Table of Contents
Title Page
Epigraph
INTRODUCTION
ReBecca
Girls
Terrarium
Two Cans and a String
Bed of Leaves
For God’s Sake, Forgive Your Mother
Flight
When to Use
The Finish Line
Alfie And Joe
The Wedding of Tom to Tom
Perverts.com
Without Leaving Gone
The Resolution Phase
Holdin Heat
Scene
Fifty-five Fucks
Natoma Street
Flare
Third Party
Sailors
26 Hours, 25 Minutes
Reservation
Complex Electra
Robbery
Aubade
Anniversary— Eleven Years
Fourteen Days and a Possible Cure
Music for Torching
A Story Problem
Alex
The Party Where Everyone Gets Theirs - BY T. K. TAWNI
The Velvet
Tragedy in Burgundy
A Caring Rescue
Folk Song, 1999
Over Chinese
Perv
Intimacy
Alvin Happens Upon the Greatest Line Ever
Acknowledgments
ALSO FROM THE EDITORS OF NERVE.COM
Copyright Page
I am never inclined to fault those who look for sex in literature; looking for sex, they may find something else.
—Anthony Burgess
INTRODUCTION
ONE BODY BUMPING AGAINST ANOTHER : in this act, lives are made, minds are derailed, souls are bared and human beings are exposed at their most animal—and thus most human. Nine out of ten bipeds surveyed will tell you it’s the most fun thing in the world, but sex still remains a mystery, the thing we will do the most in our lives without ever having a solid grasp of what it means.
If consciousness is the defining characteristic of humanity, then those things that elude our minds’ grasp allow us to see our limits, help us understand who we are. Sex, by denying comprehension, catches us in its mirror, if we bother to look. For the fiction writer seeking to represent human experience as we know it, the challenge to depict and delimit sex is as alluring as it is daunting.
Few writers make the attempt—those who do find themselves at the end of language’s tether, seeking to find words and phrases to circumvent the pat clichés of erotica and pornography. You are unlikely to think that English is short on adjectives until you start trying to describe what sweat on skin tastes like, or what is seen in the flash of emotions as you enter someone or someone enters you. A million components of sex are taken for granted; when you try to recover them in language, their immediacy becomes distant, their familiarity strange. The pen falters.
What’s more, most every relationship has a sexual dynamic, and the relationship affects the sex no less than the sex affects the relationship. And thus the problem with both erotica and pornography: They remove sex from its real human context and, in doing so, erase much of what makes the sexual experience what it is. Both genres idealize our positions and performance (in different ways, of course), but in their attention to physiology they tend to leave out the psychology. Like playing notes without chords, they make a kind of melody, but miss much of the poignancy and resonance of music.
The authors in Full Frontal Fiction play both sad and happy songs. Some address sex head-on, bringing bodies into visible and poignant collision; others approach it obliquely, exploring the impact of sexuality on characters caught in its throes. Though each of the stories may be erotic, there is no sugarcoating of experience: in one, a Siamese twin helps set up her other half; in another, a man gets a call from his girlfriend’s husband; in a third, two mentally handicapped men have a covert wedding. This is not sex writing as we normally think of it, not what I expected to find when I signed on as editor of Nerve. This is sex seen as a microcosm for life as a whole, painted in the full spectrum of its complexity. I often say that a Nerve story should be stimulating above and below the neck; the reality is that, working in unison, each half helps facilitate the other.
—Jack Murnighan
ReBecca
BY VICKI HENDRICKS
AS HER SIAMESE TWIN joined at the skull, I know Becca wants to fuck Remus as soon as she says she’s going to dye our hair. I don’t say anything—yet. I’m not sure she’s even admitting it to herself. The idea doesn’t sit well with me, but I decide to wait and see just how she plans to go about it.
It’s a warm, clear night, and not a bad walk to Payless Drugs. Becca picks out a light magenta hair-color that to me suggests heavy drug addiction. “No, siree,” I tell her. “I know my complexion colors. I’m a fall, and that’s definitely a spring.” No spring that ever existed in nature, I might add.
