Jacob, p.8
Jacob, page 8
Let me admit, my professors worried about the intensity I brought to my studies. Yes, they encouraged me, but they worried as well. They’d rarely seen a student so enthused about learning, but to them I seemed to be skipping around from subject to subject without any distinct career goal in mind. I told them that my own education was the only career I desired. They shook their heads and wandered off muttering, but they could find no real cause for concern, nor any recommendation that would have been appropriate. As long as my distant uncle was happy to have me gorging myself at the feast of knowledge, they were happy to keep setting the table and cashing the checks.
I think their primary cause of concern was my seeming failure to connect socially with many of my fellow classmates. I did not live in a house with others, Monsieur’s agent in Boston had found me an apartment within walking distance of the campus. I was not the only student with such a living arrangement, but where others often used their private residences for evenings of drunkenness and debauchery, I was most often curled up with a stack of books, breaking away only for the necessities of the body, food and sleep, bath and toilet.
You might find this hard to believe, but I was a virgin until my twenty-third year. No, I don’t count my years as a peg-boy or a street-rat. That was survival sex. That wasn’t sex as much as it was a way to stay alive. It was a job, something to do, something to endure, but not something to enjoy—yes, there was a physical release, but no emotional fulfillment.
I didn’t know that emotional fulfillment was possible in sex. Oh, I’d read the books—all those silly romances that were passed around among the young women, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen. They made little sense to me. I also read Henry Fielding, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, and so many others as well—even the bawdiest of texts, a companion passed me a rare and illegal fiction called Fanny Hill, which purported to be the extraordinarily amorous adventures of a young woman, working as a sometime prostitute in 18th century London.
I was curious, yes, but not yet desperate, hoping to understand this mysterious emotion that seemed to captivate the attention of everyone around me. It seemed a bizarre obsession. The closest I had come was my affection for Monsieur, but even that had never been fulfilled.
I had wanted to give myself to him—and now, I believe that if he had taken me the way he himself desired, I would have experienced it as an emotional fulfillment. But no, perhaps not. In later years, I did wonder if perhaps my experiences on the streets of Seattle had stunted my emotional growth, had kept me from developing a true ability to connect to other human beings. I suppose I might someday be an interesting case study for a psychiatrist—but not for a long time, I still regard psychiatry as a questionable field. Too many people who have no idea what they’re doing, hammering the facts to make them fit their theories. Never mind, that’s a discussion for another time.
I was talking about my friendships—my inability to have any. I wasn’t completely alone. I did have acquaintances—a small group of fellows I met with once or twice a week. They had insinuated themselves into my good graces by inviting me to concerts and art exhibitions. In return, I felt obligated to open my apartment to them for weekly evenings of poker and beer. It turned out I was quite good at poker, not too good at beer. But in truth, I suspected my associates appreciated the convenience of the apartment much more than any charm I might have exhibited as a host.
One evening, however, early in the new year of 1881, we had become a little too boisterous in our celebrations, and rather than risk the ire of my neighbors who might have wished to retire at a responsible hour, we adjourned to the streets. But instead of heading to the nearest pub—Boston has never had a shortage of pubs, for that you may thank the Irish—one of my companions, a fellow recently added to the group who I did not know well at all, suggested a visit to a nearby brothel.
I’d never been to a brothel before—not as a customer, only as an employee, a peg-boy. I pondered for a moment what Monsieur might say if he knew. He had encouraged me to explore the pleasures of physical intimacy, but as I had already had my fill of what other men considered physical intimacy it was not an adventure I had any further desire for. Nevertheless, at this point in my life, and not without considerable good-natured and somewhat boisterous prodding from my fellow revelers, and possibly it was the effect of too much liquor as well, I felt somewhat giddy and unrestrained, I decided it was finally time to discover what copulation with a female person might be like. I did not think Monsieur would object. On the contrary, had he been present he would have enthusiastically encouraged me to discover whether the boundaries of my nature were debilitating limits or merely a matter of personal preference.
I will not bore you with the details of our visit. It was an interesting experience, not unsatisfactory, but curiously dispassionate and not something I felt eager to repeat any time soon. The young woman was pleasant enough, she seemed eager to please—whether that was an act or her natural inclination, I had no way of knowing. But afterward, lying on my back, catching my breath, and considering the entire exercise, I had to admit to myself that while I found the female anatomy interesting and physically comfortable, I had remained emotionally detached throughout the entire experience.
To be fair, I did not expect to find love here, nor even the imitation of romance, although the young lady—her name was Rebecca—performed an excellent simulation of desire for me. However, I had learned enough from listening to my various companions and fellows at the university, that any post-coital revelations should demonstrate an aggressive degree of masculine bravado. I chose to affect what I thought was an appropriately lascivious grin while otherwise saying little. My companions took this as a sign of success and when it became apparent I intended to provide no details, they left off questioning.
