“What?” Brooke asked, pleased and surprised that Lux had something Aimee would want to borrow.
“Seems her dad is a huge science fiction fan,” Aimee said.
“Makes sense,” Margot said.
“He has in his collection a 1954 Howdy Doody episode in which William Shatner plays Ranger Bob.”
“William Shatner in Howdy Doody?” Brooke said.
“Yeah. We’re gonna watch that. Then a 1958 version of Brothers Karamazov with Yule Brenner,” Aimee said, her voice full of excitement.
“Brothers Karamazov with William Shatner?” Brooke asked.
“And Yule Brenner,” Aimee confirmed. “Then we’re gonna finish up with Robert Burnett’s indie flick Free Enterprise.”
“And the Star Trek,” Brooke added.
“Well of course, all the Star Treks,” Aimee confirmed. “How could I do a William Shatner Festival without Star Trek?”
“Aimee, you are an entertainment nerd,” Margot announced.
“Hey, trips to the bathroom are the highlight of the day,” Aimee laughed. “That and I’ve listed some of my own prints on eBay.”
“You’re kidding!”
“It was one of the things I always meant to do if I ever had the time and now guess what I got—time.”
“Anything sell?”
“Yep.”
“Really?”
“Some of the old stuff does well and the baby shower prints are very popular. I made $5,600 and some change.”
Brooke was quietly rolling it over in her mind. Trying to imagine the online auction house becoming the always-available gallery she’d longed for. The very thought of it made her temperature rise.
All three women looked up at the sound of the front door opening.
“Christ on a freaking crutch, Brooke!” Lux shouted from the front hall. “When you said 5 x 7 I thought you meant inches! This freakin’ thing’s huge!”
Brooke skipped out of the bedroom and called to Lux.
“Hey, Lux, we’re in…”
Brooke stopped short at the sight of Lux.
“It’s stupid right?”
“Ahhhhh…,” Brooke stammered.
Lux stood before her, transformed. Blue penny loafers, khaki chinos, blue cotton shirt with a Peter Pan collar and a red cardigan sweater. Cable-knit. Pearls. From her toes to her chin she was a prep school girl on her way to English class. From her chin up she was the same red-haired, heavily made up, Lux of Queens.
“Oh my god,” Brooke said finally. “Bill took you shopping.”
“He’s a monster. Try this on. Try this on. Wear this. Try that. He thinks I’m like ‘Go to College Barbie’ or something. He like, made me tell him the titles of all the books I’ve ever read all right, and, ok, and then he had his secretary type up a list of all the books he thinks I should have read already. Ok, that was one thing, right, and I thought that was a little weird but then this afternoon, ok, all those books start getting delivered to his house.”
“He’s a little intense,” Brooke said.
“A little! He bought me six of these shirts! SIX! Six of these ugly boring shirts that make me look like a…oh fuck.”
“What?”
“Nothin.”
“What?” Brooke asked.
Lux realized that the shirts made her look like a boy. She didn’t want to say anything else to hurt Brooke.
“These clothes make me look stupid,” Lux said.
“Yes, they do,” Brooke admitted. “Come show Aimee. She needs a laugh.”
When Lux entered the room Aimee laughed. Margot laughed.
“You look like one of those children’s books where you mix and match the head to the body,” Margot noted.
Although Lux’s transformation was very amusing, all Aimee could see was the enormous photograph she dragged behind her.
“My photograph!” Aimee gasped.
“It looks great!” Brooke said.
“But I asked you to order me some 5 x 7’s!” Aimee said.
“That is 5 x 7,” Brooke said with a glimmer of mischief in her eye. “Look, his vagina is gone. You’ve got a big empty wall there that needs something naked on it. Your photo looks amazing this size and anyway, it’s my treat. I hope you like it.”
“I love it,” Aimee gushed. “Can you hang it in here? I want to look at it every day.”
“Of course,” Brooke said. Aimee stared at her photograph like it was some beloved child that has suddenly grown into adulthood. Aimee’s lovers were so much better than the shock value of his finger-in-pussy “masterpiece.” My work is good, Aimee thought. Why haven’t I been this big all along?
