We tiptoed across a few streets cursing the tattletale sun, and made a stealthy entrance through the hotel's side door, evading Ewan. Christian blared rock music on both clock radios and ripped off his T-shirt baring a ludicrously perfect set of abs.
"Let's take off all our clothes and fuck in the shower," he yelled over the Aerosmith.
"Okay," I yelled back.
Many things conspired to ruin the sex, and consequently my life as I knew it then: massive amounts of booze had crippled my judgement and rendered Christian completely flaccid. However, it did not dampen his heroic determination to have sex with me standing up. Never mind the assaultive shower water. Never mind that the water contained neither lubricant nor adhesive properties. It's difficult enough to slip a wet hand into a tight rubber glove, but doing it with boneless fingers is impossible. I felt like I was being hammered against the tiles by a life-size G.I. Joe who, instead of a penis, was given a small rubber duck we now soundlessly squeezed between us. I understood then how jaws like Christian's became chiseled into those manly, angular shapes. Concentrated masculine determination causes teeth to clench fiercely and neck muscles to spasm deeply, and it turns whomever the guy is fucking into a mission that requires accomplishment. Christian's handsome face seemed to be saying, "Must get my dick in that hole there. Must get it in that. In. Get in." He wasn't a regular firefighter after all. This was a man who jumped out of low-flying planes in order to arrive at the fire.
I was no help. I was too busy trying to prevent permanent paralysis — surely the result of us falling backwards, snapping my spine in two over the lip of the slippery tub. But mostly what wrecked the sex was knowing that my boyfriend was a few feet below while I betrayed him — something that played havoc with the four or five cells still fiercely squatting in my conscience.
In my drunkeness, I had pulled down the shower rod, dispensing with the bothersome curtain altogether. I was trying to be sexily destructive, but the Triple Y was not a historic structure. Rather, its false front saloon exterior hid four stacked prefab boxes, walls and floors made of Styrofoam. While Christian redoubled his efforts, the ceiling below us hung pregnant with shower water. After it burst all over the drunken patrons and their cuckolded bartender, the night-desk girl ran upstairs to bang on the door. The water and the Foreigner drowned her out, so she begged Ewan to take an axe to the door. While many people saw me naked for the first time ever that night, for Ewan it was the last. The next day, from the window of the jewelry store I watched as he tossed my things out of the van and onto the dusty sidewalk. I don't remember if I waved as he drove out of Dawson City for good, but I do remember I had been standing, my battered pussy as clean as it would ever be that summer. n°
Lisa Gabriele's writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Salon,Vice and The Washington Post. She directs and shoots documentaries for The Life Network, The History Channel and the CBC. Her first novel, Tempting Faith DiNapoli, was published by Simon and Schuster. Her second, Starlite Variety, will be published in 2008. She lives in Toronto.
