God-Shaped Hole (8 page)

“Did you just tell me to shut up?” he said.

Popcorn. That’s what I smelled. Someone on our floor was making popcorn. Maybe it was Greg, I thought. Maybe I should knock on his door and have a handful of popcorn and fuck him. I wondered how Jacob would like that. He could fuck Nina and I could fuck Greg. Just like old times.

It was kind of ironic, actually. Greg had done infinitely worse things to me when we were together, but nothing he did ever hurt me. Because I didn’t care, that was the core of the issue. I’d never cared before. I didn’t know how to act like a normal person and be in love at the same time. Nor did I know how to process fear.

I was damaged goods. A cripple.

Pathetic.

I couldn’t find my keys. I had to take Jacob’s off the table. He asked me where I was going but I pretended like I couldn’t hear him.

“Please don’t leave right now, Beatrice. Please. I need to talk to you.” He was that cute little boy from the museum and I was his mother running off without him.

“What do you care?” I shouted on my way out the door. “Maybe you can invite Nina over while I’m gone!”

“Hey!” he shouted back. “Maybe I will!”

It pissed me off that Jacob didn’t follow me down the hall. I wanted him to run after me and grab my sleeve. I wouldn’t have hid my hand like my father. I would have let Jacob take hold of me and he would have refused to let me go.

Instead, he just stood in the doorway and watched the elevator close.

I had no idea where I was going. I thought about heading to Kat’s, but she would have wanted to look Nina up and threaten her life or something, plus Kat lived in West Hollywood. To get to her apartment, I would have had to either drive down Wilshire, take Sunset, or get on the highway. Wilshire had too many lights; Sunset, too many curves; and California highways depress me the way bad smells do. I avoided the highways at all costs, even if side streets added an extra dozen miles to my trip.

The first place I stopped was the Third Street Promenade—an outdoor shopping mecca right around the corner from where we lived. It was nothing special, just a long boulevard of mass-produced, trendy clothing emporiums, lots of cheap, tourist-trap restaurants, and a bunch of movie theaters. I went directly to the Cineplex. I didn’t want to see a movie or anything, but I was fixated on popcorn. The Cineplex had the best popcorn. It was the only theater on the Promenade that made it fresh. All the other establishments had it shipped to them in gigantic plastic bags. The girl in the ticket booth thought it was a strange request, only wanting the popcorn. She let me in anyway, and I got a bucketful with butter and salt, then I went back outside.

I sat on a bench with my popcorn and watched a rickety old man play drums in front of Banana Republic. He’d set up a full set right in the middle of the sidewalk, and he had a small crowd of fans congregated around him while he rocked-out, accompanied by prerecorded music on a boom box. He looked like a fossil and he was the worst drummer I’d ever heard. The erratic rhythm of his beats made me think of Jacob and Nina having sex. That’s when I decided to go over to Pete and Sara’s. They knew Nina. They could give me objective advice. Or at least tell me what she looked like.

When I rang the bell, Sara asked who was there, and she didn’t seem at all surprised to hear it was me, even though I’d never dropped in on them before. She gave me a strong, maternal hug. It made me hope she’d get pregnant soon. She was going to be a good mother, I could tell. Even if Jacob was going to dump me and get back together with Nina, and I’d never see Sara again, or meet her future gamine child. Our never-quite-blossomed friendship would become a casualty of a breakup.

Pete and Sara’s apartment was small. Their old wool couch had white stuffing peaking through the seams, the cushions on the dining chairs were plastic, and the window screens were fraying apart, but there wasn’t a thing out of place, and the gray carpet on the floor had recently been cleaned, I could tell by the way the living room smelled. Like a new car.

“Pete just went to your place,” Sara said. She shut the door behind me.

“Jacob called him?”

She nodded. I felt like I was back in high school. I hated high school, it was the most godforsaken four years of my life and the last place I wanted to return.

“Sara, what did Jacob say?”

“I don’t know. All Pete told me was that Jacob bumped into Nina today, and that you freaked out about it and ran off for no reason.”

“I didn’t freak out.” That was a slight exaggeration on Jacob’s part. He was a writer, and writers exaggerate. “Besides, maybe if he would’ve talked to me first, instead of staring embryonically at the wall, I wouldn’t have felt the need to freak.”

I offered Sara some popcorn. She took a tiny handful.

“What’s Nina like?” I said.

“A mess. And I’m not just saying that to make you feel better.” Sara said she’d heard Nina’s drug problem had gotten worse since she and Jacob broke up.

“She stopped by the salon once to ask about Jacob after he moved in with you. She wanted to know where he lived but I wouldn’t tell her. She was so strung out she could barely walk.”

