Fall (19 page)

She undoes her own belt. There’s a look in her eyes like she’s trying something new, and she’s shy and I’m shy and I swear to god we’ll have a lot of sex tonight.

I touch her panties with the back of my fingers and I’m looking in her eyes and someone turned off a lamp in there and now she’s a warm dark eye in the bushes looking at something it loves to eat, Hoa god.

My hard-on’s sucking the blood from my jaw. I’m gonna come already, those fingers under my waist, Hoa ho.

I kiss her.

We bang teeth and I’m not gonna come.

Sorry she says.

Tongues tell secret stories she told me.

That’s my cock.

I hope she thinks it’s big.

Hoa she says.

I want to hurt her and love her, o god how good does that feel I’ve gotta tell someone.

Her panties are red and Christmas is coming and wet red velvet all over the house, it’s so SECRET and BEAUTIFUL how wet she is, I love that she’s letting me touch her.

Hoa god.

Tongues.

How about that. How about that. Do you like that. Do I like that. I fuckin love that o god I’m gonna let go and let her touch me it’s all about me for a minute.

I should kiss her more. How about that. She’s so open tonight, how good does that feel, we’re fighting and sliding down the warm dark hill: stop it feels so good, stop stop.

We do the eye thing. She smells good. Her eyes are smoked and dark and shy, my Fall.

She’s going down.

She’s standing up.

She’s gone.

She blows out one candle.

She tries the other.

It burns.

She smiles.

She tucks her hair behind her ears and walks back sexy and shy and her belly looks big, no it doesn’t, and I should grab her but she was in the middle of it I’ll let her go down: she kisses me.

She’s going down.

She pulls my jeans right down.

Boxers.

It springs and it’s funny but serious.

There’s a noise in the house.

There’s a breeze on my balls.

I feel like a monkey.

I should be shy.

Her eyes are closed.

She’s shy.

I feel like she’s changing me.

I’m shy.

My mom must have dressed me some days.

Her hand feels so good, Hoa haaah.

Her little mouth.

She looks up.

O fuck.

I’m gonna come already that’s so fuckin soft and warm and look

. . .

. . .

Hoo.

Hya.

God.

. . .

HOOO.

HOOOAA.

Fuck.

I’m sorry.

It’s ok.

There’s come in her hair.

Fuck.

God.

Hoo.

I’m sorry.

I’m trying to pick her up.

It’s ok.

I love her.

I love you.

I love you she says, so nicely.

She’s standing.

I’m trying to get rid of the come in her hair and it smells like a swimming pool and I feel young and pantless but she’s kissing me and I’m feeling older and I don’t mind that I’m kissing her. I’m not a fag.

I’m still hard.

Hoa she says.

Her nipple’s hard through her sweater, just that one.

There’s the other one.

We do the eye thing.

We’re hugging. I feel like we should go somewhere. I feel like everything could end but it won’t if I move my fingers right and she’s so HERE tonight I think she really loves me.

She walks over and blows hard on the last candle.

I take off my shirt and I’m here if you want and I don’t care what anyone thinks I just want to be here if you want and I’ll do anything if you come with me. And that’s what your eyes look like tonight, O Fall.

I saw those raccoons come out chewing on a chicken bone near school and they shared it, those two raccoons sharing the bone they both wanted and their eyes all red and curious.

I undo her jeans and there’s the river over her shoulder.

Fingers up her sweater feeling goose bumps up her back.

She’s mine.

I kiss her.

I want to bite her.

Should I.

That wet Fall inside, it’s warm as blood, she’s my secret Fall on my fingers.

I’m moving to my jeans like it’s not breaking the rhythm and I hate fuckin condoms.

Did she look at my ass when I bent over.

I have six condoms.

I walk back and slide her jeans down all the way and her belt hits the carpet like a belt.

I could taste her.

I want to.

Why would you kiss there she always says. I want to.

I look up at her.

Her eyes are closed.

