Sex and Death in the American Novel (37 page)

After many months dancing around, figuratively and in every other way, we finally went home and had it out.

“I'm not trying to replace Jasper,” I said.

“I know.” He moved above me.

“Is this wrong then?” I said, watching the way our bodies fused by the pink light of a small lamp on the bedside table.

“No.” He slid his hand around to cradle the back of my head, lifting me close to his face. “We are okay for now.”

The knot in my gut told me I wasn't sure. The set of his jaw when he said this told me he wasn't sure either. This reminded me of the men I
forced myself to take in an attempt to chase away my brother's memory in the early months after his suicide, only this was Alejandro—and even if he wasn't Jasper, I loved him.

I lifted my head to brush my lips against his, to bring myself back to the moment by the scratch of the hairs on his chin against my throat, by tasting, smelling and taking his mouth, his breath.

I tried to push him over like I would have with Jasper, but he wouldn't budge. I tried again, bucking my hips against him in an attempt to throw him off so I could climb on and do as I wanted with him, like Jasper would have let me do. Instead he moved his head down to my breasts, cupping both in his hands, hands that felt too small. My eyes closed, and I tried to relax. I ran my fingers over his head, the curves of his ear, his shoulders, his sturdy back. Nothing.

Everything he was doing should have been pleasant, should have felt good, and did at some level, but not enough. My baser instincts began to take over. His warm mouth over my nipples made them rise and wrinkle up in anticipation of his tongue, his hands gripping my wrists, running his thumbs over the inside of my forearms, elbows, should have made me weak, should have made me want more, until the tickle at my armpit. I squirmed and he finally laughed and let me twist away. He flipped me onto my stomach and lowered himself onto my back, where I pushed up to allow him access to any part of me he wished.

“No como antes,” he breathed as he eased himself near the cunt that should have been wet but was not.

He stroked my lips with gentle fingers before going to work on me with his mouth. Taking it all in stride I supposed, though I was horrified. It had been too long since I wasn't ready for a man. Not since the days of strangers and playing scenes from movies and books back in my head in order to get myself ready. With Alejandro, who had been so close to me when I was at the point of the highest bliss, to put him far away by taking my mind elsewhere felt wrong, wrong, wrong. He came back up and eased himself into me and I braced myself for the onslaught, but it never came. Instead, he handled me softly, stroking my ass as he had before, cooing soft words and murmuring encouragement as he would have were I some stupid virgin. Like I needed assistance, and then it hit me how incredibly dishonest this all was; if he knew I needed this type of coddling, I wondered what must have been going through his head.

I looked back as he began stroking closer and closer to the exposed anus, a mildly amused expression on his face. I watched him, and the way his face seemed so removed but enraptured at the same time did enough for me to distract me from the doubts in my head. I grew wet again, on my own, and began turning my hips, tightening myself around him. At this, he
looked up and saw me watching him. A slow smile and what I thought was gratitude lit his eyes. Somehow the both of us needed to finish this but had been unable to find a place for ourselves until then.

Soon his hands wrapped around my hips, holding me to him, flexing and twisting me up inside, connecting with the tender secret place, making my skin flush and my arms weak. I pushed back trying to work him farther in. He went silent, at times pulling me back, at times groaning as I pulled away or worked him with my inner muscles.

When all else failed, in lust, love, or anything else, it worked to go primal, to focus on the most basic emotion and need at any given time and follow that. Always when I was uncertain, this is what I did. I thanked my stars that it worked this time.

He brought it off, barely. As soon as he gave his last thrust and flopped onto the bed, he became malleable. I rested on top of him and we lay like that for a long time. He tentatively stroked my wet back. I could feel the matted hairs on his forearm, listened to the clock on the living room wall click.

The sense of longing and searching for something was still with me, no matter how exceptional Alejandro was. I still wanted Jasper and had not given up my need for him. Alejandro was wonderful all on his own. Why couldn't I give up this fantasy of having them both? I felt a jolt of electricity, a tightening and flutter in my midsection at the thought of how it had been, briefly. Was it so wrong to hope for this again? Yes. If that meant Jasper had to change who he was to make a life like that work.

