by Jacob Anthony Moniz
“It’s a different spectrum than consensual eroticism. If even one person disagrees, it’s Cindy’s responsibility to make sure their kids weren’t exposed to it. The moral boundary is clear.”
My uncle’s hands fell flat-palmed against the table before him, a physical movement marking the conclusion of his argument. The sound that this action produced was inexplicably sanitary. I thought of my cousin, Cindy, of her politics and her attitude toward my uncle, Dave, her father. If she’d been present in that room, she would have described the sound as sterile. There was no ringing, no rattling from the empty glasses in front of us. Just a single, solitary beat.
“Yeah, it’s exhibitionist,” I said, not quite sure of what I was or was not agreeing to. “That’s the point though, isn’t it?” I lifted my glass as a distraction, irritated with myself for draining it so quickly. I set it back down. “She’s making a statement. I’m not saying I disagree with you. Personally, I don’t believe that kids should be forced to see that. Still, I wouldn’t necessarily say that the moral boundary is all that clear. Cindy’s whole argument is that the boundary is unfairly staked.”
“For Christ’s sake,” my uncle muttered. “Flashing her you-know-what’s all over town… Cindy wasn’t raised this way. I taught her better.” You-know-what’s — what a fearful fuddy-duddy. His hands gestured toward me, defeated. “The two of you grew up together. You’re not out there flashing your – thing – stirring up trouble for no reason.” He shook his head, my uncle, a caricature of conservatism. “You were always the good one, Rob.”
For the record, I don’t believe that my cousin is the political radical that she or her father make her out to be. Furthermore, my thing and my cousin’s breasts exist in completely different contexts. To be considered good because my dick stays in my extremely fashionable pants speaks volumes to the general fuckery of my gender. Back then, Cindy had just completed her freshman year at a historically political, anti-establishment, anti-patriarchal, anti-Capitalist university, just one year behind me. Her major was undeclared and going in, she had no compelling arguments for social or political issues at her disposal. I think it was a sink-or-swim kind of scenario during her first semester at college: she either joins in on the revolutionary fervor, or be marked forever by her peers as a mindless victim of the status quo. Cindy made the obvious choice and returned home bra-less, explaining to all who would listen the validity of the Free-the-Nipple campaign. Our family was largely unimpressed.
I don’t mean to dismiss my cousin or her cause. I see no moral issue with women freely showing their breasts. American culture has sexualized a non-sexual aspect of the female form; Cindy is correct to challenge this. Still, it fascinates me to examine the cause of my cousin’s sudden turn to politics and discourse. Cindy joked once that she became cognizant of the issue after her roommate, an economics major, calculated the lifetime cost of brassiere purchases (approximately $4000-$5000.00). She said this for a laugh, but I looked it up: the economics major was correct.
Our family was uninterested and casually dismissive towards Cindy’s turn to liberal activism, until our yearly trip to Tahoe. We stay in this tiny cabin each summer, just a stone’s throw away from the property used to film The Godfather II, the place where Fredo gets murdered. Tourists come from all over to take photographs, so there are plenty of families wandering around at the water’s edge with their cameras, kids swimming in the lake, things like that.
The day after we arrived, Cindy and I decided to walk down to the water after sleeping in late, arriving sometime in the afternoon. I’d dragged along a folding chair to set up at the end of the pier, per my yearly tradition. Upon entering Tahoe City, I buy a random novel at the local bookshop, then read it before our week-long trip is through. This year’s book was Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates, which had me in a general state of unease. That novel is… something.
But this isn’t a book review. Back to Cindy. We made it to the pier by the Corleone Compound and I set up my chair to face the water with a faraway view of Genoa Peak. I started reading straight away. Familiar with my tradition, Cindy wordlessly dumped her belongings beside my chair, preparing for her own tradition of a solitary swim. I don’t remember how much time had passed exactly, just that it was enough for me to get through several chapters of Zombie and feel flush in the face from the sun, when I suddenly heard Cindy yell: “Hey! Asshole! My body is not yours to sexualize!”
I turned, confused, and saw Cindy standing angrily in a shallow section of the lake. I then averted my gaze and felt flush from embarrassment as I realized that my cousin had gone topless. I looked down and saw her bra set beside me on the pier.
A man’s voice carried from somewhere on the shore. “I’m not sexualizing anything, you fuckin’ psycho!”
