“I have to tell you something.”
Those are the first words my husband says to me the day after our wedding. They are somber and spoken in a hushed tone. They don’t shock me, though. No. Isn’t that scary? Petrifying, terrifying, alarming.
I’ve been driving myself crazy for the past weeks thinking something was going on and now I have my proof. I almost don’t want it. I almost don’t want him to tell me something.
But I nod, clutching the sheets to my pink wedding dress. After the short ceremony, we walked around the city and then, Ethan scored some beer for us to celebrate. I had my first taste of alcohol, directly from my husband as he poured the liquid from his mouth into mine. It was decadent and amazing, and I got drunk only after one bottle. I’m pretty sure I crashed before we could consummate our marriage.
“Will you go with me somewhere? I have to show you something.” He scans my face, tracing his finger down the side of it, looking at me with such intensity, such passion.
“Okay, let me go freshen up.”
He nods, still staring at me before bending down to kiss my forehead. “I love you, Pixie. I’m nothing without you.”
With that he gets up from the mattress and leaves, and I’m left with a sense of foreboding. I go and freshen up with wooden limbs so he can take me wherever he wants to take me.
It’s in Brooklyn. The thing he wants to show me. We ride the subway and get there in about half an hour. In those thirty minutes, we don’t talk. Abel’s uneasy and maybe even afraid, and that’s making me afraid. What can possibly be so bad that he can’t even say it? Hasn’t been able to say it for weeks.
Our destination is a brick warehouse. This entire area is lined with metal fences and big trucks lugging deliveries. In all the times I’ve come to this borough, I’ve never set foot here.
As we approach the metal door, Abel squeezes my hand tightly. In the silent, still air, his gesture is loud.
“You trust me?” he asks, with open, vulnerable eyes.
It’s the same thing he asked when we got to Ethan’s apartment and heard those sex noises. I answered him yes, then. I realize I didn’t even have to think about it. But I do now and that cuts him – cuts me – deep.
Taking a heavy breath, I nod. “Yes.”
There isn’t any other answer when it comes to him. But somehow, I know that my life will never be the same after this. He nods at me before pushing the metal door open and a screech sounds, breaching the sanctity of the quiet.
I step in with trembling feet.
Honestly, I’m convinced I’m going to see dead bodies. I already know that they’ll be hanging from the ceiling. There will be blood everywhere. I’ll see plastic sheets stuck to the walls and people in jumpsuits wielding weapons. Anything that warrants the kind of silence Abel’s maintaining has to deal with death.
I’m wrong.
Silence is the last thing that I hear in this place. What I hear is what I never in a million years expected to hear. Moans. Loud and aroused and shameless. It matches the moans I hear through our apartment walls, only these are ten times louder.
And what I see is wilder than any dreams I might have had. There are beds with white sheets. Three of them, actually. They are scattered around the large, loft-like space, at an angle to each other. Though they are partitioned with black curtains, from where I’m standing by the door I can see all of them.
They hold bodies. Naked bodies, tanned skin against white sheets, and they are writhing and arching and slipping and thrusting.
They are having sex.
As if that wasn’t enough, there are people gathered around the beds. Yup, people holding cameras. People holding lights. They are circling, bending this way and that as they take shot after shot after shot.
Click. Click. Click.
It’s weird but I hear the snap of the camera even though my own heartbeats are drowned under the erotic moaning. Then my heart completely stops because I hear a moan very much like mine. It could almost be me.
“Oh God…” it says and I have no choice but to walk toward it.
I wade my way through the space. It smells like make-up and sex and sweat. The floor is a jungle of wires where every step echoes. Or maybe it only feels that way to me because everything in this place is magnified.
I approach the bed in the middle of the three; it’s located straight ahead and far back. A man and a woman are lying on it. Well, not lying. They are moving. He’s thrusting into her and she’s clutching the sheets, her mouth gaping open. She’s on all fours, her breasts jiggling. She wears a gold chain around her neck that swings and flies with every stab of the man’s cock.
