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- The Wrong Turn
-
- Thursday afternoon I put my fist through the window.
- Right after I'd done it, I knew it was a mistake. Not
- breaking the window, but doing it at 6:00 right before Steve came home
- from work. When I heard him climbing up the front steps, I lost the
- crucial momentum to pick up the broken glass and finish the job. I
- wasn't going to kill myself. I'd just made a mess. But then if I
- really had wanted to die, I would have done it in the morning, right?
- No one would have found me until it was too late.
- Steve walked into the living room, took one look at me
- dripping blood all over the carpet, and dropped the groceries.
- "What do you think you're doing?"
- "Is this some sort of trick question?" I asked, and started to
- cry.
- "Oh fuck. Where are your car keys?"
- Since I wasn't being much help, Steve dug through my purse for
- the keys, wrapped me in a towel, and threw me into the car. I cried
- most of the way to the hospital, cried about how I hated blood and
- sharp things, and I hated being sewed up with needles. Steve was
- having trouble re-learning the clutch in my car, and he kept trying to
- adjust the mirrors at stoplights.
- "Then you shouldn't have broken the window, OK? Now shut up
- and let me drive."
- The worse part of a hospital is not the emergency room. The
- ER people are usually real nice. All the people running around asking
- me about my insurance and how they were going to be paid really bother
- me, though. Someone shoved some Blue Cross/Blue Shield forms at me
- and I had to sign them with my left hand. Steve had told them it was
- an accident.
- We got home some time after dark. The groceries Steve had
- dropped in the living room had melted or wilted, as appropriate. He
- chased me into bed while he cleaned up. I was starting to wonder if I
- should thank him for this or knock him over when I felt better.
- Steve came into my room and shoved a glass of tea under my
- nose. "Drink this."
- I took a sip and gagged unenthusiastically. "What the fuck is
- it?"
- "Catnip and valerian. Now drink it. You're out of Valium."
- "How do you know I'm out of Valium? How did you even know I
- had Valium in the first place?"
- "There's an empty prescription bottle labeled 'Valium' on your
- dresser."
- "Oh."
- I drank the tea. It still didn't taste good, but it made my
- mouth tingle pleasantly. The buzz set in.
- "So can we talk about this?" Steve asked. "Is it about
- Angel?"
- "Only sort of."
- "Why can't you date nice men for a change?"
- I flopped back on the bed. "You mean, why can't I date men
- who have short hair, who don't wear leather or cycle boots, who don't
- pierce their ears, who I could show to my mother? You mean vanilla
- men?"
- "No. I mean men who don't hurt you."
- "Right. Steve, vanilla doesn't have much to do with nice.
- There are an awful lot of sneaky little psychotic closet cases. I
- mean, I keep dating them. You can't tell who's going to hurt you just
- from their clothes. And Angel doesn't have as much to do with this as
- you think."
- Steve really doesn't understand. After a while I quit trying
- to explain, and he quit asking me questions. I tried to sleep after
- he left, but couldn't, even with the herbal medicinals in my blood.
- Want to know why I really did it?
- Angel and I had been dating for two months. Or rather
- sleeping together; somehow I never end up actually dating someone.
- That's not his real name, but then you have to call yourself something
- if you're named John and so is one of your housemates and three men at
- work.
- The name fit, sort of. Angel. Dark Angel. He had black hair
- down below his shoulder blades and took good care of it so it fell in
- soft feathers. His eyes were very wide and blue. He wore leather,
- like all the rest of the rich college punks. And he really was
- vanilla. Had had never tied anyone up, except at a party, as a joke.
- He was also pretty amazing in bed, even for a vanilla. He knew that I
- was a top. I'm not sure if that frightened him.
- So two weeks ago we went out to dinner then back to his place.
- It was raining out. We were soaked through our jackets. Wet leather
- is a guaranteed turn-on for both of us. We started kissing each other
- hard on the front porch, working our hands under each others' clothing
- to hold and to scratch.
- I bit him through his jacket. He shivered and dropped his
- keys into a puddle.
- "What to know what this really means?" I asked. "Want to know
- what leather is?"
- We stumbled into the house, laughing and already half
- undressed, catching stares from his housemates.
- "So show me," he said, once we were in his room.
- I pushed him back on the bed and started kissing him, very
- lightly at first. When he tried to kiss me back, I pinned his hands
- up over his head. I teased the corners of Angel's mouth, biting his
- tongue, licking the hard line of his jaw. When I got to his ears he
- started to squirm. I got a knee between his and pressed it against
- his crotch. My other hand was busy working its way up under his
- shirt. I could hear his breathing, sharp and ragged. I pressed him
- with my knee again. He wasn't hard yet. His nipples were small with
- a little fringe of hair around them. I brushed the hairs lightly and
- felt the flesh wrinkle up tightly. Angel was moaning softly, then
- cried out as I simultaneously pinched his nipple and bit his ear lobe.
- Angel was stronger than I. I couldn't have held him down if
- he'd hadn't been letting me. He stopped letting me.
- Then I was the one on my back and he was sitting on me, his
- eyes wide and gleaming in the half-light of the street lamps, rubbing
- his erection against me.
- "You like that, don't you?" I asked.
- He tried to kiss me and I turned my head away. Angle took me
- by the hair, and when he couldn't force my mouth open, he bit my
- throat.
- The sure way to seduce a vanilla to the dark side of the force
- is to let him have top for a while. Show him it's like an alcohol
- flame, bright and beautiful, but not hot enough to burn. Come on in,
- see, the water's fine. It was working perfectly.
- "You can't hurt me," I told Angel. "Go ahead and play rough."
- He silenced me with his own tongue. I bit him. Angel
- slapped.
