Camgirl Page 4

  “Wait, wait.” I sat up.

  “Come back…”

  I got out of bed and pulled a towel around my body. “I think we should reevaluate this plan.”

  “Why? We decided.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

  Jonah reached toward me, grabbing for my hand. I put it in his. It was clammy. “It’s a good idea,” he reminded me. “We love each other, remember?”

  “Can we just watch Lost instead?” I took my hand away and sat at his desk in front of the computer. I shook the mouse. “Let’s watch Lost and do this another time.”

  Jonah rolled his eyes and put on his shirt. “You can’t jerk me around like this.”

  We watched TV until his parents came home. At the sound of the garage opening, Jonah let out a loud sigh and got out of bed. He paused the computer and then stomped to the kitchen to greet them, leaving me alone.

  It turned out his parents had dinner plans. They changed their clothes and left for the night. Jonah sat at his computer, downloading a movie for us to watch. His door was covered with a collage of movie posters. I traced the titles with my eyes. The Shining. Requiem for a Dream. Lost Highway.

  I glanced at his face, still sullen and slightly angry. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  He spun the chair around. “You can’t back out again.”

  “I won’t. I’m ready. Let’s do it.”

  It took a moment before a smile broke out over his face.

  Back in the bed, he held his naked body over mine and reached past my head to look at the alarm clock.

  “August twenty-eighth, five twenty-six p.m.,” he stated solemnly.

  Afterward we took the bus downtown to get sushi to celebrate. It was right before a college football game, and the university marching band took over the street, blasting trumpets and chanting. Girls in high ponytails and gold uniforms spun batons and twirled ahead of the band, skipping in their white sneakers over the brick road.

  “Glory! Glory, Colorado!” the cheerleaders screamed.

  The bus pulled up near the band and a group of kids holding black and gold balloons rushed past, their parents in quick pursuit.

  “Look!” Jonah squeezed my hand as we climbed off the bus. “They’re cheering for us.”

  My skin crawled. It had been good sex, in the sense that I orgasmed. It had been bad sex, in the sense that I found myself staring out the window sobbing after we had finished. Jonah had gotten up to throw away the condom, and I wiped my face off as he came back in the room. He put his arm around me and kissed my face.

  “Why are you crying?”

  “I feel sad.”

  “Because we’re not virgins anymore?”

  “No.” I thought about it. “Maybe.”

  He kissed me again. “It’s okay, don’t worry. This is a good thing. We’ll be special to each other forever now.” Then he got up to get dressed.

  I felt dirty. I felt gross. I wanted to crawl out of my skin and curl up in the window well. I wanted to take it back. I needed to cover myself. I jumped up and pulled my clothes on, suddenly remembering what my mother taught me about peeing after sex. I ran to the bathroom and sat on the toilet.

  Sex became about proving my love. It was about making Jonah feel special. In exchange, he let me continue to text other boys. Email other boys. Hug other boys for just a second too long. Sex was a balancing act: if I gave it to him, I could feed my compulsion to wield power over other men. If I didn’t, Jonah became jealous. And with jealousy came meanness.

  “You think it’s cute, what you do, flirting with Josh like that in front of me?”

  Jonah and I were sitting in my old, green Subaru Outback in his driveway. We had been at a party, and I had spent most of the night on the back porch, smoking cigarettes and interrogating Josh about his parents’ divorce.

  “Why would it be cute?” I reached for the handle to get out. Jonah didn’t move.

  “I don’t know why you need to play these fucked-up games.”

  I paused and sat back in my seat, staring out the windshield. His border collie sat in the window, barking at us, lit by the cozy warm glow of his living room lights.

  “What games?”

  “Isa,” he said, “whatever deep, dark, sad little hole you’re trying to fill, it’s never going to work.”

  “Shut up.” I turned back to the door, opening it and stepping out.

  “You know it’s true. I’m the only one that really knows who you are,” he called out after me. “And you don’t even give a shit about me. You don’t even love me.”

  “I do love you.”

  “I’m nothing to you.”

