An Entirely Anti-Climactic, Ahem, Climax to a Decade-Plus-Spanning Narrative Involving Desire and the Creation/Fulfillment Thereof

 

or, if it floats your boat,

Star

 

–

 

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to sleep with Evan Rachel Wood.

Look.  This is less creepy than it sounds, since Thirteen came out when I was like sixteen and the whole Avril Lavigne punk-chic thing was in full vogue.  She’s got maybe a year on me tops.  I can’t say it was my only real celebrity crush, since Natalie Portman has a beating heart and until very recently wasn’t pregnant.  But it was certainly the most, uh, salient.

Just saying I have enjoyed Mildred Pierce a couple of times, alright.

Anyway, yeah.  I have always wanted to sleep with Evan Rachel Wood.

One day I did.

 

It’s the 84^th Annual Academy Awards.  I’ve snagged a position on The Rock’s guestlist due to avid mutual bromance .  We’re both wearing matching white tuxedos with massive Brahma Bull logos embroidered on the back and have spent the afternoon photobombing Disney tween-lebrities as they make their E! rounds.  Now though he has some hosting duties and I am thirsty and so everything has kind of settled down.

I’m looking for a place to fetch a drink when I spot Evan Rachel Wood chilling at the bar.

She looks like the Oscars.

No one else is anywhere even remotely near the bar.

Gulp.

My eyes lock like lasers on the bartender.  He is sporting a bow tie.

“Angostura Manhattan.  Templeton if you’ve got it, Bulleit or plain ol’ Beam if you don’t, really doesn’t make much of a difference, yeah, thanks.”

I check the time on my cellphone as though I have anywhere  to be other than the 84^th Annual Academy Awards.

“What in the hell is that on your jacket?”

Evan, of course.

My pulse starts thumping like for example a bass drum.

Deep breath.

“It’s a Brahma Bull, obviously.  Why wouldn’t it be?”

I execute a sort of spin move to reveal the full obnoxious wingspan of the bull’s horns.

She laughs.

“A Brahma Bull.  On a tuxedo.”

“Nothing less.”

“Brahma Bull like The Rock?”

“Oh, wrestling fan are we?”

“It doesn’t matter if I’m a wrestling fan or not!”

She raises a single eyebrow.

I am eating this shit up.

“I’m his guest actually,” I tell her.  I lean my elbows atop the bar.

“No way.”

“Yes huh.”

I edge forward and take a long, full sip of my Manhattan.

Evan adjusts her bracelet.

Very few things move.

We look at each other at the exact same time.

“So what’re you doing later?” we both ask.

 

—

 

The sex was okay.

“Do you have a cigarette?” she says.

Maybe the sex was pretty decent actually.

“I can’t find the bathroom to save my life,” she says.

I empathize with the need to get to the bathroom (which can’t be more than eleven feet from the foot of the bed) but have no clue whatsoever where to find the light switch in this suite.

Something like 50-55% she faked her orgasm.

Her butt thumps atop the toilet seat.

“Good job babe.”

“But seriously with the cigarette.”

“Sorry, I don’t smoke.”

“Of course you don’t.”

Outside the moon is huge and hangs like a window decoration.  Suddenly the sound of peeing like a secret told too loudly.

“We’re on that level already?”

The creak of a closing door.

The creak of a door opening unintentionally.

“Damn it.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll get it,” I tell her.

I remain in bed.

Maybe closer to 45%.  Her lower abdomen did do the lower abdomen thing.

She flushes the toilet.

She fumbles back toward the bed.

She best I can describe it stop-drop-and-rolls over me to get to the side closest the wall, grabbing a corner of the comforter in the process and more or less ninja-ing the entire heap of blankets from me in one decisive gesture.

“Damn.”

“Shoulda forked over a cigarette.”

“Do you practice that shit?”

“It’s not impossible I practice it is all I’m gonna give you.”

“Mmhmm.”

“…”

“But okay seriously it’s like real cold.”

She rolls counterclockwise and sort of dispenses me a wing of the blanket, as though unfurling e.g. a Fruit Roll-Up.

“Preesh.”

“Yah,” she says.

“…”

“…”

“Night,” I tell her.

“…”

“So—”

“Yeah I mean I need to get up early tomorrow, there’s this photo and event thing and it’s a big production, and I’m sure you have something you’re supposed to be doing too, a flight to catch or something and yeah, so if you don’t want to stay over or whatever it’s totally okay.”

“…”

“Actually yeah that’s probably definitely the best idea,” she says.

“Ah.  Yeah.  Completely.  Totally.”

I sit up in the bed and look for my pants.

Within an instant of looking for them I find my pants.

I very suddenly become extremely disinterested in the location of my pants.

I fall back atop the bed.  Turning my head to look at her I prop myself up on my right elbow.  She looks at me and says nothing.  I reach out to her and run my hand through a few strands of her nighttime-clumped hair.  She’s utterly still.  I edge closer to her and like a child seeing his reflection for the first time I slowly trace her jawline with my index finger.  It’s freezing.

“Don’t.”

“Mmm.”

“Don’t.”

“I think I should stay,” I tell her.

She scoots her back up against the headrest and bears her weight on both her elbows.  It’s hard to see in the vacant light but I’m at least 85% sure she scrunches up her nose.  The shallows of her breath are short and terse.  She stops moving for a second.  Then she ducks back beneath the covers save her eyes, which peep out like a Bop-A-Mole or like Mileena from Mortal Kombat, and sort of adorably curls herself into a kind of semicolon.

It’s an offer.

“Okay,” she says.  “But only because you’re tired.”

I assume the position of the big spoon.

“It is like real late,” I say.

“It’s super late.”

“What would be the point of going back right now anyway?”

“It just makes sense.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Then silence.  The rumple of blankets.  Shifts of weight.  Contours in the black of night.   Bodies occupying space.

I put my arm around her.

“Whoa there chief don’t push your luck.”

My arm remains around her.

Impossibly far away, stars orbit stars.

We plummet into sleep.