Maidenhead
Page 44
‘Okay, Myra. I’m sorry. I won’t. I didn’t tell him anything. I’ll tell him that I can’t talk about you if he brings it up. He’s just worried, though. Parents get worried. It makes sense.’
Lee didn’t know that I’d been with Elijah last night, that if I’d died from our master-slave psychic sex, I would’ve died satisfied.
‘I’m just fucked up,’ I said. I started ripping up grass.
‘Fucked up about Elijah or your mother?’ Lee asked.
I had nothing to say. I wanted sublation.
‘Fuck, Myra! You have to be clearer about this! Are you afraid of that guy? Is he hurting you?’
‘No. No. It’s just, masochism, I think.’
Lee lit up a joint. ‘Masochism,’ she said. ‘Right.’
Masochism seemed to make sense to me in terms of the struggle for self-consciousness of the slave in the struggle unto death.
‘I feel like sex, I mean giving myself, helps me. Giving my whole self to someone until I forget who I am helps me deal with my problems.’
Lee started laughing. Her laughing made me laugh. ‘Sex like that doesn’t deal with your problems, it compounds them, you sneaky little shit. It builds on top of the problems you already have!’
It felt good to go straight from crying to laughing. I smeared grass on my jeans.
‘Listen, I should tell you something,’ Lee said. The whipping night wind blew leaves around us. ‘I was molested when I was a kid. That’s why I’m so virulent about things.’
‘Oh.’
‘Sex. I mean, I’m virulent about sex. About the power dynamics.’
‘Okay ... ’
We stared at each other. Lee didn’t move from my gaze, my gaze moved first.
‘It was my teacher in Grade 6. I was twelve. She had a crush.’
‘You mean a woman molested you?’
‘Yeah. You shouldn’t be so surprised.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry. Fuck. I don’t know if I can tell you about this now.’
‘I’m sorry, really.’
‘I’m not like your old friends, you know, Myra.’
‘I know.’
‘Jen and Charlene are toxic and naive.’
‘I know! You’re totally right, they are. Lee, come on.’
‘I’m not going accept your naïveté like they did, Myra.’
‘Okay, I know.’
‘You know what?’