Instant Love: Fiction

by Jami Attenberg

  I’m sure you’ve got your thing, too, though it’s hard to imagine it from just looking at you. I mean, you’re a gorgeous woman—a woman, right, you’re no kid, I was just playing with you—and everything about you is tripping me out. The way you speak is so measured and calm, like you’re hammering in a nail with one clean shot. You’re a working woman, that always impresses me. I can’t tell you how many women are looking for a free ride around here. I need a woman who has her shit together. It’s easier to hold your head high and stand up straight when you’ve got somewhere to go in the morning. Spring in your step as you walk out the front door. I bet you’ve got that spring. I’ll bet you’re going places.

  Plus you’ve got that pretty red hair that falls so nicely on your shoulders. And those freckles, man, I want to start counting them, then lose track and have to start all over again. I want to hold your cheeks in my hands, stroke them gently with my fingers. Kiss the tip of your nose, then your forehead. Let your eyelashes flutter on my chin. Then take a big taste of those lips, top one, bottom one, both of them, suck it all in.

  I don’t meet a lot of women I like, so when I do, my heart practically explodes.

  “You’re safe now,” I say.

  For a long time I thought my perfect woman would be one who stuttered. By the time she had finished what she wanted to say, I would almost be ready to speak. And when I finally met a stutterer, a pretty design student named Sarah, right here in this very bar, I felt like everything in my life up until that point had been on hold, that now my life was truly ready to begin.

  Sarah, she told me so many stories when we met, about being raised in a Christian family who prayed and tithed on Sundays so that they could yell at each other guilt-free the rest of the week. Three older brothers who told Sarah she wasn’t loved when their parents weren’t around. A sweet chubby toddler crying underneath the back porch, drawing pictures in the dirt with her finger to keep herself company. And then they told her that her blossoming hips were fat, every day, every meal. There was a lisp that turned into a stutter. And now she was dumb, too, they said. So she took an overprotective pothead as a boyfriend, one who did all the talking. She started to smoke a lot of pot and watch MTV, stare at the rock stars with their big hair and wild makeup. She would sing along to every song without the slightest stutter. Their words were so easy to memorize. And then she turned to herself, learning how to put on thick eyeliner and shiny lip gloss and keep it perfect all night long, even if it meant running to the bathroom to reapply. “I’m sorry,” she’d said that night. “I’m always checking myself.”

  Almost every boyfriend since the pothead she’d met in a bar, that’s what she told me. Because it was noisy, because they couldn’t hear her stutter, because then she was unafraid to be herself. It was true, she stuttered less when we met that night, and I could keep up with her conversation-wise. It was a lot of work, and I pulled out every trick in the book, but I did it. Back at her place we were silent as we groped and kissed. We never discussed or questioned what we were doing, not when we took off our clothes, dropped them into a sloppy pile on her floor next to an ashtray filthy with cigarettes, not when we rolled around on her mattress wedged in the corner of her bedroom, not when I held her arms high up behind her head, one hand holding two wrists, and kept going at her until at last, she hummed, just like anyone would. And when I finally came I let out a noise so loud and eager I, too, could have fooled anyone that I was perfectly normal.

  But the next morning, in the silence of her bedroom, with only the occasional noise passing through—a bicycle rolling by as silent as a breeze except for the squeak of a chain, a bee trapped in between the window screen and frame, the growl of my stomach hungering for a hangover cure—when she spoke and broke through the quiet hum of morning sounds, when she stuttered, “I d-don’t really do this s-sort of thing, you know,” and listed off the handful of times it had happened before, it was like she was reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica, all the chapters, all at once. There was too much to process, and I became mute. Then she cried—“You think I’m a slut,” she moaned—but still I couldn’t get the words out. I got my clothes and headed out of her apartment, stopping only to stare at her sketches. She had faces all over the wall, portraits of folks around town, some of them I knew, some I didn’t. I wished I had known her long enough for her to draw me. I saw her again only a few times—it’s funny how you can hide in a small town—but it was always from far away, across the street, or passing by each other in traffic. Her face would flicker, a downturn of the lips, then head down and away. A year later, maybe two, she was gone. Good for her, I thought. This town isn’t for everyone.

