8. Intimate Knowledge of its Ugly Side

"The price we pay when pursuing any art or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side."
—James Baldwin

Jen was surprised to discover how much she could hear from upstairs. The TV room seemed to be right above her head, although she couldn’t quite picture how the layout of the house corresponded to the ceiling of her basement. Over the swelling sounds of movie montage music, Jen heard Becky rousing Chase and Paula from their stupor. “Did you hear that?” she asked. Evidently getting no response, she became more specific. “Did you just hear Jen scream?” Simultaneously, Chase and Paula burst out laughing.

“Turn it off,” said Becky, presumably referring to the movie. The music stopped abruptly. Jen could hear footsteps moving from just above her head off to the right. One well-defined set of foot-strikes came first; then a second, shuffly set followed. “Where the hell is she?” asked Becky in a panicky, agitated tone.

Jen couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit of satisfaction listening to them scrambling around in a panic, looking for her. At least it meant that somebody was going to come help her, and help, although she wasn’t sure what exactly would help in this situation, was what she desperately needed. She sat staring at the screen, meaningless words jumping out at her through her blurred vision: pimp, prostitute, playboy, Michigan. Her chest felt tight and strange and she couldn’t get enough air in through her nose when she breathed. She needed help, right now, or she was going to have to scream again.

Upstairs, she could hear Becky, Chase, and Paula searching the many rooms of the house, all through Becky’s suite downstairs and then upstairs to the guest bedrooms and Bradley’s old office. Finally, Jen heard the basement door fly open, and footsteps on the stairs. “Jen?” Becky’s voice called from the hallway above.

“Yes,” Jen replied, but her voice was faint, and she was still facing towards the computer and away from the door, so she was sure Becky couldn’t hear her. She couldn’t muster the strength to turn her head, but she tried to gather her voice to call out more loudly. “I’m here,” she said, but again her voice was barely more than a whisper.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” Becky exclaimed breathlessly as she reached the bottom of the stairs and saw Jen sitting at the desk. “Why did you scream?”

Jen could hear Chase and Paula descending the stairs. She tried to tell Becky that she didn’t want them to come in, but again her voice did not emerge properly. “No. I don’t want,” she said in an almost-whisper that was powerless against the invading forces.

“Oh honey,” said Becky, leaning over Jen’s shoulder and looking at the computer, as Chase and Paula came to stand behind them. “Not the internet.”

Jen didn’t say anything. Becky leaned in closer to the computer, squinted at the screen, and then gasped loudly. “No,” she said, as she read silently. And, “No,” again, as though she were about to launch into a heated argument with the words on the screen. Instead, she wheeled her body around abruptly, drove her full momentum into Chase ending with what sounded like a punch or a hard shove, and began yelling furiously at him. Jen stared into her lap, listening to them argue. Becky was mostly yelling, “What…what?” at him, seemingly unable to finish her thought. Chase was responding with his own indignant, “What?” so that the two of them were just yelling the same word back and forth at each other.

Finally, Becky said, “Look!” evidently pointing at the computer. Chase appeared over Jen’s shoulder, leaning in to look at the screen. “So, it says that she might move to Michigan,” Chase said, dismissively. “Big deal. We’ve got that all cleared up now.”

“Read the beginning,” snarled Becky through her teeth.

“Oh,” said Chase. “Oh god,” he said, after a moment.

Becky suddenly found the words she had been looking for. Now she had no trouble forming complete sentences. “I can’t believe you let this happen!” she yelled. “He’s your friend and you said he was okay and I trusted you! You said there was nothing wrong with him. I heard you, you said it.”

“Becky,” said Chase.

“And now they’re saying Jen is a hooker, and it’s all your fault,” Becky continued. Jen cringed at the word “hooker,” curling up in the desk chair and lowering her head further towards her lap.

“No,” said Becky. “No, it’s my fault, for ever listening to anything a man says…even if he seems enlightened, even if he seems dependable, even if he’s gay…”

“Becky!” said Chase, in a commanding, authoritative tone. Becky fell silent immediately.