“Bullshit!” Cindy yelled. “I saw you take my picture!”
“Yeah,” said the man. “Picture proof to share with the cops! Have fun in jail, dumbass. Y’know, my kids swim in this lake.”
I heard the sound of Cindy treading water towards the shoreline in response; a troubling development.
“Uh, hey. Cindy?” I faltered, unsure of how to proceed. “You good?”
“No, I am not good!” The sound of treading water ceased. I continued to avert my gaze from what I couldn’t help but imagine were incredibly angry nipples. Angry nipples? My mind was in a strange place. “This backwards-ass,” she huffed, “misogynistic, self-important tool was taking pictures of me! He needs to delete them and apologize!”
“I need to apologize?” The man laughed incredulously. “You apologize!”
I set down my book and stood to meet my cousin. Cindy would reject my reasoning, but as an elder male, I bore a familial responsibility to defend my cousin’s honor. Besides, bare-boobed or not, it seemed a poor idea to stand by and allow her to kill a man.
Thankfully, Cindy had her back turned toward me as I approached, saving me from the sight of her chest. Now that I think about it, I’m as guilty as anyone else for sexualizing her body. Not in a creepy, incestuous kind of way. No. Please. But for all my theoretical talk about supporting her Free-the-Nipple campaign, the sight of her boobs still made me uncomfortable. Even the knowledge of her bare chest, hidden from my sight, made me cringe. I noticed the even tan along the width of her back, which had been spared the coverage of a top while swimming. Just noticing that detail made me feel like a creep. Just writing that detail, now, has me questioning what right I have to tell you about it.
The man yelling at Cindy was your typical Lake Tahoe tourist: an average-looking white guy, slightly out of shape, wearing sunglasses, an ill-fitting button-up, and khaki shorts. He was the kind of guy you saw on the subway either early in the morning or at the end of the workday, the one who leaves you with the impression that, wow, growing old is a miserable thing. I’m not at all a physically imposing specimen, but the average-looking man must’ve been intimidated by our uneven numbers, as he squared-up, settling into a stance suggestive of self-defense training at the amateur level.
I raised my hands, shrugging. “Look man, this is getting out of hand. Just delete the pictures.” I turned to Cindy. “And maybe you can cover up? Everyone’s here to relax. Humor him.”
Cindy backed away from me, disgusted, as if distancing herself from some toxic, hazardous spill. “Unbelievable.” She turned to the average-looking white guy, who twitched as if preparing for a blow. “You know what? Enjoy the photos. We’re the only ones out here, which makes me doubt your concern had anything to do with your kids, if you’ve got kids at all. I love my body and I’m not ashamed to show it.”
With that, Cindy marched away, bee-lining for her belongings at the edge of the pier. She gathered her clothes and her bag in a single sweep, evidently making a point to remain topless. Midway down the pier, a thought seemed suddenly to occur to her. Cindy turned back towards the folding chair, lifted my copy of Zombie from the armrest, and tossed the book in the direction of Genoa Peak. I heard it splash into the lake from where I stood with my cousin’s newfound nemesis, who muttered a breathy “goddamn” in a mixture of awe and disbelief.
I stood in silence and stared out at the lake, wondering what Quentin P had planned for all those chickens.
***
I consider myself an apolitical person. I can find merit in both sides of most issues. For this, I am praised. For this, my uncle Dave says: “You were always the good one.” I disagree. I’m considered good for my refusal to take up a cause, for my preoccupation with things like reputation and perception. I don’t disrupt the status quo. At least Cindy, motivations aside, proudly voices a belief in something.
I returned from the lake before Cindy and told my uncle Dave what had happened, earning his praise. “I know she put you into a tough spot, but good job keeping cool. Good man.” His hand grasped my shoulder, squeezing with preposterous might. “Good, good man.”
Cindy returned just before dark, when the family had gathered to prepare for dinner. Her father had opted to keep the incident by the lake between the three of us. I half-expected Cindy to tell the story herself, once again proclaiming herself a warrior fueled and exonerated by her sense of righteous fury, but she didn’t. I imagine it’s difficult for her, being ridiculed and mocked by a group of people meant to be supportive. That’s never the case, is it? No family on Earth exists as a single-minded, totally cohesive unit. The tribal warfare that’d ensue would be horrific.
