Men, Women & Children (25 page)

Once in Kent’s bedroom, Dawn undressed him aggressively, kissing him and rubbing her hands over his body. Kent was built well. It seemed like he probably worked out with some regularity and didn’t eat terribly. Once she had him down to his boxer shorts, she pushed him down on the bed and said, “Now it’s my turn,” and undressed herself in front of him. Kent knew that she had an attractive body, but it was made even more so as she stood in front of him in only her bra and panties. She removed her bra. Kent looked at her breasts. They were nicely shaped, with medium-sized brown nipples. They were much nicer than he remembered his ex-wife’s to be. As he thought this, it occurred to him that Dawn’s breasts were the first he had seen since his divorce, since his wife had stood in roughly that same spot in their bedroom with her breasts exposed. Kent knew that a thought of that nature would have deflated his erection had he not taken the 100-milligram tablet of Viagra. His erection was so stiff that each of his heartbeats made it throb a little bit. He was put at ease by the realization that nothing Dawn could say or do, nothing he could think about, nothing that could happen would make him lose his erection. He was going to perform well, which would almost ensure that Dawn would want to do this again.

Dawn moved onto the bed with him and they kissed for a few minutes, each of them moving their hands over the other’s body, feeling skin touch skin. Kent’s arms felt good to Dawn, as did his mouth and his body in general. She felt, for the first time in a long time, as though the man she was about to have sex with actually liked her. His touch was as at times gentle and at times aggressive. It conveyed a respect for her that was rarely present in her sexual partners, but it wasn’t so timid as to lack the feeling of the expressly male carnal lust that Dawn required in order to be turned on. His hands were strong, and when Kent slid one of them under her panties to squeeze one of her buttocks, it caused her to exhale in a physical surrender to Kent—a feeling she wasn’t positive she had ever known.

This was the first body Kent had felt close to his since his ex-wife’s. It was impossible for him not to compare them, even though he hadn’t had sex with his wife since their last awkward sexual encounter a few months after their official separation, almost a year before. He liked the way Dawn’s body felt. She had taken care of herself. Although his ex-wife was physically attractive, and in what Kent had always considered to be good shape, Dawn’s body was far more appealing to him. He could feel muscle under her skin. He could feel it tensing as she maneuvered her body in conjunction with his movements.

He slid her panties off, thought of how his wife’s buttocks used to feel in his hands one last time, and then mentally forbade himself from thinking about his wife again that night. He slid off his boxer shorts and rolled underneath Dawn, forcing her to sit on top of him, straddling him. She could feel his erection between her buttocks. It was incredibly stiff, giving a resistance to her backward grinding motion that was notable to her.

Kent sat up a little, took one of Dawn’s breasts in his hand, and licked at her nipple. He smelled her skin. He thought about how dissimilar from his ex-wife she smelled. His ex-wife, Lydia, was fond of using body lotions and soaps that smelled very floral. Kent had never had an opinion of her smell. It was neither attractive nor repellent to him. It was just how she smelled. Dawn, on the other hand, smelled like cinnamon, a scent that Kent found almost made him salivate. He became aware that he was, once again, thinking about his ex-wife as he felt Dawn’s nipple become hard in his mouth. He breathed deeply, inhaling whatever the spiced scent was that she was wearing that night.

Dawn reached behind herself and took Kent’s erect penis in her hand, stroking it. It was amazingly hard, harder than any erection she had felt in recent memory. This made her wet almost immediately. She took the hand Kent had on her buttock and moved it around to her vagina, guiding his fingers into it, showing him how aroused she was. Kent took this to mean that Dawn wanted him to give her some kind of clitoral stimulation before they began the act of intercourse.

He rolled her over on her back, spread her legs, and looked at her body as he knelt above her. She was an extremely attractive woman in Kent’s mind, especially for one in what he guessed to be her late thirties or early forties. He kissed her neck and then moved his mouth lower on her body by increments, dragging his tongue over her nipples, down her stomach, and then to one of her hips and down to her inner thigh. He paused momentarily at her vagina, hoping that he would remember how to perform cunnilingus, hoping that the technique he had perfected with his ex-wife, a technique that was suited specifically to her sexual predilection, would be pleasurable to Dawn as well. And, again, Kent tried to banish the thought of his ex-wife as he spread Dawn’s labia with his fingers and slowly slid his tongue over her clitoris.

