Pain Slut

by J. A. Rock

  “My culture is minivans and caramel macchiatos.” The last thing I needed today was a lecture from my sister on not being black enough. “Listen. I want to hear about your interview with the social worker.”

  She took a big bite of yogurt. “It was good, you know?”

  “No, I don’t know. How good?”

  “Very good.”

  I could tell she was hiding something. I waited.

  Eventually her gaze flicked up before returning to her yogurt container, which she was scraping with a Shawshank level of thoroughness. “She asked me a lot of questions. About you. About me. About our growing up.” She stared dramatically out the sliding glass door. “Then she asked if I’d ever been arrested.”

  Shit. “She did? She asked about that?”

  Malina threw herself back in her seat. Pulled her legs up onto the chair and continued to scrape. “You told her Mama and I were going to help with the parenting. So she said we needed background checks too.”

  But Cheryl had also told me the phone interviews with my family had gone fine. What the hell?

  “So how did you answer?”

  “I just told her no.”

  “Malina!”

  “What? Why is it her business?”

  “Because if they do an official background check, they’ll find out the truth. And they’ll know you lied, and they might think I told you to!”

  “I was seventeen!”

  “It’s still on your record.” I rubbed my temples. “Malina. You have to talk to Cheryl again and tell her what happened.”

  Her look was somewhat hostile. “Sorry I’m such a potential problem for you.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. But the truth is important here.” I hesitated. “Did Mom say anything about how her interview went?”

  Malina slammed the yogurt carton onto the table. “No.”

  “Do you know if she talked to them about religion?”

  “Why are you so worried about us embarrassing you?” she snapped. “I don’t get it, babi. We are not bad people.” She sounded like a drunk Sofía Vergara.

  “It’s not a matter of embarrassing me. It’s about us showing that we as a family would provide a stable environment for a child. Are you telling me you’d give a baby to someone if he admitted his mother pays to have her thetan audited?”

  Mom had converted to Scientology last year. It had come as a shock to Malina and me. I’d thought Scientology was the province of celebrities and criminals. Dad was the only one who hadn’t seemed terribly alarmed. Apparently anything that kept Mom’s mind off alcohol was to be supported. He treated Scientology like her hobby. Like she’d taken up quilting instead of holding cans and journeying through her past lives.

  Malina stirred the contents of her glass with the yogurt spoon. I tried not to make a face as little white chunks floated through the juice. She took a sip. “I wouldn’t judge you for what your family does.”

  God, let the Beacon Center feel the same way.

  Really, it could have been worse. Kamen’s mother was into BDSM. They’d had to start going to separate clubs because Kamen couldn’t deal with the idea of doing scenes on the same furniture his mom had played on. I sighed. “It’s just that Mom’s—”

  Right on cue, I heard the garage door open, and a minute later, Mom walked in. She was wearing a low-cut, bright-yellow dress, and her black-framed glasses that looked—I realized suddenly—way too much like mine. Her forehead was covered in beads of sweat, and there were dark patches on the fabric under her arms.

  She paused when she saw me, then set her shopping bags down by the door. Went to the refrigerator and opened it. “Malina.” She spoke before the fridge door was even fully open. “You use the last of the juice, put it on the list.”

  Malina draped her arms over her knees and rolled her eyes. “I am not ten anymore, Mama.”

  “Wonderful.” Mom grabbed a can of diet caffeine-free Pepsi. “Are you old enough to get a job and a place of your own? Help me out. I forget.”

  Malina mashed her face in her knees. “Mamaaa . . .”

  “Then put OJ on the list if you use it up.” Mom let the fridge fall shut. “Miles.” Her voice was loud, authoritative, and in some strange way comfortingly familiar. “I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

  “I know. Been busy. I dropped by to talk about the Beacon Center interviews.”

  My mother looked at me suspiciously. “Just where did you find an adoption agency with such an extensive application process?” She lumbered over to the table and sat. “When I agreed to take Malina, the orphanage gave me twenty-five percent off the adoption fee and a coupon for a free Dairy Queen Blizzard.”

