The first time we sleep together, he doesn't take off all of his clothes.
It's the infancy of July, and in the South that means its winter. But the sky is clear, and the sunlight burns the skin on my legs where my skater skirt cuts off. He carries the tote bag with three days' worth of clothes and toiletries. It's my first relationship, and my first sleep over. What do you pack to a sleepover at your boyfriend's? Soap. A lot of soap. Lotion. Toothbrush. I'm chewing the idea that I didn't pack any toothpaste around in my mouth while we cross the street from the Convenience store where I work. The road is quiet. Clear.
This is the first time I'm going to be intimate with someone. Emotionally. Sexually. And somehow, I don't feel anything. I'm high off of the bottle of pain medication I used to sleep through the headache I got from my father's funeral the previous weekend. There's not much happening for me emotionally. In that moment, I'm at a place where I want someone to reach out to me. But I'm too tired to make the landing softer for someone else. For the first time in my life, I'm not concerned about preserving someone else's feelings. He's already my boyfriend, the worst he can do is leave me...
At the apartment he shares with his mother and seventeen-year-old brother, he doesn't tell me about the cat. She's beautiful: milk white with caramel markings that curl around her delicate features, sea glass eyes. He closes the door and pushes me down on the couch, and our eyes meets. The cat and mine. Her stare is piercing, but welcoming. He kisses my mouth, and I wish he would kiss my neck instead. The way he kisses, it tells me that me being here must mean something to him. But I'm struggling to access the same emotion. Rather, I am mesmerized by his cat. Ask him what her name is while mouth is seeking its salvation against mine. He mutters something I can't hear. I don't have the chance to ask him to repeat it.
He gets up from the couch, exchanges my tote bag for his work bag. I watch him take off on his skateboard through the window's, locked inside a house with a cat that's name I don't know. A non-place. And I am a non-person. The cat curls into a milky puddle against my arm while I look out the window, frosty fur prickling my skin.
I wander into the kitchen, pulling at the doors of the cupboards. Inside the fridge, there's a dozen eggs and half a block of cheese. Golden syrup in the cupboard. I take a bite of the cheese and then make two slices of sweet French toast. Drizzle the syrup so thick, my heartrate jumps when I take the first bite. Nothing about this moment feels indulgent... Did I think it would feel monumental somehow because everything was my firsts. All this time, was I the one tricking myself into believing that it didn't matter, and that I felt nothing when I secretly was hoping for something more? What did more mean? Sex? That seemed like the natural progression of romantic relationships. But, somehow, this conclusion flattened the experience. It dissolved the nuance of human connection...
The cat meowed at my ankles while I ate, and I feed her, too. I'm stand on the balcony until he returned from work. Was I waiting? And if so, who was I waiting for. The only answer I have to this question is that I wasn't expecting him. But he joined me outside, curling his body around me. Seeking. Did I have anything within myself to give? I pushed him off.
What did you do all day? He accessed the plate in the sink. Didn't you even have anything to eat?
I wasn't hungry. The hunger I experience in that moment is akin to the yearning for intimacy. I think: You're the kind of boyfriend who asks whether I've already eaten. I want the kind of boyfriend who makes sure that I eat. The kind of partner who doesn't miss the moments that brings to people closer in a relationship. Bedtimes. First times...
We get into bed without dinner.
He turns off the lights and pulls at my clothes. The hoodie I'm wearing pushed up underneath my arms. Is this what I wanted? The lights off, clothes still on. What kind of relationship was this? The transaction between a customer and service provider? Was I the service provider? Who was I? I pushed him away, turning on my stomach. He takes this as an invitation. Lays his clothes body down on mine, pants around his ankles. Take it off, he says to me, mouth seeking mine. Kiss my neck, I think. I beg. Open up to me. Hold me. All you ever do is lay yourself down on me. Extract from me. I am empty, too. Pour into me.
I am seeking, and I meet the cat's eyes. He forgot to close the door. She meows soundlessly in the doorway, milk white body a flash of lighting in the dim of his bedroom. Moving through the blackness. Seeking, too. Perhaps.
Are you going to keep your pants on? He seemed startled by my question. And the light... Why did you turn off the light?
It's fine like this.
I want the lights back on! The cat screams from somewhere in the corner of the room, reaching for me. What are you trying to say, I think. Who are you trying to access? Do you know if this is what first times are supposed to look like? Will he continue to keep his body a secret from me? Why won't he touch me? But he wants me bear. Is the body only for entertaining? For using? Does it serve no purpose other than this?
I want to enjoy you, I think. I want to enjoy myself. This is room is closed to intimacy. The door is wide open, but the room is closed. I am underneath the skin of a sick and twisted joke. Someone fickle that pulls at my hair and doesn't make a sound in bed. Someone who holds my body down and performs sex onto it. How do I wake up from this stupor? I am not being violated, through the performance of sexuality, it is almost as if I am being violated by the indignity that is being done onto my own sexuality. I am underneath a man, and I am indignant. I realize in the moment that those two things can be true at once.
I...but I don't want the lights on, he says to me instead. And I hate myself for it, but I don't fight him. Things are already going his way. Fighting feels like committing to a losing battle. I let him violate me, in the dark. Inside the vast darkness where touch becomes an aggressive performance of gender roles. I am loud: To say, he doesn't even make a sound. I am a roleplay game where the objective is to organize a stealthy invasion of the enemy. During sex, a woman and a man becomes enemies. And only one of them are adequately prepared for this invasion.
The man gets to maintain his dignity through a clothed performance, and the woman loses her honor on merit of subscribing to the display. Like the eyes meeting another pair, unwilling and sea glass, in the damp across the room.