The Rules of Attraction (13 page)

“What’s going on, Susan? Hi. Sorry to be bothering you at this hour.”

She looks at me strangely, then smiles and says, “No problem, come in.”

I walk in, hands in my jacket pockets. There are two Xeroxed maps of Vermont … actually it’s New Hampshire, or maybe Maryland, up on the wall, above the computer and the bottle of Stoli. I’m too drunk to do this I realize as I stagger in, take a deep breath. Susan closes the door and says, “Glad you stopped by” and locks the door and her locking the door just depresses me; it makes me realize that she wants to fuck too and that that’s what’s expected of me and it’s my own fault and it’s really Lauren Hynde I want and I think I’m going to pass out and she looks really desperate, really young.

“Where have you been?” she asks.

“Movie. Wild Italian movie. But it’s all in Italian so you can’t watch it stoned,” I say, trying to be rude, turn her off. “Subtitles, you know.”

“Yeah,” she smiles kindly, still in love with me.

“What I mean, like, um, why are those maps, um … Yeah, like what are those maps doing up there?” I ask. What a dwid.

“Maryland’s cool,” Susan says.

“I want to go to bed with you, Susan,” I say.

“What?” She pretends she didn’t hear me.

“You didn’t hear me?”

“Yeah. I did,” she says. “You didn’t feel that way the other night.”

“So, how do you feel about it?” I ask, letting that comment fly right over my head.

“I think it’s kind of ridiculous,” she says.

“How? I mean, why do you think so?”

“Because I have a boyfriend,” she says. “Remember?”

Actually, I don’t, but I blurt out, “That doesn’t matter. You don’t have to not screw because of
that
.”

“Really?” she asks skeptically, but smiling. “Explain.”

“Well, you see, it’s like this.” I sit on the bed. “It’s like this…”

“You’re drunk,” Susan says. God, the name Susan is so ugly. It reminds me of the word sinus. She’s daring me. I can almost smell how wet she is. She wants it.

“Where have you been all my life?” I ask.

“Did you know I was born in a Holiday Inn,” I think she says.

I stare at her, really confused, really fucked-up. She’s next to me on the bed now. I keep staring.

I finally say, “Just get naked and lay or stand, I don’t care, on the bed and, like, it doesn’t matter if you were born in a Holiday Inn. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Perfectly,” she says. “Are you still an Art major by any chance?”

“What?” I ask. My eyes are tearing. She’s dimming the lights and it’s all really happening, boyfriend or no boyfriend. I’m drunk but I’m not drunk enough to say no. In the bathroom in Commons today someone had written “Robert McGlinn has no penis and no testicles” about fifteen times above the toilet.

She turns to me, her flesh glowing green because of the lighted words from the computer screen, and says nothing. I lay back and she starts sucking my dick and trying to stick a finger up my ass. It feels good and she’s really into it and I’m thinking what do you talk about in situations like this? Are you Catholic? Did you ever like the Beatles? Or was it Aerosmith you asked girls? High school girls you met who wore black armbands the day Steven Tyler got married. High school sucked. She’s sucking still, her lips moist but hard. I reach under her shirt, massage her tits. She has a little stubble under her arm and it doesn’t really turn me off. It doesn’t turn me on all that much either, but it doesn’t turn me off.

“Wait … wait…” I try to pull my underwear off all the way, then the jeans, but I’m on the bed and she’s sucking me and trying to push my legs farther apart and
even though I’m sort of grossed-out by the whole thing, it feels too good to complain. She lifts her head up. “Diseases?” she asks. “Nope,” I say though I should just say yeah crabs and end this. She lays across me and we start kissing, deep, intensely. I lift her shirt up over her head, line of green saliva attached to our lips as she brings her head up. I touch the side of her face, then unbutton my shirt, kick my pants off. “Wait, turn the light off,” I tell her.

She grins. “I like it on.” She places her hands on my chest.

“Well, like, fuck that. I want it off. Deal with it.”

“I’ll turn it off.” She does. “Is that better?”

We start kissing again. Now, what’s going to happen, I wonder. Who’s going to initiate the dreaded fucking? What would her parents say if they knew that this is all she does here? Write haiku on her Apple, drink vodka like some crazed alcoholic fish, screw constantly? Would they disown her? Would they give her more money? What?

“Oh baby,” she moans.

“You like this?” I whisper.

“No,” she moans again. “I want the lights
on.
I want to see
you
.”

“What? I don’t believe this.”

“I want to know what the fuck I’m doing,” she says.

“I don’t see how you can be confused,” I tell her.

“I’m into neon,” she says, but she doesn’t turn it back on. I push her head down.