  Malina raised her head with an exaggerated glare. “Eres mala.”

  “‘Eres mala’ right back at you, little girl. Throw your yogurt cup away.”

  Malina got up and threw the container away.

  Mom watched, then turned to me again. “The interview went just fine.”

  “Did you tell them you’re a Scientologist?”

  She folded her hands. She had long, gold acrylic nails. Bangles. A gauzy leopard-print scarf wrapped around her shaved head. She smelled like she’d been sampling perfume at the JCPenney counter. “I did not.”

  “Thank you,” I said sincerely. “I really appreciate that.”

  “So wait!” Malina stormed back to the table, jabbing a finger at me. “You’re mad at me for not telling the truth, and happy at her for lying?”

  “The Scientology thing isn’t something they can prove if Mom doesn’t tell them. They can check your criminal record.”

  My mother coughed into her hand. “When do they start the home assessment?” Her voice sounded papery after the cough. It gave me a sudden flash forward to what she might sound like when she was old. And then suddenly I was worrying about a future where I’d have to care for her, or put her in a nursing home. I was imagining myself accidentally picking one of those horrible places where the staff abuses the residents, and not finding out about it until the damage was done.

  I refocused. “Monday. I’m about to have a nervous breakdown.”

  “Don’t be dramatic.” Said the woman with the lemon muumuu and the body thetans. The trick was to know when Mom was joking. Her humor was so dry it was hard not to be stung, if only for a second, by nearly everything she said.

  “Fine. I’m just nervous.”

  She softened slightly. “They’re gonna give you a baby. They’d be insane not to.”

  Malina came closer. “I think so too.” She put a hand tentatively on my shoulder.

  I felt a rush of warmth toward both of them, which dissipated when Mom asked, “Do you have a crib yet?”

  “Mom. We haven’t even done the home study yet. I don’t know what baby I’m adopting.”

  “You’ve got to start thinking about it.”

  I gritted my teeth for a second. “I have thought about it. A lot. I have a lot of ideas for furniture and decorating. I’m just waiting.”

  She shrugged. “Don’t wait too long.”

  My whole childhood. A science fair project for which I’d custom-ordered materials the day I’d picked my topic. The materials took two days to ship. During the interim, she’d reminded me to not “wait too long to get started.”

  Eight college applications filled out. I was just waiting to take the ACT a third time to try for a perfect score instead of a high one. “You’re going to miss the boat if you don’t get on those applications.”

  Her assumption was always that I was falling short in some way. That I was never doing enough or doing it soon enough. And I was deeply bored with my own efforts to psychoanalyze her. Was it because she thought if she hadn’t waited so long to start a family, she could have locked Dad down, guided him away from a job where he was always in transit? That if she’d spent her junior year of high school researching colleges instead of drinking, she’d have had her pick of any school in the country instead of getting shuffled into Hymland? Who fuckin
g knew.

  I was cool toward her for the rest of the visit, and I left wondering how talking to my mother could make me feel worse about myself than standing in front of Hendrix Seger in sweatpants, trying to hide my cantaloupe balls.

  By the time Friday arrived, I was wound so tight that just sitting still hurt. So I put in as many hours at the shop as I could. Used my lunch break to take a walk. At 7 p.m., Mr. Hendrix Seger and I went to Opal, a Thai restaurant with water fountains all along the front windows. I tried not to think about the home study on Monday.

  I focused on Hendrix instead. He was so tall. His shoulders drooped forward as he studied the menu. His long hair gleamed under the gold lights. His black coat was draped over the chair back, and if I glanced under the table, I could see thick-soled black boots with spikes on the heels. He looked up at me and caught me watching. Were his eyes seriously purple? I couldn’t tell.

  “Did you find something you can eat?” God, why was I like this? Dave made fun of me whenever we ate out, because I always asked Gould, who was gluten intolerant, if he could find something on the menu to eat. And then pointed out options I thought were possibilities. I’d just used the same brusque, parental tone with Hendrix.

