She’s Come Undone (1992) by Wally Lamb,
chapter 7
”Yup. So where’s this waterfall?”
”We’re friends, right?” he said. ”Can I
ask you for a favor?”
“I don’t know. What is it?”
“You promise you won’t take it the wrong
way?”
“I won’t,” I said.
“Could I give you a kiss – just a friendly
one?”
My stomach pulled in; blood pounded in my
head. “I don’t think so.”
“Some friend.”
Then he bent toward me and kissed me
anyway – softly, on the mouth. His breath was smelly and sweet from the liquor.
His fingers dug into my back. The dogs were barking again.
“That felt nice,” he said. “Nicest kiss
I’ve ever had. Don’t be afraid.”
He tried to do it again but I pulled away
and stood by the car.
“And you said there’s a reservoir?” I
said. My voice was quivery.
He laughed and got back in the car,
shaking his head. I got in, too. Our door slamming echoed in the trees. His
hand moved to the ignition switch, then stopped.
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
“What?”
“Do you think much about sex?”
“No,” I said. “Can we go?”
“No,” I said. “Can we go?”
“Because I think you’re very, very sexy –
as if you didn’t know already. Sometimes when she and I are…”
I wanted to be back at Grandma’s, in the
bathroom with the door locked, figuring everything out. “Can we just go?” I
said.
He reached in front of my knees and
flopped down his glove compartment. I was surprised to see his hand shaking a
little. He pulled out a rolled-up magazine.
“See this,” he said.
It took me a second to figure it out: a
woman on the cover had her mouth on a man’s penis. I flung it back at him.
“Here,” I said.
“Don’t you want to take a look? Aren’t you
curious?”
I started to cry. “No.”
“You sure?”
“Shut up.”
He chuckled. “They’re doing a great job
with you over at that school. You’re going to make a terrific nun.”
I didn’t speak.
“Stop shaking. It’s just a magazine.” He
was trying to sound calm and cool, but his words came out tight and his
breathing was quick and jerky. I could tell he was losing his temper.
“Sometimes I forget what a little kid you really are,” he said. “What a little
baby…”
I jammed my hands under my legs. “I’m not
a little kid. I just don’t feel like looking at dirty pictures,” I said. “So
shoot me.”
“Maybe I will,” he laughed. “The thing is…
the way I look at it, anyway, is that love isn’t dirty. And neither are
pictures of it. But some people’s minds are.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Besides, it’s not even mine. I borrowed
it from someone for a joke. But I guess I made a big mistake… Either that or I
was misled by a little cocktease who’s probably going to run back and tell
Mommy.”
“Look, I don’t tell her stuff, okay? And
I’m not that thing you just said, either.”
“What thing?”
“You think I’m such a baby, but I’m not.”
“Okay, okay,” he said. He reached over and
began playing with my hair. “Because we’re good friends, you and me, and I hate to think I couldn’t
trust you.”
“Well, you can, all right? Can we just go
home now?”
He rolled the magazine back up and ran the
edge of it against my leg, down to my foot, over and over. “I’ll probably have
this for a while. Before I have to give it back to that guy. You tell me if you
ever want to look at it. We’ll look at it together.”
“No thanks,” I said.
“No thanks,” he mimicked. He slid it
under the seat.
A few of the dogs were lying down. One
paced his cage.
“Dolores,” he whispered. “Look.” His hand
was between his legs. He was rubbing his lump, watching me.
I
turned away and stared hard out of the window, tears falling fast. “Would you
please stop that?” I said. He didn’t even seem to be the same person. A sudden
thought slammed into me: I might not get
home.
“Stop what?” I could hear him still doing
it.
“That!” I said, flailing my hand back at
him. Then I flung the door open, was out of the car, running past the dog pens.
The animals barked and leapt. None of it seemed real.
He caught me behind the building. I lost
my balance and he fell down onto me. He twisted my arm back, yanking and
pulling. “Don’t tickle me!” I cried. “This isn’t funny. What are you doing?”
He didn’t seem to hear. “Little Miss
Innocence… fucking fed up with your bullshit. Give you what you been looking
for.” The words spit out of him. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!” he
shouted. “Bitch!”
His knee jabbed against my leg, pinching
the skin against the ground. I looked.
“Now, say it: say ‘Fuck me, Jack.’ Tell me
to fuck it into you.”
When I swung, he reached out and caught my
wrist, pressing the bone against the ground. He gave my arm another painful
yank. This isn’t Jack, I told myself. Somebody – Daddy, the real Jack – will come and save me.
With his free hand, he yanked my skirt up
and I heard something tear. “If you rip this uniform, you’re paying for it!” I
screamed. “Honest to God!”
“Shut up,” he whispered. Begged. “Listen.
It’s nicer if you don’t fight it. We’re friends, you and me. Don’t wreck it. I
can’t… It won’t hurt if you don’t fight. I promise…”
He kept fumbling and poking at me. I tried
to pull my head up, to punch and spit, but my fists wouldn’t land. The drool
fell back against my chin. His elbow swung out and jabbed against my throat,
gagging me.
His rubbing was rough and mean. His pants
were down. “I hate you!” I shouted. “You pig!”
I
stopped fighting, cut off by the pain of it. The sound of the barking dogs fell
away so that all I could hear was his cursing and grunting, over and over, in
rhythm with each thrust, each rupture. He’s splitting me open, I thought. He’ll
break me and then I’ll die.
I turned my head away and watched my
fingers rake the dirt. My hand opened and closed, opened and closed. I couldn’t
feel myself controlling it. “Just pretend I died,” I had told my father – and I
knew no one was coming for me, that I was by myself.
Jack’s anger shook us both. Then he
stopped altogether, his dead weight on top of me. He was whimpering, catching
his breath. When he got up, he kicked me hard on the leg and walked back out in
front.
I heard him talking softly to the dogs,
soothing them.
On the drive home, he sobbed and talked.
He wouldn’t shut up. “We’re awful people, you and me. Don’t think this was all
my show. We did what we did together.”
My mind was numb; my insides burned. He
seemed to drive so slowly.
--
When he pulled up near Connie’s, he
reached over and brushed dead grass off my uniform. I was scared not to let
him. “I feel so much closer to you now,” he said. “You and I are together in
this.--”
I looked only at my shoes, one in front of
the other, getting home. -- My underpants and legs were filthy with blood and
him. -- What had happened was going to be always on me, in me, as permanent as
one of Roberta’s tattoos. -- I was afraid to stay in my room, afraid to be
alone. I could hear him up there.
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