Solitaire

A lover—who is not a friend—emails me, one morning—as he often does—to give instructions for my day. He tells me what to eat and what to wear, the way to bathe (or, not to bathe,) how many times I should (or should not) masturbate. I’ve come to see this lover as a strange image consultant who instructs me in the art of making bad decisions. He tells me of his plan—to make me meet a man, to make him pay to meet me—in a set of emails titled Whore.

This set of emails opens: Sex for money. Sacrificial kindness. Two conflicting images—conflicting when applied to you?

Three emails later, he writes: Sunset Hotel.

Seven later: Two thousand, in cash.

Eight later: Better make a list.

I call him, anxious to discuss his plan. Of course, he doesn’t answer.

He is teasing me, ignoring me again.

I pad into the bathroom, sigh. Peel off my shirt, my loose pants, and my leg brace. Take a last look at my naked nails.

Here I am—then—a woman most would probably describe as young, crouched on the bathroom floor, in basic black lace lingerie. This is to say: one of two bras I own, one of two thongs. This one I’m wearing—here—was stolen just for such occasions.

My hair: short, black. Specifically, a blunt dyed bob with square-cut bangs. My real hair, though everyone assumes it is a wig. Painting my nails, wearing glasses I don’t usually wear, preferring things I see to be a little blurry.

Painting my nails forces me to see the scars across my hands, which I received working the day shift at a group home for clients with special needs. One of my client’s special needs was touch. He tried to hold my hand, and when I brushed him off, he dug his nails in deep.

I took that job because I needed work, but it fulfilled some other needs that I could never quite seem to explain. There’s really no good way to reconcile a one-time yes with the reality of waking every day at 4:30 am. This work appealed to something in me, I suppose. Walking out to my car, in darkness. Strange, sick energy I seemed to store inside my lungs, then breathe in cold, deep breaths while pacing down the hall, keys clinking, thinking, this is mine, this energy belongs to me.

Picture me, folding towels, clothes with labeled names, darting through hallways, doors. Please take my word that I was very good at this. I thrived on little food and sleep, despite the tempting smells of sizzled hash browns, buttered toast I took the time to make just right.

The sounds of bed sheets shifting, tired whines. Their poor, soft eyes. Flushed faces, gummy mouths, limbs slick with piss. Me whispering, good morning. Kneeling down low, as I always did, to help them into wheelchairs, despite the sharp pains stirring in my legs.

I was already pushing my boundaries and letting them be pushed. When I was hired there, I said I would not drive the old 16-passenger van. But within the first week, I was called to fill in for a different shift, felt guilty, said yes, drove the van that night, white knuckled down the highway.

But I no longer work that job. I had to quit because my left leg fell asleep, one day, refused to wake back up. More to the point: my left leg fell asleep amidst a bondage game. My back was tied up to a pole, my ankles tied up to my legs.

The lover walked away, pretended to ignore me, then pretended I was just pretending when I cried out from some shooting pain.

You should’ve told me, he said, later, when he helped me, limping, to his car. I cannot help you if you cannot tell me what you need.

I make a list entitled, WHAT I WILL NOT DO. It reads:

no alcohol

no knives

no unprotected sex

no large, visible bruises

no marks on my face, of any kind

no vocal restrictions (gags)

no photographs

no leaving me alone

no anal sex

Here I am—now—a woman some would probably describe as young, if they weren’t looking very closely at my face. Crouched on my bed, wearing a long black slip, with pillows propped behind my neck. Imagining myself—as I was—then.

My hair: long, red. Not dyed: embellished. That is what I say, though no one cares. Yes, it is natural. It is my real hair.

My reading glasses, which I need to wear more often, now, although I still prefer the way the world looks without them.

The red paint drools down between the cracks, between the nails and the skin, between the outsides and the insides of my hand. I soak the swabs in alcohol. I wipe the edges, scrape the insides of the edges of my fingers with a metal file.

I fail at these kinds of things. I always have. The lover said, though, that he likes red nails, so I have to try.

My nails look like shit.

So, I redo them.

And redo them.

They still look like shit.

Recently, I’ve devoted myself to the art of developing boring addictions. My current addiction is online Solitaire. I sit and click the cards into correct piles. Soothing. Gambling with no stakes, wherein nothing can be lost.

The are four different card groups in Solitaire:

1. The Tableau—the main table of cards

2. The Foundations—four piles on which a whole sequence or suit must be built

3. The Stock (or Hand) Pile—where remaining cards accumulate

4. The Talon (or Waste) Pile—for cards that serve no purpose in The Tableau

That’s where most of my cards end up, because I’m not especially attentive when I’m clicking at the screen.

