The Other Half

by Jess Whitecroft

  That night I lie awake for several hours, listening for the creak of his feet on the floor. I almost get impatient, actively wanting him to throw open the door, say something like “That’s it – I can’t take it any more,” and toss himself – shivering – into my bed.

  I don’t want sex. Every sexual feeling comes with a jolt right now, like being zapped in the nuts as surely as though I was undergoing conversion therapy. Every flicker of lust reminds me of that last thundering fuck on the living room floor, and all of its attendant layers of guilt and self-flagellation. Right now I need another lover like I need a hole in the head, but I could really stand someone to hug at night.

  He doesn’t come, and the days get even shorter and the nights even colder. Mom blows up my phone so frequently that I finally cave and say I’ll be in New York for Thanksgiving, even though I’d rather coat my balls with paint thinner than face the possibility of seeing Sebastian again.

  But I have to do it. Wednesday afternoon sees me standing in my old hallway with the key in my hand, thinking about the last time I was here. I feel like I’m about to throw up. I knock on the door. There’s no reply, so I knock again, then I hear footsteps and there he is.

  His beauty catches me off guard. I’ve been telling myself he’s insipid and over groomed, but it’s easy to do that at a distance. Not so much when the real thing is standing there in front of you, looking worn but still willowy in the same ivory sweater he was wearing when he came padding in barefoot like a penitent and said, “I think we should get married.” His lips are cracked and there are dark shadows under his deep-set blue eyes, but he wears suffering as well as he wears Prada.

  “You didn’t have to knock,” he says. “You live here.”

  I don’t, I almost say, but there’s no point. I just want to get the things I came to pick up and get the hell out.

  “Chris,” he says, and reaches out to touch me, but I keep walking into the apartment, into the place where we were supposed to live happily ever after. I think if he tries to touch me again I’ll scream, or cry, or vomit.

  I shake my head and go into the bedroom. The bed is unmade, but I try not to think about that, because the pain is sharp and ugly and makes a mockery of those wispy presentiments of a day when I might not feel it all the time. Quickly, I dump some clothes into a holdall, ransack the bathroom for my beard-trimmer and electric toothbrush. I can hear him crying quietly but deliberately in the living room and barely restrain myself from just stomping in there and screaming at him, demanding to know why he won’t stop torturing me. He did this. Not me.

  “I love you,” he says, when I walk back in. That’s him all over. Goes straight for the emotional jugular.

  “No,” I say. “You don’t.”

  “Please, Chris. I made a—”

  “—mistake? Like the last time?” I glance over at the bookshelves and see that he’s been busy, packing boxes. I look into the box and see that its full of the kind of things I used to roll my eyes at him for reading. Pastel spined self-help books full of fluffy affirmations and white-people ‘spirituality’ jacked from Buddhism.

  “What’s going on here?” I say.

  He stands next to the couch, looking forlorn and lovely. “I figured you’d want me to leave, so I started packing…”

  I reach into the box and pull out a book I recognize as mine. Into Thin Air.

  “Oh, that’s my copy,” he says.

  “Is it?”

  “Yes. I bought it at Heathrow, in London. Look at the back. The price is in pounds.”

  It is, but I’m pissed now, and I can’t keep it in any longer. The spine of the book is pristine, and when I ruffle the pages under my nose they still smell like new. “What were you using it as? A coaster? You haven’t even read it. You only bought it because you read some Buzzfeed listicle about books that everyone should read at least once.”

  Sebastian clenches his fists, but doesn’t rise to the bait. “I read it.”

  “Really? Okay. What was the name of the American climber they all bagged on for hauling a cappuccino machine up Everest?”

  His blue gaze turns glacial. “You can be a real asshole sometimes. You know that?”

  “I know. I’m working on it. How about you?”

  He sighs. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Chris.”

  “It does. You did this.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.”

  “No,” I say. “You’re not, because if you were sorry you would never have done it twice. If you loved me you would never have done it twice. Once is a mistake. Twice is unforgivable.”

