Character, Driven

by David Lubar

  I nodded, enjoying the feel of her finger sliding across my lips as my head bobbed in agreement. I thought about slipping my lips over her fingertip, but I was now totally terrified of any false move that would cause her to change her mind.

  She took my hand and backed toward the steps. I followed, like a balloon on a string.

  We went up to her room.

  My heart was slamming its fists against the inside of my chest in a drum roll that seemed destined to end with an explosion. I know that’s a terribly constructed metaphorasimile or whatever, but my brain was totally drowning in unbound electrical discharges, and functioning at the lowest lizard level. If a fly had zipped past me, I might have snagged it with my tongue.

  Jillian began to unbutton her shirt. She took her time. I wanted to rip it wide in a dramatic act of masculine bravado, turning buttons to bullets that ricocheted off the walls. But this didn’t seem like the time for macho acts of wardrobial destruction. This seemed the time to avoid doing anything that might make her think she’d made a terrible mistake.

  Unassisted, she got the shirt—that awesome, pure-white, breast-cradling shirt—unbuttoned. She flipped it over her shoulders, then dangled her arms back so the shirt slid off, a silent angel falling from grace. Or toward it.

  Her bra was beige, and lacy at the edges. I’d seen a thousand of them in the catalogs that I’d snitched from the mail, wrapping the bodies of impossibly constructed women. But Jillian was nothing but possibilities at the moment. I leaned forward, sure I would botch this part. I’d never had an opportunity to explore the mystic or mythic workings of a bra clasp.

  To my relief, she smiled and reached behind her.

  The bra fell.

  Her breasts were the most beautiful natural wonders I’d ever seen. There are no words. I’d seen chest-loads of bare breasts in photos and videos. But these—they were here, in the room, in my life.

  Jillian slipped into bed, lying on her back. I lay next to her, to her right, on my left side, trying to hide my trembling. I reached out across her body and placed the palm of my right hand against her left breast. I knew my own body, in all its textures and firmnesses. I knew Jillian’s face, neck, shoulders, hands, arms, and back. But I’d never felt flesh like this. It was warm and firm, but soft. It seemed to press back against my hand, through some sort of biological magic.

  My god. If I died now, my life would be complete.

  But I lived.

  I moved my fingers slightly, feeling the indescribable wonder of Jillian’s breast. I slid my palm across her flesh, traveling in slow circles. She shuddered, and moved her head closer to me. I felt her soft hair against my left arm. She kissed my shoulder, then bit it gently.

  Unsure what was allowed, I raised myself up on my side and kissed her right breast gently, delicately, as if I were the guardian of a shimmering soap bubble. I paused, waiting to see whether she’d tell me to stop. She slipped an arm beneath my side and caressed my back.

  Something else beckoned.

  I slid my right hand down her stomach, over the indent of her navel, and beyond.

  My fingertips met the tightness of her pants across her waist. I pressed gently downward, feeling the taut muscles of her stomach yield to the pressure. My hand slipped past her belt, below her waistband but above her panties.

  I felt soft cotton beneath my fingers, and rougher denim against the back of them. I eased my hand out and slipped my fingers beneath the elastic.

  I hesitated. She didn’t stop me. I felt nails grip my back. Sweet pain.

  I slid my hand forward, over supple flesh and firm bone. As my wrist brushed the hard curve of her right hip bone, my mind tossed out a thought of Scylla and Charybdis. But I wasn’t voyaging between Homeric monsters. I was navigating toward paradise. I could picture what lay ahead in the small part of my mind that wasn’t chanting ohmygod!ohmygod!ohmygod! My hand reached the precipice. I cupped my fingers over the edge, toward the warm mysteries that Jillian offered me.

  And that was how I wish it had been.

  And that is probably enough for any of you dick jockeys out there to get yourselves off. I don’t blame you. I got pretty firm writing it. Go wash your hands. Or change your shorts. Or if you’re a real perv, be a good guy and wipe off the underside of the library table you just spooged. I’ll wait.

