Excerpt
Half His Age
1It’s bad form to groan when a guy’s going down on you, I know that, but right now it’s hard not to.
“You taste so good,” he says, licking his lips.
“Thanks.”
Randy Julep’s fingers clamp down on my splayed-out thighs, his death grip tightening. His cunnilingus technique is underwhelming: Eyes shut reverently. Occasional mmms. Slimy tongue that loop-de-loops over and over like a carnival ride, mechanical and passionless.
“You know what, why don’t you just come up here?”
“You don’t want me to keep going?” he asks, cocking his head.
“No, let’s just . . . get to it.”
“O-okay, if you’re sure.” Randy tries and fails to hide his excitement as he whips a condom out from his pocket then runs his clammy hands through his mop of hair. The same mop of hair I found so mysterious when we met over the summer at that Fourth of July party. The same mop of hair that shielded his hooded eyes while we threw back red, white, and blue Jell-O shots, while we ate corn on the cob with too much butter, while we swam in Goose Lake and watched illegal fireworks burst in the sky. The mop of hair I found so intriguing. So seductive. And that I now just find greasy.
“You need help with that?” I ask as Randy struggles to rip open the wrapper.
“Um, would you?”
He chucks it at me, I tear it open and chuck it back at him. He kicks off his boxers and discards them in the corner.
I close my eyes and start moving my hands down, imagining I’m somewhere else, somewhere with someone I connect with, someone who gets me and who I get. It’s a shame. For a second, I really thought Randy could be the guy. He’s quiet and moody. I figured that must mean he had thoughts so riveting that he couldn’t utter them out loud or he’d spoil them.
“Your tits are beautiful,” he says.
“Thanks.”
“So beautiful,” he repeats, mashing and squishing them between his fingers like a kid with a ball of Play-Doh. “Your whole body is . . .”
“Thanks,” I say again, hesitantly. Maybe it is beautiful, my body. I wouldn’t know, since in the two years that I’ve had this new version of it, I’ve been much more consumed with dealing with it than appreciating it. Shaving it or scraping it or strapping it in or exfoliating it or lathering it or shoving a coarse cotton plug into it. Always doing something to stop my body from doing what it wants to do. Oozing or bursting or bleeding, making too much hair in the wrong places and not enough in the right ones.
I’m not used to this new body yet, with these new curves and stretch marks and this unrecognizable silhouette. It’s like my smaller-framed, flatter-chested body could no longer contain all that was inside it, so it expanded to make room. Now my body’s ahead of my mind and my mind needs to catch up. Needs to realize this thing isn’t an Airbnb. This is home now. Even if it doesn’t feel like it yet.
“You ready?” Randy asks, eyes narrowing with a weird intensity. I want to remind him this isn’t Apollo 13. It’s a couple kids about to f*** on a twin-sized bed.
“Yeah,” I say in a wispy sex voice that I feel like I’m supposed to use.
Randy pumps into me with a staccato pump, pump, pump. Same as they all do. Or at the least the three boys I’ve f***ed, all of them with their boners and their closed comedones and their way of touching my body like they’re fumbling for their car keys. No passion, no bond. Just sweat and bumping and genitals. Body parts in body parts.
It’s not for lack of trying. They’re trying. I’m trying too. But no matter how much spit or cum, how much dry-humping or making out, going down or eating out, petting or edging, sex always falls short. Feels clunky and perfunctory. Clumsy and performative. A blatant reminder of the misshapen puzzle pieces that are private parts.
And afterward, they re-buckle their pants and I re-clasp my bra and accept in the awkward silence the itchy fact that I settled for pleasure when I wanted connection, an itchy fact that I refuse to scratch by saying it out loud, so instead we go and get ice cream.
Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m the problem. My mom called me hard to love when I was seven and the phrase always stuck with me even though she swore she didn’t mean it twenty minutes later, and by two days later she denied she’d ever said it at all.
“You heard me wrong,” Mom explained after I brought it up on our weekly trip to the Dollar Zone for processed foods (jumbo bags of Cheetos and SunChips, a jar of Skippy, and a couple boxes of Hamburger Helper that usually expired before they got used) and essentials (toothpaste and toilet paper and trash bags so thin they ripped if you filled them all the way up) and usually one novelty item Mom couldn’t resist (a cream for cracked feet or any product with the word “detoxifying” in it).
“I dunno, those don’t seem like easy words to mishear,” I said.
She popped a stick of Big Red in her mouth and chomped down on it.
“Well just cuz they’re not easy words to mishear doesn’t mean you didn’t mishear ’em.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s alright. But just know I never said that. Maybe I said you were a lot. Because you are. You need a lot and you are a lot. That’s me being honest, not mean. But never would I ever say you’re hard to love.”
Problem solved, I thought. I’m not hard to love, I just need a lot and am a lot. And then I grabbed a coloring book I wanted, but thought better of it and set it back on the shelf. Maybe wanting things is what makes me a lot. If I could just want less, I’d be the right amount of person. The amount I’m supposed to be. The not-a-lot amount. The easy-to-love amount.
It’s an approach I’ve taken with me into my three relationships, if you can call them that, which you probably can’t. I’ve tried to not ask for much, and to expect even less. I’ve tried to make them feel funny when they all say the same jokes, feel smart when they all have the same point of view, feel right when a quick Google search confirms that they’re not. I’ve tried to laugh on cue, smile on cue, compliment on cue. I’ve watered down my personality to a cardboard cutout version of myself, and I thought that was fine so long as my body showed up in 4D with bells and whistles, ready to grab and grope and lick and suck. But the more I try, the more I realize it’s not possible. A body can’t just connect on command, or find a spark that isn’t there, or force a nonexistent chemistry. You might be able to squeeze a couple of cheap thrills out of it, but eventually, the body says no more.
Like mine is saying to me right now.
“I’m gonna cum!” Randy shouts in my ear.
And he does. At least he did what he said he was gonna do. I can appreciate reliability, in any form.
He pulls out, panting. I glance at his nightstand—at his plate of pizza crusts that’s been sitting out the past few times I’ve been here and his dog-eared copy of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***, lying face up, like he’s proud of reading it. I scan the floating shelves on his wall, crammed with soccer trophies, and the trifecta of movie posters pinned up next to them: Scarface, Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction. The Holy Trinity. What is it about boys and these three movies? Always with these three movies.
“Do you ever feel like your body and mind are saying two different things?” I ask him.
“Um . . .” Randy says, staring at me dumbfounded. “No. Not really, no. Do you?”
“Me? No . . . not really,” I say. It’s unsettling how often agreement doubles as giving up.
Randy peels off the condom then flings it in the trash like it’s a slingshot, even squinting his eye for accuracy. He makes the shot at least. If you’re gonna sling your progeny into your trash can, you better make that shot. He snatches a dirty sock from the carpet and starts wiping himself off with it.
“Hey, Randy,” I hear myself saying while I shimmy into my jeans, my voice flat and distant.
“Mm-hmm?” he asks, still sopping up his cum with his own sock.
“I think we should . . .” I pause, trying to find the right words.
“Break things off?” he asks effortlessly, tossing his sock into his dirty clothes bin. “Honestly, I was kinda thinking the same thing . . .”
“Great.”
“Great, I’m glad we can be so mature about it,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. He falls back onto his bed and kicks one foot over the other, swiping open his phone to laugh at some video a friend sent.
“See you around,” I say over my shoulder as I head out.
“See you,” he says without looking up.
And that’s that. As unceremonious as a breakup could be. No tears shed. No why’s or I can change’s. Just a clean, simple break. Another cheap thrill crumpled up and chucked in the trash. Or, perhaps, sling-shotted.
