Silence and the Word

by MaryAnne Mohanraj

  But when I put the words to it, when I say, “I want you to fuck me, please… . ”, then I can’t pretend that I just happened to fall into this bed, oops!, or that I was simply overwhelmed by my body’s desires, ’cause there’s my mind forming those words, sending the message to my mouth to open up and say them out loud.

  I have to admit to my lover and even worse, to myself, that I consciously choose to be here, having sex, and that goes against everything I was ever taught.

  I know not all of you have my background, and I do wonder how much of my difficulty comes from the way I was raised (of conservative family, in a culture where sex came always after marriage and a woman’s needs were often subjugated to a man’s). It would be easy to put it all down to that; to being female and Asian and unmarried. That’s undoubtedly a lot of it, for me—but it can’t be all of it. More than a few of my lovers have had similar difficulties, and while they are also unmarried, they are neither female nor Asian. It seems to me that most cultures teach us to deny our sexuality, deny the strength of our desires.

  Strong desires aren’t polite, aren’t civilized—it’s no wonder society wants to control, soften, silence them. But if everyone tries to silence their own desires—then no one gets what they want. We just end up all being polite, and deeply frustrated, together.

  She has been with one lover for eight years now—long enough to trust him, a little. She has written him notes, said a few words in the darkest part of night, written messages with her finger on the skin of his back. He doesn’t always understand, but he has never laughed at her.

  A few months ago she called him up and left a message on the machine.

  “I wish you were here.

  If you were here I would like to

  go down on you.”

  There are long pauses between the phrases. When he listens to the message, he can tell that she is having trouble breathing, that her throat is tight and that she stopped partway through to bite her lip, to swallow.

  “I would like

  you

  to go down on me.”

  She wanted to be more explicit, more detailed. She wanted to tell him how she loves the taste of him, how she longs to bury her face between his thighs, and then have him do the same to her, have him lick and suck and dig his fingers into her ass and lift her off the bed, but she couldn’t quite manage the words. Still, it’s more than she would have said to his face. She asks him later if he liked the message.

  He says he did.

  She is thinking of leaving another message sometime soon.

  I could stop here, say nothing more than I already have, not push any further. The sex is pretty good at this point, after all. I’ve had a lot of practice, and I don’t really need the words.

  But the desire is still there. The desire to speak, to be naked, to be known. To be honest about desire, to be able to trust someone that much, with something that scary.

  It’s the same desire that drives me to write erotic stories, and to keep an online journal and to write this essay to you. I am trapped in my separate, often confused, head. And one of my deepest desires is to first know myself, and then be known for who I am, to be loved as I am. An entire being, sexuality included—however naked and embarrassing and ridiculous that may be.

  Writing the stories, writing to you, scribbling notes or signing letters: each attempt is scary. Though exciting as well—you should understand that part. Writing down the words makes my throat tight; I was shaking as I typed some of the sections above. My breath came fast, and my fingers are still cold. I write best when I’m scared and sweating—and the satisfaction when I finish is sometimes just as good as being fucked really well. Sometimes better. And that satisfaction comes whether or not I ever show the piece to anyone else; I am admitting something to myself in the writing of it. But sharing it takes the writing a step further.

  When I first started writing erotica, when I put those words on the screen and then sent them out over the net, to hundreds or thousands of readers, it was a huge relief, an opening that let me start exploring desires that I had no other access to, desires that had been deeply buried and unspoken. I could say so much more with my fingers than I could with my throat; it gave me a freedom that I had never known—a freedom that at the same time only went as far as I could handle, that I could take in small steps and stages, so it wasn’t quite so frightening.

  When I write about sex, I can control how much I expose myself, my desires (just as I could in all of those intermediate stages above; I could always erase that machine message). I can hide, a little, behind the name of ‘fiction’, or limit how much truth I spill in nonfiction. (That’s not really me who wants to be tied down to a bed and spanked—that’s just an example, just a character. Right?)

