Stephen Dixon - Friends - More Will and Magna Stories

In bed that night she thinks about the model. The teacher told the class to go up and take a good look at her. “It’s allowed. I checked beforehand with Astor and she said for the sake of art and higher learning, look anywhere you like and close as you want too, though keep a five feet distance from her if you have a bad cold.”

Magna stayed on her stool, drawing the model and the few students who went up to look at her. The teacher came up behind her and said “What’re you concocting there, a basket of fruit? Take advantage — go up and give her a real inspection, unless it’s against your principles or whatever, of course.”

“It’s not. It’s just that, you know, I’m a little concerned she might think I’m just staring, no matter what you said she said. And I thought I had a pretty good drawing going till you came by, but if you still—” He was nodding his head, so she put the drawing down and went up to the model.

The model was on the floor on her back, legs spread apart, looking up at the wall clock. Magna stared at several parts of her body — hand, feet, shoulders — before she looked between her legs. It’s so shiny and big. They’re really not the prettiest things in the world, that’s for sure, though penises, from what she’s seen of them on statues and in photographs, aren’t the nicest looking things either and look stupid besides. But go back and draw it. Let Mr. Finkel think “Oh boy, this kid really got something from my lesson — maybe more, if she shows it to her folks, than I bargained for.”

She made a large drawing of just the model’s legs spread apart and her vagina and pubic area. Mr. Finkel came over, made believe he was handing her something and said “Here, kid, you get today’s cigar. It’s your best effort yet, not just for what you put in but what you left out also.” She said “I think I know what you mean, but can you explain it further?” He said “Just think about it — you’ll get it,” and walked away. She still didn’t know what he meant and doubted he did either. Just pretending to be profound, like most of her teachers, but anyway…

She’s been rubbing herself down there for the last few minutes. Door’s closed and lights out and she’s under the covers. She’s tried to masturbate a few times but has either fallen asleep doing it or stopped because she thought one of her parents might walk in and turn the light on at the same time and catch her at it, and once when the light was on she thought there might be a tiny hole in the ceiling or walls someplace and one of her parents or the building’s tenants might be looking through it. She knows where and how to rub and what she’s supposed to do to complete it. She’s read a couple of library books about it and what the end’s supposed to be like, but she’s never come near to feeling anything but a little titillation down there while she was doing it. She also read in one of those books that every woman, including married ones, should practice masturbation for all sorts of reasons — spiritual, political, like that — and sooner a younger woman learns how, better it’ll be for her and all freedom-loving women in general, so she’s never really felt much guilt over it but hasn’t yet talked about it with anyone. She doesn’t like the idea she’s doing it so soon after she saw that man on the subway, but is sure that incident had nothing to do with it. In fact, more she thinks of him, less interested she is in continuing to rub herself, so she closes and opens her eyes a few times to get him out of her head, and also changes hands because the right one’s become tired. The model today probably had more to do with it than anything else. Thinking of that woman’s vagina probably made her think of her own, though without really knowing it, since right after she thought of her she found her hand rubbing down there. Sarah and her new boyfriend and the heavy petting she bets they’ll start doing in a month if they stay together? No, she never thought of that till now, though again that’s not to say somewhere deep inside she hadn’t been thinking of it. But she still doesn’t think so, nor anything related to Sarah’s father being infatuated with her, something she already knew by his actions and looks and wishes he’d stop, more for her friendship with Sarah and Sarah’s mother’s sake than her own. Anyway, whatever it was that started her doing it, it’s not working. She’s been rubbing for around fifteen minutes, both hands are tired, she’s beginning to ache down there from it, and she’s no further along in getting excited as those books said she’d get than she was a few seconds after she started. Maybe she’s doing it wrong or is just too young yet or the books left out something or some other reason. No big deal. It was more out of curiosity that she wanted to complete it than any other thing. She turns on the light, listens from her bed if anyone’s behind the door, reads a little and falls asleep.

In one of her dreams there was a big bull with a long unicorn’s horn on its head. She knows what those mean and knew in the dream. In the dream she said to the bull, when he stepped out from behind a bush and got into a charging position, “Come on, I know what you and that horn mean. You want to try and fool me with symbols and stuff, get more complicated, but don’t come around like some old-time figure in art.” She’s become something of an expert on her dreams. Her youngest aunt’s a psychotherapist and they’ve talked about their dreams a lot. The bull chased her after she lectured him on dreams and art. That was when she stopped interpreting within the dream, or even thought of it as one, and it became more like a normal dream. She was dressed only in white, even her socks and shoes. White’s such an obvious symbol for her, though she didn’t think of it then, but it can also stand for death, can’t it? — in the Orient her aunt’s said and she’s read. Anyway, she was chased, fell back against a wall that had a few pillows on it, that suddenly became one huge pillow. A bed, what else? or something close to it. No? Yes. The bull charged from about ten feet away, head down, horn out, straight at her. She thought she’d be pierced by the horn and she screamed, so loud that she thinks she must have screamed outside of the dream too. The horn was a few inches from her stomach when she woke.

She’s thirsty. She gets up and goes to the kitchen for some ice water or seltzer. Her mother’s reading in the livingroom. “Everything all right, sweetheart? It’s past two.”

“I had a bad dream. Did you hear me scream?”

“No. It was that bad? Anything you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know if it was that bad, just very revealing, I think.”

“Tell me.”

“I dreamt about a man about to penetrate me with an erection. In the stomach. But it’s the same thing, isn’t it — myself down there and my stomach? Only the man was a bull with a unicorn’s horn, and the horn, well it has to be what I think it is to think it was an erection, right?”

“Sounds right. You haven’t had any of those experiences — even close to it — have you?”

“Me? Not a chance. How would I? Where?”

“I’m not accusing you, I’m just naturally worried. So it was your whole day of bad experiences today. But anything else bothering you related to sex?”

“I don’t know about bothering me, but another man got suggestive with me on the subway, right before the one who exposed himself. I just walked away.”

“Maybe from now on let’s take the bus.”

“And Sarah’s father. I didn’t want to say anything for I don’t want to hurt my friendship with her, but if she’s telling the truth, he has a crush on me. Actually I know he has. I’ve seen the way he looks.”

“You think you’re old enough to tell?”