That Thing You Do With Your Mouth: The Sexual Autobiography of Samantha Matthews as Told to David Shields (5 page)

On my way home I stopped by our local restaurant and found my friend, the owner, sitting outside. I was hoping he'd be there, because I needed a drink. I needed not to feel humiliated. Focusing on the job and talking about it positively and numbing out all the detestable feelings would be the answer. I ended up meeting a couple girlfriends later, didn't eat any dinner, and got quite hammered. I was now celebrating the idea of being cast and cracking jokes about the shoot.

I get home and William and I start watching an episode of
The Killing
in bed. There's a scene in which the female cop discovers the councilman's emails that are evidence he's the rapist-murderer of a young girl. The computer screen lighting the dark, empty room where the cop is looking at the emails; and then suddenly the murderer behind her, his terrifying silhouette, asking her what she's doing—all this takes me back to watching
Star Trek
with Jesse in that dark, blue-lit room. The fear, locked in there, no escape. And on the other side of that bedroom, the other brother waiting to hunt me. I lost it and broke into sobs, pressing my face into my pillow, and told William to turn it off. A feeling of disgust came over me. This fucked-up, ugly, Matthews-legged girl, spiraling
into a pile of shit, mulling around in it, going darker and darker, thinking there's no way anyone would be capable of finding me attractive, and even if I were beautiful, my mental state would be such a massive turnoff.

My eyes have been swollen for two days now—yet another physical manifestation of the mess inside me. I can't hide it. I just want to stay home and be left alone until it passes, but I can't because I've got to take Roc and Ava to their after-school activities and talk to mothers with whom I have nothing in common, pretending all is fine.

So, basically there are two ways to give a blow job: you can either do it like this, with your hand
—mmm mmm—
or some people do it like this—
mm mm mm.
You'll find what you like better. You can do the same thing for kissing and the other effects.

I met Jaume in Columbus at our graduate acting program's beginning-of-the-year picnic. He wore his pants above his waist with a tight little belt and had fluffy, wavy hair and sweet, gentle, sparkly eyes. He was warm and foreign (Spanish) and verging on geeky. Not at all my type. We lived in adjacent buildings for six months or so and caught
the same bus every morning at the same time. I used to avoid speaking to him, because he was annoyingly chipper. Always a smile on his face; everything was wonderful and jolly. I was in a mood most mornings, from having stayed up scandalously late the night before, drinking and smoking and dancing at the lesbian bars and stumbling home two hours before 8 a.m. class. Now it was 7:50 Tuesday morning. I was a fuckup and he was a perfect little puppy, not gauging that anyone else might not feel like talking.

We were cast opposite each other as the love interests in one of the last plays of the year. The butchy lesbian and the chipper gay boy—what a match. No one was going to believe this one. We started to work together and a sexiness appeared in him I'd never seen before. He became harder. I became softer. We started hanging out. He did things for me. That's how he showed he loved me in those early days and also later on. He anticipated my needs, surprised me with his help without me asking. In just a few weeks, he became a home I'd never had. He knew me as I was and loved me as a lesbian. I trusted him.

We began spending all our time together after rehearsals and I stopped going home to my girlfriend. For the first time I felt like myself and so, so safe. He seemed to adore my wildness, found it fascinating, and never in our ten-year relationship did he ask me to change. He always
said to me, “You're this free spirit floating around up there, doing your thing, and I'm your mattress when you fall out of the sky. I'm just waiting here to catch you again and again and again.” Those words were spoken as if they were the most tender compliment (which they were).

There was no malice ever. He was my very best friend and the first person I really felt I could count on. My parents are really good at love-talking and buying you things, but they don't
do
things for you.

We had to make out in the play and the kiss wasn't the best. That was disappointing, but I didn't care. This time it wasn't really about sex; it was about a person, and I found myself craving his company, his friendship, flirtation, and even the not-so-great kiss during the shows. The critics said we had palpable chemistry onstage. I thought we did, too.

