Full Frontal Fiction (10 page)

Later,

Peg

The same day Alex wrote:

Dear Fellow Pervs,

It warms me knowing you are out there. Otherwise, my heart is cold,
and this sometimes worries me, but not today. Today I feel hopeful,
though everything that sucked yesterday is the same today. The leaves of
the maple tree outside my window are glossy and rustling in a whipping
breeze. I haven't seen Lila in a few days, and maybe this explains my
optimism. It has become di ficult even fucking her. I never thought I
would say this, but I'm bored with sex. No matter what we do. No matter that these things if I just fantasized them with an unknown partner
I would come in two minutes. She is rehearsing a play. I feel guilty not
calling. I repainted my bathroom, which had been looking like a bog
since the pipe busted. Every time I feel like jacking o f, I sit down at my
keyboard.

Fancy that,

Alex

Some members grumbled about Alex's defection from our focus. If anything could be said to be taboo, it was admitting you were bored with sex. I was not among the naysayers. I liked Peg and Alex, not merely as sources for titillation. I still read the other letters, feeling a jump in my groin or a flutter in my chest if an image or fantasy hit the right receptor button, but I did not look forward to these postings as much as to those of Peg and Alex. I felt a bit off my feed about the chat room, too, in the same way that Alex had gone off Lila.

In his next posting, Alex wrote:

Dear Pervs,

I was pacing the streets last night. The air caressed my skin, and I
started imagining a woman on her stomach, stretched out on a beach
towel, her muscled legs extending from a well-toned butt. I begin to rub
lotion on those legs, very slowly, inching toward her thighs, as if a massage was what she needed and had been waiting for, though she didn't
know me before I touched her. She feels the pressure of my hands, the
warmth and firmness of my palms. I smell coconut oil, and it reminds
me of summers as a kid, when my mother would rub suntan lotion on
my freckled shoulders.

I cannot see the woman's face, but I can tell from her skin that she's
young, barely past girlhood, though there is something knowing in her
flesh, the way it receives my pressure. I see the back of her neck, exposed
under her short, boyish bob. Little ridges stick out in her backbone. She
is naked, and there is no one else around. The sun is going down, and
the sky is ribboned with orange and peach. Gulls circle and swoop. I
hear the waves breaking, but the sea, for the moment, is glassy. Still, she
doesn't turn to see who I am. I begin to tease her, allowing my hands to
slip between her thighs and lightly flicker over her silky hairs. My hands
take possession of her ass, massaging the cheeks, giving her more pressure, which she takes. Little moans escape her. Her skin is reddish
brown. She could be Middle Eastern or from North Africa.

I press my hand into the small of her back, where, just below, two
dimples etch the cheeks of her ass. I work my way up her back to her
shoulders, making her wait for me to return to her ass, which she lifts
slightly in anticipation. When she is relaxed and soft to my touch, I
open her legs wider, so I can explore her with my eyes and fingers. She
lets out a little gasp and closes her legs. I push them apart a little
roughly, and she doesn't resist, rather waits for what I will do next.

By this time, I had arrived at Avenue B and 6th Street. I noticed a
club where people were crushed against the bar and hanging around
outside. It was late, but the energy was up. The jukebox was blasting
“Start Me Up,” and it seemed that Mick was telling me I needed a new
train. I was thirsty and lonely. Not for anyone in particular. I worked
my way to the bar, and the girl serving drinks looked exactly like the one
on the beach. Her small face was oval, with wisps of short dark hair
feathering her forehead and cheeks. Her nose was narrow but long and
swerved slightly to the left, giving her a peculiar authority. Pure symmetry would have made her just another pretty chick. Her dark eyes met
mine when I ordered a Coke. “Designated driver?” she asked, dryly. I
said, “Yeah, but no passengers.”

Later,

Alex

The letter drew me further into Alex's life. I didn't know what he looked like, but I imagined him rangy, about six feet tall and slim, with a shag of light-brown hair over a wide brow. I saw him with long fingers that could play the scales of a keyboard and the corridors of a body with equal dexterity. I could imagine him floating through the city, at once guide and ghost. His beach was real, and I could see from his perspective as well as the girl's. When I went out for walks, I found myself looking for him, as well as for Peg.

Somehow, I was sure it was Peg he had met at the bar, sure he would have more to say about her and that she would comment on him, and I speculated now that the creators of Peg and Alex had meant to bring them together all along. Or maybe not. Perhaps the game was unspooling as they read each other online, unfolding in cyberspace the way romance does in life—a gradual peeling back of layers.

The next day, Peg reported in.

Dear Readers,

What attracts me to Goldie is that she doesn't care if she never sees
me again. There is freedom in this for me. I just can't enjoy it. I'm not
sure if I should work on appreciating it or get rid of Goldie. The next
time she shows up, I will leave the room. She has nothing to talk about
except sex. She's leather. She doesn't whisper, “baby,” or “honey” when
we fuck. I'm supposed to ease into the absence. I'm supposed to hold my
breath the longest.

This guy came into the bar last night. He had a sad look on his face,
even when he smiled. Made me wonder whether I look that way when
I'm not falling on the floor laughing. Maybe I'm a gloom magnet.
Turned out he was feeling good, just has a kisser that doesn't show it.
He smelled like a bakery. It's weird me liking a guy's smell. Most of
them remind me of rusting iron or balloons. Turns out he was carrying
bread. He's got these deep-set eyes that look like they're strip-searching
you—something between a narc and a pimp. He orders a Coke. I think,
good, he's not going to get weird on me.

