The Bad Project
an excerpt

Sex Bad at the Asian American Retreat

Marianne put her sleeping bag on top of her rolling suitcase and rolled it across the rocky ground towards the cabin. The sky was lowering, with rolling dark grey clouds. This place looked primitive to her. She wondered if it would have a decent bathroom where she could put on her makeup.
Inside, there was a whole wall of bunks, four bunk levels stacked up, rising two stories high, with ladders leading up to them. People sat all over the lower bunks. She decided to choose one on the second level at the end near the bathrooms, spreading out her purple sleeping bag and laying her small white silk pillow at the top. She put aside the big pillow they had given her so she could use it to muffle sounds of people going up and down the ladder later. She set her rolling suitcase on the bunk to keep it out of the way.
Marianne went from the bunkhouse to a larger cabin that would serve as the kitchen/living room. She looked around and recognized no one. A professor she had seen but didn’t know was carrying in a huge box of food.
“Get out of the way. Move! Don’t you see I need some room?” he snapped at Marianne.
“Who, me?”
“C’mon, don’t block me. I’ve got a heavy load here!” Marianne backed away, and he rushed past not even stopping to glare at her. She felt this greeting was a bad omen. She had studied Feng Shui for fun recently, and she looked at the compass embedded in the table and realized the feng shui for this building was ominous. Maybe the Asian American Resource Center staff didn’t believe in feng shui. Marianne didn’t exactly believe, but she didn’t not believe either. Maybe Mr Lim, the director, had sent someone to make the choice who didn’t know about feng shui. She picked at the back of a chair in the living room area with her long fingernails.
After watching people rush around for a while, Marianne walked back to the bunkhouse. A tall girl was throwing her things on the floor and taking over her bunk.
“Hey, stop that! I have that bunk!”
“No, not any more.”
“No way are you getting my bunk,” Marianne scrambled up onto the bed, scooted in along the wall, and pushed the tall girl’s things off onto the floor. “I’m here.” She crossed her arms and put on the toughest face she could, thinking how her mother froze her kids’ blood with a look when they complained.
“It’s mine now.” The tall girl was trying to put her sleeping bag back up.
One of Mr. Lim’s helpers from the Asian American Resource Center heard the argument. She walked over, looked at what was happening, and said, “No, Rose, you will have to go up. I saw the other girl’s things there earlier.”
“I had this bunk, not her,” Rose said. But she was collecting her things from the floor. “I wanted it. Don’t I have any rights?”
The resource center woman looked at her for a minute. Then she said, “Yes, of course you have rights. But not at her expense.”
Rose gave Marianne a venomous look, grabbed her things, and stomped off to the other end of the room. Marianne was shaking when she picked up her sleeping bag and pillow from the floor. The resource center assistant helped her.
“I’m Chun Yue Wang. What’s your name?”
“Hi, I’ve seen you at the resource center. I’m Marianne Wu. My middle name is Chun Yue.” Marianne ran her left hand through her hair. She breathed deeply, trying to calm down.
“Marianne, it’s fun to share a name with you. You need to calm down. Maybe this will help: we’ll do yoga in about a half an hour. Let me know if Rose gives you any more trouble.” Chun Yue moved away to check on other areas, and Marianne thought she was glad a few “adults” were along on this trip. She suspected that Rose would try to get back at her in some way. She’d have to watch her back. If only someone she knew would come along.
Amelia Chang said, “Marianne! Liu and I have been looking for you all over, and here you are in the bunk house. We have to take top bunks.” She scaled the ladder next to Marianne’s bunk to the fourth level up and dumped her sleeping bag on the bed, then came down. “Let me take up my suitcase and then let’s talk,” she said. Liu had been standing there watching his sister. He smiled at Marianne, making her feel hot and embarrassed, but attracted, too. He went to the other end of the room and took his bags up the ladder. She noticed that the sun had broken through the clouds outside and felt that it matched her feelings perfectly. Now she’d be okay. Now she had friends.
