Lust
By Susan Minot, first published in Paris Review
A woman recalls her sexual relationships when she was a teenager in a boarding school, noticing her regression from a passionate and energetic to a cynical and emotionally drained lover.
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Plot Summary
During her time at a boarding school, a teenage girl has various sexual experiences and chronicles them in a grocery-list manner. Her first relationship is with a boy named Leo during her first month at school. She remembers astonishingly regarding him with "a halo from the campus light behind him." The following boys become much more lustful than romantic. For example, she remembers how one named Roger would constantly try to pull down her zipper and Willie would untuck her shirt. The girl's parents did not know about her relationships, but she imagines her mother's oblivious reactions and comments to different boys she's been with. The girl admits that she was good in her academics, but was easily distracted by the boys. Such distractions to her were relieving but eventually made her feel exhausted. The girl reflects on her surrender to guys who would cat-call her because she felt she had no other choice. When talking to her friends about her relationship problems, they would tell her she had nothing to complain about because at least she always had a boyfriend. However, the girl doesn't see it this way. Because the girl never wanted to be looked at as a tease, she would always follow through and have sex with every guy she flirted with. The girl thinks of the different feelings of having many sexual partners for boys and girls. She feels like for a boy, having slept with multiple girls gives him "a bright look, having reaped fruits." However, for girls to have slept with many boys, "it's as though a petal gets plucked each time." The girl feels disgusted and degraded after sex but never expresses her thoughts. She feels she can open her legs easily but cannot open her heart anymore. She observes the boys she sleeps with gazing at her, thinking that "the girl they were fucking is not there anymore."
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