It is 4:26 in the afternoon on a Thursday and I'm fucking myself with my toothbrush. Oral B CrossAction. My toe knuckles are whitening with tension as the soles of my feet squeeze harder against one another. Almost—there—Miela is almost there, too. I have it timed perfectly. Her pussy is pink and tight and waxed, sweet like over-chewed Bubble Yum. The overhead lights glisten soft and circular on her perfectly tanned, cellulite-less ass. She runs her fingertips around the rim of her asshole and the rhinestones on her nails are fluorescent yellow. She is perfect.
It is 1:12 in the morning on a Thursday and I'm humping my foot. I've laid a wadded-up beach towel on the ground to prevent carpet burn and ease muscle cramping and my legs are arranged in the shape of the number four. I take off my bra and keep my underwear on, maintaining the friction created between heel and cotton lace. I'll have class in seven hours, I will not have done any of the required reading, and I will participate minimally in class discussion. I come for the seventh time during "C-Cup Joymii Miela Makes Love and Creampied" upon the third rewind of the opening scene, in which she writhes over her partner with exquisite demure force. I am soaked in sweat and my arms are sore from supporting my body weight. I notice that the blinds are open; I worry people can see me in the daytime.
It is 10:00 in the morning on a Saturday and I'm beneath a man who I am telling needs to fuck me harder. To fuck me like he'll never see me again, like I am a cancer patient whose final wish is one last, gutting orgasm—like I am his Miela. He is timid. His eyes are blue or green, he looks old. I ask him to squeeze my tits as hard as he can—I want them to bruise. When he doesn't I roll over and tell him that I have to get ready for work. I put my dress back on with no underwear because I can't find them and say, "Well, that was fun."
It is 10:23 in the morning on a Saturday and I'm shoving the middle and index fingers of my left hand up my vagina, breathing hangover plaque onto my laptop. Miela's co-star takes her bra off with his teeth and I hate him for it; the scoop of her backbone is flawless. She bites at the elastic of his boxer briefs, unsmiling. My phone vibrates on the bookshelf and GRAMMA glows across the LCD screen in bold Arial letters. I pull my comforter over my face and sleep for sixteen hours.
It is 9:36 in the morning on a Monday and I'm in a classroom listening to a lecture on Post-colonial concepts of recreation and leisure. A PowerPoint slide being projected onto the whiteboard reads Vacations do ideological work. When I open my laptop to look at pictures of people I've met at parties at parties and cat gifs to mute the droning, Miela's face is frozen across the screen mid-Creampie. I'm certain the people behind me notice before I slam it shut.
It is 11:00 at night on a Tuesday and I'm sucking the cock of a boy who is three years younger than me on his twin-sized bed. I'm holding my necklace away from his penis with my left hand. The veins in his forearms protrude as he braces himself.
"Tell me when you're gonna come," I say through a mouthful of flesh. He pulls himself out of my mouth and oozes onto my chest.
"I told you to tell me when you're gonna come."
"I know, so I just pulled out for you."
"I didn't ask you to pull out for me."
Confused, he apologizes and slides down my hips, spreading my thighs apart to press lips to mine. "I don't want that," I tell him, "Just finger me."
It is 3:00 in the morning on a Saturday and I'm naked at the end of a stranger's bed and in my old neighborhood and he is jerking off. I reach for my phone and compose a text message to my best friend, whats wrong w me?. I have my back turned to the stranger and he is talking. His hair is shaved at the sides and perfectly coiffed, he has a stick and poke tattoo of an upside down crucifix on his left bicep, the definition of his jaw line is ridiculous. His breath is hot and smells like the congealed layer of crust on cream of mushroom soup.
"What the fuck are you doing?" he asks insanely.
"…What?"
He tucks himself back into his houndstooth boxers and slumps over, whisky-dicked and pathetic. "I feel ugly," he says.
"Are you serious right now?"
He is. He falls asleep instantly and I call a cab as I get dressed. I remove three cigarettes from the pack on his kitchen table and drink his V8 Splash from the bottle as I wait for it.
It is 3:00 in the afternoon on a Saturday and I'm shelling pistachios in my underwear, reading back issues of glossy third-wave feminist magazines. I think about Miela's neon rhinestone nails and wonder how much they cost, then wonder where she got them done, and if the person who did them could tell she's an amateur porn star. I wonder how much she got paid for "Oily Ass Experience", and what kind of oil they used for it; I imagine that it smelled like jasmine. I wonder if she considers herself a feminist, if she feels sexually liberated, at what age she lost her virginity and if she was in love with the person she lost it to, what her workout regimen is like, if she consented to the release of her video on MyRealExGFs.com, how much a pair of her used panties would sell for on e-Banned.
It is 4:45 in the morning on a Sunday and I'm smashed into the wall next to my bed. There is a man sleeping beside me, snoring violently with his mouth open. I turn over and push him, he snorts. I smack at his feet and he doesn't move. I haven't slept all night. I strip the comforter off my bed and pour myself a glass of water. He does nothing. I whisper at him, "Hey". He smells like designer brand patchouli, it is suffocating. I yell, "HEY". Nothing. Finally I grab his balls.
"What the fuck?" At last, movement. "Couldn't wait ‘til morning, huh?" He slouches into me, smiling. I notice that he has a tattoo of a Latin phrase written on his shoulder in Papyrus font.
"Listen, you have to go now."
"What time is it?"
"It's morning. You need to leave."
He glances at his chartreuse Swatch, "It's like, not even five. I thought you said you don't have a job".
"Yeah, well, I need to sleep. Your snoring is insane."
He takes a century to put his pants on, my eyes are gummy and I am topless.
