by Syd Candler
(8/29/01)
The attention he devotes to his writing never bothers me, and I'm
not greedy with him. I admire obsession. In return for my lack of
demands, I get the light behind his eyes, the intelligence and glitter
of his passion, the boundless curiosity.
He's a smoker, thank God. Likes to drink when he's done with his
work. Not shy but garrulous. I like his body, like the PIL tattoo on
his bicep that still tastes like ink. The small hoop he wears in his
ear teases my skin, a cool metallic whisper over hot flesh, and his
ginger hair is just long enough to tug and aim.
He knows my own obsession well, knows I want him because he's a
Writer, which inspires him to keep on writing me and wanting me. We
talk about books all the time. He loans me his books and I read them,
sometimes two a day, I toss them back like cocktails, and he asks me
not just about the book but about the writer. He calls me a literary
star-fucker, laughing, but there's pride in that laughter, too.
He brings me a novel one day, a huge bible of a book, and I read it
in a week. It takes my breath away.
So? he asks when I'm finished.
How old is the writer? I ask.
Your age, he answers.
Wow, I say.
He's cute, too, he adds.
Mmm, I say. I'm already in love with this famous writer, his
words have won me, I worship him.
Anything else? he asks.
He didn't get the girl right, I answer. But it's okay because
they never do. The Writer knows because I've told him that despite the
words that woo me, words that make these writers eminently fuckable
and lovable, I'm always disappointed in that one bit, the not getting
the girl right, and the prudishness of the sex in otherwise brilliant
novels. I don't understand why there's not more fucking.
He shrugs -- Agents? -- and we exchange a wry smile over the -- familiar joke. But I always wonder if it's as simple as that.
The Writer asks with the same smile if I'd go down on the famous
writer and I say yes. Then he stops smiling and tells me to go down on
him, and I do. I know he's thinking what it might be like to be this
famous writer, to have any girl he wanted give him a blow job, and he
enjoys the fantasy of fame, not fifteen minutes but close
enough. After he comes, he looks over to his computer in the bedroom,
running a screensaver from The Matrix, vertical lines of code
sheeting down like rain, and he sighs because now he's got to write it.
I don't understand having the computer in the bedroom, think maybe it
should be somewhere else, but I'm not a Writer.
He's working on a story about women and he's inquisitive,
ambitious. He wants to do what the other eminently fuckable and
lovable writers didn't, which is get the girl right. He asks me
questions about myself, about women. I try out an analogy I've used
before with other writers when this comes up. I tell him that I
invented in my head the best defense weapon for women. Not a gun, or
mace, or any tool a woman has to wield in her hand. That her body
itself would be the defense, and if someone touched it and the touch
wasn't wanted, her body would create a force field around itself and
vaporize the threat. That men invent tools because they don't get that
their whole being is vulnerable.
I don't mention the other invention I created in my head, the
attachment that fits over the cock to make it bigger, as big as she
wants, and vibrates, and has a piece on it that sucks on her clit no
matter where his cock is. He doesn't want to know that. None of them
do.
But he's a smart one, sees through the analogy as indulgent, gloss,
and so I give him the predator versus prey analogy. I say that it will
help his story if he knows that women have a low-level but insistent
fear of attack and it permeates everything they do. That we should
have eyes on the sides of our heads like antelope so we can look in
several directions at once, and that maybe we do it anyway and call it
multitasking. I say that it's difficult for men to understand that
vulnerability, but to get the point across I make him think about
adding children into that fear, more vulnerable creatures that women,
who are vulnerable themselves, are expected to protect.
He gets this, he sees the anxiety, its potential for conflict and
anger, so I go on. I talk about the surprise of women, how they
surprise men. That a guy can think he's got all of a woman, that
emotionally she's spent everything, shown him all she's got, and
there's always something more. This intrigues him. He's felt this. I
say it's like the trick baby bottle I played with as a kid -- you turn
it upside-down and the milk disappears, then flip it upright and it
fills again.