I like the smell.

I love her smell I’ve decided.

I pull her panties down.

She holds my head to pull me up.

I stand up.

We do the eye thing.

She kisses me deep all tongue and she’s ahead in the race and she pulls her feet out of her jeans and panties and there’s her leg up around the back of my leg and I want to fuck her standing up but how do you do that.

No one else has this I say.

J.

We bang teeth it’s my fault.

She’s all new muscles tonight.

Her arms around my neck and she wants to be picked up and I pick her up and I could slide inside so easy like I feel its breath saying you have to come here, you have to.

Hoa.

I put her on the table where I eat with dad, her ass instead of his grapefruit.

Condom.

Fuss fuck.

I love you she says.

I love you.

Fuss.

Her thumbs are on my hips.

I’m there.

Maybe she looks like she doesn’t want to fall further but I’ll push her, she does and so do I: push hard.

Ow.

Sorry.

It’s ok.

Sorry.

Gyooo.

That’s Fall she’s melting the rubber hoa hee.

. . .

. . .

. . .

Are we close o my god she feels good. Are we close.

She’s the prettiest girl in the school.

I talk to her in class.

. . .

We’re fucking.

. . .

Hoo.

I want to be closer.

The table’s hurting my elbows.

Dark furniture, ghost tours and places I want to go, who knows, Death Valley, you can drive as fast as a jet, I’m here.

I say Hoa.

Stop she says.

Are you ok.

Yeah.

She breathes.

It’s ok she says.

Is it over.

She wants to stand and I’m helping her.

Let’s go to the floor she says.

Heh.

We’re walking to the windows. My condom’s up in the air.

She lies down and I push back in and her eyes say it’s good it’s not painful and o my god it is good.

She’s small I don’t want to hurt her, she’s moving. When she moves I want to come.

Haa.

She squirms out and says Turn over and puts her mouth on my mouth ’cause we’re shy.

She’s on top, we’ve never done this.

Hoa.

She’s hugging me and I want to look at her. She’s up there and I want to see her. I want her to take her sweater off. She’s hugging
me. I put my hands on her ass and she’s grinding, ouch, she’s really fuckin grinding, I like it. She’s fast and goofy and doing her own thing and fuck I’m gonna come.

Here.

Oh.

A.

Hya.

I’m sorry.

Sssh.

Hoh. I’m sorry.

Haa she says.

You’re just so pretty I say.

Sh.

She’s hugging me.

I didn’t really come it just spilled out of me and the condom’s full and on my belly and she’s hugging and I’m embarrassed.

I want to make you come I say.

It’s ok she says. Let me lie with you.

I move and my head presses the saucer under that big fuckin plant and it tips and I save it and I don’t feel cool and the condom’s cold and wet so I put it on the carpet.

She lies and puts her head on my chest.

That was nice she says.

Was it.

. . .

. . .

You have a beautiful cock she says.

. . .

She’s so shy and quiet sometimes, and she just said that like it’s our secret: like she never talks like that and only the two of us know it. It’s the hottest thing I’ve ever heard and I’m also thinking Thanks.

She’s pressing against my leg. Squirming.

God I love you Julius.

I squeeze her.

There are stars up there and glass between us and the stars and I’m in my father’s house. Those are the chair legs and the carpet’s itchy. I feel calm and cold and itchy.

There’s nothing else she says.

I don’t need anything else I say.

I can smell the dirt in the plant.

She’s quiet.

I wish I made her come.

I put her on her back and I’m beside her and I’m kissing her. I’m finding some new way to kiss her.

Like this.

We’re walking through the family room, she’s back in her sweater and jeans and her fingers are on the wood panels and I think girls’ hands are for touching things, and when we first moved into this house dad knocked on those panels like he was testing them and said Hm.

She’s quiet and walking ahead and dragging her fingers over the panels and she’s a girl in her sweater but she showed me her secrets. We’re close and these are new seconds.

What’s through here.

