I just finished this tonight so if anyone has any suggestions on it, please share. If there is anything you don't like about it or think I should strengthen or lessen, lemme know. Please read it and comment, I'm not in school so you guys are my only peers at the moment. 
Of Intros and Exits
Exposition
When my car pulled to her door she was staring at me like Sylvia Plath at the waters edge. Her fine, milk-white, New England skin shone like the surface of a moon's moon and I couldnt see an inch of it without thinking very bad thoughts. My eyes ran down her shoulders and stopped at her delicate fingers clutching that ghost-white cloth purse. A simple bag filled with complicated secrets. She had always been much like that purse: Delicate, thinly veiled skin covering a macabre collection of shady secrets. Her name was Savannah and she was trouble.
Since the day I met her, she had referred to herself a writer, but I generally used harsher words to describer her. Maybe it was because before that day she had never shared any of her writing with me. She never really showed me anything. Her touch was all I knew. And so I always tore down her image in the absence of that privilege. Almost all my friends just assumed I hated her because I could be so mean. Perhaps it was out of self-defense or perhaps I was aware of the way anger fueled our lust.
In the end, we were eternally "just friends" engaged in our unique style of contorted dialogue. Savannah never really spoke, yet it seemed all we ever did is talk. Somehow everything important, everything worth hearing, ended up lost in translation. I knew I was missing something, I just didnt know what it was. A part of me didnt want to know. I remember laying awake at night wondering if it were the good or bad that stayed just out of my reach. I don't even think we knew what our secrets were, only that we couldn't share them. We could only talk around them in our own little way. And so we would lay in silence for hours, half-watching movies we had already seen before either my words or her childlike hands made the first attempt at contact and Savannahs embraces spoke volumes to me. They told me how she had been loved before, and how it had gone wrong. They told me of her childhood, and spoke a great deal about her future. I knew her strength, and I shared her weakness. God did I love to listen to her but my ears still ached for the sound of something dangerous. Something real and vulnerable. My heart burned at the thought of it and it became an obsession. To hear more than stories about other people or work. To listen instead of interpret the things she had already told me so many times in her repressed way.
"Talk! I would say. God damn you, Savannah, say something. Just talk... please"
I begged, for I knew that while her hands could say so much her throat would remain forever silent. And all I had was this atom bomb of emotion welling up in my heart; an encyclopedic collection of things to discuss, describe, detail while my hands, while all of my expensive tattooed skin grew ever colder to the touch. Her hands fell on deaf ears, and my words just bounced off of her skin. And yet somehow, beneath it all... we needed each other. We were just terrible at it. Terrible at everything.
So when I pulled up outside her apartment, and she stood there with her sweetly slouched posture I could feel it immediately. She was staring at me like I was the oceans eternal edge and finally I knew why. Or maybe I just hoped that I did its all a bit fuzzy now. Memory is so easily clouded by emotion.
The Writers
Hey, Sav, I said as I poked my head out the window of my midnight blue Cadillac. Whats going on?
Michael is being such a dick.
Hows that?
I dont know he justargg.
He argg? I joked.
I see youre feeling clever today, She said as she shot me a cold look and paused to light a cigarette. So can we watch it? Please?
I dont know. I dont really want to watch a movie you have already seen. Youre going to talk the whole time.
Soo. She replied. She had a way of becoming the cutest thing in the world when she wanted something. It was transparent. It was annoying. And it was also impossible to ignore.
Fine.
I started the car, changed my iPod to something she wouldnt bitch about, and lit my own cigarette. So whatd he do now?
Nothing. Were fine. God. I dont like talking to you about him.
I had so many clever come backs but decided against them and just sort of smiled as I pulled around her dense, tree filled, neighborhood. It was too early in our day to piss her off.
Sav?
What?
Did you bring it?
Maybe, she said, once again in that annoyingly cute voice.
Jellybones by The Unicorns came on and my head bobbed all over the place as I flew around our little college town. Sundays were always dead so I had the streets to myself. She hated it when I sang so I made sure I was off key JELLY JELLY JELLY JELLLY JELLLY JELLY JELLYY BONES!
She sighed, of course, and turned the music down. So, if I did bring it you have to give me something to edit too or I will feel weird.
Aww, itll be like our own little gay writing class.
How did you know it was about a gay girl? she demanded.
I didnt. Dorkass. She actually laughed with me and blushed a little bit. I was the only one who knew about her little internet girlfriend in Ohio. She always amazed me. As cold and robotic as she was, sometimes she could be so human. When ever she got too real like that it was almost more than I could take. It made me want to hold her down and kiss her to death. I turned the music back up because neither of us knew what to say. It was a typical moment for us. Nothing had happened but we were both embarrassed by the sudden connection that we couldnt explain so we just looked away and tried to appear intensely curious about familiar landscapes.
And so we drove through our town as I played music she hated and sang in a way she despised. She fought back with silence. It was a bitter chess game that we never realized how we loved until it was gone. We had given up on each other quite a few times now and each time it lasted just a little longer and felt that much more foolish.
Recounting all this now on my little laptop, I have to take periodic breaks when her skin comes to my mind. Flawless and soft, perfectly crafted to ensnare me like a tailor made spider web. She was a gossamer prison, she was amazing. A lot of people say that Americans love to be miserable. They cite our musical offerings to the world as proof. We didnt create the blues, we were just the first to pay to hear it. I think, maybe, its the wide open nature of this continent. Too much damn space. We create problems to make ourselves feel big. We take on imaginary importance to ignore the very real nature of our smallness.
