late.
“Sorry,” he said. I kissed him lightly. “Sorry.” I kissed him again. He sat up and reached for his tissue box. “Sorry.”
“Stop saying—”
“Sorry.”
I curled my chin toward the solid redness of his comforter. He asked me how I felt.
“Tired.”
I was supposed to say something about having unprotected sex. That was my job as the girl. But I didn’t want to make the accidental sex real by speaking about it. Brian curled his long body around me. “I don’t know how you work yet,” he whispered.
But he didn’t ask me to show him, and I couldn’t bring myself to volunteer unsexy lessons in my anatomy (“Just a little softer. Just a little higher. Here, let me show you”), complicating my easy attraction to Brian’s long muscles and smooth skin and the adolescent jumpiness of his perfect penis. One wants to be free during sex, to let go completely, to feel and not think. But every time I did…
After Brian came, he would kiss me softly and wipe us off with tissues and fall asleep holding me. The bathroom was the only place to go. Sometimes I touched myself as I lay on his dirty bath mat, curling my toes against his cold tile wall and filling my mind with images of busty secretaries servicing CEOs or high school teachers taking advantage of their students—the kind of cliché sexual manipulation that Jared and I had enjoyed enacting. My self-inflicted release in Brian’s bathroom left me small and shallow, a yellow bruise on a flat universe.
In bed afterward, empty enough to sleep, I would hate Brian’s arms around me and feel an ugly satisfaction when he rolled away from me in his sleep. Finally one night, I returned from the bathroom and said his name. He was on top of me right away, smoothing my hair back from my face. “Talk to me,” he said. “Please.”
I didn’t want to tell Brian, as I’d told many men, that I needed him to make me come if he came first. I didn’t want sex to be that crass and simplistic. I did need to come, but I also needed something else. Even on the rare occasions when we came together, I’d ache for Brian as soon as sleep softened his grip on my shoulders. So I said nothing in response to his pleas, knowing any attempt to put my longing into words would depress and shame me. I let Brian kiss my eyelids, quiet my spine with his fingertips, murmur that everything was all right. My high school boyfriend told me he hoped I would never cry in front of him because people look ugly when they cry. But Brian was good enough to take on my ugliness in the middle of the night, even if he had to work for ten hours the next day.
He was a Web designer for philanthropists and human rights groups. I respected his work and liked listening to him talk about it. His good work made my aimlessness acceptable. I hadn’t worked on
Fifi
since Brian and I started dating, as if I were now preparing myself for a different kind of success, one that was both easier and more successful: to marry well. It still seemed like enough, for a woman. Apparently Brian thought so, too, although I don’t think either of us was conscious of the thought. He didn’t seem the least bit troubled by my meager professional prospects. This probably should have concerned me, but all I felt was relief every time he laughed when I said that a mentally retarded and physically impaired monkey could do my job, which mostly involved alphabetizing and making change.
Given his family’s obsession with money and success—his lawyer sister calling him at midnight to talk about a big client meeting she had the next day, his father asking Brian to look over his investment spreadsheets—it was odd that Brian found my excesses endearing. He bragged to his friends that I had lived alone in Europe instead of going to college, that I drank canned beer in bed before going to sleep, that I wanted to order pizza three nights a week. I suppose it was a relief for him to know he would never have to compete with me.
“Sorry,” he said. I kissed him lightly. “Sorry.” I kissed him again. He sat up and reached for his tissue box. “Sorry.”
“Stop saying—”
“Sorry.”
I curled my chin toward the solid redness of his comforter. He asked me how I felt.
“Tired.”
I was supposed to say something about having unprotected sex. That was my job as the girl. But I didn’t want to make the accidental sex real by speaking about it. Brian curled his long body around me. “I don’t know how you work yet,” he whispered.
But he didn’t ask me to show him, and I couldn’t bring myself to volunteer unsexy lessons in my anatomy (“Just a little softer. Just a little higher. Here, let me show you”), complicating my easy attraction to Brian’s long muscles and smooth skin and the adolescent jumpiness of his perfect penis. One wants to be free during sex, to let go completely, to feel and not think. But every time I did…
After Brian came, he would kiss me softly and wipe us off with tissues and fall asleep holding me. The bathroom was the only place to go. Sometimes I touched myself as I lay on his dirty bath mat, curling my toes against his cold tile wall and filling my mind with images of busty secretaries servicing CEOs or high school teachers taking advantage of their students—the kind of cliché sexual manipulation that Jared and I had enjoyed enacting. My self-inflicted release in Brian’s bathroom left me small and shallow, a yellow bruise on a flat universe.
In bed afterward, empty enough to sleep, I would hate Brian’s arms around me and feel an ugly satisfaction when he rolled away from me in his sleep. Finally one night, I returned from the bathroom and said his name. He was on top of me right away, smoothing my hair back from my face. “Talk to me,” he said. “Please.”
I didn’t want to tell Brian, as I’d told many men, that I needed him to make me come if he came first. I didn’t want sex to be that crass and simplistic. I did need to come, but I also needed something else. Even on the rare occasions when we came together, I’d ache for Brian as soon as sleep softened his grip on my shoulders. So I said nothing in response to his pleas, knowing any attempt to put my longing into words would depress and shame me. I let Brian kiss my eyelids, quiet my spine with his fingertips, murmur that everything was all right. My high school boyfriend told me he hoped I would never cry in front of him because people look ugly when they cry. But Brian was good enough to take on my ugliness in the middle of the night, even if he had to work for ten hours the next day.
He was a Web designer for philanthropists and human rights groups. I respected his work and liked listening to him talk about it. His good work made my aimlessness acceptable. I hadn’t worked on
Fifi
since Brian and I started dating, as if I were now preparing myself for a different kind of success, one that was both easier and more successful: to marry well. It still seemed like enough, for a woman. Apparently Brian thought so, too, although I don’t think either of us was conscious of the thought. He didn’t seem the least bit troubled by my meager professional prospects. This probably should have concerned me, but all I felt was relief every time he laughed when I said that a mentally retarded and physically impaired monkey could do my job, which mostly involved alphabetizing and making change.
Given his family’s obsession with money and success—his lawyer sister calling him at midnight to talk about a big client meeting she had the next day, his father asking Brian to look over his investment spreadsheets—it was odd that Brian found my excesses endearing. He bragged to his friends that I had lived alone in Europe instead of going to college, that I drank canned beer in bed before going to sleep, that I wanted to order pizza three nights a week. I suppose it was a relief for him to know he would never have to compete with me.
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