Fairest by Meredith Talusan

Author:Meredith Talusan [Talusan, Meredith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

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During my summer internship between sophomore and junior year, I learned in the mosquito-ridden lawns of the Berkshire Theatre Festival that I had no patience for the petty politics of the stage, as I observed behind-the-scene dramas that negated everything I loved about the shows I saw. The only enjoyable parts were the late-night parties with the crew and supple dances with Allen the prop master, encounters that extended to his bed. I should have called Thomas and told him it was over, but Allen lived in New Jersey during the year, so we made no sense apart from dancing close, a compatibility that reminded me of entangled, wrestling spiders in bed, the joy of one wrapping another in silk, sensual yet suffocating. Maybe this was what sex would be like until I had more experience, my spirit not quite at one with my body, the ending a relief from getting disentangled instead of the transcendent pleasure I’d been promised.

I returned to school determined to tell Thomas about the affair and break up with him, but he was so eager to see me that I couldn’t, though maybe that was just cover for the ego boost he provided, the knowledge that I was the center of another person’s world. He lived in a high-floor apartment on Beacon Street just after the bridge, with expansive views of the Charles from his living room window, which was probably what I liked most about him. What he liked most about me, it turned out, was that I fit into his fantasies of nabbing a twink despite being a nerd. In his apartment late one night shortly after I got back from the Berkshires, I got out of bed to use the bathroom and found him awake when I returned.

“Just stay there,” he said. “I want to look at you.”

Thomas turned on his bedside lamp, and I felt the light unclothe me. I stood still for a few seconds before Thomas got up himself and asked me to turn toward the full-length mirror beside his bed, oak-framed and propped up on a stand.

“I like watching myself,” he said.

I always thought the mirror felt incongruous in that sparsely furnished room, and it was only then that I understood its function. Thomas stood behind me and massaged my torso, his chin propped against my shoulder; I felt like a lifeless toy. For a moment, I thought he would try to jerk me off and I wondered how far my tolerance went, but thankfully, he instead stepped from behind me to stroke himself.

“It’s like we’re porn stars,” he said, and I reached for my own penis because I knew this was what he wanted. Looking at Thomas’s scrawny body in the mirror, I began to understand that we weren’t so dissimilar, that we both wanted to be desired. But somehow, being with me fueled his fantasies, and as I observed our bodies, I gained even more evidence of my high place among the rungs of attractiveness.

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