That was how we worked. We could have just been a pretty happy couple. We could have held hands and co-hosted parties. We could have done a lot of things but instead we chose to make ourselves miserable just so we could revel in defeating our problems. Se we could meet in the middle in bed and rise above ourselves. We loved secrets and deception. We tore each other down because we were too afraid to stand alone.
Once again, I am over exposing the story but I dont know. To this day I take more comfort in remembering her than almost anyone Ive ever been with. Why is that? Why do I smile so broadly when sharing how hurtful we were? Because we were writers, I guess. Its a very important detail. It meant we understood each others awkward behavior. We were both so withdrawn that any outward actions were always going to seem false or contrived. The truth could be found only in the words that we didnt share. Obviously that led to a bit of confusion, but were always just smart enough, just intuitive enough, to keep moving.
So Im Ted Hughes?
She had been bugging me to watch that Sylvia Plath movie with Gwenyth Paltrow for a few weeks by the time I finally went out and rented it. She had already seen it and had talked more about it than she ever would anything of substance. Deep down, though, I knew that was her way of telling me something. It wasnt annoying until we got to my house and had actually started watching the movie. She would never share real feelings but she couldnt quit babbling about a movie we were already watching. I tried to remind her that if she shut up, I would see whatever it was she was talking about eventually but it was no use. A lot of it centered around her thinking she was Sylvia Plath. In that first scene, when Gwenyth clumsily rode in on that cute little bicycle it became apparent that Sav really was a lot like that character. She was cold and she could be mean. Her thoughts were so morose and serious that even the most depressing topic seemed common to her and yet she was as childish and cute as any grade school kid in America. She wore little rainbow mittens when it snowed, and had Badtzmaru on her shoes. She could go from telling hardened tales of her former addiction to Cocaine to giggling and squealing about the new toaster at the mall that burned Hello Kittys face into your toast. It was infectious, it was attractive, and it was confusing as fuck.
As the movie progressed, scene by scene I started to see all the things in Sylvia that I could assume Sav saw in herself. Most importantly, the movie had a habit of showing Sylvias brilliance through subtle camera angles and hidden moments while the scenes showed people consistently unsure how to handle her. At her first books release party one of the guests trashed the book to Sylvias face mistaking her for a mere hostess. It set her back for a good while. Savs eyes were locked on the screen until the scen ended and she turned to look at me meaningfully.
See, that would happen to me.
So, Sav, Im guessing this means you feel underappreciated, I said as I paused the dvd for the fifteenth time. There had been so many interruptions for debate that I went ahead and held onto the PS2 controller even when I didnt yet have a reason to pause. You know until you actually share something, youre not really in danger of anyone not liking it.
She just shrugged. I guess I didnt expect more out of her. If she could talk about her feelings she wouldnt have forced that movie on me. So we watched on as Sylvia fell for the dashing and acclaimed poet, Ted Hughes. Their relationship fell apart in part due to her jealousy of his career and the ease at which writing came to him. I say in part because he also took on a lover. Now Savannah would say that the affair was due to him pushing Sylvia to act like writer she said he pushed her too hard and stifled her. But I would say it was due to Sylvia saying she was a writer but never sharing. Clearly we resembled the pair in many ways. She never shared her work and yet she carried a confidence with her that no one could explain. And was instantly upset when doubted even though she gave us no reason to respect her as she respected herself. That was Savannah through and through. People had read my work and passed it around. Around that time in the English department, it was common knowledge that if I wanted to write for a living, I could. It was well known that I was a writer and I wrote with ease. But I was a senior and she was a freshman who had yet to take a writing class. She still had a lot to prove and so we sometimes shared that same source of contention. She felt like I looked down on her, and I felt like she was lying to me and possibly herself.
I had thought the reason Sav had wanted to watch the movie was because she had Plath-like delusions of grandeur and saw herself in the tragic writers shoes. But as we watched it started to feel more and more like she was trying to say I was her Ted Hughes.
During one of the more intimate scenes they are running around their new house in London and reading each others reviews outloud. I want to be like that, she said.
Like what?
Like Siiiiiilviia and Teeedd. She replied, pronouncing the names in a childish tone that only she could pull off. I want to be a writer and only a writer and to come home to my writer husband and proof his poems while he edits mine. Its so cute.
Yeah, I thought outloud. Hmm, its weird.
What is, she asked with her head cocked sideways.
Nothing, its just, well.. I guess I have never really imagined not being the only writer in a relationship. I had intended the sentence to be a harmless statement but I knew before I finished the last word that she was going to take that the wrong way.
Jesus. Owen, she said as she punched me in the shoulder. You know Im a writer, too. You never give me credit for anything.
Calm down there Pompei I meant before you.
No you didnt. I know what you meant. Pffft. A few seconds of silence passed before she gasped in frustration and pounced on me. Tickle War, it would appear, had been declared. As far as tickle combat goes I was definitely the America to her Russia. But if I Reagans unquestioned superpower she was Brezhnevs Russia; the red menace that abandoned all thoughts of food or economy and threw every ruble into weaponry. Her first strike was brutal and, Ill admit, nearly enough to force a truce before my troops had finished lacing their boots. She pulled the pillow from behind my head and pinned it over my face with her left forearm as she somehow attacked ten different places at a time with her one right hand. It was as if ten Savannahs had been waiting in the shadows like little tickle ninjas waiting for the first sign of action to join the fray.
To make things worse she was straddling me with my left arm pinned beneath her leg. For the time being, I was trapped. I didnt totally mind it, for, as innocent ash she would swear her intentions were, she was still straddling me. She giggled and reveled in her sudden victory. I appeared to be beaten from the get go. She made the mistake, however, of not accounting for my right arm. Hidden beneath another pillow my stronger arm was easily a match for all ten of her tickle ninjas and it lept from its hiding place and went straight for her jugular. Its important to note that at this point that, when tickling girls, going for the jugular has nothing to do with the neck and everything to do with the inner thigh. I grabbed her soft flesh hard and squeezed mightily as I bucked my whole body upwards. She landed on her back and I savaged her hitting every spot on her body as I pinned both her arms beneath my bony knees. Her defeat was humiliating and final.
