Silence and the Word Read Online Free PDF Page A

doesn’t understand what they mean. She knows
that she should just say something—even if it’s only “lower,” but
the word has gotten caught in her throat; it’s buried down
somewhere deep. She can only say it in her head, over and over like
a mantra: “lower lower lower lower… . ” She doesn’t know why she’s
doing it. It’s not as if he can hear her thoughts, but she wishes
he could, because, while it might cause problems, it would be
easier than this. Finally, he gives up on getting her off this way
and slides his finger inside her instead, gliding over her clit,
accidentally, in the process. She gasps, but he thinks it’s because
of the finger inside her, and she doesn’t know how to tell him what
he’s missing.
     
     
    That’s me.
     
     
    At the San Francisco Barnes & Noble
store, a woman is reading an erotic short story called “A Jewel of
a Woman.” She hasn’t read this story out loud before, and it’s a
little more explicit than she remembered. “I once tried that trick
you read about, where you stuff a bunch of pearls deep into your
pussy and then pull the strand out slowly, one by one. It felt so
good, so fucking good as those pearls came out, grinding against my
clit one by one… . ” She thinks about dropping her voice a little
when she says “pussy” or “fucking” or “clit,” especially since the
children’s section is just a few steps away. But the managers must
have known what they were letting themselves in for when they
scheduled an erotica reading, right? And they gave her a mike
anyway. So what the hell! Instead of getting quieter, she gets
louder, and sexier; she licks her lips and pauses before the
forbidden words; she draws them out— she does her damnedest to
seduce the people sitting in the metal folding chairs, seduce them
with her voice and swaying body, and by the end of the story people
are halted in the aisles across the store, listening, people who
hustle away, embarrassed, when she stops. She doesn’t care because
she knows that, for a few minutes, she had them. They were
hers.
     
     
    That’s me too.
     
     
    Forgive the third person—it’s easier than
saying “I”. If I had to say “I couldn’t say that” or “I did this,”
then I’m not sure I’d be able to write this at all. But maybe I
could—that’s what’s so odd. It’s a lot easier to write this stuff
down than to say it out loud. I’ve been writing erotica for seven
years now, and it still surprises me how easy it is to write, “She
wanted to fuck him silly, until his eyes were bugging out… . ” or
even “I took his thick cock in my mouth, licking it up and down…
.“
    Maybe it’s because erotica is fiction. That
would be one explanation—that even though there’s a little of
myself in all my characters (even the gay men), it’s never quite
me. My characters can often say and do things that would terrify me
in real life; I can use them to explore all sorts of possibilities.
They can have sex with strangers, or with their best friends. They
can be blindfolded and beaten. They can do desperate, crazy things
for love, or for a really good fuck. They’re just characters.
    Even when I’m reading my stories out loud, my
audience doesn’t know which ones, which parts are really me. Even
if I tell them, “This one is autobiographical,” they can’t really know where autobiography ends and fiction begins.
    It’s different at night, in the dark, in
bed.
     
     
    He is kissing her, her cheeks, her neck, her
throat. It feels good, but something is bothering her, something is
making her more quiet than usual, not as responsive. He notices. He
stops and asks, “What’s wrong?” She shakes her head. She wants to
answer, to ask for something, a small thing, but she can’t. She is
afraid of the words, and doesn’t know why. She is afraid of his
answer to her simple request. She is a little reluctant to say
anything at first. Then her silence makes this seem more