Man-Shaped Mirror

He plunges my face into the water, without a word, his fingers tangled up in my hair. Before I strike the surface, I see my face in the reflection.

My eyes are half closed, my mouth open, as if in some bitter ecstasy.

***

I awake with a start. Details from the dream slowly congeal in my mind as I lay breathing in bed. I sigh and rub my eyes. He's now invaded my sleep, as well.

I turn to the side and reach down. A dull ache is gently thumping between my legs. I'm incredibly wet.

Images of Paulhan's impassive stare hurl through my mind as I trace the swollen outline of my slit. I open my eyes and see the clock.

Shit!

***

I'm twenty-five minutes late for class.

Paulhan glares at me as I burst in through the door. The other students are gaping at me, blank looks in their pale faces.

The gnawing frenzy mounts again as I fidget in my seat. Images from the dream has possessed me. What does it mean? What am I trying to tell myself?

I weigh the events that had happened successively in the past two days. This is all leading up to something, I know it. It's coming to a head. I know because the tension is already driving me crazy. If I don't break it, it will break me.

How could I do it without resorting to a full blown confession? Taking out my pencil and notebook, I start to deliberate the possibilities. The most attractive option by far is to give him an invitation. Right. A conversational, meaningful invitation. My hand begins to write, and the words flow out effortlessly, like water from a waterfall.

Mister Paulhan

I enjoy your class, working with you on the maps, and having you as a swimming coach. I enjoy your company.

I've just realized one thing. Do you remember our conversation over the dinner table, specifically when I was talking about honesty and writing? When I think back to that observation, I'm reminded of us, and how we talk to each other.

When you speak to me, it's as if you fluctuate between the roles of two characters. One speaks his mind, and appears to hide nothing. The other is cautious, and says things he thinks I want to hear.

I prefer the second over the first. Being that honesty comes so easily, I find your dishonesty immensely attractive.

Sabine

I read over the note once to check for spelling, then fold it twice. Several minutes had passed by the time the bell rings. I stand up and make my way to the front of the room, amidst a small army of students who are getting ready to leave.

"This is for you," I say, carefully slipping him the folded paper. I feel my face grow hot.

"What is this?"

He takes the note out of my hand and starts to unfold it.

"Oh, don't."

He eyes me for a moment, unmoving.

"Open it later, please." My voice is strained and hushed. He nods.

"I'll catch you later then," he says.

I turn and hurry out the open door. The sweet autumn air greets my face. I take it in, watching the tree outside the classroom. Its yellowing leaves are coated in intricate webs of dew.

***

My other classes started and stopped, with me drifting through them like a shapeless specter. Anxiety and euphoria alternately ate at me, then gagged my frayed nerves.

The moment where things take a critical turn is upon me, and it had been my own hand that dealt it. For several moments I feel my full weight behind this story. It isn't just moving me along.

Minutes after the bell had rung, I open the door to Room 54.

Deafening silence. Paulhan is behind his computer, typing softly. He notices me, but doesn't look up.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi." I sink down into a seat as I exhale slowly, amazed by my own calmness.

Paulhan gets up from his desk and saunters over to the round table. He folds his arms and his long legs as he leans against its edge. I notice a few fine wrinkles in his light blue shirt.

His gaze is chillingly hollow. His face is sullen.

"Look, Sabine..." He clears his throat. "I'm actually really not interested in having this conversation. But there are very important things you need to know."

His words cut into me. Each one is a razor. The ghastly lacerations tear into my skin, the vulnerable interior of my stomach.

"You're my student. There's a line of decorum in our interaction that we have to honor. What you wrote to me this morning—it's a serious transgression."

His remains absolutely still. The room is spinning too fast for me to will any emotion into my words.

"Sorry," I murmur.

Fri Oct 13, 2006 3:01 PM

"Have you missed any swim meets before?"

Joe's face is tense with concentration as he packs the bowl with round clusters of pot. The leaves are dry, but not brittle. They're a lustrous, deep green, with little red whiskers crusted with tiny crystals.

"No. This is the first." I rub my temples, feigning pain. "My head just hurts so much today. I wanted to see you."

"You're sweet." He smiles, handing me the bong. After stomping around the room for several seconds, searching for a lighter, he produces one from under a thick, musky pile of clothing.

"Here you go."

He watches me attentively as I light the bong and draw the smoke into my lungs. It's dry and I fight back an urge to cough.