As Brooke was hanging the photograph, her cell phone rang. If she’d seen the number that was flashing in her cell phone window, Brooke would not have answered her phone.
“This is Brooke. Oh. Hi…Yes. I have…I will…I said I will and I will. It’s kind of a good idea but I’m just not sure…Yes. …Yes, I know I said I wanted it but I just have to think about it. Look, I’m in the middle of something and I gotta go….Yep. …YES, I will think about it some more. …Love you too….Hi to your mother.”
Brooke adjusted the photograph on the wall where Aimee could see it. She looked at Aimee’s swollen body, sighed, straightened her sweater and sat down.
“Bill wants to get married and have a baby.”
Aimee and Margot looked at her, expecting more information than just that simple pronouncement.
“I don’t know. I just don’t know,” Brooke answered. “I love Bill. But I think he’s, well I think he’s gay.”
“Gay!” Aimee shouted. “Bill ‘Best-Lay-of-Your-Life’ Simpson cannot be gay!”
“I know,” Brooke said, “I find it hard to believe also, and I was shocked when Lux called it…”
“Sorry, I shouldn’ta shot off my mouth”
“No, hey, it’s ok,” Brooke said. “I just keep thinking back over these moments and also, because our sex life, well, its current incarnation pales in comparison to its own former glory. If you know what I mean.”
“I got no idea what you mean,” Lux admitted.
“It’s Viagra or bust,” Brooke said.
“He’s so young,” Margot said.
“Exactly my point,” Brooke said.
“Well, what does he say about it?” Aimee asked.
“He says he’s not a homosexual. He promised me that when it’s all said and done he’s a pussy hound, not a butt pirate.”
“Did the Honorable Bill Simpson really use the word ‘butt pirate’?” Aimee asked.
“No,” Brooke said, “I’m clearly paraphrasing for the entertainment value. If he’s in love with a woman, if he’s not having sex with other men, does that automatically make him heterosexual?”
“Ye—no,” Margot said. “Is he having sex with said woman? Of course if he’s attracted to men but insists on having sex with women that makes him a…”
“Psycho-sexual,” Lux offered.
“Yeah,” Brooke said. “Well, he said he’s not gay. He’s certainly not effeminate. He said he loves me and he wants me.”
Brooke sat quietly and thought about it.
“How much does it matter? If he is gay, I’m not going to marry him, but I’ll still love him. If he really wants a man, I’m not going to sleep with him anymore because that hurts my feelings. If this is who he is, ok, I’m still his friend. But I can’t be the body he hides behind. It’s not twisted to have desires, but when you hide them, they become twisted, and I don’t want to be around that. It’s the lying that’s ugly.”
“You’re absolutely right. Honesty is everything,” Margot said as she turned her whole body towards Lux. “Listen Lux, I’ve been spending a lot of time with Trevor and you were absolutely right, he is really well-hung. I intend to see him again. I hope you’re not hurt and that you and I can still be friends.”
Lux did not respond. As the surprise wore off, she sat quietly, thinking. In spite of her psychedelic upbringing, Lux w
as an intensely logical woman. She was, however, not very good at multitasking. Lux was unable to speak because she was busy concentrating on a complex problem, full of probability formulas. Lux silently weighed the probability of a friendship with Margot against the value of a relationship with Trevor. Margot won.
“Ok,” Lux said quietly. Aimee stared at the ceiling and Brooke considered her nails.
“No, really, it’s ok,” Lux said. “He’s a good guy. Geez you knew him before I ever met him. I hope you guys work out. Really. So listen, did you guys read yet? Cuz if Brooke is done talking about pirates and pussy, I wrote this piece about losing my virginity that I want to read to you.”
“Sounds good,” Aimee said, relieved that the life moment was over and they were moving back to art. “Who’d you lose your virginity to?”
“Carlos,” Lux said. “Who’d you lose your to?”
“George Freeman, senior year, prom night. I was madly in love with him for several moments,” Aimee said.
“I lost mine to Bill,” Brooke sad sadly. “At sixteen at the Ritz-Carlton. He went down on me and I came. I mean, who comes when they lose their virginity?”
