Sex and Death in the American Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

his lips with mine—taking that full lower lip between my own, exerting a light pressure, and he melts into me, like a woman would, with a sigh.
    No one will be watching us anymore, they are all focused on the sniper, and, “Why would someone be shooting at an author?” they would ask each other, “Yeah, this shit is so boring,” one says.
    “Where are my glasses?” Jasper asks me, and I notice then that indeed his glasses are gone.
    Mounting him there in front of all these people wouldn't be a good idea, so I help him to the door to the safety of the back hallway where he regains his strength, and in a fit of boldness uncharacteristic for him brought on by his recent brush with death, he pushes me against the wall and then pulls back. “I'm so sorry,” he says.
    I laugh and take his face in my hands, kissing him full on the mouth, letting my fingers explore the thick lengths of his hair. When I tire of this I move my hand lower, to feel if he was endowed as I imagined all tall men are, and of course I am delighted to find he is. A thick tube at least a foot long juts from under his slacks. In perfect hero worship posture, I sink to my knees, impatient to open his slacks and take all of him in my mouth, even if that means working him down my throat.
    Something didn't sit right about this fantasy though. I was the hero in this one, so I rewound until I got back to the kissing and then reached up to put my hands on his shoulders, pushing him to the floor. I would be adored. With my hands guiding him, by soft gestures and helping him to push my suit pants down, he will pleasure me with one long-fingered hand curving around the thigh I have slung over his shoulder. To add to the mood, I started up the unsettling sound effects and drums that launch “Beautiful People” by Marilyn Manson. This song will both thrill and terrify him, and add to my sense of power and dominance as I introduce him to this new world of pleasuring women. He will be clumsy, but I forgive him. His eager eyes gaze up from beneath the fuzzy dark moustache of my mound. He appears comic, but I stroke his chin, encouraging him, he tries so hard, surprised at his own enjoyment of the act. I close my eyes and hear the intake of breath as he takes in my smell, a scent he has never in his life been able to indulge in, his own priggishness would not allow it. He is delighted to find he enjoys himself.
    I slid my tongue over my bottom lip while my thoughts ran on, then I noticed he was speaking directly to me, making eye contact with green eyes now dark and so focused, I wondered if I had spoken out loud. Matching his stare for only a moment, the skin of my face burned to my scalp and down to my chest. His eyes met mine with an endearing curiosity and a force of will that reminded me he was the one everyone was here to listen to.
    I lowered my eyes to study my hands, and when I raised them again there was amusement in his expression and I blinked hard, bringing myselfback to the present, remembering I'd worn a bright pink flower in my hair. “In protest,” I'd told my mother, thinking I was exceptionally clever, “of the lack of cosmetics and accessories worn in this establishment.”
    Tristan's breath hit my ear, hot and damp as he hissed, “You're freaking him out, stop staring like that.”
    Jasper stuttered his next few words, then recovered with a crooked smile, this time his eyes scanned the other side of the room.
    Tristan took notes in a hasty scrawl, circling names like: Warren , Nabokov , Powers . He wrote 1960s and 1970s as well, drawing a box around these. The word silence he wrote in capital letters, circled, and then crossed out. Nothing could make him give up his music.
    When Jasper was finally done talking—or, more accurately, reading —Tristan sat back and watched the line form behind the gangly speaker.
    “Don't you want to get over there?” I asked.
    “Can't look too anxious,” he said with his arms crossed.
    My mother and I