The dining room I say.

She flicks the light and it’s thick white paint and gold.

It’s the state dining room I say. I never eat here. Twice.

It’s hilarious she says.

She’s walking around the table touching the backs of chairs and she’s pretty.

We should have our anniversary dinner here she says. It’s hilarious.

My fingers are in the grooves of this column and I’m watching Fall and I knock on the column knock knock.

So huge she says.

She’s walking around the long table like a kid and she’s thinking. She touches the rope that calls the butler.

If you pull that it flushes all the toilets I say.

She keeps walking and says So many eagles.

She touches that piece of furniture over there and keeps walking.

I’m folding my arms.

She looks up to the ceiling and I’m thinking you could put ten more Falls on her shoulders and the one on top would touch the ceiling like she’s touching that chair, those fingers were down my pants. We’d look really small to whoever’s looking down from the ceiling.

What’s through here she says.

How’s she so far away.

That’s the reception hall.

She goes through the door.

I walk to catch up. I feel like running but I’m walking.

She’s found the rope for the chandelier and she’s across the hall and my feet and my laugh just echoed. She’s like a little girl.

Her fingers are touching the flag.

I want to hug her.

There’s a smile in her eyes.

She’s trying to get away but I’m coming in for the hug.

We’re hugging.

She pushes away and she runs.

What’s through here she says running.

I’m picturing her smile.

F
ALL WAS MISSING
from school on the tenth of December, an anniversary I have since marked every year.

On my birthday when I turned nine my parents bought me a kitten, which I hadn’t really wanted. Two years later I wanted a new bicycle for my birthday but received a month of swimming lessons, so I cut off the tail of the cat. It was upsetting for everyone—my first memorable experience of wanting to go back in time—and my subsequent birthdays became carefully moderated affairs.

I have focused thoughtfully on annual celebrations since. I believe in marking the passage of time, the humbling benefit of taking stock, recognizing decline, acknowledging community. I choose to do it on the tenth of December.

I make an effort on the evening of the ninth to say tomorrow will be a day I must recognize as a day, and I don’t wake up with the anticipation of benefit or the breathlessness of rue. At least, I try. From the first it was a day on which I didn’t know what would happen next, and I try to maintain the spirit of that. Whatever happened on the evening of the ninth, the tenth would be the day of whatever was to come.

This year I awoke, went to work, accepted the usual invitation to the Commission’s Christmas party. I went to the grocery store and saw a deaf couple, a man and a woman, speaking to each other in sign language, and felt moved by their passionate animation and silence. I wished I knew their code, wished that everyone could be so openly private. Inevitably emotions creep in.

Whenever I was overseas with my father as a boy, people would ask me where I was from. My accent always identified me as foreign. “I’m from Canada,” I would say, and, “Ottawa,” if they were any more curious. I remember telling an ignoramus in England that Ottawa was the capital of Hawaii and he said he thought he had a cousin there. I remember thinking that perhaps Ottawa was indeed in Hawaii, perhaps Ottawa was everywhere and nowhere, a place with a name but no identity. I yearned for many years to speak in a language or an accent that would plant my feet squarely in a place. An Englishman, a Texan, a Quebecer, or a Scot. For people to know, without knowing me, that that is who I am.

But I’ve come to think of my city or nation as something I want to become—something definite, but up ahead. On December tenth I square my shoulders and go for walks and know I will belong. I know these buildings can’t exist elsewhere.

On the ninth my fingers were sore and my shoes were wet from the river.

The room was dark when I returned but Julius was awake in bed.

“Have you seen Fall?” he said.

“No.”

“She hurt her ankle last night,” he said.

I had thought that I would be nervous when I saw him, that I would have to explain myself or apologize or simply cower as I waited for him to discover how I had behaved with Fall. But as the night passed an anger grew; it started as a defensive reaction and then settled as something like a conviction. No one owns beauty but the perceiver. What I thought of Fall was my own.