by Kiley Roache
“See, you’ve got the angle all wrong.” He runs over to his backpack. “I’ve read up on this.” He pulls out a notebook. “And it’s all about the physics, how much arc you have in your throw.”
I just nod. This is going to be an interesting morning.
After a few extremely meticulous games of water pong and an in-depth analysis of flip cup, we move on to shotgunning.
“Now we only have approximately twenty minutes until we need to clean up so no actives see us, but I think it’s really important we master this one. It’s a fundamental, you know?” He pauses.
I nod, realizing he was waiting for my reaction.
“So there weren’t many articles about it, but I did find a really good YouTube video, so I thought we could watch that and practice.”
Bambi produces a six-pack of sparkling water from his backpack and then sets his laptop on the table.
He leans over and starts typing.
“You know what, Bambi, I think you’re actually gonna make quite the analyst someday.”
He pops up, smiling goofily. “You really think so?”
“Yeah.” I clear my throat. “I do. Get ready to lose now, though.”
After the third round (I won two) we take a break, the carbonation rumbling in our stomachs.
We sit on the courtyard floor, surprisingly bare of weeds, despite the fact that no one does any gardening. I guess the alcohol spilled on it every night smothers them. The sun is just beginning to warm the stones.
“Who was that girl you were with at the party?” he says, breaking the silence.
“Who, Alex?”
He stares blankly.
“The blonde?”
“Yeah, yeah.” He nods, his eyes sparkling.
“Yep, that’s Alex.”
“Does she—does she, uh, have a, is she single?”
“She actually just broke up with her girlfriend.”
He turns back to me, eyes huge. “You mean she’s a lesbian?”
I exhale. “She’s bi.”
“Oh my God.” He looks around, like he’s wondering who else was hearing this, but obviously we’re alone. “Do you think she’d have a three—”
“Bambi, no.” I point my finger sternly. “Do you really think that’s what bi girls wanna hear every time they try to share that part of their identity with someone? Strangers requesting threesomes?”
He ducks his head. “I guess not.”
“All right. So just don’t do it again.”
“Okay.” His voice is timid.
“Now let’s look up some kegstand techniques, and I’ll explain how sexuality is a spectrum.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Throughout history, sexual objectification has been one of the key tools men have used to suppress women. Women were bought and sold through prostitution, but also through marriage where pairings were not about love, but about the exchange of virginity for financial security.” My professor, a middle-aged woman, flips through her notes.
It’s Thursday morning, and I’m sitting next to Alex in Gender and Sexuality. My head is pounding, thanks to a long and eventful Wine Wednesday at Sigma Alpha, followed by staying up half the night fooling around on Connor’s futon.
I dig through my bag and find a bottle of Advil, but it’s missing the cap and is empty, of course.
“Do you have any ibuprofen?” I whisper.
Alex stops taking notes and shakes her head, mouthing, “Sorry.”
I go back to listening to the professor. “I’m sure none of you have ever viewed pornography, as it is so hard to access in the age of the internet.”
There’s scattered laughter throughout the room. Unfortunately for Professor McKinley, an auditorium class at 9:00 a.m. is a much less receptive audience than the Laugh Factory on a Saturday night.
“But if you had viewed it, you might have noticed that the images are often of dominance and near violence. Sex under the patriarchy is not about sensuality or romance, but about degrading and dominating women.”
I grope around the bottom of my backpack until I find two only slightly lint-covered pills.
Thank God. I down the Advil and a fair amount of water and already feel a bit better.
“As you already know from the reading, Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon viewed male sexual dominance as the root of all female oppression. Many second-wave scholars have suggested remedies from this poison. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz promoted celibacy, while others advocated political lesbianism, suggesting that even heterosexual women engage only in same-sex relationships or remain celibate.”
Next to me, Alex’s hand shoots up.
I look around, searching for the fire. This is a two-hundred-plus-person lecture class, and no question was posed. Which means you sit there and take notes or play on your phone, but you definitely do not interrupt the teacher.
Professor McKinley looks as surprised as I am. “Um...yes? Miss in the white blouse.”
Alex stands up. Her white tank top—commonly known as (and if this doesn’t convince you that the course I’m taking should be a graduation requirement, I don’t know what will) a “wife beater”—shows off most of her tattoos.
“What about sex positivity?”
“Excuse me?”
“What about sex-positive feminism? The notion that men can enjoy sex without guilt, so women should, too? The idea of removing shame from sexuality so that a woman can make the choice to have sex with one hundred different people or remain celibate, and be afforded the same respect as a man.”
“I really do not have time to diverge into this. Office hours are on Mondays, and I have material to get through. But the fact is, sexual liberation often distracts from real feminist issues.”
“The right to exercise ownership of my own body is a fundamental feminist issue. It’s a fundamental human rights issue.”
