I want him all to myself.
This emotion is so new to me. The unfamiliarity of it is spinning me everywhere, spiraling me this way and that. I’m free-floating with nothing to grab onto, like an astronaut in space whose tether didn’t hold. I don’t recognize this situation. I don’t recognize myself in this relationship.
“What the fuck.” It’s the second time I’ve said this phrase aloud in the last several minutes, but this time it’s not a question—it’s realization and exclamation. What the actual fuck? I’m Devi Dare. I’m a three-year veteran in this world. I’m a person who relies on logic and reason, and there is no logical reason that I should feel threatened by Logan doing the job he’s done everyday since I’ve known him. So what the actual fuck is this goddamned emotion doing inside of me?
At the next intersection, I turn my car around again, this time heading nowhere, just not toward Logan’s. As I drive, thoughts of him and the conflict we’re facing press deeper on my soul. The cyclone of emotional turmoil inside me whirrs tighter and faster, picking up stray ideas and folding them into the narrative in my head the way loose debris gets caught up in a tornado. What if I can’t handle this? What if I’m not capable of being in love with a porn star?
Every few minutes my phone pings with more notifications that people are responding to Raven’s tweet. Excited, happy responses. That rubbish finds its way into the cyclone. Then my agent’s ringtone plays, and though I reject her call, the reasons she’s calling get pulled into the storm as well. What if I can’t work in this field anymore? What if I’m blackballed? What if I don’t want to shoot porn anymore anyway?
How cowardly would it be to just run away and hide until the storm passes?
Pretty cowardly, I know. And I’m usually a brave girl, like Logan says. But not today.
I turn off my phone and head to my parents’. It’s not running away, and knowing them, I’m sure the visit will end in frustration, but they’ll let me bitch and vent. And maybe talking about it will bring me some sort of clarity.
Somewhat dramatically, I fling open the kitchen door and, upon confirmation that they are both present, announce, “Everything is terrible.”
My father glances up from his hunched position over a backgammon board at the kitchen table. He’s obviously playing by himself since my mother is across the kitchen cleaning out her paintbrushes at the sink. “‘When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky’.”
Goddamn Buddha.
My mother turns from the sink and dries her hands on her muumuu. “Oh, Devi! Taste the baghali polo on the stove, will you? And tell your father that it needs more saffron.”
I ignore her because, well, she ignored me, and direct my next remark directly to my father. “I’m tilting my head, Dad.” I look at the ceiling for dramatic affect. “Tilting my head and there is no laughter because there is no perfection. There is nothing even a little bit like perfection.” That’s not exactly true—the way I feel for Logan is steeped in a lot of almost-perfect. It’s how close to perfect it is that makes the flaws in our relationship so apparent and unbearable.
“Someone woke up on the wrong side of chi. “ My mother squints at me. “My word, Devi, you’re a cloud of crazy energy! Come sit down, and I’ll see if I can straighten you all out.”
I fold my arms over my chest and don’t budge. “Not right now, thank you.”
My father moves a piece on his game and then sits back into his chair. “At least tell us what’s so imperfect and terrible about this world.” He means well, but I can already tell he’s preparing a philosophical argument.
I want no part of that debate, but I do want to talk. It’s why I came over here—to unload my burdens, to maybe find some clarity. “All right. I’ll tell you.” I cross the kitchen and lean against the arch to the den so I can look at them both while I talk.
Then I tell them. Everything. I tell them about Logan and the show, about falling in love, about my idea to do more het porn in order to pay my student loans. I tell them about the day I got overwhelmed looking at the school catalog and about another day when I got a wild hair up my ass and applied to a bunch of universities across the country before I remembered that not having a major was a real problem. I tell them about LaRue Hagen and Bruce Madden, and the likely hit that will have on my career. I tell them about Logan being there for me when I needed him and about being jealous, about not liking the way I feel when Logan’s touching other women. About not knowing who I am or what I want.
“Ew. Jealousy. ‘Keep yourselves far from envy; because it eats up and takes away good actions, like a fire eats up and burns wood.’” With that, my father turns back to his game.
Frustrated, I dig my nails into my palm. “At least the quote came from Muhammad this time,” I mutter.
Bâbâ tilts his head and studies me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just its nice to know there are inspirational people who aren’t Buddha.” I’m being unfair. My parents find inspiration in pretty much everything. They’ve never identified with one religion over another. They love parts of so many faiths and philosophies—Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, agnostic. They’re socialists and communists and democrats, and every hippie idea in between. Basically they live by a hodgepodge of good ideas. And I freaking love that about them. I love that they raised me to be like that too.