Sex and Death in the American Novel

by Martinez, Sarah

  As if I were scrambling up a cliff that crumbled beneath my bloody fingers, I couldn't get back to the good place. I tried to hold the image in my mind of the woman in the movie, the lust in her eyes, the patience of the men on either side of her, but what invaded was an image of a whore laid across a saloon table. One man at her face, stroking himself, turning her head with a rough hand, pushing himself between her closed lips, the other man working between her legs, his lips twisted into a grimace.

  All at once the only thing I could hear was Courtney Love screaming from the dark place in my mind where the ugly truths went to hide. Violet. Violence.

  Jasper froze when he felt me change. My senses were alive and my body was rigid and my skin was vibrating and my eyes saw everything.

  “Vivianna? What?” The alarm in Alejandro's voice stood in contrast to the rich confidence minutes before.

  I took a breath and tried to recall the way he had sounded before. What was thrilling was knowing that they were doing this for me. Agreement. Nothing changed, except what went on between my ears. I felt a flash of anger that this was happening; I thought that with Jasper I would be able to stay focused. As always, when my thoughts went haywire, I thought of lonely mountains and saw the shiny wooden handle of the shotgun. Tristan's face in front of me shaking his head, saying it over and over, ‘Used, used, used.’ My head whirled, agony, ripping me in half, I thought I might be sick.

  I shook my head. “I've got this shit in my head…”

  Alejandro put his lips to my ear so I could feel his breath before I heard his voice. “Don't think. Listen.” Cloves and licorice. He leaned close, his breath hot on my neck. “You want this.” That confident tone again, only this time he held his head close to mine, as if he could absorb all the ugliness and suck it out of me, his heart beating against my back, the rhythm of his words pulled me to him. “It's okay. Come back.” His teeth grazed the spot near my ear, and the sensation went right through me.

  I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, Jasper lowered his eyes and I knew he was ashamed. He was ashamed that he had failed; he was ashamed of his weakness. I wanted to tell him we were okay. It was not his job to save me from myself, but I couldn't pull away from the connection with Alejandro, the connection that was both spiritual and physical and mental and wonderful and peaceful and exciting. Jasper's eyes moved from my face to Alejandro's and I felt him soften inside.

  Alejandro spoke to Jasper in a more commanding voice than he had been using on me, “Wait. Watch…” He cupped his hand over my mound and stroked me with the lightest touch, as if he were coaxing a kitten from a hiding spot, as if my clit were a puff of whipped cream on the pad of his finger. Time slowed and I melted into him. Alejandro took Jasper's hand and brought it to the silky button. “Feel, this.”

  Jasper closed his eyes and in a husky voice said, “It's huge…”

  Alejandro whispered in my ear, “Don't do anything, he is still here, no te muevas.” He pressed his lips to my throat and after a moment began moving by centimeters again.

  They both touched the swollen folds. I was about to go numb from the pleasure, though under that was a sense of building momentum, from that tiny point to my entire body. I nodded and let out what sounded like a whine, scooting back, and getting a rush of excitement when they both gasped.

  Jasper hardened, firmly encased once more. His hand moved to stroke Alejandro's forearm and grip his wrist.

  I allowed them to work their magic—Jasper with long upward motions, Alejandro with slow pulling and pushing with his hands and cock. Rocking between them was the best part. It was a meditation, and then I hit it…bliss. A small part of me, the one afraid to speak only moments before, knew life could be like this if I was just brave enough to make it happen.

  Alejandro leaned in, and though I couldn't see what he did, Jasper's eyes got big, his lips tightened inward, and he closed his eyes. Their most intimate parts were all but touching inside me, making us all different. Alejandro and me, Jasper and me, creating the wonderful truth that was the three of us.

