Lustful Memoirs
By: Gina - gina@basic-nstynct.com
Chapter Forty SixMy first three weeks back in LA passed in a flurry of activity. From the time the plane skidded down the runway until that fateful night three weeks later, I didn’t allow myself one passing minute to breathe. I couldn’t, for a moment still was a moment to think and a moment to think could lead to disaster. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the lost childhood, the father that deserted me, or the mother that cast me away that would lead to my crumbling. I had made peace with those thoughts on the plane, laid them to rest, in the form of a written letter. For the entire flight, I wrote, letting the anger, the hurt, the disappointment, seep from my body through my fingers into the pen, and onto the paper as the dark black ink pooled onto the parchment. As I exited the plane, I left those papers there, with all of the feelings that they held, leaving them to depart as the plane took off to destinations unknown, and with it the plane would take my abandonment, it would take the would haves, and the should haves. The plane would hold those destructive feelings forever. The one thing the plane couldn’t rid me of, however, was those compassionate, expressive blue eyes, the way that lip pulled between those teeth in a moment of deep concentration, that cocky grin that could change a moment later to a grin of concern and uncertainty. The plane couldn’t remove the feeling of being in those strong, muscular arms that would surround me and keep the world out, the feeling of being next to him, aching for his touch, and the delight in receiving it. It could not take the feelings I held for a man that I couldn’t have, for a man I would probably never see again.
That very thought was foolish the moment it entered into my mind. As I exited the plane and walked through the airport, I saw him everywhere. There he was by the magazine rack, on the little girl’s shirt, and in the gift shop. The drive home proved just as hell bent in burning his image into my mind, as if it didn’t already exist there. His face graced the side of three billboards, one an advertisement for their new CD, the second showed that he graced the cover of that month’s issue of CosmoGirl. The final announced that he would be visiting the city, the billboard read, "Live at the Forum, Nsync. Get your tickets now." Three weeks from the night we said good bye in his city, he would be arriving in mine. I had no desire to make plans with him, no desire to arrange a meeting, but I did long to see this side of him. A side he had yet to share, a side so public that in my time with him it eased by my consciousness. I mentally added getting tickets and picking up the latest issue of CosmoGirl to my overgrowing to do list.
And so the night arrived, three weeks to the day, and I found myself running around my house like a giddy thirteen-year old girl, singing song after song, as their voices, his voice echoed loudly throughout my house. I was on my way up the stairs one final time, when the phone rang. I inwardly groaned. There could only be one person on the other end. Everyone else would have just called my cell.
But not Marie, she always attempted me at home first. I contemplated letting it ring, but I knew, it was futile, she would just use the other number, the number where she knew she would reach me. I lowered myself down the steps, each foot landing more heavily then the last. I didn’t want to talk to her. I longed for the two months I promised her to be over, so that I could rid myself of her and the profession I had held for so long. Upon my return to LA, I made a list of the things that I needed to do, the things that would set my life onto the course that I wanted, a course determined by what I wanted to do, what I knew then that I could do. Powered by the strength and the self-confidence Justin had given me, I picked up the phone on my second day back. Marie’s voice was smug as she greeted me, but I allowed her to go no further with that attitude. I may have been insecure and full of self-doubt in every other aspect of my life, but my relationship with Marie was not that way. I knew the hold I had over her, it was the one place I knew my full power. As I laid the facts before her, I knew that I held the upper hand. She would kiss my feet if I asked. I brought her too much money, my regular clients hadn’t been happy when I left to go to Orlando, they would be even more unhappy if they were to find that I was in LA and yet unable to work because of Marie. The question of how they would feel when I finally quit for good didn’t enter my mind, I really could not have cared less. But for two months, I needed my job back, and she was going to allow me that. And she knew it. She could hear the truth burn through each one of my words. I would work for her for two months, just enough time to earn the money that I anticipated needing. And then I would be finished, with her, with the profession, with that way of life. She unwillingly agreed, she had no other choice.
