Cleanness

by Garth Greenwell

  He turned away from me again and took a deep breath. The point isn’t to make you feel sorry, he said more calmly, looking at the night and the wind that filled it, the point is that I’m not just scared, that’s not the only reason I don’t want to tell people what I am. If I was open, he said, looking at me, it would be like saying what he did to me was okay, it would be like accepting it. I don’t know if I was like this before, probably I was, probably he saw I was and thought I wanted it; and maybe I did want it, maybe that’s why I never said anything, maybe I let it happen because I wanted it. I don’t know, he said, that’s the problem, how can I know what I wanted then, before he did it, how can I know what’s me and what’s what he did to me? I know it’s stupid, but what if he made me this way, how can I be proud of it then, he said, how can I march in some fucking parade, maybe that’s fucked up but it’s what I feel. He stopped suddenly, as if he had just realized how loudly he was speaking; he looked around but no one was paying us any mind. Can we go now, he said, please, I don’t want to eat anymore. Yes, I said, of course, and I scanned the room for our server, catching her eye and making a little motion in the air to signal for our check. Was everything all right, she said when she brought it, gesturing to our half-eaten meals, and I said it was, thank you, we were just ready to go, and I gave her a too-large tip, not wanting to wait for my change. R. was already pulling on his coat, wrapping his scarf around his neck, bundling himself up as I rose. He was eager to get away from what he had said, I thought, and I worried it wasn’t only the place he was fleeing but me, too, that now I would show him an image of himself he hated. There was so much I wanted to say to him but he didn’t give me the chance, he had gotten up too quickly, and now he was moving away with his back to me; I would have had to call out to him as I rose from my seat, which of course I couldn’t do in the crowded restaurant, though I wanted to call or reach out to him, to catch him and draw him near. I followed as he made his way between the tables, and then he paused for me to join him before he shoved open the door.

  Immediately we were in it, the rush and moil of wind that dragged at us and snatched our breath; I couldn’t have called out to him now, I had to duck my chin into my coat to breathe. We leaned into the wind as we made our way to the boulevard, squinting against the grit it carried, whether African sand, or, as I imagined, the grime of the streets. We were walking against it, kicking the trash it swept toward us. It’s a filthy city, though every morning an army of red-vested women descends with brooms and metal pails to scour the streets, endlessly and to no avail. We walked side by side, but it was R. who led the way, he strode as if taking no account of me. At the Sakharov intersection I thought he might turn toward the metro, putting an end to our evening and maybe to more than our evening; it was easy to imagine him slipping away from me into that life where I had no place. Of course I had no claim on him, our entire relationship was founded on claimlessness, and I was frightened to realize how much I would care if he turned, I would be devastated, how had I let myself feel so much. But he didn’t turn, he passed Sakharov and began to cross the parking lot of the supermarket that bordered the tangle of streets in which I lived, Mladost 1A, the name a remnant of the Communist order indecipherable now in the mess of new buildings. The market was nearly empty, it was late, almost closing time, but the automatic glass doors were sliding open and shut, open and shut, though no one was coming in or out; it was something to do with the wind, I thought, the disorder it made of everything. I was glad he was coming home with me, but it meant I would have to have something to say to him, when we were out of the wind and together again in my room, in the bed where we had said so much to each other—it wasn’t true that I had no claim on him, I thought, each word was a claim, his words and mine—and now all I had wanted to say seemed false, or if not false then irrelevant. Of course it wasn’t his fault, I would say, of course he was blameless, entirely blameless; there wasn’t any invitation he could have given, even if he had wanted it there wasn’t any permission he could give. But none of this was right, I rejected the phrases even as they formed, not just because they were objectionable in themselves but because none of them answered his real fear, which was true, I thought: that we can never be sure of what we want, I mean of the authenticity of it, of its purity in relation to ourselves.

