Jessica Z

by Shawn Klomparens

  “It’s a sabbatical. It all fell into place pretty nicely, actually.”

  We only walk a little farther to get to the restaurant, which is called, appropriately enough, El Salvadoreño. The restaurant is next to a Laundromat and has similar decor; the cinder-block walls are painted robin’s-egg blue and the tables are chipped and mismatched. An older couple is seated toward the back, and there’s a faded poster of a palm-lined beach taped up on the wall by the cash register. A short mustachioed man wearing camouflage pants and a baggy tank top waves as he comes from the kitchen with some laminated menus.

  “Hola, Yosh!” the man shouts as he comes over to us.

  “Hola, Miguel,” Josh says. He pulls out a chair for me, and he and this camo-pants Miguel person launch into a rapid-fire conversation that my eighth-and ninth-grade Spanish classes have in no way prepared me to follow. I do pick up on a couple words, and I keep hearing novia…novia…girlfriend?

  “Miguel, this is Jessica,” Josh finally says in English, and Miguel reaches for my hand.

  “Nice to meet you,” Miguel says with hardly any accent. “You guys take a look at the menu, I’ll be right back.”

  “Who is the novia?” I ask after Miguel leaves.

  Josh raises his eyebrows and smiles. “You speak Spanish?”

  “Hardly. But I know a few words.”

  “Miguel misses his girlfriend. She’s back visiting her family in San Salvador. She’s the novia.”

  “Gotcha. How do you speak it so well?”

  “I studied in Mexico City for a couple years.”

  “You sound pretty fluent for only a couple years.”

  “I guess some people have a thing for languages.”

  “I guess. I’m not one of those people.”

  Josh shrugs and smiles, and holds up the menu. “You want me to order for us? It’s all good here.”

  “That’s fine,” I say. “So where are you from, originally?”

  “Originally?” Josh takes a sip of ice water from one of the blue plastic cups on the table. “Originally I’m from Ohio. But I don’t like to admit it.”

  “Is it that bad? I always confuse it with Iowa.”

  “Everyone does. And I left as soon as I graduated from high school, if that says anything.” He drinks some more water. “No, really, it’s not that bad. It’s just dull. I grew up in Columbus. Did you know it’s the most demographically average city in the country? Everything is test-marketed there. Red state, blue state, minorities, just enough crime, just enough population growth, just enough city, just enough suburb. It’s the ideal marketing lab.”

  “You’d think that would make it interesting,” I say.

  “Maybe, but who wants to live in a lab?”

  He’s got a point. “Do they have beer or wine here?” I ask.

  “I think so,” Josh says. “I’ve never ordered it.”

  “Do you not drink?” I ask, and my cheeks get hot. “Sorry, that’s none of my business.”

  “No, it’s fine. I do, just not very frequently.” He lets out a little embarrassed laugh. “I get too charming when I drink. It’s bad news. Dangerous.”

  “Uh huh, right.” Now I take a sip of my own water, just to have something to do with my hands.

  “I’m serious. Maybe only a little serious. Where are you from? Originally.”

  “I’m from Seattle. Well, west of there. I grew up drinking coffee.”

  Josh laughs. “That’s good. Get that out preemptively, before anyone else can make the joke.”

  “It’s a reflex.”

  Miguel comes to take our order, which Josh gives in Spanish; they go back and forth and Miguel smiles and looks at me and says, “Oh that’s good, that’s really good,” in English before he walks away.

  “So, I have a question,” I say.

  “Shoot.”

  “How did you get into your subject matter? Not just anatomy, but…”

  “But?”

  “Well, the detail. The close-up.”

  “I don’t really know. It just sort of happened. I mean, it’s not really erotic—”

  “Not at all,” I say.

  “But I think people are maybe…I don’t know, conditioned to respond to those, those parts in a certain way. It’s like, the images are everywhere, online, wherever you look, you know? Naked women, dudes, everywhere, all really sexually charged. So I wanted to present it differently. Clinically. But clinical is dull. So why not make it a parody of clinical, right? And they aren’t even realistic representations, but they push the right buttons because of how we’ve been conditioned to respond. It just kind of works, somehow.”