A four of hearts, a three of spades, a nine of diamonds, ten of clubs. Click, click. A jack of hearts. Click. Queen of spades. Click. And an ace. I bite my lip.

My husband comes behind me, gently gestures, doesn’t that go there?

He doesn’t understand the function of this game.

I arrive in a cab, in a black wrap dress, bent over crutches (the leg brace would snag on my stockings.) He waves from the front table, already sipping his scotch. He doesn’t look as bad as I expected him to look, considering the lover told me he has cancer. His eyes look tired—gray-rimmed—not moreso than mine. His shaved head suits him, signifies his age more than his illness. I feel oddly disappointed by this man’s apparent health, in contrast to the lover’s dark descriptions.

He stands to greet me in an awkward shifting dance around my crutches, takes them from my arm, and sets them up against the wall.

A short peck on both cheeks. He smells like rich cologne. He sits back down.

He wears a turtleneck that makes my black wrap dress look cheap.

His voice is fast and loud and filled with emptiness, like: two blocks down on Sacramento, there’s another strip joint, but in this one, they make girls wear nude-toned stockings, for hygienic reasons, probably, less fun though, peaking at their parts, through barriers like that.

I nod.

I trace the fork around along my plate. I dig the prongs in vein-like patterns through my rice. He’s telling me about the history of Sicily, how it has been invaded many, many times.

A certain distrust, he says. In my blood.

I nod.

He laughs.

I turn back to my rice. He starts to talk about his wife.

Three years, no sex, he says.

A long time, I commiserate.

He says, it was, it was. He takes a hard sip of his scotch.

I add a little pepper to my rice. I take a bite. Still bland. I add a little more. I can’t seem to taste anything.

I told her to put out, or get out, he explains to me.

Did she put out, or get out? I ask, and I take another bite.

Not either, he says. We have an arrangement. But, no trust.

The pepper tingles in my throat. I used too much.

I nod into my rice. I understand. Like Sicily.

He laughs. You make connections, he exclaims. He shakes his head.

You make connections, he repeats. I like that. Yeah, like Sicily. You make connections. You’re not just a pretty face.

He’s fat. I wouldn’t mind the fat, just in and of itself, but he is such an odd fat, an unsettling arrangement of his flesh, the fat of someone who was thin, then fat, now strangely thin-fat, in a pale, pock-marked skin that sags like draining.

He says, six months to live, they said.

I nod.

Six months ago, he laughs.

I look back down. I do not know how to respond.

Could go at any time. He plugs his laughter with a bite of veal.

Chewing, chewing, chewing, chewing, chewing.

Click, click, click, click. My husband catches me, now, in the midst of my addiction. Kisses my cheek. Kisses my neck. Kisses my mouth. Gathers my hair, pulls at it a bit, the way he knows I like him to. Reaches behind my back and gently shuts the screen.

At the hotel, he gestures for me to walk on ahead of him. He mimes the movements of my legs with fingers in the air. It’s almost funny, how his flitting joints bear so little resemblance to my stiff-limbed, crutch-supported real movement.

Crutch comes down. Right foot. Left foot. Drag.

Crutch comes down. Right foot—He lifts my skirt up from behind, left side, and I am almost grateful that it goes so smoothly, that my legs are objects that he actually wants to look at.

He checks to see that I have worn the stockings.

Garter belt, he murmurs. Classy, drawing out the a out in an impression of my voice.

I say, I never liked that word. It’s like some code. What does it mean?

He says, it means you know what you are doing.

Inside the room, the door shuts, shoves me up against the mirror, and he grabs my shoulders, crutches, which go clattering somewhere into a corner, now out of my reach, pinches my tender points, nails hit a nerve, instantly, and I start to slip. He’s practiced this.

He clicks the metal cuffs around my wrists.

He announces that he thinks I need a glass of wine.

He pours a glass. I shake my head, no, but he presses two firm fingers to my jaw, plying my teeth to open, pours into my mouth.

I swallow, shocked. I don’t know what to do, now, and my instinct tells me, thank him, and so I sputter-mumble, thank you.

He tells me I am welcome, sets the wine glass down, and he gestures, sit. I sit down on the bed. He pulls a black strap from a drawer.

It is a reddish rubber ball. A gag.

I shake my head like, nonono.

Six months, he says.

I swallow. He is fat.

He kneels down—so he looks small as possible—beside the bed.