  Yeah, I lied to you again. Just like at the start. But that’s only two lies. And they came pretty far apart. Besides, lie or not, you know you’re going to read that part again and share it with your friends. And, in many ways, it’s not a lie. It’s a fantasy. It’s one of the thousand ways I’d imagined I would come of age. Except for not happening, it was totally real, and belongs here as much as anything else I’ve told you.

  Ready for the truth? Here’s how it happened after we reached her room. Really. And I’m pretty sure when you hear the truth, you’ll understand why I had to share the fantasy first.

  “You’re not the only one who’s been wanting this,” Jillian said. She pushed down against her belt on either side of her hips and dropped her pants without unzipping them. Then she slipped out of her panties. They were pink. She left her shirt untouched.

  I pushed off my own pants and underwear in one move. I wanted to leap on her and end my virgin years. But something that had been drilled into us by a series of self-conscious health teachers all through middle school and high school wrapped its latex arms around my horny crotch.

  “What about…” I groped for the right way to say it.

  “Protection?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m on the pill,” she said. “Mom put me on it when I turned fifteen. She said it was for my acne.”

  “Acne?” I asked. “The pill helps acne?” There was so much I didn’t know. But I guess it worked. Her skin was unblemished.

  Jillian nodded. “The truth is, Mom got pregnant when she was seventeen. She decided that this was one experience she didn’t want to become a family tradition.”

  What about a condom? I knew about sexually transmitted diseases. But I didn’t have one. That was for sure, unless self-inflicted friction burns counted. And I didn’t care if I caught something. Not right now. Not when my groin was screaming for me to get to work and release eighteen years of hormonal pressure.

  Still, there’d be a price. I knew that. If I had sex without a condom and didn’t suffer in some dreadful way, I’d be telling a tale with no redeeming values.

  Screw it. The hell with morality and redemption. I’d willingly take whatever came.

  Jillian dropped onto the bed and held her hands out to me.

  I climbed on top of her, propping myself with my arms so I wouldn’t put too much weight on her.

  “Cliff…,” she whispered. It wasn’t a statement or a question. It was my name. As if to affirm that it was right for me to be here.

  “Jillian…,” I whispered back, as afraid in the reality of this moment as I’d been in my fantasy of spoiling everything by an action or inaction.

  This is it.

  I was about to leave my virginity behind me. I thought about the HAPPY BAR MITZVAH, MIKEY cups. Today, I was about to become a man.

  I shifted my hips until we were in line. Jillian, below me, was a mix of warm flesh and sharp bones. Right now, I would have died for her. I would have cut off my arms and legs. But not my penis. That guy had a mission.

  I raised my hips slightly and maneuvered. I was flying on instruments now, coming in for a landing on a mysterious island paradise.

  This is it!

  I let myself slip between her legs.

  This is really it!

  I started thrusting with my hips.

  Is this it?

  All those stories, all those years of hearing about sex. Metaphors, similes, hyperbole. I wanted angels to sing. I wanted chrysanthemum fireworks to explode in the sky. I wanted trains to shoot through tunnels and waves to crash on a sandy shore.

  It was … sort of nice. Better than jacking off, but nowhe
re near the realm of trains and angels. I realized Jillian hadn’t made a sound yet. From movies, I knew that women were supposed to moan in ecstasy if you did it right. They shouted “Yes!” or screamed your name. They called on God. Were those movies all a lie?

  Jillian spoke my name. But it wasn’t a scream. “Um, Cliff?” she said.

  “What?” I asked, keeping up a steady humping motion.

  “Don’t you want to come inside me?”

  “Uh…” I slowed my movement and tried to isolate the sensations I was receiving from my groin. I felt the roughness of pubic hair and the friction of some sort of fleshy contact. But it seemed pretty likely I was thrusting myself downward between her legs. Okay, not just likely. That’s what was happening.

  I was thigh-humping Jillian. They were awesome thighs, but that’s not what they were designed for.

  “Cliff?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry.”