Dawn’s reaction to each shift of rhythm or direction with his tongue let Kent know that he was doing a decent job. After several minutes of Kent performing cunnilingus on her, Dawn reached down and pulled him toward her, saying, “Fuck me.”

Kent was surprised to find that, not only did he still have an erection despite his penis having had no physical stimulation for the past several minutes, but the erection was also just as hard as it had been since it had first manifested itself. He moved over and got on his knees, reaching to the nightstand where he kept the pack of twelve condoms he purchased earlier that day. As he fumbled with the box, Dawn moved her head toward his penis and fellated him.

She ran a finger behind his testicles and applied a small amount of pressure to his perineum as she slid the entire length of his penis into her mouth and throat. She had mastered the ability to take the entire length of an average-sized penis into her mouth when she was in high school. It had served her well in life, and as Kent said, “Oh my god,” in reaction to her performance, she correctly assumed that he was impressed with her skills.

She continued to fellate him in this manner for a minute or so until she became aware of the fact that he had opened the condom wrapper and was holding the condom, ready to place it on his penis. Kent had, in his marriage, been tasked with putting the condom on his own penis before every sexual encounter, without exception. So when Dawn took the condom from his hand and rolled it down the length of his penis herself, he was surprised and happy.

With the condom on, Kent rolled Dawn over on her back again, spread her legs, and very gently slid himself into her, looking into her eyes the entire time. Dawn was used to men having sex with her from behind or with her on top. Those seemed to be the only positions the men she had sex with employed. It was nice to look into Kent’s eyes. Although she found it a strange thing to think about as she felt Kent’s penis slide in and out of her, she couldn’t help but feel good about being the first woman Kent was having sex with after his wife. She reached up and stroked his hair, bringing his face close to hers, and then kissed him gently to the rhythm of his thrusts.

Although his motion was slow at first, it was deep, and Dawn could feel him hitting her G-spot. The tenderness that had defined their initial moments of intercourse was quickly giving way to lust for Dawn. She reached behind Kent with both hands, grabbing his buttocks and pulling him into her, increasing his pace and thrust.

Kent was enjoying himself, but was finding it difficult to reach a level of sexual arousal that would even hint at a coming orgasm. He had heard that one of the potential drawbacks of taking Viagra was that an orgasm would be difficult to achieve. He didn’t necessarily care if that was to be the outcome of the night as long as Dawn had one, but he felt that he should at least give it his best effort.

In the hour that followed, Dawn and Kent had sex in multiple positions, varying the speed, angle, and power of his thrusts. Dawn achieved three orgasms, the third coming simultaneously with Kent’s first and only of the night, in the doggy-style position.

After ejaculating, Kent collapsed down next to Dawn. They were both exhausted. Kent was afraid that his penis might remain erect even after ejaculating, but it didn’t. Dawn said, “Jesus fucking Christ. That was insane.”

Kent said, “Yeah.”

Dawn said, “Seriously. I don’t think I’ve had sex like that since I was eighteen.”

Kent said, “Yeah, I don’t know if I have either.” He thought about telling her that he had taken Viagra before their encounter, but then thought better of it. He did wonder what her reaction would be to future sexual encounters, however, if he chose not to employ Viagra. He looked at her lying in the spot where his ex-wife used to lay. He liked Dawn. He said, “So, I don’t know if this is, like, a weird thing, or if you even want to do this, but if you want to stay here tonight, you can.”

Dawn hadn’t thought about that even being a possibility. Most of the men she was sexually active with in her adult life had been of the type who left her house or gave some reason that she had to leave theirs within fifteen minutes of having ejaculated. She liked Kent. She said, “Do you want me to stay? Don’t feel like you have to say that because we just had sex or anything.”