They walked back over to the main lodge after Sunny and Liu claimed their bunks. Amelia walked right up to the professor who had spoken so angrily to Marianne earlier. “Professor Lin, here is my friend Marianne Wu. I’m her mentor. Marianne, he’s the best professor of Chinese history at Carson!”
“Hello, Dr. Lin,” she said, almost inaudibly, putting out a limp hand.
Dr. Lin just touched her hand, without meeting her eyes, and said, “Weren’t you the young woman I almost ran over with my box of groceries? I apologize.” He picked at his cuticles.
“I’m fine, no problem.”
“Well, your mentor, Amelia, is a very fine student. You couldn’t have a better role model,” he said, smiling at Amelia.
“I appreciate all the help she gives me,” Marianne said softly, not sure that he was listening.
“I’m sure she’ll win the senior thesis prize in History next year,” Lin said. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to run over you, and I hope the good food will make up for my mistake.”
“No problem.”
“Yoga this way, we do it outside. No need to change clothes,” Chun Yue sang out as she passed through on her way to the bunkhouse to gather more students. Amelia, Liu, and Marianne went outside. The sun had just set and the tall pines smelled like vanilla. Marianne breathed deeply. About twenty of the thirty students on the retreat did yoga. Rose did not participate. Afterwards, Amelia herded them inside to help make dinner.
Some of the other students, who hadn’t joined the yoga, were sliding down the stairs on mattresses, screaming. It was very loud. As they entered the main room, Liu whispered to her, “I found a little room upstairs where we can go later on.” He moved on ahead of her and joined a crowd of boys over by the sink. Marianne felt a little chilly. She was scared, but sex with Liu seemed like her best chance for the Sex Bad. He was experienced according to Amelia, and he seemed to like her. She didn’t have the same feeling for him, but probably that didn’t matter. She thought sadly it would have been nice to have her first sex with someone she loved. That wasn’t going to happen, so she needed to be ready.
They ate at a long table. Marianne sat next to her mentor, and met a few of her friends who were interested in literature. “I like Sense and Sensibility best, her writing is very mature by that time, and her themes are still relevant today,” one was saying when she sat down. They enjoyed talking about Jane Austin and other favorite authors.
After dinner, Chun Yue and the other organizers called them to form a ring in the big living room area. Everyone had to participate this time, they didn’t take no as an answer. When the ring was formed, Chun Yue said, “Now if you’ve ever been ashamed of your parents because they did something too Asian, take a step back.” Almost everyone took a step back. Marianne felt a little uncomfortable at first, thinking she didn’t want to criticize her parents in front of others. But soon, she was interested in how similar their experiences had been. Chun Yue continued to call out experiences, and people moved forward and backward in response, for about a half an hour.
Then she had everyone sit down in chairs and on the floor, and they talked about the prompts. Some had very moving stories related to the questions, others said hardly anything. There was a lively discussion but Marianne noticed that almost none of the students in the first year class were saying anything. After three quarters of an hour, Chun Yue said, “Take a break for ten minutes, and then come back here for another get-acquainted activity.”
She kept them involved in activities for another hour, then said they could play games, make brownies, or discuss things with others. Marianne joined a group making brownies in the kitchen. She liked cooking with lots of people. After they had made the batter and put it in pans, she drifted back out to the living room area. Liu was standing by the door. “Let’s go upstairs,” he said to her.
Rose was coming down the stairs as they went up. She said, “Hi, Liu! Let’s talk about Econ after while.” Marianne thought Rose sounded interested in Liu, but he just said, “Okay,” in a very neutral tone, not encouraging at all. Liu led Marianne down the hall to a door, which he opened to reveal a tiny room almost completely filled with a queen sized bed. As they went in, he wrapped his arms around Marianne and began to kiss her, closing the door with his foot.
They fell backwards onto the bed. Liu held her tight enough that she had trouble breathing for a few minutes, but she wriggled a little and got to a more comfortable position. He began to unbutton her shirt. She felt nervous, but told herself that she wanted the bad. Too late to think up objections now.