He lay his other arm across his eyes and let out a long breath. “I don't think I am going to be able to sleep. Wanna watch a movie?”

I bolted out of the bed and grabbed my robe. Somehow we were able to avoid each other's eyes until the second movie ended. It was 2:00 a.m.

I lay on his lap, and when the credits started to roll I switched the TV off. His head turned in my direction. With my palm on his stomach I smoothed down his shirt and pressed my face there. I hated myself for fucking him, still wanting Jasper, still wanting them both.

“I miss him,” I finally said with a knot in my gut.

Then I felt his hand on the top of my head. “You think I don't?”

I looked into his face. “Really?”

The tension finally left his face. “Of course. I know you miss him. For a few hours I thought life was going to get crazy good. I still think about what it could have been like…all of us.”

I knew he meant this—it was in his eyes, those dark orbs that held so much sincerity.

“Tell me,” I said sitting up and facing him.

“I think something like this is almost impossible to make work. Most people are not willing to share their mate with another person; fear of what
other people will say, though from an anthropological standpoint our arrangement makes much more sense. Imagine having two men to look after your children, both invested as neither knows for sure who the child belongs to…”

“It's not like I am conventional. If anyone could do something like this, it would be us.”

He made a face like I'd asked one of the sillier questions possible. “Most people like easy-to-follow rules. People who do not conform will always be shunned. Always.” He paused and spread his hands over his thighs. “We've lost our ability to experience the world around us. Even at the basic tactile level, it gets beaten out of us young. Think about what happens the first time a baby in awe of the warm stinky pile it has just produced gets curious and tries to play with its own shit.”

It had begun to rain outside and the wind howled past the windows. I pulled my knees up to my chest. “We fell so easily into this agreement about how things would be, and you,
you
made it work. I just wish he would loosen up. We all could have been together if—”

Alejandro took my hands. “Can I say something? I worry about
you
. No. Wait. I do. I wonder when I'll be next.”

“What?” His tone set my heart pounding. “What do you mean? You're not some prudish judgmental prig like Jasper. You understand me.”

“Mi vida. I do, but I don't think you do.”

I sat on my hands.

“Tell me about the letters your dad sent you.”

He might as well have dumped a pile of dead cats in my lap. I was overcome by revulsion and horror so out of place I didn't know where to begin. “Jasper told you about that? He's mad because he wanted to read my father's letters.” I shook my head, hoping I could physically force the discussion to go away.

“It sounded more like the problem is that
you
haven't read them.”

“What are you, Dr. Phil now? Why is that anyone's business!” I finally stood and sat in a chair, looking over at him. “So now you're on his side.”

“No sides.”

“You're talking to him behind my back.” My voice rose, and I sounded like one of those hysterical girls I hated passing in the street.

“You know I talk to him.”

I scratched my forehead. “So the two of you don't have anything better to talk about?”

“How could we not? Some of the things I heard got me thinking.”

I sat back and folded my arms. “Thinking about what?”

“This is not honest. We can't keep pretending like you are right to keep Jasper away.” He spoke slowly, parsing out each word, “I love to be with you, to have you to myself, but I can't do it anymore.”

“I have no idea how to answer that,” I said, my voice muffled as I rested my forehead on the table.

“You don't have to.” His lips against the top of my head. Cool air swishing around my legs. I pulled my head up with great effort and watched him gather his clothes from the bedroom, then his jacket. The scene was creepily familiar.

“You're leaving me too?”

“No…. Yes. I suppose it looks like that, doesn't it.” He worked his arms into the jacket and went to the door. “I don't know what to do now. I just know this was not all Jasper's fault, and I keep thinking you're going to turn on me one day too.”

“You
know
this?” I said, my voice shook.