Kent said, “No, I’d really like you to stay, actually, if you want to.”

Dawn said, “As long as it won’t be weird for your son or anything tomorrow morning.”

Kent said, “He’ll be in his room playing video games. And, even if he’s not, he should meet you. I mean, assuming you want to keep going out and everything.”

Dawn said, “Well, after your performance tonight, I don’t know if I can keep up with you.”

Kent said, “I think you’ll be okay,” and then kissed her and felt his penis becoming erect again.

chapter

twenty

F
or Allison Doss, the first day back at school after having a miscarriage wasn’t as difficult as she thought it would be. None of her peers or the faculty at Goodrich Junior High School knew the truth about what had happened to her the week before. Her mother and father decided it would be best if no one knew, and she agreed with them. While she received sympathy from many of her teachers and her fellow students, she found she was never questioned about the event, never asked for any kind of explanation or elaboration. Even Brooke Benton didn’t pry into the details of the affair. She said only, “I’m glad to have you back. We all missed you Friday night. And if you need anything, just let me know.”

After spending a little more than twenty-four hours in the hospital and having to endure intravenous feeding, Allison was glad to get back to her old routines of self-starvation and forced vomiting. These were things that made her feel normal. It was during her lunch period, as she sat across from Brooke Benton chewing a piece of celery, that she received a notification on her phone alerting her that she had a new message from Brandon Lender on Facebook. The initial excitement she felt dissipated as she read his message and realized that he had no intention of seeing her again, but instead was merely making sure that he would not be implicated publicly in her failed pregnancy. His message read, “You didn’t tell anybody that we fucked, right?”

She had come to feel some hatred for Brandon Lender, and this hatred was supported by many of the comments she was receiving in reaction to her posts on the various pro-anorexia websites of which she was a member—comments like, “You are beautiful & if he can’t see that, he doesn’t deserve you,” and “You work so hard to look perfect, screw him,” and “You proved you can get him, you don’t need anything else,” and “No guy is worth getting upset enough to eat over—remember that.”

She didn’t want to respond to him, but she couldn’t help herself. She sought not only his approval but his continued affection. She needed him to see her as more than just one of many girls he had had sex with. She didn’t need him to become emotionally involved with her, or to maintain a friendship with her, or even to have compassion for her. She just needed him to acknowledge her as the more beautiful version of the girl who used to be too fat to be sexually attractive. She just needed him to want to have sex with her more than once to prove that she wasn’t just another meaningless conquest to him, that she was worthy of a repeat visit, that she was attractive enough to warrant having sex with again. She sent him a message that read, “I guess if you want to find out if I told anyone, we’ll just have to hang out again and I can tell you in person.” Brandon Lender replied to her message ten minutes later with one that read, “I’m not down with getting you preggers again, though. So we might have to fuck in the ass or something. Cool?”

This validation was all that Allison wanted. She wrote back, “Cool.”

T
im Mooney and Brandy Beltmeyer held hands as they walked down the hall between classes. As Tanner Hodge passed them, he said, “I didn’t know faggots could have girlfriends.”

Brandy said, “What an asshole. Just ignore him.”

Tim did even less than ignoring him. He found himself almost unaware of Tanner Hodge and Tanner Hodge’s insult. He felt almost as if he were floating down the hallway, watching from a third person perspective similar to his point of view in
World of Warcraft
, looking down on himself from overhead as he walked through the environment. His motions were obligatory; he almost had no choice in what he did, no control. He walked through the hall. He held Brandy’s hand. He carried his backpack. He made his way to American history. He thought about none of it as he kissed Brandy on the cheek and heard her say, “See you at lunch.”

He almost enjoyed this feeling of extreme detachment from the world he lived in, but he found himself unable to enjoy anything. Even the happiness he usually felt in Brandy’s company had slipped into something more like mild amusement, which was the strongest emotion he found himself capable of producing that Monday morning.