I flashed a toothy grin and my eyes light up as I joked that a writer you may be, but a fighter? Never.
Let me go! Ever the sore loser, her face went from teddy bear to protective momma bear in seconds.
No.
My arms hurt, she pouted.
Im not letting you up till you are willing to prove you are a writer. I want to see the story.
Its not done.
Sav, I said impatiently, a good story is never done. You know that. At some point someone takes it and publishes or we just keep writing and editing forever.
Well just get off and I will show it to you.
You promise? I said as I leaned hard on her arms.
Argg, yes. God. Get off.
She grabbed the story from her white purse. It was rolled up and bound by a rubber band but still obviously freshly printed. She looked over it as if rethinking the deal. I dont want to just sit here and watch you read it. It makes me self-conscious. She protested. Have you finished your new story?
About the girl in the wig?
Yeah.
Eh, its been done for a while but I wanna throw the whole damn thing away honestly. If it werent for that final scene with th-
Owen! she said as she hit me yet again. I havent read it yet. SHHHH. I handed her the laptop and she curled up around me and under the blanket that I was sitting on. My thoughts were on anything but her story as we prepared to read. She always hit me when she was too shy to kiss first. As hot and cold as she could run it was important to know when to be physical. A few months back I had talked to her little girlfriend in Ohio and learned that it was something she did with everyone. I was thinking about her soft lips and my hands gripping her waist when she broke my train of thought. This is so cute, she said. I had to agree. It was one of the sweetest moments wed ever had. Strange, I thought to myself, that this should happen now that we are almost completely over. I was about a paragraph in when she popped out from under the blanket and kissed me on the cheek.
Stunned, I asked what about Michael?
Shhhhh. Read.
I cant read now. I leaned in for the kiss. She moved. Denied. Damn. Blood was rushing away from the part of me that could read and I tried to pull her closer.
No, she said. Read first.
Does that mean that after I read, you will-
SHHHH. She interrupted, clearly enjoying her power. Read. I had always noticed that whether or not she wanted me she always wanted me to want her. It was frustrating how willingly I consented.
To a Writer, a Blank Page is but a Mirror
Her story was about her. Mine was about me. Thats how it works. It was inevitable that we would have a lot to discuss when we finished but I was genuinely shocked at how good her writing was. The first draft must have looked like hell, I thought, because her syntax was so odd, but I didnt want anyone to know how bad my first drafts were so I stayed quiet. And I had to admit I was even more amazed by how much we had in common when writing about her. She used phrases like in a way only a 16 year old could manage and described her awkward inability to deal with a lot of people. I became upset at times that her narratives where so much quicker than my own, and it bugged me that she really was damn good. Still it didnt seem like a story to me. I had heard almost every word from her before in conversation. How her first boyfriend had kissed with her with a mouth full of coke and tricked her into trying the drug. How her tongue had met his and found itself suddenly surging with energy. How he had spiraled out of control with her and ended up in rehab after rehab. How she had become detached and isolated by her neurotic way of studying people. It made me want to kiss her even more, and reading about the cocaine kiss was especially hard on me. I didnt need to mix my addictions but it sounded delicious.
We turned the movie off and I put on some music. It was always obvious by what music I chose what I planned to do. I put in Lovage. Lovage was a collaborative effort of the great Mike Patton (Faith No More, Fantomas, Mr Bungle, etc.) , Jennifer Charles (Elysian Fields), and Dan the Automator of the Gorillaz, Deltron 3030, and Handsome Boy Modeling School fame. The name of the album was Songs to Make Love to Your Old Lady By. It was intended to be the most sexually potent thing ever produced, and it pretty much was. Curled around her, with the thoughts I was having, with the music I had on, only one thing could keep me interested in the story: quality writing. It had more than enough.
Her story had been devoid of any references to me, and mine had been about imaginary characters, all based on different aspects of me. That was how I generally worked. The problem is, while I knew what her story was about, she had no idea where my imaginary characters had come from. My story had opened something like this:
Huxley was overwhelmed by the taste of her. Bare legs wrapped around his back as fierce, delicate hands pulled hard at his hair from behind. She was clawing at him savagely, as if in anger; she clearly enjoyed it. She seemed almost to need it. He was lost in the moment. He could neither remember how it was he came to be here, or where here was. In his mind, there was no time before this moment, there were no thoughts of what would come after. There was no such thing as time at all. His thoughts were intangible at best: a jumbled list of instructions coming from some instinctual source, carried out by a body no longer in his control. His heart was a drum, pounding out blood at a hectic pace. It was as if he were watching from above, his departed soul staring down at the top of her tussled head of hair, rising and falling to their perfect rhythm. All his faculties were focused on touch, as if his future depended upon following the patterns of this dance to the step. Sex had never felt like this before. Suddenly it was all terribly important. Suddenly life was important. Life, death, God. All real and important. He felt his hands play her skin like a Tom Waits piano piece: evil, dark, and heavy, rolling rhythm and pounding out muted harmonies. Rising and falling around him, the walls of the room seemed to be moving in and out like living tissue. Their love was a cancer and this moment, the death throws....
