What the fuck . . .
— Oh my God, Lena, keep fucking me . . . I’m begging, as it feels so good. Really good. Fuck knows how she learned to use that dildo! My surfeited cunt is electrified, as my whole body tingles. — Make me . . . make me fucking come!
She stops, buried deep inside me. For one second all movement ceases; I can hear her breathing, ponderous and straining, then a popping as she suddenly pulls out, tearing part of my soul away with her.
— No . . . don’t stop . . .
She looks at me with a cruel expression and tells me, — You are such a sexy fucking bitch, I knew you wanted it, then she suddenly lunges at me again, throwing herself back on me, pushing that plastic power cock back into my starving pussy. But there’s no hip movement this time as she yanks up my T-shirt and bra, exposing my breasts. Her hands grope my tits hard, mangling them like a clumsy high-school boy desperate to shake off his virginity. Then she cups my breasts, pushing them together, her eyes wide in fascination. — Do you want me to
really
fuck you?
— Yes! I want to come! Make me fucking come, Lena. I squirm under her leg to try and get her to start fucking me hard again.
Lena just pinches my nipples tightly, provoking a pained yelp from me. — I think that’s what you want. But I wanna hear you fucking beg for it like the bitch you are! Beg!
— Lena . . . please . . . fuck me, it’s no joke . . . I need to come, I
really
need it more than anything . . . please fuck me!
She flashes the victor’s smile, then goes back to pounding me with her dildo, while stroking my clit in hard tight circles. As I grab handfuls of her ass with my free and shackled hands, the shock waves of orgasm tear through me. My hips shunt forward as my nails sink into her flesh. She lets out a gurgling sound as she’s climaxed too, as she stops fucking but stays inside me. Our faces are cheek to cheek, our rapid breathing subsiding into a gentler rhythm.
I could wrap either arm around her now, but I can’t move; I don’t want to move. Even some groggy minutes (hours? days?) later, when she’s getting up, and pulling her clothes on, I’m still immobilized. I hear her move over to a big brown paper bag full of polystyrene cartons. — Now you eat, Lena says.
I can’t even begin to move. I’m fucked and stuffed with sex. I manage to say, almost dreamily, — What purpose . . . what purpose does all this serve?
— I had to learn a lesson. And I did. But now you have to learn one too.
And I look up at Lena, and feel this tearful veil mist over my eyes. I get it. And I sit up and munch on this sugar- and fat-filled, carb- and calorie-laden shit, and I do it in gratitude and love.
— Good girl, Lena coos.
As I’m forcing it down, Lena suddenly takes the burger from my hand. Lays it down. Then she’s holding me in her arms. I don’t know why. Then I realize that it’s because I’m shaking and crying. — Let it go, she whispers. — Let it all go.
I look up at her. — She’s gonna die, that Amy chick, the twin, yeah?
— It looks that way, she says, and clicks on the TV. Professor Rex Convey is condemning the forthcoming operation as barbaric. — It is nothing more or less than murder. The plans to film this procedure on television as some kind of reality show are sick and depraved. Is this what we’ve become? Televising the medical execution of one young young woman, while we sing in triumph that the other gets to lead a normal life?
Lena shakes her head, switching over to a news program. Several pundits are discussing Guantánamo Bay. Suddenly, a breaking news bar appears, flashing at the bottom of the screen.
CONJOINED TWINS OPERATION CANCELLED . . . ANNABEL WILKS PULLS OUT . . .
Lena and I look at each other in bemusement. The Botoxed TV anchor cuts off a speaker who’s talking about terrorism, and says, — Obviously important ramifications for civil liberties in this country. But we have to stop there, in order to give you a sensational update on the development of the Arkansas conjoined twins story. Annabel and Amy Wilks are sixteen-year-old conjoined twins, and after differences between them, they agreed to a risky separation procedure, where Amy’s chances of survival were estimated at a high of 40 percent and a low of 10 percent by differing experts. Now Annabel, the dominant twin, expected to recover fully and live a normal life, has pulled out of the operation, scheduled to take place in a few weeks’ time. Antoinette Mellis reports from Yellowtree County, Arkansas.
