The Comfort of Women
Or:
A Response to Charles Bukowski's Women
by
Michael Hemmingson
The Obelisk Library
Smashwords Edition
2011
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy
Copyright © 2011 Michael Hemmingson
All rights reserved.
There is a habit these days of people thinking that some fiction is autobiographical. This is a work of pure fiction; any resemblance to real persons or incidents in anyone’s life is purely an odd coincidence.
This novel was originally published in mass market paperback by Blue Moon Books in 2001. A second edition, under the title Comfort & Motion, was released by The Olympia Press in 2009. Minor changes have been made to this
eBook edition.
Acknowledgements
An abbreviated version of “Part Two: Comfort” appeared in The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels.
Chapter 17 appeared, in somewhat different form, as a short story called “Toys” in Cyberpsychos AOD #9.
PART ONE:
COMFORT
The other one, the one called Borges, is the one things happen to.
—Jorge Luis Borges
ONE.
I’d been celibate for five years. I didn’t think I was a bad-looking man, women had found me appealing in the past; but between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-seven, I hadn’t touched a woman and a woman hadn’t touched me. I’d created my own isolation, going from one dumb job to another, spending my time alone in a studio apartment, writing. My first novel was published in an irregular paperback format by a small press operated by an enthusiastic fellow, reminiscent of those old City Lights Pocketbooks. It fit easily in my back pocket and not too many people read it, despite all the good reviews. The whole matter was a solitary experience with no one to share it with.
One day, I received a letter from an English professor at the local university, Barry McGinnis. He wrote that he’d gotten my address from the publisher of my book, and how the book was an unknown work of genius, and that he’d like to meet me.
I put the letter aside.
A month later, the professor called on the phone.
“Your publisher is an old buddy of mine, a former student, in fact,” McGinnis said. “Hope you don’t mind I got your number from him.”
“No,” I said. “I meant to call you. I did get your letter.”
“Listen, why don’t we meet for a beer?”
I met the professor at a pub near the campus, and listened to him talk about how great he thought my work was. He’d not only read my novel—and assigned it to one of his classes—but had seen my work in various and (quite) obscure literary journals and underground publications.
“You go by Nicholas?” McGinnis said. “Or—”
“Nicky.”
“Nicky, Nicky Bayless—where’d you go to school?”
“College?”
“Yes.”
“Never went.”
“No degree? No creative writing program?”
“No.”
“Probably a good thing,” McGinnis said, nodding his head, his long grayish-black bushy hair bouncing. “But you know, I bet I could get you into the MFA program here.”
“With no BA.?”
“Hell, your published work will vouch your worthiness,” the professor said. “I bet I could get you a nice fellowship, too.”
And that’s just what Barry McGinnis did.
TWO.
I met Alexia in one of the graduate courses Barry McGinnis taught. She had a quirky look to her I found appealing—thick, dark-rimmed glasses; a white streak in her otherwise jet black hair; an odd-assortment of attire, cool in this age of awkwardness; when geekiness, coupled with intelligence, was sexy. She was one of the regulars who hung out at the pub where I first encountered McGinnis—often this crowd was orbiting around him, a charismatic man in his own right. He was at the pub three nights a week, and I soon found myself there as well. Alexia was there. I was sort of the odd-ball, I felt, brought into this circle by McGinnis because of my book and not my academic struggle (and I had a new book, a collection of stories, coming out from another small, obscure publisher.)
One night, at the pub, McGinnis wasn’t there, and many people departed. I sat drinking beer with Alexia and Bart (a blonde surfer poet) and his bombshell blonde girlfriend, Randi. We all decided to go to a different bar and play pool—Alexia was insistent on this particular bar, telling us all we’d like it very much.
It was an okay bar. Bart and Randi wanted to play pool, which wasn’t my thing. Alexia bought a pitcher of beer and we sat together.
Bart was bending, ready to take a shot at the table, his rear end very close to us. “Get your butt somewhere else,” Alexia said, “or I’ll take a pool stick and shove it up—”
“Oh yeah,” said Randi.
“That’s not very nice,” I said. “How’d you like it if someone stuck a pool stick in your ass?”
Alexia raised her brows. “I just might like it.”
That was the first clue I didn’t get—I wasn’t paying attention. I’d recall in hindsight, yes, as well as overhearing her talk about how her favorite scene in Last Tango in Paris was when Marlon Brando put butter up his young lover’s backdoor before sodomzing her.
Bart and Randi left (we’ll get back to them in another chapter), and Alexia and I finished the pitcher of beer.
“What will you do now?” Alexia said.
“Don’t know,” I said.
“Drink more?”
“I don’t know.”
She took her glasses off and looked at them. “I live a block away, you know.”
“No,” I said, “I didn’t know.”
This was the second clue—and I wasn’t paying attention.
“Well,” she said.
“Maybe we can go there,” I said.
She put her glasses back on. “Okay.”
We walked up the block to her place, which was a small cottage. It was nice, a little messy. I asked how much she paid for it.
“Nothing,” she said. “My parents own the property.”
“Nice.”
“I don’t work,” she said, “I go to school. Like you.”
“I used to work. I worked too much. Dumb jobs, blah blah blah. Now I have a fellowship.”
“What about your book?”
“I don’t make any money from that.”
“Oh. I have it, your book.”
“Really?”
“I didn’t read it.”
“That’s okay.”
“Dr. McGinnis said I should.”
“Listen to him.”
“I have beer, I think,” she said, going to the kitchen.
I sat on the couch in the small living room.
Alexia returned with two Budweisers. “Yes, I have beer.”
She sat next to me.
I don’t remember what we talked about. On the floor, I noticed an action figure of the Warner Brothers Martian from the Bugs Bunny cartoon. “I always loved that Martian,” I said.
“Me too,” she said, going to the floor and picking it up. “Marvin the Martian. ‘I’m going to destroy planet Earth!’” I touched her hair. She put her head in my lap. It was nice to touch somebody.
“I, um, I don’t know what to do,” I said.
“What?”
“I haven’t been with anyone in a while.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true.”