“I thought she was a lesbian now.”

“That was just a phase.”

“Do you think Jacob still loves her?”

Sara gave good dramatic pause. “I’ve known Jacob for five years. I have
never
—and I mean
never
—seen him happier than he is now. With you. Do you want something to drink?”

“No, thanks.”

Sara opened a bottle of red wine anyway, and we polished it off over the course of an hour. Sara was brutally candid when she was tipsy. Her voice got squeaky. She talked about how badly she wanted to have a child—she started to cry, telling me about all the doctors she’d seen, and all the poking and prodding they did to see if she was working properly. They promised her there was no medical reason she hadn’t conceived yet. Then she said Pete had a small dick. She secretly thought that might be the problem, like the smaller ones didn’t have as much power.

“How big is Jacob’s?” she said, suddenly giggling.

“It’s normal,” I said. “Not too big, not too small. But he knows how to use it, that’s the key.” I told Sara about this special technique Jacob had. “Because he’s kind of skinny, he can get his pelvic bone, or whatever the bone is that sits above the dick, he can get that bone right up against me, and he makes these little circles, round and round, until I’m nearly about to come. Then he just starts drilling. It makes me delirious.”

“Pete can’t do that. He’s too chubby,” Sara said. She looked disappointed.

When Pete came home, Sara was putting tiny braids in my hair, and we were in the middle of comparing notes on celebrities we’d spotted in Yoga class. I’d seen Cary Grant’s daughter the week before. Sara one-upped me because she told me she accidentally farted in class the day Madonna was doing down-dog behind her.

Pete looked surprised to see me parked on his floor.

“You’re
here
?” he said.

I smiled, trying to imagine just how small his dick was.

“Come on,
Trixie
,” he said. “I’m taking you home.”

“I don’t want to go home.”

“Yes, you do,” Pete said.

“Jacob doesn’t love me anymore.”

“Yes, he does. Even though you’re completely irrational, like all women are, he loves you.”

“He loves Nina,” I said.

“He doesn’t love Nina. Nina’s a disaster. Let’s go.” Pete pulled on my arm and I floated to the door with him, waving good-bye to Sara.

“Hey, Sara,” I said before I left, “do you think I should cut my hair? I’ve never had short hair.”

“I’ll cut it for you. It’ll be great!”

“Okay. Bye, Sara. Thanks!”

Before he took me home, Pete decided we needed to make a quick stop. He pulled in to a late night coffee shop, ordered me a double cappuccino on ice, and made me drink the whole thing. The instant brain-freeze did nothing but exacerbate my already excruciating headache.

“Let me tell you something about our little friend, Jake,” Pete said. “He isn’t like most guys, you know?”

“I know.”

“No, but do you
really
know? I mean here’s the deal, what do most guys want from a woman? I’ll tell you what we want. We want a warm body to sleep next to, preferably one with a nice pair of tits, maybe someone who’ll cook for us and fuck us on a regular basis. Pretty simple, huh? Now, what we
don’t
want is someone who’s going to come in and disrupt our lives and steal our souls. That’s what we fear most. We call it our freedom, but it’s our souls we’re talking about. You following me?”

I nodded.

“Okay, good. Now forget it. Forget
all that
,” Pete said. “Because Jacob’s not like that. He’s
never
been like that. He’s a damn fool and he wants
the exact
opposite
of that. He wants someone to obsess over, someone to possess his soul, and those are his corny words, by the way, not mine. It’s what he lives for. It’s what he thinks life’s all
about
. Do you get what I’m saying?”

I nodded again.

“So there you have it. Do with it what you will. Just don’t be so hard on him. Don’t worry so much. Shit, if I was him, I’d kick your ass, running-off and slamming doors and all that.”

“Pete,” I said, “he didn’t talk to me for hours. What was I supposed to think?”

“He’s
Jacob
. He’s
weird
, for Christ’s sake. Believe me, I’ve known him a lot longer than you have. I lived with him back when our apartment was six hundred square feet, and sometimes he’d go days without talking to me. That’s just the way he is. You better get used to it.”

When I walked in the apartment, Jacob was lying on the couch watching
The Late Show with David Letterman
. The sound was muted but I could see the screen—Pete Townsend was the guest. I interpreted that as a good sign. Pete Townsend wrote one of my favorite lines of all time:
No one respects the flame quite like the fool who’s badly burned
.

I wanted to whisper those words into Jacob’s ear. I wanted to remind him that I’d been more than just burned, I’d been practically incinerated. And not by some random guy, either, but essentially by the one man in the world who was supposed to protect me. That’s why I acted like a baby. I had scars. But my scars also served to instill a kind of reverence in me. Reverence that, during times of weakness, became shrouded in darkness.

