Playground (18 page)

can feel the heat from her tan, silky skin. She changes positions,

brushing her leg against mine. She looks at me longingly, grabs my

hand, and pulls me closer to her.

“Come here.” She smiles sweetly, tugging gently at my shirt and

drawing me near, inches from her lips.

I close my eyes and we kiss. A warmth courses through me. I

am taken by surprise.

“You feel so soft,” she says.

Kendall moves a few strands of hair out of my face, spreads

her legs apart, and pulls me even closer. We search each other’s

eyes.

“Just relax. I’ll take care of you,” she whispers in my ear.

There is something supernaturally comforting about her. I

cannot convey my fascination for her with words, so I allow my

hands to become like language.

I breathe in as she holds me tighter, feeling safe in her arms. I

try to respond, but Kendall pushes her fingers over my lips, her

hands eager to explore my body. Every touch is sensual, magical.

Kendall takes her shirt off, exposing her bare breasts, which I

can’t help but touch like forbidden pleasures. She guides my head,

my lips pressed against her skin. She places her hand in between

my thighs and I can feel her energy go right through me.

Everything is happening so fast.

She pulls her jeans off along with her lavender satin G-string.

Her sexuality is overwhelming. She continues to kiss me and I am

so aroused that there is no stopping the inevitable. She spreads her

legs wider, pushing my hand toward her wetness, and I giggle like

a nervous schoolgirl.

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Playground

“I’m so wet, if you don’t go down on me I’m going to have to

go upstairs and get my vibrator,” she warns, chuckling.

I yearn to keep her near me. I would do anything to keep this

warmth, this gentleness. She kisses me, her mouth moving from

place to place, as she speaks slowly and touches me softly. She tells

me what I feel like, what I do to her, who she wants me to be.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I say with a sheepish grin, and

a huge smile creeps across Kendall’s face.

“I’ll show you.” She slowly pushes my head lower and lower

down her stomach. My body turns to liquid. Questions run through

my mind so fast I can’t decipher one from the other. Kendall posi-

tions me in between her legs and I am startled by her thrusting

movements as she clutches a pillow. She pulls me on top and our

bodies writhe against each other. Hers is like a weapon wrapped in

silk, dangerous and teasing all at once. I feel a tingle in between my

legs.

“That feels so good,” she says, guiding my body over hers.

“That’s it. Don’t stop. Good girl,” she repeats over and over, her

moans telling me she likes what I’m doing.

She moves uncontrollably. It’s like having an out-of-body ex-

perience.

I can feel her move under my touch. Our intensity is magnified

with each simple breath. “Ooh, Jennifer!” she screams, and then it

is all over. There is a new dimension to our relationship now. A

door has been open and anything is possible now.

“I knew you could do it.” She exhales and cuddles up to me.

Our warm bodies feel so good next to each other. She strokes

my hair, my arms. I swallow her affection like a starved child. She

makes me feel loved in a way I have never been before. She offers a

sense of fulfillment, better than any drug I’ve tried. With Kendall I

feel whole.

Kendall gives me what she can: love, parenting, and friendship.

She gives me these things in the only way she can, the only way she

knows how. In the end, we are both children, both searching.

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J E N N I F E R S A G I N O R

We lie on the thick carpet staring up at our nakedness in the

mirror above. She gives me a look like this is our little secret. I have

never known such closeness or felt so safe in chaos.

Sometimes we don’t know why we make the choices we do.

I am fifteen when I have sex with a woman.

120

Eleven

At home I shower, letting the water run over me for almost an

hour. I trace my hands across my stomach and my breasts, my body

now new to me and unfamiliar.

I want to make sense of what happened. I want to push the

memory into the realm of rational behavior. The phone rings, shak-

ing me out of the need to justify myself. I get out of the shower as

water drips all over the floor.

“What are you doing?” Hayden asks.

“I’m in the shower, silly.”

“Should I come over now?” he says.

“You wish.”

“Call me later, will ya?”

“Maybe . . .”

“Maybe?”

J E N N I F E R S A G I N O R

“All right, I’ll call you,” I say sweetly.

“Okay.”

We hang up.

I catch a glimpse of my nakedness in the mirror and my night

with Kendall replays in my head. I hope nobody finds out.

It’s 1985.

On my sixteenth birthday, Dad throws me a party at Vertigo. I

invite everyone I know and don’t know: high school friends,

Mom, Savannah, Hef, Kendall, Playmates, butlers, and even some

of the security guards from the Mansion.

I’m decked out in sequins with a short Christian Dior mini-

skirt and Gucci heels. Hayden styles leather pants and an untucked

Hugo Boss shirt. We look incredible as we make our way through

the sea of people. Hayden and I are pulled in different directions,

but our eyes meet every few seconds.

The club smells of Obsession perfume and clove cigarettes.

Girls dance in short satin cheerleader skirts, high, clumpy patent

platforms, and sequined gloves. Guys with layered hair and ears

studded with silver earrings tap their ostrich cowboy boots.

Kendall yanks me into an empty stall in the bathroom.

“What are you doing?” I pull away, nervous.

“Happy birthday, sweet girl. You look beautiful.” She draws me

close.

“So do you,” I mutter.

Kendall looks like a rock star in her gold snakeskin jacket, pale

knee-high suede boots, and cutoff Calvin Klein jeans.

I look around cautiously.

“Someone might come in.”

“So what? Kiss me.”

Kendall squeezes my hand.

