શુક્રવાર, 25 ફેબ્રુઆરી, 2011

Modern Powers1

The big speakers flank the stage, and between them dances the throng, girls on parade, their skirts so short you could see their panties if you were close enough to the stage, which is exactly where Scotty has positioned himself—close enough, even, to identify which girls aren’t wearing any at all. He’s not hiding his gaze, but there’s no one to rebuke him. Each in the crowd is focused on his own drink, her own hair, the warm press of other bodies against them. And given the hour of night, the angle of floodlights pointing down into the courtyard, the steep angle from below of his vision, his salacious view up skirts yields something unrecognizable, something that looks as much like snapshots of Martian topography or the shadows of a deep sea trench than an erotic glimpse of genitalia. Still, Scotty stands agape, paralyzed by the sight of so much forbidden strange.

This is college, he thinks. Everything he had hoped and more. And though he’s frightened of having his short life snuffed out by any of the men muscling by him, their muscles like overstuffed sausages, the anxiety only heightens his sense that this is the best moment of his life so far, a memory he will replay for ages. He surveys the frat yard, absently rubbing his crotch, so hard that it hurts, knowing any possibility of bedding a girl tonight exists only in the realm of fantasy, but relishing that fantasy nonetheless.

The hottest girl there, to Scotty’s hormonal metronome, is center stage, languidly dancing in a Panama hat, her eyes heavy lidded like something simmering but prone to eruption, two parts relaxation, one part smolder, one part unknowable. She’s in between two more of those muscle-socks, grinding her from either side, and it’s hard to watch, so hard that it hurts, wondering why it can’t be him up there. Would it matter if he replaced one of them? They were all just bodies anyhow. Why not his?

The two jocks lead her off the stage and into one of the bedrooms off the courtyard. How Scotty wishes he could follow, until he realizes that—holy shit!—he can still see them. He can see right through the fucking wall! She lets the two boys undress her. Is anyone else seeing this? His eyes go out of focus and he loses the vision. There’s the wall again, the door shut and marked with a necktie. He focuses again and there they are, doing things to the girl Scotty had not believed existed outside of pornography and his own vulgar imagination.
He looks around the courtyard, sees through all the rooms, some of which are empty, others of which display similar debaucheries. He can’t take it anymore. He has to go home for some relief. It’s too crowded here to let it go. He came alone, he leaves alone, back to his darkened dorm room, his roommate having traveled home for the third time in four weeks. There is no noise in the room, not even a whir of fan blades.

He goes to the shower for his wank and then lies down in bed, lights off, his wet hair soaking the pillow. He wonders, more philosophical now that his urge has been diverted, if his hall mates are living the same raunchy Saturday as the frat party revelers. He turns his head to the left, toward his roommate’s wall, and focuses. He is learning how to do it, how to see through the walls. The room to the left is darks as well, just the sighing breath of two bodies asleep.

The room to the right is still brightly lit, and there are six girls there, but they are normal girls, girls in pajamas, their hair in buns and ponytails. One is wearing headgear. A twelve pack of Sprite is on the floor beside them, and they are gathered round a board game, their heads rocking in a laughter he can’t hear. Nothing too exciting there, he thinks.

When he lets his eyes defocus, though, he can hear a hint of it, of their laughter sneaking through the small gap beneath their closed door, bouncing off the far wall, sneaking in through the gap beneath his own closed door. The sound, so much of it eaten by the walls and doors, seems as if it’s issuing from very far away, but he knows in the next room over it rings clear and bright. He wishes, as bad as he’d wished earlier to be in that room with the dancing girl, that he could join them. But he’s looked through the wall already. Now, he knows, he can never use the door.

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