“It’s a line,” she said. “Do you like me?” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“I like you.” She got on the couch with me and we began to kiss. She had to take her glasses off, they were getting in the way. We kissed for a long time. She pushed me back on the couch, and laid on top of me. I grabbed her ass, put my hands down her skirt.
She pulled her mouth from mine. “Bad boy,” she said.
I grabbed her head, and we kissed more.
When I tried to touch her cunt, she stopped me.
“No,” she said.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, and we kissed.
When I touched her breasts over the fabric of her blouse, she pushed them away. “Now, now,” she said.
“Sorry,” I said.
She took one of my hands and put it back on her ass. “Play with that.”
I did, and we kissed. My hand, and my second hand, were all over her butt.
“Hey,” Alexia said, “rub my asshole.”
“What?”
“With your finger,” she said, and I found her asshole with my finger. “In small circles,” she said, “yeah, like that—”
She pulled away from me, and sat. She took the finger I’d been rubbing her with, put it in her mouth, sucked on it. She smiled, and gave my finger back. She put her glasses on.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, moving to her, wanting to kiss her more.
“Nothing,” she said. “I have to pee.”
“Hey.” I grabbed her hand as she stood up. “Can I watch?”
“You want to watch me pee?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I need a commitment before I go that far,” she said.
“We hardly know each other.”
“Exactly,” she said, and went to the bathroom.
I sat there. I got up, and followed. The door was unlocked, and I went in. Alexia was sitting on the toilet; she glanced up at me. She smiled and said, “You.” I could hear the stream of her urine. I sat on the floor, cross-legged.
“You’re bold,” she said.
“The door was unlocked.”
“There is no lock.”
“I couldn’t resist.”
She stood up. “Okay, Mr. Bold. Clean me.”
“With my mouth?”
“Absolutely not.”
I would’ve done it with my moth, if she’d asked. I took a wad of toilet paper, and wiped her cunt. She pulled her panties up.
“I have to go too,” I said.
“Then I get to watch,” she said. “Quid pro quo.”
She took my place on the floor; I stood in front of the toilet, took my cock out, and started to go.
Alexia made a weird sound. She moved, snagged my cock, and put her mouth before it, drinking my urine; what she didn’t get flowed out of her mouth, down her chin, and into the bowl. I liked the sound this made. I breathed hard; it was an experience in itself watching her drink from me.
She pressed her face to my leg. “Nicky, I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself,” she said, softly. “Now you know my fetish. Okay, I’m weird. You’ll never love me.”
“I could love you,” I said.
“Do you mean that?”
“Yes.”
“Will you kiss me to prove it?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
She stood, and we kissed, and I tasted her—and me.
“I want to make love to you,” I said.
“No, I can’t,” she said.
Alexia left the bathroom and sat on the edge of her bed. I sat next to her; we both fell back. It was a nice, big, comfortable bed, the kind of bed I liked; the kind of bed I didn’t have.
“It’s late,” she said, moving away from me. “I’m a little drunk.”
“Me too,” I said.
“You can stay here,” she said, “if you want.”
“I’d like that.”
“I’d like it too,” she said, standing. “I’m going to turn the light off.”
“Okay.”
In the dark, I saw her silhouette; she was removing her clothes. I also took my clothes off, and got under the covers. She joined me; we didn’t touch. My hand went to her body; she was still wearing her bra and panties. I moved closer to her, kissed her.
“I don’t think I want to screw,” she said.
“Okay,” I said.
“I mean, I’m not sure if I can.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not sure if I’m in the right frame of mind.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not okay,” she said, “you don’t understand, you don’t know.”
“I want to,” I said.
“I know you do.”
“Alexia,” I said.
“It’s nice having you in my bed,” she said.
“It’s nice to be in a bed with someone.” She placed her head on my chest, and then a hand, playing with the hair. We were quiet, touching each other. Her hand moved down, and grasped my cock.
“This is nice,” she said.
“Yes,” I said, “it is.”
“Nice...”
I kissed her on the head.
“I know,” she said, and, “I’m twenty-eight years old.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m still a virgin.”
I laughed, after a moment.
“This is true,” she said.
“Now who is giving who a line?”
She let go of my cock. “Nicky, listen. I’m Jewish. I’m not a nice Jewish girl, but I’m Jewish and a virgin. I come from a really hard-ass strict Jewish family, even though, like I said, well, I made up my mind years ago that I would save myself for my husband, because some day I plan to marry a nice Jewish man, I mean my family won’t have it any other way. And this man will expect me to be a virgin.”
“I see.”
“No you don’t see,” she said. “I don’t expect you to understand. Other men haven’t. Like I said, I’m twenty-eight. This doesn’t mean I’m sexual. Obviously I’m sexual, and I have fetishes. I’m really pretty basic in that matter—I have a pee fetish, and an butt fetish. I mean, I’m a virgin, vaginally, but I like having sex in my butt.”
Things started to come together for me—the pool stick remark, her living close to the bar she wanted to go to. “You lured me here,” I said, “from the bar.”
“Of course. I’m terribly attracted to you. I want you. I want you inside me. But I want more than a fuck-buddy. I had a fuck-buddy for a while, for a few months, it was just sex, nothing more. I didn’t like it; I mean it was okay, but it wasn’t me. It was a different me.”
“He fucked you in the ass?”
“Yes. I don’t know if he liked it that much. Some men do, some don’t.”
I’d only had anal sex with a woman once, and I think I was nineteen or twenty.
“I want you to fuck me,” Alexia said, “but I’m looking for more than just fucking.”
“I’m not a nice Jewish boy.”
“I’m not looking for a husband. I’ll do that in my thirties, maybe my forties. I’m looking for companionship, closeness, a little love. Devotion, all that.”
“Sounds nice,” I said.
“Yes. It sounds—it sounds nice.” She took her panties off. “I’d like you to fuck me,” she said. “I want you to.”
“I don’t have a condom.” I felt stupid.
“I’m not going to get pregnant this way,” she said.
“Still,” I said.
“Hey, you told me you hadn’t been with anyone in years.”
“It’s true.”
“You look healthy and safe,” she said, “and so am I.”
“You look healthy and safe. Lubricant?” I asked, thinking the last time I’d done this, I had to use a lot of petroleum jelly.
