She said, “Don’t you have anything to say?”
She went on, “And don’t even try to make excuses or put it on him or say it was the booze. Zachary said you guys had no clothes on. You just barely started doing that with me!”
She said, “When the hell were we going to fuck? Did you even want to?”
She said, “Get the fuck out of my life.”
Drag, drag, drag, drag.
And, crumbling finally to the sidewalk, she whispered, “Oh my God, please don’t leave me, Zal. I fucking love you, that’s all.”
He did not say it back, not then. He had betrayed her, and in more ways than one, it seemed. The world Asiya lived in was primarily dark—People fuck up, she thought, cheat, hurt each other, behave like animals, stomp on each other’s hearts. That was to be expected. But that lack of reciprocity — her I love you, even if there was a fucking in the middle, was left dangling indefinitely, as if off a cliff, after all that they had gone through then, and in general even—that was just cruel.
She stopped talking to Zal, but not without telling him to steer clear of Zachary, because he had been saying over and over he wanted to kill Zal, for making a faggot of my homey Con.
That was no problem for Zal. He found Zachary distasteful, and Connor just some mistake. His newfound interest in making out + alcohol + art show, where he had been the star, had all equaled one giant mistake. Plus now that he knew the boy was Zachary’s friend, he was downright disgusted with himself. He hoped he’d never see either of them again.
But without Asiya, whom he often took for granted — he admitted it — his life was back to an unbearable bleakness. He could not believe he had endured all those years without her. There he was back at home, by his computer, eating honey-glazed moth wings, staring at the walls, talking to his father again all the time, feeling like a freak.
Was he another type of freak now? He didn’t think so. He did not consider this an act of homosexuality, he wanted to tell Asiya. In some ways, his no-sexuality made him pansexual. It shocked him less, he wagered, than most humans to imagine, say, having sex with an animal, especially, predictably — sometimes he hated himself — a bird. What difference did gender really make? Was it Asiya’s low-grade femaleness that kept him with her? It was absurd.
And kissing and sex felt worlds apart, somehow, so it stunned him to hear Asiya complain — so vulgarly in the awful aftermath — about their not having sex. It had first come up that winter, on Valentine’s Day, in fact, a day he’d often noticed but had never thought to observe. It was the day that Asiya — ever unsentimental Asiya, and yet! — had decided was to be their First-Sex Day. He had come to her place after therapy and found her on her bed, lying naked on some almost black petals. He had worried she had lost her mind and asked her what was wrong. She had laughed bitterly and reminded him what day it was. He had simply blinked. She had pulled him close to her and he had closed his eyes, as he often did when Asiya was nude — somehow her nudity was too much, although he had no problem showing her his. They had made out for a while, and Asiya had, over his clothes, sought parts of him, parts of him that were simply just confused. Eventually she had given up. You’re not into it, are you? she had asked, knowing the answer. He had apologized, explaining this was all happening very fast for him. He had reminded her he was not like other people and had almost cried from shame. And then she, too, had felt ashamed, and they had embraced. She put her clothes on, and they had had a decent enough dinner together.
Since then, Asiya had tried every few weeks, but every time it went much like that, sans petals. He had started to feel panicked at the very idea of her advances, just as he was alarmed by the idea that he would never be free of their relationship, something he had at first thought of as an experience yet was now looking like a condition.
And now that condition was gone. And yet Zal, sitting in his dark bedroom, utterly doghoused by her and by the world, suddenly realized: That’s it. Sex was the key. She wasn’t really upset about him with another human, but she was upset about him still not wanting to have sex.
What if he could?
What if sex was the physical manifestation of saying I love you? And once consummated, might as well be topped off with the oral confirmation?
What if it was that easy?
What if it was that hard?
Well, he thought, it could not be impossible.
In his head he heard Asiya’s black laughter at the phrase he considered forbidden for its ugliness, but which was, he had to admit, here quite apt: killing two birds with one stone.
He had no choice, anyway; he suddenly did not know how to live without her.
He spent hours practicing in the bathroom. He knew how people did it — he was not that naive — but he had never seen the point. Yet there he was frantically working at himself and at the same time trying to remain calm and in a pleasant mind-set to make the thing work, something he had only curiously tried abortively once or twice and abandoned. It took ages, but in the end he did get over that edge they talked about, felt his heart race to near explosion, it seemed, felt his body spasm, his insides burst and recoil. He sat there, in his mess, so proud. It had been a struggle, but he had done it. He had done it for his, yes, girlfriend.
Because outside of Asiya, he reminded himself, he would never be there, pawing at himself. He felt dirty. He felt animal. He felt more feral than feral. He felt so human. It disgusted him, and yet he did find it to be an accomplishment — another accomplishment-rung on the long ladder of Normal Human Behavior.
Plus he had figured out the equation, the one simple variable that could make it work. To function properly, he needed to meditate on a single notion, because the idea of Asiya was like an amalgamation of notion-hoods of sorts. It was, of course, almost ironic, almost cruel, and perhaps in the wrong spirit. But there was no other way. He, and Asiya, if she were ever to find out — and this time, no way in hell, he promised himself — would have to live with it: to have sex with his girlfriend, he would have to be thinking of her sister.
He finally turned to the computer and did that thing he never thought he’d have a reason to do, but which was the obvious final step in preparation: he began watching pornography to memorize the steps, the very complicated and yet apparently Human 101 steps, the means to that same end he was sitting in.
When he showed up at Asiya’s door, he presented her with a saran-wrapped paper plate of beetle cookies. She shook her head at it, looking so pale and exhausted. It relieved him to see her look so unhappy alone; it somehow meant they still had a chance, that she had not found a happiness outside of him.
“Asiya, please let me come in,” he said. “I am so sorry. I really am. I have something more for you, too.”
Nothing in her eyes changed, but she let him in. Her gaze looked dead, and her voice had no emotion. “Let’s go to my room. Zach might be home any sec.”
In her room, he immediately, without missing a beat, got to it — undressing himself — since he could see he had to make her better ASAP, not a minute to lose. He was already late.
When she saw him naked, she just blinked a couple of times. “I don’t have the energy to take photos of you, if that’s what you mean.”
He shook his head. “You do the same now.” He pointed to her body.