  I can hide behind the relative anonymity of the pages—and that protection lets me push myself further. My characters can be as exhibitionistic as they desire… and when they are, a part of my own truth steps out into the light. Every time I manage to communicate my desires to a lover, a reader, a friend—it gets harder to hide. I’ve spoken a scary truth, and it’s out there now, inescapable.

  And when that trust is rewarded—every time a lover, reader, friend responds by accepting who I am (and sometimes sharing some of their own scary desires)—it’s the most intoxicating feeling I know. Like riding a rollercoaster up and up, nerves taut, the heartstopping pause at the stop, and then screaming all the way down. Every time it works (doesn’t fling me off, doesn’t crash and burn) makes me want to try again—and push a little harder, go a little faster and farther this time.

  So that maybe, eventually, I can be completely naked and unafraid.

  Every once in a while, if I speak very quickly and don’t think about it at all, I can just say what I want. That sounds so simple, doesn’t it? It should be easy.

  I want to tell you what I want.

  Fringes

  At the edge of the fabric we hang, swinging freely

  over the drop, hearts in our throats, hearts in

  our hands. Roadsigns long since disappeared;

  so few songs and tales to light the way, here

  in the outer reaches. It is frightening,

  being first. Lonely too, and there is always

  the possibility that we are truly lost; that we

  are not simply searching out the best route; that there

  is no pass over these high mountains.

  Should we turn back? It’s warmer near the center.

  But oh—the clear cold beauty of the mountaintop

  at night, under the unforgiving stars…it is

  easier to breathe here, isn’t it? Am I wrong?

  I know. You’re tired. I’m tired too. My legs

  are so sore these days. Here…let’s build a fire.

  We can stop for a little while and rest in the light.

  We can decide where we’re going in the morning.

  But you know—I don’t think we’re lost yet.

  Johnny’s Story

  It was the summer before I started college. I was working in the factory and living with my family, saving up the money to buy my books and pay my rent, ’cause even if I had gotten a partial scholarship, it wasn’t going to be near enough by itself, and my poppa didn’t have anything to spare. Though he was proud, I think. None of the men in our line had ever even finished high school before. Just my momma’s sister, who married the doctor, and Cassie, of course. Though it’s not like Cassie’s really my sister. She’s just the daughter of the woman my poppa married after my momma took off. She doesn’t look anything like me; she’s little, y’know? Little like a bird, a little chocolate stick of a thing.

  The guys in our family, the women too—they’re all big-boned. Big-boned with some flesh on ’em, momma and poppa types, ‘generous’ as my momma used to say before she took off with that rich guy. That’s what my poppa says she did, anyway. I don’t remember her saying that. I remember the day she left, though. Jamie and Jase had st
arted up another one of their hollering fights, which had progressed to whaling on each other with their fists and making an unholy noise, and I was all ready for momma to turn around from the sinkful of last night’s dishes and lay into both of them.

  Instead, she just turned and stared, stared at those boys until they froze stock still. She stood there in the kitchen with her hands on her broad, heavy hips, with a dishcloth on her shoulder and this look on her face. This look like if she had to put up with me and Jamie and Jase for one more moment, she was gonna strangle us all the way she wished she’d done when we were born. She’d say that sometimes, y’know? “Sweet Lord Jesus forgive me, I should have strangled you at birth.” In that flat voice, that said she was gonna crack, just split wide open like a bean pod, spilling out green bits. She didn’t say anything that time, though. Just picked up her purse and walked out, with the blue striped dishcloth on her shoulder, and she didn’t come back.

  Cassie’s momma is a lot like my momma. She moved out here from the big city, moved into the old Manelli house down the road and took a job at the plant, working right next to my poppa in the assembly line. That woman was so angry, so bone-deep angry, she told everyone she met that she had had it up to here with that man, and she wasn’t going to put up with that kinda crap no more. That man had cheated on her for seven years. That man hadn’t been able to keep his hands off any woman over eighteen excepting maybe his own daughter. That man had given her no peace. What Cassie’s momma wanted more than anything else was some simple peace and quiet. Why she married my poppa then, I don’t know, considering. Maybe just ’cause they were both lonely. Them getting together caused a lot of talk in the town for a while, ’cause some people here don’t like white folks and black folks mixing together. I about thought my friend Pete’s momma was gonna have herself a stroke, but that’s mostly quieted down now.