“I can’t,” I whisper.

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Playground

She clasps her fingers around my waist, pulling gently at my se-

quined butterfly top. I feel a spurt of excitement before nervous-

ness sets in.

“Where’s your token boyfriend?” she says as she touches me in

places I shouldn’t be touched.

“You torture me,” I whisper.

I hurry out of the bathroom, find Hayden, grab his arm, and

pull him onto the dance floor. I am moving between two worlds.

There is tenderness in Kendall that I can’t find in anyone else, not

even Hayden.

While Hayden and I dance, people swirl around us. Girls dance

by in rhinestone minis and sheer tank tops, teetering in Claude

Montana heels. Guys smelling of Polo cologne and wearing unbut-

toned black-and-white Armani shirts watch the girls dancing,

their grins and stomach muscles clearly visible.

Kendall watches Hayden kiss my neck and then she smoothly

cuts in for a quick dance, guiding Hayden’s arms around her waist.

My eyes are glued to her every move.

Kendall looks over at me with a dangerous smile as they dance.

Hayden follows Kendall’s gaze and smiles when he sees me. He’s

clueless.

I hear my sister’s voice in my ear.

“What is that lezzy Kendall doing dancing with Hayden? He

might catch something,” Savannah says.

I look at Savannah and her self-satisfied smirk. “Shouldn’t you

be entertaining Mom?”

We turn and wander separately back into the party.

I find Hayden, grab him by the arm, and pull him off the dance

floor and out of the club. We end up in a graffiti-scarred infamous

unmarked bar hidden behind the unlikely front of a Chinese

restaurant.

The doorman unclasps the velvet rope and lets us in. A door

mistress greets us, eyes us carefully, and leads us down a hallway to

an eighties glam-punk after-hours party.

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J E N N I F E R S A G I N O R

We’re in a carnival of funky chandeliers, guys in drag, black-lit

walls, four-inch shag carpets, and Nag Champa incense. Hipsters

with tattoos, wearing ski caps and Stray Cats T-shirts, stand around

posing. Skinny girls in retro slips, body glitter, and baby blue fur

coats and black hats dance to Prince’s “1999.”

“This place is like Studio Fifty-four—anything goes,” Hayden

informs me as we wander around.

A colorful drag queen in a turquoise rubber jumpsuit swings a

pink faux-fur scarf around his neck. I refrain from laughing until I

hear him yell, “Kendall!”

“Jamal!” a voice yells back.

I look over and see Kendall running toward Jamal. She’s with

Natasha.

“Hey, girl!” screeches the drag queen.

Jamal hugs her, waving a cigarette filter around her back, care-

ful not to disrupt the hair. I catch myself staring because I’ve never

seen a drag queen before.

Natasha and Kendall turn around. A surge of energy rushes

through me as Kendall undresses me with her eyes.

Jamal offers us a small brown bottle. “Whip it?”

“I’m cutting back.” I smile.

“Well, then, that’s definitely not the room for you, honey.” Ja-

mal points to a room separated by crushed velvet curtains. Guys

with tinted big-frame sunglasses exit the VIP lounge.

“Beware when you enter the buffet of euphoria. Everything’s

for sale in there, honey.”

Hayden and I peek our heads into the VIP lounge, where

glamorous divas indulge in their drug of choice. I ponder how

quickly after-hours can go from a simple night out to a whole

new lifestyle.

Twenty minutes later, we’re all in the VIP room sitting around

a table with lines of cocaine cut up and ready to be snorted.

Kendall rolls a hundred dollar bill and inhales the line deeply. Hay-

den’s face lights up as the bill is passed in his direction. He leans

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Playground

down with ease and sniffs hard. He hands it to me without a sec-

ond thought. I pass.

Kendall looks over at me.

“It’s not going to kill you,” she says.

“You do blow, right?” Natasha asks.

“Not really,” I answer.

“You’ll love it,” Hayden tells me as he does another line and

hands the bill to me.

“Trust,” he says with fixed pupils.

The wrongness of it makes it even more attractive. I lower my

head, cover my right nostril, and sniff with the left. My eyes water.

My nostrils sting. I swallow hard. A drip slips down my throat.

Two eight balls later, we are edgy, chasing a lost high. The

crowd has suddenly become annoying. Everyone is sitting way too

close to me. I feel claustrophobic. I nudge Hayden and tell him it’s

time to leave, but he is too busy chatting with Jamal to notice.

Kendall looks at me with void eyes as she and Natasha vogue each

other. They look like movie stars. I pull out an emergency Xanax,

trying to dull my sketchiness.

It kills me that I feel so empty inside.

125

Twelve

I t’s the middle of the night when Dad receives a phone call that

Hef has had a stroke. Dad hustles to quickly gather his belongings.

Hef doesn’t feel comfortable in hospitals so he asks Dad to move

into the Mansion and monitor him bedside until he feels better.

Dad moves out and leaves me all alone. His affinity for bachelor-

hood and the freedom it allows causes a lingering loneliness that

continues to grow over the next year.

Walking into an empty house day after day unnerves me and

makes me feel even more disconnected from the rest of the world.

At night, I walk around the neighborhood and get a peek into

other people’s homes. I get a glimpse of the kind of family I’ve al-

ways wanted: a mother baking cookies in the kitchen, children’s

drawings hanging on the refrigerator door, a father playing basket-

ball with his kids in the driveway. I smile the kind of smile that