three.

title: blank.
date: july 5th, 2009.
description: just this.

orange light, joyless, artificial orange light poured in from the desolate suburban street, made its way through the half-open shutters, and projected bar upon bar of shadow onto the wall.

oppressive.
it looked oppressive.
it felt oppressive.
not actively oppressive.
depressingly oppressive.
that's a descriptive mouthful.

"it's nice just to hold someone."
"strange."
"my mind is very blank."
"my mind has never been blank."
"it's a controlled art."
how i wished he'd teach me.

two.

title: it hardly matters.
date: february 15th, 2009.
description: another one. things were changed and they might change again.


His name was Ian. I knew I wanted him to be the first. I knew I wanted him to softly kiss my neck, ask me if I was okay and I knew I'd say "Yes, fine."

I also knew I wouldn't be his first. But when I thought of us together, the way our bodies would fit just right, it hardly mattered. It didn't matter as I purchased the plane ticket to Greenwich at the last minute price of 700 hundred dollars with the remaining money from my Bat Mitzvah- the money I was supposed to be saving for college. It didn't matter as I lied to my parents, telling them the girls and I were going away for the weekend to my best friend Emily's summer home in Carmel. It didn't even matter when I finally landed 3,000 miles away from home, ready to fuck Emily's long-distance boyfriend of two and a half years. None of this ever mattered.

Before I get to the actual act- the moment I was so desperately hungering for, I should clear something up. The way I've started the story, it sounds as if I was a renegade, a hunter with a mission unbeknownst to her prey.
This was not it at all.

He knew. We both knew what we were doing.
We'd been talking for hours every night on the phone for roughly six months.
Six months had gone by roughly for Emily, who'd complain to me in Mr. Fisher's 2nd period history class that the boy she loved, the boy she'd given her virginity to, even though before she met him she'd sworn at a bible camp one summer when she was 13 that her body would only belong to the man she married, this boy was pulling away from her. He never answer her calls and when he did, she knew he wasn't listening by the way he only murmured a string of "Mmm"s and "Uh-huh"s.
And I sat there. Not letting on in the slightest. I surprised myself- made my self sick- with my ability to deceive. My brain danced a frantic, guilty dance to Ian's voice telling me the night before that he no longer thought of Emily, no longer longed to hold her, but to hold me. As he laid in bed, he wished I was beside him. Me. The best friend. Not the girl he was supposed to be in love with.
And I sat there, my head waltzing with these thoughts- these thoughts I wouldn't will away- saying things like "He's busy", "We're all stressed- you know, college applications" and "I know he loves you."

I knew he didn't.
I knew he didn't when he finally, after all those months of late-night calls, whispering infidelities, told me to come. When he told me that he was sick of talking about it, he wanted to do it, wanted to do all those things to me. I wanted to put up a fight, wanted to toy around with the idea, say iconic things like "We can't, Ian, we just can't" and ask "What about Emily?"

But I didn't and I went without saying anything. He told me to come and there I was walking towards him, swaggering sinfully, as he waited at the gate with a knowing look in his eye.
We drove to his house, the house carefully hidden in Connecticut's countryside, the house his family had so abruptly moved him to two years ago. We sat in a charged silence. Everything had been said, we'd been talking for months, and our brains, our mouths, our tongues couldn't possibly form another word. Couldn't be compelled to do anything besides maim the the relationship this boy had with the girl I'd known since the first day of elementary school. The girl who'd shared her lunches with me because her mom had always made better sandwiches. The girl who held my hand, listened through the mumbled sobs after my heart had been broken by "stupid boys who don't even deserve you if they can't realize how beautiful you are."
The girl who never found out that I spent the weekend holding that boy, letting him touch me in the same ways he'd touched her.

We'd finally done it. And as words came back to us, that boy whispered to me, "I wasn't thinking of her."
And as I laid there beside him, soaked with my transgression, I thought to myself:
It hardly mattered if he was thinking of her, because I was.

one.

title: shake.
date: may 5th, 2009.
description: it isn't perfect.

the technicolor lights pour from every branch of my mother's fake plastic christmas tree and dance on the bridge of his nose. soft shades of red, yellow, and white highlight his every feature- making him look devastatingly picturesque. tiny gilded bears and toy soldiers watch with a blank expression as he slides across the couch, closer, closer, close to me.
shaking.
i'm shaking.
literally shaking. my body's reaction to affection- the affection i've been working towards for three weeks, spending that extra fifteen minutes getting ready in the morning, wearing shorter skirts, asking him earlier this week to come over and "study", my reaction to all of this is to to bop bop bop like a fucking wind-up toy or something.
and he notices.
of course he notices.
how can he not? i'm having a baby seizure on my end of the faux-leather sofa.
"you alright?"
"fine." i smile.
"you don't look fine. is something wrong?"
fuck.
is there something wrong?
no. no. no.
other than the fact that i want you in a major way and it's making me do michael j. fox impressions.
i giggle.
and slide closer.
i'm cocking my head, slightly rightly, biting my lower lip, letting my eyelashes bat bat bat.
cute? is this cute?
i read in seventeen magazine that you've gotta let him know you want him with your body. gotta be sly, gotta be slick. can't just jump him. bite the lip, bat the eyes. it's supposed to do the trick.
bite, bat, bite, bat.
...
nothing yet.
and hellppp!
i'm still milkshakin', still bill shakespearin' over here.

should i tell him he's the first?
it's the maiden voyage of the s.s. never been kissed and he's the first one on deck.
god, i'm fifteen and i've gotta be the last girl with virgin lips.
but i've heard guys think that's hot. it's like cool or whatever because you're pure and they can totally dig on that.
but what about him?
dig or no dig?
my brain's digging me a lovely hole to shake in.

and i'm not so pure.
i let carrie's older brother touch me between my legs every night the summer before last.
hot nights, we'd sleep outside in a little pink tent.
mosquitos buzzbuzzed above our heads, we had sticky marshmallow fingers and chocolatey graham cracker mouths.
carrie'd fall asleep first, i'd lay flat on my back, eyes wide open, waiting for his footsteps to cut through the still arid air.
unzip, zip, zip.
i'd turn over and pretend to be asleep while jacob, nineteen years old and whisky-breath'd, climbed in, carefully rolled down the waistband of my jean cutoffs and explored. i felt it all- his sloppy fingers inside of me.
i don't know if he knew what i felt.
i tried my hardest to imitate the blank face of a peaceful dreamer, sugarplums and whatnot,
but something always gave me away.
nightlynightly,
he'd feel me shake.
i'd shake.

and now i actually want it- i didn't have a choice last time, those torrid summer nights held me captive-
but now. i'm older. and i've had time to heal.
but i'm doing the same old dance, my body's playing the same old tricks.
stop, body, stop!
it's not him. jacob's gone- i never went back to carrie's house after that summer.
this one's good. and you're not curled up on the floor of a stained pink tent.
you're awake! your eyes are open!
so why do you shake, body? why do you shake?
let me be still and let me be kissed.
whywhywhywhywhywh-

oh fuck.
garage door opens.
mom's home,
jig's up.