  “It totally works. But don’t you think people are pretty desensitized already?”

  “Sure they are,” he says. “But that’s where the seed catalog thing gets you, right? The context tricks you into looking at it a different way.”

  “It does. It’s a pretty nice effect.”

  “I want to try the same thing with maps. See if it works. But not just those parts, something a little different. I’m still working it out in my head.” Josh looks at me, suddenly serious, and his expression makes my face feel warm again. “Hey, now I want to ask you something,” he says. “And it may sound a little weird, but you just got me thinking.”

  “What?”

  “And you can feel free to say ‘no thanks,’ I’m not going to be offended or anything.”

  “What is it?”

  “May I draw you? Tonight? Or whenever…”

  “Ah,” I say, and my cheeks feel like they’re about to ignite.

  I could say no.

  I could say I have plans.

  “I guess so?”

  10

  The Academy’s guest housing is indeed plush. And, in the case of Josh’s residence, cluttered. It’s modern and high ceilinged and open—mostly studio space, but there’s a little kitchen at the far end and steep steps going up to a sleeping loft over what I assume to be the bathroom. Books and magazines are piled everywhere; stacks on the worktables, stacks in the kitchen, stacks on the floor, and art supplies seem to be tucked into every space where there aren’t any books. Three enormous prints of flowers hang on the back wall, but none of Josh’s other work is anywhere to be seen.

  “Can I take your coat?” Josh asks.

  “What? Oh, sure.”

  “We don’t have to do this, you know, it’s not a big deal if we don’t.”

  “No, no, no,” I say as I hand him my coat. “I’m fine.”

  Josh hangs my coat from a hook behind the door and walks to the kitchen. “Do you want something to drink? Water? I think there’s a bottle of wine somewhere around—”

  “Wine. Yes. Please,” I say.

  Dinner, after Josh made his drawing request, was mostly a blur. We talked, and we ate. There were little, doughy tortillas filled with some kind of stewed meat. All fine. Nothing spicy. We talked some more. It didn’t matter, though, I wasn’t thinking about food or conversation, just about the fact that I’d agreed, maybe too quickly, to pose for a man I really barely know who creates giant images of human genitalia. What was I thinking? Maybe, I don’t know, maybe he just wants to draw my face. A nice portrait for my mom. But then there’s the potential of everything else, the thought that this act of being drawn might lead to a multitude of other acts.

  “Here you go,” Josh says as he comes back, handing me a heavy water glass filled to the top with dark wine. He starts to move some of the books off a table. “Why don’t you get undressed now,” he says, and I take a big slug of the wine.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  “I’m fine. Should I do this?”

  Josh shrugs, and a little smile comes across his face. “Should you?”

  “That’s no answer. Is that your bathroom?”

  He nods. “There’s a robe in there, if you want it.”

  “Yes. Maybe.” I go in and close the door, and don’t do anything but make stupid scared faces at myself in the mirror for a moment.
I look through my bag for my phone and turn it off. What am I doing? I could stop. I don’t have to do this. I don’t have to unbutton my shirt, but I start, and the release of the topmost button by my shaking hand leads to a chain of events that culminates in me being totally naked and every one of my garments being neatly folded next to the sink. I look at myself in the mirror again and squeeze in my upper arms to create the effect of cleavage, but when I release, all parts fall back to their more natural, widely spaced positions.

  I’m excited and I’m terrified, and I put on the robe and head back out.

  Josh has taken his sweater off too, and now in his tight gray tee shirt he’s kneeling on the floor and digging through an open toolbox filled with art supplies. “Just have a seat up there,” he says without looking up.

  Josh has cleared everything from the worktable and spread a red and white quilt out over it. It’s a tall table, and I have to make two little jumps with my palms behind me on the edge of it to lift myself up to the surface. The motion of scooting myself back causes the robe to fall open, and I quickly pull it closed again, even though Josh is too busy looking at a slender piece of charcoal to notice. I have a drink from the glass of wine, then another, while Josh gets a large pad of paper from the other side of the studio and brings it back to the table.

