First Time for Everything

She called them "highway" houses, said no on would ever buy them because they're "so close to the expressway for crissakes!" When we'd drive by these homes (multi-families chunked together like conjoined twins who could only be told apart by their clothes, some with asbestos shingles, some clapboard and some new, new and fancy with aluminum siding and some single homes with tiny porches clutching their facades like bonobo babies about to be ripped from their mothers arms with every WHOOOOOOSH of the rushing traffic).

I'd feel sorry for their occupants. I imagined them in grey clothing, sitting at worn wooden tables sipping old, cold coffee wishing they could just get away. Get away to a sane and serene house in the suburbs. A house with a little bit of land and a fence all the way around. A house that wasn't forever and always tormented by the severed heads that littered its front yard.

Because that's why my grandmother said the houses were doomed and unsalable. She said that every time there was an accident and there were "a shitload of 'em" a dead and mutilated head would fly off of a victim from the crash and land in the lap of a forlorn highway house, a house filled with kids playing endless stakes filled games of rock-paper-scissor to decide who'd have to dispose of the next noggin.

I'm not going to lie, I was a little bit intrigued. And for many years of my childhood I'd do very complicated calculations to determine just how many heads per year a house in a particular location would collect.

And what about motels just off highway exits? I'd imagine heads flying through the air in groups of 10's and 20's, pelting the motel room windows like grotesque hail. It was funny. Funny then and funny now as I drove slowly down the off ramp carefully casing out each and every motor lodge, motel and hotel before me.

Weird little town. Were they all like this? These upstate locales built up and around a college campus at their creamy centers and spiky, stale bits surrounding their edges? I drove around and around and around that part of town for longer than I can remember. And what did I really think I was going to accomplish with my incessant trolling? I just needed a bed, really. But I couldn't spend too much. And I was too chicken-shit to walk into any of the lobbies to do a proper recon. Eventually I picked one. Motel 6 for 39.99 a night.

Driving back to my dorm my heart was pounding at my chest wall like it was wielding a medieval mace. I was going to have sex. Soon.

I parked the car badly. And then I walked halfway to my dorm before going back to straighten it out because that would be my luck: I'd have finally, finally gotten a boom-boom plan together and my f'n car would be trashed.

OK, so now I'm half-running. I'm late and if I don't get the details under his door before he's back from dinner, I'm screwed, as in: Still-not-screwed-at all.

Sweat from my jangly-jog and racing pulse is surfacing everywhere and starting to build under my boobs, butt and behind my knees. I'm hot and wet and pretty much frantic and that thing that happens to me when I'm anxious where my peripheral vision gets spotty and staticky is happening and I feel like a crazy person.

I stop in the lobby and scribble down the room number on the back of the motel business card I got.  And then with all the cool I could possibly muster, I walked up the three flights of stairs to his floor and flicked the card through the half inch crack between the door and the floor.

I can't believe no one saw me! I flew up the stairs and crashed into my room like I meant it. All of my room mates were out, probably at the dining hall; thank GOD. This "suite" style living was for the  birds and I'd like to relieve its inventor of a few of his pubic hairs for foisting the concept on unsuspecting youth thinking they were getting away from home to live a little bit more privately, more discreetly...

Try working out a recalcitrant poop with three giggling 18 year olds outside the door. Try plucking your eyebrows, clipping nose hairs sussing out pimples under the six watchful eyes of your roommates. I couldn't fart privately in that room let alone entertain even the thought of entertaining in it. And that's where Motel 6 fit in. Motel 6. Motel six. Motel sex.

The clock next to my bed read 7:08. Barely enough time to take care of business here and get back to the city. I whipped my sweat drenched clothes off and started the shower. I totally didn't have enough time to wash my hair and dry it so I twisted my dark brown locks up into a bun and hoped for the best.  I had a brand new razor and some ridiculously yummy smelling body scrub.  I went to work.

 I felt good. I smelled good. And I was terrified. I started to cry. My whole body wracked with the intensity of it. Tears and snot and who knows what else fell out of me in buckets and rinsed down the drain with the shower water. I couldn't make it stop and it was going on for way too long.