“Skipper is not a pimp,” said Chase, in a quietly angry voice.

“Then why did they say he was?” asked Becky.

“Because he hosts sex parties,” said Chase.

There was silence for a moment as Becky took this in. Finally she exclaimed, “Sex parties? ‘He hosts sex parties.’” Becky’s tone was incredulous as she quoted Chase. “You said he’s in some kind of business. You know, ‘buying things, selling things.’”

“He is in some kind of business,” said Chase. “And I really don’t know what it is, exactly, but it funds the parties.”

“What the hell is a sex party, anyway?” asked Becky. “Some kind of orgy?”

“With DJs,” said Chase. “And you don’t necessarily have sex at it if you don’t meet anyone you like. But yeah, sort of an orgy.”

“I thought you said he was a Buddhist,” said Becky.

“Buddhists don’t have anything against orgies,” said Chase. “Anyway,” he added, “Jen’s an adult. She can decide for herself who to sleep with.”

Becky seemed to have forgotten about Jen until this moment, as though the insulting comments on the computer screen had been pointed at Becky herself. Jen hunched quietly in her seat, hoping Becky would continue overlooking her and yelling at Chase. But she had no such luck.

“Jen,” Becky said. Jen sat still, waiting. “Turn around,” said Becky, sternly. Jen turned in the chair to face Becky, whose face was drained of its normal healthy color, and Chase, who was ruddy and flushed. She was surprised to remember that Paula was still in the room, a few feet away, leaning with her butt on the top of a file cabinet.

“Did you know that Skipper hosted sex parties?” Becky asked her, as though Jen were her teenaged daughter. Jen felt an uncomfortable flash of her own mother’s presence in the room.

“I thought they were raves,” said Jen, quietly.

Becky rolled her eyes dramatically. “And you thought you were making a good decision?” she asked, sarcastically.

Jen wasn’t sure what to say. She hadn’t seen Becky this mad in quite a while. She had hoped Becky could help her figure out how to deal with this, and instead she was making her feel even worse.

Luckily, Becky switched quickly from her unusual chastising mode back to her more normal attitude of crisis management.

“Okay,” she said, brushing past Jen to the desk and kneeling to unplug the computer. “This is coming with me.” She clicked the laptop closed and tucked it under her arm. “I can’t deal with this any more tonight, honey,” she said to Jen, in a weary but business-like voice. “I’m exhausted. I’ll work on it first thing in the morning.” She made it sound like Jen’s personal life was just another item on her agenda, between taxes and dry-cleaning. But Jen didn’t currently have a P.R. person, so she supposed Becky really would need to handle whatever fallout came from this scandal. Now she felt guilty, hoping this wouldn’t give Becky too much extra work.

With the laptop held firmly to her side, Becky stormed up the stairs. “Goodnight,” she said, in a voice that was forcibly cheerful. Jen could hear the door to the basement close, and then the door to Becky’s suite slam firmly. She must be really angry at me, Jen thought glumly.

Jen was left alone with Chase and Paula in the basement. She saw them both look at the empty staircase where Becky had just exited the room, then shoot each other understated looks of disbelief. Both of them seemed to be suppressing smiles. Jen wondered whether their veiled amusement was directed at her predicament or Becky’s response to it.

“Well,” said Chase, after a moment of awkward silence, “I guess I should go check on her. She seems really upset.” He turned and headed up the staircase after Becky.

Jen had hoped that Paula would follow him. But instead, she grabbed a small folding chair from a stack leaning against the wall and unfolded it. She set it down next to Jen, who was still sitting at the computerless desk, which was looking very blank and sad with its circle of dust outlining where the laptop had been.

“I know you probably want to be by yourself right now,” said Paula, seating herself in the rickety chair. Jen nodded, hoping Paula would go away. But she just leaned in closer, so that Jen could see the intricate lines and pores of her face. From this distance, in the glaring light of the bare bulb overhead, Jen could see that the two nose rings were in fact slightly different colors; one was a straightforward silver, while the other, which appeared to be the same shade under softer light, was in fact a very pale gold.