She starts sucking my cock again. I start to get her off with my hand. She gives decent head. I tell her “Wait-I’m gonna come…” She lifts her head. I go down on her, slowly, kiss her tits (which are sort of too big) and then past her stomach to her cunt, spread, swollen, three fingers easing into it, licking it at the same time. Bruce is singing about Johnny 69 or someone and then we’re fucking. And I come—spurt spurt—like bad poetry and then what? I hate this aspect of sex. It’s always someone wanting and someone giving but the giver and the wanter are hard to deal with. It’s hard to deal with even if it goes good. She hasn’t come,
so I go down on her again and it tastes vaguely seedy and then … where do you go once you’ve come? Disillusionment strikes. I can’t stand doing this and I’m still hard so I start to fuck her again. She’s groaning now, humping up, down, up, and I put my hand over her mouth. She comes, licking my palm, snorting. It’s over.

“Susan?”

“Yeah?”

“Where’s the Kleenex?” I ask. “Do you have a towel or something?”

“Did you come yet?” she asks, confused, lying in the darkness.

I’m still in her and I say, “Oh yeah, well, I’m gonna come. In fact I’m coming now.” I moan a little, grunt authentically and then pull out. She tries to hold me, but I just ask for some Kleenex.

Susan says, “I don’t have any,” and then the voice cracks, she starts to cry.

“What? What’s wrong?” I ask, alarmed. “Wait. I told you I came.”

LAUREN
Victor hasn’t called. I’ve changed my major. Poetry.

What do Franklin and I do? Well, we go to parties: Wet Wednesday, Thirsty Thursday, parties at The Graveyard,
at End of the World, Friday night parties, pre-Saturday-night party parties, Sunday afternoon parties.

I try to quit smoking. Write letters to Victor in computer class that I never send. Franklin always seems to be broke. He wants to sell blood to get some cash, maybe buy some drugs maybe sell some drugs. I sell some clothes and old records in Commons one afternoon. We spend a lot of time in my room since I’ve got a double bed. I’ve stopped painting completely. Since Sara left (even though the abortion by her account wasn’t traumatic enough to excuse her absence) I watch her cat, Seymour. Franklin hates the cat. I do too, but tell him I like it. We hang out in the Sensory Deprivation Tank. Sometimes Judy and Freshman and me and Franklin go to the movies in town and no one cares. What is going on? I ask myself. We drink a lot of beer. The boy from L.A., still wearing shorts and sunglasses and nothing else, came on to me at one of the parties last week. I almost went home with him but Franklin intervened. Franklin is an idiot, really unintentionally hilarious. I have come to this conclusion, not by reading his writing, which is science fiction, which is “heavily influenced by astrology,” which is terrible, but by something I don’t understand. I tell him I like his stories, I tell him my sign and we discuss the importance of the stories but … I hate his goddamned incense and I don’t know why I’m doing this to myself, why I’m being such a masochist. Though of course it’s because of a certain handsome Horace Mann graduate who’s lost in Europe. I try to quit smoking.

(… no mail from Victor …)

But I like Franklin’s body and he’s good in bed and easy to have orgasms with. But it doesn’t feel good and when I try to fantasize about Victor, I can’t.

I go to computer class. I hate it but need the credit.

“Did I tell you I was strip-searched in Ireland?” Franklin will mention at lunch.

I will look straight ahead and avoid eye contact when he says things like that. I pretend I don’t hear him. He doesn’t shave sometimes and he gives me beard burns. I am not in
love with him, I’ll chant under my breath at dinner, with him sitting across from me with other oily Lit majors all dressed in black and exhibiting a dry yet caustic wit and I’ll be blown away by how nondescript he is. But can you remember really what Victor looked like? No, you can’t, can you? It freaked him out badly that I put a note on my door that said “If my mother calls I’m not here. Try not to take a message either. Thanks.” I try to stop smoking. I forget to feed the cat.

“I want to trip with my father before he dies,” Franklin said at lunch this afternoon.

I didn’t say anything for a very long time and then he asked, “Are you high?” and I said “High” and lit another cigarette.

SEAN
There is no way I’m driving the dude to the bus station. I can’t believe he even asked me. I’m hungover as hell and feel like I’m going to throw up blood and I woke up on the floor of someone’s room and it’s cold and I’m in a bad mood and I owe Rupert five hundred bucks. He’s pissed off supposedly, and has threatened to kill me. I can’t believe I’m up this early. I bought an onion bagel at the snack bar and it’s cold but I’m still wolfing it down. He’s standing there already, with his bag and sunglasses and long coat, reading some book. I mumble a good morning.