“I bet you can't tell me right now why you hate your father so much. You don't see that he is there all the time, you trying to prove you're better than him, that you don't care what he thought. But it is so obvious that you do.”

“I haven't talked about my father once since we started hanging out.”

“So I started to wonder about that. Maybe I am just easier for you to be with because I am not pushing you to deal with this.”

“You sound just like Jasper! I thought you were different.”

“Different than what? I care about you. You are making yourself and everyone else around you miserable trying to avoid whatever it is that is going on inside that head of yours. All the rest of us that bear any resemblance to him have to pay for it.”

“God, why can't I get away from this? He's dead!”

He pulled at the cuffs of his jacket, pulling the sleeves taut, covering the meaty part of his hands so that for a moment he looked just like a child.

“What if I show you what's in the letters? Would that help? Then you could report back to the
master
and tell him he was wrong.”

“Chica, that is not the point and you are smart enough to know that.”

“I should. I must. The two of you are so convinced that everything that is wrong with me ties back to him.”

“Can you even tell me why you are so angry with your father?”

“The fuck I can't! He only cared about Tristan, and even that he did in the most limp-dick, lame-assed way possible. He was a disappointment. He never believed in me or took me seriously…”

He gave me a stern look. “See, you can't see past that. Tell me who he was then. Tell me something about your father that isn't colored by your hatred.”

When I couldn't answer he walked out the door.
Puto
.

I slammed the door and slid down the side with my head in my hands. I let out a low groan and the sound of it in the air of the room made everything
worse, the harsh lighting over the table highlighting the space he had just vacated. How was it that something so personal was becoming such a public spectacle? I hated Jasper for bringing up the letters and pushing me to examine all the ugly parts of my inner life I so wanted to forget. He exposed the fact that I had not forgotten, I was merely festering. My anger at my father was not rational as I wanted desperately to believe, and in hating him, in hating Jasper, I was only misplacing my rage and a crucial truth of what I felt for my brother. I hated my brother, and for once couldn't place where the root of everything lay. I didn't want to. An awful realization was beginning to dawn—what if it was my fault that I missed valuable time with my father? Dad was always the same, never had the capacity for change, but I did. Maybe I had been the asshole all along? In the end, that didn't matter. The truth was that I should have gotten to say goodbye to him when I knew that would be the last time I would ever see him. Even though I hadn't tried to spend more time with my father in years prior, if Tristan hadn't taken so long talking to my father in those last minutes, when he knew how important time was, I would still have had a chance with him. Precious, finite minutes.

The selfishness of men, always putting themselves first. My brother unloading all his moods on my mother and me. He couldn't pull his shit together and just deal. I ground my teeth, like a monster from
Where the Wild Things Are;
I gnashed my terrible teeth and in my mind let out a terrible roar, a howl and then burst out laughing. In that second I hated my brother—for leaving me, for taking my last moments with our father, for being a dickheaded, boneheaded, asshole guy. Then I hated myself; how could I hate my brother? I loved him. How could I hate my father? I loved him too. I loved him still.

For at least an hour, I sat on my floor with my back to the door, while my gut churned and hot tears ran gritty trails down my face. I planned the rest of my life. I was going to leave, make a new life, live exclusively for me and never again touch the vile flesh of any man—know-it-all cunts. My stomach and sides hurt from crying and from holding this pain; now it surged out as if through a fire hose. I wanted to redo things with my father. Not a fucking thing I did now was going to change the fact that I failed him, that I missed him when I could have forgiven him and had that time with him. The fact that I didn't see him while he was alive and I could have was my fault, not his. I could have tried too, and I didn't.

I laughed in the silence of my apartment. Was this why people jumped off bridges? Too bad they put the fence up at the Aurora Bridge. I remembered the bridge at Deception Pass. There wasn't anything stopping me from going up there. Another cackle tore from my throat as I imagined
myself sailing toward the water, my hair and clothing trailing behind me, my father's letters whipping past, still unopened as a last act of defiance.