by Allison Landa
(08/17/05)
"You're projecting," I say. We're moving down the narrow aisles of Albert's Books, nudging aside volumes, sliding them from shelves, commenting.
Rudy and I have been friends nearly a year. Like most good friendships, it's liberally dotted with sexual tension. I have a boyfriend but it's not always him I think about when I slide my hand under my skirt.
Sometimes it's Rudy, Rudy with his gym-cut forearms and geeky bangs, Rudy who keeps me at the café past closing, talking writing and hookers, making me laugh until I'm breathless, driving me home in his dented Volvo with piano music playing at top volume.
Rudy may not be my love, but he's my passion. I've taken him to the right place to make that clear. "You're projecting," I say again. I edge alongside him. We're at the B's -- Bukowski, Blackbridge, Byron. A mix of our individual favorites and the ones neither of us would ever read.
He doesn't smell like anything. There's no olfactory clues, no hint or whiff that might make my head turn as I walk down the street, reminding me of him. My boyfriend is Eternity, Calvin Klein. Love is Eternity and passion is nothing at all. He extends a long finger and selects a volume. He tugs it toward him with seemingly no effort. "What the hell does that mean?" he asks without looking at me. "Projecting, did you just make up that word?" He flips through the pages.
I tug at his jacket, my fingers tangled in the sleeve a few seconds too long. "Remember the taqueria?" The guy at the counter had chatted a mile a minute at me, holding up the line. I'd half smiled and half grimaced and made a mocking comment to Rudy once we sat down with our food. "He likes you, dude," he said then. "He's attracted to you. You really can never tell these things, can you?"
I can't. Keith practically had to draw me a map when we met a year and a half ago. I'm still sometimes surprised to wake up and find him next to me. But I've picked up a bit more self-esteem along the way. Now Rudy flips through the book and hands it to me: J.G. Ballard's Crash. "Classic," he says.
"You didn't answer my question. You're projecting."
He turns to watch me. His eyes are a dark underworld, a deep counterpoint to Keith's bright blue. He's tall, lanky, totally different from Keith's compact torso that fits perfectly into my arms, his back flush against my front at night, body pressed into me, so close, so well-fitting.
"Projecting." He says it as a statement, not a question. He pulls the book from my hand and entangles our fingertips. Hot sparks shoot through our skin. I'm about to pass out. "Jesus," I say, being so slick. Keith is at home, a fuzzy domestic thing of some recent past and oddly palpable future. I know now, before anything happens, that I'll go home and slide into bed with him. I'll kiss him on the shoulder, then the cheek, then take in Eternity's scent and fall to sleep.
We stand in the aisle for I-don't-know-how-long, connected at our tips. We don't speak. Browsers pass and stop but have to work around us. We're stopped, frozen, blocking the B's. I'm aware of his breath, the pulse in his palms, the sweat under his arms, all the things I've never had to touch in order to know.
"Let's go somewhere," he says. I lead him to the Spirituality section. I'm nervous and giddy and joking about God, about Buddha, about temples and kneeling. His hand is at my waist now, at the small of my back. There's no one here. It's a dark room, a tiny heart, a wasted soul. For some reason there's a connecting door and we close it. I can only see his outline. I hear him turn the lock. I think about Albert, the store's owner, up at the front selling his books and petting his cat. Then no scent at all envelops me and we're pressed against each other. "Jesus," I say again.
"That's appropriate." He tips my face to his, the words floating on the river of his breath. He's got a foot on me in height but somehow it works to our advantage. I'm reminded of the night I taught him to drive a stick shift, how we tore down Grizzly Peak high above Berkeley and Oakland, San Francisco and the rest of our universe. "You're beautiful," he said, unbidden, and then turned to watch the lights.
Why does it have to be making love? Why can't it just be fucking?
He pushes me against the books. I feel a few jitter on the shelf, lose their bearings, find the floor. "The door's locked," I say, senselessly. My hands are in his hair, so different from Keith's, harsh and close-cropped under my palms. His presence is hard, muscled, deliberate. A few weeks ago at a party we got to talking about kissing. "I like when a woman runs her tongue around mine," he said. I remember. I put the directive into practice.
His noise is less sigh and more surrender. He says things Keith can't, tells me his feelings, exposes his weaknesses. When Keith and I are together he's silent and watchful, a world in his eyes. Sometimes I have to turn away for its blue intensity. "I want to suck you," I say now. "I want to suck your cock." The words are ugly and grimy and they push my love for Keith -- the purity that remains even after a year and a half together -- back to the untouched stacks. I'm on my knees and pulling Rudy from his jeans. I can only feel, not see, him. I'm so used to Keith. Rudy is shorter and thicker, his body's inverse. He throbs atop my tongue, the act supplementing his words. He's saying things like God and fuck and I love you, I do. I make him come inside my mouth, flavoring my tongue and throat, metallic, pushing aside the unwanted emotion.
Later, when he's balancing my hips against his, when his unfamiliar thickness is thrusting inside and I'm trying to block my mind from reconciliation, from battle, from its own confusion, I could swear I smell Eternity. I'm just projecting.