"You have the most amazing breasts, you know that?"
"Yeah."
"Well… can I get your number or something, can we do this again?" He is still only half dressed, searching for his precious lost sock.
"Sure, I'm like, really bad with my phone... You should just find me online."
It is 2:15 in the morning on a Saturday and I'm fumbling with my bike lock outside of a bar in an unfamiliar neighborhood. A man at the adjacent bike rack who looks like Justin Bieber but older and less showered laughs and smiles at me when I drop it for the third time.
"Are you okay?" he asks. I tell him I'm fine. His voice is deep and clear, the streetlamps carve his cheekbones. He pedals west towards the park before I manage to unhinge the lock; I watch his taillight dim as he nears the end of the block. I follow him and yell.
"Hey—come here!"
He pauses in the middle of the street, timid, intrigued. I call out again, "Come over here." I'm stopped in the bike lane, helmet straps dangling at the sides of my face. He turns around.
"Are you okay?"
I tell him I'm fine and that he is cute and I ask if he wants to make out with me. He fingers me in the alley and when he is done he looks at me and says, "I was totally gonna write a Missed Connection about you."
It is 3:00 in the morning on a Saturday and I'm walking across a frozen river wearing sweatpants and Doc Martens, high on oxytocin and amphetamine. The sky is gelatinous. I spread my arms apart and feel the cold air empty me. I think about blowjobs, deciding that I don't mind giving them anymore; I kind of like them, even. I think about regret, deciding ultimately that I have none because it is useless. I lie down on the ice and close my eyes, hoping secretly that someone would come rescue me, knowing that no one will. I think about Miela's eyes, remembering only her lashes, the color of her eye shadow.
It is 1:00 in the morning on a Friday and I'm spread across a bare mattress in the middle of an abandoned attic. It's cold and I feel hyper aware of my arm hair. The most beautiful man I've ever spoken to in real life is squeezing my breasts in handfuls. I realize that I'm wearing my period underwear. My nipples are hard and I can feel them bruising, but not enough. I think about apologizing to him for my recent weight gain but realize how unappealing that might seem. As he disappears between my thighs I try to determine whether or not I should feel proud for managing to sleep with such an attractive person. He tells me how wet I am and looks at me with an expression that says I don't have a condom. I decide it's worth it.
It is 8:30 at night on a Thursday and I'm applying mascara, getting ready to meet a grad student at his house to eat quinoa and watch a documentary about capitalism. I'm standing at the bathroom mirror, evening my eyeliner and listening to rap on Internet radio, sideways glancing at Miela as she performs fellatio in silence. I'm running late, which I decide is probably a good thing. I find my vibrator wedged in the crevice of my futon and rinse it off in the kitchen sink. I take my skirt off and text the grad student, sry i just have to finish this chapter - almost done.
It is 2:00 in the morning on a Sunday and I'm drunk in the backseat of a taxicab on the way to a stranger's house on the south side. He's wearing a vintage starter jacket and his mouth tastes like ketamine. He slides his hand under my skirt and I see the cab driver's eyes in the rearview mirror.
"Wait ‘til we get to your place."
"C'mon, it's fine", he assures me, "I'm paying him."
I sit up straight and remove his hand from under me, grazing the fly of his jeans. I check the driver's eyes in the mirror; they look at me. I avert my gaze and continue stroking the breadwinner's penis with his own hand. He pushes my arm down and leans into me, slurring, "Your eyes are so, so pretty."
He slumps over to kiss me and immediately recoils, vomiting into the Yellow Cab carpet. The driver pulls over and argues with him about a one hundred dollar fine. I climb out of my seat and hail an oncoming taxi; I take it to my car and drive the rest of the way home drunk.
It is 1:00 in the afternoon on a Sunday and I'm watching reruns of Roseanne on YouTube. I have Miela paused in another tab. I wonder what she does on Sunday afternoons. I wonder how many sexual partners she's had, and if I've had more than her. I think that in real life, we would be friends. She wouldn't be conceited or insecure at all, and we would pee in the same bathroom stall together at bars and she would be a really good singer.
It is 12:45 in the afternoon on a Friday and I'm in a community garden sharing a cigarette with a thirty-year-old man whose bed I spent the night in. It is the day after my twenty-second birthday and he is making jokes about me being old and I'm kind of laughing. He's an interior designer, a former model for American Apparel. I ask him if he's gay, he says he's not. I ask him if he's sure he's not gay, he says he's sure. I tell him that sexual identity is just a social construct, anyway.
It is 9:00 at night on a Sunday and I'm painting my toenails a shade of yellow labeled "Lemonade Stand By Your Man". I haven't left my apartment in over twenty-four hours; my Internet is out because I haven't paid the bill in three months, I haven't managed to charge my cell phone in days. I wonder if Miela ever gets lonely-how often she checks her phone, how many times she's been fisted, if she's on Twitter, and what if any emoticons she uses most. I think more about our friendship—we would make dinner together on Monday nights and she would chop the onions, we would drink wine out of coffee cups and watch "The Real Housewives of New Jersey" and get really into it. We would go out together on weekends and men would look at her and I would feel resentful towards them. At the end of the night we would go back to her apartment and I would sleep over because I wouldn't want to walk home alone so late. In the morning we would make eggs in our underwear and talk about our drunkenness the night before and we would both laugh and say, "You're so crazy, I love you." Just like that.
Lenina Lilic is a writer and a college student. She writes a column for Whole Beast Rag and has a blog called P.S.A.
In a project overseen by contributing editor Kiese Laymon, Gawker is running a personal essay every weekend. Please send suggestions to saturdays@gawker.com.