For the next week or so, my colleagues eagerly discussed the possibilities that might be available in subsequent visits to the establishment, but after one of them realized he had picked up an infestation of crab lice, an unwelcome invasion that would require an extensive boiling of his entire wardrobe and all of his bedding, as well as repeated applications of various petroleum-based distillations to his private areas, tinctures and ointments well-known in the popular lore of collegians—that tempered any discussions of additional outings.
One incredibly stormy evening in February, the only acquaintance to show up for poker and beer was a stocky fellow named Josiah, two years younger than myself, but seemingly much more worldly. He had apprenticed in his grandfather’s brokerage during his school years to earn the right to attend the university.
Despite having walked only a short distance, he arrived soaking wet. Fearing for his health—a lesson I had learned well from Monsieur, I made him strip of his sodden clothing and wrapped him in one of my own warm robes, I had several which I wore while reading, that being far more comfortable than street wear.
We waited for the better part of an hour—until it became apparent that our other companions had chosen to skip the evening’s game. This was not unexpected. The storm had been gathering ominously all morning and we had previously agreed that if the weather ever became adverse, the game would be postponed—apparently, Josiah did not receive the message.
Because it seemed as if the rain would continue well into the next day, I insisted that Josiah spend the night with me. I did so in all innocence, with little thought to what else might occur. I did not think in those ways then.
My bed was just big enough for the both of us, what you might call queen size today. It was quite cozy. We lay side by side in the darkness, listening to the wind howling outside, the rain pattering against the window, and we chatted amiably about nothing in particular. We chuckled a bit at the foibles of our fellows, reminisced a bit more about our adventures at the brothel, and then fell silent for a bit.
Finally, Josiah said, “It’s too bad that we can’t go again.”
My reply was noncommittal. “I don’t want to take the risk. There might be other, less curable, conditions.”
“You’re right,” Josiah said. “Still, I wish there was something….”
There was something in his tone, something to make me wonder where he intended to take the conversation. I said nothing, I waited expectantly.
“Y’know …” He whispered cautiously—as if sharing a dark secret, but still leaving himself room to retreat if rebuffed, “I’ve heard that sometimes, young men in our situation—with unfulfilled physical needs—sometimes help each other out.” When I didn’t reply, he added, “Have you heard anything like that?”
I hesitated. I certainly knew quite a bit about the physical needs of men, both young and old. But I sensed that this was a different kind of conversation. I answered slowly. “It’s not unknown in Seattle. There are many more men than women. It is a known convenience.”
Now, Josiah rolled directly onto his side, facing me. “Have you ever—? I mean, perhaps we could … help each other. If you’d like.” Before I could answer, he placed his hand on my chest, then moved it slowly downward, across my belly, and from there to my own surprising desire.
In those days, most men wore long underwear, one-piece flannel undergarments called “union suits.” In the winter, it was a necessary protection against the bitter cold. But in the collegian world, the union suit was regarded as an ugly, ill-fitting contrivance. Instead, the style was for young men to wear separated undergarments, usually quite close-fitting. So it was quite easy for Josiah to slip his hand beneath the waistband of my drawers and then beyond. The touch of his fingers against my nakedness sent a shockwave through my body. Until that moment, I had not realized that companions could be physically intimate. In my mind, I had separated the two functions—physical intimacy and affection. In that first moment, I felt as if I was standing on a precipice. I experienced awe and terror and yet an overwhelming desire to proceed. When I finally found the courage to speak, I whispered, “Perhaps this might be easier if we removed our—if we got naked…?”
As if my words had liberated us both, we quickly shrugged out of our separate underclothes. Boldly, Josiah peeled back the covers so that he could see my nakedness and I could see his. I had not been with any man for a decade, not since Monsieur had taken me from the streets, I hadn’t forgotten the physical details, but I had never experienced any man like this—as an equal partner in an act of physical intimacy.
Jacob pauses here.
At some point in the narrative, the waiter had set plates of food before us, the American version of bangers and mash. Now those plates had been emptied and removed. A third bottle of wine sits on the table, still half-full. Jacob reaches for it. “Do you want some more?”
“I’d better not. I’m already way over my limit.”
He fills his own glass. “My metabolism is different than yours. Alcohol is a convenient fuel. Where you become intoxicated, I become invigorated.”
“Interesting.” I don’t know what else to say.
“It’s another thing your—I’ll call them colleagues—your colleagues have all failed to recognize. Most of their tales, pfah!” He pretends to spit. “They make things up. Little horrors to scare little children. They know nothing of the real horror. Neither do you—” He stops himself. “That comes later. Much later.”
“You were talking about Josiah.”
“Oh, yes. Josiah. He was delicious. No, not like that—” Jacob smiles with the memory. “You go to the movies, don’t you? You see how they represent sex? It’s all a lie, you know.”
“Is it?”
“Have you had sex?”
I nod.
“Male or female?”
“Both.”
“Which do you prefer?”
“I think—well, mostly it depends on how much fun the other person is.”
“Ahh. I will mark you down as undecided.”
“It isn’t binary.”
“No, it isn’t. But one day, if you are particularly unlucky, you may find a permanent partner. And that will be your final choice. Because of the permanence, not necessarily the partner.”