They cut to this leafy glade and the Wilks house. The cloying voice-over: — Amy and Annabel Wilks are normal teenagers, but with a difference. They are literally tied to each other. Like all teenagers, they quarrel and fight sometimes, and decided, after a falling-out over a boy, that they would go their separate ways. Now Annabel, the twin who stands to have a normal life, has called time on the dangerous separation procedure.
We cut to the girls, rocking on their swing seat on the porch. Annabel looks at Amy. — I’d rather have Amy with me every day of my life, than never see her again and be so-called normal. God made us this way, and we was meant to live together, not to die apart.
Amy looks back at Annabel. — I love her more than I can say.
— She showed me she was ready to die so that I could have a normal life, Annabel tears up, as the camera moves toward her in close-up, — but there ain’t no such thing as a normal life for me without her in it.
— I guess we had to remember that we are different, Amy says. — That it can’t be just about one of us and somebody else.
— It has to be about the two of us, Annabel says, a serene glow in her eyes. — I need her and she needs me. It ain’t easy, and life is a big mystery, but one thing’s for sure, it’s gonna take us both to work it out together.
I look back at Lena. — I really do need to stay here a while, don’t I? I ask her.
— Yes, I think you do, she says.
THANKSGIVING YESTERDAY WAS
so stiflingly hot—even after the sun had gone down—that a cooling downpour would have been greeted with hallelujahs, despite our atheist–agnostic household. Even through the air conditioning, you could feel the dense gravity pulling your bones into the couch. The sky had threateningly rumbled and drummed, without delivering on its loud promise, but, finally, the heavens opened in the night. The lightning flashes, X-raying the bedroom, and the thunderous sound of the air crumpling didn’t bother me, at least not directly, but I could feel Lucy writhing in the clammy sheets, almost in time with nature’s brutal music.
Time to get up and steal a few hours before Mom and Dad rise. Dammit, why do old people never sleep?! When I think of them it’s always with such intense guilt: how can you love somebody on a deep level with every fiber of your being, yet be so desperate not to become them?
Thankfully, Lucy is now soundly in dreamland, her stiff mouth half open, nostrils flaring with every breath. As I rise, she turns into the space I’ve vacated in the bed with a slightly truculent murmur. I put on my sports bra, silky sleeveless shirt, shorts, sneakers, and tie my hair back, threading my ponytail through a Twins baseball cap.
Slipping outside, I’m pounding the dawn pavements, heading south by the bay, enjoying the cool breeze on my arms and shoulders before that oppressive sun comes up. The air has the scent of wet pavement, as vines of mist weave up from the sidewalk.
It’s nice having my parents down, but they’re totally lost here in Miami. I practically had to buy them both a new wardrobe when they arrived. I don’t think my dad has ever owned a pair of shorts in his life. Mom looks a lot better having shed that darned weight, though there’s still plenty of work to do. It’s not always easy being around them, although we have a better relationship than ever, and it’s all thanks to Lucy and her emails! The irony!
That’s what all that weird business a couple of years back has taught me: don’t avoid a problem, meet it head-on. But while Mom and Dad can be very demanding time-wise, I’m delighted that Thanksgiving at Tom and Mona’s passed without incident, especially after last year’s trauma. With the added factor of my own parents being present, I’d been concerned, but it was Lucy who told
me
to chill, said I was trying too hard. I swear, we become more like each other every day!
God, how I
love
to run. There are practically no cars on the road, so I’m finding a nice rhythm in both pace and breathing, as I skip over another set of lights. When you get into this sort of stride, you feel the tension leaving your body, which is so invaluable at this time of year, Thanksgiving being so complicated. After last year’s debacle (Mona and Lucy fought), I felt like suggesting to Lucy that we should just blow it out and head over to the Bahamas, leaving Nelson with Tom and Mona for a few days. She’d never have agreed, though: that kid was such a game-changer. I have to tread warily on that issue, but it’s true, as his birth mother Lucy is much more protective of him. I’m like the fun dad. Also, she’s been on a big downer since Marge Falconetti’s funeral last month. That poor woman ate herself to death after she stopped going to the gym. As Marge was her client, Lucy’s taken it really hard.
The finest darned thing about having a kid, though, is that you’re so busy cleaning up after them, you don’t have time to dwell on all the other bullshit life throws your way!
