Jane the Modernist: Part III

[I wrote this a year before I graduated modeled after Robert Gluck's "Jack the Modernist." The language is a bit overwrought, but that was intended. I also used this piece to explore postmodern desire. Elizabeth Grosz's "Space, Time, and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies" also heavily influenced me. This is part of a series.]

It will not be until later, after my feelings for her have developed, do I realize that the repetition of me losing my lesbian virginity wasn’t just dirty talk—that she was in effect anointing me. But instead of fragrant oil and milk poured over my head, I get iron and carbon. She is churning me with her tongue, fingers, twisting me into a helix of steel and wire. I am pliable in her hands, and she smoothes me out until I am more metal than flesh, measured more in tensile strength than in heartbeats and respiration. I am a steel cable and she has attached me to her protruding left hip bone. In the awkward silence that follows (I defend myself later to Amy: “What loss of virginity isn’t awkward, doesn’t italicize the lack of skill and dexterity?”) I feel myself being pulled upward, but I can’t see by what. We are moving past telephone poles and streetlamps, past building tops and a murder of crows, past airplanes until we finally enter the stratosphere. This region is filled with a warm, glowing light that reflects our bodies to look luminous and shining. In this aura of incandescent bodies I can see that we were pulled up by the other chords connected to Jane. These chords are girls I know: Julie, Lucy, Jill, Allison, Katie, Diane, Amy, Ashley and Nancy. All of them are interconnected, floating in this space, and beyond the horizon is a blur of bodies, girls who I have never seen before but are still connected to these girls I know. Sometimes, the light catches the chords and instead of looking sturdy and unbreakable they appear gossamer and thin, as if the wind could break these bonds at any moment. Jane calls this The Web. I tell her I don’t want to see her as a spider, but I secretly wonder if there is any other way.

But perhaps I am sugarcoating this; perhaps I am making this too diaphanous and doing a disservice to my story by employing this metaphor. Let’s try something with a little more grounding:

Jane is fucking/has fucked Lucy, Jill, and Katie. Lucy was fucking Julie until her ex-girlfriend Katie found out, who also wanted to fuck Julie. But instead of fucking Julie, she started fucking Jane. Lucy stopped fucking around with Jane when Jill started fucking Jane, as Jill is, quote, “such a nice girl.” Katie used to fuck Allison, who in turn used to fuck Nancy but is now fucking Amy. Nancy used to fuck Jill but is now fucking Ashley. And Ashley used to fuck Julie, as well as Diane.

Lauren: I didn’t sign up for this.

My roommate Matt laughs at this and says, “That’s what lesbians do, they get into incestuous drama.”

I think he is over generalizing and when he notes my raised eyebrow he adds, “Gay men do the same thing but the difference is that we don’t really care who’s slept with whom. I’ve been with guys who’ve been with Tom, Jason or Chad. I just don’t care.”

Lauren: I don’t care who she’s been with in the past, I just want her to be with me.

He shrugs at this, a what-can-you-do? And what can I do?