"Breathe, b r e a t h e..." I made myself say the words and the words made my body obey.

"The fuck was that!?" I shut off the stream of water, grabbed a towel and got out. I looked ok. My eyes weren't too puffy and my flushed cheeks looked pretty good, to tell the truth. I refused to get myself all worked up (again) over what I was going to wear so I went straight for the jeans and ribbed tank-top. No bra. Didn't need one. Really, really nice underwear. Make-up seemed dumb so It was just mascara and lip-balm. Oh my god I was ready to leave.

The drive back to the motel was a blur. I managed not to start sweating or start crying again and I got to the room by 7:55.

I made and unmade the bed 97 times in those last 5 minutes finally opting for taking the scratchy floral quilt off and sitting (pants off, undies and tank-top on) on top of the sorta soft, sorta frizzy blanket.  I was facing the door, which also faced the mirrored door of the closet so I could see my reflection and his entrance at the same time. And I waited. And waited. And waited.

Looking into the mirror I actually saw a very pretty, very strong woman. I looked healthy and confident and even  a little bit sexy. This was the picture I would keep with me when I thought back on this disaster of a night. I wouldn't remember the rejection; I'd remember the bad-ass way I took charge of my destiny. Fuck him (and anyone else who came along) for not being able to deal with my boldness. This was the picture I would keep.

The knocking on the door to the room scared me to death.

"Hey!" He whisper yelled. "Lemme in."
"You are soooo late. Jerk." I said back, my mouth practically eating the paint of the door I was so close to it.
"I know. I know! Lemme in. I'm sorry!" I turned the lock and he so, so gently pushed the door open towards me. "I know. I'm sorry." His hands on my face now. "I wanted to get you something, a gift or something but I got lost. I'm sorry."

I pulled him into the room. "I'm scared." I said.

"You're beautiful." He said.

And if that kiss had lasted all night and had been the only thing that happened, I would have felt like I had won the universe.

He was the smartest boy I knew at school. A nerd. A stunningly gorgeous nerd. A chemistry major with a keen understanding of the scientific method and an English Lit minor. A romantic with a proclivity towards deliberate behavior? He had me at "can I borrow your calculator?"

He came really fast at first, in my hands. He told me he would. That he wanted to get that first one over with so he could settle down and focus on me. Really.

Hands and mouths were everywhere all at once. It was a wild and hectic mess and my body felt like it was being pulled in a million directions at once; deep in my belly I ached and groaned and wanted to laugh and cry and yell like a maniac.

Again he said, "you are so beautiful." And I wanted to smash every clock in the world and make this moment last forever.

How to Win

Instead of fucking me, he hits me. He doesn't tell me that, but when he's grabbing my head with his hands, his thumbs pressing hard against my front teeth, pushing them towards the back of my throat, I can feel his hard dick against my leg; his hips moving in concert with the digits he has rammed into my face, I know.

I'm not saying I'd rather he did fuck me. I just wish he didn't hit me so hard.

Lying in my bed, I run my tongue gingerly across my gums. The flesh in front is swollen and tender. The bloody bits taste sweet and salty and the teeth shift a bit when I suck them in. Ice helps so I glide the tiny icy masses around the perimeter of my mouth and let the cold, cold water slide down my throat.

It's usually stuff I can hide but today I can't go to school because of my god-damned, banged up mouth. I'll miss another test. And who knows what else. But for now it's quiet in my room with a cool breeze blowing in through the windows that frame my bed. It's still and calm and I have the whole day here by myself. Alone. Quiet.

More ice into my mouth with one hand, the other feeling my hair spread over my pillow, fingers making little twirls that twist out to the ends.

The ice feels so good on my pulpy gums: cold to hot cold to hot. I move the hand in my hair to slide off my underpants and I open my legs wide and grotesque, knees up and thrust out and I run the ice up and down over my vagina, spreading myself wide open, rubbing harder and harder until the ice melts and it's just my fingers massaging the cool wetness I've created.

I just need to, want to, have to feel good and wanted and happy just for now just for right now...

Naked and breathless and furious I willed myself to sleep. Dreams stayed away and I slept still and calm like the girl I wished I was.