“Spit is fine,” Alexia said. She spit into her hand, put her hand between her ass cheeks. She spit into her hand again, and rubbed the saliva over my cock. “I’m getting impatient,” she said.
I moved on top of her, feeling inexpert. Alexia reached back, took my cock, and guided me into her ass—where it slid in just fine, without hesitation or resistance. The warmth of her interior sent a tingle up my body and soul. Alexia whispered, “Oh boy,” and pushed her rear up, hard, slamming into my pelvis. I looked down at the streak in her hair, which was scattered about the back of her neck and on the bed with the rest of her hair. I swear she had an orgasm, I wasn’t sure, but mine came quickly, and it was a lot; I emptied myself inside her.
We lay next to each other after, and Alexia commented on the amount of semen I’d gushed out, that she liked how it felt up her ass, and coming out her ass.
She touched and played with my cock and balls, and soon I was hard again. She got on top of me. “This position is always tricky,” she said, sitting down on my cock and sliding it in. She leaned forward to kiss me, and it popped out, covered in semen from that first ejaculation. Alexia giggled, and put my cock back in her. I reached for the light. “What are you doing?” she said.
“I want to see you.”
“I like the light off.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, turn it on if you want.”
I did. She still wore her bra; her hair was a mess. I reached to unclasp her bra and she pushed my hand away; my cock slipped out of her.
“Let’s try it like this,” I said, gently pushing her off me and onto her back. I put her legs on my shoulders; I didn’t need her help to find my way in. I was deep in her now.
“I like this,” she said.
“I can kiss you,” I said, and did.
“Kiss me more.”
I did.
“Fuck me harder.”
I did, and I came inside her again.
“I have to piss,” I said to her, “do you want it?”
She made a noise, reached up and bit my right nipple, hard.
“Ouch,” I said.
I took her hand, pulling her from the bed, and took her to the bathroom, where she sat before the toilet as I urinated. She drank just about all of it. Then she sucked and licked at my cock for a while, eyes closed.
We went back to bed, in each other’s arms, and fell asleep.
I woke up, the next morning, with Alexia messing around with my ass. She had her face down there—I was lying sideways—licking from my balls to my crack. I’m not sure how long she’d been doing this, but it was a nice thing to wake up to. She pushed me onto to my stomach, spreading my buttocks, a light finger on my sphincter, then a tongue. She licked it a bit, asked me if I liked that. I did, of course—”Yes,” I said. She said, “I like it too,” and licked more, harder this time, pushing the tip of her tongue into me like a thirsty animal at a waterhole. I felt saliva roll down onto my balls—a funny, ticklish feeling. She started to suck, making sounds that I can only describe as pleasantly perverse. She did this for the good part of an hour, as I lay there in ecstasy, having discovered a new world. She was still making wicked sucking sounds, and there was a soft hum from the back of her throat. She turned me over, and sucked on my cock for a bit. “My mouth is getting tired,” she said, “can you fuck me?” She was on her hands and knees, and I took her from behind. I grabbed her hips, and slammed myself inside and out of her. I wanted to come in her mouth, this image was in my head. I told her this. She turned around and took me in her mouth, and I came.
And that’s how I ended my period of celibacy.
***
I didn’t see Alexia again for over a week. We played phone tag, then she stopped calling, and she didn’t come to class (it was a once-a-week thing). I drove to her place; her car was there, but no one answered the door.
The next morning, she answered her phone.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
“Where you been?”
“Nowhere,” she said.
“I was worried.”
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
“You really were?”
“Yes.”
“That’s sweet,” she said.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing really,” she said. “I’ve been depressed.”
“Depressed?”
“I get that way sometimes.”
“About what?”
“This and that.”
“I see.”
“Don’t you ever get depressed?” she asked.
“Well, yes,” I said.
“When I get depressed, I get depressed big,” she said.
“But you’re okay?”
“Yeah,” she said, “I’m okay.”
She didn’t sound okay.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” I said.
“You have? I’ve been thinking a lot about you. What’ve you been thinking about?”
“You,” I said, “and your ass; how I’d like to be fucking you, how I’d like to lick your ass like you did mine. I’ve never done that to anyone before.”
“I wonder about this,” she said.
“What?”
“You could come over,” she said.
“When?”
“Now.”
I rushed over.
Alexia was wearing a thick, terry-cloth robe, no glasses. We immediately embraced. Her body felt warm and nice.
“Do you want something to eat?” she asked. “I was going to make grilled cheese sandwiches.”
“I love grilled cheese sandwiches.”
I sat in her small kitchen and watched her cook. We ate the sandwiches in the living room.
“We should’ve gotten together again sooner,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“What’ve you been doing?”
“Writing.”
“Anything good?”
“I don’t know. Another novel.”
“About?”
I smiled. “This and that.”
“So be it.”
“Essays,” I said. “I’ve been writing essays lately for The USA Viewpoint.”
“Really. That’s a big magazine, isn’t it?”
“I think so. They pay well.”
“What do you write?”
“Opinions, views—viewpoints!”
“Your look at the nation.”
“And the world.”
“I should be impressed,” she said.
“You’re not impressed?”
“I’m impressed,” she said. “But I’m more impressed with what you want to do with that mouth and tongue. Did you mean what you said? You want to get nasty with my butt?”
“Very,” I said.
She took my hand, led me to the bedroom. She removed her robe, was naked underneath. I looked at the dark, thick bush of pubic hair between her legs, something I hadn’t noticed the last time. Alexia was on her stomach, spread-eagled. I didn’t waste time getting to work on her, finding her puckered asshole and going to work at it with my tongue. Alexia seemed to enjoy my effort, wiggling her hips back and forth. I reached to touch her cunt, thinking she’d like this, but she told me not to touch it, was very adamant about that. I continued to lick and suck, and then she touched herself, and she came. I moved up, my cock out now, my pants down to my ankles, and entered her.
We fucked for the rest of the night, and I stayed there. I stayed there for several days, engulfed in nothing but nasty sex, fucking her in the ass, pissing in her mouth, her face buried in my crotch and rear.
It was fun.
