Things I Should Have Done - #2
I do not trust Shay anymore. We were about to cast off in her skiff when two merchant marines showed up on the pier. Flirtatious as always, Shay beckoned them with a big smile, her bikini top two sizes too small. They walked over fast. I wanted dry land, to be on the pier, walking away. In the boat, Mario sat next to Shay and Luigi next to me. Six months at sea, they were newly on leave, set loose in Marina Del Rey. They were Italian and young, but at least a decade older than us. I knew I should leave. Truly, I wanted to leave, but could not bear being seen as unsophisticated and unadventurous. Until the early evening, I was pleased I had stayed. But then it was night, and there was a motel room key, and a second-floor motel room door, and a dingy room with two queen beds covered in rusty bedspreads. Overlooking the marina's tar road, water and boats in the distance, sat a battered table seared with burn marks, tattered magazines under a cheap glass ashtray that read Jolly Roger Motel: The Place For Fun. The darkness inside scared me. I sat down on the chair at the scarred table. Shay fell onto Mario, the two wildly kissing on the bed closest to me. Mario hoisted Shay's enormous tanned breasts out of her small sundress, and up into the moonlight. Her fat brown nipples were wet and glistening, erect from Mario's tongue. Shay's hands snuck down his pants. His pants pooled around his pale and hairy ankles and I started to turn away, truly, but Mario's quick movement, flipping onto his back, kept me fixated, horribly, for a long time, his penis, uncut — I knew the difference — standing upright and swollen. Shay's hand descended, gripped, slowly started to twist. I heard Mario groan. Luigi sat on the other bed, watching me watching them, then licked his lips and gestured for me to join him. I turned away and stared out into the moonlit night. Luigi sighed, then cursed me in Italian, rapid, angry, muffled. I knew what he meant. When the room grew electric with Shay's groans, I turned back. Shay's mouth, a perfect round wet O, sealed itself onto the tip of Mario, the aural puckering intensely loud in the silence. Her mouth went down, then up and off, the sound like a plastic lid ripped off a sweaty container. Then she started all over again. I left the room and sat outside on the motel stairs and wished: that I was girl who smoked, that I could call home, that I was brave like Shay. When I can't sleep I think about the sparkling water, laughing and flirting with Luigi, kissing him in the skiff. Luigi didn't touch me, didn't grapple me prone onto that second queen bed, didn't force me, did not take a single step towards me, while I sat fixed in that chair at that window. He must have felt cheated and misled, cock-teased, considering the way the afternoon began and how the evening played out. When I can't sleep, I think about the girl in The Painted Bird, raped with a Coke bottle in a sunny field, and wonder how I allowed myself to end up at the Jolly Roger. I am still a virgin, and that is okay with me. I never hang out alone with Shay anymore. Sometimes I think it's because I do not trust myself.
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Author's Note
Entry #2 in "Things I Should Have Done"
Single paragraph is intentional.
Oh, there is some sex.
hermeneutics of trust, suspicion, and italian sailors, lol--
the narrator does not trust shay, not, at the end, does she trust herself. her fears are not small ones (rape with a coke bottle)--
the attraction/repulsive mechanism activated by erotic desire, aka kierkegaard, the sympathetic antipathy, the antipathetic sympathy--as in: i stand on the llge of a cliff, wanting both to be safe and to fall--to fall, to be taken, to be lighter than air, drifting downwar, yes, to the jolly roger. the treasure is below. lots to work with here, layered, just barely escaping cliche in places, but charged with meaning--loaded, overdetermined perhaps--
um--that was a nor up there, in second graf, not a not, lol
Cherise--
This feels real to me. I've only been here a couple of days and haven't read much, but so far this stands out. I think there is a tendency to want to dismiss graphic descriptions of sex as low brow effect seeking (i'm sort of thinking of the literary community's initial reaction to Tropic of Cancer...people didn't want to like that book) but there is a lot going on here.
J. Stephen, or is it just J. or just Stephen?
Welcome! I’m pretty new myself, but I think you’ll really like it here.
Thank you so much for reading “Things I Should Have Done - #2, and your comments. It’s funny, I didn’t think too much about the sex being low-brow, I guess because the narrator and Shay are both seventeen. But you are so right. So glad you enjoyed it! Looking forward to reading you.
Cherise, its stephen.
I didn't mean the sex in your story specifically when i said low brow, i just meant there has been a tendency to want to be a bit dismissive of all lit. with graphic sex in it. Throughout history i'd argue.
Perhaps what i should have said is that even though you wrote explicitly about sex in the story, it didn't distract me from what i felt the story was really about...which is impressive.
I'm not much of critic as you can tell. Basically just wanted to say i liked it because it felt real to me.