The ringing phone shakes me awake. I squeeze my eyes shut tight, tight and try to focus and listen hard to her side, my mother's side of the conversation but I can't discern a thing. The clock over on my dresser says 4:10. He'll be home from God-knows-where soon, too. I breathe and wait until I smell her burning something for dinner.

My body feels like it's been sleeping on bags full of stones as I pull it up and out of bed. My face looks bad and it hurts. A lot. My long, brown hair in strings and ribbons, eyes smudged and puffy like I had a much different all-nighter. I drag huge, slow gulps of air into my lungs and heave it out over and over so I don't cry and make it all look even worse.

Make-up helps to the barest degree. I put on clothes. My body in the mirror looks small, so much smaller than his; his hulking, monstrous form so big you can't see him all at once. Beads of sweat push to the surface of my upper lip and between my pale breasts. I am small. But I feel impossibly strong. Dark, soft jeans slide up my legs and then the warmest, most worn flannel shirt over my arms and buttoned up almost to the top. I rest my fingers on the charm around my neck; a long, obsidian piece of wood in the shape of a skinny cone. It's my favorite thing: Sturdy. Sleek. Huge and tiny at the same time.

I hear them talking. Grunting. Plates come out of the cabinet and silverware is shuffled and dealt out of the drawer and onto the table. I grip and turn the cheap, brass doorknob and walk into the drab hallway. Ancient, stupid photos in tacky frames hang askew. If this view is what they mean by "the light at the end of the tunnel, I would be terrified of death. The living room in front of me is aglow with the blue/white light of the muted TV and the burnt orange, shiny ceramic end lamps with their stained and crooked shades looking like thrift store hats playing dress-up to the too-white-hot bulbs they cradle.

Around the corner to the right I hear them in the kitchen and as I pass through all that garish living room light traced with the residual smoke from the cigarettes they're gorging themselves on in the other room, a wave of nausea hits and I have to grab the door frame so I don't fall or puke or both. She sees me righting myself as I negotiate the assault my senses are weathering. As I'm shaking it off, I lift my head and her eyes meet mine. She sees my face before I'm ready, before I'm not dizzy any more, before I have a chance to firmly place him in the room. He's right there. In the chair closest to the doorway, his back so near to me that I can smell his unwashed hair and I want to throw up again. I make it to the seat across the table from him and I sit.

Her face is turned now. She won't look at me and I'm grateful for that but I can see her profile, her jaw grinding together, her chest rising and falling deeply and it's clear I'm not going to be ignored entirely.

"The principal called. Again." She spat the words out.

"The fuck she do now? Christ..." His head down, fingers blindly, precisely reaching for the butt between his teeth.

"I didn't feel good this morning. I have my period" Talking about my period, anyone's period was a showstopper. He knew I knew it, too. He wouldn't get involved in the conversation if was "girl shit".

"I... I don't know what the HELL I'M SUPPOSED TO DO!" Still not looking at me, not looking at anything but the pot of ground beef in front of her; stirring it like it was her job. "I HAVE TO WORK! I CAN'T BE HERE EVERY SECOND!"

"I know." I go quiet, small, submissive. "I'll be fine. You do great for us, mom. I won't mess up. I won't."

"Go to your room. GO!" A sentence as much as a punishment for me as it was a reprieve for her. Now she really wouldn't have to look at my distorted face.

In the seconds it took me to get up from my chair I made my decision and it felt so good, so warm and luscious like the deep, soft dirt that you find only after you've dug for a long, long time. She was still turned away from the table and as I walked behind her and past him, I got close enough that my fingers could brush his arm and touch him gently on the side of his face. It felt like I'd been dipped in in boiling tar.

He stiffened; sharply and quickly. And then he sighed. He sighed deeply and forcefully like he was shoving some hateful thing from his lungs. I heard the sound he made as I turned the corner and headed down the hall back to my room. And I swear to God I heard my mother whip her head around to see what in the hell had just happened.

Back in my room, my mouth started to throb again. I couldn't go out there and get ice so I peeled off my clothes and slid under the covers to try and comfort the rest of me. My heart raced but it didn't pound. I was nervous but I wasn't sweating. My mind whirled but my body stayed still. She would be leaving in an hour or so for the night shift she did a few times a week. An hour. A lifetime.          

