Neighborly(36)
Fake it till you make it. That’s what Dr. Morrison told me. She wasn’t talking about sex, but it can apply here, too. You put one foot in front of the other and you smile and eventually, you get where you need to be, and your smile is genuine. She knew what she was talking about. I’m here, aren’t I?
Doug’s hands migrate to my breasts, which feel more like udders these days, and I just have to hope my nipples will get hard. But instead, they get slippery. Oh no. This is mortifying. I’m leaking milk.
But Doug puts his mouth on them and begins to suck, gently. Is that loving? Or is it gross? I can’t even tell.
I grab him, doing the strokes I know he likes. He lets out a moan, with my nipple still clenched between his lips. I can tell he needs this, desperately. He needs me.
That does it. Now I’m a little wet.
I shift so that my breasts are my own again, and I put his hand between my legs. I want him to feel what he’s doing to me, and he moans again. I tell myself what I need to hear:
He wants me bad.
He’ll die if he can’t be inside me.
He’s dying for me.
He couldn’t want anyone like he wants me.
But behind my closed eyes, I can see them: the women on the block, the regulars. Each face is transposing itself, one after the other. Tennyson to Yolanda to June to Gina (what’s she doing here? She doesn’t even have sex) to Andie to Raquel, here in this bed, with Doug. I can see what they’d do to him, and for him, and they’d do it better than I can.
My eyes fly open. It’s just Doug and me here. Nothing (and no one) to worry about. So what if people were standing a little too close to other people’s husbands at the block party. That was, what, five minutes? Ten at most? It was a long party. Everyone had had a lot to drink.
Those women trust each other. That means they’re trustworthy, and they want to be my friends. I want to be theirs.
Does your husband know?
No, he doesn’t know that the only way I can feel pleasure is through his pleasure. He doesn’t know that my desire was co-opted, made approval-based, and I’ve never found my way out of that.
One of the most shameful parts of my experience with Layton was that I liked seducing him. I was a good student, and I studied him well. Dr. Morrison helped me see that was why he chose little girls, that he was grooming us to be his servants. He wasn’t trying to make me happy; he was teaching me to make him happy. He’d turned me into a little fembot, my own desire secondary to the man’s, and honestly, I’ve never been able to find my way out of that. No matter how many times I try to masturbate or rediscover my body or verbalize my own desires, it just doesn’t seem to work.
Layton’s programming has held, even in my relationship with Doug, where I know I’m loved and that he wants me to be satisfied sexually. He asks me what I like, but I have no good answer. So sometimes, I just have to playact. I have to fake it and hope I’ll make it. But afterward, even if I manage to come, I feel sad and alone, because I know that Layton’s ruined me.
Doug’s rock-hard. Decisions have to be made.
I mount him. It’s conventional, but it works. It turns Doug on, which turns me on for at least a little while. I let out the right accompanying noises as we move in tempo. Riding a husband is like riding a bike.
Don’t think about bikes.
Does your husband know?
I move deeper and harder. I need to hear Doug. I need to know how he feels about this, and about me.
His noises become louder and more guttural. There’ve been times when he practically spoke in tongues, but that was long ago.
The only orgasms I ever have are simultaneous ones. When he comes, when I know I’ve satisfied him completely, that’s when I’m most fulfilled. That puts me over the edge. But if you’re going to fake an orgasm, that’s the time to do it. When he’s otherwise occupied.
I just keep seeing them. The women. My competition.
No, my friends.
Doug is starting to explode. “Oh God, Kat, Jesus, I fucking . . . love you . . . Oh fuck . . .” Like a bout of Tourette’s.
I want to be right there with him, but those women . . .
I can’t let them get in the way. Or am I the one in my own way?
CHAPTER 12
I’m outside, breaking down boxes, preparing for tomorrow’s early morning trash pickup. The weather is perfect, and Sadie’s lying beside me, burbling in her car seat. She’s happy, and that’s all that matters.
As I flatten a box, I notice its label, with my name and address on it. And I realize: I left evidence in every neighbor’s trash can.
My actions that morning had been so spontaneous that it hadn’t occurred to me to rip labels off or even take a marker to them. So no one had to actually see me. They could have gone out in the early morning with some last-minute rubbish and noticed that their cans were fuller than the night before. They pulled out the cardboard for the dining room chairs and the perpetrator’s information was right there, in plain sight.
Not that this is about the trash anymore, but maybe that’s what got the ball rolling or was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Pick your cliché.
Don’t worry, people, I feel like broadcasting. From here on out, my trash and recycling are going in my own can. I’ll keep my side of the street clean, literally and figuratively.