Read Online The Virgins by Pamela Erens - Free Book Online
Authors: Pamela Erens
Tags: Romance
Ads: Link
the bones inside.
The last morning, as a tribute to Aviva, Seung drives into town and picks up bagels, cream cheese, tomatoes. I saw him there, at Benny’s Bagels, asking for sesame, poppy, and plain. We greeted each other, learned we would be taking the same train back to Boston. The Roach Coach, the kids called it; you could smoke and drink freely, the Amtrak conductors never interfered. Seung told me Aviva was staying with his family. He stuttered a bit when he was in a hurry or anxious or happy. He seemed to be all three right now. I lived on the opposite side of the valley running through the middle of town, the side where the bigger houses were. I pictured Aviva moving through the rooms of Seung’s home, that thick hair of hers filled with the scents of the day: the household cooking, her perfume, decomposing leaves.
My own girlfriend was visiting, Lisa Flood; I told him so, to make it clear Aviva’s presence in his home gave him nothing up on me. I watched him jog to his parents’double-parked car. Have I spoken about the way Seung walked? He was slightly flat-footed; his center of gravity was low and his feet splayed a bit. I wondered why no one at Auburn seemed to notice this obvious flaw, the way we had in middle school.
Nights in my own house my mother no longer shared the Judge’s bedroom. The guest room had become her own; she’d re-wallpapered it in red and black roses, deep bloody tones. Lisa had my brother Dan’s old bedroom, still filled with his hockey trophies, his school achievement awards. The bastard had to frame and mount every one of them; it looked like a physician’s office. Nine, ten o’clock, my mother already drunk and in bed, the Judge reading biographies of famous jurists and politicians, I came into Lisa’s room and lay on top of her. Before we arrived at my parents’ I’d determined that on this vacation from the campus (for Lisa was one for the rules; she would never have agreed to close a door meant to be open, or sneak off to an illicit location) I would finally take her virginity. And she mine, although I had never let on to her that this would be the outcome. The previous year I had been courtly if a little grumpy, acceding to Lisa’s pleas that we ought to wait, it wasn’t yet the right time . . . I had been sure, like any sap, that my patience would eventually be rewarded.
But now, with my memories of the boathouse, of what it had felt like to be pressed up against Aviva, desperate to sink in, I no longer wanted to fuck Lisa so that I could enjoy what there was to enjoy and take what there was to take, or even so I could finally see myself as a man. I wanted Lisa sothat I could close my eyes and pretend that she was Aviva, imagine losing myself part by part and being submerged. Maybe, in fact, I didn’t want either one of them, just that sensation of self being stripped away until there was nothing left. I coaxed and coaxed Lisa until she finally gave way, on Thanksgiving evening. She was very still beneath me, attempting with smiles alternating with winces to be encouraging if not enthusiastic. So patient, such a trooper. By the third night I was lifting her legs and wrapping them around me so that she was bent almost perpendicular, so I could drive farther, disappear further. But I could not get further, could not obliterate either myself or her, and my frustration mounted: I began to hate her. The poor girl: a nice girl, not a terribly pretty girl, with blond brittle hair and pale skin dotted with blemishes. Her bottom already heavy and middle-aged, defeated-looking in her tan corduroys. She must have wondered what the ferocity was about. I told myself she would think it was for her, her boyfriend driven to frenzies by her appeal or by his worship, but I’m sure she was far too smart for that. She was a very smart girl. She became a doctor—an endocrinologist, as it happens—married, and had four children. Four children! I was startled as they began to arrive, at
The last morning, as a tribute to Aviva, Seung drives into town and picks up bagels, cream cheese, tomatoes. I saw him there, at Benny’s Bagels, asking for sesame, poppy, and plain. We greeted each other, learned we would be taking the same train back to Boston. The Roach Coach, the kids called it; you could smoke and drink freely, the Amtrak conductors never interfered. Seung told me Aviva was staying with his family. He stuttered a bit when he was in a hurry or anxious or happy. He seemed to be all three right now. I lived on the opposite side of the valley running through the middle of town, the side where the bigger houses were. I pictured Aviva moving through the rooms of Seung’s home, that thick hair of hers filled with the scents of the day: the household cooking, her perfume, decomposing leaves.
My own girlfriend was visiting, Lisa Flood; I told him so, to make it clear Aviva’s presence in his home gave him nothing up on me. I watched him jog to his parents’double-parked car. Have I spoken about the way Seung walked? He was slightly flat-footed; his center of gravity was low and his feet splayed a bit. I wondered why no one at Auburn seemed to notice this obvious flaw, the way we had in middle school.
Nights in my own house my mother no longer shared the Judge’s bedroom. The guest room had become her own; she’d re-wallpapered it in red and black roses, deep bloody tones. Lisa had my brother Dan’s old bedroom, still filled with his hockey trophies, his school achievement awards. The bastard had to frame and mount every one of them; it looked like a physician’s office. Nine, ten o’clock, my mother already drunk and in bed, the Judge reading biographies of famous jurists and politicians, I came into Lisa’s room and lay on top of her. Before we arrived at my parents’ I’d determined that on this vacation from the campus (for Lisa was one for the rules; she would never have agreed to close a door meant to be open, or sneak off to an illicit location) I would finally take her virginity. And she mine, although I had never let on to her that this would be the outcome. The previous year I had been courtly if a little grumpy, acceding to Lisa’s pleas that we ought to wait, it wasn’t yet the right time . . . I had been sure, like any sap, that my patience would eventually be rewarded.
But now, with my memories of the boathouse, of what it had felt like to be pressed up against Aviva, desperate to sink in, I no longer wanted to fuck Lisa so that I could enjoy what there was to enjoy and take what there was to take, or even so I could finally see myself as a man. I wanted Lisa sothat I could close my eyes and pretend that she was Aviva, imagine losing myself part by part and being submerged. Maybe, in fact, I didn’t want either one of them, just that sensation of self being stripped away until there was nothing left. I coaxed and coaxed Lisa until she finally gave way, on Thanksgiving evening. She was very still beneath me, attempting with smiles alternating with winces to be encouraging if not enthusiastic. So patient, such a trooper. By the third night I was lifting her legs and wrapping them around me so that she was bent almost perpendicular, so I could drive farther, disappear further. But I could not get further, could not obliterate either myself or her, and my frustration mounted: I began to hate her. The poor girl: a nice girl, not a terribly pretty girl, with blond brittle hair and pale skin dotted with blemishes. Her bottom already heavy and middle-aged, defeated-looking in her tan corduroys. She must have wondered what the ferocity was about. I told myself she would think it was for her, her boyfriend driven to frenzies by her appeal or by his worship, but I’m sure she was far too smart for that. She was a very smart girl. She became a doctor—an endocrinologist, as it happens—married, and had four children. Four children! I was startled as they began to arrive, at
Similar Books