  As I spoke, she reached down and guided me inside her.

  That, as some of you know, and all of you can surmise, was much better.

  Much, much better.

  Explosively, delightfully, angel-and-train-and-chrysanthemum better.

  When it was over and we were lying side by side, breathless, moist, and content, I figured I should confess my lack of experience. “That was my first time.”

  Jillian laughed, slid out of bed, and pulled on her pants. “I figured.” It was a gentle laugh, incapable of bruising even the most delicate ego.

  “Was I okay?” I asked.

  “You were the most amazing stud who’s fucked me today,” she said. “Of course, the day isn’t over.”

  It took a second for me to process that and figure out she was pulling my leg. In my defense, I’m pretty sure there was no blood available at the moment to carry oxygen to my brain. As I stepped into my pants and stared at her shirt-encased breasts, which had remained fabric bound during the entire time we’d been in bed, I felt a warmth and firmness chasing away the spent feeling in my groin.

  I realized, though we’d just had sex, I still had never seen her without her shirt, except in my fantasies. I reached out and touched a breast, gently. She sighed and leaned toward me. The firmness in my groin got more definite. “Do we have time to do it again?” I asked.

  She looked at me like I was asking her to pick a card. Any card. “Seriously? You’re ready to go again?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got a lifetime of lust bottled inside me,” I said. “You might never get out of here.”

  Another laugh. “We’ll see.”

  She slipped her pants back off. And her shirt. She let me remove the bra. I suspect she would have been quicker at it. I know whatever I lacked in dexterity, I made up for in enthusiasm.

  Later, when I finally got out of bed and started to put my pants on, Jillian stared at me, right at crotch level, and frowned. Before I could feel embarrassed or worry that I was underendowed or deformed in some way, she tilted her head to the side and moved her lips, as if mouthing four words. I realized she was reading my inverted tattoo.

  AND SO IT GOES.

  “Maybe you should change ‘so’ to ‘in’ as a reminder,” she said.

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” I said. “I’m a fast learner.”

  “Yes, you are,” she said. “And a cute one.”

  And that, my dear, sticky-handed friend, is the way it happened my very first, and second, and almost third (but for that whole willing-spirit, weak-flesh thing) time.

  Oh, and by the way, Venus is also the evening star.

  Afterglow

  WHEN I GOT home, I went down to the basement, dug up the David Bromberg album, and put on “Wallflower.”

  As it played, I danced.

  Slowly. Happily. Unself-consciously. By myself, but no longer alone.

  Introspection, Redux

  SO. I CAME of age. Big-time. And we are almost back where we started. The narrative, at this very moment, has reached the night before that morning where I first grabbed your attention with an act of violence. I had my payoff. You got to watch. Now you get yours, as the end unfolds, merges with the beginning, and all things come full circle. I only wish I could get to watch you reach your climax, the way you saw me reach mine. I’ve been working pretty hard, trying to get you off. Literarily.

  But symmetries are elusive, if not mythical. As are coincidences, and most hunts for meaning.

  Enough. I’ve become a man of actions, not words. Let us go where we need to be. Back to the start. Yes.

  Coming of Rage

  MY PHONE RANG. It was Jillian.

  I’d been awake for at least an hour, but I just got dressed. Before that, I’d lain there, thinking about last night, reliving the amazing moments I’d experienced with Jillian, and wondering how my life could have taken such an astonishing turn.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “I’m pregnant,” she said.

  “Pregnant?” I saw my life turn into a series of double shifts in front of rancid deep fryers, punctuated by periods of being cried at and puked on by some nubby little bundle of flesh I was supposed to bond with and adore. I saw myself becoming an angry parent, mocking my kid and his ambitions when I should be showering him with love. Hating him because he took away my freedom. And I hated myself for picturing all of that.

  Jillian giggled. “You idiot. Did you sleep through Biology?”

  “So you’re not pregnant?” I asked. My heart rate fell back into double digits.

  “Probably not,” she said. “I mean, there’d be no way to tell, this soon.”

