doorway.
I had no idea how long he’d been watching me.
Immediately I wriggled up my pants and sat up, my face hot with shame. I was too unnerved to laugh at myself.
“What are you doing home?” It was only four o’clock; lately he hadn’t been coming in the door until nine.
He looked harried, uncomfortable. He walked over to the window and pulled open the drapes, flooding the room with a yellow light.
“I fixed the mattress,” I declared. My voice sounded starved, panicked, as if I were trying too hard to please. What was the matter with me? He wasn’t my father.
He flopped deliberately on the bed.
We were silent together. I sat down beside him, diminished and disabled, entertaining the possibility of him spanking me across his lap. I’d pull in my breath, eyes squeezed tight, jerking at the sting of his slaps. The heat swarming in my butt. Afterwards, he’d hold me in his lap, wipe away my tears, tell me he’d be kinder to me from now on, a better person. I took a photograph of us in my mind, a tableau.
“So you’re home,” I said, venturing an observation.
“Yeah,” he said. He leaned back and crossed his arms behind his head. He pulled in his lips. “We had a bomb scare at the station.”
“A bomb scare?”
“A bomb scare. Terrorists. They sent everyone home until further notice. Station’s off the air. Turn on the TV.”
I reached for the remote. The picture was snowy, the audio a harsh scratch. I shuddered. “God,” I said, picking at my lip. Why hadn’t I recognized that my lip was chapped?
William closed his eyes. I rested beside him on the bed, wanting to recapture the uncharged emptiness of everyday life. How could I calm down? How would I interpret this moment, years in the future: masturbation, spanking fantasy, terrorism, bomb threat? And yet a part of me liked the unsettling rush: I wanted to have sex. I wanted to climb on top of William’s prone body and fuck him, savagely, with gritted teeth, like an animal, though I didn’t think I’d get away with it.
“I worked hard all day,” I said suddenly. “I vacuumed the living room, I scoured the rust stains from the kitchen sink, I did three loads of laundry, I walked the dogs in the storm—” The blood was beating in my ears. Was I more upset than I knew? “And that was all today. Would you like me to show you what I did?”
Cautiously he opened his left eye. “I know you work hard,” he said, “I’m sorry,” and offered me a sad, depleted smile.
Inside of me a door creaked open. I felt vindicated—yet exposed and repentant. We stood. We walked into the kitchen where we fixed ourselves an ample, pleasant dinner: rice wine, peanut sauce, stir-fry. That night we still slept in our usual settings, the repaired bed glittering in my mind like some remote island.
Chapter 6
Sometimes I worried that I wasn’t a complete person, that I couldn’t label myself. What if I was just a composite of everyone who’d passed through my life—strangers, family, friends—all of whom had inhabited me, taking over my thoughts and gestures before departing, leaving me defenseless? Looking back, I saw how I moved not in a straightahead line, but in lopsided, parabolic circles. I pushed myself out, I reigned myself in. I craved sex, I didn’t crave sex. I wanted to transgress, I wanted to conform. I wanted to be brilliant, I wanted to be a mindless fool.
Was I becoming myself? Or was I stalled, trapped before some rust-clenched gate while everyone else was getting somewhere?
***
The night before William’s trip to Key West, we finally ended up together in the master bedroom. I didn’t know quite how it happened, but that seemed to be beside the point. I lay beside him, my chest flooding with gratitude and energy. I held him closely under the hot tent of the covers. His body felt foreign, huge to me. Hold me back, I thought. Hold me so tight that it hurts. Keep close now. Stay, stay, stay.
The next morning we waited at the
I had no idea how long he’d been watching me.
Immediately I wriggled up my pants and sat up, my face hot with shame. I was too unnerved to laugh at myself.
“What are you doing home?” It was only four o’clock; lately he hadn’t been coming in the door until nine.
He looked harried, uncomfortable. He walked over to the window and pulled open the drapes, flooding the room with a yellow light.
“I fixed the mattress,” I declared. My voice sounded starved, panicked, as if I were trying too hard to please. What was the matter with me? He wasn’t my father.
He flopped deliberately on the bed.
We were silent together. I sat down beside him, diminished and disabled, entertaining the possibility of him spanking me across his lap. I’d pull in my breath, eyes squeezed tight, jerking at the sting of his slaps. The heat swarming in my butt. Afterwards, he’d hold me in his lap, wipe away my tears, tell me he’d be kinder to me from now on, a better person. I took a photograph of us in my mind, a tableau.
“So you’re home,” I said, venturing an observation.
“Yeah,” he said. He leaned back and crossed his arms behind his head. He pulled in his lips. “We had a bomb scare at the station.”
“A bomb scare?”
“A bomb scare. Terrorists. They sent everyone home until further notice. Station’s off the air. Turn on the TV.”
I reached for the remote. The picture was snowy, the audio a harsh scratch. I shuddered. “God,” I said, picking at my lip. Why hadn’t I recognized that my lip was chapped?
William closed his eyes. I rested beside him on the bed, wanting to recapture the uncharged emptiness of everyday life. How could I calm down? How would I interpret this moment, years in the future: masturbation, spanking fantasy, terrorism, bomb threat? And yet a part of me liked the unsettling rush: I wanted to have sex. I wanted to climb on top of William’s prone body and fuck him, savagely, with gritted teeth, like an animal, though I didn’t think I’d get away with it.
“I worked hard all day,” I said suddenly. “I vacuumed the living room, I scoured the rust stains from the kitchen sink, I did three loads of laundry, I walked the dogs in the storm—” The blood was beating in my ears. Was I more upset than I knew? “And that was all today. Would you like me to show you what I did?”
Cautiously he opened his left eye. “I know you work hard,” he said, “I’m sorry,” and offered me a sad, depleted smile.
Inside of me a door creaked open. I felt vindicated—yet exposed and repentant. We stood. We walked into the kitchen where we fixed ourselves an ample, pleasant dinner: rice wine, peanut sauce, stir-fry. That night we still slept in our usual settings, the repaired bed glittering in my mind like some remote island.
Chapter 6
Sometimes I worried that I wasn’t a complete person, that I couldn’t label myself. What if I was just a composite of everyone who’d passed through my life—strangers, family, friends—all of whom had inhabited me, taking over my thoughts and gestures before departing, leaving me defenseless? Looking back, I saw how I moved not in a straightahead line, but in lopsided, parabolic circles. I pushed myself out, I reigned myself in. I craved sex, I didn’t crave sex. I wanted to transgress, I wanted to conform. I wanted to be brilliant, I wanted to be a mindless fool.
Was I becoming myself? Or was I stalled, trapped before some rust-clenched gate while everyone else was getting somewhere?
***
The night before William’s trip to Key West, we finally ended up together in the master bedroom. I didn’t know quite how it happened, but that seemed to be beside the point. I lay beside him, my chest flooding with gratitude and energy. I held him closely under the hot tent of the covers. His body felt foreign, huge to me. Hold me back, I thought. Hold me so tight that it hurts. Keep close now. Stay, stay, stay.
The next morning we waited at the
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