  Hendrix—Drix—smiled at me. “Well, I did pick the restaurant. So yes.”

  “Sorry.” I adjusted my napkin on my lap. “I can be overbearing, I’m told.”

  “Maybe I kinda like it.”

  “Oh. Well . . .” Was this flirting? Flirting made me deeply uncomfortable. I took a gulp of water. “This might be a bad conversation topic. But how was the funeral?”

  His grin broadened. Sharp teeth. I wanted him to put them against my skin. I wanted to feel their damp points anchored in my lips, my throat. My shoulder. “It was great, actually. My family really enjoyed the shirts.”

  “Are you serious? They didn’t mind the angles?”

  “Aunt Rhonda’s a math teacher, so she loved it.”

  “Oh. What grade?”

  “Seventh. Right when kids are turning into terrors.”

  “Yes, of course.” In seventh grade, I’d been taking high-school-level courses. I’d never so much as spoken out of turn in class. “So did she help you with your homework when you were younger?”

  “No. She lived in Milwaukee.”

  Conversation with Drix proved easy. He was refreshingly normal, aside from the teeth and the eyes and the fact that his family wore matching T-shirts to a funeral like it was a trip to Disney World.

  To confirm my status as this wearying world’s ultimate definition of pathetic, I indulged in a couple of fleeting domestic fantasies. This man and me. Living in my house, turning it into a home. Basking in Cheryl Callahan’s approval. Our kid, running through the rooms, laughing.

  Yes, Drix was most likely vanilla. But that would be good for me. I’d learn to live without kink. I had to. As David had pointed out, I couldn’t break out my TENS unit when I had a kid sleeping in the next room. And anyway, I wasn’t getting the same satisfaction from the scene that I used to.

  Pointy motherfucking teeth.

  Dragging along the edge of my ear. Sinking into my throat.

  My face got warm. A buzz traveled from the base of my spine up the back of my neck as I watched the way he toyed with the napkin wrapped around his silverware. I imagined those long fingers gripping my dick. Or holding a knife and pushing the cool flat of it against my ribs. Imagined kissing him. His lips were full enough, but not outlandishly pouty—a deep rose that contrasted with the pallor of his face. Long, straight nose that would bump against mine, and . . .

  “Are your eyes purple?” I asked finally.

  “Oh, uh . . .” He half put his hand up to his face, as though to say, These eyes? “Yes. Somewhat.”

  “What does ‘somewhat’ mean?”

  “My eyes are dark blue, but I enhance the color with contacts.”

  “Ah.” I looked at the cocktail menu to discourage my imminent erection. “I find people’s cosmetic choices fascinating.”

  “Hmm.” He nodded, taking a sip of jasmine tea. “I suppose I do too.”

  I wanted to make some flip comment about my own social maladroitness, but I didn’t do self-deprecation. And I really should have, because there was so much to deprecate. But I was always afraid of having someone agree with my negative assessment of myself. Uptight. Controlling. Thinks he has all the answers. As though if I didn’t say those things aloud, no one else would think them.

  “So, Hendrix Seger,” I said.

  One side of his mouth twisted upward. “I hate my parents.”

  “Ah. But Hendrix and Seger are both fine artists.”

  “I like Jimi. Bob not so much.”

  “My friend Kamen sings and plays guitar. We hang out a lot at our other friends’ house, which is on Wayne Street. So Kamen always sings ‘Down on Main Street,’ but changes ‘Main’ to ‘Wayne.’”

  I was generally the hardest to amuse in our group, but I’d laughed the loudest the night Kamen had introduced that song. It had been one of those perfect nights, back when Hal was still alive and none of us was fazed by the uncertainty of our futures. Including me. The duplex was lit with Christmas lights. We were all a little buzzed, and we’d just eaten our combined weight in burritos, and then Kamen had picked up the guitar and started singing. I’d had one of those flashes of youthful optimism where I’d thought we were all going to be together forever. That we’d have endless nights like this, nights we could pit the strength of our friendship against all the sorrows of the world and win.