  “You ready?” Josh asks, and I nod. “You’re sure?”

  I nod again. “Yes,” I say.

  Josh reaches forward and pushes the robe off my shoulders. I watch as his eyes look down my body, as he tilts his head to the side when he sees my appendectomy scar, as he touches his fingers to the dark blemish left on my knee from when Katie wrecked Mom’s car and I hit the dashboard. My legs are crossed, tightly, and I pull my arms from the sleeves of the robe and wrap them around my stomach under my breasts, clutching myself. Josh bends down to get the pad of paper from the floor.

  “Why don’t you lie back,” he says. I do, and my legs are still crossed, hanging off the edge of the table. “Knees up. You need to scoot back a little. Get your feet up there. There you go.”

  I’m looking up at the white-painted ductwork in the ceiling, pressing my knees tightly together.

  “You’re going to need to open up,” Josh says. I take a breath and hear my pulse in my ears, and then I feel Josh’s hands on my shins, easing my knees apart.

  “Oh God, I don’t know about this,” I say, and I sit up very quickly and cross my ankles and put my hands in my lap. I can feel my heart pounding, and my embarrassed flush has spread down into a blotchy smear across my chest.

  “It’s fine,” Josh says. “It’s not a problem.”

  I take another deep breath, and a long drink of wine. “No, just give me a second.”

  “Jessica, seriously, why don’t you go get dressed. We don’t have to do this right now.”

  I’m starting to feel the warmth of the wine spreading out through my skin. “I’m fine,” I say. “I’m okay.” This is just clinical. A parody of clinical. I lie back and look up into the pipes and ducts and pendant light fixtures again, and lift up my knees and let them fall open. Josh puts his hands on my feet and pushes them up closer to my butt. My mouth feels dry and I try to swallow, and I feel a tremble in my rushed breathing. Are those ducts white or off-white?

  “Do you want a pillow?” Josh asks.

  “I’m fine.”

  I hear the charcoal scraping over Josh’s pad of paper.

  “Can you kind of rock your hips back? Just roll them back a little…That’s it, right there. Right there, Jessica. Perfect.” More scratching charcoal. “Oh wow. Nice. Very nice.”

  Wow? Nice? I feel myself starting to shiver, and I wrap my arms over my tummy again, grabbing my elbows while I listen to charcoal on paper. Scratch, scratch, scratch.

  “Perfect,” Josh says. “Perfect.”

  I close my eyes and resist the urge to close my knees; this examination is driving me crazy. I don’t even like to look down there myself, and now I’m allowing a virtual stranger to examine the wrinkly pink asymmetry that lives between my legs. I’m happy to handle it, manipulate it, play with it daily or more; just don’t make me look at it. I’ve never even let Patrick look down there.

  Wrong thought. Don’t think about Patrick now. Just don’t.

  “How is it going?” I ask. Josh doesn’t say anything, and when I lift my head to look down at him he shakes his head and keeps scribbling, looking from me to the pad and back again.

  The wine has moved into me more; I feel it in my limbs and in my head. A far-off rumble comes from somewhere in the building, and a rush of air begins to flow from the vents in the ductwork suspended up in the ceiling. I see a cobweb being whipped back and forth, it dances up and undulates like a tiny serpent before stopping and drifting back down into the breeze again. I feel the furnace-pushed heat on my face as I’m transfixed by the motion of the little dusty floss, and as I’m distracted by this, something changes. It’s no longer just Josh’s eyes on me, but now his hands are too, on the insides of my legs, opening them farther.

  “Is something wrong?” I say, and I’m not even sure why. Josh shakes his head again and goes back to drawing. I can still feel where his hands were on my legs, close, and I’m sort of surprised at myself for not being startled by the touch. They were there, and gone, and wish—do I really?—that they were there again.

  I let my knees shut, just a little. Then that warmth again; his hands are there and they stay, and when they do move, it’s not away from me, but closer. His fingers begin a motion that is almost jolting, but instead of sitting up or pulling away I close my eyes and push myself into the feeling.