In between, we slept, ate, drank, and talked. It was the usual talk—the past, our lives, our families. She was very close to her family (as I’d already gathered) and wanted me to meet her mother and father and two brothers, and some aunts and cousins tossed in. I nodded my head, but I was never comfortable meeting my lovers’ families, both in the act and the thought. We parted, as people must part—I went back to my life, she did what she did.
She called two days later, a Sunday. I was working on the novel.
“My family is having a big dinner tonight,” she said. “Do you want to come over and meet them?”
“Well,” I said. “Not tonight, I can’t.”
“You can’t?”
“I’m on a roll.”
“You just don’t want to meet them,” Alexia said, an accusation. I guess she could hear it in my voice.
“I’d feel weird.”
“Why?”
“I just would.”
“It’d mean a lot to me,” she said. “I told my mother about you.”
“You did? What’d you tell her?”
“Not that,” she said. “Just that—I’d met this guy. I told her: ‘I met this great guy.’”
“Oh.” I felt like shit.
“You are my boyfriend,” she said, “right?”
“Yes,” I said. I liked the way it sounded.
“I’d like you to come.”
“How about next time?”
“Oh, fuck it,” she said, and hung up.
I tried calling her back. She didn’t answer.
She didn’t come to class the next time, either.
Over beers at the pub, I asked Barry McGinnis about her.
“She’s a strange one,” Barry said.
“Well,” I said.
“Fucking her?”
“You could say that.”
“I had a feeling,” Barry said. “Well, fucking is a good thing. There are plenty of fuck opportunities around here.”
“She’s kinky,” I said.
Barry had this look on his face. “Really?”
I knew that look. “You didn’t fuck her, did you?” I asked.
“Well,” Barry said, drinking his beer. “Not exactly. Look. Okay. This was last year. It was two a.m., the bar had closed, she was sitting in my car with me. We made out, she was reaching down my pants. Then she stops and says, ‘I can’t.’ ‘You can’t?’ She said, ‘I can’t.’ And that was that. There’s always been this strange tension between us since. So,” he asked, “how kinky is she?”
I told him.
“Wow,” Barry said. “Hey, it’s my birthday next week. Big party at my place. Do bring Alexia.”
“Don’t get any ideas.”
“I never have ideas.”
***
Alexia called the next day. “I guess you should know something about me.”
“You’re an alien?”
“Sometimes I think so,” she laughed. “No. I mean. I’m manic depressive, I mean.”
“Who isn’t?”
“I’m serious. I get into these bad funks sometimes. That’s why I haven’t gone to class.”
“It’s not me?” I asked.
“A little bit, I suppose,” she replied. “It’s mostly me. My screwed-up head. Do you want to come over?”
“Of course I do.”
“In maybe an hour? I need to straighten up a bit.”
“An hour,” I said.
An hour later, I was there.
I kissed her; it wasn’t a long one—she pulled back.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” I said.
She had the fridge stocked with beer, and we sat on the couch and had a few. The TV was on, no sound. It was an awkward moment again.
“I need someone,” she said. “I’m not sure if now is the right time.”
“I’m never sure,” I said. “I need someone, too. We all do, right? That’s what I’m told.”
“I’m twenty-eight and I feel like I haven’t done shit with my life. Okay, okay, so I’m getting my Masters, but so what. Me and a million people. I have all these things in my head that I want to do. I want to write novels like you. I have novels in my head. I just don’t know how to write them. And movies. I have screenplays in my head, whole movies.”
“Just sit down at your computer and write them,” I said.
“Easy for you to say. Maybe you can do that. I can’t. I tried, I mean I really tried. I can’t. And that’s what drives me crazy. That and a zillion other things. I really do want to make movies. I have a camera. It’s hidden away, you haven’t seen it. I have a camera, I have ideas, I want to make movies. Write books. Compose songs. Maybe even act, you know? So many things. But I’ll never do these things.”
“You don’t know that.”
“That’s what the little voice in my head says. The Devil on my shoulder. ‘Alexia, stop fooling yourself, you could never do those things.’ And my parents, they don’t care—they think it’s all silly. ‘Alexia, an artist? How sweet.’ They don’t even think much about my getting an MA. ‘You already have a Bachelor’s, Alexia, why waste your time further?’ They just want me to get married. Before I’m thirty. ‘You need to get married soon, you know,’ my mother says. You know, you know—when I told my mother about you, when I said, ‘I met this great guy,’ she said, ‘Is he husband material?’ You know what I said?”
“He’s a pervert, Mom!”
“I’m the pervert. ‘No,’ I said, ‘he may be for someone else, Mother, but he’s not Jewish.’ ‘Not Jewish,’ my Mother said, ‘why are you wasting your time, Alexia?’ And that’s just it, Nicky—wasting time. I’m always wasting time. I don’t mean you. I mean in general, my life in general—I always feel like I’m wasting my time! I should be—doing something else, I think. I envy you, in your way, how you’re always spending your time writing this and that. This is what makes me so depressed—I feel like I’m getting old and I’ve done nothing.”
“You’re not old.”
“I feel like it,” she said. “And yes, I need to get married, right? Find a nice Jewish man who’ll take care of me, and bare his fucking children for him. Lose my virginity, keep my secret desires hidden, for surely he’ll be offended. And I won’t have to work. He’ll take care of me, I’ll stay home and raise the kids. OH FUCK NICKY I DON’T WANT THAT KIND OF FUCKING LIFE! THAT’S NOT ME!! BUT WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?!? MY PARENTS EXPECT THIS OF ME! MY WHOLE FAMILY DOES!! ‘WHEN IS ALEXIA GOING TO GET HER HEAD STRAIGHT AND MARRY AND START A FAMILY LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE DO???’”
I held her. She hit my chest with her fists...not hard.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, wiping tears.
“It’s all right,” I said.
“It’s not all right. You didn’t come over for this.”
“No, no, it’s all right.”
“You came here to fuck. So let’s fuck.”
“You don’t seem in the right—”
“No,” she said, “I want to fuck.”
We went to the bed, took some of our clothes off, kissed a little. She wasn’t into it, I wasn’t into it.
We lay there.