  Shit. I needed to put things right with my friends.

  I took out my phone and sent a group text under the table. I’m sorry too. See you all for Hal’s party.

  Drix and I talked awhile about A2A.

  “How’d you come up with the name?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s not that great, but I wanted something short and catchy.” I didn’t tell him about the list I’d made of more than fifty possible names. About the way I’d agonized over the choice. Stayed up nights going back and forth. Polled my friends until I felt fairly confident about a certain choice—and then changed my mind as soon as I was alone again.

  We moved on to discussing the difference between red and green curry, the city’s traffic patterns, a handsome dog that passed by outside. And then I asked what he did for a living.

  He looked up from his shrimp curry. Fixed me with those violet eyes. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “Go for it.”

  “I’m a private investigator.”

  “No way.”

  He stabbed a shrimp with his fork. “See?”

  “Do you have the frosted glass door with your name on it?”

  “No. I was shocked to find that being a private eye involves very few pipes, cigarettes, secretaries with beautiful gams, or trench coats.”

  “What does it involve?”

  He chewed the shrimp. “Mostly computers. I keep an eye on social media accounts, if it’s like an I-think-my-husband-is-cheating case. I do some pay-per-view stuff too, where I basically just go to bars and check whether they’re showing pay-per-view events without a license.”

  “That sounds action-packed.”

  He laughed. “It’s so boring. Especially since what I like to do is interact with people, not spy on them.”

  “Well, it’s still an intriguing job.” I tried to relax my shoulders. I could hear a very Dave-like voice in my head making Mr. Rogers jokes. I adjusted my cardigan self-consciously.

  Whatever Drix said next washed over me as I studied him.

  What if I invited him back to my place and fucked him? Just did it with a stranger, no kinky context at all? Sure, I’d played with strangers over the past few months. But there’d been no kissing and no penetration in almost a year. I’d even noticed lately that some of the solo activities I’d once enjoyed—using plugs or dildos—were now actually painful. I was, quite literally, becoming a tight ass. And as much as
I loved pain, it was only fun when I was with someone who enjoyed inflicting it.

  “. . . bodies and stuff,” Drix was saying.

  “Oh?” I raised my brows, trying to pretend like I’d been listening.

  He smiled slowly. “You weren’t listening at all, were you?”

  “I’m sorry,” I admitted. “I was . . . You’re just so . . .”

  Unexpected.

  “Boring?”

  “No,” I said immediately. “You’re . . . beautiful.”

  I ducked and scraped up the last of my curry, wishing I could disappear. When I finally looked up, he was still smiling at me. “You’re not bad yourself.”

  I glanced around for some sort of distraction, but my food was gone and my water glass was empty and I’d already made a tiny crane out of my straw wrapper. So I forced my gaze back to him. “Thanks.”

  “You’re looking at me like you want to come back to my place.”

  “I don’t . . .”

  Let’s go back to mine instead so I can shower and go to sleep in my own bed immediately after we have sex.

  Miles. Don’t be an idiot. Go back to his place and fuck all night.

  “Yes,” I amended firmly. “Yes, let’s do the thing you said. Yes.”

  He had a house. An actual house. Not an apartment or an extended stay motel room or a hovel in one of the neighborhoods where you can’t go outside after 7 p.m. He also had a very large, red SUV. And a birdbath in his front yard.

  The inside was lived-in, but clean. Abstract art on the walls. Massive flat-screen TV. Carved wooden bowl filled with fresh fruit on the kitchen island.

  He slipped his jacket off and hung it on a kitchen chair, then turned to help with mine. One hand slid over my rigid shoulders.

  He breathed gently on my neck, still holding my jacket. I shivered. He didn’t move. “You’re so tense.”

  “I know. I think I just need to . . .” I knew what I was going to do a second before I did it. I’d never done anything like it before. I had just a fraction of an instant to wonder if I would regret it, but I couldn’t have stopped myself even if I’d wanted to.