“I want to see you.”
“I like the light off.”
“OK.”
“Oh, turn it on if you want.”
I did. She still wore her bra; her hair was a mess. I reached to unclasp her bra and she pushed my hand away; my cock slipped out of her.
“Let’s try it like this,” I said, gently pushing her off me and onto her back. I put her legs on my shoulders; I didn’t need her help to find my way in. I was deep in her now.
“I like this,” she said.
“I can kiss you,” I said, and did.
“Kiss me more.”
I did.
“Fuck me harder.”
I did, and I came inside her again.
“I have to piss,” I said to her. “Do you want it?”
She made a noise, reached up and bit my right nipple, hard.
“Ouch,” I said.
I took her hand, pulling her from the bed, and took her to the bathroom, where she sat before the toilet as I urinated. She drank just about all of it. Then she sucked and licked at my cock for a while, eyes closed.
We went back to bed, in each other’s arms, and fell asleep.
I woke up, the next morning, with Alexia messing around with my ass. She had her face down there – I was lying sideways – licking from my balls to my crack. I’m not sure how long she’d been doing this, but it was a nice thing to wake up to. She pushed me onto to my stomach, spreading my buttocks, a light finger on my sphincter, then a tongue. She licked it a bit, asked me if I liked that. I did, of course – “Yes,” I said.
She said, “I like it too,” and licked more, harder this time, pushing the tip of her tongue into me like a thirsty animal at a waterhole. I felt saliva roll down onto my balls – a funny, ticklish feeling. She started to suck, making sounds that I can only describe as pleasantly perverse. She did this for the good part of an hour, as I lay there in ecstasy, having discovered a new world. She was still making wicked sucking sounds, and there was a soft hum from the back of her throat.
She turned me over, and sucked on my cock for a bit. “My mouth is getting tired,” she said. “Can you fuck me?”
She was on her hands and knees, and I took her from behind. I grabbed her hips, and slammed myself inside and out of her. I wanted to come in her mouth: this image was in my head. I told her this. She turned around and took me in her mouth, and I came.
And that’s how I ended my period of celibacy.
I didn’t see Alexia again for over a week. We played phone tag, then she stopped calling, and she didn’t come to class (it was a once-a-week thing). I drove to her place; her car was there, but no one answered the door.
The next morning, she answered her phone.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
“Where you been?”
“Nowhere,” she said.
“I was worried.”
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
“You really were?”
“Yes.”
“That’s sweet,” she said.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing really,” she said. “I’ve been depressed.”
“Depressed?”
“I get that way sometimes.”
“About what?”
“This and that.”
“I see.”
“Don’t you ever get depressed?” she asked.
“Well, yes,” I said.
“When I get depressed, I get depressed big,” she said.
“But you’re OK?”
“Yeah,” she said, “I’m OK.”
She didn’t sound OK.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” I said.
“You have? I’ve been thinking a lot about you. What’ve you been thinking about?”
“You,” I said, “and your ass; how I’d like to be fucking you, how I’d like to lick your ass like you did mine. I’ve never done that to anyone before.”
“I wonder about this,” she said.
“What?”
“You could come over,” she said.
“When?”
“Now.”
I rushed over.
Alexia was wearing a thick, terry-cloth robe, no glasses. We immediately embraced. Her body felt warm and nice.
“Do you want something to eat?” she asked. “I was going to make grilled cheese sandwiches.”
“I love grilled cheese sandwiches.”
I sat in her small kitchen and watched her cook. We ate the sandwiches in the living room.
“We should’ve gotten together again sooner,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
“What’ve you been doing?”
“Writing.”
“Anything good?”
“I don’t know. Another novel.”
“About?”
I smiled. “This and that.”
“So be it.”
“Essays,” I said. “I’ve been writing essays lately for The USA Viewpoint.”
“Really. That’s a big magazine, isn’t it?”
“I think so. They pay well.”
“What do you write?”