K
ent Mooney spent his lunch hour at home installing Spector Pro on his son’s computer. Once the program was installed, he selected certain settings that were designed to look specifically for account usernames and passwords. He linked the Spector Pro reporting function to his own computer and set the program to run invisibly whenever his son’s computer was on.

He made himself a sandwich and turned on the television for a few minutes but was too lost in his memories of sex with Dawn Clint to watch. He thought specifically of the way her breasts and thighs felt in his hands and of the way her vagina smelled and tasted. That morning, he had received a text message from Dawn Clint that read, “I can’t wait to see you again, if you know what I mean :).” After receiving the text, Kent thought briefly about attempting a sexual encounter with Dawn without using Viagra, but dismissed the possibility almost immediately.

After returning to work, he researched Viagra addiction on the Internet and found that, although the drug was not found to be responsible for physical addiction, it did sometimes trigger a strong psychological addiction in users who became fearful that they would be unable to achieve a satisfactory level of sexual performance without it. In most of these cases, the user merely decided to use Viagra before every sexual encounter. Although Kent wanted to know that he was still capable of performing sexually without the drug, he convinced himself that, at least for the second sexual encounter with Dawn, he would use the drug. He saw no harm in that.

O
n his way to the field house after school, Chris Truby crossed paths with Hannah Clint. They hadn’t communicated with each other since Hannah spread the rumor that they had sexual intercourse. Hannah had no interest in being confronted by Chris, being caught in her lie—especially not at school, where the truth might be overheard by one of her peers. She made her best attempt to avoid him, but he approached her and said, “Hey,” and a conversation couldn’t be helped. She was thankful they were alone.

She said, “Hey.”

He said, “So how’d that video that I cut for you work out?”

She said, “We ended up sending it in—you know, like, using it and everything. We’re supposed to hear back this week, when I’ll be flying to L.A. for the next round of casting.”

He said, “Wow. Cool.”

She said, “Yeah.” There was a pause as they stared at one another for a few seconds.

He said, “So, what’s the deal?”

She said, “What do you mean?”

He said, “I mean, what’s the deal?”

She said, “I don’t know.”

He said, “We haven’t really talked since last week, and now, like, everyone in the school thinks we had sex. I don’t get it.”

She said, “Well, I’m pretty sure we had sex, and I might have told some of my friends about it. So I guess that’s the deal.”

He said, “We didn’t really have sex, though.”

She said, “Would you rather I tell everyone that you couldn’t get it up?”

He said, “No, I guess I just don’t know why you told anyone we had sex in the first place.”

She said, “Because I thought you were my best shot at losing my V-card, but you seriously fucked that one up. So I just told everyone I lost it, and that’s good enough. If they think I lost it, then I pretty much lost it, right?”

He said, “That’s a pretty fucked-up way of looking at it, but whatever.”

She said, “Whatever.”

He said, “Well, so what’s the deal?”

She said, “What do you mean?”

He said, “I mean, what’s the fucking deal, like, with us?”

She said, “There is no deal with us. I’m pretty sure you’re, like, a weird guy who has some serious sexual issues, and I’m not that into dealing with it.”

He said, “So are we just supposed to not talk to each other anymore?”

She said, “We can talk if you want, but I don’t see the point.”

He said, “Whatever.”

She said, “I know.”

Chris continued walking down the hall toward the field house and did not turn to look back at Hannah as she walked down the hall in the opposite direction. He wondered if this would be a problem for the rest of his life, or if he would find a girl eventually who would indulge his sexual preferences, or if his preferences would change in time to be more normal. He hoped it was the latter. Hannah wondered if all guys were like Chris and would only be able to become sexually aroused through means that she found unappealing, or if Chris was an anomaly. She hoped it was the latter.

D
awn Clint received an e-mail alerting her that a new member had joined the private section of her daughter’s website and wondered how long the website would remain viable. She assumed, but wouldn’t consciously acknowledge, that the men who were subscribers were sexual deviants, quite possibly full-blown pedophiles, and presumed that their interest in her daughter would wane as she got older. She had gotten used to the extra money every month and was hopeful that her daughter would be selected as a member of the cast on the reality show they were waiting to hear back from. It would mean that perhaps her daughter would be able to generate a viable stream of income through her appearance on a legitimate television program.

