what purpose did i serve in your life Read online

  Praise for Marie Calloway

  “‘Adrien Brody’ is riveting, fresh, and written with a distinctive new voice.”

  Stephen Elliott (The Adderall Diaries)

  “When I read Marie Calloway I feel a unique, private sense of empathy. Marie talks and responses echo in her head. She looks at her body in mirrors. Marie sees her reflection in the reactions of people around her. Reading her work makes me feel like I’m alongside her in her mind, navigating the house of mirrors of her inner life, and in doing so, I become one. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything that’s made me feel like that.”

  Megan Boyle (Selected Unpublished Blog Posts of a Mexican Panda Express Employee)

  “These new works by Marie Calloway seem singularly her, and rapidly feedbacking at themselves in a way that wakes something else up, which is refreshing.”

  Blake Butler (There Is No Year, Nothing)

  “[Women like Marie Calloway] pose a threat to the social order, which relies on women’s embarrassment to keep them either silent or writing in socially accepted modes.”

  Emily Gould (Emily Magazine)

  what purpose

  did i serve

  in your life

  Tyrant Books

  676A 9th Ave. #153

  New York, New York 10036

  www.nytyrant.com

  Copyright © 2013 Marie Calloway

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations in critical reviews and articles.

  ISBN 978-0-9850-2359-1

  “portland, oregon 2008” and “sex work experience one” were on Thought Catalog “jeremy lin” and “thank you for touching me” were on Vice “adrien brody” was at muumuu house

  Cover and book design by Adam Robinson

  Cover photos by Ryan Field

  what purpose

  marie

  did i serve

  calloway

  in your life

  contents

  portland, oregon 2008(age 18)

  sex work experience one(age 20)

  sex work experience two(age 20)

  the irish photographer(age 20)

  cybersex

  sex work experience three(age 21)

  men

  adrien brody(age 21)

  criticism

  jeremy lin(age 21)

  insufferable

  bdsm

  thank you for touching me(age 22)

  For Tom and GABM

  “Because of our social circumstances, male and female are really two different cultures and their life experiences are utterly different.” Kate Millett

  portland, oregon 2008

  I wondered if I should go into his apartment. Standing there I suddenly remembered something that I had once read: “We teach children not to go into stranger’s houses, so why do it as an adult?” And I thought about how he seemed very nice and gentle, but remembered hearing about how rapists and murderers often came off like that. But I wanted more than anything to do this very adult thing, so I put everything out of my mind and nervously followed him in.

  He apologized for the mess; he was in the middle of moving. His floor was completely covered in boxes and clothes and household things, except for a made-up mattress lying on the ground. Probably most girls would have been put off by the state of his apartment, but I thought it looked interesting and was even pleased that this room was so far off from the romantic dreamscapes girls are supposed to want to lose their virginity in.

  He left me alone by the door to go use the bathroom. Not knowing what else to do, I put my purse on the ground near the door and walked over and sat on the edge of the bed.

  He came over and sat next to me and we talked more, and then started to kiss. I lay down and he was sort of kneeling over me as we kissed.

  “You’re a lovely girl.” His voice was kind of firm. I imagined he was expressing irritation with me for earlier telling him about being insecure about my looks. I felt uneasy for a moment.

  I put my forearm across my forehead in order to hide my unplucked eyebrows that were visible now that he had pushed my bangs aside.

  But then I reached for the top button of my blazer and struggled to unbutton the top button.

  “Can I?” he asked, his hands above my blazer.

  “Okay, if you can. These buttons are kind of hard…”

  But he unbuttoned it quickly, with ease.

  I was embarrassed that I was wearing an old plain white bra.

  “…No shirt.”

  “No, I told you,” I said, and looked up to see if he was staring at my breasts, but he was to my surprise looking at my face. I wondered if he thought they were unattractive or if maybe he didn’t like breasts.

  “I don’t think you did tell me.”

  I pulled off my skirt and underwear, and then he moved his head down.

  For a while I stared at the wall, and then I caught a glimpse of his head down in-between my legs. I wondered what he was doing.

  After a few minutes he came up and his face was hovering over mine again.

  “Did any guy ever do that to you before?!” he asked with nervous excitement. I could smell my pussy on his breath. I wondered if he was excited by the idea of being first.

  “Do what?”

  I had felt his face and hair rubbing against my thighs, but nothing else. (A few years later I would learn I am completely unable to feel oral sex due to past sexual trauma.)

  “…Eat you out.”

  “Huh? Yeah, of course,” I said nonchalantly, lying.

  “You’re like, ‘well, duh,’” he said, kind of laughing, maybe embarrassed. I wondered if he was excited by the idea of being first.

  He moved in to kiss me. I wanted him to kiss me, but I didn’t want him to think I would want something like that, so I turned my head to the side to dodge him. But he tried again, grinning big, and we kissed and I was excited by him forcing a kiss on me and forcing me to taste myself on his tongue.

