from wallowing too long. We set our things down and still holding hands head to my bedroom. Javier pulls the tie of my dress and unwraps me, mesmerized. I kick off my heels and start with the button on his jeans. Clothes melt off and we are bare, just the way I like it. I’m pretty sure he likes it too.