“Barry McGinnis is having a birthday party next week,” I said.
“How old’s he going to be?”
“Forty-eight, I think,” I said.
“I thought he was fifty.”
“I’m not sure.”
“You know what,” she said.
“What?”
“I’m so pissed off at my whole family, everything, all of it,” she said. “Fuck my heritage, fuck tradition. I feel like losing my virginity. Do you want to do that? Fuck my pussy? You can if you want.”
“I’d like that,” I said. “I never deflowered a virgin.”
She laughed. “That sounded so silly, ‘I never deflowered a virgin.’”
“It’s true.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re melodramatic, sometimes?”
“No.”
“You are,” she said. “Deflower on.”
I got on top of her.
“Wait,” Alexia said.
“What is it?”
“I can’t.”
“I have condoms in my car,” I said.
“It’s not that,” she said. “I’m scared all of the sudden,” she said. “I can’t.”
“Well,” I said, “okay.”
I rolled off her.
“Nicky, I’m sorry.”
“It’s
all right.”
“It was a wild moment in my head.”
“I know.”
“I’ll suck you off,” she said.
***
I woke up to the sound of shattering—something. Breaking. And cries. Alexia. She was cursing, and sobbing. In the kitchen. I went to her. There were broken plates and glasses all over the floor; Alexia was naked, standing there, her feet bleeding. Her face streaked with tears. She just looked at me. She cried out, and broke the rest of the plates.
I went to her, cautious. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I need help,” she whispered.
I held onto her, and took her to the living. She was trailing blood on the floor. I went to the bedroom, found her robe, brought it to her.
“My medicine,” she said.
“What medicine?”
“You need to call my brother,” she said. “It’s bad.”
“What? What?”
“Just call my brother, he’ll know what to do.”
She gave me a number, and I called. An office. I told the man on the other line I was a friend of Alexia’s— “She told me to call—”
“She’s at home?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I’ll be there.”
Half an hour later, a man in his early thirties showed up, in a suit. He looked a little like Alexia. Alexia was curled up on the couch. He went to her, and helped her up.
“Come now,” he said, “everything’s okay.”
I felt stupid standing there.
“It’s okay,” her brother told me. “It happens. I can handle it from here.”
And they left me there. Alexia and her brother departed in his car, and I was alone in her place, with broken plates and glasses and a bad energy lingering.
I tip-toed through the kitchen, like a mine field, and got myself a beer. I needed a beer. And another. She had Vodka, and I had some of that. I waited. Weren’t they coming back? It was night. I finished the Vodka and beer and I was drunk and went to sleep. I dreamt Alexia’s ghost came to visit me. “Hello, Nicky, I’m dead.” I woke, sweating. I went back to sleep. I kept thinking she’d come in any minute, and join me, and we could make love. In the morning, I was still alone. I took a shower, washed up. In the bathroom cabinet, I found a large assortment of pills. I didn’t know what they were all for. I knew what Prozac was for.
I remembered her brother’s number and called it, told him who I was. “I was just wondering if she’s okay,” I said. “I’m worried.”
“Oh, she’s just fine,” her brother said. “I took her to the hospital.”
“The hospital?”
“Yes. It happens sometimes. They bandaged her feet. She’ll be okay. She’ll be out in a few days. She has her medication. You’re a friend of hers?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a nice friend.”
I locked her place up, and went home.
THREE.
I went to Barry’s birthday party alone.
Barry’s party was well-attended—faculty from the school, students, writers, odd friends here and there. I drank, and I intended to get quite drunk. There were plenty of drugs going around, mostly pot and speed and I heard somewhere that someone had acid, but I couldn’t find the acid. I think Barry was on acid—he was acting like it—and he’d done a lot of speed as well.
This is where I connected with Hanna.
Hanna was in the same class with me as Alexia, plus another class, and I’d never really taken note of her. She had tattoos, punk-style short hair dyed red, green, and blue, and wore baggy non-descript clothes. At the party, however, she wore a low-cut, short dress, showing a good portion of her milky white skin and assorted tats. Some time during the party, a good four hours into it, we started talking, and when we weren’t talking, she was staring at me from across the party. She was pretty drunk (and on acid, I found out later) and I wondered what the sudden interest was. Well, I didn’t care. I found myself sitting on the outside stairs and talking with her, and we got closer, mentioning how we liked each other, and then we were kissing.
“Oh,” she said, looking down. “Oh, I’m drunk.”
“Me too.”
“Kiss me again, man.”
I did.
“This is funny,” I said. “I had no idea you liked me.”
“Either did I. I just found out tonight. Maybe it’s the acid.”
“You have acid?”
“I took acid. You want to fuck me?”
“Yeah.”
“We need to find a place to fuck.”
We searched out and discovered Barry, who was swaying about, a beer in both hands.
“Barry,” I said, “we need a place to fuck.”
“Well,” Barry said, “you should use the guest room.”
We were all hanging onto each other, so we wouldn’t fall.
“Thanks,” Hanna said, and kissed Barry. He kissed her back. Then they were kissing quite passionately.
I smiled. “Maybe we should have a three-some.”
“Hey,” Barry said, “I’m there.”
“Really?” Hanna said. “God, Dr. McGinnis, I’ve been wanting to fuck you for a long time.”
The three of us went to the guest room. It was dark, and we fell to the bed. Barry and I were all over Hanna, undressing her, kissing her, touching her. Hanna kept saying how much she wanted us both. Barry sat up and said, “I can’t do this. What am I doing?”
“What?” Hanna said.
“If my wife walked in, she’d kill me,” he said. “I’m in enough trouble as it is.”
The last I saw his wife, she was lying in the grass, on acid, staring at the stars.
“Damn,” Hanna said.
“Some other time,” Barry said, and kissed her. He left.
“Come here and fuck me,” Hanna said, and I got on top of her. After a minute, she said, “Wait!”
“What is it?”
She got up and ran to the bathroom, closing the door. I listened, heard her throwing up. I left the bedroom and re-joined the party, which was starting to scatter at this point. Barry’s wife was still on the grass and Barry was snorting a line of speed in the living room.
“Back so soon?” Barry asked.