I have no answer for that. He has a head start on me. A century and a half head start.
“Have you been to the movies? Have you seen how sex is portrayed in the movies?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever had sex like that—?” His gaze is penetrating.
“I have to admit, no. You’re right. The movies are a fantasy.”
“No. The movies aren’t even that much. They’re a shorthand version of a fantasy. A man gets into a car and the car pulls away from the curb. The next shot shows the car arriving somewhere and he gets out. The movie leaves out the hour of the man driving, negotiating his way through traffic, being cut off by rude drivers, cursing to himself, checking his watch to see if he’ll arrive on time, stopping for gas, talking on his phone or reading a text, perhaps even looking at the GPS to see if there’s a detour around the road closure—no, the movie lies to you and says that he gets in, drives away, arrives, and gets out. You’re supposed to pretend you understand there was time and distance involved, but you don’t. You experience it as a flicker from here to there without all the intervening circumstances.”
“But those aren’t important, are they—?”
“Of course, they are. If the drive was uncomfortable, if the traffic was difficult, if another driver nearly caused an accident, the person we’re following—he’ll be stressed and irritable when he arrives. He won’t be in the mood to greet his mistress with affection, he’ll go straight to the bar and pour himself a drink while she wonders what’s wrong. In the movies, does the hero ever arrive and say, ‘Traffic was a bitch! There was a prick in a Porsche who cut me off at the off ramp. I wanted to get out of the car and punch his heart out. But then I thought of you and decided it wasn’t worth the effort—’ and then they run to the bedroom? No. They just go straight to the next plot point, in a mad rush to the climax. And sex is presented the same way—as a mad rush to the climax. It’s a lie.”
“And your point is—?”
He laughs. “Very good. My point is that nothing in art, not music, not paintings, not even books—and certainly not movies—ever comes close to the reality, the experiential storm that occurs when the physical and the emotional moments collide.”
I have nothing to say to that. I wait for him to go on.
“That’s what I’m talking about, the moment—the real moment—when you lose your virginity. In truth, there were moments when I wished I had experienced it with Monsieur, but now I understand why that would have been a mistake. For both of us. It would have been like trying to fill a teacup with a fire hose. The teacup would have shattered. What happened in Boston, between Josiah and myself, that was what Monsieur most wanted in my educational career. He needed me to experience my own humanity before I could become … anything else. He needed me to know.”
“And you did?”
He grins. “Most enthusiastically. Many times.”
At first, it was mostly fumbling. You may find this difficult to believe, but I did not really know what I was doing. In the past, when men used me, I didn’t have to know. I was just a convenient piece of warm meat.
But this—with Josiah—this was the first time I had ever experienced the act as a partnership of interest and intention. So we explored, we touched, we stroked each other, curious about each other’s bodies—about the shape and touch and feeling of each other’s maleness.
The act of exploration wasn’t unfamiliar. Many men had explored my body in the past. Many men had been tender and gentle. Only a few had been rough and brutal—as street boys, we learned how to recognize those men, we warned each other who was trouble. But this was the first time I explored the body of another man, in curiosity and wonder. Josiah had a rough undeniable beauty, a masculine scent and presence. The intensity of the moment was heightened by the combination of conflicting emotions—the overwhelming desire to discover what pleasures might be available to both of us, tempered by the fear of possible discovery and the thrill that we were exploring a territory forbidden by culture and convention—as well as by law.
But we didn’t stop. We had passed the point where stopping was possible. We couldn’t stop. We had long since crossed that threshold, that Rubicon of desire, the moment that Josiah’s fingers slid beneath my waistband. He opened his arms to me and I fell into his embrace. In that moment, we became lovers. I felt his nakedness against me as a revelation. I had never experienced such a sense of immediacy, a partnership of affection.
We finally allowed ourselves a brotherly kiss. The first kiss was uncertain—was this something we should do? The second kiss was exploratory. Was it something we wanted to do? The third kiss—that was the door opening to physical adventure. It was a mutual declaration of ‘Yes, let’s do this! Let’s go all the way.’
We did not know the path to ‘all the way’—we had to invent it for ourselves. We did not do everything that first night. In fact, we hardly did much of anything. We held each other close and rocked together on the levers of mutual desire for the longest time—I could have gone all night, it was such a pleasant diversion, yet the more we pushed ourselves together, the greater the tension grew—until finally, Josiah rolled on top of me, grabbing at my shoulders, saying, “I think I can finish this way,” and I said, “Go ahead”—a blessing based in enthusiasm, not exhaustion—I wrapped myself around him and rode him from beneath, matching my exertions to his, focusing on his pleasure, concentrating on matching the thrusts of his manhood against my belly—and when he finally throbbed with the first moments of release, my body throbbed in response, so delighted was I with the physical liberation of his spirit that my own spirit released with his, a surprising moment of amazement as we surged together, a delicious unison of purpose. Josiah must have felt the same astonishment for he held me tightly in his arms for a near-painful instant, before we both gasped and collapsed, he on top of me—myself beneath him, savagely exhausted—and we lay there together for the longest time.