“Oh, stop it, Rebby. We’ll do a middle part and you can keep your flat brown and I’ll just liven up my side. I want to get it shaped too— something that falls around my face.”
“It better not fall anywhere near my face.”
When we get home from the drugstore, she reads the instructions aloud and there are about fifty steps to this process by the time you do the lightening and the toning. Then she starts telling me which hairs are hers and which are mine. We’ve gone around on this before. It’s a tough problem because our faces aren’t set exactly even: I look left and down while she faces straight ahead and up. For walking we’ve managed a workable system where I watch for curbs and ground objects and she spots branches and low-flying aircraft. She claims to have saved our life numerous times.
“Oh, yeah? And for what?” I always ask her. And she always laughs. But now I know—so she can fuck Remus, the pale scrawny clerk with the goatee who works at A Different Fish down the corner. Now it’s clear why Becca didn’t laugh when I pointed out his resemblance to the suckermouth catfish. Also her sudden decision to raise crayfish. Those bastards are mean, ugly sons of bitches, but they suit Becca just fine. They’re always climbing out of the tank to dehydrate under the couch, so we have to go back to the store for new ones. Fuck—I’d rather die a virgin. We entertain ourself just fine.
It’s two A.M. when she finishes drying that magenta haystack and we finally get into bed. Then she stays awake mooning about Remus while I put a beanbag lizard over my eyes and try to turn off her side of the brain. I know where she’s got her fingers. There’s a tingle and that certain haziness in our head.
We barely make it to work on time in the morning. Then Becca talks one of our coworkers into giving her a haircut during lunch. The woman is a beautician, but she developed allergies to the chemicals, so now she works at the hospital lab with us.
They’re snipping and flipping hair in the break-room to beat shit while I’m trying to eat my tuna fish. “Yes!” Becca says, when she looks in the mirror. Her side is blunt-cut into a sort of swinging pageboy. She tweaks the wave over her eye, making sure we’ll be clobbered by a branch in the near future.
We get home from work that evening and—surprise—she counts the crayfish and reports another missing. I try to scramble down to look under the couch in case the thing hasn’t dried out yet, but she braces her legs and I can’t get the leverage.
“You know how much trouble it is for us to get back up,” she says. “Anyway, it’d be covered with dust-bunnies and hair.”
At that moment I get a flash of guilt from her section of the brain—she’s lying. There is no fucking arthropod under the couch. She wants badly to get back to that aquarium store.
I catch Becca smiling sweetly at me in the hall mirror. I forgive he
r.
She insists on changing into “sleisure wear”—that’s what I call it—to walk down the street. The frock’s a short fresh pink number with cut-in shoulders. I’m wearing my “Dead Babies” tour T-shirt and the cutoffs I wore all last weekend. Becca has long given up trying to get me to dress in tandem.
We see Remus through the glass door when we get there. He has his back to us dipping out feeders for a customer. His shaved white neck almost glows. The little bell rings as we step in. Becca tugs me toward the tank where the crayfish are, and I can tell she’s nervous.
Remus turns. Straining my peripheral vision, I catch the smile he throws her. I can feel this mutual energy between them that I missed before. He’s not too bad-looking with a smile. I start to imagine what it’s going to be like. What kind of posture they’ll get me into. Maybe I should buy earplugs and a blindfold.
Becca heads toward the crayfish, but I halt in front of a saltwater tank of neon-bright fish and corals. A goby pops its round pearly head out of a mounded hole in the sandy bottom and stares at us. “Look,” I say, “he’s like a little bald-headed man,” but she just keeps trudging on to the crayfish tank, where she pretends to look for a healthy specimen. Remus comes back with his dipper and a plastic bag.
“What can I do for you two lovely ladies tonight?”
Becca blushes and giggles. Remus reddens. I know he’s thinking about his use of the number two. He’s got it right, but he’s self-conscious...like everybody.
