autobiographical fragment #4

I probably shouldn't share this one. In the autobiography class, we've been asked to make a clear distinction between the author and the persona of the narrator. Perhaps passages like this are why.

I had my first orgasm when I was about thirteen. It happened during the last vacation we’d ever take together as a family. My dad had started losing money as quickly as he’d made it. His drinking had gotten worse, and so had my mom’s anorexia, for which she would soon be hospitalized. I think we all knew it would be the last. In the hotel nightclub we visited for cocktails before dinner, my dad tipped the piano player to play Margarittaville over and over and sang out loud to the words “looking for my lost shaker of salt.”

My parents had gone for an evening walk on the beach. I’d decided to stay in the hotel suite to make headway through the Isaac Asimov novel I hoped to finish before the vacation’s end. I tried to settle into an armchair that looked plush but seemed to be constructed of unforgiving planks of wood. Perhaps I needed a nap. I took the book into my room, set it open-faced on the nightstand, and lay down on my back. The ceiling fan spun slowly, steadily, producing no discernable draft. I followed the edge of one of the blades around its orbit until I became slightly nauseated. When I closed my eyes, I saw the torso of a slender man in a black speedo. Earlier that afternoon, by the pool, he’d paused in front of me, perhaps chatting with a friend. My eyes had darted immediately to the bulge beneath the taut, glistening fabric. I’d forced myself to look away because it was bad enough that I might be looking at someone with lust in my heart. My evangelical friend Everett, who’d saved me for a second time a year after New Life Ranch, had told me that the book of Paul said that fantasizing was just as bad as having sex, because the sin was already in the heart. But I couldn’t imagine what Everett would say if he knew that guys made me feel that way.

Picturing the man in his speedo made touching myself feel better than it ever had before. When the orgasm happened, I shouted “Oh, God,” and immediately cursed myself for bringing God into it. Then I noticed the warm fluid all over my chest. Surely something had gone terribly wrong.

I ran to the bathroom to clean myself up, yanking the toilet paper off the spindle so fast the roll continued to unwind on its own. I shook as I wiped myself clean. I’m sorry, God, I said. I didn’t mean to do that. I watched tears hit the bathroom floor. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. Please don’t let anything be wrong with me. Please let me be all right. I won’t do it again. Please forgive me.