Sex and Death in the American Novel (16 page)

This was a miracle. For well over a year, almost every thought I had led to a worse thought, and any sort of thinking, unless I was focused on work, left me more depressed than if I'd just stayed in front of the television. Until that moment, I hadn't considered there would ever be an end to the alternating anxiety and numbness I'd been living with since my brother's suicide.

A week later I opened my email to find this.

Vivianna
,

The flight to LA was quick though waking after only an hour put me in a bad mood. Out of curiosity I looked up your blog. I expected to find your content limited to areas of
homosexual interest, found myself instead laughing out loud.

Business-class passengers have no sense of humor. They all looked at me like I was hatching a plot to kill the president. Shit. Now I'm probably on a watch list. You bring out the deviant in me.

Fondly
,

Jasper

P.S. Glad to hear men won't be replaced by appliances any time soon.

My face reddened at the reference to my latest blog post. Inspired partly by Jasper's performance, and sparked by a discussion I'd had with a sappy straight guy at a club in Belltown a few nights before. This poor guy was literally crying in his neon-green cocktail when I sidled up to the bar. I gave him my best smile, batted my eyelashes and said, “Dude, you're killing my buzz.”

“Sorry.” He sniffed. “My friends thought taking me out would cheer me up.”

I waved the bartender over while I said, “Not working.”

That got a weak laugh from him.

He bought me a very sweet, very expensive lemon drop, and I listened to the whole story.

“My girlfriend Karen says,” he cleared his throat, “my performance in the sack is what's wrong.”

I gave my best wide-eyed look of encouragement.

“She says all the guys she knew before me could go for like a half hour at least.”

“Ah, and what's your best time?”

“Ten minutes. That was only once.”

“Please tell me you took care of her after that…”

You'd think I'd asked him if he'd ever swum the English Channel. “You think that's what she wants?”

I took a breath and let it out slowly. It might not be a bad thing if this one didn't reproduce.

He looked into his drink as if the answer to his problems might appear from the bottom of the glass.

“Have you tried jerking off before you fuck?”

He had.

“Have you tried pills…thinking about your grandmother? Pain?”

The last got a raised eyebrow. I was actually serious, but then I am used to people misunderstanding me.

I thought of Jasper and how truly stellar his performance had been. I almost spewed lemon goo all over him in a fit of laughter when he said, “She tells me she has more fun with her vibrator than with me!”

He looked so miserable I had to offer something. “Can I be honest? I think I know what the problem is.”

He looked uncertain.

“You're not there. You're not really tuned in to her. Are you feeling me?”

He wrinkled his forehead, but continued listening. “I bet you're going at it like you could be anywhere, banging away like she's a blow-up doll or something. I can definitely understand her saying she can have a much better time and avoid a lot of mess and hassle by employing a small machine.” He slid toward the edge of his seat as if he were about to split. I locked my eyes on his. “It is amazing how often guys think that distracted pawing passes for a good time. Are you all late for something that only takes place after you shoot your load?”

I leaned back, closed my arms over my chest. “Like we can't tell you're not really there.” I remembered several of my more disappointing encounters while I was trying to drown my grief. His face hardened until I said, “But if you are one hundred percent engaged, really focused on her and a real exchange of energy is taking place…there is nothing—and I don't care if you're thimble sized—nothing can replicate that.”

“Really?” he said, moving back into the seat.

I nodded. The guy and I chatted a bit more, he counted off on a barely opened fist the other ways she didn't appreciate him. In the end it looked like he was probably better off anyway.

The conversation stuck in my head. A few days later I felt compelled to address the issue for my readers. Surely this wasn't the first guy who had been told that three inches of plastic and an Energizer could take his place. How unfortunate that Jasper had landed on that post as opposed to one of the ones I'd written that had taken me much longer—my feelings about Alice for instance.