“You seem like you’re in a lot of pain,” said Paula. Jen wanted to roll her eyes, but she resisted. She didn’t nod or agree, either; she just sat staring blankly, trying to patiently wait for Paula to finish talking and leave. Paula didn’t seem to notice Jen’s remoteness as she plowed ahead with her speech.

“And I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but there’s a path that could help you heal from this bad experience,” Paula said.

Groundbreakers, Jen thought. She was already nodding politely in response.

“Celibacy,” Paula said.

“What?” Jen asked, startled out of her self-pity by this unexpected suggestion.

“I’ve been practicing for six years,” said Paula. “Well, I fell off the wagon a couple of times. Once for about a year.”

Perhaps Jen’s brain wasn’t functioning correctly due to its recent trauma, but she was having trouble taking this all in.

“People are really resistant to trying it,” Paula continued, leaning forward earnestly so that her dreadlocks fell forward over her face, then brushing them back over her shoulder. “I was at first, too. But if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. I mean, if you reflect on all the greatest heartache and misery in your life, what does it come from? Love and sex.”

Jen couldn’t help but see the logic in this, despite her annoyance at the pungent wave of sandalwood that hit her nose as Paula moved her hair. She nodded half-consciously, but this time in earnest.

“When I was younger, I thought it was just men in the Midwest who were assholes,” said Paula. “So I moved to L.A. and started studying yoga. And then I thought it was just yoga guys who were assholes. So then I started dating normal guys who didn’t have any spiritual practice or anything. And they were assholes, too. Then I switched to women.”

Jen looked at her expectantly, waiting to hear if this strategy had worked.

“They were assholes, too,” said Paula. “Here’s what I learned: whoever you want to sleep with is an asshole.”

“Hmm,” said Jen, thinking about whether this applied to her own experience.

“I slept with my first yoga teacher in L.A.,” Paula said. “And my second one. Most yoga teachers in L.A. are just in it for the pussy.”

Though she would never have spoken that word out loud, Jen had often thought the same thing to herself, so often that it seemed dissonant to hear it in Paula’s voice.

“But my third teacher was the one who taught me about celibacy,” Paula said. “We shared a very deep spiritual connection that was purely platonic.”

The thought of Paula sharing a deep but platonic spiritual connection with anyone still kind of grossed Jen out, even though she was becoming less disgusted with her overall. Out of politeness, she suppressed a grimace.

“My teacher had been practicing celibacy her entire life,” said Paula. “She was a virgin.” Paula emphasized this last word as though it were something very rare and sacred, like a unicorn.

“Wow,” said Jen, feeling it was expected of her to be impressed.

“Well, actually I’m not really sure she was telling the truth about that. I think she’d slept with some women when she was younger and not counted it,” Paula added. “But anyway, I believe her that she’d been celibate for many, many years. Her energy was intense.”

Based on Paula’s facial expression, which Jen could identify in no other way than as recollection of sexual pleasure, she began to wonder how far one could go, exactly, within the bounds of celibacy. And of yoga instruction, come to think of it.

“So you’re saying I should be celibate,” Jen said.

“I don’t tell people to do things,” Paula said. “I just provide information.”

Something about this comment reminded Jen of her conversation with Skipper, back at the bar. She had been distracted for a moment, but now she remembered again what had happened, why she was having this conversation in the first place, and what she was going to have to deal with in the morning when Becky commenced her damage control. Her depression must have shown on her face, because Paula shifted back in her chair as though drawing the conversation to a close.

“Well, anyway, I’m sorry you slept with Skipper,” Paula said. “That guy definitely was an asshole.”

“But they all are,” said Jen.

“No, but I mean he was actually an asshole,” said Paula. “Why don’t you go to bed for real, now,” she added. This seemed like a good idea to Jen, who felt even more exhausted than she had the first and second times she had woken up this morning.

She followed Paula up the stairs, the discrepancy in elevation giving her a perfect view of Paula’s buttocks shifting loosely under her floppy, structureless pants. It seemed significant that Jen wasn’t even annoyed at this sight.

Chapter 9:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/07/9-extra-ounce-of-power.html