He’s not being easy on her, no. He’s fucking her like an animal or like a man who only knows lust and nothing else. He’s groaning; every muscle is taut and stretched and looks so brittle. His eyes are narrowed as he watches her curves fly, his teeth bared.
They aren’t saying anything to each other but somehow, I still hear them. I can hear their story in my head.
Do you feel it, baby? Do you feel how much I love you?
Y-yes.
Do you feel how much you fucking torture me?
Show me.
He does show her. He smacks her ass, making it bounce, making her moan in pleasure. He squeezes her breast, grunting, pinching the nipple, and she bites her lip, hissing. He’s forceful, he’s desperate because he’s dying for her. She’s taking it and loving it because she knows what she does to him. He does that to her, too.
Something happens then. Something bizarre. She fists the sheet and I fist my dress. Her thighs vibrate with every jarring shove of his veined shaft, and I feel my own thighs tremble. He slaps her ass again, leaving it red and sore, and I feel the sting on my butt. When he wraps her dark hair around his wrist, I feel the tug in mine.
Suddenly, all I can feel is my body. All my senses have taken leave. I feel my stomach tightening, my spine being tickled by my sweat, my breasts growing heavy, nipples tingling. I’m all body and no thought. I’m all hormones and lust. I’m breathing hard, probably swaying on my feet. I would’ve fallen if not for the arm around my waist and that hard mountain of a body against my spine. A warm, apple-scented wall is hugging me.
“W-who are they?” I whisper, still watching them.
“I don’t know. Just performers.”
“What is this place?”
Abel kisses the nape of my neck and I feel it everywhere, inside and out. “It’s a studio. Called Skins.”
“What do they do here?”
“They make videos.”
“Sex videos?”
“Yeah.”
By now, the man’s about to come. I know it because he’s gone rigid, his neck vibrating with the effort. Just as Abel’s gets when he’s about to orgasm. Like me, the girl has let herself become loose, her entire body pliable, so the man can grip her as hard as he wants. So the man can tear her apart if he chooses. With a loud grunt, he snaps his cock out and spills his cum all over her back. Their moans are the loudest I’ve ever heard. Their relief’s the biggest I’ve ever seen.
But the moment’s over.
The trance has been broken. I can finally see something else besides the couple. The cameras stop rolling. The click, click, click is gone. A couple of people arrive on the scene with bathrobes. The man gets one and a bottle of water; the woman gets the other robe and bottle, along with a compliment from the girl handing them out.
But despite all the distractions, I can still feel Abel. I can feel his body behind me, his dick nestled in the small of my back. It’s hard and he’s rocking into me, and I’m rocking into him. He’s aroused by this.
We are aroused.
I jerk as if someone’s slapped me. The wetness of my panties feels wrong, disgusting. My sweat feels like poison.
I step away from my husband’s embrace but I don’t look at him; I’m afraid of what I’ll find. “I have to go.”
With that I start running, and dash out of there. I push the door open and come out into the sunlight. After the garish lights of the inside, the sun seems duller. I have black spots pulsing in my vision.
“Pixie,” Abel calls out.
I run even faster. The roads are empty. Strangely, no one is around at this time of the day. This whole place is abandoned, godforsaken.
“Pixie, fuck. Stop running, damn it.”
His voice follows me, alerting me to the fact that he’s behind me. Why can’t he leave me alone? Why can’t I get some space from him? I feel claustrophobic in the open air.
Abel is faster than me. So much faster. Damn his long legs. He’s right on my heels as I turn and come to a dead-end alley.
Panting, I stare at the damp, moldy brick wall. It’s lined with black trash cans and discarded boxes. It’s so narrow that the sunlight can hardly squeeze in, smothering the place in darkness.
“Pixie,” Abel says, panting behind me. “Turn around, baby, please.”
