“You should probably watch more television,” James says.
It’s been done before, and it will happen again, but when it happened to them—when it was done to her—there were some diversions from the formula. For example: Tiffany seemed to enjoy the actual sex more than James did. On his bed seven nights prior, Tiffany and James tried to guide their hips into something, but she moved like a kid, and he hardly moved at all, so they made something up. By the time it happened, they both understood that fucking was beside the point, but they were determined to see it through. It was polite, then fearsome, then euphoric, then over. Before this experience, everyone who touched Tiffany relished it precisely because she didn’t. Masturbating had never occurred to her. She wouldn’t know how; her intelligence was restricted to the immaterial. But that night, in the flicker of a tobacco candle, James—apparently more interested in her pleasure than he was in his own—introduced her to feelings she had previously considered unattainable. She used to believe that sexual bliss was a luxury reserved for other people, like skiing. Now she mourned that belief.
He pulled the dress over her head, unclasped her bra, and ran his hands over her skin as though it was offering him instructions in an emergency. She watched as he removed his shirt, his belt, his pants. Imperfect body perfect because it was his. Pressing against the navy cotton of his briefs, she saw an erection that was his but for her, for her and because of her, and the astonishment of it made her whole body bloom open, hot and stormy and alchemized. He looked undressed, but he did not look nude until he removed his glasses and placed them, gingerly, on a nightstand. Confronting his naked, endangered face for the first time was like seeing a tiger at the zoo, subdued and therefore doomed, and it sent a shock of pity through her, made her want to look away but also save his life. She closed her eyes, felt his heat, felt his cock press against her leg, felt his stubble on her neck, breasts, thighs. And with his mouth between her legs, she felt something entirely new, the activation of a sensory system she didn’t know she possessed. The whole room flickered, flooded, sang.
“What do you want?” he asked once he brought her to the verge of herself.
“You.”
“Say it.”
“I want you.”
“Want me to what?”
“To everything.”
When had he lit the candle? Later, when Tiffany reviewed the details of the night like a detective on a murder case, this seemed important; it indicated premeditation, thus the severity of the offense, thus the severity of the sentence. She wasn’t on birth control and he didn’t have a condom, but neither of them gave this much thought. On her back, in his bed, all she experienced was molten rapture. By the time James entered Tiffany, reason had evacuated her. Improbably, she orgasmed almost right away. She didn’t know if this was supposed to be embarrassing—she had never orgasmed, before, never had sex on purpose, before—but this microclimate of luminosity exiled shame. She would never forget the pride on his face, like her pleasure was the greatest accomplishment of his life. Orgasm, she discovered, simultaneously possessed and exorcised you of yourself. As the chemicals lifted her from one realm into another—due to increased stimulation of the right angular gyrus, she later learned, a region of the brain associated with spatiovisual awareness, memory retrieval, reading, and out-of-body experiences—Tiffany felt like a mystic. James took his time.
Afterward, with his boxers, he wiped evidence of himself off her chest. Entwined and almost sweet, he stroked her hair, her neck, her collarbone. He traced the outline of her breasts and told her that she was brilliant, otherwordly, important. Propping his head on his fist to face her, he began to speak.
“Was it your first time?” he asked.
She hesitated, then shook her head. “No.”
“Good. That’s good.” He paused for a moment, studying her collarbone. “Listen, Tiffany. I want you to know that I respect you tremendously.” He touched her neck like she was fragile and valuable. A cracked iPhone. She couldn’t tell what was more alarming: his sincerity or his formality. “All of this . . . ” he said, vaguely gesturing between his chest and her thighs, “was motivated by that.”
A freaky guffaw was flapping in her throat. She swallowed it down.
“Thanks,” she replied.
“You should pee,” he said.
“What?”
“It prevents UTIs after sex. Didn’t anyone ever teach you that?”
That’s when she let herself laugh.
“No.” He smiled. “Really—I don’t want to cause you pain. Of any kind. Trust me.”
“Fine.” She blushed. “But wait, where are my . . .?”
“Hm?”
“I lost my . . .”
“Your what?”
She knew, as a general rule, it was good to avoid fucking people in whose presence you couldn’t bear to say the word underwear.
“My . . .”
“Your underwear?”
Relieved that he didn’t use the word panties, she sighed and tried not to burst into flames. “Yes.”
He rummaged in the bedding and handed them to her. It was not possible to put them on sexily, but she tried. Then she crept to his bathroom, turned on the faucet, and peed. She didn’t flip on the light, didn’t want to see the evidence, couldn’t stomach the sight of another woman’s soaps and razors and hair tools. The rightful woman.
When she was done, he took her place in the bathroom, using it without any discernible shame. He returned in a fresh pair of boxers, looking serious in the moonlight.
“I know this is . . . well, forgive me for even asking, but . . . we won’t tell anyone about this, right? We’ll keep it between us?” A beat. “It would be bad for us both.”
He wasn’t asking.
“Oops,” Tiffany deadpanned. “I live-tweeted it.”
He didn’t laugh.
In a quieter voice, she added, “Who would I tell?”
In one study, stimulating the right angular gyrus made a woman perceive a phantom behind her. In another study, it made the subject believe he was on the ceiling. Tiffany felt it all.
What Tiffany remembers best from that night is her name in his mouth when he was in her.
Now, in the Valley, certain sentiments boil and spit in her chest. What I love most about you, she wants to say, is your piano. Weren’t we safe until you got your shiny, pricey B?sendorfer involved? Yes, I wanted to touch your stubble, drink your coffee, and wear your glasses. Yes, I wanted your mind and your words and your face and your sadness and your sensitivity and your power and your talent and your age and your imagination and your hair and your music, but ultimately—ultimately—I wanted to fuck your piano.
On the phone, in the Valley, she says, “Warm day.”
“Sure is.”
“Are you upset?”
He pauses. “Why would I be upset?”
She can’t figure out how to reply, and that’s when he says it: her name.
But it’s not what she wants, after all. Now, in James’s voice, her name isn’t held; it’s diagnosed. Tears fill her eyes, but she feels detached from them, the way she feels detached from the behavior of her knees when the pediatrician taps them to test her reflexes. She still has a pediatrician, and recalling this makes her cry harder. Suddenly, Tiffany remembers that James has children—it’s a fact that always upends her. How could a dad like him invade a kid like her? Like that? A dad in no glasses and absolutely no condom? She pictures him standing in front of his kitchen window, drinking elderflower soda. She pictures him naked without meaning to. She looks around the park, astonished that no one can hear the noise inside her body.
“What do you want from me?” he asks wearily. He wants credit for calling.
“Stop asking me that.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re always asking me that. Please just—”
“You wanted this, too.” An accusation. Then, softly: “Didn’t you?”
“Wanted what?” she snaps.
He sighs. “How should we know.”
“How old are you?” Tiffany demands. Anger has hijacked her speech, and she wants him to hear it.
“Seriously?” he asks.
“Forty?”
He pauses. “Forty-two.”
He does not ask how old she is.
“Well, I’m seventeen.” She wants to arrest him, and chiropract his guilt, and marry him, and beat him up. She wants to launch herself into outer space. Our night was as illegal as it felt. But it wasn’t. Not in Indiana, where the age of consent is sixteen. She looked it up. “Seventeen.”
When he speaks again, his voice is gentle. “You should expect more from people.”
“You should expect more from yourself.”
Tiffany can no longer see the point of this, or anything else. She ends the call.
Finally, the very human man dislodges his drone from the tree and walks away, leaving a carnage of petals behind him.