‘I don’t need a lift, thanks.’
I was practising my practice, Lee’s practice, of saying what I was thinking. Of being succinct, ‘giving it’ to men. You are supposed to ask for what you need, Lee had said. What do I need? I need this man to drive off and leave me alone. I need to be inside the hotel. I need to see my beautiful Elijah, a musician who I met in Key West. I need to be dirty for him on my knees.
I am asking to lose my virginity.
I walked past the reception, up two flights of carpeted stairs and down a nicotine-stinked hallway of painted brown doors. Every door had these longish Y-shaped gold handles and a tiny ringed eye in the centre for seeing out. A pattern of cigarette burns struck the wall outside Room 316. At the end of the hallway there was a fire exit and a grey windowpane. I walked the whole length of the hallway to get to his room, 303.
I knocked once. No one answered. The Y-shaped gold handle had a slit in the centre. I was about to knock again.
Elijah opened. His hair was out of his turban, it was electric, in all four directions. He was half-naked, a pair of blue underwear shorts. He looked ready for this. I felt my uncovered cheek. It was finally time and I wanted to scream: I’m ready I’m ready I’m ready for this!
‘I can’t believe you came here,’ I said. ‘I didn’t think you’d actually travel all this way up here and I was waiting for you, I waited for you!’
I felt like a child, so serious and eager, finally asking for what I wanted.
‘I seriously, seriously never wanted to do anything with anyone until we saw each other again, I mean, I want to come in, let me in, I want to come in there and see you!’
Elijah touched his chest, smiling.
‘She ready?’ A voice croaked from inside the room.
I took a step backwards. That woman was here.
(GAYL: Sorry for interrupting. But yeah, that was me. I was there with my man in your sin-infested city. We hitchhiked all the way. I didn’t realize you Canadians were wallowing in sin.)
‘Who is that?’
‘My girl Gayl,’ Elijah said. Now his smile felt mean.
I turned to go back down the hallway. I felt my thighs under my skirt. ‘I thought you were going to come up alone!’
Elijah came out after me, walking faster than my running. At the dirty cigarette burns he got me and pushed my back up against the wall. The ceiling was buckling. It felt too close to my head.
‘Don’t you leave,’ Elijah whispered, his face right up in mine.
‘But I thought you were going to come up alone!’ I was crying, not looking at him.
‘I came this far.’
‘I thought you wanted to see me!’ I was really trying to wrench myself away.
‘I did. I did. I like what I see.’ He was blurry. His palms pinned my shoulders.
‘You lied. You said you wanted to see me and touch me.’
‘Come back to our room.’
‘No!’ I was struggling but he was stronger than me. Elijah dropped his head into my neck. He rubbed his sharp locks on me, butting forward. I squirmed around and he was sweating and shushing my noises or whatever they were.
‘I’m here,’ he whispered. ‘It’s okay, I’m right here.’
But I squealed because I was choking. The necklace he made me became too tight. I tried to push him off me so I could scream. Hot and red from not breathing, I felt Elijah’s finger. He reached into the space where the leather cut my throat. My talisman against violence. He ripped it right off. It pinged against the wall. When a talisman breaks into pieces it’s a terrible sign. I wanted to scream for my wayward mother. Elijah put his hand on my mouth. An old woman stuck her head out into the hallway to see what was going on.
‘You have to shut up,’ Elijah said calmly.
My Rastafarian talisman against violence was gone.
I had a man’s salty palm on my mouth. I couldn’t keep my voice asking for what I needed strong.