  These days I usually get stuck with chatty women. They don’t even stop to take a breath sometimes, that type. It seems like it would work out fine, but after a while you realize they talk so much because they don’t care what you have to say. And I don’t know, I think I’ve got something to say.

  “So let me buy you a drink. One of mine.” I’m a brewer, I tell you. They carry my lager and ale in the bar, and a winter brew is coming out in a few weeks. If you can let go of that vodka tonic you’re gripping so tightly, I’d recommend the ale.

  I’d be willing to bet I know more about beer than almost any man in the state, and that includes the beer snobs from up north who make it their business to try everything once, or the hobbyists in the suburbs, a sincere bunch of people who spend way too much time in their basements. My passion started in high school, where I spent a lot of time at parties drinking beer slowly as a way to pass the time during pauses. It wasn’t so much the getting drunk part I liked as much as it was an acceptable way to make people wait for you to speak. And then I began tasting the beer, noticing the difference between good and bad, and wondering what went into it. College, I knew it wasn’t going to be for me. I started out at the local brewery as an assistant, and then eventually I became the brewmaster. When the brewery went up for sale, I put some money together—my folks, Ricky, a few loans—and bought the place. Now it’s mine, all mine. Well, mine, my folks’, Ricky’s, and the bank’s.

  I’ve got a small crew, and they work fast and quietly. Everyone knows what they’re doing, no need for too many questions. We play music all day long. Most of the guys are a little bit younger than I am, so they bring in CDs of the newer stuff, and I like that. Keeps me young, even though I’m not really that old. But sometimes we don’t play music at all; we just work quietly, side by side, getting the work done. Those days are my favorites, I think. There’s something to be said for silence.

  “Sure I’ll have one of your beers.” You sound delighted. “I’ll try anything once.” You talk for a little bit about needing to try new things. That you want to do more hiking. That you’ve heard there were hot springs around here, is that true? And finally, how your husband wanted everything to stay the same. Once you got married it was like your lives were over. Everything was locked into place. How close-minded he was. I can imagine you criticizing him, down to every last cell in his body. I know some women, they like to sting.

  I bet you kicked his ass. I bet you destroyed him. Did he deserve it? Does anyone deserve it? I can see that you’re merciless under that sweet, soft skin; that you can cut someone, that you leave scars. Did you fuck with him? Did you make him cry? I got it, lady. Now you get this: I am not afraid of you. I am not afraid of anyone. I’d like to see you try it on me. I already forgive you. Whatever you were before you met me doesn’t matter, it only matters how you treat me now. Would you care that I left that poor girl alone in her apartment, all alone crying? Wailing. I could hear her down the hall. I could have stayed, I could have explained. I could have said something. I believe that we are the sum of all of the loves before us until we reach our one great love. Whatever you did before, whatever I did before, we can put it all behind us.

  “Are you OK?” you say.

  I see you have figured it out, that my tricks have failed me at last. I want to tell you how I hear your wor
ds, and then everything transforms into something new, the sound of the letters separately and together, the intended and unintended meaning of the words, the sound of your voice, the tone of it, the expression on your face. Then there is the surrounding noise, overheard snippets of conversation, the clink the glasses make as the bartender stacks them on the drying rack, the country music playing on the jukebox, a sneeze, a cough, a door slamming. I have to process all of this before I can even utter one word in response. But I will save that for later. We have time.

  Instead I say, “Yes, I’m fine. I just take a long time to respond sometimes. I promise you, when you get to know me, I won’t take this long.”

  You say, “Oh, you’re a thinker. Well, that’s nice. I like it when people think before they speak. It means they’re listening to you. And you know, there’s something to be said for silence.”