  He’s quiet for a long, cold minute. I toss the book into my bag, trying to provoke him. I want him to scream at me and protest, because watching him just stand there and take it as a clear admission of his guilt. “Can I at least try to explain?” he says.

  “This should be good. Should I make popcorn?”

  Sebastian’s permafrost gaze hardens another couple of degrees, but he ignores my nasty remark. “I know it’s no excuse,” he says. “But I was starting to feel like the wedding plans were eating our entire lives, and Marco was—”

  “—Marco?” I hold up a hand. “Marco?”

  “Yes. That’s his name.”

  I feel sick again. “Italian?”

  “Yes.”

  I read somewhere that smiling suppresses your gag reflex, so I smile. And it breaks something in me, because suddenly I’m not only smiling but laughing. The laughter boils out of me in a Colin Clive cackle, because it all makes sense now. I’ve seen the thing I was missing all along.

  Sebastian looks pretty and confused, but I’m done. I don’t want to be in the same room as him, the same building, the same city.

  “What’s so funny?” he says.

  I pick up the holdall and head for the door. “I was going to marry you,” I say. “I was going to put a ring on your finger and promise to spend the rest of my life with you. And the whole time I missed out on so many vital little details about who you are, like how you’re so much better in bed when you’re feeling guilty about something.”

  He gives me this wide-eyed, woodland creature expression, but I’m not buying it. I’m on a roll.

  “No, don’t look at me like that. You know what I’m talking about. The morning you left for Milan you were on fire. You fucked me like you were going away for a year, and now – my lying, cheating, unfaithful darling – now I really do know. You were already feeling guilty, weren’t you? Because you knew something was going to happen in Milan. With Marco.”

  His eyes spill over. “I tried not to…” he starts to say, but I cut him off.

  “You didn’t. Don’t you dare insult my intelligence any further than you have already.”

  There’s a devil on my shoulder prompting questions that I know will only hurt me. How long? Do you love him? When he’s inside you do you get that same lost, wandering look as you do when it’s me?

  And that’s when it hits me. The question I have to ask whether I want to or not. “Were you safe?” I ask. “At least tell me you were safe while you were stepping out on me.”

  He hesitates. The bottom drops out of my stomach, and I’m done. I can’t take any more. I hear him calling after me as I run towards the elevators, slam the button and hold it in just long enough for the doors to close.

  I’m shaking. I drop the holdall at my feet and cover my mouth with both hands – tight – one on top of the other, so that the scream comes out in a squeak at the back of my throat.

  Forget Thanksgiving. I’m going to have to blow it off. I can’t stand to be in this city a moment longer. I think of Jody all alone in that cold house, shivering like a mountaineer caught in the Death Zone, and all I want right now is to be back in New Hampshire.

  7

  Jody

  The day before Thanksgiving I’m on my knees in a trailer, with a stranger’s dick in my mouth. It’s safe to say my porn debut is not going to plan.

  When I showed up at Dawn’s y
ou could have flown a flag off the end of my dong. I was scrubbed down and ready for anything, especially Mr. Sparkles, but instead of Dawn at the door there was this big, biker-looking guy named Leon.

  It turns out Leon has wormed his way pretty deep into Dawn’s heart over the past few weeks, because now he’s calling the fucking shots as to what she is and isn’t allowed to do on camera.

  “You don’t touch her with your dick,” he said. “You never touch her with your dick. Is that clear?”

  I was about to say that was going to make for some boring ass porn, but then Dawn jumped in with a compromise. “I can still fuck you with a dildo,” she said. “Because it’s not technically part of my body.”

  Dildo, she said. Not Mr. Sparkles. Right then I knew that Leon was going to suck all the fun out of this thing.

  “I do you from behind,” she said. “While you suck his cock. Like a spitroast, but with a twist, because it’s a man in the middle. See?”

  I saw, and then I saw a whole lot more than I wanted to, because Leon dropped his drawers right there and literally slapped that thing on the table. “Take it for a test drive,” he said. “I’ve never had my dick sucked by a guy before and Dawnie wants to film it.”

