Garth Greenwell - What Belongs to You

It was now, lying next to him but excluded from this mechanical exercise, that I noticed the movie he had chosen. It was a famous film, recent, a historical drama that for all its artifice was as brutal as the film I had watched on the bus the day before. But this was a different sort of violence, more invested in genuine suffering; it wasn’t gunfire and explosions we watched, Mitko and I, but the lashing of whips and the hacking of swords. It killed my desire, but Mitko watched it without once looking away, not avidly but with a strange dullness, the same quality with which his hand moved at his waist. Can we change it, I said, can we watch something else, but he murmured no, he was watching, it was interesting, he wanted to see what would happen. It was history I had learned in school, first as a child and then again later, when I could understand more of its horror; I knew what would happen, and I didn’t want to be drawn into that cumulative helplessness portrayed on the screen. I wanted him to stop jerking off to these images, though it didn’t seem to me that that was quite what he was doing, the two actions — his eyes motionless and his hand in constant motion — seemed detached from each other, even if they shared the same languorous quality. Maybe you want to stop, I said, you don’t have to finish now, using the Bulgarian euphemism svurshish , more accurate but less hopeful than our own verb, come, the openness of which I preferred, you can wait until later. But he didn’t want to wait, he said he was close, though he wasn’t close, there was still no urgency in his movement, no variation of tempo at all. I lay there for another quarter hour, watching him and watching the images on the screen, feeling an acidic sense of entrapment. He did finally finish, and it was only then that he touched me, at the last moment he reached out and pulled my head to him and filled my mouth, which felt less like an erotic act than a convenience, a way quite simply of cleaning up. And now his languor disappeared, he seemed pleased with himself, filled with ebullient energy. The third time today, he said, switching off the television as he turned to me and grinned, and then explained, seeing my confusion, that he had jerked off twice that morning while I was exploring the Sea Garden. What do you mean, I said, surprised, though as I spoke my surprise was changing to something else, and a note in what I said put Mitko on his guard. What, he said, lifting himself from the bed to the chair beside it and reaching for the pack of cigarettes he had already emptied, which he crumpled in annoyance and then tossed aside. He reached instead for his drink, though it too was empty and he had to pour himself another from the bottle on the floor. Are you mad at me, he asked, and I wasn’t quite, anger wasn’t really what I felt, or not yet. Why would you do that, I said, why would you do that alone when you know how much I want it? I couldn’t do any better than that, I had to speak baldly in his language, without any of my usual defenses. But you weren’t here, Mitko said, I woke up and you were gone, I didn’t know where you were or when you would be back, why should I wait — and here he smiled and held up his hands, trying to lighten the tone — I’m a young guy, I can’t wait, I don’t have that much control.

I didn’t respond to his smile. I came all the way from Sofia, I said, and I’ve paid for the room, for our meals, for everything, I came to be with you, to have sex with you — and here Mitko broke in, catching the scent of something he could exploit. Is it just about sex then, he said, you’re my friend, and he used again that word priyatel . I found the hotel, he said, I waited for you at the bus stop, even though it was raining, and now my throat hurts, I’m starting to get sick. A ne e li vyarno , he said, isn’t that right, challenging me to deny it. He paused to drink, as though bracing himself for a confrontation he knew he couldn’t avoid. I did all that because we’re friends, he said, those are things friends do, it isn’t just sex for me. He stopped then, as if he realized he had gone too far, had leaned too hard on the fiction of our relationship and felt the false surface give way. But we aren’t friends like that, I said as Mitko took another long drink. We both get something from it, I went on, and the bluntness of the language was now the tool I wanted: I get sex, I said, and you get money, that’s all. But now I was the one who had gone too far, and so I softened what I had said, or tried to: I like you, I said, I like being with you, skup si mi , I said, you’re dear to me, you’re beautiful. But Mitko’s expression had hardened. He set down his glass and placed both of his hands on his knees. When have I ever said no to you, he asked, and it was true, though he had delayed and put me off he had always given in when I insisted, he had never truly refused. The trouble with you is you don’t know what you want, he said, you say one thing and then another. I knew he was right, and not just about my relationship with him; always I feel an ambivalence that spurs me first in one direction and then another, a habit that has done much damage. I didn’t deny what he said, I even nodded in agreement, at which his mood only darkened. I’m not like that, he went on, I’m a man of my word, if I say that I’m through with you I’m through, I won’t change my mind, and if I see you again, if we pass each other in the street, at NDK, in Plovdiv, in Varna, it doesn’t matter where, I’ll pretend I don’t know you, he said, I won’t even say hello. Is that what you want, he said, and then, without pausing for me to respond, be careful. There wasn’t anything playful or warm about him now; though he sat naked in front of me he was entirely unavailable. Be sure you tell the truth, he said, be sure you say what you mean. But how could I say what I meant, I thought, when that meaning so entirely escaped me?