  I take a deep breath, I nod my head over and over. I turn on my stool and face the bar, and you do the same. There’s a mirror behind the bar, one below the shelves of bottles, another between the cash register and the wall, and we smile at each other’s reflection. It’s a punch in the stomach, love, but I’d take a hit for you.

  The young stockbrokers across the hall are at it again, making sure everyone knows they’re there. But, oh, how can we miss you? Every Friday night, every Saturday night, after the bars close, they’re drunk and yelling, slamming doors, slamming them so hard the walls shake and it wakes me, every time, jolts me like an electrical shock right out of whatever dream I was enjoying. Or not enjoying. Sometimes I’m awake, up with whomever I’ve invited over for that particular night, and he’ll say something like, “This is a real party building, huh? But I guess it makes sense, you’re a real party girl.” And he’ll squeeze my nipple or palm my ass. Then depending on where we are in the night, we’ll either do it once, hard and fast, or he’ll walk out my front door, into the late, dark night, never to be seen again.

  But right now I am alone, because there is no one new on any of the five Internet dating sites I frequent, looking for late-night play. It’s just the same old desperados, dire men in their forties who wear ill-fitting oxford shirts and send decade-old pictures of themselves in a windbreaker on a coast, or from the waist down, cock erect; and then a handful of younger guys, stoners in shell necklaces who are just looking to smoke pot with a lady, and then either give or receive some form of oral sex. They know who I am and I know who they are. We’re not interested.

  And I am awake. I can hear the Wall Streeters laughing their bawdy, wild laughs. They say “dude” a lot; they use the word as a punctuation mark. At some point in the night someone will make a barking sound. If I were the kind of woman who made wagers, I’d lay a twenty-dollar bill on it. There is always a bark. Then there will be a fight. Sometimes they take it outside. Not outside the building. That would be too much effort. No, they just take it outside their front door. Next to my door. It’s almost enough to make me want to find a new apartment. I’m simply not getting enough sleep.

  They moved in six months ago, greased the building superintendent’s palms with thick stacks of twenties, or maybe fifties, and nabbed that highly coveted three-bedroom apartment with the deck and the view (I’ve only heard, never seen). It seems like there are more than three people who live there, though, at least four, maybe five. They are all varying degrees of a youthful prototype that rejected me years ago in college—handsome in a way that comes from a balance of good genes, preferably of the Connecticut variety; smart, smart enough to get them through the day, to make their day better than that of most people on the planet; determined because they have been told to be so; entitled and confident; and just so fucking perfect. Now as a more mature and confident version of myself I can stick up my nose at them. I have slept with a few people like them since my college days, and their fetishes are boring. (Oh, you want to take me from behind and pound me like a racehorse? And call me a slut? How creative.) All the mystery is gone.

  They are also a bunch of disgusting punks. They leave bags of garbage in our shared hallway for days, when it’s not that hard to walk it down the stairs to the garbage room. And there are girls in the morning streaming out, looking like hell at 8:00 AM, ruining my morning coffee. At least I have the good sense to kick my men out after we’re done. In and out in two hours or less. I don’t pretend to be nice. I take what I can and move on. They should have the common courtesy to do the same.

  The only one of them worth anything is the fourth—fifth? one of the extras, anyway—roommate. There’s no way this kid is working on Wall Street. He’s a shaggy, pretty thing with a slow shuffle for a walk, who comes in and out at all hours of the night, always on some sort of errand, getting a six-pack of beer or late-night slices of pizza, dragging a backpack stuffed with mystery items that bulge out the sides. His thick lips and strong jaw always seem to be working on something—gum, a cigarette, or the inside of his cheek. Not that you can see much under all his hair, a blond shag that looks gray under the dim lights of the elevator. But even though he keeps his head down, I know he’s tracking everything around him. He’s looked at me before, raised his head slightly, pushed his hair up, made that connection as he dragged his feet by me in the hall. I know he’s on the ball, he’s just undercover.

  I’d invite him to play with me.