She points to the largest, meanest-looking crawdad in sight. “This guy,” she says. I figure she’s after the upper-body strength, the easier he can knock the plastic lid off our tank and boost himself out over the edge. “Think you can snag him?” she asks Remus.
He takes it as a test. “You bet. Anything for my best customer—s.” He stands on tiptoe so the metal edge of the tank is in his armpit and some dark hair curls from his scrunched short sleeve. He dunks the sleeve completely as he swoops and chases that devil around the corners of the tank.
Remus is no fool. He’s noticed Becca’s new haircut and color. I’m thinking, get your mind outta the gutter, buster—but I’m softening. I’m tuned to Becca’s feelings, and I’m curious about this thing— although, it’s frightening. Not so much the sex, but the idea of three. I’m used to an evenly divided opinion, positive and negative, side by side, give and take. We might be strange to the world, but we’ve developed an effective system. Even his skinny bones on her side of the balance could throw it all off.
Remus catches the renegade and flips him into the plastic bag, filling it halfway with water. He pulls a twist-tie from his pocket and secures the bag. “You have plenty of food and everything?” Remus asks.
Becca nods slowly and pokes at the bag. I know she’s trying to think of a way to start something without seeming too forward. Remus looks like he’s fishing for a thought.
My portion of the gray matter takes the lead. “Hey,” I say, “Becca and I were thinking we’d try a new brownie recipe and rent a video. Wanna stop by on your way home?”
Becca twitches. I feel a thrill run through her, then apprehension. She turns our head further to Remus. “Want to?” she says.
“Sure. I don’t get out of here till nine. Is that too late?”
“That’s fine,” I say. I feel her excitement as she gives him the directions to the house and we head out.
When we get outside she shoots into instant panic. “What brownie recipe? We don’t even have flour!”
“Calm down,” I tell her. “All he’s thinking about is that brownie between your legs.”
“Geez, Reb, you’re so crude.”
“Chances are he won’t even remember what we invited him for.” Suddenly, it hits me that he could be thinking about what’s between my legs too—a natural ménage à trois. I rethink—no way, Remus wouldn’t know what to do with it.
Becca insists that we make brownies. She pulls me double-time the four blocks to the Quickie Mart to pick up a box mix. I grab a pack of M&M’s and a bag of nuts. “Look, we’ll throw these in and it’ll be a new recipe.”
She brightens and nods our head, I can feel her warmth rush into me because she knows I’m on her side—in more ways than one, for a change.
We circle the block to hit the video store and Becca agrees to rent What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? She hates it, but it’s my favorite, and she’s not in the mood to care. I pick it off the shelf and do my best Southern Bette Davis: “But Blanche, you are in that wheelchair.”
It’s eight o’clock when we get home and the first thing Becca wants to do is hop in the shower. I’d rather start the brownies. We both make a move in opposite directions, like when we were little girls. She fastens on to the love seat and I get a grip on the closet door-knob. Neither of us is going anywhere. “Reb, please, let go!” she hollers.
After a few seconds of growling, I realize we’re having a case of nerves. I let go and race Becca into the bathroom. “Thanks, Rebelle,” she says.
At 9:10 we slide the brownies into the oven and hear a knock. Remus made good time. I notice Becca’s quick intake of breath and a zinging in our brain.
Remus has a smile that covers his whole face. I feel Becca’s cheek pushing my scalp and can figure a big grin on her too. I hold back my wiseass grumbling. So this is love.
Becca asks Remus in and we get him a Bud. He’s perched on the love seat. Our only choice is the couch, which puts me between them, so I slump into my “invisible” posture, chin on chest, and suck my beer. I know that way Becca is looking at him straight on.
“The brownies will be ready in a little while. Want to see the movie?” she asks.
“Sure.”
Becca starts to get up, but I’m slow to respond.
Remus jumps up and heads for the VCR. “Let me,” he says.
“Relax,” I whisper to Becca. I’m thinking, thank God I’ve got Baby Jane for amusement.