  “So that was a joke?”

  “Got ya,” she said. “You really are cute, birthday boy.”

  I would have gotten angry if I weren’t already planning our next get-together.

  “Yeah, you got me. I’m easy,” I said.

  “I’m not,” she said. Her tone was suddenly serious.

  “I know,” I said. I heard footsteps coming down the hall. I didn’t want to share any part of Jillian with Dad. I lowered my voice. “You don’t leap into bed with just anyone. You gave it a lot of thought. I hope you don’t feel you made a mistake.”

  “No. I feel good. Better than good.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Come over later?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  We exchanged good-byes, and I hung up.

  I heard a crash. Dad punched my half-open door, so it slammed against the wall.

  “You got some slut pregnant?” Dad yelled. His face was a shade of crimson you rarely see outside of cartoons, and his knuckles were red from punching the door. I guess I’d shouted that word loud enough for it to carry down the hall.

  “No!” I looked around, as if a calming answer lay somewhere in my room. “She was kidding.”

  “So you’re screwing around?” He stepped in and slapped the phone out of my hand. It hit the wall, then fell to the floor.

  “It was a joke!”

  “Joke?” He jabbed his finger out, poking me hard in the shoulder. “Your whole life is a joke. I lose my fucking job. I bleed myself dry, paying for everything you and your mother want, and you run around taking chances with some tramp?”

  Nobody calls my girlfriend names. I wanted to grab him by the neck and throw him out the window. But I knew that was a fantasy.

  “She’s on the pill,” I said. “She’s not a tramp. And you haven’t paid for anything in ages. Mom and I earn all the money.”

  Damn. Wrong answer.

  Dad hit me with an open hand, rocking my head so hard, I thought my neck would snap. The smell of blood welled inside my sinuses.

  “Idiot!” he shouted. He slapped me again. “Stupid loser idiot!”

  I put up my hands, open, palms out, as if that would ward him off. He clenched his fists and threw a hard punch, smashing into my forehead. Unlike Lucas, I didn’t have a wall behind me to hold me up. I went down as the world spun in wild circles around me. I felt a sharp pain explode through my skull, followed by wet warmth
running down the side of my face.

  We’re back at the start. The beginning. The opening of the story. The edge of the Cliff.

  And we’re back at the truth. The real truth. I lied when I said the beating was a lie. That’s the honest and ugly truth. Shit—who wants to tell the world his father uses him as a punching bag?

  Some truths can be cast as lies. And some lies can be cast as truths. I said he got drunk only three or four times a year. True. And then he’d stay drunk for months. That’s why Mom drove us everywhere. And that’s why he couldn’t find a job. It’s why he lost his awesome job in the first place. And why he lost the next job after that.

  Instead of a belt buckle, I’d had my face gashed with his Bucknell ring. Close enough. True enough. Painful enough. Blind in one eye? Yeah—for now, as blood ran from a gash in my forehead. Three lost teeth? Happily for me, and my damn fine teeth, that part was pure fiction.

  And all those places where I said Dad smacked the table or hit the roof? Pretty much true, except he spared the table and smacked the child.

  I spewed out a shitload of clues for you.

  Dad would really make me suffer.

  After being smacked down repeatedly …

  Dad would definitely hit a wall or two.

  I couldn’t help picturing a fist crunching into my face.

  Dad would kick him right back out.…

  It was all there. His violence, his anger. My growing immunity to beatings. Mom’s overreaction to every bruise. She’d seen only the mild stuff. The things he could get away with under the guise of strict parenting, tough love, or boyish roughhousing. Poke. Prod. Shove. But I’m sure she lived in fear of him doing worse to me, and in denial our lives were all that bad.

  I wanted to spill the sorry truth out for you from the beginning. But I was ashamed. I was beaten in too many ways. I guess, after constantly hearing what a loser I was, I blamed myself for a lot of his anger. As much as I needed help, I was incapable of asking for it. Until now. Until someone helped me see my worth. Until someone let me be her anchor. And let herself be mine.