I left my girlfriend, and Jaume and I went to New York together to do the same play off-off-Broadway. It got canceled and we had six weeks together to just hang out. I stopped drinking, and not because he asked me to. Okay, I didn't stop drinking but drank one drink or max two and then we stayed up all night, drinking coffee till dawn, wandering around Manhattan most days, dreaming and talking and writing and not wanting to separate from each other, ever. The number of cigarettes I smoked was
more than halved as well—again, not because he asked me to. We started sleeping together and he invited me to come to Spain for a month. I went. I never came back.

He wasn't gay. Neither was I.

I forgot my computer today, so I'm sitting here (in a grotty bar in Sants, a working-class neighborhood in Barcelona where Ava has her gymnastics class) speaking into my phone, reminding myself what I want to write to you about later…

There is this look that's so characteristically Spanish: olive skin, then auburn/blonde hair dye over what is naturally very dark, coarse hair. Depending on the woman, the coloring can vary in tone from light to dark copper. That skin tone and that copper coloring just don't match. Stick to what you were born with: it always looks better, and nature designed you that way for a reason. Once, at Jaume's request, I dyed my hair that copper color, and it didn't work on me, either. I don't have an olive complexion; it's ruddy—even worse.

In general I've been told I'm pretty but normal-pretty. I take that as a little above average. Most days I don't feel pretty and don't notice anyone looking at me as if I were.
I'm not looking. That could be a seduction/an invitation if I did.

Random people, friends, a few lovers have said I'm “sexy,” which comes out when I drink and move without any inhibition and manage the dance floor; later, my behavior disgusts me, because it reminds me of Kitty.

I have a recurring dream: I'm a model; photos of me are published in a magazine. The final confirmation of my beauty. I feel a sense of relief.

I'm serious at work, then at night with my friends the other Samantha comes out: the fiery, confident one, the one who doesn't give a shit, the one who makes her own rules and makes people say and do things they wouldn't normally say or do. I seduce men and women alike. I don't want to do anything with them physically; I just want them to want me, to acknowledge that I could do something if I wanted to. It gives me power, and in that moment I feel beautiful. I feel visible when I'm desired sexually. Sometimes when the seduction game has gone a little too far, I tense up and tell them to stop. I go numb and lose interest. I'm not good at one-night stands. I can count on one hand how many I've had. I always hear my
mom telling me I'm cheap and slutty and can never go through with the full sexual act.

Come here. Kiss me.

(They kiss. It gets more passionate. It looks like it's leading to sex.)

So what do you do? Why don't you give me a little sample of what you do?

Oh, come on!

Let's hear a little moaning. Come on, please. Let's hear it.

Noooo.

Come on. Pretend. What do you do?

I can't.

Yes you can. Come on.

No I can't. I don't want to.

(She withdraws, seems vulnerable and self-conscious.)

It's just a joke. It's just for fun.

I don't want to be that way with you. I want to be me with you.

That's interesting what you say about Laurie being the strong silent type, because William isn't much of a talker, either. He calls talking “that thing you do with your
mouth.” He's a sound technician, the first nonactor I've ever been serious about. He isn't drawn to elaborate discussion (on rare occasions he can be, usually with someone who isn't his partner, like that one time with you in London). In that way, he's very stereotypically “English” and “male.”

Saw someone in the Metro today: a beautiful black man, sharply dressed—with a little style. I caught his eye and he caught mine. He followed Ava and me into the same wagon and we exchanged glances. I knew there was something there. In the eyes, a mutual recognition. In a nanosecond we knew each other completely and not at all. It made me feel attractive again; I still have it. Would he be bored with me after a brief fling? Would I?

When I was fifteen, Scott screwed everyone at the school behind my back, and when I lost my virginity to him, he gave me chlamydia—my mother's worst nightmare and mine. Well, at least it wasn't AIDS, but boy was I in big shit, and did I get a scare. Now, according to my mom, there was a possibility I'd be sterile. I panicked about that until I had Roc and Ava with Jaume in 2002 and 2004.