  With his eyes still closed, Jasper reached up and pulled my face to his. “Your face is so beautiful…your eyes…you're really here…” He pulled me to kiss him, then began moving his thumb again and the sensation grew to an intensity I had never thought possible. I let my head fall back and lost myself in the rise to oblivion and let out a burst of laughter when I felt the strong muscular walls that held him so tight, spasm in response.

  Jasper held my hips and I ground down to make the surges stronger. He thrust only once to allow me to follow the storm to the end. He raised his head, his stomach muscles flexed and he blew out a burst of air and tried to stifle a moan. I stole more pleasure from each pulse and held on through every wave until he lay back and ran his hand over his face, laughing between smiles.

  We were still laughing when Alejandro steadied himself with one hand on my shoulder with the other on my hip, went deep and pulled out and slipped back inside. The sounds he made were intoxicating. As the last of the heavenly feelings tingled through me, I longed to see his face. Instead I watched Jasper, whose eyes had moved from mine to watch Alejandro. As he watched him push toward his own goal, his nostrils opened, a curve came to his lips. I was the only person in the world who would ever get to see this expression on Jasper's face; he'd let a wall down in this moment, with me, with us, and I was so grateful to see the change.

  After no more than four strokes that left me feeling like I'd never be able to take another, Alejandro rested his head on my back with his lips pressed to my skin before he became still. Though my knees began to burn and my thighs to ache, I had to hold us together for as long as possible.

  Jasper slipped first, and Alejandro came to rest beside him. I lay between them, and Alejandro threw the comforter on his side over us, and Jasper pulled his side in so that it almost completely covered us but for a sliver where the ends didn't quite meet. I snuggled in closer to them, those two beautiful, sweaty piles of flesh—spent, satisfied—and reveled in the deepest feeling of contentment I'd ever known. My head rested on Jasper's chest, like it were just us again, but I worked my legs in with Alejandro's and he moved closer, pressing his face close to the back of my neck. He passed his fingers through my hair to make a place for his mouth and nose, and then I felt the light presence of his breath on my skin. With my free hand I reached back and took one of his.

  Jasper fell asleep first; Alejandro reached up every so often to smooth a strand of my hair away from his face. He whispered into my ear, “Can you tell me what happened?”

  I held his hand close to my chest. “Memories. Voices…”

  “Tell me.”

  “I should be able to right? I am a smut writer—”

  He interrupted with a hard edge to his voice, “You have moved beyond that. You push boundaries, challenge people.”

  My face burned at the sincerity in his voice, and I had no response. After a moment I began where I left off. “I was afraid it was too much to expect this to work. An awful voice kept on telling me that I was greedy, stupid, that the two of you wanted to use me to get together on your own.”

  A soft laugh from him and he brushed the top of my arm with his lips. “Dirty little freak.”

  “My view of what I was doing changed. I wasn't in a free body, but taken advantage of. I was afraid that I was wrong about the two of you, about my whole life. Everything looked hopeless. I remembered the end of The Stoned Apocalypse. He said, ‘I am now a pornographer.’ He knew people would never understand him either.”

  “A pornographer is not what I see. When I look at you, I see a place I could live forever. It's real, it's honest. I am happy there. I never thought I would meet a girl who was like me. I've known guys who did it with both women and men, but they didn't advertise that to either sex.”

  “What about the girls you date? A few of them must be open-minded.”

  “No, nobody who would understand something like this. Nobody who really gets it
, who wants it. I don't want to be with someone who just does something to make me happy. Something like this, I need to know they really get it.”

  I squeezed his hand. “Until I heard your voice…I was ashamed and I was afraid and I was lost.”

  Chapter 14

  When I woke up, Jasper was already awake. He was watching me and I couldn't read his expression. I moved my hand back and felt only empty space.

  “Just left.”

  “How is he getting home?”

  “Cab.”

  I nodded, then we lay back down. He was looking at me, and I was trying to figure out if I should go back to sleep or if he wanted to talk. My backside felt different, a pleasant ache that betrayed what we'd done, and I watched Jasper for signs of regret.