  Cassie isn’t like either her momma or mine. Cassie wouldn’t put up and put up and put up until the day she cracked. You say one word, look at her wrong, maybe pinch her butt as she walks by and she’ll be on you so fast. “Fucking bastard!” She’ll whip around and she’ll be sticking one long brown finger in your face, hissing like a snake, promising to get her homeboys from the old neighborhood to come kick your face in if you push her one more time. And it’s scary for a second, that fury exploding out at you, bright colored sparks flashing and screeching and you maybe take a step back. Hell, Jase’d take off running. Jamie’d blush bright red and look like he wanted to run and then he’d stand his ground. What else could he do—she’s nineteen, older’n any of us, but she’s so tiny, we could stomp her into the ground. He’s gonna admit he’s scared of that two-bit little girl? So they’d hiss at each other, and you could practically see the hair rising on their necks, their tails swishing as they turned and walked away. And me? Me the eighteen, me the should-know-better? Me who can’t help grabbing a bit of that skinny butt as it walks by?

  I just laugh when she explodes. I always step back for a sec, but she’s so funny-looking, like an angry baby bird, and besides, I can tell she’s bluffing. Just making this shit up, about homeboys and the ’hood, trying to make herself sound all city and tough. I can’t help but laugh. A strangled chuckle and she’s still shaking that finger, and then my mouth opens and a big belly laugh comes up from my big belly, and she’s looking like all the brown’s gonna wash away to white she’s so mad… . Most times, that’s how it ends. Cassie looks like she’ll explode, and my poppa hollers, “What’re you doing to Cassie?!” I catch my breath and say I’m sorry, very calm, like a gentleman. And she can’t do anything but take it.

  Only one time, it didn’t happen that way. I was sitting on the front room couch, that old cream-colored thing with the wide arms so comfy to lean against. I was sitting there reading so quiet, reading this book about kings and elves and rings, liking it a lot more than I’d expected I would, when Cassie came walking by. Cassie’s mom had gone off to church, and poppa had said he was taking the boys to baseball, and maybe Cassie had thought he meant me too, and she’d have the house to herself. But I’d twisted my ankle coming down the stairs that morning, and so I couldn’t go, and she’d maybe forgotten. ’Cause here she was walking down the hallway past the front room wrapped in nothing but a white towel, with those skinny long arms and legs sticking out of it so I whistled, ’cause what else is a brother to do if his sister walks by dressed like that, even if she isn’t any kind of blood relation and he’s only known her for a few months now? She’d been so careful around us boys that I’d never seen above her knees or even above her elbows before this. Nice.

  So she whips around the way she always does and storms into the room, almost tripping over all the kids’ junk on the floor but catching herself. She starts shaking that finger in my face. And I’m feeling a little guilty already so I hold back the laugh and let her harass me, let her holler in my face about her homeboys and how they’d kick my ass from here to next Sunday, and she’s shaking like crazy with all that energy…and that towel starts slipping.

  I can’t help it, I laugh as she grabs at it and you can tell she’s gonna explode like a grenade or a firework, and I’m clutching my stomach and laughing and knowing I’m gonna feel just rotten about this later. Cassie gets this look on her face, all twisted, screwed up tight and she reaches back with her fist and then slams it at my face, and if that had landed it would have hurt like hell. I may be big, but I’m not slow and I grab that fist and hold it. Her hand just disappears into mine with a thump and oh, this is the worst thing to do but I swear I can’t help it; I’m still laughing as I hold her hand inside mine, our hands shaking together with the force of it—and then she starts laughing. I’m serious. The laughter just bursts, sunshine across her face and we laugh and laugh until we’ve got sore stomachs and damp eyes and when we’re done laughing there’s such a good feeling, such a warm fellow-feeling in that room, like nothing I’ve known, like this is gonna be a friend for life smiling at me with her eyes.