  “Jonah, I love you.”

  “Prove it.”

  So I’d stare at the ceiling wondering how something I didn’t want could feel good. He’d run his fingers over the burns on my hip and tell me that only he could make it better. When I felt depressed afterward, as I invariably did, I’d try to hide my tears and the damp, dead feeling inside of me. I’d get up quickly and go make tea. Anything to help me forget that my skin was sticky with sweat and it felt like it wanted to peel itself off my body to escape me.

  Jonah told me he read in an article that the release of oxytocin during sex can make you feel depressed afterward, and he recommended a vitamin regimen to correct my dopamine deficiency. I took my vitamins, wondering what was wrong with me.

  Sex made me uncomfortable, and the more uncomfortable I became, the louder I talked. If I had to deal with sex, so did everyone else. When girls lost their virginities, I’d high-five them in the hallway. I tried to get my friends to lose their virginities, too. People began to think of me as a slut, and I didn’t want to be the only slut in the school. Sure, I wanted to be the best slut, the hottest slut, but I didn’t want to be alone. I was the girl who taught other girls how to give blow jobs. I parroted articles from Cosmo and talked about sex positions. I was always up on the gossip, who was dating whom, who had given a blow job to whom, who was on the pill, who wasn’t. When it rained, I herded my friends outside and made them kiss because nothing was more romantic than kissing in the rain. I enjoyed scandalizing my friends by always pushing myself to new extremes.

  At one party I’d take off my shirt. At the next, my bra.

  “Let’s be natural! Let’s be freeeeeeee!” I’d shout, running through Maggie’s basement, boobs flying.

  “Isa, my brother might come down.”

  Oh, I hoped her brother came down. I hoped her father came down. I wanted every man in the world to want me, and it didn’t matter to me who they were.

  I began to push my seduction of boys further. I challenged my best friend Hannah to a make-out contest, and we racked up dozens of kisses each weekend, begging for kisses from boys and girls alike.

  “I can’t let her win, babe,” I explained to Jonah. “These kisses don’t count, because they’re for the contest.”

  My relationship with Jonah came to a crisis point during my junior year. We were in love, sure, but we fought constantly, and manipulating each other replaced any genuine affection. I felt the only way to extricate myself from our embittered power struggle was to break his heart. And, I realized, the thought of breaking a heart did give me a rush. I chose the moment right after he had been in a bike crash to break the news. It’s not that I was vindictive. It’s just that I needed him to be as vulnerable as possible so that I could leave with all the power.

  I shrugged, sitting on the edge of his bed. “You’re just not fun anymore.”

  “What does that mean? I have a concussion. I can’t do stuff right now.”

  “No, I mean, like in general.” I kept my tone casual. It was more brutal that way.

  “That’s really not fair.”

  “All you do is ask me to take care of you. It’s exhausting.”

 
“I have a concussion!”

  “You’re fine. You’re just being needy and moping all day in bed.”

  “Isa, please. I love you.”

  “We’re seventeen, Jonah. You can’t take everything so seriously.”

  “Please, Isa.” It was like all the air had rushed out of him. He was small, meek, hunched over on the bed next to me, reaching for my hand.

  “I’m sorry, Jonah. This is just the way it has to be.” I shrugged again, stood up, and made my way to the door.

  Tears appeared in his eyes. “Isa, but I love you…and you love me too.”

  “Maybe love isn’t enough then, Jonah.” I held my hands out dramatically, blew him a kiss, and walked out.

  When I announced my new singleness, I already had a list of boys who each thought he was next. To forgo nursing my own broken heart, I simply jumped from boy to boy, making sure none of them was someone I might actually fall in love with. I wanted as many beginnings as possible. I felt most powerful right when a boy realized he wanted me. It was that shift from classmate to object of desire that gave me a thrill. If I switched boyfriends quickly, I could stay in the seductive part of the relationship for as long as possible. And whenever a boy pushed for more, I’d have a convenient excuse.

