Tamara and I take turns reading to each other from Geek Love. I had already cracked the novel’s spine last week. For Tamara, I don’t mind starting over.
The sun dipped below the rooftops about an hour ago. Songbird is busy chewing some unknown garbage she found in the backyard. Mosquitos buzz close despite the citronella candle I’ve lit. Barn swallows swoop through the dusky light for a mosquito feast. Barbecue smoke and algae stink hang in the humid air. Days only feel this long when they’ve been drawn out either by misery or by joy. Joy is something I’m learning to notice, to measure.
Tamara’s voice is punctuated by little hiccups when she reads lines that she likes. “The nature of lies is to please. Truth has no concern [little hiccup] for anyone’s comfort.” She looks up from the book. “What are you staring at?”
“True beauty,” I say.
She snuffs the citronella candle with the bottom of her shoe. “You got a bedroom to take me to, or what?”
The house feels different as we go back in, clenched narrower somehow. I switch on the bedroom light. Not the ugly frosted ceiling light, but the mid-century Murano glass lamp on my bedside table. I bought it for only $160. Total steal. My room is junk and money. Tamara stares at the stunt above my bed. For a moment I worry she’ll be stuck there, locked in place by Etta. But no, Etta’s powers of physical manipulation are saved for me. Tamara breaks from the stunt and makes her way around the tiny room.
Price tags flash in my mind with each object she passes by. Forty dollars for my chrome-trimmed record carrying case, which contains records I spent a total of $455 on (worth more now), arranged alphabetically according to the artist’s surname, from Ethel Azama to Frank Zappa. Eighty dollars for my black leather-jacketed CD binder; approximately 1K of music is sandwiched inside those plastic pages, again alphabetically, from Adam and the Ants to ZELDA. Positively valuable books lie amongst the piles on my dresser, books I had to hunt for, including signed first editions of Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. My leather art portfolio was only seventeen dollars at the flea market. Inside, my Barbara Kruger lenticular print is tucked safely away, along with a couple of pen-and-inks by Toronto’s J.B. Jones and Fiona Smyth, all of which are surely rising in value. Gertrude Stein said, “You can either buy clothes or buy pictures.” Of course, I bought plenty of clothes too. Thankfully, my closet door is closed. I’ve got to stop obsessing over value. When aroused or when anxious I think about capital, about worth. Maybe torment is recognizing exactly what is wrong with you, but not knowing how to right those wrongs.
Tamara pauses at the “Starla” boxes, all of which I’ve rescued from the basement and piled up gracelessly at the foot of my bed. She traces the worn cardboard edge of one box with her finger and looks expectantly at me. I nod in permission. I shouldn’t be surprised when she finds my first childhood toy. I knew he was at the top, just under the lid. Mr Winky is a fully jointed, wool-stuffed teddy bear. Could be a Twyford. I should have him appraised. Barbara cut out his eyes—she was worried I’d swallow them as a baby. Being eyeless will depreciate him a fair bit, though his stitched nose is good as new.
“No,” I blurt out.
Tamara quickly puts Winky back in the box.
“Sorry! That ‘no’ wasn’t for you. I was telling myself ‘no.’” Here goes. Time to reveal to your girlfriend that you are nuts. “I have this really bad habit of obsessing over the resale price of, well, like, every single thing. Just now, I was wondering what that teddy bear is worth. But I don’t want to think about that.”
“You’re worried about money?”
I nod. Shrug my shoulders.
“Well, we aren’t exactly living in boom times,” says Tamara. She sits on the edge of my bed, pats the empty place beside her. She loops her arm around me as I join her. As we kiss, I tell myself quiet, quiet, quiet. I begin to spell P-O-G-O-N-O …
Our bodies undulate together. She nips my bottom lip. Her earrings are cute little silver lightning bolt studs. I love how she jolts when I run my tongue behind her earlobe. I should have put music on. P-O-G-O-N-O … O … O. I should take it slower this time. I’m so greedy. I always want her to spread her legs right away. More foreplay, right? What do they suggest in that funny illustrated The Joy of Lesbian Sex book? Breast massage. Twirling your lover’s pubic hair. I bought a copy of that book before it went out of print. La plume de ma tante. Crème de la crème. I hide it at the bottom of my underwear drawer because it’s démodé, embarrassingly out-of-date. Tribadism. Mound of Venus. Honestly, I can’t even look at the book because anything from the ’70s reminds me of Barbara, and that’s a problem. I already have my mother’s macramé Jesus hanging in the nearby closet. If any more of Barbara ends up in my bedroom, I’ll likely never have an orgasm again. Tamara tells me, “You feel so good,” and undoes the button on my jean shorts.