I had a fleeting desire to ask Jacob to turn up the volume so I could hear Pete Townsend sing, but I thought better of that request. Jacob had a serious scowl on his face. I’d never seen him look so angry and I wasn’t sure what to do.

After I shut the door, Jacob flicked off the TV, sat up, and crossed his arms in front of his chest. I stood frozen against the wall and decided to wait until he said something, or at least until he glanced in my direction.

He kept focused on the dead screen. He was waiting for me to talk.

I should have been nice and said I was sorry. That’s what I’d wanted to do. That’s what I’d intended to do prior to walking in, but his disposition caught me off guard and I changed tactics.

“Jacob, what’s with the attitude?”

He looked at me, shook his head in disgust, then went back to the idle screen.

“Are you enjoying the show?” I said. I stepped in front of the TV to try and get his attention. “So what, you’re never going to talk to me again?”

A sarcastic “nice hair” was all he could muster.

“Whatever. See if I care.”

I spun around and pretended like I was going to walk out again. That got him up in a flash. And it was a good thing too, as I don’t know where the hell I would have gone if he’d let me run off a second time.

I had the door cracked about an inch when he was upon me. “Oh, no you don’t,” he said, and slammed it shut. My back was against the wall. He straddled me with his outstretched arms.

“Why should I stay here if you’re going to ignore me?” I said. I was trying to get around him. He wouldn’t budge. He stood there for at least a minute, burning his silence into me with his eyes, as if I owed him an apology.

“Move!” I yelled.

“No,” he said, simply and calmly.

“Let me go!”

I struggled to get away from him, but he was stronger than I was. I didn’t have much of a chance. I was determined, nevertheless, to fight the good fight.

“Get out of my way!”

“You’re not going anywhere.”

“You can’t control me!”

“Looks like I can.”

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck off!”

“Suck my dick.”

I bit him on the arm as hard as I could. Mature, I know. At least it opened up an escape route. Jacob grabbed his wound and I dove toward the bedroom. I thought I’d make it there and be able to lock him out for the night, but he was quick on my trail. He tackled me just as I got through the door and we fell, face down, onto the bed. In a frenzy, he flipped me over and held my arms flat. Before I knew it, his tongue was in my mouth—deep in my throat. I could hardly breathe and I loved it. I wanted to bite it off and swallow it and digest it and have its protein nourish me.

I wanted Jacob to be part of me forever.

I freed my hands and undid his pants. He ripped open my shirt, sending buttons flying across the bed. It was just like a movie. I know that uptight, pseudo-doctor woman on the radio tells the poor stooges who call her talk show that sex in real life isn’t like sex you see in the movies, but she can just speak for her own sorry ass.

Jacob hiked up my skirt, forced my underwear over, and tried to get inside me. I wanted him—badly—but I resisted with all my strength. Partly because I was still pissed at him, but more so because I could tell he liked it. The more I struggled, the hotter he got.

“Fucking bitch,” he said, trying to pry my legs apart.

“Come on, you can do better than that.” I kept taunting him. I was trying to get him to haul off and slap me but he wouldn’t do it.

“Don’t pretend you don’t want it,” he said.

I drew my fingernails down his back, just like you’re supposed to do when you’re having rough sex. He winced, re-pinned my arms to the bed, and called me a whore. That’s when I stopped fighting. I opened up and let him in and we went like mad, violently devouring each other like fucking food and we hadn’t eaten in months.

Afterward, Jacob lingered inside of me, motionless, until the sound of a siren on Wilshire reminded us we were still alive. He shifted his body and I turned onto my side so that we were facing each other. He kissed me sweetly, almost brotherly, and brushed a lock of hair out of my eyes. He pulled the blanket up and covered both of us with it. We went to sleep without another word spoken.

I woke up in the exact same position about seven hours later. When I opened my eyes, Jacob’s were on me. A thin strip of sunlight was slashing him diagonally in half; it made the whole left side of his face glow and gave his hair a coppery hue.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Watching you.” He took my hand and traced the lines of my palm with his finger.

“I’m sorry I acted like such a jerk yesterday,” I said.

“You should be.”

“I’m sorry I bit you.”

“You should be.”

“I’m sorry I’m neurotic and stupid and irrational. Don’t you dare say ‘You should be’ again.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you when we got home. And I’m sorry I called you a bitch and a whore.”

I told him that, in the heat of the moment, I didn’t mind the name-calling so much. A wry smile pursed his lips, he looked away, and I swear I saw him blush. Jacob suddenly turning bashful could very well have been the cutest damn thing I’d ever seen.