  Just past the grocery there was a wide trench where they were extending the metro across Mladost, tearing open whole segments of pavement a few hundred meters at a time, and along the length of it was a simple chain fence, draped in green plastic mesh, the metal poles anchored in plastic buckets filled with concrete. It was meant as a deterrent but really it would have been easy to get through, the blocks weren’t heavy, with a little effort you could shift them. Work had been stopped for days, it was too dangerous in the wind, and when we came to the fence we saw that one of the poles had tipped over; the wind had caught the green mesh and now it hung suspended over the drop, held in place by its neighbors, which for the moment were still upright. Jesus, I heard R. say, or thought I heard it, and we kept our distance as we walked to a segment of unbroken ground where we could cross. And then we were on my street and at my building and the door slammed shut behind us. R. started up the stairs, not waiting for the elevator as we usually did; I only lived on the third floor, but we had made a kind of ritual of it, as soon as the doors closed we kissed and groped each other, half silly and half sincere, pulling apart at the last moment before the doors opened again. But today R. took the stairs, and I followed him, letting him climb ahead of me. He hadn’t pressed the switch to set the lights running on their timer and so neither did I, the hallways were dark but there was a dull light from the window at each floor, neon signs and lights from neighboring buildings filtered through the unwashed glass. I could hear noises from the apartments we passed, televisions and voices that mixed with the sound of the wind, and from one there was a quick burst of laughter, a man’s voice, joining in the laughter from the show he was watching. R. reached my floor and waited for me at the end of the hallway, where it was truly dark, there wasn’t any window to let in light from the street. He slid past me when I opened the door and headed to the bedroom while I locked it again. I hung back, resting my hand on the knob as I heard the familiar sounds of him undressing, fabric pulled off, the heavy buckle of his belt striking the floor, and then the mattress sighing with his weight.

  I pulled off my own clothes at the door, I left them and walked to the bedroom naked. He was on his back, one of his arms across his face, as if to block the light from his eyes, though there wasn’t any light, or hardly any. The curtains were drawn across the windows, not the heavy drapes but the gauze that obscured the interior from view, my building was surrounded by others, someone might always be watching. I lay down next to him. He was beautiful in the dark, his form a deeper shadow beside me, his olive skin and the dense compactness of him, he was the most beautiful, I thought, as I had thought before. I didn’t touch him, we lay silent for a moment until finally I spoke, whispering Skupi, are you all right, talk to me, say something; and though he didn’t say anything he did make a noise, a small noise of desire or grief, I couldn’t tell which, and then he reached over and pulled me to him, my face first and then as we kissed the rest of me, his hands urged me to move until I was on top of him. It felt like passion, his mouth and his hands on me, it felt like the hunger I was still amazed I could arouse in him. He pressed his pelvis into me, making me feel that he was hard, as I was, his eyes were squeezed shut and his face wore an expression I couldn’t read, and then I pressed down and his lips parted and he made a sound that was unmistakably of pleasure, I thought. He pulled my face to his again, he slid his tongue into my mouth and drew out my own, which he caught with his lips and teeth, biting it almost to the point of pain. All the while he was making a sound I had never heard from him before, a series of short moans, almost pants, and as we kissed and pressed against each other he lifted his knees up on either side of me, as if to wrap them around me, as if to
embrace me with all four of his limbs, though that’s not what he did, instead he shifted his hips up. I was confused, it was a reversal of our roles, I had never fucked him before, but when I whispered Are you sure the strange sounds he made intensified, in frequency and volume both. I lifted myself off him and reached to the side table to take a condom from the drawer, but as I tore the little package with my teeth I heard R. say No, and when I said What, taken aback, he said it again, more clearly, No, and though I hesitated I set it aside. Since we had met he had been my only partner, he was the only partner I wanted, but it was a risk, I knew, neither of us could be sure the other was safe, and maybe the risk was part of my excitement, of course it was. Though it wasn’t my usual role or a role I usually enjoyed I was eager for it, more than eager, I was surprised by what I felt as I slicked myself with lubricant from the same drawer, hissing a little at the cold of it; and then I applied it to R., between the legs he had raised. I would take my time, I would be gentle, otherwise it would be difficult for him, I thought, I mean more difficult. But he didn’t want me to take my time, Go on, he said, I’m ready, drawing his legs up farther to make room for me. But he wasn’t ready, when I entered him he cried out, a terrible sound. I stopped but only briefly, since he said again Go, at least that’s what I thought he said, go, and I pressed farther into him, drawn forward by what he had said and by my own pleasure, which was exquisite; I had never fucked anyone bare before, there was a heat and silkenness in it I had never felt. R. had covered his face with his arm again, I couldn’t read his expression as I began to move, and really I was marveling so much at my own feeling that for a moment I neglected his. Anyway he was hiding it, that was why he had covered his face, to hide from me what he felt. I lowered my own face to the arm beneath which he hid, to the pit of his arm; I loved the smell of him, and tonight beside the familiar scent there was something else, his endurance, maybe, his response to pain, since pain was what his noises meant, or some of his noises. When I pressed into him there was a grunt of pain and when I drew out a little sound of need, an invitation or demand that I return, so that if it was pain it was pleasure too, or anyway satisfaction. I liked that I could make him feel this, I found myself seeking new angles to make him feel more, need and satisfaction and pain, it was like a new intimacy, though maybe there was something cruel in it as well, some cruelty in myself I sensed the shape of, a shape I had sensed before but never before with R. I would give him what he wanted, I thought, though whether I was giving something or taking it away I wasn’t sure.

