Trapper and Emmeline (22 page)

You see, I was looking for another you, Trapper. Someone who could be my partner in crime. Someone who would slut me out -- but only in a certain way. I didn’t know men like you were so rare. Controlling, but responsive; demanding but loving; mocking with a humor that is a little self-aware.

That’s you: you’re nice. That’s NOT Billy. Billy is a bundle of demands tied to emotional frailties that he tries to shore up by shopping me like a hooker to his friends.

I was his perfect woman that night -- and that included giving his friends the Girlfriend Experience, posing for pictures on the bar (of course!), and letting Billy very publicly drag me into the men’s room.

I was completely disinvested. Like my body was a plastic sex doll and I was watching from a webcam. Billy made a big production out of putting me on the sink and going down on me. And then he fucked me as men walked in and out of the bathroom.

I was like an appliance. The sensation of being used that way was dizzying and unsavory -- and I was STILL turned on. And then I was turned on by how turned off I WASN’T.

My mind was clear. I watched him finish his little fantasy. When he shot his cum into me, and he had fulfilled one of his pompous, inflated, egotistical dreams --

it wasn’t enough for him. He wanted more. I watched him lock on me. From now on (and for who knows how long) I’m going to be the fuck-doll that helps him level up his libido.

When I realized that, I finally had an orgasm too.

He asked me for another date. I told him this wasn’t a date, just two friends hanging out. And if he was going to fuck me in a crowded bathroom, he should at least try to stop other guys from touching me.

We’re doing it again next week, same bar. He has a week to plan the next iteration of his fantasy. So while he locks in tighter on me, and gets farther away from real satisfaction -- I find the same thing happening for myself.

Wasting my time poisoning this angry, self-important jackass’s sex drive? How petty. It is completely unrewarding to me. I’m following a script, like a sexual player piano. It feels unhealthy – whereas with you it was healthy and invigorating.

Tomorrow I’m meeting Thor, to visit his mother of all things. I will learn Thor’s buttons too. Because nothing matters and all I care about is how much I can do.

Trapper, one week ago I felt like I mattered. And now I feel like I don’t matter at all. I feel like I don’t give a shit. I want to be used like a tissue and dropped on the sidewalk. I wish you were around but you’re not. I’m just some pain in the ass you used to talk to.”

Friday, 4 am:

Oh, Trapper. What is wrong with me?

I was checking mail every thirty seconds. There was no chance I would sleep that night—I hadn’t slept much at al since the prior Saturday.

So I wrote her back: “I know what’s wrong with you.”

She answered:

I’m not proud of it. The shit I’m doing. I walk away afterward and I am wondering why I didn’t stop. Why did I let THIS happen. Or THAT. Why did I let that man talk me into that thing? I haven’t laughed since you dumped me. I’m off the deep end and it’s only been six days.

I’m not going to tell you what I did. It was horrible. It was amazing. It was sexy. I hate myself. But I’m not your vicarious slut anymore. You don’t get to share what I do to myself. This week I really needed you and you weren’t there. If you want to show someone’s pussy around, show your own.

You hate me and I hate you back.

Saturday morning, a new tone:

Maybe I can be an erotic escort. Make bank. Trapper, do you want me to fuck men for money? Is that on the list? Are we planning that at some point? Not the cheap street-whore shit we talked about. Where I get a delivery job, and I deliver pizzas and blowjobs.

Or was that just sex-talk? We never had very good lines between fantasy and reality, Trapper. What I’m talking about is the type of prostitution that is responsible and sustainable. The long-term, call girl stuff. The pay-for-college stuff.

Shit, I miss you so much. I don’t know what to do.

Never mind. I just remembered that you hate me.

Sunday night:

I hope you meet me after class tomorrow, like usual.

I won’t fuck Stace again, or Billy, or Thor, until you say so. I feel like it’s none of your business what I do with other guys, even when we’re a couple. But despite that, I will gladly give up my personal privileges if it will help us understand each other.

I’m not usually like that anyway, as you know. I was angry with you so I went a little crazy.

Does that hurt you? I hope it does. I hope you grow some thick skin and stop being so sensitive. Talk to me for three minutes and you can get your life back.

And I can get my world back.

All I ask is that we figure out what the
hell
I’m doing.

Week 7: Emmeline Ascendant

I saw Emmeline down the hal and she knocked the breath out of me. I had forgotten her physical presence. She fil ed the hal way like some sort of attentional Roman candle: she was a geyser of eye-catching gestures, infectious laughter, captivating curves and shapes.

Seeing her after a week’s absence was like returning to Manhattan from Tibet, jarring and dreamlike. I felt the cal of both lives—the life where I fel into Emmeline’s gravitational field and spun toward her like a disintegrating satel ite, and the safe life where I never saw Emmeline again and floated alone through cold space forever.

There was never a choice. If you ever want to hate Emmeline, you can’t look at her, stand next to her, see her in a hal way, read her phone texts, open her emails, or listen to your roommates openly fantasize about her in your presence.

You won’t stand a chance.

There she was in the hal way. I slowed to a stop and admired her.
My girlfriend.

