The Pisces

by Melissa Broder

  “Okay, then will you suck me? Just suck me a little,” he asked. “I want to see those hot old lips on my cock.”

  That was it.

  “You know what I think would be hot?” I asked. “What would do it for me? I want to watch you jerk off for a little.”

  He stopped finger fucking me and looked me in the eye.

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah. It’s the biggest turn-on. I wanna watch as you lie there and give yourself pleasure. Jerk that hot dick.”

  I don’t know where I was getting this from. When I was in my twenties I used to like to watch my boyfriend jerk off. But not this dude. I think I was just trying to get him to come, and get out of there without having to touch his weird pink dick and mismatched brown balls.

  Lying on his back, he complied and began to stroke it. I was just, like, “Oh yeah, baby, that’s it.” I thought about all this subterfuge, just to get out of a situation that I had put myself in. Technically I didn’t even need to do anything to get out of the situation except leave. He kept looking at me and I just wanted him to come quickly. Right before he spurted he asked if I could lick it. I told him no, then I wouldn’t be able to watch.

  When he was finished I said it was a hot experience, but I had to go home and feed Dominic and give him his medication. He said that he wanted to do something to me—that it shouldn’t just be him who got off. I told him that this was wonderful, really, and had been more than enough.

  Out on the street I felt free, strangely elated. It wasn’t just the joy of escaping him but the fact that I had come out pursued and wanted—something new after my pursuit of Jamie all winter. I hadn’t gotten three blocks when he texted me:

  u r amazing i’d love to do it again

  I didn’t respond, but kind of squealed. No longer did Adam have to be real Adam. Now he was fantasy Adam again, and I had him and the fantasy in my pocket. Sure, the experience itself had been disappointing and gross, but at least it was different from the disappointment I’d grown used to in my years with Jamie. When he and I were together and the sex was less than riveting, I felt filled with doom after: ennui in my head and suffocating in my chest. It was the same doom that I felt in the car just before we broke up. There was an is that all there is–ness. I would go sit on the toilet immediately after he came. This was partially to avoid getting a urinary tract infection, but also so he wouldn’t see me frowning. When he found me sitting there sadly, I told him it was because the sex made me feel such powerful things. But really what I felt was despair: that this was all there would be, forever and ever and ever, until of course it wasn’t.

  But if Adam wanted me, there were others who would want me, maybe many others, even some who didn’t read Bukowski. I imagined a bouquet of dicks, a stack of abdominal muscles like a deck of cards, painted across the sky. The hunger in me suddenly felt bottomless. It scared me a little.

  14.

  I found myself out on the rocks again later that night. I was throwing shells into the water when Theo the swimmer came paddling up, shoulders white in the moonlight. I hoped he would be there. He seemed happy to see me too.

  “You came back,” he said.

  “I did.”

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi. You’re really not freezing?”

  “No, it feels natural.”

  “Crazy. So I have a question. Do you like Bukowski?” I asked.

  “Who?” he said.

  “Charles Bukowski; he’s a poet.”

  “I don’t know who that is,” he said, treading water. “Why?”

  “It’s not important,” I said.

  “No, tell me why. Do you like him?”

  “Definitely not,” I said. “But I just went on a date with someone who is a big fan.”

  “You did?” said Theo. “How was that for you?”

  I couldn’t tell if he seemed genuinely interested or if he was just being polite.

  “Heinous,” I said.

  “That can happen, I suppose,” he said.

  Suddenly I felt too…something. I wanted him to know I had gone on a date, because I wanted to see what his response would be. But I didn’t want him to think that I was a complainer or needy, or that things didn’t work out for me. I didn’t want to seem bitter. I wanted to seem youthful and full of joie de vivre.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “There’s another possible date on the horizon with someone else. This designer guy. Might make out with him.”

  What was I saying?

  “Ah,” he said.

  Did he look dejected? His expression was so serious that I couldn’t tell.

  “What about you?” I broke in. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “Not at the moment,” he said.

  “Boyfriend?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he said.

  “Really, I’m surprised. I would think people would be all over you.”

  I don’t know what I was trying to get him to say. Mostly, I wanted to get us talking about sex and love. But he changed the subject.

  “So which poets do you like?” he asked.

  “Me, no one at the moment. I actually want to kill all of poetry. If there was no more poetry left in the world I would be fine with it.”

  “I hate art too,” he said.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “No.” He grinned.

  “It’s not that I hate poetry. But I’ve been working on a project about a particular poet for a very long time. And I’m having trouble with it. So right now I’m feeling pretty over poetry.”

  “Which poet?” he asked.

  “Oh, her name is Sappho,” I said.

  “I know Sappho,” he said.

  “No you don’t,” I said.

  I assumed he was being one of those people whom, when asked about a movie they’ve never seen, responds with an affirmation about how much they loved it.

  “Yes, Sappho, she’s not exactly esoteric. Greek love poet. Well actually, she was a musician. Of course, most people don’t know that.”

  “Yeah, I know. How do you know that?”

  “I know a few things,” he said.

