Mary Gaitskill - Because They Wanted To - Stories

“I don’t remember, but I’m sure it didn’t mean anything.” He removed his white coat with such agitation he got his wrist stuck in one sleeve.

“But people usually mean—”

“I don’t mean anything! I’m a very simple person! I’m bland and I have a low level of emotional vibrancy and I like it that way!” He wrested his wrist free, then frantically fooled with his tie.

“But—”

“Why are you always saying these strange things to me? What do you want? Why are you always talking about sex?”

“I’m not talking about sex right now. I—”

“I didn’t say you were! But you—you’re—I’m just trying to be—”

To her grief, she saw it was true: he was apoplectic with fear.

Oh, honey, she thought. Oh, darling.

“Call me tomorrow,” he said thickly. “I can’t talk anymore now.”

This incident made a very funny story. Everyone laughed when Jill told it a few nights later, at a dinner with Alex the magazine editor, his friend the television producer, and an assortment of writers eager for a free dinner and an assignment. Most of the people at the table knew each other only tangentially; they had been assembled through an acquaintance of the producer’s, on the grounds that they were the most interesting people in San Francisco.

“So at that point I was, like, this guy is kooky, so I just said goodbye and went to leave. And so he follows me out and holds the door for me and says, ‘Sorry I had to kick you out. But the rules are the rules.’ Referring, I suppose, to the automatic surveillance system.”

“He really does sound peculiar,” said Alex.

Alex and the television producer had come from New York on business. Most of the writers present were also “sex workers,” although one of them, an earnest bald woman, handed out cards advertising a therapy by which to recover from sex abuse. The television producer, a melancholy person with whom Jill once had a minor telephone flirtation, confided in her that Alex had arranged this dinner in order to meet Cindy, a determined and impish woman who published a stylish sex magazine. She had apparently written an article about anal sex which had gotten under his skin and provoked a correspondence. She seemed very nice, but Jill wondered why Alex couldn’t find anyone to have anal sex with in New York.

“Why do you like this guy?” Cindy asked. “Is he sexy in any way?”

“Not in the normal ways.” Jill imagined the dentist standing before these people, and the bewildered looks on their faces. “Except I could feel. . . I’m convinced he’s a secret pervert and that he just doesn’t know it yet.”

Cindy smiled appreciatively. “You think if you could just get him into a sling, he’d be fine?”

“No, I don’t think he’d ever actually get into a sling, whether he wanted to or not. I think he’d just keep getting into slinglike positions in inappropriate situations.” Jill had of course just described herself, but Cindy didn’t know that, so she laughed. Jill wondered how Cindy would’ve reacted if she’d said, “Because I thought he was kind.”

Several of the guests began to discuss the politics of the various strip clubs around town, one of them denouncing “those corporate strippers” who were really just middle-class girls who thought it was cool to be a sex worker. Someone else expressed disdain for those who said sex workers had all suffered child abuse and did such work as a result. Another got irritated over the negative portrayals of sex workers in the media. The woman to Jill’s left was muttering darkly about her desire to infect the water supply with chemicals that would sterilize the population.

Longingly, Jill thought of the dentist at home with his entertainment center. As if reading her mind, Alex said she should’ve invited the dentist to the dinner this evening. “He wouldn’t have come, of course. He would’ve driven up and down the street looking in the windows over and over again, wondering whether or not he should come in. It would’ve driven him crazy.”

“I don’t want to drive him crazy,” said Jill. “He’s shy, Alex.”

“Nonsense. Of course you want to drive him crazy. And in the long run you will. Because you touched his fear. Every time he sees anything you’ve written, he’ll think of you and twist a bit.”

“You think?”

“Oh, yes. Why do you think I put out a magazine? So that girls I’ve been with will see it and twist.” Alex’s voice as he said this was calm, but underneath was a muffled agitation that made Jill think of the dentist wresting his wrist out of his sleeve. It made Jill want to hold Alex and stroke his head. “I wanted him to pierce my genitals with needles,” she said dreamily. “It’s funny. That’s not something I usually fantasize about.”

“Was he wearing his white coat while he pierced you?”

“No. He was just George.” George with his glassy eyes, his cold lips, his jocular warmth held far away in a tiny place.

“That’s the trouble with your fantasies,” said Alex. “You haven’t got the right clothes.”

Meanwhile, someone made the argument that it would be awful if the “mainstream” ever came to truly accept whatever anybody might want to do sexually, because then sex wouldn’t be shocking anymore.

“That won’t ever happen,” said Jill. “Sex is too complicated, it means too many things to people. It connects to the dirt within, and there’s just too much dirt.”

“You’re wrong,” said the television producer. “It’s already happened, in San Francisco anyway.”

Their words were such announcements, yet Jill could barely feel the life in them. She tried to fixate on the dentist, but he only came to her in faint, cold wisps of idea. The woman next to her was describing a transvestite bar to which they might go after dinner. She said that when loathsome suburban men came to her strip shows expecting to buy sex, she sent them to this place as a joke, archly informing them that “the ladies” there would be pleased “to negotiate.” She was tall and full of disdain. Her long black hair was dull and fake, her eyes were made up huge and dark in her chalky face, her lips were full and dry; like a starved feral cat, she appeared both fierce and desperately unctuous, which was interesting with her disdainful affect. Jill thought she was beautiful and wanted to talk to her, but the woman’s words were harsh and so full of puzzling judgments that Jill was afraid of her. She looked down at the woman’s hands, which were delicate and looked strangely lost in their movements, the nails pathetically small and bitten. Jill put her own hand down on the table so that their wrists were touching. The woman let her wrist stay there, and Jill thought she could feel her through her skin. She did not feel harsh or disdainful; she felt like a tense animal, very fearful but also resourceful and curious, even rather innocent. Jill thought she could feel the woman sensing her back, as one animal sniffs another. But then she moved her hand.

Jill and Alex left at the same time. They stood on the street for some moments, chatting. He said that he had gone to a sex store to get toys in anticipation of his tryst with Cindy. He said he was going to tie her up, and he pulled a piece of black thong from his pocket, apparently thinking that Jill would want to see it. Jill thought that if she hugged him goodbye, it might generate feelings of warmth and friendship, but it only made her feel uncomfortable.

“I’m enjoying your discomfort,” he said.

“I’m glad someone is,” she answered.

They kissed each other goodbye. Alex got into a cab and sped away. As the evening was warm and mild, Jill decided to walk a little. Homeless people strolled about, pushing shopping carts full of hoarded things. Traffic ran and darted according to plan. She imagined the dentist driving up and down the street, staring at the restaurant, trying to glimpse the dinner party inside. She imagined his eyes moving back and forth as he turned his head away from the window and then looked back again. She was distracted by the sound of someone muttering. It was a man crouching on the sidewalk in dirty, wadded blankets. He glared at her. “If it’s a man, I’ll castrate him and stuff his balls in his mouth,” he said. “If it’s a woman, I’ll stick my fist up her cunt and fuck her dead.” Jill understood how he felt, but she still walked a few feet up before she stepped off the curb to hail a cab.