The First
"Dan,"
Silence.
"Danny, please."
More silence.
"Look just say something, O.K.? Anything. Say you hate me." The girl looked at the figure sitting next to her on the couch. He was leaning forward with his elbows propped on his knees and his forehead supported by his palms. He seemed to be gazing intently at the duct tape covering much of his right Vans high-top shoe, as if should he look away, it would complete the job and move on to his ankle. His back expanded and constricted with a complete lack of rhythm as he forced himself to breathe. She placed her right forearm in the deep trench between his shoulder blades and slowly stroked the velveteen hair on the back of his head.
"Look," she said, "I said I was sorry. I... I don't know what else I can say. I love you." She wasn't showing it yet, but she was getting irritated. He hadn't responded to anything she had said since she interrupted their first real attempt at love with The Truth. It was stupidity on her part, she realized, but it seemed wrong to go all the way, as they had intended, with a secret this big. She had meant to tell him The Truth, at least a version of The Truth, then she would say how sorry she was, and maybe cry, and he would forgive her, and they would say how much they loved each other and then finally enter adulthood in each other's arms. Only he wasn't holding up his end of the bargain, and since she had to do all the talking, she had told him more than she had intended. Well, minus the actual details, that would have been disgusting.
"What did you do?" Asked a trembling voice somewhere from the region of Dan's heavily scarred calves.
"What do you mean?" She asked, startled at the breaking of his silence, but substantially more startled at the prospect of having to answer his question.
"What did you do," he said, with slightly less fear than before, "exactly?"
"Well, like I said, we didn't have sex, I'm still a virgin. I... just... touched him."
"And?"
Why is he making me do this she thought, and began to tremble. "Danny, please don't."
"I need to know."
She looked at him again, noticing that he hadn't moved since she had broken the news. O.K., she thought. She pulled her arm away from him, feeling that it would be wrong to touch him while... "I... uh... touched his... ah... I... with my mouth, O.K.?"
"What?" He said, turning his head to look at her, and causing her to look away.
"Well, it... on the day of our first ride, when we got to the hostel, Jean and Tim and I didn't really know anybody else on the ride so we ate dinner together, and we were dirty from riding, so I said I was going to take a shower, and Tim was joking around like he does with all of Jean's friends, and he said he'd join me." She paused, not sure what to say next. "Anyway, there was only one shower and it was too small to really change in, so I changed in the toilet down the hall, and went to the shower in a towel and my flip-flops, dropping my clothes in this dorm room that I was staying in. I was almost at the door to the shower when I saw Tim come out of the boys' dorm in just a towel. We raced for the shower, and I won. I swear I locked the door knob before I even found the light switch. Tim was outside banging on the door saying that he was going to take a shower whether I was there or not, but I figured that the door was locked, right? I hung my towel on the hook on the wall, got in the shower, closed the curtain, and as soon as I got the water going, he was just, like, there, in the shower. I know I locked the door, maybe the lock was broken. But he was just like looking at me. I was so embarrassed that I just turned around to face the water and I started to cry."
"He turned me around to face him, and... I guess... it didn't feel dirty. I mean we weren't touching, and I had never seen a boy's... I didn't know... I just... I... I got out. He stayed in the shower. Anyway, I went back to the dorm, and nobody was there, I don't know what happened to Jean, but I was tired and sore because we rode like thirty miles, so I got dressed for bed and wrote you that letter about how much I missed you and how we were old enough now. Anyway, around ten o'clock everybody came in, and I tried to fall asleep, but the light was on and I kept having all these perverted thoughts, and after about half an hour it seemed that a bunch of people were sneaking out, I guess the chaperones had all gone to bed. Anyway, Tim came in, and he took the empty bunk next to mine, and he was talking to me about all the sex and stuff that was going on in his room, and how he just wanted to get some sleep, and he was wearing this T-shirt that fit real tight and these boxers, and every time he moved you could see it through the opening. So I just looked away and said goodnight, and since he was the only one standing, he went over to turn out the light. Now I totally couldn't get to sleep. I couldn't think about anything but sex and was totally perverted, and.... I think I fell asleep, I'm not sure, but he whispered my name, and I said yeah... and do I really have to say this?" She asked looking at her hands.
"Yes," came the hoarse whisper from behind her. She still didn't look.
"Well, he said my name, and I said what? And he said would I help him? And I didn't know what he was talking about so I said yes, and I heard him get up, but there was a big heavy curtain in the window, and the lights were off, so I couldn't see him, and he picked up my head with his hand, and I thought he was going to kiss me, and so... I had all these thoughts in my head and I just.... So I propped myself up on my elbow and he took his hand off my head, and he.... My mouth was closed, I thought he was going to kiss me, and it touched my lips, and I didn't know, and he just pushed the tip of it in. It was so big... and I didn't know what to do... and... he grabbed my head and pushed it forward a little bit, and then he pulled me away by my hair and then pushed it back..."
From behind her she heard some sniffling, he was crying again and she knew she should stop now, but she couldn't. "After two or three times, I started to gag, so he pulled it out, but he didn't stop, he started all over again, but this time, just as I started to gag, he pushed my head real hard, and I was choking but I didn't make any noise and he held me there forever until he pulled me back. And he started to do it all over again and I had to put my hand around it so I wouldn't choke and it was... I don't know, I'm sorry, but it was... it wasn't me. I mean it didn't seem like it was happening to me. It was like I was watching it, getting totally excited, like peeking in somebody's window, but I could also control what happened. But if I had known what he was going to do, I would've stopped it. Anyway, when it was over, he just got back into his bed without saying anything. I laid there for about five minutes waiting for him to say something, but he didn't so I got up and went to brush my teeth because I had forgotten to. And the next morning at breakfast he acted totally normal so I thought maybe I had dreamt it or something."
