Impact 08: of Confession

The "Impact" series began* as a collaboration with ButteredCrumpet, who has posted our original versions as "Impact of Collision".

Special thanks to HaltWhoGoesThere for proof reading this chapter - repeatedly.

I hadn't really been thinking about where I was until I turned down First Ave, and with a little jolt of shock saw that I was on Curry Row. Walking downtown from Port Authority I'd known where I was headed, I wasn't lost or even off course, it was mostly a straight shot down Broadway. But I'd been walking in a bit of a daze. New York is especially dirty on Sunday mornings, and a little strange... not quite itself. The whole city feels like it slept in its clothes; slowly waking up hungover and empty. So everything seems unfamiliar anyway, but I also hadn't been over this way in years.

And even as fucked up and out of control as everything felt, part of me couldn't help but find it striking that my mind was still stitching a map of the city together, that I was still placing disconnected places I know separately in relation to each other - connecting them.

And so here I was, in front of the funny little twin Indian restaurants Darci had dubbed "Jeff and Akbar."

A group of us had been visiting the city from Brown for a symposium. I remember I had tried so hard to get Danny to come down from Buffalo and meet me that trip, and I'd been so relieved he hadn't come.

I looked around, reorienting myself, I was at First Ave and 6th. To be fair, I hadn't thought of that trip in years - or tried not to - and hadn't been down this way since that night. I try to remember who I'd been with besides Darci and Kwasi - Bald Jeff... I think Bobbie, but I'm not sure. I remembered that there were six of us, that we had to wait for a big enough table, the two restaurants both scrambling to make room fast enough to get us inside first.

The warring restaurants occupied two tiny, but almost identical, walk-up spaces in a single storefront. One stairwell leads towards their doors - facing each other - each space mirroring the other, each with the same plate glass front, and each competing to outdo the other with cheap strings of lights hanging from the ceiling - hundreds of them. Competing hawkers, both in ties and waistcoats, had pressed us to come to one or the other, extolling the great virtues of their respective establishments.

We had gone to the one on the right... or maybe it was the one on the left - it had been years ago. I'd needed to duck under the thousands of tiny lights hanging from the ceiling - strings of tiny white bulbs, glowing chili peppers, Santas and sleighs, all a jumble.

"Nothing means anything," Kwasi had joked looking up at them. Which had triggered a diatribe about postmodernism from Bald Jeff that we had all shouted down.

The six of us had crowded at a table in the back, the heat of the lights bearing down on the tops of our heads - especially Kwasi, who was easily a head taller than Jeff. The rush to order, the waiters bringing us one course after another after another, until the table was crowded with plates, pretty little hammered tin bowls, and towering cans of Kingfisher lager. The food had been mediocre at best, but no one cared. Kwasi and Darci hadn't started dating yet, and he had been flirting with us both, doting on me, making me laugh. She had been holding on to me, whispering in my ear. It had been a fun night. I'd been happy.

In the light of day the little places looked dingy and tawdry.

'Lots of things look tawdry in the light of day,' I thought, walking down the tree-less avenue, the trash in the gutters, the stained sidewalks and shuttered storefronts.

''We were so happy last night,' I thought glumly, "...then everything had turned to shit.'

It had all started going wrong when Claire had told us how old she was.

It's not like she lied to me. We'd never talked about our ages, I'd just assumed. I thought of the way she had introduced me as a "prodigy" and "wunderkind" to her friends at events, "Young Sarah" when we were alone.

'I just never imagined...'

It's just so easy to forget how different our backgrounds are because she has no accent, but she grew up in Asia and Europe, we have so few shared references. We'd missed so many cues that might otherwise have hinted at the age difference...

I thought of the authority with which she told me what she wanted me to do, her ease with herself, with her pleasure, the swearing and name calling, her cries.

'Twelve years explains a lot,' I thought again, trying to wrap my mind around that gap.

She had told me about her first time, the older boy with the dick as big as a Coke can. I was four when Claire had sex with him. It's no wonder she has had so many amazing experiences - that she knows so clearly exactly what she wants - she's had so much more time.

I thought of my own insecurities and confusion, the feat that clutched my heart when I realized Kwasi knew. I pictured his face in my mind's eye, how he'd looked at me and Claire when I told her I was twenty four. He'd known, right then, that's when he'd figured it out. Both he and Wes knew...