“Just get up?” he asks, smirking.

“Yeah. Missed my guitar tutorial. Shit.” I climb on the bike and try to start it. I hand him the onion bagel. I turn the ignition. I decide to just fake it; pretend the bike won’t start. He won’t be able to tell.

“You shaved,” I say, trying to make conversation; get his attention away from the bike.

“Yeah. I was getting a little scruffy there,” he says.

“Doing it for Mom? That’s real nice,” I say.

“Uh-huh,” he says.

“Nice,” I say.

“Can I have a bite of your bagel?” he asks.

No way. I don’t want to give him a bite of my bagel. I say, “Sure.”

I start the bike up, jiggle the keys, then let it die again. Put my foot on the accelerator; turn it off with a flick of the wrist. Then start it up again. The bike makes a sputtering sound, the engine dies.

“Oh shit,” I say.

I pretend to try it again. The bike, of course, just won’t start.

“Shit.” I get off the bike and lean down. He’s watching me closely.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

I don’t know what to say so I say, “Needs a jumpstart.” Smile to myself.

“Jumpstart? Christ,” he mutters, checking his watch.

I get back on the bike and do the trick again. The bike just will not start.

“It’s not gonna start,” I tell him.

“What do I do?” he asks.

I sit there, look out over Commons, finish the cold bagel, yawn. “What time is it?”

“Eleven,” he says.

He’s a liar. It’s only ten-forty-five. I go along with it. “Your bus leaves at eleven-thirty, right?”

“Right,” he says.

“That’s enough time to find someone who’ll give me a jumpstart.” I yawn again.

He’s looking at his watch. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll find someone. Getch’ll do it.”

“Getch has Music for the Handicapped now,” he tells me.

I knew that. “Does he?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know that,” I say. “I didn’t know Getch took that.”

“I’m taking a cab,” he says.

Thank God. “Okay,” I say.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says.

“Sorry guy,” I say.

“It’s all right.” He’s irritated. He gets off the bike and tucks the copy of the book he’s reading in the dufflebag, straightens his sunglasses.

“I’ll see you Sunday, okay?” he says, asks.

“Yeah. Bye,” I say.

Go back to my room and drink some Nyquil to get to sleep. I heard that junkies use the stuff when they can’t find any heroin or methadone. It does the job. The only problem is that I dream about Lauren, and she’s all blue.

PAUL
It was a Friday morning and I was waiting by Sean’s bike in the student parking lot. It was only ten-thirty and the bus station in town was maybe a five minute drive from campus but I wanted to get there early. When I was sixteen I was supposed to meet my parents in Mexico. They had flown down the week before and told me that if I wanted to come I could get a ticket and meet them down in Las Cruces. When I got to O’Hare to catch the flight down to Mexico City I found out I missed it. When I went back to my car I found a parking ticket on the windshield. I stayed home and had a party and ruined the couch from Sloane’s and saw eleven movies and skipped school all that week. And that’s probably why I get so paranoid before going on a trip. Ever since then, I arrive at airports and train stations and bus terminals much earlier than needed. Even though it was ten-forty and I knew I’d probably make the bus to Boston, I still couldn’t concentrate on the copy of
The Fountainhead
I was reading or anything else. Last summer Mitchell told me I was an illiterate and that I should read more. So he gave me a copy of
The Fountainhead
and I began it, rather reluctantly. When I told Mitchell one day at some cafe that I didn’t like Howard Roark, he said he had to go to the restroom, and he never came back. I paid the check. I remember that my parents bought me a stuffed iguana and smuggled it through customs for me. Why?

Sean arrived and noticed that I’d shaved, flirting, like a bastard. His bike wouldn’t start, so I decided to take a cab to the bus station. He was nice about it and I felt sorry for him that his bike wouldn’t start, and he looked like he was really going to miss me and I decided that I would call him when I got to Boston. Then I remembered The Dressed To Get Screwed party and knew that he was going to get laid; that everyone does. By the time the cab brought me to the bus station I was chain-smoking and bending my copy of
The Fountainhead
so hard that it became permanently creased. But the bus was late anyway when it arrived at eleven-forty-five, so I had nothing to worry about in terms
of making it. Myself, some young fat lady with a blue jacket with dice on the back of it and her blond dirty-faced little boy, and a well-dressed blind man were the only people getting on at Camden. Since there was no one else on the bus I took a seat in the smoking section, near the back. The fat woman got on with her son and they sat up front. It took a while for the blind man to get on and the driver helped guide him slowly to a seat. I hoped that the blind man wouldn’t sit next to me. He didn’t. I was relieved.