“Boys,” said Aimee and Margot at the same time.
“But I dint write about Carlos,” Lux said wistfully. “I wrote about how I would have liked to lose it, not about what really happened.”
“Oooo!” said Margot, “I’d like to rewrite that moment.”
“Ok, so here goes,” Lux said as she unfurled her manuscript. The women got comfortable and Lux began to read.
“ Ok, so first thing, I’m in love with an older guy. Not like twenty years older, but like five years older. And I’m not fourteen anymore either. I’m at least sixteen. And this guy, he’s had sex before. And he loves me. So we agree to do it. And we talk about it. It doesn’t just happen like that cuz he figures out how to get me alone. So one day…”
“During the day?” Aimee asked.
“Oh yeah. I would lose it during the day. So like, everyone is sober and there’s light and I’m not tired,” Lux said before she went back to reading.
“So one day, he takes me to a hotel. A nice place where the sheets come as part of the room, and we walk through the lobby and into the elevator and then up to the room he rented. He unlocks the door and we go inside. We start to kiss. And he takes my clothes off slowly. And I can see him and me in the mirror in front of the bed, which is kind of cool. But he doesn’t look in the mirror. He’s only watching the real me. So I’m naked but he’s still dressed. And he starts to kiss me and touch my breasts and lick the nipples and then down to my belly button. And then he takes his shirt off. And then we lay down together on the bed. And he goes down on me, and keeps going down on me because he likes it, not just because he thinks he has to so I’ll suck his cock later. He keeps doing me until I’m really, really wet. Soaking wet and I’m on the bed and my body’s almost bucking up and down because I want him inside me.
“And this is important. I really want him to be inside me. It’s not like something I think I gotta do so everything else will work out. I don’t want him inside me because I think he’ll like me better if I do. Or that I don’t have the energy to face the begging and the abuse if I don’t. I don’t want to let him inside of me cuz of what that might bring me. I just want him for me, because I like the way it feels.
“But this is the first time and I know it’s gonna hurt. He tells me that he’s gonna do it and then he puts the top of his thingie just into the beginning of me, just at the soft fleshy part. And he rubs it back and forth there. And he asks me if I want a little more. And that just rocks me, I mean, that he asks. And he says yes and more goes in and it starts to hurt but I want it to happen. And he’s getting psyched too, it’s not just me. And then he pushes in and it hurts a lot, but I was part of the hurt too. And then we’re off like a couple of racehorses. And I’m part of it, not some girl watching on the sidelines hoping that fucking him is gonna make everything ok. The end.”
The women sat quietly, thinking about all the things in sex that have nothing to do with sex.
“So?” Lux asked. “Whaddy’think? I wrote it just like I thought it. And then I crossed out all the ‘rights’ and ‘you knows’ and the other stuff and then I copied it over. It makes a difference when you take out all that other stuff, right?”
“It does,” Brooke agreed.
“But you kept the honesty,” Margot said. “That’s good.”
Lux smiled.
“So?” Lux asked, “how’d you rewrite your virginity?”
It was a big subject and they talked until the sun dropped low in the long windows. Then, Brooke started gathering up her bag and pulling out her cell phone.
“I’m going to just call Bill and I think I’ll go over to his house and sit at the kitchen table and have a really long talk with him.”
“I’m going running later tonight,” Margot announced as they headed towards the door of Aimee’s bedroom. “Lux, you want to come running with me?”
“Only if someone’s chasing us.”
Lux suddenly realized that once again she had no place to go. She’d left her stuff at Bill’s house and if she returned there she’d interrupt Brooke’s cozy evening of intense discussion. She could head home to Queens and try to avoid a contact high, but that was an impossible task. Lux decided she would buy a clean new notebook and a good sharp pencil and go park herself in the public library until they kicked her out. As Lux started to say good-bye, Aimee called out from her bed.
“Hey Lux, I mean, I thought you were gonna stick around and watch the Howdy Doody with me?”
Lux was momentarily startled. She was sure the voice had come from Aimee’s bed, but that was just impossible. Maybe it was an auditory hallucination. Aimee hated her.