  “Amazing.”

  “So what is this project about?”

  “It’s bullshit, pretty much.”

  “Is it? I can’t imagine bullshitting about Sappho. Her words are so beautiful, what’s left of them anyway.”

  “I don’t know if it’s bullshit. It’s an attempt to sort of read Sappho through the—nothingness around her. Through the destruction of her text.”

  “That sounds interesting, actually. Nothingness is good. Almost as good as filling up every space,” he smiled. “And destruction. Destruction can be sexy.”

  I shivered a little bit.

  “I guess the gaps are sort of a reminder that, in love, things get disconnected,” I said. “People just disappear.”

  “Maybe they leave room for something more infinite,” he said.

  “Maybe,” I said. “All I know is it’s not going very well. I’m not enjoying it.”

  “But you’re still doing it?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “I guess I like torturing myself.”

  “That can also be sexy if done right, I suppose.”

  Was he fucking with me? I stood up. I didn’t know whether to move closer to him or away from him on the rock, so I looked up at the moon, which was a crescent. I thought about licking it or putting it inside me.

  “Well, Lucy, I wish you only the best with the self-torture,” he said. “And with your next date.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Maybe I’ll see you out here again?”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “Have a good night,” he said.

  And with that he pushed off the rock
and began to breaststroke away.

  15.

  When I got home I was turned on. That little fucker. Who was he, even, lurking around in the ocean? I decided to take immediate action. Brushing past Dominic, who sniffed at me suspiciously and growled a little, I took to my phone. It was time to send Tinder Garrett a message.

  Hey I changed my mind. Want to meet up after all? I wrote.

  He wrote back within seconds:

  guess it didn’t work out with the other dude?

  haha, I said.

  want to come to downtown? i work in a loft down here. meet me on the roof of the Ace Hotel tmrw @ 7

  sounds good I wrote, so casually.

  Immediately after that message came a text. It was from Jamie.

  How are you? I miss you.

  My stomach dropped. Claire was right! It was like he could smell that I was out with other men. Now it was raining attention. There was Adam, Garrett, Theo, and Jamie. I wanted to wait to text him back but wrote immediately, of course.

  I’m fine. deep in therapy, as instructed

  And how is megan?

  There was a pause.

  She is good

  Well, that was that…

  She’s no you, of course

  Now this was getting crazy. Was I a sorcerer? Had I conjured all of this? What was he trying to do? It was like I was the other woman and Megan was the one he was stuck with. I suddenly no longer felt hurt that he was with her. I liked being the desirable one. Also, I liked playing with him. I was going to ignore him. Already high on Garrett and our impending date, I would be able to do it. This was what I needed—multiple men at all times. Then I wouldn’t need any of them. Put me naked in a clamshell. Let them all fawn around me.

  16.

  “You’re absolutely glowing! You’re not dating anyone, are you?” asked Annika.

  She was standing on the balcony of her hotel wearing a long embroidered caftan. Through video chat I could see the Provence sunset behind her.

  “No, I’m keeping to myself.”

  “Good,” she said. “Get that kundalini shakti recharged. Don’t go scattering that chi anywhere and you’ll be a warrior by the time I get back. How is the group?”

  “A nightmare,” I said.

  “But you’re going?”

  “I’m going.”

  “Let me see my baby.”

  I held the computer screen up to Dominic. She made cooing noises and he pawed it, whined a little.

  “He looks a touch sad,” she said. “You’re spending ample time with him?”

  “We’re thick as thieves.”

  “Good,” she said. “Maybe add a bit of coconut oil to his dry food. It keeps his coat nice and shiny.”

  “Already doing it.”

  “Thanks, and you should cook for him. That turkey, zucchini, and peas dish I left the recipe for out on the counter. He loves it. Vegetables are good for his blood sugar.”

  “Will do.”

  “I hate being separated from him for so long. You don’t think I’m a bad mother, do you?”

  “No, it’s the twenty-first century, don’t be a helicopter parent.”

  “But—”

  “That’s just patriarchal guilt. Enjoy your trip, Aunt Lucy is taking great care of him.”

  When we hung up I felt like an asshole. Annika had always tried to be a good sister to me. By the time my mother died she was already in college, out of the house, but she tried her best. She called often to check in on me and never made me feel like I had been forgotten. She sent me mix tapes, weed, and makeup, so that I could feel cool in high school. Before she was even rich she paid for the abortion I had at nineteen so I wouldn’t have to ask my father for the money. How was I repaying her? By neglecting the most beloved thing in her life for strangers on the Internet.

  I looked around the living room. There were pictures of Dominic everywhere: Dominic on the beach in Malibu with his ears blowing back, Dominic dressed as a bumblebee on Halloween, Annika cradling Dominic as a little puppy, her face serene and dreamlike. Dominic himself now had his head in my lap and was looking up at me from under his dog brow.

  “I’m going to do better,” I said to him, scratching his white diamond. “I promise. From now on it’s only going to be you and me. As soon as I get back from this date.”

  17.

