Mary Gaitskill - Two Girls, Fat and Thin

“He’s a shrink, not an animal trainer,” muttered Justine.

Her mother gripped the wheel more tightly and didn’t answer.

Perhaps Dr. Venus hadn’t repeated what she’d told him. Or perhaps he’d repeated it glowingly, seeing in her confession evidence that she was normal after all. Slowly, Justine’s images of punishment and drama decomposed, leaving a bewildering cloud of half-formed feelings in their wake. She sat in the uneasy silence of this cloud, relieved but unnerved.

A few days later, her mother told her they were going to end her sessions with Dr. Venus because it seemed she had recovered. Justine felt angry but, as she had always resented and complained of being forced to see Dr. Venus, she didn’t feel she could protest being forced not to see him. But after telling Dr. Venus those things about herself, she didn’t want to stop seeing him. She didn’t see how he could be sitting there knowing all those things about her and not be seeing her. It was like being on the verge of consummating your love and then being snatched from the arms of your loved one and borne out the door. She began to dream about him. Sometimes he would be standing on the periphery of the action, watching her with a mysterious, caring expression. In other dreams he played a more central role, such as the time he stood watching, fatherly and encouraging, while Justine had sex with Rick on his office couch. She had told him her secrets, and he had understood her — or had he? Perhaps he had been the one to end the sessions because he found her stories repugnant. No, she thought. The look on his face had spoken only of understanding and acceptance.

She wasn’t trusting enough of his understanding and acceptance to call him and see if it was still there. But it haunted her and she ached to experience it again.

She was at Watley’s house, in Watley’s bed with Watley, a pale fluffy comforter pulled up to their chests. They ate from a box of chocolates, some of which had ladies’ faces imprinted on them, and talked about sex. Watley was saying how unfortunate it was that it couldn’t always be like the first time, that possibly it got boring after a while.

“Watley,” said Justine, “I didn’t like the first time very much.”

“But wasn’t it very passionate?” asked Watley. “Wasn’t it an animal passion kind of experience? I thought it sounded incredible.” There was a subtle but firm insistence in her voice; Justine ignored it.

“I made it sound that way,” she said, “because I didn’t want to tell you the truth.”

Watley sat back and looked at her with wide impassive eyes, mouth serenely chewing a chocolate.

“I don’t even know if he wanted to do it with me in particular. It was my idea and I think he went along with it because naturally he wanted to have sex with somebody.” The truth of this stung her for the first time. “And at the last minute I didn’t want to do it but I couldn’t get out of it. And it really hurt.” This was not like it had been in Dr. Venus’s office at all. This hurt too, and to Justine’s fright she began to cry. “It wasn’t in my bed either,” she said in a trembling voice. “It was on the floor of the garage.”

“He raped you!” cried Watley.

“No,” said Justine, now really crying for the first time in years. “No, that’s not what happened.”

Like with Rick, it was too late to stop and she told the story in all its terrible physicality. “God,” said Watley, “God!” When it was finished Justine did not feel the warmth and mutuality which she had felt with Dr. Venus. She felt uncomfortable and resentful of Watley without knowing why. She snorted prettily, sucked in some tearrelated snot, and ate another chocolate.

It was hard for her to call Watley again after that, and an entire week passed without Watley calling her. She finally called Watley, not because she wanted to talk but to be reassured that Watley was still her friend. Watley sounded happy and relieved to hear from her. But when they saw each other, Justine felt discomfort bud between them.

School began. Watley spent most of her time with the enslaved Donald. She and Justine talked on the phone and sat together on the radiator before home room; the discomfort burgeoned. Once Justine saw Watley walking in the hall in friendly conversation with Justine’s enemy, Becky Tootle! And when Watley saw that Justine saw them, her face became first guilty, then subtly contemptuous, then friendly. “Hi, Justine!” they cried.

One day Justine was in the bathroom applying Erace to the dark circles under her eyes in the silent, bright-eyed company of two mascara-wielding girls. Justine rounded the corner to leave the bathroom, opened the door, and then paused in the short foyer to dig into her purse, letting the door sigh shut without going through it.

“God, can you believe the garage floor?” said one voice.

“And Watley says she told her that she had to drag him in there, that he wasn’t even interested,” said the other.

“No wonder they made her see a shrink. I don’t know how Watley can stand her.”

“She can’t.”

Justine walked out of the bathroom and down a long hall out an exit door into the parking lot. The smell of cars in the sun rose around her. She walked through the parking lot into a stunted huddle of foliage and trees where boys often gathered to smoke. She walked with her arms around her middle feeling loneliness and humiliation coupled with the sensation that she was, at this moment, absolutely herself.

Her parents got divorced that winter. They told her of their decision during a long drive that had been taken for that purpose. “Whatever happens,” said her father, “whatever unpleasant things we might say to one another during this time, you must know: your mother and I still love each other. And you, Justine. Relationships may not last. But love goes on forever.” His voice vibrated in the dry car air. A large muscle in her mother’s jaw twitched in smothered anger; her mother’s chapped fingers toyed with an errant strand of hair. They silently passed a snowy field in which some beautiful black-and-white cows posed.

Justine waited for the unpleasant things to be said, but they never came. Less and less was said at all as the household felt itself inexorably rearranged by the invisible machinations of papers being processed. The sharp gaze of her father’s eyes was focused somewhere far away, and his confident morning cough seemed to apologize for its confidence. Strange bottles of medication with her mother’s name on them appeared in the medicine cabinet. Her mother’s features seemed to be trying to draw themselves into the center of her face. The voice of the television followed Justine from room to room.

Her relationship with Watley had shriveled to saying “Hi” as they passed one another in the hall. Watley’s face would open for a second to allow Justine into her world, her eyes would briefly acknowledge the role Justine had played in it, and then her face would close again. Justine did not make other friends, beyond joking and talking with the skinny raspy-voiced boys who smoked cigarettes behind the parking lot. Her loneliness was painful yet it was strangely satisfying to her; in the same way that she had acutely felt her own presence at the moment of her betrayal by Watley, she now felt herself in her aloneness, and she savored herself bitterly.

When her father moved away to live in a large apartment in Ann Arbor, her loneliness drew her closer to her mother. During the divorce her mother had become swollen, dull-eyed, and unbeautiful. Justine looked at her and thought: this is what it means to be a grown woman. Fleshy, jowly, expensive clothes over big haunches, red veins in the hooded eyes, makeup in the facial creases. Her mother exercised still, and her pelvis and belly were strong and sturdy, full of deep sounds and smells, yet ugly and coarse, helpless and rejected in their ugly strength. Justine looked at her and wanted to be delicate and weak forever, never to have that strong womanly flab packed around her hips and thighs. She never wanted to make the slight grunting noise her mother made when she bent to lift a heavy object, a noise that briskly drew up her ugly pelvic energy and helped her do the things that had to be done. She closed her mouth and held her diaphragm still, shutting the door to her own lower body whenever she heard her mother make this noise for any reason.