"Hold it..." He grins.

Minutes later, I'm naked and kneeling between his legs. I've undone his pants, gently caressing the head of his cock with my lips. He gasps, his body taut with pleasure.

"Oh, Sabine..."

I trace his length with my fingertips. My tongue dances around the swollen crown, prodding his narrow slit. Then I pop him in between my lips. Joe groans.

I've destroyed it, I realize. Whatever was between Paulhan and me, I've blown it away.

I swirl my tongue beneath the ridge, eliciting a guttural moan.

Just like an eyelash I've caught on a fingertip.

He slips a hand behind my head, gently pressing me further down.

Whatever he had once thought of me—now obliterated. What did he think anyway? What did it add up to—the maps, inviting me to his apartment? Was it out of sheer friendliness? Didn't his eyes tell me otherwise?

I hold back a gag as Joe's eager cock bumps the back of my throat.

I can't stop doing things that are wrong. One after another. A series of things that shouldn't have been done. Words that should never have come to light.

My fingers curl around his balls, massaging the silky skin, as I milk his cock with my mouth. Slurping, sucking sounds echo off the walls of the room.

Kate's words clamor loudly in my mind. What did I want from him? Why am I infatuated with him in the first place? Boredom? Because my mom is almost never around and I lack a father figure? How did I fall so firmly, so plainly into place... into this pathetic archetype?

Joe's grip tightens around my head. He bucks and pumps my mouth. I taste his pre-cum, bitter and pungent, as it oozes onto my tongue.

Being infatuated with Paulhan made me feel adult. I've been declassed, I realize. Defeated. Embarrassingly infantile.

His rhythm has become hasty and urgent. I struggle to breathe as I fuck him with my mouth. My lips feel raw and my jaw is unbearably sore.

What would I have gotten out of fucking him? Haven't I been hating him this whole time? I can't even be sure, I realize, which is more unbearable—my own shameful defeat, or the fact that things with him will never be the same again.

Joe starts to come. He shudders, his body convulsing as his sperm surges into my throat. I suck and swallow it all. His moans gently die down to a low hum.

And how did it begin? I try to pinpoint the exact minute when my infatuation with Paulhan came to bloom. Nothing. I had skipped over that moment. There was no before, no after. Just one continuous, seamless seq—

"I love you," Joe says suddenly.

I pull my head away. His cock slips out of my mouth, slowly softening, spent. I wipe my lips with the back of my hand.

"I love you, Sabine."

I have to leave here as soon as possible. I have to be out of his room. Picking up my bra, I start getting dressed.

"Sabine." He wipes at his eyes, sitting forward. "Did you hear me?"

"Yeah."

Silence.

"Do you love me?"

I turn away and slip into my underwear. My clothes lay in a rumpled pile next to me.

"No."

Joe is quiet as I step into my jeans. I feel his eyes on my back as I put my hands through the arms of my t-shirt.

"Tell me one thing, Sabine, honestly." His voice is oddly sober. I turn to face him. His eyes are dark and dull, still rimmed with pink.

"Do you think I'm an idiot?"

I stare at him. I shake my head.

"You think I'm an idiot, don't you."

I've been working my way through a labyrinth for the past two months. I'm snagged in a dead end. Paulhan is poised in the very center, and now he's just on the other side of the wall.

"Joe, I have to go. I'll see you later."

I slip out of his room, past his front door, and into the hypnotic, indifferent symphony of the evening's colors.

***

My clothes reek of sweat, weed and failure. I shut the bathroom door and start peeling them off.

Pangs of a dull ache are intensifying in my chest. I can feel hot, stinging tears creep into my eyes, but I don't want them to be there.

Perched on the toilet, I turn on the tap and watch the water run.

The door opens a crack. It's mom.

"Hey honey."

"Hi mom." I try to suppress the pain in my voice.

"Are you okay?" Her expression clouds over with concern.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just really sore and stressed out from school."

"Oh, honey. I'll give you a massage later," she says. "I'm home for a few days. We'll catch up when you get out of the bath, okay?"

"Okay."

She shuts the door. I hear her footsteps gently padding away.

My heart hurts so much. It's writhing and grinding in my chest, like it's struggling to tear itself apart. The forceful pulses quakes through my whole body. I put my hands over it to try to placate it, to suppress it. But it's shaking me to pieces, and I'm choking on its convulsions.

Tears well over onto my face. I hold back the compulsion to sob. The sound of running water isn't loud enough to conceal me.