  Her hand’s dropped down but it’s still in mine, the other one still holding up that damn towel. Her hand so warm, practically vibrating with the energy in her, and I want to open it up, open that fist gently and squeeze her hand tight. Maybe drop a kiss into her palm, and I’m looking in her eyes and I know that she can see my wanting in them. I can’t read her though. Her hand twists in mine, uncurling and squeezing for one brief moment and I think maybe she’s feeling what I’m feeling. Maybe Cassie’s feeling that warmth uncurling in the belly. But instead of hanging on, she lets go. Lets go of my hand, which is feeling so cold and empty in that moment, like something’s missing, like I’ve lost a limb that’s supposed to be part of me.

  It’s then that she takes this one step back, slow and careful. That might have been it, she might have just walked away right then, but Jase’d left his backpack on the floor, and she steps right onto it, losing her balance and sticking a hand out, catching the edge of the doorframe and almost falling but not quite. And the towel slips. Just a little, and then she catches it up again, leaning against the door frame, steadying herself. Then she stands up straight, her eyes locked on mine, on me sitting there, on the edge of jumping up to catch her. Cassie gets this look. There’s this big grin on her face as she slowly takes both top edges of the white towel and pulls it open, open like a wall of white and she’s posed against it. Small dark breasts with almost black nipples, surprisingly large. A flat stomach, and a mound shaved bare, a triangle between her thighs. I want to feed her. I want to put some meat on those skinny bones and then kiss my way along them. I want to drag her into bed and screw her ’til we’re both sore and screaming. But she takes another step back, still smiling, and so I sit there on that cream-colored couch, thinking of how she’d look lying on it, arms stretched up above her head, legs bent and waiting. Sitting still has never been so hard.

  “It’s their house,” she says, and I know what she means. She’s not really my sister, not really…but poppa’d never understand. And I am desp
airing in that moment, despairing until I realize what she’s saying.

  “I start school in October,” I offer. A long silence, waiting to hear her reply. She slowly wraps the towel back around her, hiding those slight curves.

  “Maybe I’ll come visit.” She tilts her head, considering, and then nods, once, as if she’s made a decision. Then she turns and walks down the hall.

  I go back to reading, but even hours later, when the kids are back and the house is shouting again, I can still feel her smile warming the room.

  Still

  He called.

  “Hey. I’ll be arriving in town on Wednesday, around seven. If you’re free—”

  “Of course. Call when you get in.”

  He arrives with a black duffel slung over a shoulder. He looks much the same. The last of the blond turned to grey a few years ago; the extra weight dropped away. He is not quite as gangly as a stork. He looks good to my eyes.

  There is curry on the stove, but I have turned all the burners off, left the lid on the rice. When he steps through my doorway he drops the bag and pulls me into his arms; my hands pull his shirt out of his pants, slide underneath to touch the skin. He drops kisses on my forehead, and his hands slide down to curve around my ass, to pull me closer to him. He kisses my closed eyes, my cheek, my neck. I shiver and then pull him into the house, letting the door swing closed.

  “How was your flight?”

  “Fine.”

  “That’s good.”

  When he touches me, I feel like I am slipping down through the years. With his eyes closed and his fingers on my cheek, does he see the girl of twenty, her slender body? Or the woman of thirty? Of forty? When he touches my hair, is it still black instead of silver? I wear a long green dress, with brass buttons. He unbuttons them slowly, kissing my collarbone, my throat, licking a line down the clasp of my black bra. He unhooks the bra, lets my breasts swing free a moment before taking them in his rough hands. His hands disappear beneath them, but I can feel the fingers curving underneath. Then he is lifting one up, taking a nipple in his mouth, and I am shaking again, leaning against the wall, tilting back my head and thinking of nothing, contracting down to a single shining point of pleasure.