“Hanna’s sick,” I said.
“Ah, ah,” he sniffed. “Well, really, look, Nicky, this threesome sounds like fun, we have to do it a different time.”
I suddenly realized I didn’t think sharing a woman with Barry, as much as I liked him, would be my thing.
I made myself a tequila tonic, and went outside. I sat on the stairs.
Hanna joined me. Her dress was back on. “Sorry bout that.”
“You okay?”
“I’m okay.”
“Sure?”
“It happens. I’ve puked before.”
“Can I have a kiss?”
“I puked.”
“That’s okay.”
We kissed. She didn’t taste like anything bad.
“The party seems to be ending,” I said.
“Parties end, you go home.”
“I’m too drunk to drive.”
“I can drive.”
“You’re on acid.”
“I’m coming down,” she said. “That puke sobered me up. I can drive, believe me. You want me to drive you home?”
“That’d be nice.”
We said our good-byes, and got into her car, a small two-seater.
“You want to come home with me?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
She lived in the graduate housing section on campus, a studio apartment, really, which was packed with books, CDs, clothes, a water bed, and a Fender electric guitar—not to mention a single gold fish in a bowl that, Hanna told me, had no name. It was around three in the morning when we got there.
“I feel so weird,” Hanna said, “and I feel so good.”
We lay on the waterbed, kissed and touched.
“Does my goldfish look weird to you?” she asked.
“Looks like a goldfish.”
“I think he may be getting sick,” she said. “I’ve had him all year.”
I remembered that it was almost the end of the school year—I’d entered the program in the Spring semester. Summer was close. I hadn’t felt this since high school—summer, no school, what to do? I wanted Hanna.
“I know this is gonna sound bad, man,” she told me, “but I’m not sure if we should fuck.”
“Oh boy,” I said.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I mean I wanna fuck, of course I wanna fuck, but I’m always fucking. I mean, fucking guys I just meet. I have to stop this. I started this two years ago. I was raped. After I was raped, I just fucked any guy who walked by. It messes with my head. I’m sorry.”
I was actually tired, and suggested we sleep. Hanna couldn’t sleep—the acid was still in her, and she’d done some speed.
We undressed. I liked looking at her tattoos—a dragon on her back, a snake on her left arm, a spider above her right tit, assorted butterflies and black roses on her hip, near her cunt, and on her legs. It was four-thirty in the morning.
I got on top of her.
***
We woke up early that afternoon, fucked again, dressed, and went onto campus to get something to eat. Slices of thick pizza, ice cold soda. I needed a beer.
“Damn, you know,” Hanna said, “I have this paper to write.”
“On?”
“Comparison of the poetry of Sharon Olds and Carolyn Forsche.”
“I love both their work.”
“You know their work?”
“Of course I know their work,” I said.
“Not too many guys...” She shrugged.
“When’s the paper due?”
“Two days.”
“Two days?”
“Twelve pages.”
“Two days,” I said.
“I always wait until the last minute,” she said. “And I always get A’s. I’m an A student, ask Dr. McGinnis.”
“A as in ass?”
“What?”
“Guess you need to work on that paper today,” I said.
“Tomorrow.” She finished the last bite of her pizza. “I want to fuck you some more today.”
***
Hanna was twenty-two, used to play in a rock band, was now an MA candidate in comparative lit (obviously). She was worried about her goldfish, but the goldfish seemed fine to me, as far as goldfish go. Our sex that day was fun and normal—we kept to several positions, we didn’t do anything kinky. I liked being with her, enclosed in her room, the world just the two us. The world was fucked, and Hanna knew this as well as me. She’d had some bad experiences—the rape, yes, and a short stint as a heroin addict when she was a teenager, and the death of a brother by a drive-by shooting.
“I’ve seen your novel at the bookstore,” she told me, “but I haven’t read it. I’d like to.”
I gave her a copy.
That evening, I decided I should leave. I needed a change of clothes, a shower; I needed to go home and be alone for a little while, maybe write. Hanna needed to work on her paper.
“Don’t worry,” she said, hugging me, “I’ll get it done on time. I always do.”
“Good, good.”
“Well.”
“Well.”
“I always hate this part,” she said. “You want to see me again?”
“Yes,” I said. “When?”
She shrugged. “Let’s just flow.”
***
There were a number of messages waiting for me at home. I lived in a small apartment five blocks from the beach—I’d moved here after getting the fellowship, because I’d always wanted to live near the beach. I showered, put on a robe, and checked my messages. One was from my editor at The USA Viewpoint. He wanted to know if I’d be interested in going out in the field for an assignment. The place would be Rwanda, where a civil war was presently happening.
I sat down and wondered about this. My opinion essays for the magazine were based on what I saw on TV, what I heard on the news, what I thought about the world from my safe spot.
I’d written an essay last year, and sent it in to The USA Viewpoint on a whim, and the editor there accepted it. I’d written several other pieces for the magazine since.
Rwanda. Africa.
***
I went by Barry’s office. He was going through his mail.
“Nicky,” he said, “this was left on my door.”
It was a small envelope, to me from Hanna.
“Look,” he said, “I’m not your mail service.”
“Sorry.”
“No prob.”
I told him about the deal with Rwanda.
“Jesus,” he said, “go for it. You’re a writer, right? Think of the material!”
***
“Our Africa correspondent is having surgery,” my editor told me on the phone. “I thought of you.”
“I’ve never done something like this before,” I said.
“That’s why I thought of you. We need a fresh perspective. You go there, you have your press credentials, you check out the situation, you report back, give us some of your thoughts, thirty-five hundred words, a grand for the whole thing. Stay there a week, two weeks. Let’s say two weeks. Fifteen hundred dollars for the piece, we pay for all expenses. You don’t want it, I’ll find someone else.”
“I want it,” I said. “But aren’t there a lot of people being killed there?”
“It’s war. A bloody war. People are killed in wars.”
I guess the idea of being Hemingway was too tempting.