I started and deleted a few responses to Jasper's email, growing more and more annoyed with myself. I finally responded with a quick note thanking him for checking out the blog, noting that he surely had many other more worthwhile, more serious things to do, and added a line with my phone number under my signature. Until then I had been avoiding the fact that I really did want to hear the sound of his voice again. I thought of the couple crossing the street and felt a strange sadness that I hadn't talked to
Jasper more when he was physically in front of me, but then you can only do so much with a person in a few hours. I had to prioritize.

He called two days later. I had my face stuffed with a quick lunch of apples and cheese. A rerun of
Dexter
played on the TV. When I heard his voice I switched the TV off.

“Oh. Hey,” I said, already pissing myself off with this fake nonchalance. I do not do uncertainty in social exchanges well—and I really don't do
relationships
well.

His breath on the other end. “Is it okay that I am calling?”

“Yes! I mean, of course it is. I like talking to you.”

“Good.”

Silence.

Wake up!

I set my plate on the table and curled my legs under me, hoping to relax by changing position. “So what are you up to today?”

“Calling you.”

“And what else?”

“That's it. Took me all day to work up the nerve, couldn't tell if it would be a good idea…I mean, if you would want me to.”

Silence again. I had no idea what to make of this big show of insecurity, and right when I opened my mouth to speak, he interrupted me.

“Just kidding. Woke up. Worked. Then I spent about a half hour working myself up to this.”

“You're funny.”

He cleared his throat.

“I worked this morning too, now I'm having lunch, filling my head with garbage. Talk to me about something important and literary.”

“I can do that. How much time do you have?” He used that tone again. The tone that stuck my attention to his words like cement, super glue…a million similes went through my head. So fucking smooth. You would never know it to look at him.

“You know, I was curious and we never got around to it…why do you write romances for gay men?” When I was silent, forming my thoughts, he added, “It's just not intuitive…when you obviously understand straight sex…”

“I love men, their smell, the way they walk, the extra hair, the way they can be so no nonsense about some things and such babies about others. I like that writing about men is different, at least the way I try to do it…I think it started with Anne Rice's erotica. There were no labels and there was
this implicit freedom in that. People in those books could think or feel and do whatever they wanted.” I was about to start babbling so I stopped and changed topic, hoping to pick up my brain on the way. “I adore Marco Vassi. My brother first had me read him when we started talking about books that involved large amounts of drug intake.”

Jasper's tone was light. “And you liked that.”

“I don't know that the drug part mattered as much, but he presented one more way to be alive in a physical body. What was really wonderful about that book was how liberated he was. He fucked everyone and everything and didn't apologize. It was all this great experience for him. I loved that. There was so much to explore and understand about the experience of being human. He got it all. Just like Henry Miller, but different. He was clearly his own man, he has been compared in some ways, but I think Marco Vassi was on a much more all-encompassing trip. He didn't seem to be out to middle finger the establishment so much as to not be a part of it, to find his own way.”

“You read Henry Miller?”

“Why do you sound surprised?” I knew why. I waited a beat. “Because I am the only female on the planet who can get past his use of the word cunt?”

Jasper paused and then said, “Well, yes.”

“I know, I am radical. Ahead of my time.” I paused a moment and then asked, “Who do you read?”

“Wow. There are so many. Robert Penn Warren, Cormac McCarthy, Gaddis, I just found this great writer named Vassily Aksyonov.”

I made a whistling sound. “Sounds painful.”

“And Edgar Allan Poe.”

I uncurled my legs and stretched out. “I love him!”

“My favorite poem is actually
The Raven
. My mother loved it and read it to me before I could read.”

“Mine too!” Since it seemed to be the thing to do I asked, “Where does your mother live?”

He paused and said, “She died when I was sixteen.”

Shit. And I was trying to keep things light. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't worry about it,” Jasper went back to the conversational tone.

We talked for over an hour about books, writers; he was also a fan of Celine, as was my brother.

He steered the conversation back to my work.