The sun is coming up over the bay and I can see the Wynwood art and design district across the bridge. It was big fun over there a few weeks ago, Lucy and I partying (the first time for her since Nelson came along) at a function after my exhibition at the new Miami branch of the GoToIt gallery. My exhibition was a huge hit in New York, and now it’s pulling in the crowds down here. I really do owe Jerry tons.
I turn back up West Street toward home, cutting over Alton, getting into the 30s, skipping past the scalped saw-grass verges, already turning a darker green after last night’s rain.
Bliss, the house is still quiet! I mix a banana-and-peanut-butter protein shake and think of Lucy, the morning’s ruminations crystalizing into a nagging desire to speak with her.
I hear her laughing from another part of the house, and find her still in our room, sitting in the lotus position on the bed, watching that new weight-loss show, the hybrid of
The Bachelor
and
The Biggest Loser
. It’s called
There’s a Date in There Somewhere
. Simon Andrews, a wealthy young Connecticut stockbroker, has worked with their training and fitness expert Michelle Parish, to take, as the host says, “four morbidly obese women and turn them into the highly datable, and extremely
marriable
lovelies you see before you today.”
Simon arches a brow, and looks painfully sincere as he faces the four girls. “I should have been flattered, Patti, when you said that my love would stop you gaining back the weight. But that comment set off alarm bells. I’m sorry, Patti, but you do it for
you
. You’re missing the point of the program. It says to me that, despite the slim, hot body, you are still a fat girl inside. I’m going to have to let you go.”
As Patti breaks down in tears, Lucy pulls on a Bruins ice hockey shirt. — Check this shit! That Michelle Parish is such a bitch!
I kiss her and she playfully grabs my ass, without diverting her attention from the screen. I head to the office to check my emails. There are quite a few but one grabs my attention: the bill of sale has gone through on
The New Man
sculpture. A surge of elation hits me as I realize that we’re rich again! Stinking fucking rich! I open the attachment, print off a copy of the contract, sign it, scan it, and email it right back to the agents. It’s done!
Euphoria is quickly displaced by a pang of loss.
The New Man
is my best and most personal work and he’s leaving me. I suddenly have the urge to spend as much time with him as possible, before he’s shipped off to his new resting place. So I go outside to the studio.
I find him as I always do, crouching down, looking up, almost doglike in his posture. I walk around him, studying, from different angles, his frozen, stupefied expression, like he’s trying to figure it all out. Yes, by far my finest creation. I draw the blinds, shutting out the stream of light, and put on the video presentation of the Everglades, creating that swampy environment around him. That was Lucy’s idea, and it really works. The speakers rumble with the squawks of birds and the wind brushing through the mangrove bushes. I sit there in the blacked-out darkness, suddenly full of fear for my invention, wanting to put the lights back on, or open the blinds.
The New Man
suddenly looks angry, resentful, like he might pounce on me and tear me to pieces. I rise and yank the dark drapes apart, blinking as the cascading light floods through the workshop and bathes my exhibit, lulling him back to serenity.
LENA’S BEEN FOR
a run and I’m watching repeats of crap on TV. Now she’s off again, presumably to steal some working time at the studio. She never stops. I can remember when I had that kind of juice.
My weight’s gone down again, though it’s hard to get motivated. I’m 147, which is far from ideal, but better than the 200 she made me go up to in order to learn my lesson. Well, it was more like 199.5 and I drank a lot of fluid for the weigh-in on the scale that day, but we didn’t split hairs. Lena had begged me to stop and had actually unchained me a few days earlier (some people are just not cut out for hostage-taking), but I insisted on staying to the end.
I get off the bed, and pick up my laptop. I turn it on and look back at my blog, reliving the craziness and the pain.
Ate the last of the candies, then instantly craved a burger and fries to obliterate the sickly sweetness. But once I had that, I knew I would want more candy. So I glugged back the last bottle of Bud, lining them up like soldiers, feeling its lush kick augment the dim, fuddled charge the others had built up. I thrashed at my chain. “IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?! MOTHERFUCKERS! COME TO ME, COME ON TO ME AND I’LL TEAR YOUR FUCKING SLIMY EYES OUTTA YOUR PUSSY HEADS!”