“Shit.” He tugged at it. “Fuck!” He slammed his hand into the headboard, making the whole bed shudder.
“Kip, c’mon. It’s okay.”
He slammed the headboard again.
“Just let me…” I crawled towards him, reaching for him, trying to guide him into my mouth.
“No.” He twisted away. “Fuck!” He was up off the bed. He grabbed the Yale envelope off the floor and threw it against the wall. His face was red and contorted.
“Kip, stop!”
Footsteps pounded up the stairs. Kip and I froze and listened. They paused outside his bedroom. I pulled a bed sheet over my lap, knowing it best not to make any more noise.
A knock. “Everything okay in there?” It was Raj.
Kip, on the verge of a meltdown just moments before, had composed himself and now looked chastened, contrite. “Yes, yes, I’m sorry for the disturbance.”
Raj did not leave. He breathed nosily on the other side. “Should I come in?” It seemed less a threat, more a legitimate question; even though it always seemed to me that the other apprentices knew exactly what they were doing, perhaps they were all just as lacking in authority and understanding as me.
“I would invite you in, but I’m afraid I’m not decent,” said Kip. Only he could pull off saying something like that, “not decent.”
“Okay,” Raj said slowly. His feet shuffled, hesitating, before they turned and walked away. I stared at Kip, unsure what to do next. He stood in the center of the room, his chest heaving, his nakedness now ridiculous. I pushed the sheet off me, pulled up my pants.
“We don’t have to do anything,” I said cautiously. “We can just lay here. We can talk.”
“Talk about what?” His voice was snappy; he wouldn’t look at me.
“I don’t know. Just about whatever. Like we used to.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Say what?”
“‘Like we used to.’ Like we’re a couple or something.” He was addressing the wall against which he’d thrown the envelope. I willed him to look at me.
“Well, aren’t we? Something?”
He finally turned to face me. “No,” he said.
“You’re my best friend.” I hated how my voice sounded as I said it. It was a pathetic shot, the last card in my hand. When he didn’t answer, I added, “I really care about you, Kip.”
“I care about you, too.” He delivered this like an automated message. I didn’t even need to look at him to know it was a lie.
Neither of us moved. I was afraid to breathe, lest I set off anything else.
“You should go,” he said.
“Okay,” I said. I felt robbed. I was supposed to have excused myself; he had stolen my line. I edged off the bed and towards him. “Can I…?” I reached out my arms, a little kid asking for a hug. I just wanted to touch him. I needed to touch him.
Grudgingly, he let me wrap my arms around his skinny, naked body. He didn’t hug me back. Just as I was about to release him, his shoulders began to shake. It took me nearly a full minute to realize he was crying.
“Kip?” I held him at arm’s length. His eyes were pooling with fat tears, his mouth open in a silent scream. He was an ugly crier, and it was a horrifying sight. “Kip, what happened?”
He didn’t answer, just continued to shake and weep, and so I held him close again, feeling strong for once, almost maternal. Strange shushing sounds came out of my mouth as I rocked his body with mine. His skinny body quivered in an unnatural way that made me believe he hadn’t cried in a long, long time. Finally, he sputtered, “It’s so much pressure.”
“What is?” Was it the oratorical contest? Yale? Worried, suddenly, that he meant it literally, I released my hold on him. “What is, Kip?”
“All of it,” he said. “All of it.” He choked out another round of sobs, and I held him until he stopped, until he had regained composure enough to wipe his mouth and wiggle out of my grasp.
“You okay?”
“I’m good.” Already his face was cold, closed, as though he hadn’t just wept in my arms.
“Do you want to talk about it at all?”
He shook his head no. “I’m sleepy,” he said, and in its second usage, I found that “sleepy” had lost its charm. “I’m going to go to bed.”
“Okay.” I backed towards the door. “I’ll see you?” It was a question because I didn’t know the answer.
“Yeah,” Kip said. He had turned towards the wall. He didn’t seem to have heard my question or care whether he’d see me or not, and he didn’t seem to notice when I opened the door and left.