His pose reminds me of myself—knelt down to help my clients in their chairs—triggers a surge of strange cold energy, the kind of energy I’ve tried to feel again, re-feel, with the lover: the desire to be an instrument of use.

His rich perfume, now tinged with sweat, smells sad, grandatherly. His eyes look darker, now. His shaved head, too—dry skin, greenish, ungleaming—from above him, looking down. I wonder if he knows this, but it doesn’t really matter. I’m excited, sick with bright chill.

I part my mouth as though to speak, but I say nothing. Leaning in, I let him wrap the gag around me. Let him strap it on.

Knelt down before that now familiar smell of his engorged cock, mingled with my drizzled spit, my hands cupped underneath to catch the drips, the tip slid through my lips, then down my tongue, then down my throat, my now familiar reflexes producing just the right amount of bile.

My husband strokes my hair.

I murmur, to remind him, and he pulls it, harder.

Gurgling, I thank him with a deep thrust to my throat.

He thanks me with a moan, another, even deeper thrust.

I almost gag. The chill runs through my veins.

He murmurs, yes.

Good girl.

A blindfold then appears, as he leans me back down into the bed. The feeling of a long, cold metal rod he ties between my legs.

He’s careful with the left leg, ties it looser. Does that feel okay? He asks.

I mumble something like, mhm.

The feeling of the ties, undone, around my waist, unwrapping of my wrap dress, pushing down my bra. I hear the sound of fabric shifting, bedsprings, and a dry inhale, exhale. Sound of sucking on my breasts.

The feeling of his flesh, sagging and soft, pressed up against me.

I think, I am glad that I cannot see what this looks like.

I hear a new sound: click, click, click. The snapping of a camera.

No, I think. I told him no. I told him—no—specifically.

I try to tell him no, but what comes out just sounds like muffled spit, like someone else’s muffled spit, like someone else’s stupid moans.

When he has finished taking pictures, I hear something snip. Another snip. The soft flesh sliding off my bra, my thong. I think, now, hazily, I guess I’m down to just one bra, one thong, and not my nice ones. It’s a good thing he is giving me two thousand dollars.

I hear another, different click. A whir. He parts my legs. He strokes his fingers—wet, licked—slowly up and down my lower lips, pressing the vibrator against my clit, until I start to feel my muscles urge themselves—against my will—to just relax.

I feel his cock tap up against my inner thigh. It feels long, but thin—still half soft, hardening with each tap, tap, tap, tap. It feels strangely curved, and stranger, when he enters me. I realize—alarmed, at first, then absently—he’s not wearing a condom.

My mind flits all around my body, trying to detect sensation from the surfaces I cannot see. My wrists begin to tingle. Then, the tingle fades, and then, my wrists, my hands, begin to feel detached from me.

I think about the soup I made for lunch today. The last can. Green pea-something, with its sad smell, like a nursing home. I do not like that flavor, but I told myself I wouldn’t let it go to waste, that someone had to eat it.

The turning of my wrist—now cuffed—to slice around the rim. Then, peel back the lid, the jagged teeth—the mouth—of a tin can. The scraping of a spoon. The sipping of a mouth—now gagged. The swallowing. The smell. I think, what was I thinking?

And…

For a moment: silence.

For another moment: silence.

For another: silence.

And another, and another: silence.

Then, his laughter, from across the room.

A soft laugh, meant for someone else.

A phone laugh, words projecting, softly, so far from this room.

A letto, I hear him whisper, in a voice I have not heard him use, into the other voice behind the phone.

Magari fosse così. Forse.

Caro, caro. Sì.

Se mi dici che lo vuoi così. He laughs a light laugh.

Ok. Ok. Bene. Se lo dici tu.

Meanwhile, there’s a soft glow I can sense, still, through the blindfold. From the lamp, off to the right, above the bedside table.

I imagine that the softness of his voice is somehow tied into the softness of the light, like something in it will protect me.

I lie there, reaching through the room through my imagination, which is dumbly blurred, but soft, protective, like the light. The phone…was on the table, by the lamp. My crutches…No, the counter, by the TV. No, the other table…No…it doesn’t matter.

I start to count, inside my head, two thousand dollars. What it will—and will not—do for me, and what it will—and will not—buy. Two months of rent. Two months of food. Two months of jobless time, for planning, thinking, and I think, two thousand dollars isn’t much.

I think, six months, six months.

I feel pity for this man.

I want to feel pity for him.

I want to be kind.

His gentle voice keeps whispering these words I do not know, and I know then that I am not there for the money.