  I got to the Ace at five and had time to kill. I decided I would go up to the roof and maybe try to think about my book a little bit. Once again, I’d somehow shoved Sappho under a man: multiple men this time. I’d come to Venice to purge the influence of dick on my life and had wound up becoming Helen of Troy. What would Sappho think? The advisory committe said the thesis draft was due by fall semester. Did that mean the beginning of the semester? Day one? I knew that it did. But I pretended I had some wiggle room: that I could just pop in there on Halloween, draft in hand, like, Sorry for the delay! and my funding would go on.

  I’d always been scared not to finish the thesis but maybe even more scared to finish it. What would happen then? Would I apply for teaching jobs in other cities? I had thought that maybe I would, in the hopes that it would make Jamie ask me to stay—that the catalyst of my moving somewhere else would make him finally step up. But somewhere in my mind, I always knew he wouldn’t. I hadn’t wanted to face that.

  On the Ace roof there was flamenco music playing, or bossa nova or something. It all seemed so contemporary and pleasant. The sun was setting and I ordered a white wine. Was this how everything was now? Just nice? I wondered if other people felt comfortable within niceness, or whether they didn’t even notice that things were nice. Maybe they expected everything to be nice. Maybe nice was like air to them.

  I can’t say that I was enjoying it, exactly, or even relaxing, but I felt that I was absorbing the stupidity and slowness of the niceness. Like I was siphoning off its worst qualities. Actually, it did feel good. I just wanted to drool and be dumb. Two glasses of wine later and I was almost there. I ordered another one. Then I got nervous. What was I doing? I should be home actually working on my book. Where was my life going? I couldn’t think about it. I ate some olives and stared down the sun. I was wearing the same black dress that I had worn with Adam. I had liked it so much when I got it, but now that it was no longer new it didn’t feel good enough. Now that I had owned it for more than a minute it had gotten some of me on it. My mouth tasted acidic. I felt rumpled, like I was wearing dirty laundry.

  I kind of forgot that Garrett was coming until he tapped me on the shoulder. He was undeniably gorgeous in real life: six feet tall with a close-cut beard that looked like an evil shadow. Under the beard you could still see the outline of his jaw, which was strong and handsome. His jaw was in attendance. Also, he had the hair—the Tinder hair I called it, because a lot of the boys on there had that same look. It was like a not-so-secret code amongst the young and hip, this haircut where the sides were shaved all butch but the top was long, in what resembled a pompadour. His shirt was gingham and he smelled like the woods. He ordered a whiskey and ginger ale and asked what I wanted. I was afraid that if I drank any more I would fall off my chair, so I told him that I had just met a friend for cocktails prior and was okay for right now. Instead I ordered a sparkling water and avocado toast.

  Garrett told me that he would be flying to New York the following day to teach classes in design at different universities. I kept staring at his jawline. I had forgotten they made them like that. He was boring, never asking me about myself, but I was so engaged by his jaw that it made what he said more interesting. It was his jaw that was speaking, not his mouth. The jaw also made me a little sad. It made me forget he had a girlfriend and then remember again. Like, in spite of his boringness, I kind of wanted the jaw to be mine. He did a good job not talking about the girlfriend. It would be easy for someone else to forget he had
one.

  After his drink and my toast we decided to take a walk. I wondered if this would be the make-out walk, since he had pretty much ignored that line of my Tinder bio and gone straight to the idea of fucking. Downtown L.A. wasn’t pretty, but it was sexy in the dark—all empty space, cooling air, and warehouses. Sexy dirt. He pointed across the street at a neon blue lit sign and said, “That’s my office.” The sign said GO ALL NIGHT.

  I thought the sign was stupid, but somehow, in the context of his jaw, it seemed hot. The jaw knew what it was doing, and so the sign did too. The jaw, and now the sign over this cool and modern office, made him seem like he had something creative and successful going on in his life. I wished he would just kiss me and wondered why he wasn’t doing anything. I felt ashamed. Maybe he didn’t think I was cute. Then the shame turned to anger, and I poked him in the chest. Then I pushed him into a wall. I don’t know whether I was trying to get him to kiss me or to wrestle him. But he didn’t seem to notice. He was too wrapped up in telling me about his new “health goth”–style fitness client. He was designing their online catalog, only the catalog wouldn’t be like a regular catalog. It would be a space that had 3-D printing elements and holographic models.

  Finally I said to him, “Can I kiss you?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  He pulled me to him gently and we kissed in a really sweet way, very soft. That was kind of confusing. He kissed me like someone who definitely didn’t have a girlfriend. Like it was more of a loving kiss than a lusty kiss. Or maybe it wasn’t loving, but just dispassionate. Then he stopped, looked at me, and started talking about the project again.

  “Shhhhhh,” I said.

  I kissed him again. I felt strangely high. I was still a little drunk, but there was definitely something narcotic about kissing him—just being around him—that made me feel like I wanted to keep doing it over and over. I traced his jaw with my hand and let out a little sigh. He stopped kissing me and said, “So where did you park?”