Dinner was uneventful. Cindy is the only relative in my age group. Since she’d decided to give me the silent treatment, I was left to suffer with my wandering thoughts, which were still preoccupied with the plot of Zombie.
It’s a nasty book. Basically, Joyce Carol Oates takes inspiration from Jeffrey Dahmer and tells the story of a serial killer through train-of-thought narration. The narrator is named Quentin P and throughout the novel, he tries to make for himself a sexually subservient zombie by kidnapping and experimenting on unsuspecting young men. I hated reading Zombie. Being placed in the mind of a depraved killer made me feel uncomfortable and, quite frankly, gross. Unbeknownst to Cindy, chucking that novel into the depths of Lake Tahoe had been a mercy.
I sat there at dinner, alone with my thoughts, staring down at the old wooden table before me. It was marked by experience, with cracks and indents scattered here and there. You couldn’t see them all, since the table had been set for dinner, though a large stain from some unknown source spread from dish to dish. Fuck, I thought. We need a new table. Something cleaner, less marked and battered.
And then, before I could stop myself, I was thinking of Quentin P and his fucked-up derangement, sick but a little intrigued, because the thought of being his zombie wasn’t as horrific as it should be. See, the thing is, I’d had my own sort of transformation a year before Cindy, back when I’d moved to the city for the start of my own freshman year. It began innocently enough, kissing another guy in the dorms after stumbling home drunk. A sad way to experience a sexual awakening, though not uncommon. Then came the apps, the cruising bars, and an increasingly complex taste for porn.
The stuff I like would make most people squirm, but in a way that’s not completely honest. Squirming can mean more than discomfort; for some it means impatience, a sign of poorly suppressed desires. I keep quiet about this stuff, for obvious reasons. If my family found out that I’d acquired a taste for daddy-son bondage porn, well, I’d probably be disowned. At the very least, my uncle Dave would call me “bad.” But I say that’s not completely honest because there’s no shortage of available outlets to feed this particular kink. The apps work. The bars are full. Most people won’t admit it, but anything goes, so long as no one’s watching. All that matters are the optics.
***
After dinner, once everyone had gone to bed, I left to meet a guy from Grindr. Neither one of us had sent a photo, but that didn’t matter. I presented myself via chat as a curious, vulnerable young man eager to please. Whoever I’d been talking to was older, a self-described daddy with what he billed as plenty of experience to share.
Passing Cindy’s room, I had the urge to knock and apologize for what had happened by the lake. I pressed my ear against the door but heard nothing on the other side. I decided then that no apology was necessary. Cindy should have known that her actions would have consequences. If she wanted to ruin her reputation over something as stupid as Free-the-Nipple, so be it.
My phone buzzed in my pocket with a message from my anonymous friend. ETA? He queried.
5 minutes.
I exited our cabin through the back entrance, using my phone’s flashlight as I walked towards the woods, rather than the direction of the lake. There was a trailhead nearby that led to a relatively private grove of trees. Bears wander the area after dark, so the excursion was probably ill-advised from the get-go, but that didn’t matter to me. Spurred by carnal desires and the sexual frustration experienced universally by men stuck vacationing with their families, I convinced myself that the chance of something going wrong was immeasurably low.
My phone buzzed again and I stopped to check my messages. This time, my anonymous friend had sent a picture of his dick, captioned: I’m waiting. He used flash when taking this photo, resulting in a sickly gray pallor to the skin of his dick. It bent at a 75-degree angle and had hair that grew in patches on the shaft. I wonder how many people are actually attracted to the sight of an erect penis. We overlook its grotesque appearance because sex with men feels good. The penis, ugly though it may be, is a necessary component. I played along, replying first with the heart-eyed emoji, then the kissy-face.
Suddenly, I heard a noise coming from ahead, in the area of the trailhead. I felt exposed and turned my phone off as I moved behind a pair of trees nearby, worried that I’d foolishly stumbled upon a bear instead of my anonymous friend. To my surprise, walking carefully through the darkness of the woods, was Cindy’s nemesis from the lake, Mr. Average-Looking White Guy. He had replaced his khaki shorts with khaki pants and his button-down with a zip-up, but it was definitely him. Even in the dark, I could recognize his paunch. It was disappointing to learn that this was the man meant to fulfill my fantasies of a stronger, more experienced older man, but beggars can’t be choosers. With a sigh, I stepped out from behind the trees and lit up my phone, waving to Mr. Average.
