THREE P.M. MY TIME. The time I've been thinking about since breakfast, since yesterday, since the last time. I can smell Vanessa's shampoo, the steam from her shower lingers in the hallway, but she's gone and I'm glad. I want to be alone. I need to be alone.
I lock our front door and attach the chain. I walk into our bedroom, shut the door. Our cat tries to scratch her way in, but if I ignore her long enough, she'll stop. I pull the blinds, draw the curtains. My finger finds the Power button in the dark. Windows loads on screen, and the room hums in blue light. The wait gives me time to think, to consider doing something else for two hours. But that goes away. Like the cat.
I hear voices in the apartment above me. Footsteps. Someone in the parking lot slams a door. I check the drapes, the blinds, turn the volume down a little lower. I wear my gym shorts because that's where I'm supposed to be, plus they're easier to pull on and off in case Vanessa forgot her apron. But that's why the door is chained and our bedroom door is shut. Buys me time.
Because there is never enough. I start clicking through image after image and minutes become seconds, hours become minutes. Everything is suspended—I am not in our room or out of our room. I am not here or there; I'm somewhere else and that's exactly where I want to be. But time knows—tethers me to now, and no matter how quickly I click from image to image, video to video—no matter how short or long I stare at the women on screen—the tiny digits in the corner of my screen tick away.
A woman speaks with her mouth full. A man's skin burns Viagra-red, so much blood forced to the surface. Some men struggle, clamp themselves at the base, force the blood to flow. The woman asks for more, begs for more. She isn't satisfied. The man pushes harder, faster, grows redder and the woman's expression flicks from pleasure to pain to confusion to some mixture of the three. She says she wants everything the man has, but when he gives it to her, she seems disappointed. I click away.
I sink my fingers into a jar of Vanessa's body cream. The scent does not remind me of her, but of myself, of my own scent, my own routine. I'll smell it on her later that day or week and will not be drawn to her, but to myself. When she is in the kitchen, making us dinner, I am in the bedroom. I have another purpose. My grip on here, on now, slips.
I'll click away if I hear the hallway floor creak beneath her feet. I'll pull my hand from my waist and add a sentence to my cover letter. I'll clear our computer's history. But she knows. And she knows that I know. So when I'm done, we'll sit in the living room and I'll try to think of questions to ask her, but I'm empty.
Vanessa and I were twenty-two and had been living together for six months. I was attempting to mesh my high school and college habits with our new life, and I was failing. Each time we fought, I talked about other couples, other friends who probably watched just as much porn as I did. They didn't have anyone nagging at them. They didn't have all these stupid hang-ups. Why do we?
I cut her off. I got defensive, angry, but couldn't say why. Perhaps part of me was frustrated because I didn't have a solid reason for why I watched so much porn. I said other guys did, too, but I had no real proof. And if I thought it was normal, natural—why did I feel guilty? Why did I have to hide in a dark room, behind locked doors?
I talked to my brother and my guy friends. I knew they'd understand, and they did. They said Vanessa just needs to chill out and lay off me. All guys do it, they said. It's not a big deal. I didn't tell them that I watched at least an hour a day, that I was pretending to look for work while Vanessa supported us by waiting tables, that I often skipped meals or canceled plans to fit in my routine. I was the one in college who remembered all the porn stars' names, even the men, and could say them on cue whenever my friends wanted. I was the one with the most extensive sexual vocabulary. And I was the one who forwarded images of women on their knees, their faces like melted candles. Sick, dude, my friends wrote back. Then they'd ask me where I found it.
Once, Vanessa came home early from work. I pulled up my pants, screwed the top back on her body cream, and ran to the bathroom. I turned the shower on, finished myself off, and cursed her for disturbing my privacy. When I came out she was sitting on our bed, staring at the image I'd left on screen. I stood in the doorway with a towel around my waist, dripping water on the hardwood floor.
Vanessa undid her apron. "Is this what you do all day?"
I didn't say anything. I shook my head.
"Say something!" she yelled. I didn't recognize her voice.
"No. Not all day."
"I don't know what else to do," she said. "This whole thing, all of this, is totally out of balance. We are out of balance."
"Babe, you're acting like—"
She stood up. "I'm not acting like anything. We haven't had sex in five months. But you've had plenty of time and energy to spend on this shit."
I tightened the towel around my waist, walked over to the computer and turned it off. "I wish you'd just chill out. Everybody watches it! It doesn't have to be such a big deal."
"Who's everyone?" she said. "Who? And you're right, it doesn't have to be such a big deal. But you made it a big deal."
"You're the one freaking out about this. I don't know what the hell you want to hear. I do this. All my friends do this. So what?"
She walked to the door, her sneakers squeaking on the wet floor.
"You think I hate porn. You think I'm just some crazy repressed chick. But what bothers me is how you've handled this. We can't do this together. We've never done this together. And now it's tainted with all your bullshit."
She slammed our bedroom door, then our front door. I listened to her walk down the hallway and heard her finger jab the elevator button several times before she gave up and took the stairs.
I want to say her words—out of balance—pierced through my fog, that her wake-up call made me bolt upright instead of sink deeper into my dream. I had a choice. Listen to the woman who slept beside me, whose books were mixed with mine on the shelf, who worked double-shifts to keep us warm, who tolerated months and months and months of me, me, me. I could listen to her or I could turn my back and face the screen. I could search for another image. I could slip off my towel, listen to a woman moan and interpret her sounds however I pleased.
I pressed Power.