Other Earths (collection)

Riel was all about appetite. When she ate, she ate wholeheartedly, and when she drank, she drank singlemindedly, and when she was inspired to talk, she talked a blue streak, and when she fucked, although stoned, never as active as Lucy, she gave it her all. I asked her if heroin didn’t muffle the sexual drive, and she said, “Yes …but once you get started, it’s kind of cool.” She and Lucy and I deployed our bodies in every possible permutation, and over the span of several days, I learned there was a qualitative difference between their addictions, one that defined their drugs of choice. Compared to Lucy’s elaborate ritual with the pipe, Riel’s affair with the needle had a decidedly American character (stick it in and get off). This distinction carried over into their attitudes toward sex, and I was led to generalize that whereas opium women might prefer to grill thin slices of your heart, skewering each with a toothpick, devouring it over a period of years, heroin girls will, if given the chance, swallow it in three quick bites. Riel became increasingly needy—needy for food, alcohol, drugs, and orgasms. I could empathize with her boyfriend. Had we been alone together, I would have dumped her myself. Beauty is not sufficient compensation for a demanding nature. But with Lucy to share the load, her demands were acceptable.

I discovered that a threesome required more drama to sustain it than did a twosome, and at first we manufactured drama. Games became the order of the day. Often Lucy and Riel would get high, leaving me to orchestrate these exercises. I enjoyed having two women, limp as dolls, whom I could exploit however I chose. When that became boring, I let Lucy take the lead. One afternoon she insisted I read a passage from The Tea Forest before having sex with Riel. The passage involved Cradle Two’s narrator speaking to a German girl he had picked up in a Phnom Penh bar during the break in his trip. He had just finished helping her fix and was dictating the terms of their relationship. In speaking the lines, I felt an absolute conviction, as if my voice and Cradle Two’s had merged:

“ ‘If you have to puke again,’ I said, ‘go outside, okay?’

“The girl tried to focus, but she gave it up; her head lolled, and an arm slipped off the sofa, her fingers trailing in the vomit.

“ ‘I’m not your pimp,’ I told her. ‘I’m not going to be your pimp. What I’m going to do is use you to attract a certain class of man. You want to fuck for money, okay, I’ll pay you. Don’t let the men I set you up with pay you. You’ll probably have to do two or three tricks. For now, though, I’ll be the only one fucking you. I need to make sure you can do the things they like. I’ll keep you in dope and give you a place to live. I’ll regulate your drugs …that way you won’t get too big a habit. You have to learn to manage your habit. You can’t do that, you’re on your own.’ ”

Prior to this, I had, of course, recognized the resonance between the addition of Riel to our union and Cradle Two’s novel—indeed, I had done little other than recognize such resonances since beginning the trip. More to the point, reading the passage brought home to me how much of the veneer of the civilized man had worn off. I was a long walk from becoming an unregenerate criminal like the narrator of The Tea Forest, and perhaps I would never achieve that level of criminality; but I was headed down the path he had trod. At one point I considered calling Kim and making a stab at redemption, hoping that her rational voice would reorient me; but Lucy and Riel stared at me with dull opiated expectancy from a nipple-to-nipple embrace, and I decided that the call could wait.