  I REFRESH each of my five browser windows, squeeze my hands together, hard, like in a pissed-off prayer. My nails are ratty—I picked off the edges of the cuticles on the subway this morning, and I bit at my nails tonight at the computer, in between sips of a twelve-dollar chardonnay. (Good enough, but not great.) I should get a manicure, but I don’t get manicures. It is so hard when you know what you’re supposed to do, but then you don’t bother doing it.

  It’s the same men in all the windows. Old, horny, stoned. I’m looking for the coked-up indie-rock boy who doesn’t want to go to sleep yet and has tattoos on his arms of things that remind him how he’s supposed to be in life.

  This translates to “Be strong” in Swahili. This is the name of the first band I ever saw that made me realize I could get out of Oklahoma. She was my first girlfriend, and she taught me not to be afraid of love. I can’t tell you what this means, it’s far too personal. No offense.

  None taken.

  I would take a bartender getting off his shift, too. They’re angry and edgy, and I like that. I have an itch I need to get scratched on nights like these, and disgruntled service-industry workers, they like to scratch.

  All I see is one new guy with a Star Trek reference in his profile name, and then the rest of the regulars. They’d beg their case once again, if I let them. You won’t regret it. I’ll make you scream all night long. Let me lick you and please you.

  But they have body hair in weird patches, or no body hair at all, and lumpy asses. And they’re not funny enough, they have bad taste in music, and I sense that the little conversation we would have before we got to the sex, I would not enjoy. I used to think it didn’t matter, but apparently I can’t have anonymous sex with someone who isn’t at least a little bit interesting.

  I’ve tried it before, a few months back when I was first afflicted with this fever. This guy—my age, which is why I gave him a shot, thought we might have a little something in common—showed up in a peasant shirt and blue jeans that were like a second skin; 3:00 AM, and a peasant shirt. He sat on the edge of the couch, slowly unlacing his hiking boots, looking up at me, smiling, and I was suddenly shot with a volt of terror that he might actually say something to me, and that I would have to say something back.

  He had curly hair that stood out from his head and a long thin nose with a tremendous bump on it. I wondered if he was Jewish. I actually have a thing for Jewish men. My ex-boyfriend Alan, the real-estate agent from Chicago, he was Jewish and had the nicest hairy chest. He would squeeze me all over and keep me warm. I need help with that. Keeping warm. If left alone for too long, I’ll freeze to death. Maybe this new Jew could help.

  And then as
he squirmed out of his pants, I thought, well, it’s winter, that’s why he wore the boots, even though it makes no sense to wear something so difficult to untie if you’re going to get naked, and maybe those absurdly tight jeans, those were the only ones he had clean, but at least he wore something clean, and that shirt, maybe he’s an artist, or at the very least, artsy.

  “What do you do?” I asked him. Looking for the tiniest tinge of attraction.

  “I’m an accountant,” he said.

  When he finally got his pants down and shirt off, all that was left was an absurdly skinny man in atrocious tie-dyed boxer shorts, worn wool socks sagging around his ankles. If it were possible for my nipples to do the inverse of an erection, that they could somehow sink back inward, this vision would have surely done it.

  But there it was—thankfully—a nicely sized hard-on. And when you are drunk, high on something new, and desperate, itching, needing to be scratched, you focus on the hard-on. It’ll all be over soon anyway.

  We did it on the couch, simple sex, my head and upper back on the arm, legs up in the air, and him on top of me, doing it simply, rhythmically, like fingers tapping on a calculator, adding one number to another, totaling it all up. I was silent throughout, I am almost always silent. He did it deep, which I like. He did it without variety, which I don’t like. But you can’t ask for much from a complete stranger.

  When he stopped, he lay flat on top of me, and I let him catch his breath for five minutes. I clocked it, I usually give them ten minutes, but this guy, he had to go. He could almost depress a girl. I said, “So, thanks. That was great. Just great.” He lifted his head. He looked like he didn’t believe me. “No, really.”