Maidenhead (15 page)

I wolfed down three slices. Lee seemed uncomfortable and ate really slowly. Jeff read his manga over dinner. I wanted more wine.

‘Is that Sailor Moon?’ Lee tipped up the cover of Jeff’s book. ‘It’s cool that you read shojo. Vintage too! You should check out
Rose of Versailles
– Oscar’s a fucking maniac bisexual. Sorry, ’scuse my language.’

Jeff laughed. So did my dad. ‘No, no, it’s okay, Lee. My daughter is a champion cusser.’

‘Cusser?’ Cusser sounded like one of my video clips.
Teenslutcusserlicker
.

‘Cusser, like cuss words. You don’t know that term?’

‘I know that term, Dad, but I didn’t think I was a cusser. I just thought I was a freak.’

‘No, Myra, come on. You’re not ... ’

I don’t know why I felt like crying. My mouth swarmed with cheese grease.

‘Cusser sounds cool,’ said Jeff. ‘I wanna be a cusser too. How do I get
Rose of Versailles
?’

‘Call me,’ Lee said. ‘I have a digest compilation of the first year. Call and I’ll bring it to you after school or something one day.’

Lee ripped a piece of the empty pizza box and she wrote down her number on the back. Jeff, I thought, blushed. My father stood up and stuck Lee’s cardboard number on the fridge with a magnet. I felt my gut, the pizza, the flute in my gut.

‘Have a good time, kids,’ my father said later, tipsy, framed by the door. ‘Next time you can invite Aaron too. What do you say, Myra?’

Lee answered for me. She was definitely not a kid. ‘Okay, Neil. It was great to meet you. Bye, Jeff!’

I galloped down the porch stairs. My father, alone and gaunt from the house light behind him, watched me and Lee crawl into Aaron’s car.

Aaron kissed me open-mouthed in the front seat. His tongue was lukewarm.

‘Mmmmmm, you girls hittin’ the sauce with your dad?’

‘A glass, just a glass.’

Aaron backed out of our driveway. The light in Jeff’s room went on. I hoped my father hadn’t seen me and Aaron.

Chris’s party was in the east end of the city. I knew we’d be passing by Filmore’s. I was thinking about how I’d get there later, after this party that was supposed to be so important. I’d called Elijah’s room and he hadn’t answered.

‘So ... Lee says she gave Chris your opus.’ Aaron squeezed my thigh too hard and I jumped. ‘When am I gonna get to read it too?’

‘I can’t believe you did that. Lee! That was my fucking first draft!’

Lee and Wils were making out in the back seat. Wils waved his hand at me, as in: go away. They kept kissing. I couldn’t believe she did that. And that she was fucking ignoring me.

‘My, my, Myra, don’t stress.’ Aaron wove in and out of the streetcar tracks. ‘Chris is open. He’s got a lot of connections. He’s starting the university tonight, right, Wils? Like, modelled on the free-school movement of the sixties. Maybe he’ll discuss your essay or something.’

Aaron jammed on the gas to get around every car he could.

‘I don’t know,’ Wils said, his mouth half in a kiss. ‘Ask this one. She’s the expert.’

‘I just thought Chris would want to read it,’ Lee said quietly. ‘Shows how much I admired it, right?’

My essay had stalled. I could not imagine this Chris or Ms. Bain or Mr. Rotowsky reading it and passing me. I was getting more sucked into the internet porn and there was less and less of a connection with the comfort women, or any other historical aspect, like the last slave ships to land at Key West. Everything was changing and stalled because of the master-slave dialectic, because of Hegel. I believed that everyone now, not just pornographic actresses or the
Muselmanner
, but everyone, according to Hegelian dialectic, was on the continuum of being a slave. ‘The Master-Slave dialectic describes in narrative form the encounter between two self-conscious beings,’ I read on Wikipedia, ‘who engage in a struggle to the death before one enslaves the other – only to find that this does not give him the control over the world that he sought.’

The slave’s self-consciousness, according to Hegel,
not
the master’s, sublates into Absolute Knowledge.

This was changing everything for me. Sublation meant cancelling out and preservation; both, together, at the same time. You could get rid of something and protect it too. I realized that I wanted to sublate myself to Elijah. I wanted to be consumed by him and elevated by him and preserved in the process. I didn’t know how to do this. This didn’t seem inevitable. Did I have to struggle to the death? And what about Gayl?

I heard sounds from the back seat of the car, grunts being stifled. Lee’s grunts. I started thinking about Gayl.

‘Who is Flannery O’Connor, you guys?’

‘Oh yeah, my girl Flannery!’ Aaron shouted. The whole car shifted left. A streetcar beeped and we jerked in front of it. Lee screamed and then laughed, getting off on Aaron’s speed.

‘Take it easy back there, dudes!’ Aaron shouted.

Aaron had his little bag full of drugs on his lap. It was a circle of red leather with a zipper that went all the way around. He lit a joint, I think to distract himself.

‘Flannery O’Connor, Myra, is one strange-ass lady writer. She described violence in a way that no one ever had before. I’ve got some of her collections. She’s from Savannah. That’s the south.’

I held on to the door handle as Aaron shifted off the streetcar tracks so we could go even faster. In my side-door mirror I didn’t see Lee anymore. Wils’ eyes were closed.

Aaron passed me the J. I took a few hard long puffs. Wils’ shoulders were moving. I heard Lee breathing through her nose.

I didn’t want to lose my virginity with Aaron.

