Letter from a Sexile

Dear Marisa,

I never knew what to expect when I got back to the room. No, scratch that. I always knew what to expect: you underneath some guy, grunting away. You didn’t even have the courtesy to stop when I walked in. The courtesy to be embarrassed, or at least apologize. Hell, you didn’t even have the courtesy to lock the damn door, or write “please knock” on the whiteboard. If you even noticed at all, it was only to glare at me as if I was the one intruding, as if I’d walked into a room that was not my own.

“You should take pictures and sell them on the Internet,” my dad told me. “That’ll get her to stop. And if it doesn’t, at least you can make a little money off it.”

“You should talk to your hall director! You shouldn’t have to put up with this!” my mom told me.

I tried talking to you. “Why are you such a prude, Nina? It’s just sex. Everyone around here does it,” you snapped.

“I don’t care if you’re having sex,” I said, wishing my voice didn’t sound so weak, so passive. Like I was begging. I was always the quiet, shy one, the one who couldn’t handle confrontation. It had taken me a week of frustration to work up the nerve to bring it up, during one of the few times you weren’t being plowed by guy-of-the-day. “But all the time? Can’t you, I dunno, do it in their rooms once in a while? This is my room too, you know.” But you had already put your headphones on, ignoring me. You thought I didn’t understand. I was the plain girl, the quiet girl. You thought I would be a spinster, a nun, that I would die a virgin. Not like you, the tawny-skinned sex goddess with your Pantene hair and pillowy lips. It would’ve been a crime against humanity to hold that back from the world.

It wasn’t the sex that bothered me. It wasn’t even that it was never the same guy twice. You must have fucked half the campus by the end of freshman year. You have no idea how many times I wanted to ask if you were getting paid. You could’ve made a fortune, Marisa. I wouldn’t have minded you always having a guy in the room if you were doing something else once in a while. Watching movies, playing games, even making out. I could deal with that. But the day you brought in that guy and started doing it right in front of me, that was it. I couldn’t take it anymore. I took up my books and left.

It was easier to escape than to fight you. The RA had talked to you. I didn’t want to involve the hall director; it would have been like a long court battle, too much time and effort. I didn’t want to allow you to drain my life any more than you were already. I put in a request with housing to change rooms, bided my time. In the meantime, I spent as little time as possible in what had become your bordello. I would come back for my books, ignoring you and your latest sweating hulk of animal meat that you needed to feel alive, and leave again. I got really good at just turning on the lights, walking in as though I was the only one in the room. Some of the guys would be uncomfortable, would want to stop. “Your roommate,” they’d gasp at you, but you just ignored me. I was nothing to you.

The library became my sanctuary. Full of life and activity, with people milling about, there was still a feeling of comfort, quiet, and calm. It was so beautiful, like a church. It had the same kind of soaring ceilings, but the architecture was modern, full of windows, full of light on sunny days. There should have been stained glass, shrines to whoever was the saint of knowledge, of wisdom. Yet there were still places to hide, nooks to get lost in. The hush of the stacks, with their smell of aging paper and glue. Rows upon rows of possibilities, all those discoveries to be made. The waiting stacks were my favorite. Like the new arrivals section of the bookstore, it was a sampling; I could browse for hours, from topic to topic, like a buffet. Sometimes I felt like I was the only one there, hidden between the shelves, just me and the books. It was almost a shock to run into another person, to turn a corner and find someone else in an aisle.

I wished I could live forever, able to read every single one. I wished I could live there, just move in, claim a couch. As it was I was practically living there already. Housing hadn’t gotten back to me, and you hadn’t slowed down in the slightest. I only came back to the room to sleep and to grab my books. My homework was usually done the day it was assigned, and my grades had never been better.

“Why don’t you work there?” my mother asked one evening, when I was sitting in one of the front group-study areas, where quiet talking was allowed. I was in an armchair at the window, with my cellular phone. “You qualify for a work study.” She didn’t understand. I didn’t want to work there, I just wanted to be there. I didn’t want to be the girl at the loan desk, trapped in the lobby like a receptionist, waiting for people to come up and ask a question. I would rather be one of the students re-shelving books, but even then I wouldn’t be as happy among the stacks. I wouldn’t be allowed to linger, to browse the books as I put them away. They would be reduced to mere objects to be filed away in order as quickly as possible. No, I had no interest in becoming a priestess in this temple, tied to vows of duty; I would rather worship.

I often stayed until it closed for the night. I would stroll back to the dorm, walking with deliberate slowness across the cobblestone courtyard, turning often to gaze back. The lights glowed in the tall windows; it was so beautiful. Across the way, past the lawns and other buildings and the main road, our dormitory looked dismal, a prison. I could see our window, the one two floors above the main door, dark. I knew your latest conquest would probably be long gone; you were more like a man in that sense. You didn’t want to cuddle, to sleep. Once you got what you wanted, you wanted them to leave. They’d served your purpose.