  So it’s Dawnie now, and ‘Dawnie’s’ new boyfriend is pooping the party in a big way, because instead of making a fun little pegging video I’m going down on the guy and trying to look like I like it, when really I’m busy trying to figure out the tattoo that arches across his pubic bone. The Old English letters have bled so badly its impossible to make out. Buck it? Fuck it? It doesn’t help that his wrist obscures half of it, because he’s holding the root of his cock and pointing the thing directly down my throat. Doesn’t trust me to touch him with my hands, because that’s ‘too much gay for one day.’ He has no sense of adventure and I have no idea what she sees in him. It can’t be his dick, which is about as interesting to me as a banana right now. It’s a good size, and most importantly it’s clean, but there’s no thrill in sucking him off. Usually if I guy said ‘I’ve never done this before’ I’d be into it. I’d take it as a personal challenge to make his eyes roll back in his head, but not Leon. He’s rigid, and not in a good way. There’s going to be no fun and games here, no working a finger behind his balls and getting into those hot little straight-boy oohs and ahhs when they realize you’re about to start lapping at their assholes. Not him. He’s far too heterosexual for that shit.

  “Lift your hips some more, baby,” says Dawn, and he obeys, almost gagging me. He moves his hand and I see the other half of the tattoo. Finally it makes sense. Suck it and see. What a fucking laugh riot this guy is.

  “Come on, Jody,” says Dawn. “Get into it. You look like you’re waiting in line for a bus.”

  I spit out the cock in my mouth. “Clearly I’ve been waiting for buses all wrong my whole life.”

  “You know what I mean. You look bored.”

  I am bored. Your new boyfriend is about as sexy as a kielbasa hooked up to a nine volt battery. Obviously I don’t say that, because I have a house falling down around my ears and I could really use the porno cash. Leon impatiently pushes his dick in my face and I go down again, trying to fan the flames of my enthusiasm with happy thoughts of more interesting man-on-man encounters than this. Like the time when I was seventeen and my brother passed out so cold that me and his best friend gave one another sneaky handjobs, giggling while we listened to him snore. Or that cute blond singer from that punk band from Rhode Island. He was an adorable little freak who begged me to piss in my jeans – just literally wet myself – so that he could strip them off and lick me clean from knees to navel. Oh yeah. That’s the good shit. I’m going method with this performance, and I’m almost starting to enjoy myself, when Chris’s foot pops into the parade of happy memories.

  No, seriously. There I am, sucking away, dutifully thinking of friendly cocks and velvety assholes, and then suddenly I’m thinking of the other night when I was touching his foot through his sock. Only this time I have a penis in my mouth and that kicks my fantasy muscles into overdrive, because I’m picturing myself crawling up between Chris’s thick thighs, yanking down his pants and taking him in my mouth. And he’s not like this stiff I’m currently blowing. He’s groaning and bucking and grateful, maybe even shocked to find his dick still works after Elrond bit such a huge chunk out of his heart, but he’s loving it. His hand is in my hair and he’s watching me moan around his cock. Oh God, Jody – yes, do it. Suck me. Suck me, honey. I need this so bad.

  I whimper, and then it ends with a bang. Well, something like a bang. I taste Leon’s come, bitter and salty all at once, and spit him out. “Jesus. Warn me when you’re going to do that.”

  Dawn sighs. “Oh my God, Leon – you’ve ruined the money shot.”

  I make my excuses, dart into Dawn’s bathroom and rinse my gums with a couple of capfuls of mouthwash. I catch sight of myself in the spotted medicine cabinet mirror. So this is what a professional cocksucker looks like. I’m still hard but I want to cry, and I’m furious with myself for feeling this way. I’m slutshaming myself for no reason; after all, they do call it a blowjob.