I moaned aloud. Catching myself, I froze, but there was no one nearby, no one to hear. It was still early. First Ave smelled like curdled beer. I started walking again, head hung down - my whole body bent by mortification.

'Why didn't you call Kwasi?' I asked myself. 'I should talk to him...'

But even as I thought this, I knew why I hadn't. It wouldn't just be talking to Kwasi, and I really didn't want to talk to him and Darci about what had happened and I couldn't ask to talk to Kwasi alone on a Sunday morning, it would freak Darci out. I thought of Kwasi watching Darci and I, and shivered.

'Why am I the one feeling guilty?' I wondered. 'I should be mad, I'm the one-'

I blushed with shame thinking of the way I'd begged Claire to forgive me and licked her...

'Jesus Christ!'

My stomach ached.

Part of me still couldn't believe I'd done it - couldn't believe I'd done any of it - that I'd done it with my baby brother sleeping just twelve feet away in the same room.

'How had everything gotten so out of whack? How has everything gone so wrong? How had it all gotten... so strange?'

Everything had been fine until Wes had asked Claire's age... she had seemed so embarrassed walking back from Chinatown. And I didn't know what to do... how to make it better.

We hadn't been able to really discuss what had happened at the table much less that Kwasi knew. Wes had been drunk and so we'd put him between us as we walked back to her apartment, let him rant and sing while we kept him from falling. But I'd known she was worrying over it, when she'd opened the door for us she'd whispered to me.

"I didn't know..."

Then Wes had shouted about the Mickey Mouse painting, interrupting whatever it was she had wanted to say.

The two of us got Wes settled down and ready for bed, undressed and crawled awkwardly into her bed; everything had already felt so fucked up and precarious, the last thing I wanted to do that night was reject her. I would have done anything she wanted, why couldn't I just let her do what she'd wanted?

I thought of Claire trying to finger my asshole, how I'd squirmed and finally begged her to stop. She wasn't just being playful, she had been so worked up, so turned on - like a version of her I'd never seen before. I couldn't help it if it made me uncomfortable - Jesus it made me want to roll over and die, to crawl out of my skin. I'd tried to tell her, to apologize. She had just seemed so hurt; like it had all come crashing down on her.

'On us...'

My whole body ached with the idea that I'd wounded her; shamed her.

I thought of the way she had curled up defensively away from me; as if she'd been kicked. I felt my throat start to constrict and stopped short to catch my breath. A woman who must have been walking just behind me glared in annoyance as she stepped around me and passed. I felt like I might faint.

"What am I doing?!" I wailed, and realized with a shock that I'd said it out loud. I looked around, but the angry woman didn't look back and there was no one else to notice. I took a series of deep breaths. My mind replaying the events of what I'd done with cruel fidelity; Claire curled on her side. Her back had felt so bony and ungiving, like a shell, but so fragile, so vulnerable.

It had been so frightening to have Claire turn away from me like that. Whatever I'd been feeling after dinner and on the way back to her apartment, it had shocked me to the core when she hardened herself against me. I'd never imagined her doing something like that. I don't remember what I'd whispered, I'd been so scared, felt a rising panic. She hadn't asked me to... do what I'd done... she'd just teased about it.

"Has anyone ever licked her?" she'd asked, and I thought I would scream. I had pushed her away, and begged her to stop. And then she had. She had shown me her back.

And there in the dark with my brother sleeping so close, I had thought of the dream...

She hadn't asked for it. It had been me, my twisted fantasies, my fucking dream. It had shocked me awake, like a nightmare but with an orgasm, my hand between my legs. I'd never masturbated in my sleep before.

As I regained myself, the wisps of a fleeting sense-memory, which my orgasm obliterated, had bedeviled me. I had wanted the dream back, for it not to end. A blind isolated fragmentary impression that I'd pulled at, desperately holding onto, willing it not to disappear - the cheeks of her ass against my face, forcing my tongue into the compressed crack of her ass - it had been so intense. My own shock and shame spurred me to jump from bed and shake it off.

She didn't need to ask me, I'd been eager. I had wanted to lick Claire's ass.

The feeling of actually burying my face in Claire's ass had also been so different from the dream. The dream had been full of longing, and had been cut short. The reality had felt desperate from the start. I had been so afraid she would reject me, that it was all ending so terribly...