Just before I closed the door behind me, I thought I heard him say, “Thank you,” but I might have imagined it.
* * *
December had arrived, and with it cold unlike anything I could remember. It would be the coldest winter in twenty years, the weather reporters claimed. Just like every seasonal change that semester, the first hints of winter felt foreign, a frightening glitch in the world order. My hands hadn’t felt this stiff with cold last year, had they? Had the wind burned my face this painfully? I felt sure that the temperature would just drop and drop and drop until no one could stand it, until we were sequestered indoors, ran out of fuel, froze in our beds. Aren’t you scared? I wanted to ask everyone. Aren’t you terrified?
I was thankful, at least, that it had yet to snow. The snow, I felt sure, would bring with it the end.
As I sat in my room Saturday morning curled beneath several blankets—the redeeming part of the cold was that it allowed me to do this—I replayed the night before in my head. Where had I gone wrong? What had I done to upset him? It wasn’t until nearly noon, when I still had yet to emerge from my nest of blankets to brush my teeth or eat or even pee, that I began to feel angry. I hadn’t done anything. I’d never done or said anything other than what he wanted. How had things still soured? How was it possible to have done everything right and still not get what I wanted?
I reached for my phone and texted him. Who is Betsy Kenyon? I felt triumphant upon sending it, haughty and vindicated. He didn’t answer right away; I hadn’t expected him to. I lazed around for another hour or two before the regret began to settle in.
I texted him again. I just ask because I want—No. I hit the backspace button—need to know if there is someone else.
Another half hour passed. I sent another message. I hope you’re feeling okay today.
I set my phone on my nightstand, still uneasy but satisfied. No more, I told myself. No more.
* * *
Chapin knocked as the light began to fall outside my window. “Hello? Anyone alive in there?”
“Come in,” I said. I couldn’t say why, but I wished she wouldn’t.
She came in and switched on the overhead light, a move that felt intrusive, even disrespectful. I glared at the light.
“It smells in here,” she noted. “Like a dead body.”
I didn’t answer. She came and sat on my bed, another intrusion.
“You look really sick, Imogene. Really skinny, too. Are you sick?”
I nodded. Illness was always the easiest excuse, the best method of avoidance.
“You’ve been sick a lot this year.”
I nodded again. I needed some sympathy, even if it wasn’t for the right reasons. I needed someone to care.
“I don’t think you really are sick though. I think you’re depressed, Imogene.”
The gravity of her voice surprised me. I peeked over the edge of my blankets out at her. “I’m not depressed,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“I’m just not.”
She crawled over my body until she lay on top of me, our bodies separated by a layer of blankets. Her face was too close to mine, but I was trapped beneath her. When she spoke, her breath was hot, and the words seemed to spill directly into my mouth. “This thing with Adam Kipling needs to stop.”
“Okay.”
“No, seriously. It needs to
stop. It’s killing you.”
“Okay,” I said again.
My phone buzzed on my nightstand, and we both turned to look at it. As I was pinned beneath her, Chapin was able to pick it up before I could.
“Adam Kipling says, ‘Don’t worry about it,’” she said, squinting at the screen. She looked at me. “Don’t worry about what?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
She dropped the phone back on the table. “What do you want, Imogene?”
I thought about a book I’d read in middle school, a story about a girl with a terminal illness. She’d been asked what she wanted before she died, and she said what she wanted was one last perfect day, a day where everything aligned and everything felt right. “One last time with him,” I told her. “One last chance for things to be how they used to be.”
Chapin stared at me, curious. “How do you think things had been before?”
“You know.” I tried to keep the agitation out of my voice. “I told you. He was…” I stopped, started again. “It felt … real before.” My cheeks burning, I added, “It felt like love.”
Chapin still stared. “But was it love?”
I felt small, stupid. “I don’t know.”
She rolled from on top of me and bounced off the bed. “I don’t think it was, Imogene. It rarely is.” She paused when she got to the doorway and looked back at me. “It needs to stop,” she said again. “If you don’t stop it, then I will.”