  I’ll lick you clean, says Chris, in my head, and here’s the next chapter of the fantasy. I’m naked on the floor in front of the fireplace and his tongue is everywhere, on my balls and my cock, rasping up the backs of my thighs and tickling behind my knees. He has my hips between his big, soft hands and he lifts me, spreads me even wider and I feel his tongue swoop across my asshole. I know he’s going to fuck me next and it’s going to be so, so good…

  I come fast and hard. As the shudders die away I clutch myself in my sticky fist and listen to the sound of my breathing in the closet sized trailer bathroom.

  “…it’s a come shot, Leon,” Dawn is saying. “The point is that they see come. You were supposed to pull out of his mouth before you jizzed…”

  Quickly, I clean up, zip up my jeans and grab my jacket from the peg by the door. I’m not sticking around for an encore. I don’t know what Leon’s refractory period is like and I don’t care to find out.

  When I get back to the house I’m surprised to find Chris is there, rummaging around in the trunk of his car.

  “Hey,” I say. “I thought you were in New York.”

  He turns and straightens up. “I was,” he said. “And then I came straight back, because it turns out that I really do not heart NY right now. Or at any time when my ex happens to be there.” He gives me a small, sad smile. “Anyway, how was your screen debut?”

  “Awful,” I say. “I was all pumped to get fucked in the ass by a girl, but I wound up going down on this Cro-Magnon joy vacuum with a pubic tattoo that said ‘Suck it and see.’”

  Chris stares at me. When he exhales his breath hangs in the air. “Are you okay?” he says, and that almost breaks me.

  “I’m fine,” I say, and nod toward the trunk. “What do you have there?”

  “Aha. Genius plan,” he says, and waves me over. It’s a brand new tent, still packed in its box.

  “We’re going camping outdoors in this weather?” I say.

  “No. We’re going camping indoors.” He pats the box. “This puppy is the tent of choice for the kind of maniacs who think that a place they call the Death Zone is a great place to camp. If this thing can provide any kind of shelter on the South Col of Everest then it’s going to have no problem keeping us toasty through a New Hampshire winter. We’ll just pitch it in the parlor and—”

  “—no.” I shock myself with the way I sound, but it’s like a metal shutter comes clanging down in my mind. Instant freakout, out of nowhere.

  Chris frowns. “Jody, are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m not sleeping in the fucking parlor. End of story.”

  “Well, I just thought it would be warmer than the living room…”

  “She died in there,” I say, half yelling like a crazy person, because I have to make him understand. What the fuck is wrong with me? A porno doesn’t go
to plan and suddenly I’m a hot mess of about five different erupting issues. I start to sob – huge, heaving sobs – and Chris doesn’t hesitate. He wraps his big arms around me and draws me into his chest, and once again it’s his total niceness that destroys me.

  “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know.”

  I bawl open-mouthed into his sweater. He shuts the trunk with one hand and leads me into the house, into the living room, which still smells like paint thinner, but at least there’s a couch. My legs are shaking so hard I think my knees might give out from under me.

  He holds me as I slowly run dry. “And I thought I was having a shitty time,” he says, running a hand over my hair. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, wiping my face with my hands. “I’m a delicate flower all of a sudden. I guess all the old pearl clutchers were right: porn does cause psychological damage.”

  Chris takes a packet of Kleenex from the inside pocket of his parka and hands it to me. “Please,” he says. “This was not about porn.”

  He’s right, of course, although sucking off Leon didn’t help. “I know, but it’s like it pushed me towards some kind of critical mass. As soon as you mentioned sleeping in the parlor I just…blew. I haven’t cried at all since she died.”

  “Well, that would explain it.”

  We sit side by side, our thighs touching. It’s quiet, and the light outside is starting to fade. All over the country right now people are baking pumpkin pies and brining turkeys, and bracing themselves to deal with racist uncles who love Donald Trump. But not here. Chris could be doing the whole thing, with table centerpieces and a family who love him and are worried about him, but he’s not.

  He came back to me instead, and the irony is that I’ve never felt so fucking thankful for someone in my life before.

  “You never told me how you met her,” he says.

  “Community college,” I say. “I got into this thing with welfare and they were gonna cut off my checks if I didn’t do something to educate myself and improve my job prospects, so I had to take a class.”