You Deserve Nothing

by Alexander Maksik

  “There is nothing.”

  “You don’t think so?” I asked, looking at my hands, hearing the sound again and again.

  Ça fait longtemps que vous attendez?

  “No. I don’t think so. I don’t think so at all. I think it’s just the way it is. I agree with Sartre.”

  “No God?”

  “No God.”

  “Not very cheery.”

  “What, you believe in God, Mr. Silver?”

  “I don’t know.”

  That man in his fine coat crushed by the train.

  “No,” I said. “I’m with you. You and Sartre.”

  “I like your class, Mr. Silver. You know, I think maybe I’ve learned more in a month than I’ve ever learned anywhere.”

  “That’s nice of you to say, Gilad. Thank you. You don’t talk much. It’s hard to tell.”

  “Yeah, well I like it. I think somehow your class has made today make more sense. I understand better somehow. If you know what I mean.”

  “Really? No, I don’t. I don’t know. I don’t understand it.”

  “I guess I’ve stopped thinking that the world should make any sense. It stops you from being disappointed. You know when you’re always looking for some sort of logical explanation and stuff. I mean I haven’t believed in God for a long time, but even still, up until this year I’ve always believed that there was some, I don’t know, system, some kind of universal balance or something. Like, if I gave a certain amount I’d receive a certain amount. I guess, I don’t know, I’ve always believed I’d be rewarded in the end just for being good. Or no, not really, not even for being good, just for, I don’t know. Just for suffering.”

  He looked embarrassed by this last sentence and waved his hand as if to erase it. “I don’t know, whatever.”

  I nodded. “For suffering?”

  “No, no forget it.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I don’t know, like the shit you go through. Whatever problems a person has. I guess I’ve always had this idea that if you endure it, you know? You handle yourself, take care of yourself, I don’t know, like just get through it without becoming a total asshole you get rewarded in the end.”

  “By?”

  “I don’t know, by the universe?”

  I nodded, “And you don’t feel that way anymore?”

  “No. It makes much more sense that you do what you can. I mean given what you’ve been given and then, then you just hope for the best. The whole idea that you deserve something, some kind of reward, I don’t know, it’s just. What am I? Ten? Come on, Mr. Silver.”

  I liked Gilad. He seemed such a lonely kid. He rarely smiled and when he did it was cynical and accompanied by a knowing nod usually in response to a comment he found idiotic.

  My heart had slowed and the waves of nausea had subsided, leaving me weak and cold. The sun shone through the front window of the café and the room became bright. I squinted and turned my head away. It was nearly noon. The two of us had been sitting there together for a long time, neither of us speaking.

  I took a breath. Again I felt like I needed to tell him something. But as miserable as he looked I had nothing to offer.

  * * *

  That night I stayed late at La Palette and sat in the back corner near the window facing the open room. It wasn’t crowded, only a few couples and a group of girls laughing and drinking champagne. I ordered beer after beer from the white-bearded waiter who always called me mon vieux and shook my hand when I walked through the door. Eventually the girls stood up and left, taking with them whatever hope was left in the night.

  I sat and waited for something to happen. And then, incredibly, wonderfully, it did. My phone vibrated with a message from Marie. I’m close. Do I come over?

  I waited pretending to contemplate the decision. And when it felt as if enough time had passed, I answered, paid the check, said good-bye, and walked home.

  She came up the stairs and into the apartment. Long dark hair. Too much make-up. A tight black T-shirt. Short, pale-green skirt. She balanced awkwardly on a pair of high heels.

  “Sit down.”

  She drew out the chair and sat in it, placing her purse on the table.

  “Does anyone know you’re here, Marie? Honestly.”

  “No one.” She raised her eyes and met my gaze with a determined stare, a slight grin on her face.

  I nodded. She smelled like cigarettes and alcohol. Something sweet. Her lips shone. I imagined her standing in the stairwell, carefully applying gloss. I looked at her but said nothing.

  “Aren’t you cold?” She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. She looked across the room at the open window. “Oh you can see the Eiffel Tower,” she said, standing and walking toward it.