  “We’ve just started dating,” I’d explain, coyly pushing a boy’s hand to my breast. “We can’t go further than this.” I’d bite my lip and he’d groan a bit, and I’d move away and leave him confused.

  After breaking up, I’d string each boy along, keeping him just within arm’s reach in case I ever felt lonely at two in the morning. To do this, I made sure to end things in the least clean way possible. I’d pick tiny fights and say I needed space. I’d cheat, and then sob and bring up my parents’ neglect and say, “I was just too sad and needed comfort.” Which wasn’t entirely false—but it wasn’t entirely true, either. With any guy, the goal was simple: end the relationship, keep the attention.

  My reputation quickly expanded from uncontrollable slut to uncontrollable slut and heartbreaker. People began to hate me. Lauren didn’t like me talking to her ex. Maggie didn’t want me making out with everyone at her birthday party. No girl wanted me taking my clothes off in her living room. Ryan loathed me for breaking his best friend’s heart, and Miranda stopped speaking to me for dumping her brother after only three weeks. I was left out of parties, sleepovers, and camping trips. I lost friends. They wanted me to stop flirting with their dads more than they wanted my advice on flavored condoms. I felt alone, isolated. I began to call myself a slut, too.

  My mother took my new identity in stride. I think her acceptance came from a vague air of defeat rather than wanting to be cool. I loved walking through the house in my underwear making loud proclamations to reassure myself. “Your daughter is really hot, you know that?” and “You birthed such a sexpot,” and “Damn, Mom, I am fiiiiiiiiiiine.”

  She was even unfazed when I presented her with slut-related requests, like the time I asked for my birthday cake to say “WHORE” on it.

  “Whore? Just whore?” My mother confirmed, pencil poised over her grocery list.

  “Yes.”

  “Not ‘happy birthday, whore’ or, I don’t know, ‘happy whore day’?”

  “Whore day? Ew. No, just whore. Because I’m a whore.” I sighed. “You wouldn’t get it.”

  And my darling mother took that grocery list to Whole Foods and convinced the bakery guy to make a whore cake for her daughter. I cackled with glee as she gingerly set the cake on our green granite counter.

  “Well, he thought I was insane. But he did it.”

  The more boys I broke up with, the more hated I became, and the more I embraced my reputation. It was, after all, what made me special and different. With every new boyfriend, I might lose a friend, but I’d also gain another source of comfort. In those relationships, I was safe and I was in charge. No boy rejected Isa, even after I had broken up with him.

  That is, until Sam.

  Most Girls

  Sam was in my Latin class in high school. He was the type of kid who thought it was cool to wear a toga and recite Catullus in the hallways at the top of his lungs. He was theatrical, goofy, and wicked smart. He was a romantic who strummed the guitar and wrote poems. He was also slightly chubby, wore Crocs, and had a penchant for stumbling over his words when speaking to girls. I had no intention of dating him. But once I was done with Jonah, a little thought popped into my head.

  Sam was a good option for two reasons. One, he was a nerdy virgin who probably thought hand jobs were as good as the real thing. Two, he would never have the courage to ask me for sex. Ever. Obviously, I enjoyed teasing Sam mercilessly. I’d make out with him for hours but refuse to go further. My hand would slide down his pants just when I heard his mother’s car pulling into the driveway. Sam seemed absolutely confused by my simultaneous obsession and repulsion with physical intimacy. I told him I wanted to take things slow, and I enjoyed his obvious discomfort, his desire for more, and his fear of asking for it.

  Over winter break, Sam went to Hawaii with his family for vacation, and I felt like I was reaching the end of my time with him. He wanted me to be his proper girlfriend. He wanted me to stop taking my clothes off at parties and to stop flirting with other boys. He wanted to have sex. He had been patient, and it was clear he would wait until I was ready. I was never going to be ready. This was a good time to stir up drama, make Sam afraid he might lose me. If he thought I was going to leave him he’d stop asking to move faster and be happy with what he had. I chose, naturally, the best course of action: taking a picture of me, nose to nose, nuzzling a boy named Matt on a dark leather couch.