  “Thank you,” I finally said.

  He met my eyes, and his lips twitched.

  “You said I looked beautiful.”

  “You did. Different. You were glowing, like you must have looked like as a child, it was all so…”

  “I know. Sometimes words aren't big enough to describe the most important things.”

  I slept for a while, pulling the warmth of the comforter and the remains of our mingled scent around me more, not caring that we were on the floor.

  I woke some time later with Jasper sitting up beside me. When I opened my eyes he ran one long index finger down the middle of my face. We looked at each other for some time, me trying to imagine what he was thinking. “What?”

  “Nothing, can't I look at you?” he said.

  “No,” I said and allowed him to continue, until I couldn't stand it anymore. “Do you want to talk about last night?”

  He flopped onto his back and raised his arms above his head. The hair beneath his arms was much lighter and sparser than Alejandro's. I moved over to rest my chin on his chest. He let one hand fall onto my back and played with my hair.

  “That was something, huh?”

  “You sound like you don't mean that…” I said.

  The chuckle he gave sounded false.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “How we got into this.”

  I rose up then and said, “Is that good or bad?”

  “Not sure,” he said, then rolled to his side and faced me. “I really don't know. I never thought I would do something like that. I only did it for you.”

  “I don't believe you.”

  “I don't care.” His voice was cold. “I'm not like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Gay.”

  I rose up on my elbow. “Why do you have to say it like that? Why can't we just be people and do what we want? Why do you have to call it anything?”

  He met my eyes and said, “The real world needs a way to explain what is and what isn't.”

  “What about what you told me before about the two of you?”

  “Stop trying to turn me into something out of one of your books…I probably shouldn't have told you about that.”

  I pulled back, angry and hurt. “Are you disappointed?” Since when did I care what he thought? Since I'd fallen in love with him. He didn't answer soon enough so I repeated the question. “Did you like it or not?”

  “I am…I did.” His pained expression did not match what should have been positive words.

  “So what's wrong with that?”

  “I liked what we did because it made you happy, not because it was something that did anything for me.”

  “Oh.” I knew having the two of them was too good to be true, but something about him saying he didn't want to do it at all wasn't sitting right. What about how he'd held Alejandro's wrist or kissed him, or what about how he had held his hand at the club. I didn't make him do those things.

  “So you would never do something like that if it weren't for me?”

  He shook his head and laid his forearm over his eyes. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything.”

  “No,” I said. “I want to know. I want to know if I am hurting you, or anything—”

  He silenced me with his fingers on my lips. “Lately I just feel like I am losing myself.”

  “You mean lowering your standards?”

  “What?” he asked, and reached for me.

  I pulled away, wrapping part of the comforter around me, needing to protect myself. “You judge me for writing about sex, and you still don't get why it is important to me, even after last night. After all of it, you still don't understand me at all!”

  He crossed his hands in the air over and over. “Hold on. Hold. On.”

  Fear and its wrathful offspring came fast, and this time Alejandro wasn't there to stop it. The fear and guilt and shame. I'd finally pulled off, under the most perfect circumstances, one of my life's fantasies. Rage made my face hot and my fists balled up, realizing that I had to deal with an antiquated shame I had been fighting my entire life, and now it had crept in and ruined everything. Jasper's faltering betrayed his uncertainty, but the real problem was mine. I knew that, but I couldn't stop myself; there was too much ugliness inside me to turn it inward anymore. I couldn't stop. “You and my dad, high-minded fuckers, think you're better than everyone else. The rest of us are just an unfortunate fact of life you suffer with so you don't have to be alone.”

  “But I was alone.” He leaned toward me with his arms out as if he could just wrap me up until this turmoil made sense. Only I didn't want it to make sense. If I never could tell my father what I thought about the way he looked down on me, I could tell Jasper now. A timid voice in my head told me to stop talking, that I would regret it later. But the other part of me, the one that liked to get drunk and go where the night took me, slapped it down.