“Sex-positive so-called feminism is a way to structure your feminism in a way that pleases men, and that is not feminism at all. Those of us who follow in the footsteps of the suffragists have no time for Beyoncé feminists who took up the movement when it became trendy, who live in liberal cities where sex makes you popular and crying feminism makes your pleasure politically popular, too.”
My jaw drops.
Alex keeps her face blank. But I can see that she has a death grip on her pen.
I want her to tell this woman that we went to schools where sex ed consisted of “don’t do it—it’s a sin.”
How neither of us knew what a period was until it happened and we thought we were dying because God help you if you used the word vagina in a health class.
How I was told never to wear short skirts unless I wanted to attract the wrong kind of attention, like the pervert dads looking at the thirteen-year-old’s legs at a birthday party weren’t the problem.
How we were told that losing our virginity meant “giving him all you had” and that “no one buys the cow when they can get the milk for free,” so if you had sex, you weren’t deserving of love. Keep your legs closed because your worth is your virginity.
How I didn’t even know the word clitoris until I was seventeen and in biology class, and Alex didn’t know female orgasm was possible until she had one.
That’s some patriarchy bullshit if I ever heard it.
Alex begins to speak again but the professor holds up her hand to stop her before she can get a word out.
“You can leave my class now,” she says to her.
Alex silently picks up her messenger bag and moves swiftly up the stairs. I grab my backpack and follow.
“What bullshit!” she says when we’re barely in the hallway.
The door slams behind me.
“Arghhhh!” She throws her bag across the hallway.
I walk over and pick it up, looking inside to c
heck for the shattered remains of a laptop, but luckily there are only some papers and books.
“Here you go.” I hand it back to her.
She’s slumped over on the floor, her face red. Looking up at me, she blows her bleached hair out of her face.
“Wanna go get coffee?” I reach for her hand.
“A better use of my time than this shit.” She lets me help her up.
We sit on the grassy lawn in front of the main quad, sipping coffee and sunning ourselves, our book bags as pillows, still a half hour left till class gets out.
“It’s just annoying, because this isn’t some random asshole. This is the person who’s, like, supposed to be our voice in academia.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“It’s just classic second wave versus third wave.”
I nod and sip my coffee.
“If I enjoy giving my boyfriend a blow job, isn’t it feminist to do that despite what men in power may think of me?”
“You should write a book. How to Give a Feminist Blow Job.”
She nods thoughtfully. “I really should.”
I think of all the negative comments I hear around the house from the guys about girls who probably think they’re just expressing their sexual agency.
I turn to Alex. “But how do you tell the difference between the ones who respect your sexual agency and want to have fun, too, and those who’ll tell their friends the next morning that you’re a slut? The ones who’ll treat you like trash after? Because even if I shouldn’t care what men think of me, it doesn’t help when the one I hooked up with calls me a slut.”
“Well, first of all, you wanna avoid frat houses.”
I roll my eyes, but I can’t argue with that. She sighs. “I feel like it’s because they assume we don’t really want it. They can’t picture a woman having sex because she wants to, because the way they see it, they’re the hunters and we’re the hunted. So they assume if we get with them it’s cuz what we really want is a relationship. And if they don’t want that, they think they have to be extra shitty to us so we know that door is closed. Or they’re just straight-up assholes.”
“Ugh, I hate when they assume we want a relationship.” I stir my iced coffee. “We’re smart fucking feminist women. Don’t tie me to the husband-search narrative just because I don’t want to be demeaned.”
She sits up and shields her eyes from the sun. “Well, there’s always the potential for a hookup to end in hurt, because one person might just be into it more than the other one, even if respect is totally there.”
I nod.
“But that’s personal, emotional,” she says. “There’s also some ingrained shit. Men even talk about their wives, the loves of their lives, like they’re some kind of burden, the old ball and chain, when they’re bro-ing out with the guys. So when it comes to a woman they have casual sex with, are they gonna say, ‘Oh, she’s not my girlfriend—she’s this chill girl I’m only physical with,’ or are they gonna say, ‘She’s this slut who blew me’?”
“God.” I shake my head.
“But I think that means we have a tough road to travel to create change,” she says. “Men have taken control of our sexuality for so long. Turned us into sexual objects, then told us to hate sex except for when it’s with them, as if our only purpose is to give them our bodies, but then we’re worthless once we do.”
“So there’s no way to be sexual and please the patriarchy?”
“Basically.”
“So what do we do?”
A smirk creeps onto her face. “Well, I think we do whatever the hell we want. I mean, it’s called women’s liberation for a reason. What’s the point of feminism if it doesn’t mean we’re free?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
There’s something weird about a frat house after a party. An almost postapocalyptic quiet.
You’d think I’d be used to it, living in one and all. But it’s different here, in a house that’s not my own.
Much of the destruction remains, and people are passed out in odd positions all through the house. Somewhere a TV is on, some infomercial blaring away unwatched, but the foundation-shaking music is off. A calm after the cheap-beer-and-bad-rap storm.