The movie comes on and neither of them speaks. Maybe the video wasn’t such a good idea. I start spouting dialogue just ahead of Bette whenever there’s a pause. Becca shushes me.
The oven timer goes off. “The brownies,” I say. “We’ll be right back.” We hustle into the kitchen and I get them out. Becca tests them with the knife in the middle. “Okay,” I tell her. “I’m going to get you laid.”
“Shh, Reb!” I feel her consternation, but she doesn’t object.
The brownies are too hot to cut, so Becca picks up the pan with the hot pad and I grab dessert plates, napkins and the knife. “Just keep his balls out of my face,” I say.
That takes the wind out of her, but I charge for the living room.
Remus has moved to the right end of the couch. Hmm. My respect for him is growing.
We watch and eat. Remus comments on how good the brownies are. Becca giggles and fidgets. Remus offers to get us another beer from the fridge. Becca says no thanks. He brings me one.
“Ever had a beer milkshake?” I ask him.
“Nope.”
“How ’bout a Siamese twin?”
His mouth falls open and I’m thinking suckermouth catfish all the way, but his eyes have taken on focus.
I tilt my face up. “Becca would shoot me for saying this—if she could do it and survive—but I know why you’re here, and I know she finds you attractive, so I don’t see a reason to waste any more time.”
The silence is heavy and all of a sudden the TV blares—“You wouldn’t talk to me like that if I wasn’t in this chair” — “But Blanche, you are in that chair, you are in that chair.”
“Shut that off,” I tell Remus.
He breaks from his paralysis and does it.
I feel Becca’s face tightening into a knot, but there are sparks behind it.
I suggest moving into the bedroom. Remus gawks.
I’m named Rebelle so Mom could call both of us at once—she got a kick out of her cleverness—and I take pride in being rebellious. I drag Becca up.
She’s got the p
osture of a hound dog on a leash, but her secret thrill runs down my backbone. I think our bodies work like the phantom-limb sensation of amputees. We get impulses from the brain, even when our own physical parts aren’t directly stimulated. I’m determined to do what her body wants and not give her mind a chance to stop it. She follows along. We get into the bedroom and I set us down. Remus sits next to Becca. Without a word, he bends forward and kisses her, puts his arms around her and between our bodies. I watch.
It’s an intense feeling, waves of heat rushing over me, heading down to my crotch. We’ve been kissed before, but not like this. He works at her mouth and his tongue goes inside.
The kissing stops. Remus looks at me, then turns back to Becca. He takes her face in his hands and puts his lips on her neck. I can smell him and hear soft kisses. My breathing speeds up. Becca starts to gasp.
He stops and I hear the zipper on the back of her dress. She stiffens, but he takes her face to his again and we slide back into warm fuzzies. This Remus has some style. He pulls the dress down to her waist and unhooks her bra. She shrugs it off.
“You’re beautiful,” he tells her.
“Thanks,” I say. I get a jolt of Becca’s annoyance.
My eyes are about a foot from her nipples, which are up like gobies, and he gets his face right down in them, takes the shining pink nubs into his mouth and suckles. I feel myself edging toward the warm moist touch of his lips, but the movement is mostly in my mind.
Remus pushes Becca onto the pillow and I fall along and lie there, my arms to my side. He lifts her hips and slides the dress down and off, exposing a pair of white lace panties that I never knew Becca had, never even saw her put on.
He nuzzles the perfect V between her legs and licks those thighs, pale as cave fish. Becca reaches up and starts unbuttoning his shirt. He helps her, then speedily slips his jeans down to the floor, taking his underwear with them. I stare. This is the first time we’ve seen one live. I feel a tinge of fear and I don’t know if it’s from Becca or me.
“Got a condom?” I ask him.
“Oh, yeah,” he says. He reaches for his pants and pulls a round gold package out of the pocket. Becca puts her hand on my arm while he’s opening it, and I turn my chin to her side and kiss her shoulder. We both watch while he places the condom flat on the tip of his penis and slowly smoothes it down.
Full Frontal Fiction Page 1
