THE BOY
A Short Story in Four Parts by Jesse Lye
Part Four
Since her mother had brought John home, Natalie had been touching herself on a regular basis, and her sexual frenzy’s source consisted exclusively of that pair of eyes, which had seen her naked while fully-clothed. There was no doubt in her mind that they belonged to a boy, and that they had been watching her (for who knew how long!). She liked to think she made that decision based on intuition, and not wishful thinking. No, maybe a flair for the dramatic, a fatal weakness for a prince charming enforced in her by a parochial society, but most certainly not a decision born of latent desires. She thought of the boy and his eyes and masturbated with a fury, and once it was over she said to herself over and over again: all pretty flowers need the sun.
For someone who had always prided herself on her intellectual prowess it seemed almost ironic that what her mind craved most of all was its suspension, to relinquish control to a carnal master that saw the mind only as a hindrance, an obstacle, indeed, the main opposition to its own self-fulfillment.
She understood why he would watch. She understood, she empathized, she secretly encouraged. Far more worrying were her thoughts or, if she was being entirely honest with herself, she reflected, the thoughts that her emotions chose to justify. All pretty flowers need the sun, but she realized with a shock of self-awareness that she cared neither way, that she would embrace the sun whether it nourished or scorched her. Above all all she wanted him to watch. And that was the most worrying, her sudden dependence on a one-time audience for this most intimate and one-person of acts. If she could not have him physically there, she would create him in her mind, force him into her mind’s eye, his big blue brown basil eyes, big as orbs, watching her resolutely, boring into her being, whether he wanted to or not.
So when Natalie caught the eyes at her window again, this time for real, she was neither surprised nor excited. It had been inevitable. For him, she took off all her clothes and masturbated, but not once did she show any sign that she knew of his perverse vigil; she refused to acknowledge his presence. He could never know that this was all for his benefit alone. The shame might crush her. As soon as she was done, the eyes disappeared. She stared longingly after them.
The next day the eyes were there again, waiting for her this time. There was no ignoring them now. After furtively checking around the house for her mother or her boyfriend she ran to her room and shut the door behind her with a lock, staring straight into the eyes, speaking to them with the pure intensity of feeling.
I dare you to do it, they said.
I dare you to watch me, she replied.
Slowly, she slipped her blouse off to reveal her smooth, hairless shoulders, flat chest, stomach. The eyes were unflinching. One hand brushed over her rib cage, poking out of her skin like a dirty secret. The other hooked into her full skirt and pulled it all the way down. She had not been wearing any underwear.
Are you waiting for me? Or have I been waiting for you?
The eyes were silent, fierce, unblinking, and when she finished they were gone.
For a week she kept this up. A mother who had found love, a spacious house, a private room: these unconnected circumstantial facts all conspired to instigate her downfall.
One day she took a black felt-tip marker and scrawled on her stomach: I love you.
The eyes vanished, and she was terrified, heartbroken. Then they came back, and her stomach could finally unclench. They came back with two hands, and a sign: I love you too.
What begins as a coming-of-age becomes a romance.
She began to write to the eyes, her body was the performance, the canvas, the parchment. Some days she didn’t even need to masturbate at all to keep the eyes glued to her. The eyes wrote back to her too.
I love you.
One day after rushing home from school the eyes were not there. A great melancholy settled on the girl, and for some reason she felt like crying. She crawled into bed, took off her clothes, and simply lay there naked waiting for him to come back. What had she done wrong? What had she done to deserve his disinterest? Then she saw him. A desperate joy flung itself against her breast, and she sprang from the bed, but this time he did not disappear.
Another pair of eyes emerged, two lugubrious moons slipping out from the gloomy tresses of the dark.
Had she not craved attention? Had she not desired love? Now she had twice its dosage but she found herself numb. No, worse. She felt terrible, betrayed.
I loved you, she cried with her eyes.
I love you, they whispered back, those four eyes, unblinking, unflinching.
She stared into the obsidian vortex of the four eyes and struggled with herself: how much further must she fall to land. Her eyes were frozen lakes. She walked over to the windows, and drew the blinds, and the movement seemed to slice the four eyes into nothingness, which was all they had ever been anyway.
That was her first love. What begins as romance ends as tragedy.
end of part four