And so, four days after leaving Orlando, I laid in a bed, in a nondescript hotel room, a man poised above me, telling me how much he missed me, how disappointed he was with the other girls, how great it was to have me back. My body recoiled as he touched me, I struggled to keep the bile from rising in my throat as he entered me. I moved below him on autopilot. His words fell on deaf ears, his actions going unnoticed. I stared intently at the clock just over his shoulder, waiting, hoping, praying, that the two hours he had purchased would pass quickly. Finally he finished, his release filling the condom inside of me, he lay above me, crushing me more mentally then physically. I couldn’t breath, I couldn’t move. It took all the strength I could muster to hide the disgust on my face, not of the man, but of myself. He finally moved, leaving me wrapped in the hotel sheets. I watched his every move, as he picked his clothing up from the floor and dressed, as he laid the ten one-hundred dollar bills on the night stand. As he adjusted his tie, as he placed his lips on my forehead, whispering promises of next time. I watched as he strode to the door, his shoulders held higher, his gait much more arrogant then when he had entered the suite. I watched as he departed. As the door shut, my stomach revolted. The images of him touching me crushed my senses. I could still feel his lips on my body, his fingers touching my skin, his engorged cock entering me, pounding away, until his release came. His over powering, too expensive cologne still raged in my nostrils. I hurried from the bed, running across the room to enter the bathroom, I threw myself in front of the toilet, no longer able to control my body’s revulsion. My insides convulsed, sending everything that I had eaten that day, to splash in the porcelain bowl. Tears coursed down my face, burning the skin. My body trembled, doing all that was possible to rid itself of the disgust. I clawed at my skin, willing his touch away. I pulled at my hair, willing the memories to leave. I stood, slowly, shakily from the floor, shuffling over to the shower. I reached my hand in and turned on the water. Lowering myself to the shower floor, the water scalded, my skin turned an angry red by the burning moisture. The tears continued. I grabbed a wash cloth, using the hotel issued soap, I scrubbed furiously, hoping to rid my mind and body of the hours that had passed. As I sat on the floor, allowing the water to penetrate my skin, burning me, I was unaware that time passed, that the earth continued to rotate, that the world still existed. How could I do this for two months? I questioned myself. How could I have at one time enjoyed this, told myself that it wasn’t a bad way to make a living? How could I have been such a fool? There was no way I could continue. All my grandiose plans of saving enough money to finish paying for school, to afford a half decent apartment, to be able to work a normal job, only part time to help pay the bills. All the plans, all the decisions I made, my blueprint for the rest of my life came crashing down, all because I couldn’t tolerate doing what, for so long had been all I had known how to do.
"I hate him." I screamed, the words echoing off of the bathroom walls. It was all his fault, and with that statement, the tears started again. It was his fault, for it was his touch that I longed to feel, it was him that I wanted inside of me, it was his arms I wanted wrapped around me as I fell asleep, it was he who made me realize that the life I had in LA wasn’t the life that I wanted. It was him that made me want a better life. It was him that made me love him, and I hated him for it.
Love and hate, two emotions so different, yet used so close together in the same sentence. Hate I was used to, hate I could understand, could cope with, could know. But love, I loved him. The thought entered my mind without prompting, without some laborious, exhaustive analysis, just uttered in a moment of uncertainty. Was it true? Was it possible? Could I love him? Could I feel love? All the jumbled feelings I had for him, all the unexplainable emotions, could they all be explained by one little four letter word? As the water cooled, easing my heated skin, the realization dawned, the proverbial light bulb had been turned on in the otherwise dark room. Everything I struggled to explain about him, every nuance of feeling, every nondescript emotion, now had a name. I had fallen in love with him, without ever knowing that I knew what love was. Images of him passed before my eyes, his understanding, his caring eyes, his strong arms, the strength that he handed to me with every smile, every knowing glance. I saw him, and I knew then, what attracted me to him. It wasn’t his defined body, his intense, handsome facial features his boyish charm, his amazing sexual prowess. It was his heart. The organ that he told me during our departing that I held a place in. In that moment, on the floor of that hotel shower, I knew that he held a place in mine too. And in some way, that knowledge was all I needed. The memories of him would pull me through the two months ahead. Those memories would be there no matter whom I laid with, in my mind it would always be him that was touching me. Knowing that, I knew that I could survive.
After the first night, the job became almost bearable. For the most part, I was able to block out the faceless man that touched me. However, sometimes I failed to prevent the nausea, the gut wrenching sick feeling that washed over me as those men entered me, intent only on their own pleasure. At times, even his image wasn’t enough to control the revulsion. For he would have never treated me the way these men did, not even during our first times together, when he tried so desperately to be mean, to be uncaring, to be conceited and aloof, not even then could he be capable of treating me in this manner. However, each night, I pretended, I laid in whatever position these men chose and I summoned his image, calling it from the deep recesses of my memory just so I would make it through the time these men had paid for. After they left, I would curl myself into a ball and imagine his arms wrapped around me, his whispers that everything would be okay, and I believed him. Everything would be okay. It was only two months.
And so, on the only night of the two months that I would allow myself time off, the night of the concert, she was calling. I glanced at the caller ID, though I knew, without a doubt, it was her number that would show there. The mere thought that she would interrupt this personal time sent anger through my body. I picked up the phone, taking in a deep breath, willing myself to keep my rage under control. She would not ruin my night, there wasn’t any way in hell that I was going to work that night, and that would be the only thing that would prompt her call.