“Opinions, views – viewpoints!”
“Your look at the nation.”
“And the world.”
“I should be impressed,” she said.
“You’re not impressed?”
“I’m impressed,” she said. “But I’m more impressed with what you want to do with that mouth and tongue. Did you mean what you said? You want to get nasty with my butt?”
“Very,” I said.
She took my hand, led me to the bedroom. She removed her robe, was naked underneath. I looked at the dark, thick bush of pubic hair between her legs, something I hadn’t noticed the last time. Alexia was on her stomach, spread-eagled. I didn’t waste time getting to work on her, finding her puckered asshole and going to work at it with my tongue. Alexia seemed to enjoy my effort, wiggling her hips back and forth. I reached to touch her cunt, thinking she’d like this, but she told me not to touch it, was very adamant about that. I continued to lick and suck, and then she touched herself, and she came. I moved up, my cock out now, my pants down to my ankles, and entered her.
We fucked for the rest of the night, and I stayed there. I stayed there for several days, engulfed in nothing but nasty sex, fucking her in the ass, pissing in her mouth, her face buried in my crotch and rear.
It was fun.
In between, we slept, ate, drank, and talked. It was the usual talk – the past, our lives, our families. She was very close to her family (as I’d already gathered) and wanted me to meet her mother and father and two brothers, and some aunts and cousins tossed in. I nodded my head, but I was never comfortable meeting my lovers’ families, both in the act and the thought. We parted, as people must part – I went back to my life, she did what she did.
She called two days later, a Sunday. I was working on the novel.
“My family is having a big dinner tonight,” she said. “Do you want to come over and meet them?”
“Well,” I said. “Not tonight, I can’t.”
“You can’t?”
“I’m on a roll.”
“You just don’t want to meet them,” Alexia said, an accusation. I guess she could hear it in my voice.
“I’d feel weird.”
“Why?”
“I just would.”
“It’d mean a lot to me,” she said. “I told my mother about you.”
“You did? What’d you tell her?”
“Not that” she said. “Just that – I’d met this guy. I told her: ‘I met this great guy.’ ”
“Oh.” I felt like shit.
“You are my boyfriend,” she said, “right?”
“Yes,” I said. I liked the way it sounded.
“I’d like you to come.”
“How about next time?”
“Oh, fuck it,” she said, and hung up.
I tried calling her back. She didn�
�t answer.
She didn’t come to class the next time, either.
Over beers at the pub, I asked Barry McGinnis about her.
“She’s a strange one,” Barry said.
“Well,” I said.
“Fucking her?”
“You could say that.”
“I had a feeling,” Barry said. “Well, fucking is a good thing. There are plenty of fuck opportunities around here.”
“She’s kinky,” I said.
Barry had this look on his face. “Really?”
I knew that look. “You didn’t fuck her, did you?” I asked.
“Well,” Barry said, drinking his beer. “Not exactly. Look. OK. This was last year. It was two a.m., the bar had closed, she was sitting in my car with me. We made out, she was reaching down my pants. Then she stops and says, ‘I can’t.’ ‘You can’t?’ She said, ‘I can’t.’ And that was that. There’s always been this strange tension between us since. So,” he asked, “how kinky is she?”
I told him.
“Wow,” Barry said. “Hey, it’s my birthday next week. Big party at my place. Do bring Alexia.”
“Don’t get any ideas.”
“I never have ideas.”
Alexia called the next day. “I guess you should know something about me.”
“You’re an alien?”
“Sometimes I think so,” she laughed. “No. I mean. I’m manic depressive, I mean.”
“Who isn’t?”
“I’m serious. I get into these bad funks sometimes. That’s why I haven’t gone to class.”
“It’s not me?” I asked.
“A little bit, I suppose,” she replied. “It’s mostly me. My screwed-up head. Do you want to come over?”
“Of course I do.”
“In maybe an hour? I need to straighten up a bit.”
“An hour,” I said.