  I turned in my chair. She walked back slowly, looking around the room. “I love your place.”

  “So why’d you come?”

  “Why’d you tell me to come?”

  “I was curious. Why’d you come?” I asked again.

  She was nervous and walked to the long kitchen counter, leaned against it, her back to me.

  Having her there calmed me. I felt suddenly in control. I could breathe.

  “Do you like this, Marie?”

  “Like what?” She asked turning from the counter.

  “Showing me your body like you are, letting me watch you.”

  She smiled. “You like my body?”

  “I do.”

  “What do you like?”

  I looked at her facing me—arms spread out behind her, fingers on the countertop, her breasts full. I was absorbed by her body, all of it offered so certainly. And though I knew she was playing at seduction, I created her for myself, made her what I wanted.

  “I’ll tell you precisely. Would you like that?”

  She hopped up onto the counter, dangling her legs. “Yes,” she said.

  I waited, studied her face, searched for some indication of fear. But there was only determination.

  “I like the curve of your breasts, I like your ass, the way you move, as if wherever you’re going is the most important place you’ll ever go. I like your hair. I like your lips, how they’re full the way your breasts are. That’s what I like. Of what I’ve seen, anyway,” I said.

  Her face had flushed, her cheeks made redder in the low light cast by the lamp on the dresser. She looked, before she raised her chin to speak, like a girl receiving praise from a proud parent. There were those wide pleading eyes and her face turned to me. I did my best to suppress my instinct to change course. But I felt the weight return softly to my chest, my heart began to pound and the clarity I’d felt minutes before was lost.

  “I—” she said.

  “Wait,” I told her, and walked into the bathroom. I closed the door. I stood above the toilet and took out my cock, which minutes before had begun to harden and was now flaccid in my hand. I pissed into the water and closed my eyes.

  Finished, I stood in front of the sink and ducked the mirror.

  I wet my hands with cold water and ran them over the back of my neck.

  She was still sitting on the counter leaning slightly forward so that her hair fell across her face. I leaned against the open bathroom door.

  “Do you know why I came here?”

  I shook my head. She hopped from the counter and I felt the night slow and slow and slow until it looked as if Marie were flying, her arms propelling her outwards, her swinging legs bringing her toward me. I saw her hands leave the counter, her body arch through the air. She landed and I could breathe again. She looked me dead in the eyes and said, “You know why I came here, Mr. Silver? I came here to fuck you.”

  I laughed but she didn’t flinch.

  “I did,” she said. “That’s why I came here.” I smelled cigarettes and that sweetness like overripe apples. I raised my hand and slid my fingers into her hair. At the base of her skull it was soft, but as I moved outwards there was the hardness of hairspray. I took a step closer so that my lips were inch
es from hers. She was breathing quickly, her eyes shone with a steady determination, as if she were playing a character she couldn’t quite inhabit.

  And we looked at each other, the two of us in a room, in a building, in a city in the world. I was far enough away to see us there. I took a deep breath and then her knee was between my legs, her arms around my neck.

  She held on tightly, desperately, moaning as if she were in pain. She turned her back. She moved up and down, stroking me, my hands cupping her breasts, my mouth at her neck. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her with strength until she slowed slightly.

  She spun and faced me again, bit my lip, ran her hand over the fly of my jeans, felt how hard I was and smiled at me, victorious. I grasped her hair tighter, pulled her head back and kissed her neck softly. She squeezed my cock tight. I pushed my hand up her skirt, slid her panties away, and felt her slick. I stroked her gently, gliding my forefinger lightly between her lips. She moaned but now guttural. She squeezed me too hard. I pulled her hand away. She opened her eyes and looked at me, frightened.

  “Gentle,” I whispered, and pushed my two middle fingers deep into her cunt. She exhaled fast and made the same, rough moan. “Oh my God,” she said quietly. “Fuck.”

  I pushed deeper and pressed my palm against her clit. I held her like that, barely moving. “I can’t stand anymore,” she said. “I want to go up.”

  “Take off your clothes,” I said.

  She stood in front of me, pulled her t-shirt over her head, reached behind her and unfastened the clasp of her bra.