I was quite proud of the intro. Everyone seemed to like it. There was a very specific reason I started with a sex scene. The whole story actually started with the idea that the opening is the most important part of a story. I brought it up every day in my writing group. I would rail someones story harshly asking them how the fuck they expected anyone to read a story that sucks until page three? Remember, I would say we are in a world that is quickly moving away from reading books. The internet, 300 channels of cable, fuck I have more channels of just ESPN than anyone my TV could even hold when I was a kid. No one is going out of their way to read these days. We have to make them. We have to grab them with word one and ram interest into their one track minds. I had been talking about it for a while and I knew my next story had better have a damn good intro to prove my point or I would be talking about it all year. After that first paragraph the story goes back to the beginning and you know when it comes back that the climax is on the way. It was a fun trick, but in the process of repeating the paragraph it gains incredible importance in the story and suddenly without my realizing it I had peaked Savs curiosity with its explicitness.
When did you write that? she asked.
Ive been working on it for a month or two, why?
Whos it about?
What?
Whos it about?
Sweetheart, cmon. Seriously, its fiction.
I know, but her words trailed off and suddenly she looked hurt. but who were you thinking about?
Fuck. I dont know Really. I mean, its been how many months since I even kissed you, and I have dated three girls since then. But its not really about any of them. Why?
I dont know. I sometimes I put myself into your stories.
What? Why? Michael not exciting enough for you?
Fuck you. Im being serious.
I know. Youre always serious but you never call. You never answer. You sleep in his bed. Why would I write about you?
It just sounded like us. I guess Im just weird.
Neurotic.
What?
The word is neurotic.
Maybe. Or maybe I see through it.
I try to be universal. I said and in the silence between our words I considered that saying it was her might make the day go my way but I was afraid to admit it. Even to myself. I told myself it was all fantasy, but in truth it was how we worked. At the risk of sounding crass, it was how we fucked. Savage, dark, beautiful and serious. There were so many things we could never tell each other with words that it was inevitable our embraces would be weighted.
Sav I started
Yes?
You know I love you right?
Yeah.
I stared at the floor and wished I could drown myself in the drugs she wrote about, so we could share something with each other besides awkward silence. I leaned in for the kiss, but she said no and turned away and put her hands up in protest. Pinning her hands behind her head I pushed my lips to hers.
Owen.
Hey you said you would kiss me if I read your damn story. You started it. Now I cant think about anything else.
I did not. I said shh. We cant.
Why? Honestly?
Michael, she said. Looking back, I swear she had to think of an answer; its not that she forget the name or anything, but maybe just that she was supposed to say it.
Youve gotta be kidding me. Thats never really stopped us before. I mean, Christ, you dont even like him.
I just cant. She said weakly. She was no good at trying to look innocent, her blush gave her away. Her breathing was too heavy, her eyes too doe like. Her body told me what her words could not.
You know, I always loved the fact that she could pretend we werent both ruined inside. That there was still a chance of some decency between us, after all we had been through because if we had admitted how wrong we were, it would kill the whole arrangement. I think, to a degree, it was ok because we were both terrible people in our own way. I leaned in again.
She squirmed momentarily and turned away again. Her eyes flashed towards mine, and then closed tightly. Leaning forward, I whispered shhh the way she had earlier after she had kissed me on the cheek. I kissed her mouth again and this time her lips opened
Owen was overwhelmed by the taste of her. Bare legs wrapped around his back as fierce, delicate hands pulled hard at his hair from behind. She was clawing at him savagely, as if in anger; she clearly enjoyed it. She seemed almost to need it. He was lost in the moment. He could neither remember how it was he came to be here, or where here was. In his mind, there was no time before this moment, there were no thoughts of what would come after. There was no such thing as time at all. His thoughts were intangible at best: a jumbled list of instructions coming from some instinctual source, carried out by a body no longer in his control. His heart was a drum, pounding out blood at a hectic pace. It was as if he were watching from above, his departed soul staring down at the top of her tussled head of hair, rising and falling to their perfect rhythm. All his faculties were focused on touch, as if his future depended upon following the patterns of this dance to the step. Sex had never felt like this before. Suddenly it was all terribly important. Suddenly life was important. Life, death, God. All real and important. He felt his hands play her skin like a Tom Waits piano piece: evil, dark, and heavy, rolling rhythm and pounding out muted harmonies. Rising and falling around him, the walls of the room seemed to be moving in and out like living tissue. Their love was a cancer and this moment, the death throws....
Alone with our Laptops
When we finished she called Michael to say we had been proofing each others stories. I laughed bitterly and grabbed the closest pair of pants. He was pissed that she was late and she said I had to drive her home immediately. On the way back to their apartment, as she redid her hair in the mirror I stared out the window and simply said, Yeah.
What?
It was about you.
She took another drag from her cigarette and failed to reply. I turned the music back up as I pulled in front of her door. He was waiting outside, gossiping with some other kids in the recording industry program. She looked at him and sighed, thanks for the ride. She opened the door and slid around it like a snake, quickly hugging Michael half-heartedly before rushing inside, no doubt to write.
Even though I was used to the way we worked, I nearly cried on the ride home. I had no idea why. I knew what I was getting myself into and I still came out ahead. Better than being alone I always told myself. Once I got home, I felt a little better. I cracked open a beer, picked up my laptop and unpaused the movie five minutes before Sylvia killed herself. Three hours later I had finished fifteen pages of a new story. It was about a writer, who ran away and never came back. Three months later, I was gone.
thank ye for readin me story
Reflection:
At the moment, my feelings are that this isn't much of a story. Nothing really happens and the characters are both asshats. Maybe I'm wrong but i can't see anyone giving a shit about what they do. Its meant to be a chapter in my novel but I'm wondering why anyone would want to read it... I guess this whole writing kick ive been on lately has just been practice/therapy. Anyways. Tell me what you think, assuming of course anyone will read this... sigh.