An hour later, I was there.
I kissed her; it wasn’t a long one – she pulled back.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” I said.
She had the fridge stocked with beer, and we sat on the couch and had a few. The TV was on, no sound. It was an awkward moment again.
“I need someone,” she said. “I’m not sure if now is the right time.”
“I’m never sure,” I said. “I need someone, too. We all do, right? That’s what I’m told.”
“I’m twenty-eight and I feel like I haven’t done shit with my life. OK, OK, so I’m getting my Master’s, but so what? Me and a million people. I have all these things in my head that I want to do. I want to write novels like you. I have novels in my head. I just don’t know how to write them. And movies. I have screenplays in my head, whole movies.”
“Just sit down at your computer and write them,” I said.
“Easy for you to say. Maybe you can do that. I can’t. I tried, I mean I really tried. I can’t. And that’s what drives me crazy. That and a zillion other things. I really do want to make movies. I have a camera. It’s hidden away: you haven’t seen it. I have a camera, I have ideas, I want to make movies. Write books. Compose songs. Maybe even act, you know? So many things. But I’ll never do these things.”
“You don’t know that.”
“That’s what the little voice in my head says. The Devil on my shoulder. ‘Alexia, stop fooling yourself, you could never do those things.’ And my parents, they don’t care – they think it’s all silly. ‘Alexia, an artist? How sweet.’ They don’t even think much about my getting an MA. ‘You already have a Bachelor’s, Alexia, why waste your time further?’ They just want me to get married. Before I’m thirty. ‘You need to get married soon, you know,’ my mother says. You know, you know – when I told my mother about you, when I said, ‘I met this great guy,’ she said, ‘Is he husband material?’ You know what I said?”
“He’s a pervert, Mom!”
“I’m the pervert. ‘No,’ I said, ‘he may be for someone else, Mother, but he’s not Jewish.’ ‘Not Jewish,’ my Mother said, ‘why are you wasting your time. Alexia?’ And that’s just it, Nicky – wasting time. I’m always wasting time. I don’t mean you. I mean in general, my life in general – I always feel like I’m wasting my time! I should be – doing something else, I think. I envy you, in your way, how you’re always spending your time writing this and that. This is what makes me so depressed – I feel like I’m getting old and I’ve done nothing.”
“You’re not old.”
“I feel like it,” she said. “And yes, I need to get married, right? Find a nice Jewish man who’ll take care of me, and bear his fucking children for him. Lose my virginity, keep my secret desires hidden, for surely he’ll be offended. And I won’t have to work. He’ll take care of me; I’ll stay home and raise the kids. OH FUCK, NICKY, I DON’T WANT THAT KIND OF FUCKING LIFE! THAT’S NOT ME!! BUT WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?!? MY PARENTS EXPECT THIS OF ME! MY WHOLE FAMILY DOES!! ‘WHEN IS ALEXIA GOING TO GET HER HEAD STRAIGHT AND MARRY AND START A FAMILY LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE DO???’ ”
I held her. She hit my chest with her fists . . . not hard.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, wiping tears.
“It’s all right,” I said.
“It’s not all right. You didn’t come over for this.”
“No, no, it’s all right.”
“You came here to fuck. So let’s fuck.”
“You don’t seem in the right –”
“No,” she said, “I want to fuck.”
We went to the bed, took some of our clothes off, kissed a little. She wasn’t into it, I wasn’t into it.
We lay there.
“Barry McGinnis is having a birthday party next week,” I said.
“How old’s he going to be?”
“Forty-eight, I think,” I said.
“I thought he was fifty.”
“I’m not sure.”
“You know what,” she said.
“What?”
“I’m so pissed off at my whole family, everything, all of it,” she said. “Fuck my heritage, fuck tradition. I feel like losing my virginity. Do you want to do that? Fuck my pussy? You can if you want.”
“I’d like that,” I said. “I never deflowered a virgin.”