“Hey. Didn’t expect it to be you.”
Mr. Average looked startled, but grimaced and stuck his hand out awkwardly for a shake. “Yeah, well, not as if there are a ton of us staying nearby.” He looked from right to left. “You’re out here all alone?”
“Yeah. It’s just me.” I took a step forward, making a concerted effort to find this man attractive. I suppose he looked soft to the touch. That’s… something.
He continued to scan the trees behind me. “That girl from earlier isn’t out here with you, is she?”
“No.” I shook my head, dismissing the notion of a three-way. “No, she’s my cousin.” I reached out and grabbed Mr. Average by the waist, desperate to steer us away from thoughts of Cindy. “It’s just us.”
Without warning, Mr. Average let out a little yelp and stuck his arms forward, pushing me backward. Before I knew what was happening, I was blinded by the bright flash of his cell phone.
“You people are sick!” he screamed. “Just wait, just wait until I go to the police with this!” A heard the sound of a digital shutter click from his phone. With a second flash from his phone’s camera, Mr. Average scurried down the road, escaping with a nuclear warhead of a photo with the power to destroy my good guy reputation.
I stood there, blinded and completely dumbfounded, for what felt like minutes. My phone buzzed several times. Eventually, I began the slow, humiliating walk back to my family’s cabin. At the back porch, I read the succession of messages sent by my anonymous friend:
Where r u?
Hello?
??
Fuck you.
Collapsing into a folding chair, I closed my eyes and considered the hypothetical fallout of my actions. The anonymous friend from Grindr would block me, forget that I existed, and find someone else to fondle in the dark. No danger there. Mr. Average was the real concern. He could have powerful friends in the community, or perhaps a social media presence commanding a large, wide breadth. The more I thought about it, the more I started to relax. No way in hell would a guy like Mr. Average command a meaningful audience. And honestly, what did he have against me? A photo in the dark? There’d be no way to prove any wrongdoing with that photo alone.
Wrong. Had I done something wrong? In Zombie, Quentin P was a grade-A psycho. I’m just a kid, scratch that, a young adult caught up in some arguably immoral, yet increasingly widespread behavior. I opened my eyes, adjusting in the dark to the view of my family’s cabin. We had been coming there for years, generations really, long before I’d ever been born. Decades of family vacations, rose-colored memories remembered fondly by parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles. Was I the first to fuck it up, to tarnish something clean?
Worst-case scenario, Mr. Average would publish my photo online alongside some censored version of Cindy’s, exposing us as debased enemies of his family-friendly community. I would be fine; I had plausible deniability. Cindy was the one who couldn’t hide. Her offense wasn’t even that bad, but if anyone’s reputation was in danger, it was hers. She alone would bear the weight of any potential culpability.
I heard a sound approaching from the woods and sat up, more annoyed than afraid that Mr. Average had come to expose me to my family. It was late; couldn’t the fucker wait until morning? Instead, my uncle Dave appeared, startled by the sight of me.
“Hey, bud. What are you doing up?”
I could see it so clearly. The too-wide smile, his hands wringing nervously in his pockets.
“Couldn’t sleep,” I said.
I recognized the embarrassment, the shame, the fear that you’ve just tarnished your once stellar reputation. Disgusted, I thought of checking Grindr, wondering how many feet away my anonymous friend would be standing if I clicked to see the distance feature. How easy would it be to forget the image of his – thing – illuminating from my phone against the dark?
“Yeah,” Dave said. “Me neither.” He coughed quietly, then scurried inside.
Moral boundary my ass.
Jacob Anthony Moniz is a second-year MFA candidate of Creative Writing at Notre Dame with a Minor in Screen Cultures. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Catamaran Literary Reader, Penumbra, Chicago Quarterly Review, and The Ocotillo Review, among other journals and publications. His short film script “Mother of Mercy” was an official selection for Best Short Screenplay at the 2020 Rome Independent Prisma Awards. “The Pacific End,” a short film based on a novel-in-progress, won Best LGBTQ Short Screenplay at the 2020 New Renaissance Film Festival in Amsterdam. He is the recipient of a grant from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts at the University of Notre Dame, which he used to fund a multimedia arts project titled “Someplace Else,” based on his family history in São Miguel, Azores. He is currently shortlisted for a creative Fulbright grant to continue work on this project.