Jowita Bydlowska - Guy

“It is. And it’s okay. You’re throwing a tantrum. But you’re right. You probably have lots of people to be proud of you. So I’m just going to be proud independently if that’s okay.”

She sighs. “Yeah.”

“Why are you here?” I say, even though I’m afraid. What’s the worst answer she could give? She’s curious. That’s the worst answer. Nothing else. Or she’s cruel. That’s a bad answer, too. Pulling wings off a fly.

She says nothing for a while. “Why did you plead guilty?”

“Why?”

The guard is watching us again. Or watching her. To him, the red dress probably signals all kinds of things. She wants it . She wants him . Only sluts wear red.

I was guilty. Not of raping her, but of betraying myself. I’m not here because of my nature, like the pedophile in the cell across from me, or the granny rapist. I’m here because I went against my nature. I am also here because I liked going against my nature.

I called Gloria from here once. She was hysterical. I should appeal. Could she contact Thomas the lawyer? She’d never stopped loving me! I couldn’t calm her down. “Why are you so fucked up? What are you, some kind of masochist? You’re not a masochist! You only think of yourself,” she shouted.

She was confused. I had to hang up.

I think of my dream from long ago, running through the forest. My face smeared with blood, my feet turned into hairy paws sinking into mossy ground. I was hunting. No. I was being hunted. Em catching up with me and sinking her teeth into my artery. Gotcha .

I could free myself. Protest my innocence like a stupid little bitch. Call in favours: Gloria, the Grey Campaign people, $isi. Character witnesses. Petitions. My passion for good causes. My selflessness. My martyrdom. We could find holes in Em’s setup. Proof it was consensual. No tears in vaginal walls, no bruises on the insides of her thighs.

I want to say things to her. It was all for you .

“Fifteen minutes!” the guard yells.

“How is Dolores?” I say

Em sits up straight, her shoulders pushing back. There’s a slight twitch in the corner of her mouth. “We’re not friends anymore. But she’s okay. I think.”

“You’re not friends.”

“She dropped out of school after she met you, after the accident, and went to a loony bin for a bit and came back and got engaged and married some loser. She never left our hometown. The end. I was so mad at her. I blamed you, but I was also mad at her, if you need to know.”

“Has she said anything about –”

“Nope. She just moved on. We never really talked. She met her idiot husband in the psych ward. I went to her wedding and the baby shower. And then we lost touch. That’s all.”

I wish I could slide right next to her. She sits with her elbows on the table. Oh, to touch those elbows. Feel their hardness.Take her head in my hands. Force her to look at me.

“Was she in on it?”

Em shakes her head. “God, no.”

Sometimes I imagined both of them plotting. The two of them sitting on their girly beds. $isi blasting on the speakers. Newspaper clippings about me strewn around. Lots of giggling. A pile of limbs and hugs. Dolores. Open mouth. Protesting. Em outlining a particularly brutal detail (the choking). Or, conversely, Dolores egging Em on. Dolores coming up with the particularly brutal detail.

I’m relieved it was just Em. Her own crazy idea. That’s how much it mattered. I mattered. We are in this together. I feel bonded to her. Married. Another freedom that I would give up for her if she’d let me.

She will let me. Her visit to me is a weakness. She has this weakness and I am it. This is the opening in her, to her. I wish I could reach across this table, feel the warmth of her blood pulsing underneath the pale skin. I would grab the back of her neck. I would smash her chapped lips against mine.

I finally say it.

She looks at me and says nothing. We both look around the room, stopping once in a while to take a break in each other’s eyes. I hold her this way. She lets me hold her. We could be talking right now, but what’s the point? We are saying everything we need to say.

Before she leaves, she leans forward – that guard watching us, inching closer. She says, “Wait for you.”

“Wait for me.” Is there or isn’t there a man weaving his fingers through her hair? It doesn’t matter. The tiredness that seems to permanently reside in her ashen skin signals trouble. I will never make her look this way.

I reach out to grab her hands. The guard starts walking toward us. “Hands,” he shouts. She starts to pull her hands out of my grip. No. Please.

She stops struggling.

We’ll go through years of sexual discovery. Years of sexual plateaus. Years of headaches, lies, infidelities. Reconciliations and – what else? – apathy. It’s better than nothing. I have nothing. This is me capitulating to love. I am its ultimate conquest. I’ve always wanted to cheat it, give it as if it was mine to give. I’ve never meant a word of it. And here I am with a fluttering chest. Inside me, this love like a heart attack. Imprisoning me for life. Because this is for life, this will be a life sentence, her loving me.

Wait for me .

“I said hands ,” the guard barks right in my ear.

Hands . I let go of her hands. The past is no longer important; the future is a possibility. I cannot feel the emptiness anymore – I cannot feel what isn’t there. She smiles. This is the first real smile she’s given me today. Maybe the first real smile she’s given anyone in a long time. It seems to shatter a thin veneer of sadness that’s accumulated on her face. I can see all of her hidden beauty, its secret kept from the needy, predatory world.

THANK YOU:

The crew at Wolsak & Wynn Publishers and Buckrider Books:

Paul Vermeersh

Noelle Allen

Emily Dockrill Jones

Ashley Hisson

Joe Stacey

Designer Michel Vrana

My literary agent, Chris Bucci

Friends and family:

Stacey Madden

Danila Botha

Neil Sharma

Laura Bydlowska

Russell Smith

Erin Kobayashi

Tim Rostron

Sheila Heti

Joseph Boyden

The Ontario Arts Council

and the Canada Council for the Arts

Jowita Bydlowska was born in Warsaw, Poland, and moved to Canada as a teen. She is the author of the bestselling memoir Drunk Mom . A journalist and fiction writer, she lives in Toronto, Canada.

Drunk Mom: A Memoir

“Guy is devastating and hilarious. It’s brutal and destructive and life-affirming. It’s a must-read. Jowita Bydlowska isn’t just one of this nation’s bravest writers, she’s one of our best.”

“Being Guy felt horrifically natural, as if he stepped right out my own debased, politically incorrect sex fantasy. This book is unputdownable, full of sly, modern details that made me laugh and grimace right into the twist ending.”

This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, places and events portrayed are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead; events or locales is entirely coincidental.