I looked at him without speaking, at the length of him folded in the chair; it was a way of delaying an answer but it was also a valedictory look, I was taking him in with a sense already of regret. He saw me looking as he poured himself another drink, his third or fourth in a short time, the effects of it were beginning to show; and again I had the thought, more troubling now, that he was steeling himself for something to come. Well, he said, which is it, and though I hadn’t come any closer to a decision I felt pressed to meet his tone, a pressure I was grateful for, since it freed me from having to choose. Yes, I said then, yes, I think that’s best, but I didn’t stop there; I’m sorry, I said, I’m sorry, and then, this is sad for me, tuzhno mi e. He looked at me silently, then stood up and began pulling on his clothes, moving purposefully but also unsteadily. Think if I were someone else, he said, and there was tension in his voice, he was speaking more quickly and I had to strain to understand him, think if I were a different person, if I were like that guy who stole from you, have you thought about that? Did you think about that when you took me home with you? He looked different to me now as he stared at me again, he wore a face I hadn’t seen before, a face that grew stranger and unsettled me more as he went on. I could have been anyone, I could have robbed you, I could have taken your camera and your phone, your computer, I could have hurt you. Did you think about that, he asked again, and he paused, he looked at me with his new face, which was capable, it seemed to me, of any of those things, and I wondered whether it was a face he had just discovered or one he had hidden all along.

I stood up, feeling the need to assert my presence, and also to place myself between him and the pile of my belongings I had gathered in one corner; I felt threatened by him, which was what he intended me to feel. At first it was as though this had its effect, he seemed to beat a kind of retreat. But I’m not that sort of person, he said, though this wasn’t a retreat at all, it was just the start of a new theme. If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t even have them, he went on, stepping up to me where I stood, nobody needed to steal them, you left it all on the bus, and again he gave an inventory of what I owned, what I had brought with me that might fetch him a few hundred leva in the pawnshops of Varna. Ne e li vyarno , he said again, working himself up, if it weren’t for me you would have lost them anyway, you owe me, and he punctuated this last with a touch, not quite adversarial yet but assertive, putting his hand on my shoulder and pushing to see how far I would give way. All the while he held his face close to my own, his new face, and I felt the beginning of fear like a light current, a prickling along the nerves. Mitko, I said, softly but I hoped with confidence, saying his name again as if to call back the face I knew, Mitko, you should leave now, it’s time for you to leave. He smiled at this, he widened his eyes with amusement and took a half step away, Is it time for me to leave, he said, quoting my words back to me, is it? And he turned a little and made a sound, hunh , a sound of puzzlement and continued amusement, not an angry sound, and when he turned back his arm swung in a wide arc and he struck me, with the back of his hand he struck my face, only once and not very hard, so that when I fell back upon the bed it was as much from the shock as from the force of it, from shock and from the passivity that has always been my instinctive response to violence. We both froze then, I on the bed and he standing in front of it, as if both of us were waiting to see what would happen next. I felt real fear now, physical and immediate and, strangely enough, already fear of the more distant future, as I wondered how badly I would be bruised and how I would explain it to my students. I watched Mitko, and it seemed to me he was surprised by what he had done, that maybe he was frightened too by what he might do next. He only stood there an instant before he propelled himself forward and fell on top of me, and I must have flinched, I must have shut my eyes, though it wasn’t a blow I felt on my face but his mouth, his tongue as it sought my own mouth, which I opened without thinking. I let him kiss me though it didn’t seem like a kiss, his tongue in my mouth, it was an expression not of tenderness or desire but of violence, as was the weight with which he bore down on me, pinning me to the bed as he ground his chest and then his crotch against me; and then he grabbed my own crotch with one hand, gripping it not painfully but commandingly, and I thought whatever happens next I will let it happen. But nothing happened next, he was on me, unbearably present, and then he sprang off the bed and was gone, without taking anything or speaking another word, though of course he could have taken whatever he wanted.