“But how—?”
“And shower for Christ’s sake.” Chapin pinched her nose. “Like, you seriously fucking reek.”
* * *
One last time, and then it would be over; that’s what I decided. It wasn’t about the sex, if it ever even was. The last few times, Kip hadn’t even been able to come, and he’d pumped inside of me long after I’d gone dry, growling with frustration, until I felt the pain would split me in two. I didn’t like the sex anymore; it would be preferable to me, really, if we didn’t have it at all. I just wanted to be with him. I wanted us to undress and drape our naked limbs over each other under his sheets, to touch each other’s hair and chests and faces like we never could—and never would—outside of his dorm room. I wanted him to tell me I was a sweetheart. I wanted him to speak elusive words that I had yet to pick out and place on his tongue.
I wondered how things with Kaya had ended, who had been the one to cut ties. I felt pretty sure I knew the answer—a fifteen-year-old doesn’t know how to say no, even if he wants to—and it embarrassed me that I had failed to act as the Older Seductress should. I hadn’t done the seducing here. I was the seduced, the swindled, the casualty.
I didn’t shower; my body felt too fragile to be subjected to the scalding stream of the showerhead, the cold porcelain, the too-bright light. I didn’t want to see my naked body in the mirror. I didn’t want to be clean. Instead, I dabbed a bit of scented oil behind each ear, applied fresh makeup, took my hair out of its greasy ponytail and smoothed it down my back. I liked that I looked a little rough, a little haggard. I wanted Kip to see what he’d done to me. If he was to understand what I needed—that one last perfect night with him—then he needed to see me like this. He’d cried in front of me, after all. He couldn’t have done that if he didn’t care.
I crept up the stairs, something I’d been conditioned to do but that had lost its sense of purpose, like washing my hands before dinner, separating my darks and whites. I held my breath as I ascended, listened to the wooden creaks, the shuffling feet, the boys’ voices hushed and foreign behind the doors. He was there; I knew he was there. Two doors down on the right, I stopped, tapped my knuckles against the wood, waited.
This is what I imagined: he’d open the door wearing sweatpants and rubbing sleep from his eyes—it was too cold to go out, too cold to have done anything but go to bed. He’d say hello, too groggy to question anything. I’d step into the room without waiting for an invitation. I’d settle onto his bed. “Come here,” I’d say. He’d close the door and join me, and we’d fit our mouths together. We wouldn’t acknowledge the night before, or Betsy Kenyon, or the inevitable end. We wouldn’t think of anything except tongues, fingers, warm skin.
But he didn’t answer. I knocked again, and then I put my ear to the door. Silence. He had evaded the power of my will. He had failed to live up to the expectations of my manifested reality. I waited for a minute more before I heard a doorknob turning down the hall. And then I ran.
I was sobbing before I even pushed through the front door. I couldn’t help it—the fury burned like acid up through my stomach and throat and compelled me to release it lest I pass out. Outside of Perkins, I fell to my knees on the dead crunchy grass and bellowed. My vision blurred, the campus tilted. I didn’t care who heard me. I wanted to make a scene. I slid down so that I lay on my side, cold blades prickling my ears. I’d spend the night there. I’d be discovered in the morning plastered to the ground, my eyes frozen shut. I’m not sure how much time passed before I felt a hand on my shoulder, heard a voice—“C’mon”—and was guided back into Perkins, back into the warmth.
* * *
I’d never been inside Raj’s room before. I’d expected books and posters and pictures, but his room was plain, like mine. He sat me on his bed and wrapped a blanket around me. It was a few minutes before I could talk.
“Thanks,” I said. “Sorry.” I was too tired to feel embarrassed or even upset anymore. I felt nothing except the comforting weight of the blanket.
He sat on the end of his bed and peered at me, not unkindly. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.” I looked at my feet. “I don’t think so. No.” Then I began to cry again.