- His lips brushed the burning place on my cheek.
- "Did I hurt you?"
- "No. I said you couldn't hurt me. Not this way, anyway."
- "Good," he said.
- Then in one smooth motion Angel had my shirt off over my head
- and tangled my arms in it, then proceeded to play with my breasts.
- Whenever I squirmed too much, he pinched my nipples, twisting them
- hard enough that I was seeing stars. I'd forgotten how much fun this
- was. I'd forgotten how much I liked to be topped for a change.
- After another brief struggle and several well-aimed slaps,
- Angle had my jeans off too.
- You know, It's very hard to put up a convincing struggle when
- someone is stroking you off.
- Angel helped, though. He kept biting my nipples and ribs as I
- squirmed, impaled on his fingers. I got his hair in my teeth and
- tried to pull it, then more or less lost control in the first surge of
- orgasm. I suppose if Angel had been more experienced at this, he
- would have teased me more, drawn it out longer. As it was I came,
- grinding my clit against his thumb, and went limp while he kissed me.
- "Time out?" he asked, smiling.
- "What? Oh yeah. I won't move."
- It wasn't really fair to take advantage of the time it took
- Angel to get a condom out of the drawer and put it on. So I lay
- there, limp and panting, until he had pulled his clothes off and
- covered his erection with lubricated latex.
- "Ready?" he asked as he climbed back into bed.
- I bit him.
- Angel laughed and got between my legs again. The first
- penetration almost hurt. His weight came down on top of me, pinning
- me to the bed. His hands stroked me as if I were some animal that
- wouldn't hold still. I remembered all the times that I had touched
- someone else like this. Angel would be good at things besides
- vanilla. I could tell.
- After a little while, our fucking became a contest between
- Angel, who was trying not to come just yet, and myself, who was
- twisting my hips in a frantic attempt to get him to spill over his
- control. This was a game that I had to win eventually, especially
- since Angel couldn't keep all the rest of his body away from my hands
- and teeth. Each lick at his neck or claw mark at his back brought him
- closer and closer.
- And then he was over the edge. At once I quit fighting and
- kissed him, swallowing up his soft cries. My hands stroked him,
- tickling his ribs and his armpits, while I clenched my vaginal muscles
- down on him.
- He pulled out and collapsed at my side. "Truce. Would you
- like a towel?"
- "Yes. How was it?"
- He smiled. "Fantastic."
- We kissed again, slower and more sweetly this time.
- It was then I told him that I loved him.
- He didn't say much after that. Eventually he got out of bed
- and pulled his jeans on and told me he was going downstairs to get
- something to eat.
- I dressed and followed him down, but there didn't seem to be
- much to say. Usually when it's time to go, he holds me up at the
- door, demanding one more kiss until all the cold has crept inside. He
- didn't this time. I think my hands were shaking as I got into my car.
- Angel lives out in the 'burbs. There's a really tricky
- five-way intersection that you have to go through to get to the
- expressway, and I took the wrong turn. I tried to double back, but
- got stuck in a one-way street that took me even farther away from
- where I wanted to be. I couldn't see the signs in the rain.
- It was after one a.m. and there were no lights around, no gas
- stations, no policemen, nothing but an endless road of suburban
- houses. I turned around in a driveway, put the car in gear, and set
- out in relentless search for the expressway.
- I hate being lost. I was lost in Paris once. It was pretty
- awful since I don't even speak French. In some ways this was worse
- since there weren't any people I could ask for directions, and I had
- been merely stupid to take the wrong turn, and after all the city was
- so big that you'd think I could find it if I just kept throwing myself
- at random streets long enough. At times like this I remind myself
- that I've been lost before and I always found my way home. Why should
- this time be any different?
- It's too bad I'm not more of an optimist. I kept telling
- myself that it may be true, but then I'd be lost again some time in
- the future, so what was the point of getting home anyway? Maybe I
- should just stay out here and drive around until I ran out of gas.
- Some time around one thirty I met up with a sign for the
- expressway and was shortly on my way home, starting from much further
- west than I expected. By then I was so tired that I almost missed my
- exit. There were no spaces left on my street either. I had to park
- two blocks away. Steve had been mugged on this street a month ago.
- The thought did not make me happy as I picked my way around the
- newspapers and glass set out for the recycling truck that was due the
- next morning. This morning. And then I was safe inside with the door
- locked behind me.
- Angle didn't call me that week, so I started leaving messages
- on his machine and with his housemates. It didn't help. At last I
- caught him at work and got to ask him what was wrong.
- "We should talk," he said.
- "OK. I can arrange that. When do you want to talk?"
- "I don't know."
- "That makes it sort of difficult. Will you call me?"
- "Yes."
- I waited a week and he never called.
- I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that he ran away
- when I told him that I loved him. I wanted to explain that I didn't
- mean I was going to chain him to my bed, monopolize his personal life
- and never let him sleep with anyone else, have his children, or all
- those other trappings of commitment. I just loved him. I trusted him
- enough to play rough with him like that. He didn't have to love me
- back, just accept it. Was that so hard to understand?
- I guess it was.
- I was wrong when I said that he couldn't hurt me. Or maybe I
- had been right after all. He couldn't hurt me just with blows and
- pinches. It took leaving me to really hurt.
- I still haven't heard back from Angel, and I think he just
- doesn't want me anymore. You know what else? I'm still lost. I
- don't mean that I'll probably have another big disappointment like
- Angel some time in my life. I don't mean that I may be in my car
- again and make a wrong turn and get home an hour late. I mean that a
- part of me is still stuck out there in the dark and the rain, confused
- by one-way streets, lonely and unwanted.
- That's why I broke the window.
- Now do you understand?
-
-