***
Dear Nicky,
I’m leaving this letter on Dr. McGinnis’ door because I don’t have your number and I don’t know how to reach you. We should’ve exchanged phone numbers! What was I thinking? I need you! God, I can’t believe what’s going on. All I can think about is you being here, holding me in your arms and making me feel safe. I read your novel and it made me cry. The ending was so sad. I haven’t felt so sad in a long time. It is a good kind of sad, the kind of sad that makes you think about love and the world. I wrote my paper and now I just want you here inside of me. PLEASE CALL IMMEDIATELY!
Love,
Hanna
***
She left her number, and I called.
“I knew it’d be you,” she said.
“Psychic?”
“Just hope.”
“The letter was nice,” I said.
“Just get over here,” she said.
***
“I don’t know why I didn’t notice you before,” Hanna said, after sex. “I can’t get your face out of my mind now. Even looking at your face, I also see it in my mind.”
“So you see two faces.”
“Someone else noticed you, I could tell. Alexia.”
“I know.”
“You slept with her?”
“A few times, yes.”
“Are you still?”
“Well, no,” I said.
“She’s pretty.”
“Yes.”
“I’d fuck her.”
“You’re bi?”
“When the time is right,” she said. “I was gay, for a year. Before I was raped. I had a girlfriend. We lived together. We were in a band together.”
“You loved her?”
“I loved her very much,” she squeezed me. “Right now, I’m straight as an arrow, with Nicky Bayless. Tell me what she was like.”
“Alexia?”
“Yeah. What happened to her anyway?”
“She’s—sorting out her life.”
“Aren’t we all? What was she like?”
“She’s a nice person.”
“I mean in bed, man.”
I laughed. “You won’t believe it.”
“I won’t?”
I told her everything about Alexia—except the broken plates and glasses.
“I believe that,” Hanna said. “I hear women from the Mediterranean are like that too. Not the golden shower stuff, just—you know. You know what? I’ve never done anal sex.”
“No?”
“Nope. For no reason, really. It just never came up. Huh—it’s weird, I guess.”
“Well,” I said.
She smiled. “You wanna say, ‘Can I deflower you?’”
Too much of Alexia was inside my head, and I tried to push her out. But she was there. “Yeah,” I said.
“I don’t know,” Hanna said.
I pulled her close to me.
She said, “You, you.”
I grabbed her short colored hair and kissed her.
“Tell me,” Hanna said, “what you wanna do to me.”
“Your ass,” I said, like I was delirious, “I want your ass.”
“Like Alexia?”
“Like you.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” she said.
I played with her butt, fingers exploring. Hanna’s ass was meatier than Alexia’s, an alabaster white. I went down on her ass, my tongue pressing against her virgin pucker. I asked if she liked this and she said it felt nice. Next, I slid a finger into her. She liked this very much. I finger-fucked her for a good half hour, my other hand at her cunt, and I made her come.
“This is so good,” she said.
“Do you feel ready to be fucked in the ass?”
“The finger is nice,” she said, “but a whole cock?”
I took my finger out of her, and put it in my mouth. “You’re yummy.”
“Let’s do it.”
“You have Vaseline?”
“Cabinet, bathroom.”
I went to the bathroom, got the Vaseline, applied some to my cock, to her ass, and tried to get in her. Hanna was on her stomach, butt up. I got the head of my cock in her when she cried out, “Oh shit oh crap, no! OWW! FUCK! TAKE IT OUT!”
I removed myself.
She turned around. “It’s not me, it’s just not me. A tongue, a finger, sure, but not a fucking dick, man.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “you really wanted me that way.”
“I’ll live.”
“I want to please you.”
“You do.”
“Lie back,” a hand pushing my chest.
Hanna took me in her mouth. She deep-throated me, her nose pressed into my pubic hair. I immediately shot into her mouth.
“I usually don’t like the taste of come,” she told me. “Yours is okay.”
“Just okay?”
“Wanna taste?” She moved to kiss me.
“Hey, it is okay.”
“I really did cry at the end of your book,” she said later.
“So did I,” I said. “When I was writing it.”
“You’ve felt pain.”
“Sure.”
“Pain is sexy.”
“Never thought about it like that.”
“I don’t mean physical pain. I mean here,” she touched her head, “and here,” touching her chest, “the pain inside. Maybe I mean sadness. Maybe I’m a cerebral masochist.”
“I like that: ‘cerebral masochist.’”
“I love you,” she said.
“You do?”
“Is it okay to say that?”
“We hardly know each other.”
“I fall in love pretty fast. Don’t say ‘I love you’ back. Because you don’t.”
***
We spent every day together the next week. It was very nice, as nice things go; the semester was coming to a close and summer was here and I was going to Rwanda.
“I don’t want you to go,” Hanna said.
“I can’t pass it up,” I said.
“You’ve seen the shit on CNN. You know what’s going on over there.”
“Yes. Yes, I know.”
“You could die!”
“I won’t die.”
“You could.”
“But I won’t.”
“You’ll leave me.”
“I’ll be back in two weeks.”
“Two weeks,” Hanna said, “will feel like two years for me. I love you.”
“You’ll wait for me?”
“Like a woman waiting for Johnny Soldier to come back from the war? Do I have any fucking choice, man?”
We held each other for a long time, in the darkness of her apartment.
“Summer sucks,” she said. “Summer always sucks. I always have the shittiest summers. I’ve never had a happy summer in all my fucking life.”
FOUR.
Africa—
What I kept thinking about, the whole way there, and when I was there, and when I came back, was Hanna’s goldfish, swimming in its fish tank; it’d started to swim sideways and, sideways, float to the top of the clean water. Hanna kept looking at her fish and saying, “I think the poor little fucker is dying.” There were spots forming on its body, a small body. “I think he’s dying,” she said softly: “I’ll miss him.”
***
Rows of bodies.
As we drove to the border at Goma, Zaire, it looked like the bodies extended for miles. Covered in abandoned cloth or makeshift mats, or not covered at all, the dead were lined alongside the road as if they were awaiting turns into the passage of nowhere, and nowhere was where they were; age, sex, clothing didn’t differentiate—they were from every class, from the poor who were always poor to the elite now running away and living among the impecunious. I saw an albino black child dead among the populace of the dead. Other small children stood alone, crying and confused, looking around for lost parents or siblings.