Stephen,
You're absolutely right about the tendency in lit to dismiss most graphic sex writing. I didn't take your comments negatively at all. In fact, Gary P, above, one of the literary lions on here, said I just escaped cliche in the naked breasts section. Which is something for me to think about. I was thinking like a 17 year old, that simple terms is how she would see it all. But I'm thrilled you weren't distracted from the guts of the story.
Listen, you are a critic! Everyone on here is, regardless of how published or not they are, and all the comments and criticism are great. Have no fear!
I'm just really glad this felt so real to you.
Cherise,
A couple of specifics, pretty minor, otherwise direct and complete in itself, which I like.
I'd cut the word throbbing. It's overused.
The sound "like a plastic lid ripped off a container" is just perfect, in that silence! Perfect!
Jerry
Thank you Jerry! Throbbing, gone. There is no more throbbing. You are right, overused, cliched. I have given myself a hurtful pinch.
Great form for the piece, Cherise. Moves well. I like it.
Great piece Cherise. I think you handled the sex perfectly (sans throbbing) -- graphic and arousing, yet not at all purply. Jerry and I grooved on the same line. Peace...
Sam,
Thanks for the kind words on Things I Should Have Done - #1. I have started digging into your work. Fabulous.
Thank you Linda. Thanks about the sex. Graphic, arousing, not purply, was my aim!
Love the graphic immediacy here
Ajay,
Thanks so much.
"the sound like a plastic lid ripped off a sweaty container:"
exactly what I mean -- a startling, dead-on description that gives us insight into the narrator's own inexperience.
Well done. (I just watched A Serious Man) but I do love the Jolly Roger.
Rockin' little story, I like the balance of trust in friend vs. trust in self.
I love your tags.
Thank you for reading and commenting, Sara. So glad you liked it.
Martha,
I love that! "Rockin little story!" You made me grin.
Very hard hitting piece. Very detailed, but tastefully done.
Your story has given me some inspiration, too: There is a place near my house called Mug and Joy. Its an eatery in the day time, but turns into a GRO bar at night. I'm thinking up a story now. Maybe something will come out of it, who knows?
OK, NOW I came here, after reading 3, then 1.
yeah, way more than sex happening here... trust and mistrust and all that Kierkegaard stuff that Gary mentions -- yeah! :)
I like how you move from that opening (I don't trust Shay) to the part where you wish you could be brave like Shay to you don't really trust yourself -- because that last sentence casts doubts of course on that middle sentiment... it's all connected nicely through the whole scene.
("you" meaning the narrator, of course)
Thank you Matthew. I'm glad the story inspired you! But what is a GRO bar?
Thank you Michelle, I'm glad that the connections are clear!
Especially powerful told in the words of the young woman swept along by events leading to intense sexual circumstance with strange older men. I like your writing and I want to read more.
Thank you, thank you, JMC!
Yet another stunning glimpse into a life.
My only thing, as a sailor and a googler, not sure what a "sketch" is. I would change it to skiff so the mariners don't get ya! Arrrrrr.
Jake, I've just gotten back here. Thanks so much for the great comments. I took your advice: sketch is now skiff. Thank you kindly, sailor.
The whole day is packed in here, even we only get flashes. By the time the narrator is sitting in the motel room chair, you can feel her exhaustion. But kudos to Luigi for being a relative gentlemen. He probably punched Mario in the nose the minute the women left.
Thanks Andrew! Your comment about Luigi punching Mario is kind of funny... I wonder if that's how it would have gone.
I like this one too. Reads like a diary entry, but well-written. I kind of wished she could smoke too, after all that. Favorited.
What a perfectly layered, early line - I wanted dry land, to be on the pier, walking away. - in an honest, sad, and wise story. I can't find #1, but I'm going to read them all. Great writing. Faved.
Pia, thanks so much for reading and commenting and the fav! I so appreciate it! #1 is up there - if you go to my wall, you can click on it. I love that you're going to read them all - thank you!
For me,the narrator stays centered throughout, even with the observation of the oral sex. Strong piece
Thank you so much Gary. The observation of the oral sex was meant very much to be the way a teenager would view it.
Cherise,
I like this piece and definitely feel the filter of a seventeen-year-old's consciousness. The last line is very effective. Well done!
Two things I wonder about:
1. The reference to The Painted Bird. Would a teenager refer to the "teenage" girl in the novel or just the girl? The reference to "teenage girl" makes me this this is an older narrator.
2. Title is "Things I Should Have Done." What should the narrator have done? Wouldn't "Things I Should Not have Done" (not that I'm suggesting that for a title--I'm not) be more appropriate? Seriously though--is there really something the narrator should have done but didn't? The title is provocative in that way.
Thank you Bill for the great read. You're absolutely right, about taking out "teenage". I am glad you found the title provocative; this whole series is about things that perhaps should have been done, or not, and the last line is intended to marshall that effect.
wished that she could call home--that part carries a lot of weight in a few words.