  We were all hanging out in Matt’s basement, and Maggie, who took the picture, didn’t think it was funny at all. Maggie was the leader of our group, the one who planned the parties and curated the gossip and decided who was allowed to eat with us at lunch. I was too wild for Maggie, but she didn’t want to make an enemy of me.

  “You guys, Sam is going to be so mad,” Maggie warned.

  “Shut up, it’s funny, it’s a joke.” I rolled my eyes at her.

  “I don’t get it, though, it’s not funny.”

  “Maggie, it’s not like we’re actually kissing. We’re touching noses. It’s different.”

  My legs were draped across Matt’s lap and his hands were on my thighs. I thought the picture was perfect. I could make Sam fight with me, thereby making him realize that he might lose me if he didn’t shut up, and I could make Matt fall in love with me. I forced Maggie to take the picture, I forced Matt to post it on Facebook, and I went home and waited.

  “What the hell is that picture, Isa?” Sam screamed at me from his hotel in Hawaii.

  “It’s just a joke, Sam. Calm down!”

  “A joke? What do you mean?”

  “Sam, I told Matt not to post that photo, and I didn’t even want to take the photo, okay? It’s a joke. We’re just friends, and Maggie thought it would be funny. I’m sorry!”

  “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Doing what?”

  “This! This picture! Everything! You always throw yourself at people that aren’t your boyfriend!”

  I sighed. “It’s not my fault you’re so repressed, Sam.” I shifted my weight and reached for the line that would get me what I wanted. “I should be allowed to take off my clothes at parties if that’s what I want. You don’t own me.”

  The next morning Sam left a comment for Matt on the picture: “I’m not sure what’s going on here but I feel like I should punch you so hard up the ass you’ll forget which side does the eating and which side does the pooping!”

  Matt liked it.

  When Sam returned from Hawaii, I waited for him to text me to come over. Instead, he told me he needed to “evaluate” things. Excuse me? I dumped him, unceremoniously. How dare he.

  A few days late
r, Sam stopped by my house to drop off some things that I had lent him. “Some things” turned out to be a single book, a worn paperback copy of Steinbeck’s East of Eden. He stormed out of his mom’s white Lexus and stood at the top of my very long driveway. I opened the slow-moving metal gate and waited with my arms crossed. The book wasn’t even mine, although I had told him it was my favorite.

  “That’s not my book, Sam.”

  He stuttered a bit, obviously thrown by me talking first.

  “You can keep it. It’s not mine.” I turned to go back down the driveway. Why was he even here? I wondered. He’s not supposed to be mad still.

  “You wait just a second there!” His voice cracked. He sounded like a dad scolding a child. I turned. Sam threw the book on the ground between us, the twack satisfying every inch of me that craved melodrama. “I can see why you told me to read this,” he said, daring me to respond.

  “Uh, why? ’Cause it’s good?” I said.

  “No!”

  “So you didn’t like it?”

  “No. Yes. I mean, it’s a good book.”

  He took a breath, then dove into a clearly rehearsed monologue. “You’re a monster. You’re exactly like her. Cathy. In the book.” He pursed his lips and practically spat out the rest. “There’s not a fiber of humanity in your entire body!” Having already thrown the book to the ground, he had nothing dramatic left to do except jab his finger repeatedly in the air. “You hear me? A MONSTER! Good riddance!” He stomped back to his car.

  I picked up the book and walked slowly back into the garage. East of Eden takes place in Salinas, California, in the early 1900s. Cathy marries the main character, sleeps with his brother, shoots him, leaves him, and moves to a town where she becomes a prostitute and runs a brothel blackmailing and breaking men. Even though Steinbeck literally describes Cathy as a “monster” with a “malformed soul,” she had always been a sympathetic character to me. I related to her desire to be wanted. She was powerful, beautiful, worshipped, invincible. Cathy didn’t feel guilty seducing men. Cathy didn’t feel sad and dirty after sex. Cathy didn’t punish herself for hurting people. Cathy didn’t care.