Of Intros and Exits
Exposition
When my car pulled to her door she was staring at me like Sylvia Plath at the waters edge. Her fine, milk-white, New England skin shone like the surface of a moon's moon and I couldnt see an inch of it without thinking very bad thoughts. My eyes ran down her shoulders and stopped at her delicate fingers clutching that ghost-white cloth purse. A simple bag filled with complicated secrets. She had always been much like that purse: Delicate, thinly veiled skin covering a macabre collection of shady secrets. Her name was Savannah and she was trouble.
Since the day I met her, she had referred to herself a writer, but I generally used harsher words to describer her. Maybe it was because before that day she had never shared any of her writing with me. She never really showed me anything. Her touch was all I knew. And so I always tore down her image in the absence of that privilege. Almost all my friends just assumed I hated her because I could be so mean. Perhaps it was out of self-defense or perhaps I was aware of the way anger fueled our lust.
In the end, we were eternally "just friends" engaged in our unique style of contorted dialogue. Savannah never really spoke, yet it seemed all we ever did is talk. Somehow everything important, everything worth hearing, ended up lost in translation. I knew I was missing something, I just didnt know what it was. A part of me didnt want to know. I remember laying awake at night wondering if it were the good or bad that stayed just out of my reach. I don't even think we knew what our secrets were, only that we couldn't share them. We could only talk around them in our own little way. And so we would lay in silence for hours, half-watching movies we had already seen before either my words or her childlike hands made the first attempt at contact and Savannahs embraces spoke volumes to me. They told me how she had been loved before, and how it had gone wrong. They told me of her childhood, and spoke a great deal about her future. I knew her strength, and I shared her weakness. God did I love to listen to her but my ears still ached for the sound of something dangerous. Something real and vulnerable. My heart burned at the thought of it and it became an obsession. To hear more than stories about other people or work. To listen instead of interpret the things she had already told me so many times in her repressed way.
"Talk! I would say. God damn you, Savannah, say something. Just talk... please"
I begged, for I knew that while her hands could say so much her throat would remain forever silent. And all I had was this atom bomb of emotion welling up in my heart; an encyclopedic collection of things to discuss, describe, detail while my hands, while all of my expensive tattooed skin grew ever colder to the touch. Her hands fell on deaf ears, and my words just bounced off of her skin. And yet somehow, beneath it all... we needed each other. We were just terrible at it. Terrible at everything.
So when I pulled up outside her apartment, and she stood there with her sweetly slouched posture I could feel it immediately. She was staring at me like I was the oceans eternal edge and finally I knew why. Or maybe I just hoped that I did its all a bit fuzzy now. Memory is so easily clouded by emotion.
The Writers
Hey, Sav, I said as I poked my head out the window of my midnight blue Cadillac. Whats going on?
Michael is being such a dick.
Hows that?
I dont know he justargg.
He argg? I joked.
I see youre feeling clever today, She said as she shot me a cold look and paused to light a cigarette. So can we watch it? Please?
I dont know. I dont really want to watch a movie you have already seen. Youre going to talk the whole time.
Soo. She replied. She had a way of becoming the cutest thing in the world when she wanted something. It was transparent. It was annoying. And it was also impossible to ignore.
Fine.
I started the car, changed my iPod to something she wouldnt bitch about, and lit my own cigarette. So whatd he do now?
Nothing. Were fine. God. I dont like talking to you about him.
I had so many clever come backs but decided against them and just sort of smiled as I pulled around her dense, tree filled, neighborhood. It was too early in our day to piss her off.
Sav?
What?
Did you bring it?
Maybe, she said, once again in that annoyingly cute voice.
Jellybones by The Unicorns came on and my head bobbed all over the place as I flew around our little college town. Sundays were always dead so I had the streets to myself. She hated it when I sang so I made sure I was off key JELLY JELLY JELLY JELLLY JELLLY JELLY JELLYY BONES!
She sighed, of course, and turned the music down. So, if I did bring it you have to give me something to edit too or I will feel weird.
Aww, itll be like our own little gay writing class.
How did you know it was about a gay girl? she demanded.
I didnt. Dorkass. She actually laughed with me and blushed a little bit. I was the only one who knew about her little internet girlfriend in Ohio. She always amazed me. As cold and robotic as she was, sometimes she could be so human. When ever she got too real like that it was almost more than I could take. It made me want to hold her down and kiss her to death. I turned the music back up because neither of us knew what to say. It was a typical moment for us. Nothing had happened but we were both embarrassed by the sudden connection that we couldnt explain so we just looked away and tried to appear intensely curious about familiar landscapes.
And so we drove through our town as I played music she hated and sang in a way she despised. She fought back with silence. It was a bitter chess game that we never realized how we loved until it was gone. We had given up on each other quite a few times now and each time it lasted just a little longer and felt that much more foolish.
Recounting all this now on my little laptop, I have to take periodic breaks when her skin comes to my mind. Flawless and soft, perfectly crafted to ensnare me like a tailor made spider web. She was a gossamer prison, she was amazing. A lot of people say that Americans love to be miserable. They cite our musical offerings to the world as proof. We didnt create the blues, we were just the first to pay to hear it. I think, maybe, its the wide open nature of this continent. Too much damn space. We create problems to make ourselves feel big. We take on imaginary importance to ignore the very real nature of our smallness.
That was how we worked. We could have just been a pretty happy couple. We could have held hands and co-hosted parties. We could have done a lot of things but instead we chose to make ourselves miserable just so we could revel in defeating our problems. Se we could meet in the middle in bed and rise above ourselves. We loved secrets and deception. We tore each other down because we were too afraid to stand alone.