Emmeline was wearing clogs, a flouncy little skirt, and a smal white baby-dol t-shirt cut up to her ribs. She was a wet dream come true, the kind of girl that gives you whiplash when she passes in the street. The kind of Manhattan ingénue that tourists describe to friends over beers when they go back home: “Yes, everything you heard about City Girls is real, gentlemen. They waft past you, smel ing of Lilac, and you want to float after them like a cartoon character. City Girls tear off a little bit of your soul as they pass. Your soul accumulates to them, travels with them, and reports back to you at night with foggy impressions and longings in your dreams. Al the worlds and lives and futures and possibilities of these girls!”

(Because these girls also make men into poets.)

The first impression Emmeline presented was that she was al skin. Her glossy legs moved with excited, coltish energy, shifting her skirt over her thighs. The muscles of her firm stomach shifted when she turned to meet a friend. Her arms were in constant motion, with the rippling forearm muscles and sculpted triceps that I loved to watch. Al of her amazing skin gleamed in the lights as if oiled.

Emmeline gestured as she talked. I had long since noticed that the less she wore, the more extravagant her gestures became. The less she wore, the less she could concentrate with men around her. Being scantily clad gave her a buzz. It made her giddy and ebul ient, as if the
frisson
of being the center of attention was too exhilarating to be contained inside her body.

She leaned against the man behind her. He was the Guido from the other day, with al the gold chains and rings. He stood behind her, his hands at her waist, riding her hips as she shifted around. His crotch was in her ass. His nose was buried in her hair. Emmeline ignored him.

They were by the door to the classroom. As the men came out, many of them stopped in front of Emmeline to chat.

Other guys would bump up against her group, and bend in quickly for a kiss before moving on. Some guys just passed by, saying nothing—but they gave her exhaustive kisses. Petite Euro-pecks were not what you used on Emmeline when you had the chance to put your lips on hers. She pressed back against each mouth, sel ing herself. She bent toward the man at her lips, tilted her chin up, opened her mouth. And when she bent forward, her ass dug into Guido’s lap. Her stomach flexed in his hands.

Kissing wasn’t everybody’s thing—some men had relationships, or couldn’t quite fool themselves into thinking it was normal or innocent. When the guys didn’t kiss her, they stil reached out to touch her shoulder or arm. One man, older with a beard, patted her cheek as she passed. I realized this was her professor.
Inappropriate familiarity from a faculty
member.
What a fucking gold mine of pil ow talk that was. What amazingly improper hijinks could grow out of that! Patting her cheek—it was huge, for a professor to touch a student like that. He must fucking love her, that poor bastard.

During this ongoing orgy of touching, kissing, and conversation, Guido occasional y turned her chin to his mouth and kissed her lips. Her whole body twisted to accommodate him, and that brought her chest into ful relief. Under the thin distressed fabric of her shirt, her breasts were epic. Stop-a-cab with a shriek-of-tires epic. Guido kissed her slow and searchingly. His jaw worked against hers, his mouth open—her mouth open too. She let herself be explored. She had no boundaries, outside or in.

Her body position would have looked more comfortable if she were flat on her back, but she was standing, her legs splayed out and forgotten. Her t-shirt fabric draped loosely against her front, each breast pushing out one mound. It hung away from the comb of her ribs by two or three inches. It was damn short. (“Wel , duh,” she’d told me when I saw her cutting

the first one. “It’s a
half
shirt. Not a crop-top.”) It looked, to me at least, like she’d be able to raise one hand in class to ask a question. But she wouldn’t be able to stretch with both arms. The thready hem veered dangerously up to her breasts whenever she gestured.

How awesome was that? How often do we get to see a woman on the street, wearing something she can’t even stretch in without revealing her breasts? Once a year? This morning, Emmeline had put on a shirt that made modesty impossible. She couldn’t comb her fingers through her hair without undue risk of showing everything. And she was
mine!
I got to see her every day! I got to steer the antics of hers that unhinged al the men around her.

At least, I did before I turned into a complete asshole.

I watched her with longing.

I knew Emmeline wel enough to see that she was intensely happy. She knew the guys’ names, and they knew hers.

Everybody wanted to be next to her. I glowed with pride. I was happy because she was happy, though some of it may have been a proprietor’s happiness. I had the glow of a proud shopkeeper watching shoppers admire his wares. Emmeline was
mine
—or she used to be.

I watched her Guido slowly maul her. It was a polite, wordy, slow motion wrestling match that neither of them acknowledged. I watched mouth after mouth press against hers. She was recharging al these men for the world. She was creating lust, energy, and desire out of thin air—and sending these men off to write poetry and get into fights.

A dark little voice in my head told me: “You can lend her out to those guys, Trapper. That perfect girl of yours. Let them test drive her. Tel her what you want her to do. Tel her who to do it with.
She’ll do it.
She’s a masterpiece. You’ve worked hard to earn her trust and tear down her barriers, and how you’re there. She wil make it happen.”

Maybe that was true, if I could get us back on track. I was having these power-thoughts nearly as often as the jealousy thoughts and the affection thoughts. I was coming to terms with it. That dark voice in my head was a part of me, just like my tender love-ridden voice. Facets of me loving facets of Emmeline, facets that locked together perfectly.