  Josh’s fingers move, and move, and I turn my head to the side and breathe.

  I’m lifting my hips, buoyed by warm air and wine, and this almost involuntary cooperation on my part brings on another transition: just as eyes have turned to fingers, now fingers have turned to mouth.

  I have never, ever, let anyone do this before.

  For an instant I think I should recoil, pull away, sit up, run. This is too close. Too intimate. Too fast. Josh has his whole face pressed into me, and I glance down and see that his eyes are closed before I look back up into the ceiling. The furnace stops, and in the sudden absence of its hum and rush the only sounds left are the wet noises coming from between my legs.

  I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know. I don’t.

  I push myself closer to Josh, and reach down and touch my fingers to his hair. I’m breathing harder now, and he is too; every few breaths I let out a little “oh!” sound and feel stupid about it. That worry passes, though.

  I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I can let go.

  I’m trying to lift myself higher now; I don’t know if I’m trying to move closer to this feeling or if I want to get away from it. Josh has his arm wrapped around my left leg, he’s holding me down by pressing on my hip bone. This is good, because I’m starting to feel like I might flop off the table.

  I’m so close, Josh. Oh my God. I don’t know. I don’t know.

  I look down again and see the blur of sandy hair, then I reach above my head with my left hand and grab a handful of the quilt and pull it down over my eyes. He keeps hitting a trigger, again again again, and every time he moves it my body shakes with an involuntary convulsion. He’s focusing a little too much, it’s oversensitive, too much like being tickled too hard. Damn it, I’m not going to make it, I’m not going to.

  If you could, just a little lower, oh God please, just a little, yes, there, right there, there, that’s it, there!

  I reach up with my other hand to press the balled-up wad of quilt into my face to muffle the guttural nonsense that’s shrieking out of my mouth. My hips rise up off the table and I sort of fall back down to my side, and somehow he manages to hold on and keep going as each wave of it comes over me and I push my legs out straight. The feeling rises and falls and finally passes, and he’s pulled away and my legs are pressed tightly together again because there
is NO WAY I could handle anything else. Then I feel him jumping up onto the table and curling in next to me; his arm is around my waist and he’s kind of trying to pull the quilt off my face, but I don’t let go because I’m too worried I’m going to laugh or burst into tears or maybe both. What has just happened here?

  What have I done?

  We lie quietly, on the hard table, for a long time. I slide the quilt up and see Josh looking at me as I’m forcing my breath to slow down.

  “That’s never happened before,” I say.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, that’s…I’ve never had a…you know.”

  “You’ve never had one? Come on, seriously?”

  “No, I’ve had them. Lots.” I pull the quilt down over my face again and sort of laugh. “Just never as a result of something done to me by another person.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I guess I’m honored,” he says.

  I peek out from under the quilt and roll my eyes. I’ve sort of come to the conclusion that we’re going to have sex now; that intercourse would be the next logical act, but the transition isn’t happening. The feeling is somewhere between resignation and expectation, and I have a pressing, silly desire to run to the bathroom to call Katie for some kind of direction. Josh just lies next to me with his hand on my stomach and his head resting on his forearm.

  “This table is getting a little uncomfortable,” I say.

  “Do you want to go up and lie down?” he asks. I nod and we sit up, and I pull the mass of the quilt over my body as Josh hops off the table.

  “Want to see the drawing?”

  “I think I’ll wait ’til morning.”

  He throws the dead bolt on the door and turns out the lights, and the room is illuminated from outside by the diffused sodium glow of the city in the fog. He walks back and takes my hand, and I follow him across the studio and up the steep steps to the loft with the quilt held up against my chest. There’s a futon up there, and I drop down onto it as Josh undresses and feel suddenly very tired. Josh slides in next to me and we kiss, and I find myself thinking about how his lips feel different from Patrick’s and his beard, or lack of it, feels less harsh. There’s a bittersweet saltiness to his mouth too, and I’m a little startled when I realize that the taste is my own.