  There was a sudden noise then, a dull crack that startled me, that startled R., too; both of us tensed as the room was filled with wind, with the noise of it and its force, it made the curtains billow, I felt it cold along my back. The window beside the bed had come open; there was a way to turn the handle that let it tilt in a few inches at the top, it must have come unlatched. The wind made a kind of accompaniment as I began to move again, a rhythm against which I moved, and as I continued fucking R. I thought of the distance from which it had come, though maybe it doesn’t make sense to think of it as having any origin at all, maybe it was pure circulation, picking things up and setting them down again willy-nilly, not just broken things but also things that seem whole, the sands of Africa or Greece; it was moving the very lands, I thought, however slowly, nothing was solid, nothing would stay put, and I held on more tightly to R. and drove into him more fiercely, drawing from him those noises of pain and of need, noises maybe of pleasure too. I wanted to root into him, even as the wind said all rootedness was a sham, there were only passing arrangements, makeshift shelters and poor harbors, I love you, I thought suddenly in that rush that makes so much seem possible, I love you, anything I am you have use for is yours.

  THE FROG KING

  It was too early for there to be so much light, so that when I woke my first thought was of snow. We had pulled the drapes before sleeping but they did almost nothing to darken the room, the snow caught scraps from streetlamps and neon and cast them back up. It was bright enough to see R. still sleeping beside me, cocooned in the blanket I had bought after the first night we spent together, when I woke shivering to find him bound tight in the comforter we were sharing, swaddled beside me. He repeated the word all that day, apropos of nothing, swaddled, swaddled, he had never heard it before, the sound of it made him laugh. He would sleep for hours still, if I let him he would sleep the whole day. He loved to sleep in a way I didn’t, sliding into it at every chance, whereas almost always I slept poorly, uneasily, I woke finally with a sense of relief. He complained if I woke him—I’m on holiday, he would say, let me sleep—but he complained more if I let him sleep too long. We only had ten days together, his winter vacation, which he had decided to spend in Sofia while everyone else he knew went home. Mornings were my time to work, to spend with my books and my writing, my time to be alone; I would get up soon but for now I kept looking at him, his face bearded and dark, smoothed out by sleep. It was all I could do not to touch it, as I did often when he was awake, cupping his cheek in my palm or reaching around the curve of his skull. He had shaved his head at the end of the semester, I liked to run my hand around and around it until he ducked and told me to stop, annoyed but laughing, too; even annoyance was part of the pleasure we took in each other, we were that early in love.

  I was still groggy with sleep when I turned into the main room, and I stood uncomprehending for a moment before I realized that R. had rearranged things in the night. He had moved the table to the middle of the room, and had placed my winter boots on top of it, beside the little tree we had bought earlier that week. Sticking up from the boots there were packages wrapped in newspaper, his Christmas gifts for me; he must have hidden them somewhere after he arrived, he must have gotten out of bed in the night, careful not to wake me, he must have been quiet as he moved the furniture. I caught my breath at it, I felt a weird pressure and heat climb my throat. I felt like my heart would burst, those were the words for it, the hackneyed phrase, and I was grateful for them, they were a container for what I felt, proof of its commonness. I was grateful for that, too, the commonness of my feeling; I felt some stubborn strangeness in me ease, I felt like part of the human race.

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