Sat Oct 14, 2006 6:40 PM

"Joe told me you guys broke up." Kate's tone is easy and casual.

"Yeah, I guess we did."

"What happened?"

"Well, we were fooling around. Then he asked me if I loved him. I couldn't say yes."

"Whoa. Serious?"

"Yeah. I had to leave. It was really awkward."

"Damn," Kate sighs. "Now he's going to be upset for like, the next two weeks."

"I'm sorry, Katie."

"Oh, please. You don't have to apologize. He's full of shit anyways."

A calm silence permeates the phone.

"So, I told Paulhan."

"What do you mean?" Kate asks. "What did you tell him?"

I recount the contents of my note to him as best as I can. My own words prick me. My head stings with shame as I hear them again. Then I relate his response, almost word for word. I've committed it to memory.

Kate is quiet.

"Wow."

"Wow?"

"Wow. Is that why you didn't go to the swim meet on Friday? Angel said you weren't there."

"Yeah. I just didn't want to face him. I was upset at him."

"Why were you upset?"

"Katie, why do you think? He led me on this entire time. He did. And then when I get close to try to get things out in the open, he just backs out," I snap. "He's a fucking coward. That whole map bullshit, inviting me over to his place—it's just him trying to prove to himself that he can still impress someone."

Kate doesn't respond. I can hear her mind turning.

"Sabine, I think what you said to him is really insensitive."

"Why?"

"I don't know," she says. "It's hurtful."

Wed Oct 18, 2006 5:53 PM

Time progresses in one single, unforgiving direction. The damage I've done to Paulhan and me is irreparable.

This painful, persistent thought followed me out of the house, into his class, and then out again like an obstinate poltergeist. With Kate incapable of feeling any empathy for me, I find myself totally alone.

A wariness looms in every word Paulhan speaks to me. We ignore the bitter distance that has yawned open between us. It's been five days since our confrontation, but each one seems like a year.

I stretch down to loop my fingers around my big toes.

Our swim meet has just wrapped up, and the girls are trailing into the locker room with goggles on their heads, limp towels around their necks. Everyone is exhausted from the laps, but more so from the knowledge that competitions are starting soon.

Desperation grips me every time I see him. It has a firm hold of me now.

He's relaxed, writing on his clipboard, seated at the bottom row of the weather-beaten bleachers.

Everything is just so wrongfully unresolved.

"What's up," he says as I sit down next to him, his concentration still intact.

I stop myself before apologizing again. It's unnecessary. A moment of silence drifts by before either of us say anything.

"Are you okay?" he asks, watching me now. A quiet resolve permeates him, as if he and I had struck some unspoken agreement. As if he had declared in front of me, I wash my hands of all this.

His ease is nauseating.

"I just want your attention."

"Okay. You have my attention." His jaw is taut.

"I don't want to play anymore games with you."

"We aren't."

"I hate that you toy with me like you do."

He exhales deeply, his nostrils flaring. His voice is low, smoldering.

"You need to be careful, Sabine. You're getting into a lot of troub—"

"Just shut up."

I thrust my face towards him. Our lips touch.

I draw in his texture. His stubble pricks my upper lip. Minute beads of his perspiration dabs my skin. His smell... salty, a bit metallic. It's intoxicating. I'm dissolving from this electric charge.

Paulhan quickly pushes me away, gentle but brutal all the same. He struggles to catch his breath as he turns his head towards the girls' locker room. He looks around, choked with panic. No one in sight.

"Don't freak out," I tell him.

"This is fucked up." Sweat is gathering rapidly on his brow, his forehead.

I get to my feet and step away, motioning towards him. "Come on."

"No, Sabine! What do you think you're doing?"

"We should talk where no one's around."

I watch him silently as he weighs his options. The moment seems to get the better of him.

***

The boy's locker room is deserted and thick with male adolescent stench. Shoulder pads and knee pads litter the floor and corners. A narrow skylight glows above the shower. Everything is draped in shadows.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asks again, his composure slipping. His eyes keep darting at the door. "You have no fucking idea, do you?"

His outbursts are frightening. Unfamiliar. But I remember that it's exactly what I had hoped for. I ignore him and lunge at him. With little effort his hands wrap around my wrists, barring my assault, towering over me. I look up at him, unwilling to conceal my desperation.

"Please..." The tiny word slips out from between my lips. "Please, I just want you to kiss me."