“No,” I say. It just comes out.
“No?”
“It’s …” Damn it. “It’s hard for me. You know? Receiving.”
“You did before.”
Right. This is why I only fuck people once or twice and don’t have relationships. To avoid convoluted explanations of what’s wrong with my body. Why what was okay on date one or two becomes not okay on date five or six. You see, my carriage turns back into a pumpkin after midnight. My cunt is like a mayfly—its lifespan is only twenty-four hours. Ever notice that sex is like a setting sun? I’m pacing the length of my room. I wish Tamara was wearing her aqua-blue contact lenses to mask a bit of the uneasiness as she watches me stomp around. Excellent. I’m creating a new bad memory in this bedroom. Just when I thought it was impossible to hate myself more.
“Talk to me, Star.” Tamara stands, reaches a hesitant arm out to me. “You gonna break up with me? Whatever you have to say, believe me, it can’t be as bad as what I’m thinking right now.”
Well, that almost sounds like a dare. I grab the wicker headboard and yank. My single bed moves almost effortlessly with the adrenaline of this moment. A few of the Starla boxes crash to the floor. Mr Winky rolls out, lands teddy-face-down on the floor.
“Right here.” I point to the many x’s penned on my wall. Seeing them scrawled in a huddled cluster, I realize I’ve wanted to pull my bed away for a long time to view the full panorama of it. The x’s begin at about my knee level. The air feels sappy and thick as I squat down to get a closer look. Some of the marks are so small—grain of rice-sized scratches. Others aren’t made with pen, but rather show where my six-year-old fingernails scored the wallpaper.
“I thought I’d be angry. I’m not. Just incredibly sad,” I say, pointing again at the wall. Pointing alone offers no clarity for Tamara. Right, I can tell her I’m faking angel apparitions with a ghost who fell off a roller coaster, but I can’t tell her this. I push out the words, “Each x marks a time when I was molested.”
One second is a second too long to wait for Tamara’s response.
“I should have never brought you in here. I fucking hate it here.” The air’s gotten thicker, almost slippery. My head feels like it’s skidding through this conversation.
“Then let’s leave,” says Tamara. She takes my hand, then my other hand, stands facing me without a hint of trepidation. “There’s plenty of empty rentals around the beach. I’ve saved up some money. Let’s move in together.”
“Okay,” I say without a beat. I mean it too. I want to move in together. Tamara won’t have to pay for everything. I make a living. Why pay back what I owe? Seriously, fuck the savings and loans industry. Better to evade my debt. Let my loans slip completely into default, into paper trail. We’ll pay for everything in stripper tips and under-the-table paycheques. I have a girlfriend, and we’re starting a life together. As we float into a woozy kiss, I consider my answer again. What’s the worst that can happen?
“Okay,” I echo. This time I guide Tamara’s hand back to the undone button of my jean shorts.
“Star?” She gives me a sharp look. “You don’t have to.”
“I want to,” I tell her, shifting us a step closer to the wall. “I want to be stronger than all of this. I want to be free of it.” I steer her forefinger into my underwear. She makes an appreciative hissing sound that tells me I am probably wet. I grab her wrist. “Maybe it’ll be better if I turn around.” I shimmy my jean shorts down my hips, down my thighs, turn my back, and move her hand between my legs again. I only buck into her once before she senses I need her to be rough. Rough enough to overtake me. Tamara hooks her left arm around my waist. Her forearm muscles, those pole-dancing muscles, flex against my stomach. Our breathing quickens. We lurch forward. My hands brace, knees buckle into the wall. I don’t gauge the pain before swiftly kicking my knee up. I hoped the drywall would crack with my blow, the floral wallpaper tear. I’m not that strong. Tamara pauses. “Keep going?” she asks. Words sound strange, like we haven’t spoken in days.
“Keep going,” I say.
But we’ve lost our animal rhythm. I can feel her behind me, watching, monitoring my reactions. She is afraid for me, or of me. Same difference. My Laugh in the Dark stunt has been patient, quiet, but I know she’s inside. The same as she is inside the reclaimed boat wood built into the gazebo, strips of ride tickets, or Lucky’s prize Care Bear.
I promised Tamara no ghosts, no angels, just us.
To say that Etta makes me stronger is to underestimate her. Etta allows me to be … bigger. Bigger than nausea and panic and failure and anger and all the things that make me hate myself. And I need to be bigger to be with Tamara, don’t I? This is good for both of us, isn’t it?
Etta, I call. Etta. Etta. She answers with ghost hands that surge through me, overrunning fear, overrunning everything.