A. Homes - The End of Alice

Shoulders, out from the neck in an even line across the top of the torso, a T square of knobby bone protrusions, prehistoric finds marking the development of man. The torso itself is still reed thin, the pecs barely rounded; she suspects his nipples are like flat, pale dimes, and near the hips there is the faintest ring of baby fat about to stretch into a man’s wide rope of muscle. He is twelve and a half and on the verge, ripe. His chin is smooth and clean, cheeks barely fuzzed, and his hair falls in odd locks down to his eyebrows, which are coming in nicely, firm and steady. His eyes are green and slightly unfocused.

“What’s your name?” she asks. Until now, this has never mattered, and even now it only gives title to something. It’s the decorative and crowning touch, like the little plastic clown heads a baker’s assistant sticks on cupcakes. In situations like this when you finally have the name, you have the heart, the soul. Without ever touching, she is exploring him, feeling things, seeing how he will lie against her, gauging his weight, the sharpness of his bones.

“Matthew,” he says. “Matthew,” he repeats, as if to be sure he’s gotten it right.

So many virginities to lose.

Prison. Clayton comes, in a strangely good mood. Mostly his countenance is that of a miserable soul, someone so sorry that he can hardly walk or talk. Now, he comes smiling — behind him, Henry hovers in the doorway. They are both smiling, smelling of sweet smoke, stoned.

Henry sees me working and laughs. “A regular writer,” he says. “Fiction or non? Memoir? Am I in it?”

“Crossed out,” I say, and he goes off down the hall calling, “Caps for sale, caps for sale.”

Clayton fills the room, his muscles swollen, heated from his hours with the weights, his shoulders, back, and neck hard and hot — and more than anyone has a right to ask for. He smiles, face breaking into the thin lines that define his dimples, his this and that. I see the Princeton boy, the glamour-puss. I smile back.

He fixes a makeshift curtain over the door.

I am on the bed.

“There, like that,” he says, although I haven’t moved.

Upon my arrest, I immediately began to prepare myself for events such as these. In the holding cell, I forced myself to think of the interior, of penetration, of what it feels like to pierce the cavity, to plunge, to plow, to be held at the center of things. Awaiting legal counsel, awaiting the announcement of the arrival of my fate, I continued to prepare myself, again and again, never sure what would happen, when it would happen, but convinced that it would happen, that it was an inevitable element, a piece of my punishment. Fucked. My fingers toyed with the rough edge of my asshole; there was none of the slippery warmth, the buried angle, of a girl’s hole — only a puckered drop of dung hung unceremoniously fixed behind my balls. I tried to push the finger through because it seemed one should practice, one should be prepared. I met with full resistance, but continued. The body rejected and simultaneously wrapped itself around the first inch of my finger; the nail scratched and I withdrew the digit and brought it to my mouth. The taste was hearty, rich, surprising because it was so unlike the flavor of my jailers’ food. One would have half-expected the strange bleached-white absence of flavor, texture, essence. I sucked the finger to soften the nail, then bit it down to the pink, wet it good, and reinserted it, this time getting to the knuckle.

I thought of my girls and their unsuspecting parts. Surprised, temporarily taken aback, horrified by my inspection, but always beneath the gentility of my touch, the firmness of my hand, my tongue, my member, they surrendered. Slowly, they allowed themselves to be laid out, spread. They responded with detachment, separated from themselves. It took months of careful cultivation to get them to engage in the repartee — to have them voluntarily hook their legs around my back, to have them not pull away as I slide my hand up and under their little dresses, curling my fingers into their underpants. There was one who was reaching for me within two weeks. She would lower my zipper as we sped along the interstates, putting her mouth over me — little snake charmer. I soon left her by the side of the road with the sick and frightening feeling of having created a monster, worried for the life of the unsuspecting trucker who would likely pick up the hitchhiking and precocious nymph. Cunnus Diaboli.

I am on the bed, my knees bent into a desk, a book against my thighs. Clayton takes the book and thoughtfully closes it so that the dust jacket marks my place. He puts a hand on each of my knees and leans forward as though he is about to perform a circus trick, a balancing act, flying on my knees like the airplane rides we all give each other as children. But as I am at that age where the distinct and hard pressing of interest, impatience, and passion comes across more as pain than excitement, I pull away. He leans and tries to kiss me. I turn my head. The kiss lands on the side of my cheek near my ear. He tries again. It is against the rules (our rules) that Clayton kiss me, he knows that, but because he is in such a rare and good mood, I don’t say anything — a good mood is such a fragile thing. Already by turning away, I’m sure I’ve challenged it, but I couldn’t not turn, it would have been too out of the ordinary, it would give away my own sad state of mind.

Clayton is kissing my face and neck, at first tenderly and then harder and wetter; all of it causes me to draw back, to pull up inside myself. If it were a single kiss, I think I might be able to enjoy it, but these, too furious and frequent, are filled with a strange and hurried panic. He is kissing and kissing me, lapping at me and now kicking my knees out from under so that he is firmly on top of me. I feel his length, his weight. I feel his care in trying not to crush me and take it to be a gesture toward my years— my soon-to-be infirmity. I raise my hips off the bed as he unzips my trousers and pulls them down. He does the same with my underwear, everything to the ankles, and then reaches back and takes my shoes off. They drop to the floor, two heavy clunks; the echo I’m sure is an announcement up and down the hall that I’m being had again. Clayton pulls his T-shirt off, the muscles ripple. His left nipple is pierced and through it he wears his leaf from the Ivy Club, his Princeton dining affiliation. He stands, takes his pants down, and lays them out carefully on the floor. This is a man who can’t be read, can’t be understood, a man who if he were so inclined could kill me in a split second — a feature that undoubtedly adds an unarticulated element of excitement. He is three-quarters hard. Even though I thought I wouldn’t — could never — I do enjoy looking at him. It is like seeing one’s self, like seeing one’s self with a certain sense of remove. He takes a tube of (bartered) jelly from his pocket and spreads my legs; his hands on the insides of my thighs, prying, pulling until my legs unlock — this is something still difficult to do voluntarily, without help, encouragement. He squirts jelly onto his fingers, rubs it for a moment to warm it, then slides one or two digits into my ass, greasing the path; sometimes his other hand is on my belly when he does this, sometimes he is pulling on my cock, but today he jiggles my balls and laughs. I see him getting harder. This is not exactly punishment; it is not torture. It is an experience I deserve (need). I am the woman. I lie here and he fits himself into me. In order to survive I must relax. I feel him inside. I feel him against my entrails and am, as always, most impressed. I think of the ones I have been in— the flash of terror as the nine-by-two-inch wonder wand is about to be crammed into the half-inch hole. I breathe.