“So you liked the work of some wild writers. Your father was just amazing. It's almost kind of strange that you went in this direction…”

“Maybe, but it was really just there all the time I think. Those books were just what set me off. In the end what sort of solidified the whole thing in my mind was watching
Six Feet Under
with Eric. That really did something for me, the relationship between these two gay guys—”

“Was Eric out then?” Jasper asked.

“Yes, that was during the period when I was transitioning from heartbroken ex-girlfriend to supportive buddy. I loved how the gay characters were regular guys, one of them was really well built and even macho. I liked that those characters on a big show were real, like Eric.”

“I like that,” he said. “You're different. In a good way. I like that.”

In between a month-long, ever-increasingly aggravating correspondence with the Municipal Court of Seattle over a parking ticket, conversations with my mother about grief groups and their necessity in my life, two successfully placed stories on hard-core websites, and several promising discussions with my editor over the future of my novel, I thought more and more about Jasper. Almost daily we exchanged pleasant, sometimes incredibly long emails and then there were the scheduled phone calls on Tuesday nights. Then during one call his words came more slowly. There were more pauses in between, but the silence was no longer something I dreaded. With him, quiet was a good thing. Just listening to him take a breath on the other end was a pleasure.

“So here's the thing,” he began. “Things have calmed down here. I finally have a stretch where I'll be home for over a week.”

“No more globe-trotting?”

He cleared his throat. “I have never met anyone like you before, I am quite amazed at my level of distraction.”

“Your level of distraction?” I laughed.

He took another breath. “Well, so anyway…I was thinking, you could…”

“This is some sort of verbal equivalent of the OCD display before you speak, isn't it?”

“Funny.” He did relax though; I could tell because he finally spit it out: “You should come to New York.” Those words hung over three thousand miles of cell phone signal and he added, “If you want to. I mean.”

I grabbed some papers on my desk and rustled around, loud enough to be heard over the other line. “Well. I will have to check my calendar…” My stomach fluttered with excitement. This was actually a good week. My mother and Eric were both out of town. It would be at least two more weeks until the copy editor sent final edits for
Boy in a Box
. Not that I couldn't have rearranged my schedule for him. “Okay. Looks like I am free. I just have to make sure I get some work done. I have a short piece due in a month and I'm getting paid by the word this time. Need to flesh those characters out if you know what I mean.”

He laughed and let out a long breath. Adorable.

I boarded a plane the following Sunday, wondering if an entire week would be too long to spend in the presence of only one person. What if we
got sick of each other the first day? To shut out the thoughts in my head, and also to make better use of my time, I worked most of the way across the country. Heavy metal crashed through my ears and blocked out the chatter of the other passengers. Jasper might have a publisher who was willing to pay to keep him away from the unwashed masses, but I had to hustle. Even if my brother left me his trust—it wouldn't last forever.

I still had to make my deadlines, keep my name out there and generate interest in my brand, my stories, my blog, my life. I was proud of the fact that I still made at least my rent with the proceeds from my work. Tristan couldn't say that. My father could. No matter who approved or disapproved of my work, I could always say that. I paid my rent with my words. Pornographic, dirty, foul words they might be…the white screen before me…a blinking cursor…

There's something about a girl on her knees, in those few moments living just for me, to please me, to show her appreciation. Nothing wrong with that. Might as well be a back rub, right? I wish blow jobs weren't given such a bad rap. If giving head wasn't such a shameful thing, more girls would do it.

Guys, you know what I am talking about—that first time you make eye contact, and you know you can have it. Getting sucked off by a new chick is an incredible rush. Power. This is totally different than when my wife Amy does it, me encouraging her with my hands buried in her vanilla-scented hair. She's pretty good at it too…making soft mewling sounds every so often, making sure to let it go deep, bracing her hands on my hips. Amy is a gem. I don't know where I would be without her. She accepts all of me; my moods, my benders, my bullshit, and she has her shit together. By all rights she should be with a nice doctor somewhere. Best of all, she understands the world I live in. Still. It is impossible to explain the lure of The Strange unless you've been there.