The whole time he's there I don't think about Goldie, except to realize she's not in my head for five minutes. The guy asks what I do. He
doesn't mean will I blow him. I lean over so my nose is five inches from
his and then straighten up, because I don't want to come on to him. My
body just does that automatically. The bar is zinc, and I can see my
reflection, wavy, like in water. My eyes have dark circles under them,
and I look like roadkill. I say I write for
Bristle,
as if anyone's heard of
it. I don't know why, but I say, “I scare myself.” He laughs. “Yeah,
well, it's either that or heroin.”

Gotta sleep,

Peg

Our bulletin board jumped with the kind of debate you see on subway walls and public toilets.

Chickenfingers: “Alex, fuck someone, anyone, just do it. Then you can write about it.”

Headgirl: “The guy can have something on his mind besides sex.”

Sizematters: “Hey, this here's a porno site. Haven't you noticed?”

Holehearted: “Don't define sex so narrowly.”

Ninewide: “Are you getting hot from this stuff?”

Holehearted: “I can't say I get off, no.”

Chickenfingers: “I wanna see him spread-eagle her, backside up, and drill her in every hole till everyone's happy.”

Holehearted: “I didn't know happiness was our goal.”

Headgirl: “I think they're sexy.”

Chickenfingers: “Maybe she won't do it with him.”

Holehearted: “Maybe that's not what he wants from her.”

Sizematters: “What else could he want?”

Headgirl: “Maybe he wants to know her.”

Ninewide: “People don't know each other on a porn site!”

Headgirl: “People don't know each other, period.”

Scratchandsniff and everydayfiend didn't respond to the messages. That a romance was budding no one could miss, however. And romance was deviant in our midst.

Alex wrote next.

Readers,

I took her home. I had to go to the bar four times before she'd leave with
me. The first three nights she told me her name was Alice. We walked
across Canal Street, then down West Broadway to my place. I suggested
a cab, but she said, “Christ, I could live on that money for a week.” I
didn't give it to her, didn't want her to think I was buying her, though
the thought crossed my mind. So much easier that way. The first night I
was carrying bread, the kind Lila likes. Peg acted like it was catnip, so I
got some for her. I'm wondering if it's me or the bread they go for.

We get inside my place, and I ask if she wants anything. She says
bread and tea. She sits in the kitchen, and I put water up to boil and
slice the bread. The fennel smells like licorice, and it feels as if I'm making tea for my grandmother. She puts her head on her thin arms, and
her body looks like it doesn't have bones. Don't get me wrong, sex is in
me. A junkie pal used to say that sex is the buzz you hear in the jungle when everything is quiet and asleep. Sometimes I can't tell if I want
to punch my fist through a wall, tear pieces of meat off abone, or stick
my tongue in a funky hole. I ask Peg if she wants toast. She says okay
in a sleepy voice. The toast smells even more intense. I put out some butter, and honey for her tea, and she opens her eyes and smiles, and I
wonder why I want to be kind to her. I'm suspicious of it, like there's a
trick that's going to spring out at me. After she eats, she curls up on the
couch and falls asleep. I don't touch her.

Later,

Alex

I didn't know if I wanted to watch these two tangled in each other's limbs or if I wanted to see what else could happen. Sex was why they had come together—sex in the sense of the buzz. Thinking about Alex and Peg, I felt a bittersweet tug, wanting them to stay and knowing that in time they would have to leave. Or change. I liked their candor, which did not cost them anything. I saw them as bold in comparison to myself, though I think we reveal ourselves, too, in our methods of concealment.

“Dear Pervs,” Peg wrote,

I asked Alex if he'd ever sucked a guy's cock, apart from his own. He
said he couldn't reach his cock, though he'd tried a number of positions.
He wasn't limber enough, and his torso was too long, or, as he put it,
“You could also say my cock is too short.” As for other guys' cocks, he
said that when he was doing dope, he got all liquidy and that almost
anything was possible. He said junkies'll go pretty far to stay high and
they'd think an idea was swell that, if they were straight, they wouldn't
be able to wrap their brains around. So he guessed at some point he'd
sucked a cock, sucked a crack pipe, sucked milk out of a tit. Made me
feel better. I could see how living a long time had given him this acceptance, though God knows you can be old as dirt, like my old man, who
is not a helluva lot older than Alex—maybe like eight years—and who
would kill himself if he ever sucked a cock.

I told him about Goldie, even though it's not like I'm involved with
her or anything. He said he had someone, too, a woman named Lila.
She wasn't a shit, but he was going to break up with her, because he
didn't feel anything, and it was making him feel bad to feel nothing.
Feeling nothing sounded good to me. Alex picks me up after work, and
we go back to his place. I fall asleep, and he leaves me alone. Like I'm
his kid sister, or something, but I know it's not that. Even if I really
were his sister, there would still be this vibe there. I sit in his bathtub,
because the tub in my place is cold and grotty. I don't mind when he
pees while I'm there. Afterward, he puts down the toilet seat and
watches me, and we talk. I tell him about the times I tricked, and he
explains why he started shooting heroin and how kicking was the hardest thing he'd ever done. He doesn't want me to be impressed. We eat
breakfast in the morning, and then I leave. He hasn't touched me, not
even a kiss. Exciting.

Gotta run.

Love,

Peg

On the bulletin board, ninewide wrote: “Jeez, I could watch Oprah if I wanted this shit.”

Sizematters: “Hey, man, everything we talk about could be on Oprah.”

Headgirl: “They'll hate each other if they fuck. She's better off with him as a friend.”

Holehearted: “Bring back Lila! She's the kinda girl you could give a butt plug to for Christmas.”

Sizematters: “You'd give your mother a butt plug for Christmas.”

Holehearted: “I have a big heart.”