'Had it ended?' I thought with a frightening jolt. 'Right there in her bed?'

There, alone on the street, I could feel myself flushing with shame. I was still so desperate. I didn't want it to end. I'd do it again if she asked me. I'd do anything she wanted... more than that, I had done it because I had wanted to... it was my dream; I wanted to still. I thought of how she had commanded me to suck her off, imagined her commanding me to eat her ass. I felt flush, and my heart was beating fast. I wanted her to make me do it, the way she made me eat her out.

"Tu peux m'enculer," is all she had whispered, and I had, fucking her ass with my tongue.

She didn't need to grab me by the hair or tell me to do it. I didn't need to be commanded. She had told me is that I wanted to fuck her ass, and she was right, I did. I still did. If she didn't tell me to do it I'd ask her, I'd beg. I could see it, on my knees at her feet as she slowly turned around, showing me her ass. Just imagining this made my whole body feel weak.

Realizing how deep I'd gotten, how big this thing with Claire had become, made me queasy. I was sick with fear; afraid this might all be over - or maybe that it might not be over. I was staring at my hands. They felt like they were shaking, but they weren't.

Fear wasn't new. I had been afraid for as long as I could remember. I had been afraid of Danny, afraid he might break up with me. But that was because I was scared of what people would say at school and church, terrified of upsetting my parents. I was never afraid of losing him. I had never felt anything remotely like this for Danny. I remember being excited, even turned on sometimes, but nothing like this humiliating need.

Early on with Danny I'd imagined sex would be something romantic that we would explore together, unfolding over time. But soon enough he had complained of "blue balls" and begged me for hand jobs. He had finally lost patience, taking me by the wrist and pushing my hand into his pants.

I remember the shock and fear of feeling his erection that first time... of having to be told to squeeze it; wrapping my fingers around it and being made to stroke it. The quiet sound of his breath while I did what he wanted. The embarrassed silence after he was done. Not knowing what to do with his semen; Danny had handed me a rumpled Dunkin Donuts napkin, the two of us wiping up in silence.

I had felt so sure my mother would know as soon as I walked in the house, that she would disapprove. I had hoped she would call a stop to it; tell me I couldn't see Danny anymore. But there had been nothing.

Before church that Sunday she had told me to be careful, not to do anything that might get me pregnant. That's when I realized she not only knew what I was doing with Danny and didn't disapprove, she'd expected it of me, everyone did. Sitting in church, between my parents and my little brother and sister, I had felt trapped.

But I had gotten used to my new role. Still, I remember finding his need to cum frightening; intense and powerful - like some sort of pressure cooker or time bomb that was my duty to address. Meanwhile we both treated my own pleasure as irrelevant. I told myself that I was a girl, that I had a small sex drive, that I didn't care; that he was a boy, that it was normal for him to have needs even if I didn't.

He never even tried to find out if I had needs.

For a long time I told myself he was being respectful, a gentleman. That he didn't want to do anything that might get me pregnant. Looking back on it now, I know that wasn't it. It's not just that he was uninterested in my pleasure. He told me he loved me but he was never interested in my goals, in my ideas or opinions. God forbid I might disagree with him, or know something he didn't. He loved the idea of me, my appearance, what I represented, what I did for him; I was a trophy and a receptacle. I remember him overhearing him talking to some other boys at a party, calling a girl at school a "cum dumpster" - that she "liked it." They had laughed and called her a "slut".

It terrified me. I had been so afraid that he might ever say something like that about me, that they might ever laugh at me that way. That night, when I jacked him off in his car, I asked Danny if he loved me. I stared in his eyes and made him say it. My fist pumping hard, I made him promise. Not because I loved him - I didn't, I knew I didn't - I did it because I was afraid he didn't. I needed him to. Wiping his cum off my hand that night I had felt ugly and small.

I thought of how Claire made me cum like a slut with a touch of her fingertip. "Touch my neck with your lips," was all she had told me. I had known what she really wanted and leapt to do it. I didn't just want to make her cum, I wanted her to cum in my mouth. I wanted to eat her cum.

'Her cum dumpster.'

I had never felt more beautiful in my life.