There was another line, that of the living, the migration that had begun; the search for safety in a neighboring nation, the fear of the future behind them like a stalker in a city street.
Cholera was killing them, mostly. They were getting it from the infected waters where their dead still floated—ebbing flesh and bodily waste. How could they drink that when they knew how polluted it must’ve been? Or did they know? But in this heat, dehydrated and hungry, perhaps they didn’t care. It was one large and hazardous chance to run from your nation, not knowing your future. What was another chance? Something is always out there to kill you. Before I came here, I'd gotten full scale inoculations for typhoid and yellow fevers, and cholera. But something else could kill me, someone else, maybe the emptiness of my own heart.
***
I kept thinking about Hanna looking at her dying fish floating to the top of the clean water in the fish tank. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” she’d said.
“He’s playing a joke on you,” I’d said. “He’s doing it to get attention. When you leave, he swims normally, he swims happily; he doesn't have a care in the world.”
***
The French soldiers brought in bulldozers to dig large holes in the earth to be used as mass graves. The bodies were fished out of the river and lake, gathered from the ground, piled up four, five feet high, pushed by the ‘dozers into the graves.
What a way to be buried, I thought, your body lodged as a number in a book, your name lost and forgotten, left to rot with hundreds of your neighbors. One day thousands of years from now archeologists might find these graves. I wondered what they'd think.
“Imagine what it would be like if they burned them,” I heard someone with a British accent say, “imagine that smell.”
I adjusted my mask.
***
I took five showers that first day back home, America. I couldn't get the stench of all those bodies off me, the fetor of decay. There were bodies dancing in my head, and I wanted to dance with them. It lingered like I don’t know what. I told my Hanna I was sorry, that I stank of Rwanda’s dead.
“You smell fine,” she said, “what are you talking about?”
***
I was acting strangely and people were telling me so. On the one hand, I wasn’t talking about Rwanda. People sent me e-mail, called me, asked me, “So what was it like?” I was very minimal in response. “It was hot, smelly, and disgusting,” said I, and I said no more. Maybe they thought I would come back morose, with decrepit tales in the apocalyptic language of the slaughterhouse. But I was cracking jokes, sending people strange e-mail, finishing up a new novel, writing book reviews and other things, and drinking.
I was drinking and not sleeping.
Well, I’d get in a few hours of sleep.
I’d wake up and start drinking at eight, nine AM. I called people on the phone, people all over, to talk about anything, anything but Rwanda. I joked around a lot. I had bags under my eyes. I wanted to go out and party, to dance, to raise hell. Those dead bodies were dancing in my head and I wanted to slam dance with them all, the fuckers.
Something wasn’t right.
And Hanna was scared. This wasn’t the guy she fell in love with. She was becoming distant as I became more lonely.
***
The next week, I calmed down a little. I was feeling better. I could sort this out now. I went down to the beach and listened to the waves crash to the shore. I waded in the water. I think I saw what looked like a sting ray, or maybe that was a jelly fish, in the water. The news that morning said something about being careful, the heat was bringing them closer into shore. I didn’t care. I liked the feel of the water on me, splashing on me, salt water taste in my mouth, and not the taste of death in the air, death on my tongue, on the roof of my mouth like some kind of jam. I could’ve been that goldfish in the clean water now, moving sideways, half-dead—and I knew I was, I was something that moved sideways in life, and floated to the surface with little time left. But in the sun and the sea I suddenly felt at ease, I felt good, when I hadn’t for the past two weeks. For a moment, I felt a strange and soothing calmness, like everything would be all right, and it would be all right for the rest of my life. But as the waves pulled away and went back out to sea, that feeling was only for a moment, like everything else.
FIVE.
“Fuck her,” Bart said, “I want to watch you fuck the shit out of her.”
Lying naked on the bed, Randi smiled. She was on acid and pot and Vodka and coke and I don’t know what else. I was with them, the both of them, in Bart’s apartment, and I wasn’t quite sure how I got here. We were at the pub, but it was summer, and there wasn’t the usual crowd—there wasn’t any Barry McGinnis or Hanna or even Alexia. Bart found it funny that I was sleeping with Hanna.
“Funny? Why is that so funny?” I asked.
“She doesn’t seem your type,” he said.
“My type?”
“Or Alexia,” he said.
“What’s my type?” I asked.
“You tell me. Take Randi, for example.”
She was a few feet away, talking to someone, and she couldn’t hear us.
“Okay,” I said.
“She looks good.”
“Yes.”
“Nice ass.”
“Yes.”
“Nice tits.”
“Yeah.”
“She’s fuckable,” Bart said.
“I imagine so.”
“Sucks cock GOOD,” Bart said.
“I imagine so.”
“Is she your type?”
“She could be my type,” I said.
“You want to fuck her?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“Nick,” he said, “I like watching guys fuck her. It really turns me on.”
Then we were at his place, and Randi got undressed and sat on the bed. We’d dropped acid before leaving the bar, and Randi was doing coke on the way.
“Who would’ve thought,” Bart said, and laughed, and slapped me on the back.
I wasn’t sure what he was getting at.
“C’mon, fuck her.” Bart pulled up a chair.
Randi looked good. They were both beautiful and blonde and tan. While Bart was an MFA poet, Randi worked as a hostess of some upscale club downtown, and I knew she made good money at it. I could not help but feel aroused, especially looking at the blonde pubes between her legs. Randi saw what I was looking at and opened her legs. Her finger touched her clit, and made a circular motion. “You like what you see, Nicky?” she said. I did. I went down on her, engulfed her, got a mouthful, got a taste, ate her. The acid was hitting me pretty hard at this point. I put my tongue in her as far as I could get it. I was about to turn her over when Randi started pulling at my pants, saying she wanted my cock. Bart was getting a real kick out of this, sitting in the chair, drinking a Heineken. I was on my knees on the bed, and Randi was reaching around, cupping my balls with one hand, squeezing my ass with the other, and sucking me off. Then I had a condom on my cock, and I was fucking her. I fucked her several ways, and came. She peeled the condom off, and emptied my come into her mouth. Some of the sperm spilled out the side of her lips, going down her neck and shoulder.