"Did you, I mean, could it have been a dream?" Danny's voice sounded a bit broken, but almost normal.
"No."
"And that's all? so he basically raped you." He said, his voice slightly more firm.
"Uh, well it couldn't be rape, I mean, he didn't touch me, and he asked, I just didn't know what he meant, and it's not like... I mean, I didn't stop him. I...." She was shaking badly and had goosebumps all over, she knew she was a terrible liar, but if Danny only learned this much, it might still be O.K. After all, up to this point it hadn't been her fault.
"So that's it, nothing else happened?" He asked again.
"Uh huh." I wasn't really a lie, she told herself, nothing else had happened.
"So it's still rape. You didn't know what was going on, besides, you're under 17, I think we should go to the police." His voice seemed almost commanding now.
She turned, finally, to look at him. He was sitting upright, his back not touching the cushions, his arms bent outwards with his hands planted on his thighs. She looked at him as he looked at her. His left eye was bloodshot and the skin between his cheek and his eye was puffy. She assumed his right eye looked the same, but she couldn't be sure because his bangs obscured everything above his mouth and to the right of his nose. Fear, which up until now she had pretty much controlled, began to eat at her.
"Well, it..." she paused to look at her feet, "... it... I did it more than once. It, like... we didn't say anything about it until about five days into the trip. We were at this college with these mountains around it, and we were staying there for two nights, and we were supposed to go on this ride up in the mountains and I didn't feel very well, so I didn't go. I mean nobody really cared, Jean and Tim had made friends with these total snobs, so I didn't have anyone to ride with anyway. So anyway, they all left, and I went into this lounge to watch TV. So like two hours later Tim walks in wearing sweatpants and this T-shirt and he asks if he can use my tire pump because someone else had his, and he had just fixed a flat tire. I didn't look at him because I was embarrassed and perverted, and I wasn't even sure anything had really happened even though that's all I could think about. I don't know, anyway he sat on the armrest of the couch, and he put his feet on the cushions and he kept asking me if I felt O.K., and I don't know." She sighed deeply. "I told him that I had had this dream and I didn't know what to do about it. He asked was he in it, and was it bad, and I said yes and no. And he wanted to know what it was about, like he didn't already know, but I could tell he knew, because you know.... So I crawled over to him like I was going to tell him a secret and instead I grabbed the waistband of his sweatpants and pulled them down. He wasn't wearing any underwear so it was just sticking up at me, so I did what he made me do the first time, but it was me in control. Anyway afterwards he was all feeling guilty and how we shouldn't have done it, and how he was too old for me and going on and on. And I didn't understand until the next day, and he was riding with this snobby girl, Jennifer, like nothing had happened. And for the rest of the trip they were always together, totally flaunting it. So on the last night before we came home, we were back at the same hostel we had stayed at the first night and the chaperones disappeared so everyone was everywhere, and I just wanted to sleep and finish the ride and go home, but of course Tim and his slut were in our room. Jean was sitting outside the door playing solitaire. She said the idea of being in the same room with brother while he had sex was totally vulgar, but he wouldn't go away. She said that Jennifer was supposed to be a virgin, but I don't see how she could be and still have sex in a room full of people. Anyway, I went down to the lobby and fell asleep in a chair. So in the middle of the night, Tim comes and wakes me up to tell me that he's in love, and he doesn't know what to do because she lives in Ohio. If I didn't hate him before that, I hated him then. He's telling me that he needs someone to talk to and that he couldn't find Jean. He was going on and on about how happy he was but I couldn't see how it could be true after what we had done, but he wouldn't shut up long enough for me to say it, so I walked up to where he had laid down on the floor, and I hadn't noticed before, because it was dark, that he was only wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt with the sleeves and the sides cut off, so I sat down next to him and he didn't shut up until I grabbed his shorts and had him in my mouth. I wanted to see if it would stay soft and if he would stop me. He should've stopped me, but he didn't. I almost stopped because it.... But I wanted to teach him a lesson about how he didn't love anybody. This time, I knew when he was about to finish, so I just stopped, got up and went to bed. And the next day we came home."
She looked up from her shoes and turned to see his face. Dan was sprawled on the couch with his head tilted back against the wall. Not knowing what to say next, she let her gaze fall to his lap, where his erection was blatantly obvious. Joy surged through her. He's not mad, she thought, he's excited! Leaning over him, she unbuttoned and unzipped his shorts. As she tugged at the sides, he lifted himself slightly to allow his shorts and underwear to move down. She noticed immediately that this penis before her was much smaller than Tim's, to the point where she didn't worry about gagging at all, and it seemed perfect, ideal. She was happy that she now had a way to please the boy she loved that she might never have tried otherwise. She dived onto it, her head oscillating wildly with his pleasure her only thought. He came almost immediately, surprising her. Resting her head on his thighs and rejoicing in her good fortune, she kept him in her mouth until he had softened completely. Looking up at his face, she found that she couldn't read him at all.
"I love you." She said, partially to break the silence.
"I gotta go." He said as he simultaneously slid out from under her and pulled his shorts up.
"Wha... I thought we were going to spend the afternoon together." She said, bewildered.
"No, I have to go." He repeated. After buttoning and zipping up his shorts, he walked over to his skateboard which was propped against the wall next to the door. Picking it up, he noticed the multitude of black arcing marks that his wheels had made on the wall over the last year.
"But why, I mean just now..."
He heard her plea, but he couldn't look back. Opening the door, he spoke out loud. "You just don't get it." Then stepped out into the blinding August sunshine, closing the door softly behind him.
The girl on the couch, now alone, began to wail. "What's your problem?" she sobbed to no one.
3/28/95
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