  “You’re beautiful,” I told her.

  “Take off your clothes,” she told me.

  I pulled my shirt over my head as she unzipped her skirt. She stood in her panties, looking at me. I paused. “Go on,” she said, smiling. “Shy?”

  I unbuttoned my jeans and stepped out of them. She looked at my body. “All.”

  I slid my underwear down and stood in front of her naked.

  “You.”

  She left hers on the floor. I walked to her.

  “Up,” I whispered, moving her toward the ladder to my bed. I stayed close to her as we climbed, as she stepped tentatively upwards. I’d left the window open and the air was cold. We slid into bed together with her back to me. I wrapped my arms around her warm body, she sighed a long slow sigh. In that moment I felt the tremendous physical relief of finding someone there with me, the sense that something missing had been returned.

  I kept her close to me, smelling her hair, stroking her skin. She gave in completely. Softened. And for a while we were still. There was street-noise outside, bursts of laughter, glasses breaking in the café below. I felt her back expanding against my chest. We were still until she reached between my legs and fitted the head of my cock inside her. I moved slow until I was deep, until I could feel her so warm, impossibly soft, so tight around me.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “Oui, c’est bien ça.”

  Outside there was more noise. A crash. Crying. Breaking glass. Silence. Then laughter in the café again.

  “What was that?” she whispered.

  “Friday night. Who knows? Marie, I’m going to put on a condom.”

  “Yes, Jesus, I forgot. Hurry up.”

  I slid into her gently. Now she was on her back and kept a hand on her belly and as I slid deeper she said, “Gentle.”

  I began to move. She clawed at me. When I stopped she told me not to. “Please,” she said, “don’t stop, please,” and pulled me down so that my chest was against hers.

  She said, “I want to hear you come.”

  “So soon? What about you?”

  “I’ve never,” she told me.

  “Please,” she said. “Come loud.”

  As I moved faster and faster she dug her nails hard into my skin. She bit my shoulder. She moaned her strange low moan, louder and louder. “Please,” she said again and again, “come for me.” When I cried out she said, “Yes, yes,” and caressed the back of my head, so slow.

  That tenderness surprised me. I was grateful for it. Then I wished the whole thing hadn’t happened. And I knew it would again.

  * * *

  I was standing at the top of my stairwell shirtless in a pair of jeans when she kissed me good-bye. Then she was the brave girl. Tough with her purse, and a new coat of lip-gloss.

  “Goodnight,” I said.

  “Goodnight,” she smiled, and shook her head. “This is crazy. O.K., I have to go. Bye, Mr. Silver. I’m leaving now.”

  She closed the door and I stood in the center of the room, in the dark, in the blowing wind, listening to her footsteps fading as she descended the stairs, and when I couldn’t hear her any longer I walked to the open window.

  There were a few people left sitting at tables in the yellow light of Bar du Marché. Marie came out onto the street, passed in front of the café and walked fast toward boulevard St. Germain.

  It was nearly dawn and she was alone. I could hear her shoes clicking against the pavement. I wondered where she was going and how she’d get there. I hadn’t asked and as I saw her vanish around a dark corner, I felt a quick sense of dread.

  MARIE

  I’d spent the entire summer lying in the sun thinking about him. I barely ate. I was so tan. Everyone told me I looked great. When my dad showed up for a few days he kissed me on the forehead and told me I was beautiful.

  Even my mother. The first day of school I’d come down wearing a loose black embroidered top she’d bought for me from Isabel Marant. And I had the bag she’d given me too, not a backpack, but a woman’s bag, a pretty leather Jerome Dreyfuss sac which was totally unrealistic and just like her.

  I came down the stairs and she turned around. Oh Marie, she said. She had her hands at her face. She was beaming. Oh Marie, qu’est ce que t’es belle, ma chérie! Mon dieu, qu’est ce que t’es belle. I thought she was going to cry. And maybe she did a little bit. She came over and kissed me. Oh la la, Marie. Oh la la. T’es belle. I was so happy that morning. We sat together and ate our tartines with coffee and it felt as if everything would change, like we were celebrating together the rest of my perfect life. Now I was beautiful. And at school, waiting for me, was this man, this man, this tender man.