‘Flannery O’Connor had no sex life. Which probably helped her writing. Don’t you think?’

‘Oh yeah!’ Lee sat up and wiped her mouth. Wils stretched his arm right out the window and laughed. I felt Lee’s eyes in the back of my head.

‘Can I have some of that, Aar?’

‘Ask Myra. She’s the fiend tonight.’

‘Myra, can I please pretty please have some of that?’

I stuck my arm backwards. Lee held my wrist. She sucked in from the joint with me holding it. I knew I was just supposed to forgive her. Maybe she really did think my essay was brilliant. Maybe this guy Chris would actually publish it when I was done.

‘Have you tried X yet, Myra?’ Wils asked from the back.

‘No.’

‘You gotta try it, it’s excellent.’

‘True,’ Lee added. ‘She should try it one day. But, Myra, you know, she’s already ecstatic.’

We passed by Filmore’s Hotel. I looked up. Elijah’s light was not on. I wanted him bad. I wanted a sex life. I wanted to be ecstatic. I wanted to be up there in the bathroom giving it to him.

§

Chris’s building was small and rundown with long bubbled windows in the front. There were speakers off the second-floor balcony. A couple of guys in ripped jeans waved at us and went inside. One of them was Jeremy, Aaron’s brother.

Inside, Lee took me by one arm and Aaron hooked me by the other. I felt like a convict. We made our way like that through the black-painted rooms lit up with candles in bottles.

‘This is My-My, everyone,’ Aaron said to the last room, a windowless office of ground-to-floor books in crates.

‘Myra,’ I hissed.

Lee squeezed my arm. ‘It’s okay,’ she whispered.

There was a red-haired, bearded guy perched on a milk-crate throne smiling at us. A group of people sat crossed-legged below him in a circle. Everyone looked pleased to see Aaron with his little red purse.

‘It’s so nice to meet the writer, finally,’ said Chris, the king holding court, stretching out his arm as if we were supposed to go and touch it.

My heart started racing. I forgot that I was stoned.

I had a feeling that Jen and Charlene were here.

I extracted myself from Aaron and Lee and ran out of that black room into the kitchen. Charlene and Jen, yes, were at the table, smoking in aprons. They didn’t look surprised to see me. It smelled like garlic roasting. I can’t believe that guy read the first draft of my essay. Which sucked. Fucking god.

‘Why are you guys here?’

‘Aaron’s got the best stash,’ Jen said. ‘That dude Chris is totally hot. And Jeremy invited us, so fuck you, okay?’

I left the kitchen. The fact that that guy had read my essay made me feel hairy, breathy shame.

‘Myra! My-ra!’ I heard Lee. I kept hearing my name.

The office was packed now with people on the floor and at the walls. Chris’s eyes were like those small laser flashlights that can stun you from miles away. Smoke hung low over everyone’s heads. Lee was smiling at me. She looked proud.

‘Let us welcome our young writer here. Myra, everyone, the partner of Aaron.’

Everyone turned to look at me and clapped. Jen and Charlene were behind me. They were clapping too. I felt sick. Chris stood up. He was short, my height. His T-shirt had a dripping map of the world on it, as if the world were made of blood. In the corner it said:
Fuck off.
I felt a contact high from Chris that was not pot. I squatted low behind Aaron to get away. Lee was right up at the front of the room, near Chris’s throne. She looked at Chris kind of deferentially, I thought.

He reminded me of a tomcat. I pressed my breasts into Aaron’s back on purpose. I could feel him happy that I was doing that, sweating.

‘We have an interesting thesis to discuss tonight, everyone. Myra, would you do the honours and introduce your idea?’

I shook my head no. Aaron tried to buck me off him.

‘You should,’ he whispered.

I shook my head again, but I stood up.

Chris was looking at my body, lasers on my tits. My knees went buttery like they had with Elijah.

‘We were going to be discussing Spartacus tonight for our inaugural lecture, the most renegade of slaves.’ Chris smiled at me. ‘When our good friend Lee happily forwarded me your essay, Myra. It was quite a brilliant coincidence. The revolt of slaves is in the air.’

The revolt of slaves is in the air ...

‘When Lee told me further, Myra, that you were only sixteen, I’ll tell you the truth, I was even more impressed. Your concerns are not vital for a person your age. And yet, in past times, as we know, the teenage girl was an important resource, a medium for struggle. Emma Goldman was radicalized as a young woman your age. Marta too, the first female slave to rise up against the Romans, was only thirteen ... So there is a history of fiery young women like yourself.’

Fiery? I started laughing. Did the tomcat want me to strip in the centre of flames?

‘So, Myra, please tell us your thoughts.’

Shame smashed together with shame. I just stood there. Wished we could talk about Hegel: the master in love with the slave and the slave with the master, a circle, until the master was slave and slave had her power. Chris lit a joint. I liked his red beard. What about multiple slaves in love with one master?

Aaron stood up. ‘Myra’s kind of shy but she’s read a lot. Agamben and Weil, for starters, right, My?’

I felt suddenly pissed off at Aaron and Lee for putting me in this position. I was not a blank slate. Slaves revolt.

‘I read about porn stars,’ I said.

Jen and Charlene started cracking up behind me.

‘Ah, the vanguard,’ Chris said. He thought he knew why I was opposing him.

‘There’s this cool site I subscribe to called realteenwhores.com.’

‘He’s cool, Myra, Chris is cool,’ Aaron whispered at my ear. ‘Want to go wait for me in the kitchen? Me and Lee got business for a sec.’