I wonder, did you ever get anything done? Any work, homework? Did you even go to class? You always seemed exhausted, although I know I shouldn’t have been surprised.

The weather was starting to turn cooler, but it was still pleasant. A little tingling chill, like peppermint tea. The sun was sinking earlier and earlier, but it was always dark at midnight. I walked through pools of shadow and light, cutting across the lawn. I didn’t want to go inside, to return to a room stinking of sex and sweat. The air was sweet, the breeze refreshing. But I was tired.

The room was dark when I came in. I could see you in bed, by yourself, asleep. I dropped my things, my books and my laptop, by my desk. It was when I walked over to my bed, to get my pajamas, when I noticed something was wrong. It wasn’t obvious, at least you had seen to that. But my blanket was definitely rumpled, as though someone had been rolling on it. I reached out my hand, hesitant. Definitely damp, in more than one place.

I recoiled as though I’d touched something toxic, something that would contaminate me. You were still sleeping, your arm thrown over your face, mouth wide open. I wanted to pinch your nose shut and pour water down your throat, to drown you. I wanted to scream at you, to pound on you with my fists. It wasn’t enough, what you’d done already, you had to do it on my bed! Why my bed? Were you bored with your own? I was suddenly aware of all the places in the room that you might have befouled. Chairs, desks, even the floor?

Horrified, I grabbed my shower things and ran from the room. Once in the bathroom I ran the shower as hot as I could stand it, and scrubbed myself head to toe. After I got back to the room, I stripped the blanket, the sheets, everything off my mattress and went to wash them. I touched everything by edges, with only the tips of my fingers.

I sat in the laundry room on the folding table, slumped against the stacked dryers. The clock said 2am. I couldn’t believe your gall. I couldn’t believe you were such a monstrous person, so unbelievably crude. I should have woken you. I should have made you do my laundry. But you would have screamed at me, and it was no use.

For days later, I wondered if there was any way I could get away with sleeping at the library, if maybe there was a place to hide where they wouldn’t be able to find me before they locked everything up for the night. I wasn’t getting much sleep at all in our room. To your credit, I don’t think you ever had sex on my bed again, but I still checked every night, to see if my sheets were damp. I had nightmares of being crushed to death beneath a pair of straining bodies.

After two weeks of falling asleep in classes, napping on the couches in the library, my salvation came. I had checked my mail and pulled out a handful of envelopes. One of them said “Department of Housing” on it. I ripped it open, my heart pattering. They had found a room for me, the single I requested. It was in our same hall, a floor above, and I could move in anytime after the current student moved out, at the end of the week. I was free.

Not that you cared, but I wanted to tell you. To tell you I was free of you, that you’d have the room truly to yourself. Or that someone else would be put in with you. Someone who would put you in your place, perhaps. I wasn’t surprised to find you in the middle of having sex. This time you pigs were right on top of the covers, with everything hanging out. You didn’t even try to cover yourselves when I walked in. “Marisa,” I shouted. You didn’t even look over. “Dios mio,” you gasped, not at me. All I could think of was one time when I was younger, when my grandmother spied the neighbor’s dog atop her golden retriever, Penny.

So I went to the mini-fridge and got your Nalgene bottle out. It was full of ice water, perfectly cold. I unscrewed the top, and poured the contents out right onto guy-of-the-day’s hairy lower back. He screamed like a woman, didn’t he? Jumped like a cat with its tail on fire, shrieking, cursing, cursing both of us, just slobbering and flailing and grabbing for his clothes. “You crazy bitch! What the fuck?” he shouted at me.

“It’s what you do to a pair of copulating dogs,” I said smugly. I wasn’t afraid of him; I was proud of how unafraid I was. The normal Nina would be cowering, apologizing reflexively.

“Is this some fucking joke, Marisa?” he screamed at you. He didn’t wait for an answer. You had the sense to cover yourself then, at least, with your blanket, as you chased after him, trying to keep him from leaving. The door slammed behind him.

You whirled around to shriek at me, so mad you slipped into Spanish. Something inside me snapped. My hand trembled, raising itself of its own accord, all my timid-girl rage behind it as it whipped across and hit your cheek with a crack. My hand stung; I could only imagine what your face felt like. You clutched your reddening cheek, stunned, eyes big and dumb and wet like a cow’s.

“I’m moving out on Friday,” I said. “Stay the fuck off my bed until then.” I didn’t wait to see your reaction. I was already out the door, trembling with amazement and horror at my own actions. But to tell the truth, Marisa, I never felt so good.

Your (happily) ex-roommate,

Nina