  * * *

  Over the summer I began to masturbate. Not just nervous experiments. I’d take a bath then lock the door to my bedroom. I’d get into bed and with the lights off and the windows open, listening to the ocean at the bottom of the cliffs, I’d close my eyes and think about him kissing me. I felt completely in myself. As if in those evenings there was no separation between my self and my body. I was just there. It was as if I were drunk. Soon I learned to make myself come. There was no going back. All summer was like a love affair.

  So walking downstairs that morning, seeing my mother look at me like that, I mean for the first time in my memory just completely satisfied, and sitting with her eating breakfast together and knowing that I’d see him. Oh, it was like everything was laid out in front me. As if finally, finally, I don’t know, something had changed.

  It was pathetic. What was my plan exactly? But at the time, it all made so much sense.

  * * *

  At school it was as if I didn’t exist. I did everything I could to run into him, to pass him while he was eating lunch or in the hall when I knew he was on his way to class. Of course he wanted nothing to do with me. He wasn’t rude or even cold. He just treated me like anyone else, like any other student. He’d smile, maybe hold my gaze a few seconds longer than was safe, but that was it. It ruined me. I was so surprised. Then I was angry at myself for being surprised. How could I have been so stupid and all that. But those first few weeks, the first month, all of September I was thrown, and everything seemed to get worse and worse.

  I’d planned to cut myself off from Ariel, to pull away from her, just kind of drift. Nothing dramatic. I’d be strong and passive. But when I realized that he wasn’t going to do anything at all, that he wouldn’t take a step, I went back to
my old life. It felt like such a defeat but there I was at Ariel’s apartment on Friday nights. She pretended to feel sorry for me but it was clear that she was thrilled. What’s worse is that she was in his class and got to see him every day. She’d tell me what a great teacher he was, how he was always staring at her. Once she said, If I get him I promise we’ll share him Marie, we’ll have a little threesome. I thought I was going to punch her.

  One Sunday at her apartment we got up and her parents were both there. They’d come back from some trip and were in the kitchen making scrambled eggs and toast. We ate together and I remember having a good time. It was nice. You know, pass the salt and all that. It was strange in their giant apartment, usually so quiet and still, and then that morning really filling the kitchen. All of us talking. Ariel was so happy, just sort of bouncing around, really at ease and without any of her usual stiffness. She laughed a lot and I remember thinking it was the first time I’d ever heard her laugh naturally.

  Anyway, it was nice. Her parents were warm. I mean in the way that people like that are warm. It was as if they were our guests and we were people they really liked and they were happy to be there but you always knew that they would leave at the end of the party.

  Her father was a big guy. Tall and wide with red hair. He was loud and had these huge hands. I think he’d been some kind of athlete. I liked him. He was just who he was. There was no formality at all. He looked at you when he spoke. Everything was simple with him. No subtext. Ariel’s mother was O.K. too. She was pretty of course. So much smaller than her husband and thin like Ariel. She looked at me the way Ariel did. Assessing. Just like my mother.

  After breakfast Ariel and I went to study in her room. At some point she left to go running and I stayed on her bed with my books open in front of me. I must have been working on a paper for Ms. Keller. I worked hard for her. She was the only one of my teachers I cared about and who seemed to care about me. I was trying to figure out some poem and all of a sudden he was there drinking a cup of coffee, standing in the doorway smiling at me. He asked what I was working on. I told him and he came in. It didn’t feel strange to have him there. I mean, I didn’t feel uncomfortable or threatened. He told me how he never liked poetry or something like that. I was lying on my stomach facing away from the door and he sat down next to me. He sipped his coffee and looked at the page trying to figure the thing out. And then he said something like, I don’t know Marie, this might be over my head. Then he laughed his big wide-open laugh and put his hand on my shoulder. But he was just patting me you know? Like, O.K. I’ll let you get back to work. Hang in there. That kind of thing. Then Ariel came back and we both turned around. She was standing at the door in her running clothes looking at us.