Her needs were as insistent and as powerful as Danny's - more so even - but were exciting to me in a way his never had been. Claire had called me a whore and a slut, and she was right. Had I felt any shame or duty touching Claire? I'd been afraid, but I had loved making her cum. Feeling her orgasm in my mouth, listening to her cry my name, seeing her twist and jerk out of control.

'It's like a drug, I want her so bad.'

I pictured myself, face wet with her cum, frantically masturbating between her spread thighs. I felt myself starting to drool, there on First Ave, saliva running down my shirt.

"Jesus Sarah!"

I looked around again, but it's early and the avenue is relatively empty, and again there is no one watching, no one cares. But I am covering my mouth with my hand, frightened I'll shout something else. 'Get a grip Sarah,' I tell myself - wiping my lip - careful not to say it out loud.

I was just overtired after a terrible sleepless night, the craziness of it all. Wes and Kwasi, all the pressure at work, and before that the horrible date with Roger, the confrontation with Claire's dandy fucking fascist... everything I'd done... it was all too much. My heart ached in my chest, like it was breaking.

I was clutching at my chest. My hand was looking for the cross my mother had bought following my first Communion, the one I haven't worn since leaving home. I wanted to pray, I wanted to ask God for help.

'No atheists in foxholes,' I thought mockingly. But the truth is I don't believe, I'm not sure I ever did, but I've always wanted to. I wished with all my heart I did now.

Even in middle school the Church for me was already just another institution, like school, or hospitals, or the courts. A system with rules I knew I had to follow, rules I was very afraid to break. When I had started masturbating I wasn't afraid of going to hell, I was just afraid of getting caught, of the real world consequences rather than 'magic' sins. Maybe that's why all my early fantasies were of just that: an authority figure walking in on me, seeing what I was doing, making me finish, watching me do it.

In my very earliest fantasies I was just naked, and it was usually an older girl who caught me. It had started with one of the older McNamara girls I think, I'm not sure which, but they had quickly focused on Michelle. Our next door neighbor's oldest daughter Suzy had been another object of these early fantasies as well. She was five or six years older than me and I worshiped her and her friends. When we'd first moved in she'd babysat us. She used to tell me the two of us were babysitting Wes and Kelly, that I was her Big Girl.

Her bedroom window had faced mine across a narrow breezeway between our houses. I used to spy on her before she graduated high school and moved out. She had been so beautiful and so careless with her shades. I'd been fascinated with her breasts. They were like fat cones, with pink puffy nipples almost as big as her breasts themselves. I remember overhearing her with a boy once. It had been warm and our windows were open. I couldn't see them, but I'd heard them laughing and kissing - so much kissing. Then I'd heard him clearly say, "I can't believe I'm licking your asshole."

Later, after Danny and I started fooling around and I'd begun to experiment with masturbation, the fantasies had changed. I'd fantasize about a teacher or other authority figures - but always a woman - catching me masturbating. Ms. Day - who I looked up to and was so nice to me - had been so strict in my fantasies. "You can get dressed after you're done," I'd imagine her scolding me. Or our principal. The girls track coach. One of the younger librarians. And then in college there had been certain upperclassmen and professors I liked to fantasize about.

Sometimes the fantasies had been cruel, Michelle McNamara making fun of my still tiny tits, my hairless pussy. Making me spread my legs, open myself up. Or our principal, Mrs Nash laughing at me while I begged to stop masturbating, making me finish in tears.

But sometimes they were sweet. Suzy telling me how pretty I was, how much she liked my body. Or Ms Day smiling as I masturbated. But actually cumming, actually giving myself an orgasm was years later, and rare. When I did finally start having the occasional orgasm I was almost always drunk and the half remembered fantasies that got me there were so extreme I was left guilt ridden and hating myself.

In college I took it further, began my "excursions". It started in my freshman year. An older girl named Rebekah was tutoring me. We had been studying in her room, off campus, when she'd had to go pick something up from one of her professors. She told me to stay and study, that she'd be right back. I remember laying on her bed and smelling her pillows. I had masturbated in her bed while she was away. I'd cum fast and hard. The orgasm had been unlike anything I'd experienced. It was only then I'd realized I hadn't even really orgasmed before. I remember having to gather myself afterwards, feeling dazed. I was sure Rebekah could smell it when she came back, that I had stunk up her room, but she never said anything.