bikini.
“I’ve been wanting to do this all day,” he murmured as the bows came undone, first the one across my back and then the other, behind my neck.
No one held a knife to my rib cage. No one made me do anything. I put myself in that room. And when he laid me on the bed, the soft white duvet pluming up around me like a cloud, I wanted to be there.
It was different from how it had been with Eugene, different from how it had been with the other couple of boys I had played around with. With Felix there was this rush of warmth and wetness, this sensation of desire that hit me wavelike and intense.
On that hotel bed, the metaphor felt true, the one promised by fairy tales and tampon boxes. I was a flower and I opened, I softened, and I ripened and warmed. I felt, I thought, like a woman rather than a girl, and as he found his way inside me, I wondered—fleetingly—if this was what sex was like for my mother.
***
And so if I feel like this later, with distance and knowledge I wish I could unlearn, whose fault is it?
There is no one to whom I can appeal, no one to plead for revenge.
I am cold now, dew-damp and tired at last.
Six
It’s no big secret that I don’t much care for school. My mom knows it; my friends know it; my teachers know it. I do my best to avoid as much of it as possible, and my mom is usually pretty willing to sign whatever sick note I hand her. She hadn’t been too head over heels with school herself, she told me, so she totally understands the need to take a day off now and then.
They say junior year is the most important. A formative year, they say. It certainly was for me, but now I’m past it, and I’m not formed into anything I want to be. And now, with summer school, I’m pulled back into the past, repeating something I got wrong the first time.
My desire to not be here is so strong it’s like a fishing line pulling on my guts.
The only way I can even pretend to stand this is by disappearing.
I flip open my notebook and begin sketching what I see in front of me—the depressing chalky-green board, Coach Crandall himself in his oversized basketball shorts, his athletic socks and slip-on sandals, his collared Venice High Wrestling shirt, his thick fingers, his bristly cropped hair. I draw it as ugly as it is and disappear.
***
My brain is tired when Crandall finally lets us out, seven minutes after one. It’s no oversight, letting us out late. It’s his quiet little way of establishing dominance. A few of my fellow losers are going to Taco Bell for lunch. I tag along, more because I don’t want to go home yet than because I’m actually hungry.
I order two tacos and water. Then I proceed to transform said water into poor man’s lemonade. They have sugar and lemon wedges in the condiments section for the iced tea, next to the sporks and hot sauce. You do the math.
Mackenzie Winters flops into the plastic seat next to me with a sigh. “ Dude ,” she says.
I know exactly how she feels.
“How are we going to survive six weeks of that guy?”
I shrug. “The same way we’ve survived three years of a bunch of guys just like that guy.”
She laughs and takes a long drink of her root beer. Mackenzie Winters is a Mormon. She likes to pretend that she is tough, but she won’t drink caffeine. And she didn’t fail geometry because she skipped class. She failed because she is stupid. Probably she won’t fail again because even though she is stupid, she is also rich—at least, rich compared to me—and her dad has hired a student from Santa Monica Junior College to tutor her this time through. He made sure to hire a girl.
Mackenzie sucks at the straw of her actual, bought-and-paid-for fountain soda. I shake the ice cubes in my flimsy plastic water cup and down what’s left.
Darrin, the guy with the pizza hookup, is sitting with us too. Pizza delivery boy must not have a GPA prerequisite. He looks downright glum.
“What’s up, Darrin?” I ask.
“It’s stupid,” he
“I’ve been wanting to do this all day,” he murmured as the bows came undone, first the one across my back and then the other, behind my neck.
No one held a knife to my rib cage. No one made me do anything. I put myself in that room. And when he laid me on the bed, the soft white duvet pluming up around me like a cloud, I wanted to be there.
It was different from how it had been with Eugene, different from how it had been with the other couple of boys I had played around with. With Felix there was this rush of warmth and wetness, this sensation of desire that hit me wavelike and intense.
On that hotel bed, the metaphor felt true, the one promised by fairy tales and tampon boxes. I was a flower and I opened, I softened, and I ripened and warmed. I felt, I thought, like a woman rather than a girl, and as he found his way inside me, I wondered—fleetingly—if this was what sex was like for my mother.
***
And so if I feel like this later, with distance and knowledge I wish I could unlearn, whose fault is it?
There is no one to whom I can appeal, no one to plead for revenge.
I am cold now, dew-damp and tired at last.
Six
It’s no big secret that I don’t much care for school. My mom knows it; my friends know it; my teachers know it. I do my best to avoid as much of it as possible, and my mom is usually pretty willing to sign whatever sick note I hand her. She hadn’t been too head over heels with school herself, she told me, so she totally understands the need to take a day off now and then.
They say junior year is the most important. A formative year, they say. It certainly was for me, but now I’m past it, and I’m not formed into anything I want to be. And now, with summer school, I’m pulled back into the past, repeating something I got wrong the first time.
My desire to not be here is so strong it’s like a fishing line pulling on my guts.
The only way I can even pretend to stand this is by disappearing.
I flip open my notebook and begin sketching what I see in front of me—the depressing chalky-green board, Coach Crandall himself in his oversized basketball shorts, his athletic socks and slip-on sandals, his collared Venice High Wrestling shirt, his thick fingers, his bristly cropped hair. I draw it as ugly as it is and disappear.
***
My brain is tired when Crandall finally lets us out, seven minutes after one. It’s no oversight, letting us out late. It’s his quiet little way of establishing dominance. A few of my fellow losers are going to Taco Bell for lunch. I tag along, more because I don’t want to go home yet than because I’m actually hungry.
I order two tacos and water. Then I proceed to transform said water into poor man’s lemonade. They have sugar and lemon wedges in the condiments section for the iced tea, next to the sporks and hot sauce. You do the math.
Mackenzie Winters flops into the plastic seat next to me with a sigh. “ Dude ,” she says.
I know exactly how she feels.
“How are we going to survive six weeks of that guy?”
I shrug. “The same way we’ve survived three years of a bunch of guys just like that guy.”
She laughs and takes a long drink of her root beer. Mackenzie Winters is a Mormon. She likes to pretend that she is tough, but she won’t drink caffeine. And she didn’t fail geometry because she skipped class. She failed because she is stupid. Probably she won’t fail again because even though she is stupid, she is also rich—at least, rich compared to me—and her dad has hired a student from Santa Monica Junior College to tutor her this time through. He made sure to hire a girl.
Mackenzie sucks at the straw of her actual, bought-and-paid-for fountain soda. I shake the ice cubes in my flimsy plastic water cup and down what’s left.
Darrin, the guy with the pizza hookup, is sitting with us too. Pizza delivery boy must not have a GPA prerequisite. He looks downright glum.
“What’s up, Darrin?” I ask.
“It’s stupid,” he
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