What am I—was I—here for—there for?

I still do not know.

I never did.

How could I—then—if I do not know—now?

I just sit, hand on head, my fingers kneading at the strands of hair, as though I might extract some essence from their roots.

Meanwhile, I should mention that the gag fills up my mouth, leaving no space for all the liquid that belongs in there, and thus, a thin spit stream begins to flow, begins to build in viscousness, until it forms a thick wet pool around my face.

I focus on the glow, letting my thoughts go slack in repetitions of the obvious/non-obvious, like it will be okay, when I don’t know if it will, or what it might even be, but it will be, okay, it will all, be, okay.

I focus on the glow, while drifting in and out of what I only dimly understand as consciousness.

The glow dies and the phone clicks into its receiver.

The light behind the blindfold flickers out.

He grabs my arms my shoulders neck my hair twist flip flap face slap back spine crack spit slime fat ass fat face fat hand the smell of fat spread sweat slap face slap slap slap spit slap kissing kissing kiss then spit slap face back spine then hand then neck then hand then hand around my neck now choking choking choking clogged nose clogged up sticking sticking stuck now stuck now so so so cannot breath I cannot cannot cannot breathe I breathe scream he stuffs a wad a sock a stocking in my mouth my spit smell foot stain tasting sour drizzle flecking choking harder harder cannot cannot really really cannot fucking breathe I scream I scream shh shh shh shh shhshhhhhhhhhh-shut-the-fuck-up-shut-the-FUCK-UP whispering no hissing now no not the caro-caro whispering the hissing pig-shit-bitch he hisses pig-shit-whore my eyes hurt drooling drooling look-at-what-you-did-bitch but I obviously can’t spit-sick-drip-drenching I will take his word for it he pulls my hair back pushes up my ass and nononono I told him NO specifically and no and no and yes and yes he does he shoves his cock inside my ass my ass my legs limp finger on my clit slick with my spit he rubs around that is the worst this spit drenched finger now two fingers kneading deeper in now deeper in so spit slick a new skin a numbing numbing thud still deeper kneading in this inlet spittle seeping deeper deeper I say to myself get in get in get in get in before he can.

Some tiny little actress comes and takes my place.

She moves around from under then, on top, upon the bed.

She makes him come.

She gets into the shower.

Wraps her arms around his knees.

Please.

Puts his hand upon her head.

Thank you.

She speaks no more.

She stares.

Up.

At his cock.

The limp.

Clay brown.

The soft.

Drained.

Organ.

Bloodless.

Wet, clean.

Warm.

Steam.

Fogging.

Smell, hot skin.

Salt, sags of warmth.

And puckers, pimples.

Webs and webs and webs.

Of thick wet hair.

Steam, thick. Warm.

Fogging, fogging,

fogging, fogging,

fogging

fogging.

Here I am—now—again.

Click, click. The jack, onto the queen, onto the king. Click. Queen on king. Click.

Missed something, again. No going back. New game.

My husband comes behind me. Kisses. Gathers up my hair. Whispers, and pulls me from my world. Shuts the screen.

Here I am—was—then.

Reading emails that the lover sent: a set entitled Cara Mia following the set entitled Whore.

He thinks it’s best for him if he no longer sees or speaks to me. He says, you’ve never told me, no. I worry that you don’t know how.

I stay with him that night because he asks me to.

I lie awake. My hair lies wet around me on the bed.

I lie awake and wet and cold until it dries, at last, and then I slip into a sleep in which I dream of nothing.

I get into the cab he calls. I give the driver my address. The driver seems confused by my directions. I have no confidence in my ability to speak. So, I just gesture, vaguely. That way. Just go that way. For awhile.

I open up my purse. I try to count my money. With each set of hundred bills I touch, I bite down, lightly, on my lip.

Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Fifty. One hundred. I bite down.

Twenty. Forty. Fifty. Seventy. Ninety. Two Hundred. I bite down.

I count two thousand.

Try to tuck it in an envelope.

The envelope bursts open, so I lick it.

Seal it.

Bite down hard.

The driver circles round my neighborhood.

I sit there, staring out the window, like I don’t know where I am.

I watch the numbers add up on the counter in the cab.

The driver just drives on.

He thinks that I am high, or drunk, or something.

I allow him to keep driving.

Thinking.

Dumbly.

Maybe.

Somehow.

If the numbers just add high enough…

Something will change…

That we…

Will shine our headlights.

Into some gray land of dim, forever mornings.

Where I’ve never said yes.

Thank you.

No.

To anyone.