At four in the morning, there are a few crazy souls still up at Sigma Alpha. I can hear their voices as they chat among the wreckage, but most people are tucked in bed trying to sleep off the Taaka, or...engaging in other activities.
On my walk back from the bathroom I step over an empty plastic handle and kick a few empty beer cans.
Luckily I don’t see anyone on my voyage back to Connor’s room, considering I’m wearing only one of his T-shirts, which, granted, does cover my ass, if barely, over my lacy bra and underwear.
“Hey,” he says as I step back into his room. I can hear the early morning and the strain from the night before in his voice.
I close the door behind me. “Hey.”
He smiles lazily and moves to the edge of the bed, wearing just his boxers. He reaches for me. “I’ve missed you.”
I kiss him lightly. “I’ve been gone for less than five minutes.”
“I know,” he says between pecks. “But that doesn’t mean—” kiss “—I didn’t miss you.”
I laugh against his lips, and he lifts me up by my waist, pulling me onto the bed with him.
He sits on the edge of the bed, and I sit on his lap, one leg on either side of him. We kiss slowly, deeply.
His hands tangle in my hair, and his lips are soft on mine. Kissing him is like good red wine, slow, dark and heavy. And a little bit sweet.
He lifts the hem of the shirt, and I raise my arms so he can slip it off. He turns and lays me down on the bed. He kneels above me, and for a second his eyes scan my body.
And then he’s on top of me, kissing my lips and then my neck.
“Do you want to?” he whispers in my ear.
“Want to what?” My voice is tense.
“You know.” His fingers trace the edges of my underwear.
I press my hand against his chest and slip out from under him.
He looks at me with pouting eyes.
If our relationship hasn’t advanced to the point that we can say the word sex, I doubt it’s a good decision to actually have it.
I shake my head. “I don’t feel ready.”
He places his hand on my hip, trying to pull me into him.
My heart picks up. The sultry mood has dissipated, and I just want to go back to earlier, to the other nights, when he seemed perfectly fine just being around me.
“Cassie, c’mon—we’ve hooked up, like, five times now.”
“Four,” I correct. Not that it matters.
“But still...”
“I don’t want to.” My voice is higher than it was thirty seconds ago. “Not tonight.”
“It’s killing me, Cass, seeing you like this. You can’t do this to a guy.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Okay, if it’s so painful for you to just kiss me and see me half-naked, we can stop doing that, too.”
“For God’s sake.” He exhales, impatient. “I’m on the baseball team. I’m in Sigma Alpha.”
Oh my God. I roll my eyes and carefully pick up his hand.
Something changes in his eyes. “Fine. Then leave.”
“What?”
“I need to get some sleep, so if you’re not going to make it worth it for me, then you might as well get out.”
“Make it worth it for you?”
“Yeah. For God’s sake, Cassie, this isn’t high school.”
I flinch. I scramble off the bed and search for my clothes. I find my dress crumpled on the floor and pull it on, my hands shaking.
“Well, will you at least walk me home? It’s four in the morning.”
“I’m really tired.” He’s still sitting
up on the bed, his eyes locked on me.
“That’s fine. I can call someone.” There is no life in my voice.
I can’t find my other shoe. Where the fuck is my other shoe?
“Are you really gonna leave at four in the morning?” He grabs my wrist.
I turn to look him in the eyes. “You just said—”
His other hand is on my leg, pushing up the hem of my dress, and I understand what he means.
I rip my hand away from his grip and decide to just leave my other shoe.
“You’re such a bitch, Cassie. You fucking prude,” he says as I cross the room.
I slam the door on my way out.
I manage not to cry until I’m outside. Then mascara-darkened tears roll down my cheeks and fall in little droplets to the concrete.
The two most common pieces of advice I got when going to college were to watch my drinks and never walk home alone at night. I’ve followed number one reasonably well and number two vigilantly. And now, with my mind still fuzzy from the tequila earlier, carrying one shoe and wearing a short dress, I’m not about to break that rule.
I pull out my cell phone. My vision blurry, I dial Alex. It rings, but she doesn’t answer.
I try two more times, but am just greeted by her seventh grade voice saying, “Hi, you’ve reached Alex. Leave a message!” No, no, no, this can’t be happening. I look around, but it’s pitch-black. There are no lights along the lake.
I scroll through my contacts, until my thumb hovers over another name. He did tell us to call if we’re ever in a sticky situation.
I shake my head as I click the button. I can’t believe I’m fucking doing this.
It rings three times. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon...
“Hello?” Peter sounds tired, like I woke him up. Which I probably did, at 4:00 a.m.
“Hey. I’m outside Sig A. Can you come get me?”
“Oh no. Cassie, did you try to pull something alone?” He’s fully awake now.
“What?”
“Pee on their lawn? TP the house? The flag again? Oh my God, did you try to steal their weird shield thing? Are the police there?”
“What? No.”