That's nurture, I say, getting excited because I think I'm
getting this part right, it's Nurture with a capital "N," a thing we
defend on so many fronts when we don't want to, when we'd rather open
it up but we can't, and it's bottomless. When guys think we're holding
something back they're wrong, we're giving them everything, but the
everything replenishes itself all the time. I tell him that women are
never empty.
But I lose him here in the abstraction, and the more he pushes the
less I'm able to explain it, and finally I get tired of the questions,
even though they're thoughtful and sensitive, because I know I can't
explain it right. I can't think of an analogy, I don't want to talk
anymore, and finally I say just fuck me. He hesitates, studying me for
a suspenseful, time-stamped moment, and then he does.
Then later, much later, we're watching a documentary of Steve Martin
on TV. I crawl up close to the set like a kid to see him better and I
want to kiss the screen, move through it to kiss him, to thank him. I
wonder if I should be dating an Actor or a Philosopher or even a Banjo
Player when Martin says that great leaps in art and science are not a
matter of deduction but sudden intuitive knowledge, that there's no
real difference in genius in any field. And I'm nodding, I love his
insight, he's so right about that. Then I think of
L.A. Story, his eloquent love letter, and remember that he
and his wife are now divorced.
A sudden despair takes hold, and I lay down on the floor, punched in
the stomach by the irony (irony is never funny, it's a kick in the
stomach every time) and the Writer detects Martin as a rival somewhere
in his primordial brain. I don't want him right now but he's
insistent, jealous, and I make him hold my wrists down on the floor
and whisper threats to me. He understands and his imagination takes
hold and he whispers in my ear that he'll fuck me all night long,
until I'm so sore that I can't walk, that my nipples will hurt
tomorrow when I go to work and I'll remember what he did to me.
He's turning me on now. Then he bends me over the back of the sofa and
spreads my legs wide, the deepest he can go is when I'm bent over like
this, but I don't come until he holds my hands behind my back.
His eyes are bright afterward as he sits on the sofa, smoking,
thinking. I'm still trembling and naked and open, and I see the light
behind the eyes. He thinks he's got me and now I'm a story he's
creating, maybe he's making me into a character, and I bet I'll like
my character. But I'm still idly fingering my clit.
Then later, much later, we see a gay movie and the two men make love
missionary style, which I've never seen before, only anal sex from
behind. Watching it makes me hot and I want to try it. The Writer
talks about anal sex and how much of it there is in straight porn now
and I say women are still resistant to anal sex and he asks why. He
knows I've had anal sex before.
Because it's tighter, I say, and men will get tired of pussy
altogether and go straight for the ass because it's tighter and the
cock doesn't really care about anything but friction. And soon there
won't be pussy movies at all, just anal.
And he nods like it's a possibility, he doesn't bullshit me on that
one, and then admits his fear of being raped and I admit mine, saying
one of the reasons I wanted to do anal sex in the first place was so I
would have a good experience in case something bad happened. And he
understands and agrees and we decide to fuck each other that way. He's
good, he's slow, and when he's finally all the way in I tell him to
push harder and the sensation is violent and taboo and I come without
touching myself.
Then it's my turn, I use a small dildo I think he can handle, and he
moans like I've never heard him moan before and I think the
penetration must feel exquisite. I try to imagine what his virgin mind
is thinking and then I get turned on in a new way, aggressive in that
power. He likes my violence even more, so I give it all I've
got. His fists grab the sheets tightly as he comes.
We take a bath later. I'm warm and glowing. He's quiet, lathering my
body with soap, and I see the revelation in his eyes, that look of
commitment I recognize, pure and trusting love. But the mind is going
behind the eyes. The experience is taboo, revelatory, and all
his. It's not a shared thing between us. He owns it. He hoards it. And
I lean back and let him clean me and think that he's not going to get
the girl right, either.