Once again, I am over exposing the story but I dont know. To this day I take more comfort in remembering her than almost anyone Ive ever been with. Why is that? Why do I smile so broadly when sharing how hurtful we were? Because we were writers, I guess. Its a very important detail. It meant we understood each others awkward behavior. We were both so withdrawn that any outward actions were always going to seem false or contrived. The truth could be found only in the words that we didnt share. Obviously that led to a bit of confusion, but were always just smart enough, just intuitive enough, to keep moving.
So Im Ted Hughes?
She had been bugging me to watch that Sylvia Plath movie with Gwenyth Paltrow for a few weeks by the time I finally went out and rented it. She had already seen it and had talked more about it than she ever would anything of substance. Deep down, though, I knew that was her way of telling me something. It wasnt annoying until we got to my house and had actually started watching the movie. She would never share real feelings but she couldnt quit babbling about a movie we were already watching. I tried to remind her that if she shut up, I would see whatever it was she was talking about eventually but it was no use. A lot of it centered around her thinking she was Sylvia Plath. In that first scene, when Gwenyth clumsily rode in on that cute little bicycle it became apparent that Sav really was a lot like that character. She was cold and she could be mean. Her thoughts were so morose and serious that even the most depressing topic seemed common to her and yet she was as childish and cute as any grade school kid in America. She wore little rainbow mittens when it snowed, and had Badtzmaru on her shoes. She could go from telling hardened tales of her former addiction to Cocaine to giggling and squealing about the new toaster at the mall that burned Hello Kittys face into your toast. It was infectious, it was attractive, and it was confusing as fuck.
As the movie progressed, scene by scene I started to see all the things in Sylvia that I could assume Sav saw in herself. Most importantly, the movie had a habit of showing Sylvias brilliance through subtle camera angles and hidden moments while the scenes showed people consistently unsure how to handle her. At her first books release party one of the guests trashed the book to Sylvias face mistaking her for a mere hostess. It set her back for a good while. Savs eyes were locked on the screen until the scen ended and she turned to look at me meaningfully.
See, that would happen to me.
So, Sav, Im guessing this means you feel underappreciated, I said as I paused the dvd for the fifteenth time. There had been so many interruptions for debate that I went ahead and held onto the PS2 controller even when I didnt yet have a reason to pause. You know until you actually share something, youre not really in danger of anyone not liking it.
She just shrugged. I guess I didnt expect more out of her. If she could talk about her feelings she wouldnt have forced that movie on me. So we watched on as Sylvia fell for the dashing and acclaimed poet, Ted Hughes. Their relationship fell apart in part due to her jealousy of his career and the ease at which writing came to him. I say in part because he also took on a lover. Now Savannah would say that the affair was due to him pushing Sylvia to act like writer she said he pushed her too hard and stifled her. But I would say it was due to Sylvia saying she was a writer but never sharing. Clearly we resembled the pair in many ways. She never shared her work and yet she carried a confidence with her that no one could explain. And was instantly upset when doubted even though she gave us no reason to respect her as she respected herself. That was Savannah through and through. People had read my work and passed it around. Around that time in the English department, it was common knowledge that if I wanted to write for a living, I could. It was well known that I was a writer and I wrote with ease. But I was a senior and she was a freshman who had yet to take a writing class. She still had a lot to prove and so we sometimes shared that same source of contention. She felt like I looked down on her, and I felt like she was lying to me and possibly herself.
I had thought the reason Sav had wanted to watch the movie was because she had Plath-like delusions of grandeur and saw herself in the tragic writers shoes. But as we watched it started to feel more and more like she was trying to say I was her Ted Hughes.
During one of the more intimate scenes they are running around their new house in London and reading each others reviews outloud. I want to be like that, she said.
Like what?
Like Siiiiiilviia and Teeedd. She replied, pronouncing the names in a childish tone that only she could pull off. I want to be a writer and only a writer and to come home to my writer husband and proof his poems while he edits mine. Its so cute.
Yeah, I thought outloud. Hmm, its weird.
What is, she asked with her head cocked sideways.
Nothing, its just, well.. I guess I have never really imagined not being the only writer in a relationship. I had intended the sentence to be a harmless statement but I knew before I finished the last word that she was going to take that the wrong way.
Jesus. Owen, she said as she punched me in the shoulder. You know Im a writer, too. You never give me credit for anything.
Calm down there Pompei I meant before you.
No you didnt. I know what you meant. Pffft. A few seconds of silence passed before she gasped in frustration and pounced on me. Tickle War, it would appear, had been declared. As far as tickle combat goes I was definitely the America to her Russia. But if I Reagans unquestioned superpower she was Brezhnevs Russia; the red menace that abandoned all thoughts of food or economy and threw every ruble into weaponry. Her first strike was brutal and, Ill admit, nearly enough to force a truce before my troops had finished lacing their boots. She pulled the pillow from behind my head and pinned it over my face with her left forearm as she somehow attacked ten different places at a time with her one right hand. It was as if ten Savannahs had been waiting in the shadows like little tickle ninjas waiting for the first sign of action to join the fray.
To make things worse she was straddling me with my left arm pinned beneath her leg. For the time being, I was trapped. I didnt totally mind it, for, as innocent ash she would swear her intentions were, she was still straddling me. She giggled and reveled in her sudden victory. I appeared to be beaten from the get go. She made the mistake, however, of not accounting for my right arm. Hidden beneath another pillow my stronger arm was easily a match for all ten of her tickle ninjas and it lept from its hiding place and went straight for her jugular. Its important to note that at this point that, when tickling girls, going for the jugular has nothing to do with the neck and everything to do with the inner thigh. I grabbed her soft flesh hard and squeezed mightily as I bucked my whole body upwards. She landed on her back and I savaged her hitting every spot on her body as I pinned both her arms beneath my bony knees. Her defeat was humiliating and final.
