But he wouldn't stop arguing the point. I'd raise an objection — "I just don't feel like it right now" — and he'd counter with logic — "But you liked what I was doing, didn't you?"
"Yes, but . . . " I didn't want to give him a handjob. I didn't want him in my apartment at all, at this point; fuck the subway and its hypothetical muggers. I was trying to be nice. I was trying not to be the woman I am on stage, the character who hates men, the comedian who works in an industry that feels like a boys' club. I turned away from him and melodramatically shielded my eyes with my hand. "I just don't want to fool around, all right?"
"Well . . . " Now he was weighing it, deciding whether it was all right for me to not want to fool around. He sounded aggrieved, and I winced under my hand. Just let me off the hook, I pleaded silently. Leave me alone and let me get some fucking sleep.
"What if I jerk off?" he proposed, finally, like, that's fair, right?
I kept my hand over my eyes, squeezed them shut. "Do whatever you want to do," I said.
I sat there with my eyes closed for the next minute and a half, or however long it took him — not long — to jerk off next to me. The sound of his breathing, the wet smack of skin on skin, his shudder — I felt complicit in all of it, accused. This was something. I was giving up something by allowing him to jerk off next to me. Now he'd gotten this from me, and he could smirk at me the way he smirked at my girlfriends at comedy shows, that smirk that said, you gave it up.
I'd given up. And now he was finished. He sighed, and heaved, and it was over. He sat there, waiting for me to look at him. "Fine," he finally muttered, and went to my bathroom to clean up.
I reached into the ashtray and relit my joint.
He came out of the bathroom, petulant look on his face. "I guess I'll just sleep on your couch for an hour or two," he said, injured. "If it's not too much trouble."
I said his name, which I won't say here.
"No, it's fine. I appreciate your hospitality." He threw himself on the far end of the couch and closed his eyes.
"What if I jerk off?" he proposed, finally, like, that's fair, right?
I said his name again, and he ignored me. I went into my room and fell asleep.
The next morning, he was gone. No note, not that I wanted one. I saw him a few days later at a show, and he smirked at me. I felt like running away. I didn't tell any of my girlfriends what had happened between us. I stayed brassy, smiled my fake stage smile, the one with the clenched teeth.
It was a few months later that I stood on a sidewalk on the Lower East Side and watched him with an underage drunk girl, put one hand on the back of her neck, and steer her out of a party, away from her friends, who were telling her not to go. Maybe . . . I don't know . . . her expression said as he pushed her into a cab. And I knew he'd get what he wanted. Because it was easier than putting up a fight, and he'd bought her some drinks and paid for the cab, and — did she find him unattractive? She wouldn't want to hurt his feelings.
He saw me watching from the sidewalk as he stuffed her in the taxi, and he paused for a second before he joined her. That smirk, a reminder of my complicity, the shoulders I'd let drop. Then he got in and slammed the door behind him, and they were gone. n°
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Janice Erlbaum is the author of Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir, and Have You Found Her: A Memoir, which was released in February by Villard. She was a contributor to Bust magazine from 1994 through 2007. She lives in her native New York City with her domestic partner, Bill Scurry, and their three cats.