  Then two of his fingers went into my vagina and it hurt tremendously. My eyes snapped shut and I started to moan both from pain and out of feeling an obligation to make him think I was enjoying it, and feeling like I wanted to excite him by moaning and groaning.

  I peeked my eyes open and saw his face was right over mine, watching my reactions. He was grinning stupidly.

  “God, you’re wet.”

  He took his fingers out and held them up to the light. They were drenched. I wanted him to put his fingers in my mouth, but didn’t say anything. He wiped his fingers off on my inner thighs and I pretended to be grossed out by that.

  “You’re like, ‘Eww.’”

  He started to finger me again, faster and faster and then started to roughly rub my clit and I was in so much pain I had to fight back tears. I wanted to fake an orgasm so he would stop, but I didn’t know how to or what women even acted like when they came.

  I kept moaning louder and louder.

  “Tell me what you want,” he said.

  I was too shy to say anything.

  He kept fingering me for a while and then stopped and got on top of me, and through his briefs rubbed his erect cock on my crotch which I liked a lot.

  “Do you want this?” he asked, his voice was gentle and sweet.

  “Yeah…” I moaned.

  “Okay! Let me go get a thing,” he said and bolted up.

  I stared at his legs and ass in his green American Apparel briefs as he walked across the room. Then he was kneeling down beside me, and I could hear him unwrap a condom. I turned to look at him.

  “You don’t really wa
nt to watch this, do you?”

  I turned my head. I wondered why he would be embarrassed to be seen doing that.

  Then he said, “I think I put it on inside out…”

  “Oh my God,” I said and started laughing. Is this really how I’m going to lose my virginity?

  “Oh my God,” he mimicked.

  And I felt a bit offended and wondered if I wanted to have sex with someone who had teased me.

  He got on top of me and I was in pain as he tried to penetrate me. I was moaning and maybe I sounded like a hurt kitten.

  He put his mouth against my ear and shushed and whispered, “Don’t be nervous.”

  I wondered why he was saying that when I felt totally calm and relaxed. It was completely the right time for this to finally happen.

  He struggled to penetrate me again, which hurt to the extent that I didn’t even notice when he did finally penetrate me until I lifted my head up and saw his cock going in and out of my vagina. It was so shocking and strange and interesting looking I wanted to keep staring at his cock going in and out, but I could tell he was looking at me staring and so I felt self-conscious and lay my head back down.

  Even though I had been watching pornography regularly since elementary school this was so completely different than what I thought sex would be like.

  I called out his name, thinking he would like that.

  “God, you’re tight…” he moaned.

  I wondered what that meant.

  It hurt a lot. He was fucking me really hard and fast (later he would admit he was incredibly excited to be having sex with an 18 year old), but somehow I loved the feeling and thought things like, “It hurts, but it hurts so good…”

  He went on fucking me for a while, me lying there half out of my mind in this strange painful pleasure, moaning like a hurt kitten.

  But I was suddenly overcome with shame, stemming from feeling disconnected from him and his body. I felt that this couldn’t have been good for him.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “…For what?”

  There was a strong feeling of awkwardness.

  I didn’t know how to respond, so I just kept moaning.

  He went on thrusting like nothing had happened.

  But he stopped suddenly. “Do you want to like, move? Because I’m about to pass out.”

  What did he mean by move? Does he want me to be on top or something?

  I tried to move my hips and stomach, but I was completely out of sync with him and I felt embarrassed. And somehow my movement caused his cock to fall out. We both laughed. I stopped trying to move and lay there again while he fucked me for a while longer.

  Suddenly he stopped and sighed, “I feel good.”

  I was surprised. I didn’t know it was possible for guys to just stop in the middle of sex before they came. I thought they would explode or something if they did that.

  He took the condom off and held it on his fingers up to the light. I saw it was tipped with blood. I felt horrified and hoped he wouldn’t notice. But he said, “Hmm…You bled a little bit.”

  I stared, wide eyed, internally panicking. Oh no, would he figure out that I was a virgin now? How would he react? Oh God.

  But he didn’t say anything more and calmly and gently got up and went to throw the condom away.

  He came back and lay on the bed. It was very late, like 2 AM. I turned my body away from his and tried to move as far away from him as I could. I had this idea in my head that men hated cuddling or anything like that after sex, so I didn’t want to do that and appear clingy. But he moved and pressed his body against my back and put his arms around my waist.

  I slept for a while.

  In the middle of the night I got up and went into his bathroom. I turned on the light in the bathroom and stared at my face in the mirror. For ten minutes I tried to see what someone could find attractive about me, but I couldn’t find anything.

  I went back and lay down beside him and tried to sleep.

  I couldn’t get back to sleep though, and started to wake him up by kissing his neck. Instantly he started to kiss me back on my mouth and then started to finger me again. I moaned loudly and this time he said right away, “Tell me what you want.”