“Okay, okay.” Raj stroked my hair. His hand was hesitant; I couldn’t tell if he was reluctant to touch me or unsure as to whether I wanted to be touched.
“Sorry,” I said again. I wiped my nose on the back of my hand, a bad habit from childhood.
His hand fell from my head—I thought at first it was out of disgust, but then he deposited a tissue box onto my lap. I took one, blew my nose with a loud honk.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay, Imogene.”
We sat for another minute. I continued to look at my shoes.
“You know,” Raj began, “I didn’t like him from the beginning.”
“Who?”
“Adam. That’s his name, right? Adam?”
I looked at him in surprise. “How—?”
He shrugged. “I have the dorm room list. I could hear where you were going. It wasn’t hard.”
I felt a flush of embarrassment at the idea of being heard. What else might Raj have heard? What else may have been heard by anyone? What if everyone had been in on it, had been listening to the creaking bedframe and moans—my moans—night after night? Was there anything worse than a spoiled secret, a secret that had perhaps never been a secret at all? I ignored all this, elbowed it back into the recesses of my mind for later investigation. “Why didn’t you like him?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Just something about him. He seemed arrogant to me. Cocky.”
I nodded, unconvinced. I wouldn’t expect someone like Raj to like someone like Kip. “He won the regional oratorical contest,” I said, a weak defense.
“That doesn’t make him a good person, Imogene.”
I bowed my head, embarrassed.
“There’s something else, too.” Raj shifted, eyeing me nervously.
“What?”
“Well … he brought girls back, sometimes. After hours.”
I felt that horrible, familiar feeling: the increased blood pressure, the tingly, icy sensation, the sickening coldness.
“Not that often,” he said quickly. “But he did. I caught him two or three times and sent the girls home. Different girls.”
“Was one of the girls blond?”
“What?”
“Never mind.” I shook my head quickly.
“Okay.” His timid hand crept back towards me, and
he touched his fingers to mine. “I thought you should know.”
I looked at him. His face was half-hidden in shadow, just long-lashed eyes, parted lips. Raj was cute, I decided. Raj was really cute, and I was a fool for not having seen it.
“And just so you know, I’m not going to tell. I was never going to tell.”
“Really?”
He smiled. “Really.”
I curled my fingers around his. I felt dizzy from having cried so much, almost drunk. I could kiss him, I thought.
Raj stood. “Can you get back to your room okay?”
I nodded and stood beside him. I was not supposed to kiss Raj; I was supposed to return to my room.
“Goodnight, then.” He reached out, stopped, changed his mind again, and pulled me into a hug. It was brief, perfunctory. He released me and looked at me questioningly. Did he want to kiss me, too? It didn’t matter. Only I knew how the story was supposed to go.
I don’t remember the walk across campus. I don’t remember folding myself into my bed, still dressed. I just remember thinking, tomorrow—that’s when I’d feel again. That’s when I’d allow my pain to be felt in full.
* * *
I woke the next morning with a vague sense of loss clinging to my consciousness like the remnants of a dream. I sat up and traced back through my nocturnal wanderings. I’d had a dream about Kip, something about a boat and a sprung leak—
Kip. The realization sat itself abruptly on my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs. Nothing had happened, really—I’d gone to his room on a Saturday night and had stupidly, tragically pinned my hope on his being home when he was not—but it felt as though something irreparable had happened nevertheless. Life had proved to be unreliable and unfaithful to my whims. It was a loss almost as great as losing Kip himself.
I think somewhere I’d known he wouldn’t answer the door that night. Maybe I’d even wanted for him not to answer. A lack of response is better than rejection. I’d rather have my hopes dashed than have been turned away from Adam Kipling’s door.
A fleck of reassurance kept me afloat: Raj would not tell, and that meant my secret was safe. Except for Chapin, that was. Her formerly empty threats had turned to notes slid under my door, a wild influx of angry text messages, once even a confrontation as I sat on the toilet. “I will tell, Imogene,” she said. “I swear to god I will.”
Indecent Page 24