I flashed a toothy grin and my eyes light up as I joked that a writer you may be, but a fighter? Never.
Let me go! Ever the sore loser, her face went from teddy bear to protective momma bear in seconds.
No.
My arms hurt, she pouted.
Im not letting you up till you are willing to prove you are a writer. I want to see the story.
Its not done.
Sav, I said impatiently, a good story is never done. You know that. At some point someone takes it and publishes or we just keep writing and editing forever.
Well just get off and I will show it to you.
You promise? I said as I leaned hard on her arms.
Argg, yes. God. Get off.
She grabbed the story from her white purse. It was rolled up and bound by a rubber band but still obviously freshly printed. She looked over it as if rethinking the deal. I dont want to just sit here and watch you read it. It makes me self-conscious. She protested. Have you finished your new story?
About the girl in the wig?
Yeah.
Eh, its been done for a while but I wanna throw the whole damn thing away honestly. If it werent for that final scene with th-
Owen! she said as she hit me yet again. I havent read it yet. SHHHH. I handed her the laptop and she curled up around me and under the blanket that I was sitting on. My thoughts were on anything but her story as we prepared to read. She always hit me when she was too shy to kiss first. As hot and cold as she could run it was important to know when to be physical. A few months back I had talked to her little girlfriend in Ohio and learned that it was something she did with everyone. I was thinking about her soft lips and my hands gripping her waist when she broke my train of thought. This is so cute, she said. I had to agree. It was one of the sweetest moments wed ever had. Strange, I thought to myself, that this should happen now that we are almost completely over. I was about a paragraph in when she popped out from under the blanket and kissed me on the cheek.
Stunned, I asked what about Michael?
Shhhhh. Read.
I cant read now. I leaned in for the kiss. She moved. Denied. Damn. Blood was rushing away from the part of me that could read and I tried to pull her closer.
No, she said. Read first.
Does that mean that after I read, you will-
SHHHH. She interrupted, clearly enjoying her power. Read. I had always noticed that whether or not she wanted me she always wanted me to want her. It was frustrating how willingly I consented.
To a Writer, a Blank Page is but a Mirror
Her story was about her. Mine was about me. Thats how it works. It was inevitable that we would have a lot to discuss when we finished but I was genuinely shocked at how good her writing was. The first draft must have looked like hell, I thought, because her syntax was so odd, but I didnt want anyone to know how bad my first drafts were so I stayed quiet. And I had to admit I was even more amazed by how much we had in common when writing about her. She used phrases like in a way only a 16 year old could manage and described her awkward inability to deal with a lot of people. I became upset at times that her narratives where so much quicker than my own, and it bugged me that she really was damn good. Still it didnt seem like a story to me. I had heard almost every word from her before in conversation. How her first boyfriend had kissed with her with a mouth full of coke and tricked her into trying the drug. How her tongue had met his and found itself suddenly surging with energy. How he had spiraled out of control with her and ended up in rehab after rehab. How she had become detached and isolated by her neurotic way of studying people. It made me want to kiss her even more, and reading about the cocaine kiss was especially hard on me. I didnt need to mix my addictions but it sounded delicious.
We turned the movie off and I put on some music. It was always obvious by what music I chose what I planned to do. I put in Lovage. Lovage was a collaborative effort of the great Mike Patton (Faith No More, Fantomas, Mr Bungle, etc.) , Jennifer Charles (Elysian Fields), and Dan the Automator of the Gorillaz, Deltron 3030, and Handsome Boy Modeling School fame. The name of the album was Songs to Make Love to Your Old Lady By. It was intended to be the most sexually potent thing ever produced, and it pretty much was. Curled around her, with the thoughts I was having, with the music I had on, only one thing could keep me interested in the story: quality writing. It had more than enough.
Her story had been devoid of any references to me, and mine had been about imaginary characters, all based on different aspects of me. That was how I generally worked. The problem is, while I knew what her story was about, she had no idea where my imaginary characters had come from. My story had opened something like this:
Huxley was overwhelmed by the taste of her. Bare legs wrapped around his back as fierce, delicate hands pulled hard at his hair from behind. She was clawing at him savagely, as if in anger; she clearly enjoyed it. She seemed almost to need it. He was lost in the moment. He could neither remember how it was he came to be here, or where here was. In his mind, there was no time before this moment, there were no thoughts of what would come after. There was no such thing as time at all. His thoughts were intangible at best: a jumbled list of instructions coming from some instinctual source, carried out by a body no longer in his control. His heart was a drum, pounding out blood at a hectic pace. It was as if he were watching from above, his departed soul staring down at the top of her tussled head of hair, rising and falling to their perfect rhythm. All his faculties were focused on touch, as if his future depended upon following the patterns of this dance to the step. Sex had never felt like this before. Suddenly it was all terribly important. Suddenly life was important. Life, death, God. All real and important. He felt his hands play her skin like a Tom Waits piano piece: evil, dark, and heavy, rolling rhythm and pounding out muted harmonies. Rising and falling around him, the walls of the room seemed to be moving in and out like living tissue. Their love was a cancer and this moment, the death throws....