  “You know why I never talk about your work with you? Because I don't get it. Because it's boring. You're boring. You judge me…” I pointed to my chest. “I judge you; did you ever think of that? Your work is long and so self-indulgent. It's obvious you spend more time in your head than you do living.” I felt a terrible sense of glee when his face crumpled, and he moved his head like he could shake off my words. “What a waste. Years perfecting one sentence. That's time you will never get back. I bet you couldn't write anything that real people would read. If it weren't for all these fucking writing schools, nobody would buy your books.”

  A look passed over his face as if a rush of air had blown by and melded his features together, until he hardened.

  I went past ugly then, wanting him to feel as awful inside as I did. “And here's something else I bet you don't think I was smart enough to catch. The reason you use all those overinflated words is because you're afraid people will think you're stupid. That isn't good enough no matter how many professorial fucks cream their shorts for you. It's not honest.”

  A part of me recoiled watching what I did. A distant voice came from my mouth, barely a cackle, “I know what you do alone in your big New York I'm-not-from-Nebraska apartment. You dig through the dictionary trying to find the longest most obscure words you can, then you waste more of your life figuring out how you're going to unleash them on a world that doesn't care, and doesn't need it.”

  He stood and grabbed me, his face hard and focused, but underneath that, what made me feel sick and desperate, a flash of understanding, though I wouldn't see that until I reflected later. He moved me out of the way, grabbed his clothes and dressed.

  Stop him, one voice screamed, but the other one—the bitch in control of my body—stood with narrowed eyes and watched him walk toward the door, with his jacket balled under his arm, looking around for his shoes.

  “How about this,” he said, like he was testing the phrasing. “You're a novelty. You would have held no interest to me if it weren't for who your father was.” He faced me and raised his eyebrows for emphasis. He bent and struggled into his shoes. “None.”

  I knew he had it in him, deep satisfaction filled me that he was engaging on my level. “Do you know what I like about Alejandro?” I said. “He doesn't judge me.”

  He turned and
glared and shook his head with emphasized disappointment. He set his jaw and turned back to the work of lacing up his shoes.

  I wanted him to hit me or react in some other awful way so I could hate him. As it was, I wasn't buying my own act. He had every reason to be mad at me. His words were hurtful and confirmed another of my secret fears, but they felt wrong, just as his saying he only went along with the previous night's adventures for my benefit. I didn't believe him.

  He stood and strode over to the door, glancing around the room, his calm surreal given the situation.

  Tears sprung to my eyes, and I whispered, “Please don't leave,” even as I shook with the relief that came with staring down one of my lifelong demons, only realizing too late he wasn't even there.

  Chapter 15

  I had to see Alejandro again. I found out when he was teaching and snuck in right before he began. I made a point to pull behind a group of chatty guys so he couldn't see me. He stood at the front of the room, in front of a huge white board, sorting stacks of papers into piles, looking up every so often as if making note of who came in and at what time. He looked older in this setting. Loose khaki pants, a dark turtleneck, and a thick cardigan.

  Freshmen, this was the group nobody wanted—they hadn't been brainwashed yet. When they were settled, he smiled and moved to sit on the front of his desk.

  He began his lecture, and these youngsters—usually unruly or still asleep or hung over—sat with their faces turned to him, and when he would pause, they'd dip their heads to the papers in front of him, scribbling notes. He'd walk between the rows of long tables, locking eyes with several of them as he moved around the room. He reveled in freaking them out with shocking details from the past, pulling them to him with tales of how the Aztecs used children for sex; then when he had their attention, reminding them of deplorable European bathing habits. He asked one stunned jock what he thought about the irony of the never-ending scandals with the priests who hundreds of years ago had successfully converted them. When the boy didn't answer he posed the question to the rest of the dumbfounded class. “Wasn't religion supposed to save these people?” He continued to hold his arms out, as if he could pull the answer from them by physical force.