“You know the reason Mom was so uptight about the thing with you?” Joshua said. “Last weekend Tommy was in and she found all this stuff in his drawer, coke, letters from girls. She really hit the ceiling.”
Tommy is Joshua’s older brother, not the one who’s traveling around Europe—that’s Neil. Tommy goes to this fancy prep school that Joshua’s father went to, Andover. He’s extremely handsome, almost like a movie star. He has really long, thick, dark eyelashes, and full lips, and a kind of slouching, brooding expression that evidently drives girls wild. He deals in drugs. Whenever he comes home on vacation, he gives Joshua whatever he wants.
“What did the notes say?”
“Oh stuff like, ‘My night with you was so wonderful,’ ‘I’ll never meet anyone like you . . . you’ve broken my heart.’ All that. How come I don’t get notes like that?” he said wryly.
“Do you want to?”
“Sure.”
“Should I write you one? I can if you want.” I took a piece of paper from the drawer, and a red Flair pen. I began to write. “Dear Joshua . . .” I looked up at him, smiling. “Now what?”
“‘I’ll never meet anyone like you,’” he said.
“That’s certainly true,” I said, writing.
“‘I love every inch of your sensational body,’” he dictated.
“Okay.” I wrote that.
“‘It’s incredible that such wit and charm could emanate from one person.’ . . . Um, let’s see. ‘Without you, life wouldn’t be worth living. I want to keep fucking with you forever.’”
I wrote it all down. Then I folded up the paper and gave it to him. I leaned over and kissed him. “It’s all true,” I said.
Joshua frowned. He bit his lip. “Rust, what I really want is—I want you to get older, but not different. I want you to grow, but not away from me.”
“Anything else?” I said.
“I want everyone to want you, but I want you to only want me.”
“Greedy.”
He laughed. “Of course.”
“You want everything.”
“Definitely. Why bother wanting less than everything?”
“Do you still want to watch the movie?”
He looked at the clock. “Oh, Christ, I forgot . . .” He turned on the set. We lay in the nude, watching. They sent up tons of heat in Joshua’s apartment. It’s usually 85 degrees. I know because there’s a thermometer in Joshua’s mother’s bedroom. We lay on our stomachs and every now and then Joshua would reach over and start stroking my ass, but he still kept watching the movie. Movies mean as much to Joshua as sex, which is saying quite a lot. I guess one difference between him and me is that he likes to analyze every movie he sees, to figure out why he liked it and what was wrong with it, and how he would have done it if he’d been the director. I tend just to like things or not. Joshua says I’m too easy to please. He says I like everything. That isn’t true. I didn’t like Star Wars and I didn’t like Carrie. There’re lots of things I don’t like.
After the movie we heated up some leftover pizza they had in the freezer and ate it in the den. Joshua had beer and I had Diet Pepsi. I’m not fat, but I don’t want to be, ever, so I weigh myself every day. We have a digital scale and you have to kick it before you weigh yourself. After you kick it, it says 000. Then you step on. You can step on fast or slowly. I haven’t figured out which way makes you weigh less. I weigh myself six times. Usually I get around three different weights and I pick the one I like best. Since I’m five-five, I think 115 is the best.
Joshua’s skinny. He’ll never have to worry about getting too fat.
“Are you staring at me because I look too fat?” I looked down at my belly. It did look puffed out a little, maybe from the pizza.
“Uh uh.”
“I gained two pounds,” I said nervously, “but I think I can lose them again. I might fast Monday.”
Joshua began squeezing me, my stomach, my breasts. “No, I like it. Those are two terrific pounds . . . Tat, come here.” He likes to fuck with me sitting in front of him. He likes me to wrap my legs around him. Then he goes into me and we rock back and forth, sitting up. He ran his hands up and down my back, my hair, my ass. “God, you feel so good,” he murmured. “What’s that perfume?”
“Honeysuckle . . . I got it from Mom.”
“Umm . . . oh wow!” Suddenly we lost balance. We rolled over onto the floor. Joshua’s penis came out of me. He pushed it back in again, hard, all the way.
“Wait . . . that hurts, Josh.”
“I’m sorry. Is that okay?”
“Yeah.” But in that position, where I’m lying on my back, he can’t seem to go slow the way he does when we’re rocking together, so it was over pretty quickly. When we were done, he flopped over onto his back and rolled his eyes back, like he was fainting. “Wow, that honeysuckle really did me in. Hey, did I really hurt you?”
“Only a little.”
“Should I kiss it and make it better?”
“Okay.” But as he started to, I said, “Josh?”
“Yeah?” He lay there, looking up at me like a cocker-spaniel puppy with his big brown eyes.
“The thing is, do you wish I was like Marjorie?”
“In what way?”
“About fucking. Being more . . . fun-loving.”
“You’re fun-loving, Rust.”
“More wild or whatever.”
“No, you’re good, Rust.” He looked at me earnestly. “You’re the best.”
“It’s just I’m sorry that I can’t come while we do it. I try, but I just can’t.”
“You will, don’t worry.”
“Will I?”
“Sure.” He began kissing me between the legs.
“Do you mind about it, though?” I closed my eyes.
“No . . . except I want you to be happy. I want to make you deliriously happy.”
I smiled drowsily.
“No, I mean it. I want you to be so happy that it’s like nothing else ever was.”
“Is it that way for you?”
He nodded.
That makes me feel so good, that I can do that for someone. I like making Joshua happy. It’s the best feeling.
Daddy’s birthday is on Saturday, October 27. I made him a collage calendar just like I used