She laughed. “That sounded so silly, ‘I never deflowered a virgin.’ ”
“It’s true.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re melodramatic, sometimes?”
“No.”
“You are,” she said. “Deflower on.”
I got on top of her.
“Wait,” Alexia said.
“What is it?”
“I can’t.”
“I have condoms in my car,” I said.
“It’s not that,” she said. “I’m scared all of a sudden,” she said. “I can’t.”
“Well,” I said, “OK.”
I rolled off her.
“Nicky, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right.”
“It was a wild moment in my head.”
“I know.”
“I’ll suck you off,” she said.
I woke up to the sound of shattering – something. Breaking. And cries. Alexia. She was cursing, and sobbing. In the kitchen. I went to her. There were broken plates and glasses all over the floor; Alexia was naked, standing there, her feet bleeding. Her face streaked with tears. She just looked at me. She cried out, and broke the rest of the plates.
I went to her, cautious. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I need help,” she whispered.
I held onto her, and took her to the living room. She was trailing blood on the floor. I went to the bedroom, found her robe, brought it to her.
“My medicine,” she said.
“What medicine?”
“You need to call my brother,” she said. “It’s bad.”
“What? What?”
“Just call my brother, he’ll know what to do.”
She gave me a number, and I called. An office. I told the man on the oth
er line I was a friend of Alexia’s – “She told me to call –”
“She’s at home?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I’ll be there.”
Half an hour later, a man in his early thirties showed up, in a suit. He looked a little like Alexia. Alexia was curled up on the couch. He went to her, and helped her up.
“Come, now,” he said. “Everything’s OK.”
I felt stupid standing there.
“It’s OK,” her brother told me. “It happens. I can handle it from here.”
And they left me there. Alexia and her brother departed in his car, and I was alone in her place, with broken plates and glasses and a bad energy lingering.
I tiptoed through the kitchen, like a mine field, and got myself a beer. I needed a beer. And another. She had vodka, and I had some of that. I waited. Weren’t they coming back? It was night. I finished the vodka and beer and I was drunk and went to sleep. I dreamed Alexia’s ghost came to visit me. “Hello, Nicky, I’m dead.” I woke, sweating. I went back to sleep. I kept thinking she’d come in any minute, and join me, and we could make love. In the morning, I was still alone. I took a shower, washed up. In the bathroom cabinet, I found a large assortment of pills. I didn’t know what they were all for. I knew what Prozac was for.
I remembered her brother’s number and called it, told him who I was. “I was just wondering if she’s OK,” I said. “I’m worried.”
“Oh, she’s just fine,” her brother said. “I took her to the hospital.”
“The hospital?”
“Yes. It happens sometimes. They bandaged her feet. She’ll be okay. She’ll be out in a few days. She has her medication. You’re a friend of hers?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a nice friend.”
I locked her place up, and went home.
THREE
I went to Barry’s birthday party alone.
Barry’s party was well-attended – faculty from the school, students, writers, odd friends here and there. I drank, and I intended to get quite drunk. There were plenty of drugs going around, mostly pot and speed and I heard somewhere that someone had acid, but I couldn’t find the acid. I think Barry was on acid – he was acting like it – and he’d done a lot of speed as well.
This is where I connected with Hanna.
Hanna was in the same class with me as Alexia, plus another class, and I’d never really taken note of her. She had tattoos, punk-style short hair dyed red, green, and blue, and wore baggy nondescript clothes. At the party, however, she wore a low-cut, short dress, showing a good portion of her milky white skin and assorted tats. Some time during the party, a good four hours into it, we started talking, and when we weren’t talking, she was staring at me from across the party. She was pretty drunk (and on acid, I found out later) and I wondered what the sudden interest was. Well, I didn’t care. I found myself sitting on the outside stairs and talking with her, and we got closer, mentioning how we liked each other, and then we were kissing.
The Mammoth Book of Erotica presents The Best of Michael Hemmingson Page 14