His whistling woke me. A slow tune that he blew through his lips almost sweetly. He opened the door of my room and a thick line of light came in before him. Still whistling, he dropped his belt to the floor. Then his pants, his shirt and everything else he was wearing.

"Open your eyes." He wasn't yelling and I still wasn't scared. He stood over my bed and thankfully there wasn't enough light for me to see what his naked body really looked like. Well, it still looked big. His next move was magician-like: He grabbed hold of a corner of my blanket and whipped it off as if he was revealing his finest illusion.

"Naked. Of course you are. Whore." He had called me much worse and in far worse tones of voice. He was still so. Damn. Quiet.

For the longest time in my fantasies I was impenetrable, fierce and victorious. I had a good life in my dreams. I was older and safe and I had a beautiful German Shepherd who loved my 3 cats. I didn't have a chance to rehearse this version so I didn't know what I was going to do next, what the middle part would be or how it would end.

His bearlike frame moved to the foot of my bed and he climbed up and was kneeling up-right at my feet. He took a foot in each hand and pushed my knees up and he made a low, breathy, contented noise.

"Ah, your pussy is nice. No period, either. You're such a fucking liar." And the he plunged his greasy-head between my legs. When he'd had enough, he put his whole mouth around me and bit down, hard. It hurt so much I forgot about my face.

"Haaaa! HA! HAAA!" The laughter fell out of him as he wiped his face. " I knew you wouldn't be able to keep your fucking mouth shut forever."

The tears were rolling out of my eyes but I didn't move, I didn't wipe them. I just looked at him. The harder I looked, the rage in his face became easier to read.

He pushed down on each knee, pinning my legs to the bed and he fell on top of me, his dick like some barbed and burning thing. His eyes shut tight, little gasps squeaking out through his clenched teeth.

I've never moved more quickly in my life when I reached across my body and snatched my precious pendant from around my neck and without thinking, blinking, breathing, I plunged it into his right eye.

He was WILD. I was still; every muscle loose. He SCREAMED. I was mute, barely breathing. I felt his hands on my throat. I did feel that. And I smiled so he'd squeeze even harder and harder and harder and harder and harder...

Jack White's Bedroom

I heard on the radio today that Jack White has microphones underneath the blinds in his bedroom windows so he can amplify the sound of the rain when it falls. The news copy the DJ read said that he has speakers by his bed. And that he can make the noise as loud as he wants.

I don't know what Jack White's bedroom looks like, but it's probably not like mine. Not drafty with a mattress on the floor shoved into the corner and covered with countless and colorful crocheted acrylic blankets that his nana knit him. I'm sure his bedroom isn't blocked off from the rest of his house by a cranberry red curtain. And I'm sure he doesn't lay in his bed hardly breathing in the darkness tracing the bare and fuzzy outlines of his dresser, his closet doors, the window frames.

I'm sure he doesn't watch his curtain-door for even the most imperceptible billow and shift; a shift that just might mean someone was walking past. Someone who might think it was ok to not just politely walk past, someone who thought it was ok to stop instead. Someone who would put their monstrous hand on the curtain and pull it to the side like they were peeling skin off a cadaver. Someone who would step across the threshold of his room and sit on his bed and say they just wanted to talk this time.

My bedroom is not like Jack White's, I'm sure of that. And I don't even want his room, whatever menagerie of wild and weird it probably is (god, what if it's right out of a Pottery Barn catalog, though?) but I am jealous of those microphones and the speakers. And I would want it to always be raining outside so I don't need to hear the sounds that go on in my room.

When it's finished I pull all of the blankets on top of me. All over me, my head and face and everything. The blankets smell warm and sour and like how your fingers smell after you touch mushrooms. I lay flat, arms out, palms up, legs just barely apart. Barely. Nothing of me touching anything else of me, the blankets heavy on my skin and I breathe. Slowly. All of the holes from the crochet patterns are complicated roadways pulling in oxygen and filtering out co2. I breathe and eventually, I sleep.