"No." His voice is strong, but I can hear a subtle, concealed waver.

"Just... please." I struggle to press my body into his, pushing him into the tiled wall of the shower. "Please."

My face held firm against his chest, the heat of his body quickly engulfs me. I can hear the faint, frantic rhythm of his heart. My hands relax in his grip as I bask in this rich, animate ocean.

"Mm."

"Sabine, stop."

"I will if you'll just kiss me. Please."

Silence. He gently releases my wrists. My hands fall cautiously to his sides, fingers tugging at his shirt. His breathing is short and pained. A lovely agony dances in his pupils.

"How old are you?"

"I'm eighteen."

I lift up on my toes to meet him as he leans down. Our lips just barely graze. I press closer, more fully. It's so painfully tender.

My mouth caresses his, teasing and testing him with the tip of my tongue, the edges of my teeth. His tongue quickly slips over mine and seizes my mouth, silvery and searing hot. A soft moan escapes from me. We pull away from our kiss. His breaths are violently frenetic now.

"Fuck," he sighs, panting. His erection shifts between us.

I search feverishly for the words.

"I want you so badly."

His eyebrows knot in agitation.

"I want you," I say again, forceful. "I want to suck your dick."

He groans, eyes disturbingly dark.

"Sabine, you little bitch," he snarls through clenched teeth.

His fumbles at his belt. I help him undo the buckle, my fingers trembling uncontrollably. He watches me as I work his pants open, his hands burying deep into my hair. He huffs loudly, trying to contain himself as I tug his cock out over his shorts.

It swings out and almost strikes my cheek. It's firm and hot in my hands, pulsing lightly. I take in its girth, the numerous veins with my fingers. The sight of it is terrible and exquisite all at once.

I slip the tip of him in between my lips, savoring its taste, committing it to memory. The wet sound of my mouth meeting his cock echoes off the metal locker doors, the cold tiles.

He groans and throws his head back, eyes squeezed shut. Like a ship's mast, snapped in half, reeling into the sea.

I knead him with my tongue and my mouth—the thick crown of his cock, the fat ridge all around, the exquisite cleft underneath. My hands slip around him to grasp his ass as I take in his length, slowly, achingly.

"Oh, fuck, Sabine."

My hair wound around his fingers, he quickly begins to pump my mouth like a mechanical piston, pushing and pulling me, angry and impatient. His cock dives in and out between my lips. Each vehement stroke brings him further and further past the back of my throat. I look up at him, already out of breath. He's completely lost.

I moan, sensing the tension mount in his body. His fingers dig cruelly into my scalp, his cock twitching against the back of my tongue. The skin of his neck and face is slick with sweat.

Paulhan pulls out abruptly, as if to shrink away. My mouth feels excruciatingly soft and hollow. He looks down at me, eyes half closed, breaths frenetic and uneven. Come blurts out of his cock and spills over my face. I flinch, shocked by its heat. It blankets my lips, the tip of my nose, and gathers between my eyelashes. It pools in the corners of my lips before trailing down my chin. The acrid flavor overwhelms my senses. Like chlorine.

"Oh my god," he sighs, almost sobbing, watching me as I wipe at the cum with my hands. I can see a thousand thoughts unravelling in his mind as he reels from what he's done. Getting up on my feet, I pull him in gently for another kiss, letting him taste his come on my lips. His mouth is uncertain now, responding timidly.

I pull back as I search his eyes. They're spent—clouded with anguish, guilt. Perhaps relief.

"God." He shakes his head, solemn, face still flustered. "What the fuck..."

My hand comes to rest beside the nape of my neck, before slipping the straps of my swim suit off my shoulders. My nipples are soft and damp in the humidity. They stare at him, quivering.

"Fuck me."

His eyes are wide, gripped by disbelief.

"Fuck me," I repeat flatly. The words roll off my tongue like two small but hefty stones.

"You're out of your fucking mind, Sabine," he snaps, struggling to button his pants.

"You're done?" I feign dissatisfaction. It coats my accusation with effective insult. "Can't you get it up again?"

He glowers at me, seething with venom.

"Fuck you."

Paulhan grips my shoulder and flips me around rudely, hurling me face first into the wall. I hit the tile with a quiet thud, the pain firing through me like a hot charge. My breasts bounce from the force. His fingers seizes the straps of my swim suit and tugs it down, past my ribcage, past my waist, then over the swell of my ass.