“Are you deaf, Lux?” Aimee asked when Lux didn’t answer. “Do you want to stay and hang out?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. I’d love that,” said Lux, who had seen that particular episode of Howdy Doody at least a million times before.
In the elevator on the way down Margot and Brooke talked about Aimee and Lux. And as Lux settled back into the bedroom, she and Aimee began talking about Brooke and Margot.
“So you think Brooke should marry a guy who don’t wanna have sex with her?”
“There are worse arrangements, such as filing for divorce while pregnant.”
“Yeah, how’s that going?”
“Well, I called Tokyo. And I called his agent. And they both agree that he has received the papers. The first papers don’t say anything except that I have asked for a divorce. He’s supposed to simply respond that he has received my filing.”
“And?”
“No word. I got a message on my answering machine that had nothing to do with reality. He wants to know what my due date is. No mention of the fact that I think he’s a useless bastard that I want out of my life. Although, how exactly does one respond to that sort of information?”
Lux and Aimee laughed. Lux was getting the hang of Aimee’s use of sarcasm and irony. Her discovery of the word “sardonic” made her more comfortable talking to Aimee. Aimee told Lux about the wine and roses days of her early marriage, how happy she had been and how in love. Lux told Aimee that her brother in Utah had married a woman who had only one arm and they seemed very happy together. They talked and talked as the night grew cool and quiet.
“No shit!” was Lux’s breathless response when Aimee admitted that she thought Lux might have real talent as a writer.
“Oh my God!” Aimee gasped when Lux recounted the full story of the night she accepted $50 to give a stranger a blowjob because she believed she desperately needed the money for a prom dress.
“Can you believe it? I was like, so totally afraid, terrified, of losing this loser that I did everything I had to do in order to look better than my girlfriend at a dance. A school dance. And in some ways it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was gonna be. I mean the guy was youngish, and he was clean and he did
n’t hit me and he didn’t hurt me but there was this meanness in the way he touched me that hurt my feelings.”
Lux had never told anyone that story. Certainly not Jonella. Not even Auntie Who-ah. And here she was telling a woman who didn’t even really like her. Maybe that’s part of what made it ok, that Aimee already thought badly of Lux and so it wasn’t going to get any worse. Let her call me a whore, Lux thought. We’ve already been down that road.
“And so, after that night I just had to get away, to you know, separate myself from my family because I think there was just too much pot and beer. And I know it was just pot and beer but it was like, all the time and it was clouding my thoughts and like I was losing, I wasn’t, I mean, I wasn’t able to reason things through in the right way. So I had to pull away from them. Luckily they never noticed because they love me and it woulda hurt them to think that I couldn’t be with them no more.”
Aimee was quiet for a while and then she said, “I’m really sorry.”
“Fuck, it wasn’t your fault.”
“No, for…Um, what am I sorry for? I don’t know. Sorry you got your feelings hurt, I guess.”
“Well, no one made me do it. I used to feel bad, like some tragic thing had happened to me and then I felt bad, like embarrassed that I’d done something so nasty. On the upside, I started to brush my teeth a whole lot more.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah, for months after I was like, totally obsessed with oral hygiene.”
“You got good stories, Lux.”
“You think?
“Oh yeah.”
“Cuz to me, my life seems like one stupid mistake after another.”
“Well, yeah. So does mine. But not every day.”
This thought, that someone as clean and successful as Aimee had mistakes and desires too, took root in Lux and started to grow as they talked. They talked real estate. They talked work. They talked clothes. They talked sex. They talked movies and they talked about their mothers. They talked until Aimee started to mumble and after she was asleep Lux kept talking on to herself.
As the sun came up, Lux grabbed a quick shower. She washed her face clean and tied back her wet hair in one of Aimee’s barrettes. Then she let herself out the door and went in search of coffee and breakfast. Walking down the avenue, whistling, Lux caught sight of herself in a shop window. She looked tired from being up all night. Her flat hair and clean, pretty face was a bit of a shock to her and she was wearing really stupid clothes, but still on that morning, Lux felt better than she had in all the years of her life.
Tuesday Erotica Club Page 23