I was quite proud of the intro. Everyone seemed to like it. There was a very specific reason I started with a sex scene. The whole story actually started with the idea that the opening is the most important part of a story. I brought it up every day in my writing group. I would rail someones story harshly asking them how the fuck they expected anyone to read a story that sucks until page three? Remember, I would say we are in a world that is quickly moving away from reading books. The internet, 300 channels of cable, fuck I have more channels of just ESPN than anyone my TV could even hold when I was a kid. No one is going out of their way to read these days. We have to make them. We have to grab them with word one and ram interest into their one track minds. I had been talking about it for a while and I knew my next story had better have a damn good intro to prove my point or I would be talking about it all year. After that first paragraph the story goes back to the beginning and you know when it comes back that the climax is on the way. It was a fun trick, but in the process of repeating the paragraph it gains incredible importance in the story and suddenly without my realizing it I had peaked Savs curiosity with its explicitness.
When did you write that? she asked.
Ive been working on it for a month or two, why?
Whos it about?
What?
Whos it about?
Sweetheart, cmon. Seriously, its fiction.
I know, but her words trailed off and suddenly she looked hurt. but who were you thinking about?
Fuck. I dont know Really. I mean, its been how many months since I even kissed you, and I have dated three girls since then. But its not really about any of them. Why?
I dont know. I sometimes I put myself into your stories.
What? Why? Michael not exciting enough for you?
Fuck you. Im being serious.
I know. Youre always serious but you never call. You never answer. You sleep in his bed. Why would I write about you?
It just sounded like us. I guess Im just weird.
Neurotic.
What?
The word is neurotic.
Maybe. Or maybe I see through it.
I try to be universal. I said and in the silence between our words I considered that saying it was her might make the day go my way but I was afraid to admit it. Even to myself. I told myself it was all fantasy, but in truth it was how we worked. At the risk of sounding crass, it was how we fucked. Savage, dark, beautiful and serious. There were so many things we could never tell each other with words that it was inevitable our embraces would be weighted.
Sav I started
Yes?
You know I love you right?
Yeah.
I stared at the floor and wished I could drown myself in the drugs she wrote about, so we could share something with each other besides awkward silence. I leaned in for the kiss, but she said no and turned away and put her hands up in protest. Pinning her hands behind her head I pushed my lips to hers.
Owen.
Hey you said you would kiss me if I read your damn story. You started it. Now I cant think about anything else.
I did not. I said shh. We cant.
Why? Honestly?
Michael, she said. Looking back, I swear she had to think of an answer; its not that she forget the name or anything, but maybe just that she was supposed to say it.
Youve gotta be kidding me. Thats never really stopped us before. I mean, Christ, you dont even like him.
I just cant. She said weakly. She was no good at trying to look innocent, her blush gave her away. Her breathing was too heavy, her eyes too doe like. Her body told me what her words could not.
You know, I always loved the fact that she could pretend we werent both ruined inside. That there was still a chance of some decency between us, after all we had been through because if we had admitted how wrong we were, it would kill the whole arrangement. I think, to a degree, it was ok because we were both terrible people in our own way. I leaned in again.
She squirmed momentarily and turned away again. Her eyes flashed towards mine, and then closed tightly. Leaning forward, I whispered shhh the way she had earlier after she had kissed me on the cheek. I kissed her mouth again and this time her lips opened
Owen was overwhelmed by the taste of her. Bare legs wrapped around his back as fierce, delicate hands pulled hard at his hair from behind. She was clawing at him savagely, as if in anger; she clearly enjoyed it. She seemed almost to need it. He was lost in the moment. He could neither remember how it was he came to be here, or where here was. In his mind, there was no time before this moment, there were no thoughts of what would come after. There was no such thing as time at all. His thoughts were intangible at best: a jumbled list of instructions coming from some instinctual source, carried out by a body no longer in his control. His heart was a drum, pounding out blood at a hectic pace. It was as if he were watching from above, his departed soul staring down at the top of her tussled head of hair, rising and falling to their perfect rhythm. All his faculties were focused on touch, as if his future depended upon following the patterns of this dance to the step. Sex had never felt like this before. Suddenly it was all terribly important. Suddenly life was important. Life, death, God. All real and important. He felt his hands play her skin like a Tom Waits piano piece: evil, dark, and heavy, rolling rhythm and pounding out muted harmonies. Rising and falling around him, the walls of the room seemed to be moving in and out like living tissue. Their love was a cancer and this moment, the death throws....
Alone with our Laptops
When we finished she called Michael to say we had been proofing each others stories. I laughed bitterly and grabbed the closest pair of pants. He was pissed that she was late and she said I had to drive her home immediately. On the way back to their apartment, as she redid her hair in the mirror I stared out the window and simply said, Yeah.
What?
It was about you.
She took another drag from her cigarette and failed to reply. I turned the music back up as I pulled in front of her door. He was waiting outside, gossiping with some other kids in the recording industry program. She looked at him and sighed, thanks for the ride. She opened the door and slid around it like a snake, quickly hugging Michael half-heartedly before rushing inside, no doubt to write.
Even though I was used to the way we worked, I nearly cried on the ride home. I had no idea why. I knew what I was getting myself into and I still came out ahead. Better than being alone I always told myself. Once I got home, I felt a little better. I cracked open a beer, picked up my laptop and unpaused the movie five minutes before Sylvia killed herself. Three hours later I had finished fifteen pages of a new story. It was about a writer, who ran away and never came back. Three months later, I was gone.
thank ye for readin me story
Reflection:
At the moment, my feelings are that this isn't much of a story. Nothing really happens and the characters are both asshats. Maybe I'm wrong but i can't see anyone giving a shit about what they do. Its meant to be a chapter in my novel but I'm wondering why anyone would want to read it... I guess this whole writing kick ive been on lately has just been practice/therapy. Anyways. Tell me what you think, assuming of course anyone will read this... sigh.
Love and kisses
Michelle xx
you should draw it!
hehehe..
i couldnt read your journal cus i am in a hurry for work but i will tonight.
Hope you have a good day..