  “I want you to fuck me,” I moaned.

  “Okay.” He was smiling.

  He got up to go find another condom, and after searching for a long while came back.

  “I don’t have anymore,” he said with an exasperated laugh.

  He started to finger me again.

  I wanted to excite him. “I want you to fuck me,” I moaned again, even though I didn’t really.

  ”…Even though we don’t have anything?” he asked, excitedly. He started to finger me faster.

  I was shocked at his suggestion. I didn’t know people actually had unprotected sex.

  “Yeah…” I moaned.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes…” I said.

  And then I was shocked. Why did I say, “Yes” when I didn’t want to have unprotected sex, was terrified by years of public school brainwashing of how unprotected sex inevitably leads to teenage pregnancy and horrible diseases? Later I would realize that it was the influence of pornography on my psyche. I didn’t know how to act during sex, and I had the gaps filled in by pornography, which taught me to act really horny and desperate during sex.

  “Are you sure?” he asked again.

  “No…” I said, shaking my head.

  He stopped and we decided to go to sleep again.

  In the morning we were woken up by the sound of his phone ringing.

  He answered it.

  “Hello?”

  He listened for a minute. I heard a woman’s voice on the other end.

  “Sure you can come over here. I’m not doing anything. I’m just… laying here.”

  They talked for a bit more and then he hung up.

  He said his friend was on his way over and I had to get going right away, because to be honest he didn’t want his friends to start gossiping about how he was sleeping with an 18 year old.

  I somehow found my clothes in the disaster of his apartment and put on my bra, blazer, skirt, and underwear in his bathroom, too embarrassed to get dressed in front of him.

  But I pulled up my tights in the front room and he stared at my legs with this dumbfounded look.

  When I was fully dressed I went over to the door and picked up my purse.

  Standing near his door, I felt awkward. I didn’t know what to say.

  We stood in silence for a moment.

  Then suddenly he said with nervous excitement, “Can I have your number?”

  I didn’t know if I wanted to see him again. It didn’t go with the idea I had in my head of losing my virginity to a stranger and then never seeing him again.

  “Um, I lost my phone the other day…But maybe I’ll find it?”

  “Well, do you want mine?”

  I bit my lower lip.

  “You’re like, ‘Noo…’” he said, kind of laughing, hurt.

  “No, I do,” I said, feeling bad.

  He picked up a piece of paper and a pencil up from off his floor and wrote his number and email and gave the paper to me, which I put into my purse.

  I turned to open the door and leave, but he told me to wait.

  “I get to hug you one more time before you go,” he said, and wrapped his arms around my waist from behind and tenderly kissed the top of my head.

  While walking home I smoked a cigarette and felt self-conscious about wearing yesterday’s clothes. I felt like everyone I passed was staring at me and knew I was doing the walk of shame. A typical Portland hipster looked at me as he rode by on his bike. I turned my head to avoid his gaze.

  When I got back to campus, I looked at my phone and realized I was going to be late, so I went straight to my humanities class without changing my clothes or showering.

  All day long I was in pain from my vagina being incredibly sore. I wrote furiously, obsessively in
my notebook all day long about what had happened. And I couldn’t get the image of his penis going in and out of my vagina out of my head.

  I emailed him two days later: “Let’s sleep together again.”

  “Monday night? 10pm? CoffeeTime?”

  “Okay.”

  When we met again in a few days my first thought upon seeing him with his gorgeous blond hair standing in front of me in his beautiful black peacoat and Burberry scarf was, “Can this person really be here to have sex with me?”

  sex work experience one

  Hi I saw your ad and would love to meet you later today, I live in Blackheath in SE London, have my own place, I can pay your travel over if interested? Please get back x.”

  “Hi darling, sent you a message earlier, forgot to give you my mobile no: xxxxxxxxxxxxx Prepared to give you more than £200 per hour if interested? xx Btw I am an ok looking guy!”

  “Ok sounds great when is a good time? We can meet at the nearest tube station to you I don’t have a phone btw we’ll have to coordinate over email but would love to meet asap, Emily.”

  “Hi Emily, thanks for getting back, I am based in Blackheath and would love to meet you about 7 tonight if that’s not too late? I am not near a tube station but could meet u at Blackheath railway station or arrange taxi? Pls get back”

  “I can meet you at blackheath. 7 tonight is fine”

  “Ok I will meet you at the railway station at 7, how will I know you? And can you confirm that you are not part of an agency, i’m not interested in that. Sorry to ask”

  “i’ll be wearing the big sunglasses as in the photo and i’ll have a black plaid shirt on and a black skirt w/ black tights and black heels. how can I confirm it? here’s a link to my facebook page if that makes me seem more real. will you pay me at the station and then we’ll go back to your place? how much do you want to pay if not 200 pounds?”

  “Thank you for your honesty, I will give you the £200 at the station, then extra £100 at my place. Could I also buy you a drink when you get to Blackheath?”