‘Hey,’ she said, ‘what’s up?’
‘Things suck,’ I said.
Eva said, ‘I’m supposed be working on some stupid paper for my government class. I don’t think I’m ever going to go to college. Where are you? Outside? I hear sounds.’
“‘The beach,’ I said.
“‘Really?’
“I told her about my parents and she said, ‘Oh, that does suck.’
“The guy in the VW drove by me again. He yelled, “Hey, you! Hey, sexy!’
“‘Cruise over,’ Eva said, ‘I know about this party.’
“The guy in the VW yelled, ‘Hey, sweetness! Hey, honey!’”
I find the way she tells her story fascinating, with so much detail. But Lisa is, I remind myself, a novelist.
“I told Eva I would be there and ran to my car, afraid of the VW guy. He followed me from the street to the freeway. He was closing in on me from behind, flashing his brights. I started to drive fast. I swerved through traffic and lost him as I exited onto another freeway to get to Eva’s. I could hear his voice in my head: ‘Hey, girlie. Hey, sexy.’
“All over Eva’s bedroom walls were posters and cut-out ads of male models: dark skin, rippling abdominals, shapely chests and arms, chiseled chins, slicked-back hair, blue and green eyes. ‘Of course,’ Eva always liked to say when she pointed at them, ‘this isn’t what you really get in a guy.’”
Unconsciously, I sucked in my gut, then stopped when I realized what I was doing.
“I didn’t have anything to wear to the party,” Lisa continues. “So we hunted through the jungle that was Eva’s closet. We were the same size, pretty much. We stripped to our underwear — I didn’t have a bra — I’d left the house without one — and we stood in front of the full-length mirror on her wall. Call it ‘Portrait of Two Bodies.’ We mixed and matched various fabrics, pranced and strutted. Eva was really skinny; she was bulimic, never took in a decent meal, but of course thought she was fat. ‘I’m fat,’ she’d say, patting the white skin on her flat stomach.
“I decided on black slacks, knee-length boots, and a red blazer, with just a bra underneath,” Lisa says, looking a bit coy. “Eva went with a black bodysuit and gray overcoat.
“The party was in the valley. I didn’t know any of the people. Eva really didn’t either, but that never bothered her; she was quick with the friendly chat and the glad-to-meet-you smile. It wasn’t in me to be so gregarious. I said hi to people I didn’t know and felt dumb. I went to the makeshift bar to get a drink. A strong drink. I needed a drink. I finished it and got another, then another, and another, all within an hour. I figured, Hell, it runs in the family, right? I saw Eva off in a corner talking to a guy in a nice jacket. She still had the same drink she’d started off with. I kept drinking. Somewhere along the line, I got to a phone and called my mother. I saw Eva in her corner pressed between two guys in nice jackets. I think I may have been on my seventh drink by this time. My mother answered the phone.
“‘Mommy?’ I said.
“Her voice sounded worried: ‘Where are you?’
“‘This place,’ I said, ‘a party.’
“‘I was worried about you,’ she said.
“I told her I was with Eva.
My mother said, ‘Your father left, I don’t know where he went.’
“I asked, ‘What’s going on between you two?’
“‘This time I caught him,’ my mother said. ‘I surprised him with Tammy, a girl he hired at the store—’ She stopped, then added, ‘I probably shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“I couldn’t believe,” Lisa says, “how matter-of-factly she told me this. It made me hot in the chest. My own father, cheating on my own mother! I knew he was doing this before, though, so why should I be surprised? Why should my mother be surprised? I wasn’t listening to what my mother was saying; her voice was soft, she was going blah-blah-blah.
“I felt strange. My mother said ‘Lisa, are you okay?’ but I just hung up the phone. I got a refill, a stronger drink this time. The music at the party was getting too loud. There were so many people, so much laughter, talk, talk, giggle, giggle. Eva stumbled over to me and said she said thought some guy put something in her drink; she said she was tripping, seeing trails and little dragons all over.
“‘Happy happy,’ Eva whispered.
“One of the guys in the nice jackets grabbed her arm, pulled her to him, and kissed her. Eva laughed and said, ‘Oh, hiya!’ and I just figured she was having a good time.”
Lisa sips her wine, says, “I met this guy there. I don’t know where he came from. ‘Smile,’ he said to me. He was tall, he smelled nice, and he was older — not that much older, but — but anyway, I looked at him and said, ‘Huh?’
“‘You have a scowl on your face,’ he said. ‘Smile and make it go away.’ So I did.
“The next thing I know, he was kissing me, this smiling guy, and he had his hands under my blazer, and he was touching me, my breasts, my stomach. He was kissing my lips and eyes, saying nice things to me. I touched his crotch, I felt him, felt something warm, and I was thinking of Eva, but I knew Eva was with some guy, too.
“And then we were walking away. Walking out of the house. Bye-bye party. I leaned into this guy I didn’t know because I was having trouble walking.”
Listening to Lisa talk, I fall into the trance of her story. I don’t know if it’s me or her. But I see myself as the man, the stranger, she is with. I know I am he. I want to be him. I’m with her at the party and she’s drunk, so I take advantage of this; I’ve been with younger women like her, who get drunk, and so I make my move. I kiss her and she doesn’t object. I touch her and she doesn’t object. My hands are under her jacket. She has smooth warm skin. She is touching me. I don’t live far from here so I take her away from the party, I take her home. She’s drunk; I have to help her walk. Home isn’t too far. I’ve done this before. And as Lisa talks, I see it all so clearly, the two of us: I am this man, because I’m all men.
Chapter 6…
It’s morning and I’m kissing the back of her neck: Lisa’s neck. She stirs; I see her look at her watch. She’s naked. She realizes she’s not in her bed, but she’s with me. She’s probably thinking, Who’s that at my neck? I say, “So Sleeping Beauty is awake.”
I kiss her mouth, which is dry. I’m naked. My erection is pressed against her. I get on top of her. She can’t move. She’s numb. I push her legs open, touch her down there. I see recognition in her eyes, that she knows who I am: the guy at the party, the smiling, kissing, leaning-into-you guy. Before she can say anything I’m inside her, fast; I know I hurt her a little, but realize I have to move fast if I want another lay; she might change her mind. I’m probably older than she thought I was. I’m in my late-thirties, have a few strands of gray in my hair. I put my face into her chest, her warm breasts, and fuck.
She closes her eyes and probably tells herself she isn’t going to enjoy this. She’s probably wondering if we had sex last night, probably doesn’t remember. She isn’t sure, she was so drunk. But we did have sex. The bed is shaking, the mattress springs are making sounds. I say, “Yes, yes.” Her clothes are on the floor and I know she’s looking at them. The floor is bare and wooden. There are paintings on the walls. I fuck her faster, I groan, I come inside her, I fall on her, breathing hard. I grab her face, lightly kiss her lips, and say, “Good, good.”