Hannah had always told her mother that she wanted to be an actress, but Dawn knew that wasn’t true. Dawn thought she wanted to be an actress, but she had realized at some point, while living in Los Angeles, that what she really wanted was to be a celebrity, to warrant attention from strangers, and to make a very good living doing what she felt was easy work. She knew her daughter felt the same way. She had no respect for the craft of acting, no interest in the art of it. She wanted to be on the covers of magazines and wanted to live in a mansion. That was all.

Dawn wondered what had changed—if it was generational. Her mother, Nicole,
did
love acting, loved the craft, respected the art. For her mother, the minor amount of attention she had generated as a result of success in the field was secondary to the work itself. Dawn remembered having felt that way at some point as a little girl. She remembered watching the movies her mother was in, and listening to the stories her mother would tell her about working with amazing directors who were able to help guide her through emotional mazes in order to have her arrive at an amazing performance. Dawn had never experienced that, and after years of trying fruitlessly to navigate the seemingly impossible system of casting agents, talent agencies, commercial agents, fake producers and directors, and so on, somewhere along the way she had stopped caring about the quality of her work or the meaning behind the art. She had just wanted a job that would give her exposure and money. And she could see that her mother’s interest in the art, which she had shared in the beginning, had just never existed in her daughter. For her daughter it had always been just about the fame, and Dawn saw no problem with that.

Just as she was about to log out of her e-mail account, a new message arrived in her in-box from the producers of the reality show
Undiscovered
. Dawn was nervous for her daughter. This e-mail contained news that could potentially change her life forever. Dawn opened the e-mail and read.

The e-mail was from a producer named Wendy Gruding. She explained that, although they had loved Hannah’s initial application and subsequent video, they would be unable to invite her to Los Angeles for the formal casting interview. After doing some internal research, they had discovered Hannah’s modeling website and come to the conclusion that it was material their parent company might deem unwholesome, due to the concerns of various advertisers that would likely be buyers of advertising time in the show once it aired. Wendy further explained that even taking the site down before the show aired wouldn’t be enough to make their production company reconsider, because the images on the website could have been downloaded or copied to anyone’s hard drive who had viewed the site, and once the show was on the air, they couldn’t risk one of those images surfacing and causing potential damage to their parent company’s reputation. Wendy thanked Dawn and Hannah for their time and patience during the selection process and wished them luck in the future with all of their endeavors.

Dawn archived the e-mail and logged out of her account. The sinking feeling in her stomach was one she hadn’t felt since her youth, when she had been rejected for a television or movie role herself. She was unsure about how she should inform Hannah, and she felt as though it was partially her fault for maintaining her daughter’s website. She convinced herself that she was not to blame, that this was the nature of the industry—no one was willing to take a chance on anything because of the potential loss of advertisers. In that moment it became clear to her why it was that no one cared about the craft anymore, why an entire generation of young actors, writers, and directors didn’t care about the art they made. It was because the art was irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was how many cans of soda, how many bottles of laundry detergent could be sold. If the companies hiring the artists didn’t care about the art, why should the artists?

It was this realization that ultimately changed Dawn’s mind about the website. Dawn had found something in Kent that had substance and value. It was different and better than any relationship she had been in, even her relationship with Hannah’s father in Los Angeles. It was real, and she wanted Hannah to have that one day, too. Dawn knew that her daughter wanted to pursue a career in entertainment, but she began to see that it had nothing to do with acting, it was about fame—it was the ideal of this new generation that wanted everything handed to it without carving out a place in the world through hard work and trial, without having to do anything other than exist. She wanted more for her daughter. She wanted her daughter to be a better person than that, to think in a different way from the rest of her generation. Dawn felt responsible, in some part, for this problem. She had been the one to encourage her daughter, even to create and maintain a website that she knew was of a questionable nature, in order to promote her daughter. In that moment, the website became a symbol to Dawn of everything she no longer wanted her daughter to be.