No. I won’t. I don’t want to. I don’t want to look at his face and see all the answers written on there. I don’t want to ask any questions, either.
I shake my head.
“Please, baby. I’m dying here. Just… Just turn around, okay? Lemme see your face.” His voice is broken. He never talks like that. His every gesture, every word is so full of life and energy. And sex. Yeah, it’s always seductive, tempting.
That’s what changes my mind and makes me turn around. His lonely voice.
His eyes are wild and worried. He tries to come closer but I stop him. “Don’t.”
He fists his hands on his sides, his jaw ticking, waiting.
“This is your job, isn’t it?”
He jerks out a nod. “Yes.”
“It’s porn. They’re making porn inside. This is how it’s done.”
Another nod.
“So what do you do? Make videos?”
“Snaps. I take the snaps. Video’s a different department.”
“Departments. Right. Of course, there are departments.”
“Pixie –”
I wipe my tears angrily. I don’t want to cry anymore. I don’t want to be pathetic. I’ve been going crazy these past days thinking there was something wrong. I knew he was hiding something from me. I knew it. But I’ve been so stupid, haven’t I? Not anymore.
“I kept asking you and asking you. You let me think there was nothing going on. You lied to me. You’ve been lying to me. You’ve been letting me go crazy all these weeks. You…” Then something occurs to me and I trail off.
Does he want me to do it? Does he want me to have sex with him on camera?
I hug my sides, feeling naked without dropping an inch of clothing. I feel the wetness in my panties. Suddenly, it feels too glaring. It’s all I can think about. All I can think about is that couple in there. The way they moved. The way they fucked. The way he loved her like Abel loves me. Rough and desperate.
All I can think about is how aroused Abel was, how aroused I was, as we watched them.
Oh God, I’ve lost my mind. It’s not normal. Polite, normal people don’t do that. They don’t have sex in front of the camera.
Abel is saying something but I cut him off.
“I’m not doing it. I’m never doing it.”
Now, if only I can somehow stop seeing that couple in my head.
His jaw gets really hard, the vein at his temple popping. “What’d you say to me?”
I stand my ground. I stand on it. I plant roots on it. I’m never moving, never budging because I swear to God I’m not taking my clothes off in front of the whole world.
“I said I’m not doing it. It doesn’t matter that we had sex in the alley that one time. It doesn’t count. It doesn’t matter that we’re married now. Isn’t that why you brought me here? To show me? Isn’t that why you waited to tell me until I was tied to you? You thought I won’t say no because we’re married. No wonder you didn’t tell me. No wonder you hid it from me. No wonder you’ve been lying to me. Because no matter what you say or how aroused you were, you can’t make me do it.” My voice is a shriek by the time I finish. My eyes are a running river as I glare at him. Sneer at him.
Nothing moves. Nothing makes any sound. The world can’t be empty but it sure feels that way.
“You wanna know why I didn’t tell you, Pixie?”
I don’t answer. I’m too amped up to say anything right now, and the way he’s watching me, all hurt and angry, like it’s my fault. Like I’m doing something wrong. As if I’m the one taking naked pictures of people and lying about it.
A moment later, his shoulders sag. They lose all their fight. His jaw goes slack as he ducks his head down. It makes me ache and I hate myself for it.
I don’t care if the sun is duller or even if it burns out. I don’t care that this alley is shrouded in darkness because the light’s too weak to get in. I don’t care about any of that when the man I love, my husband, is looking down to his feet. When he’s the one who shines the most for me. When he’s the one who has the power to stare down the sky, the sun, God, everyone.
I’m so confused.
I just want to go back to this morning when things were okay. I want to go back to the first night in New York when we were just two runaways. No jobs, only aspirations. No lies, only promises.
“I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d look at me the way you’re looking at me right now,” he says finally, lifting his head.
“How am I looking at you?”
“Like I’m something disgusting. Like I’m a monster.”