My mom still thinks she's getting away with it all. That's the difference between her and me. She actually pretends Kitty doesn't come out to play, or Kitty doesn't drug herself into oblivion because the pain inside hurts so unbearably bad. She's fine and doesn't want you to take away her veil. If she doesn't talk about it, maybe you'll forget it ever happened. And if you try to talk about it, she's a master of confusion/distraction—won't understand you, will make you feel crazy for questioning her behavior. She has magic tactics to somehow not answer any of your direct questions. Simply won't answer any question you ask her. If I persist, she breaks down, cries, and says, “You just hate me, don't you?” Forget it. I know what I do when I escape and I want to figure out why the hell I have to keep escaping again and again, to act wild—in Catalan,
salvatge
. My mom pretends she's not wild, but she is.

Fascinating how, in
The Lover
, Marguerite Duras's mother turns her back to what's really going on. Unable to deal with the situation, she completely encourages her daughter at the same time, in what amounts to an unspoken directive: take advantage of the rich man, but feel terrible about it.

A guy I went to grad school with visited me in Barcelona, and after a couple drinks he announced—in a complimentary, jokey way—“I always thought you were hot and wanted to sleep with you back then.” Later that night I told him I'd wanted to sleep with him, too. A lie. I never found him attractive, but I had to make him think the feeling was mutual so he wouldn't feel bad for exposing himself to me. Why?

I'm a weird mix of shyness and fuck-all.

I remember the first time I heard someone actually call me “Trouble.” I was shocked. It was almost as though she'd said I was a heroin addict. Friends say if you have a night out with me it's dangerous; we're not going to chat quietly over one glass of wine. Most likely we'll laugh, cry, dance, sing, dress up, and—surely—consume large amounts of alcohol. Forget about doing anything the next day after being out all night with Trouble. I'm incredibly good at getting everyone to follow my manic madness, too. I shower people with attention, make them feel special; I'm a laser beam focused entirely on them, making
them happy. Tonight is magic—of course it is! And typically it is. To me it is…

I have a small part (a maid, ha!) in a thriller, which is being shot in France, where I'm emailing from right now. One night, we had a gorgeous meal. Civilized conversation, nothing crazy. Me with the bigwig actors—feeling inadequate, nearly invisible, or wanting to be, keeping myself down, controlled, restricted, while they spoke about their agents in London and Daniel Craig being godfather to one of their sons.

I befriended the couple who run the restaurant and have been responsible for the catering. Every meal has been four courses and divinely delicious. Every day I take pictures to remember what I'm not allowed to eat because I'm starving myself for another shoot next week.

The other night, after everyone left, I stayed on, chatting with Patricia (one of the owners). Next thing you know, my computer was plugged into the stereo system and I had her and her husband dancing their asses off with me to very loud, deep house. Before leaving to go back to my room, I helped her change twenty tables to be set for twelve for breakfast the next day. In the middle of the night, the three of us drunkenly befriended each other on Facebook. She sent me photos of us, showed me her paintings, and spoke of her longing to just be
an artist, to leave the restaurant. That night, she'd had a taste of freedom. In the morning, I was sitting there with all the cups and saucers, plates and more plates, the spoons and knives and forks and tablecloths I'd carefully placed three hours before. The following day, she thanked me on Facebook and I couldn't answer.

After nights like that I disappear. A night of boundary-breaking intimacy, and then I go into hiding. The other person takes it as distance, rejection, while I'm horrified I lost sight of the good girl; as the night progresses, I act more and more like a cult leader. I'm humiliated by my loss of control, just like my mother is. The fact that we're not allowed to act
salvatge
makes us binge. No smoking, no drinking during the week: keep it together and perfect and then on the weekend let that caged-up Doberman speed out of the kennel. I can't live up to it all. Am I secretly like Ava, who wants to be left to run wild? To live by her own rules? Yesterday she was angry at the wind. She was punching and kicking and shouting at it. I understood. She feels things and can't keep it in. She has to react. She has to, she says. I do, too.