Men, Women & Children (5 page)

As Danny retraced every step he had taken in their most recent groping session, kissing Brooke’s neck, moving his hand from her hip toward her breast, tonguing her ear, and eventually moving his hand to her left breast, he knew that the only possible next step, the only way to keep the evolution of their physical relationship steady, was to put his hand under her shirt. He moved his hand off Brooke’s breast, back down toward the bottom of her shirt, and slid his fingertips just under it, barely grazing her stomach. She moaned.

Danny hoped that Brooke would be unable to detect his nervousness as he slid his hand slightly higher, placing his full palm on her stomach, his fingertips brushing the bottom of her bra. He stopped his hand here for a moment and rubbed her stomach, not sure if this brazen action would constitute enough progress for one night in Brooke’s mind.

Although Brooke was enjoying herself, it was difficult for her not to think about the image on Hannah’s phone of her performing fellatio on a random and unnamed boy. She had no choice but to compare herself to Hannah, and when she did, she felt inferior. As Danny rubbed his hand against her stomach, she made the decision that Hannah wasn’t going to be the only one to have had a boy’s penis in her mouth in the eighth grade. And, beyond that, she rationalized that Hannah didn’t love the boy she shared her first sexual encounter with, so Brooke could still be the first girl in eighth grade to perform fellatio in a loving relationship and that was more important than just being the first to do it.

She moved Danny’s hand out from under her shirt. Danny said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go too fast or anything.”

Brooke said, “You didn’t,” and then rolled over on top of him and kissed him. She kissed him down the neck and lifted up his shirt, at the same time moving down and kissing his chest and stomach while rubbing his erection through his pants.

Danny could feel himself on the verge of ejaculating again. He said, “What are you doing?”

Brooke said, “Something.”

Danny said, “We don’t have to do this. Are you sure we’re, you know, like ready for this and everything?” He was nervous and unsure about how to behave in such a situation. Although he and Brooke had been engaging in increasingly more sexual behavior over the past few months, he had come to the conclusion that he wasn’t ready for anything beyond what they had been doing. He hoped that Brooke felt the same way.

She said, “I know we don’t have to, but in my opinion it’s fine if we do. We’ve been together for a long time. We should.” Brooke perceived Danny’s hesitation to be some kind of obligatory and unnecessary chivalry on his part. She certainly didn’t want to have sex, but she had convinced herself that performing oral sex on her boyfriend of over a year wasn’t, in actuality, as significant as it might seem. Furthermore, she reasoned that she’d rather have her first attempt be on a person she loved than on a stranger, as Hannah had done. She said, “Just relax.”

She noticed the smell immediately. She found it vaguely unpleasant and wondered if Danny had taken a shower after football practice. She knew that he sometimes didn’t if the practice was light. She took his penis into her mouth, careful not to graze it with her teeth. The instructions for performing oral sex she had read in various magazines and on websites all mentioned a man’s distaste for having teeth be involved in any way.

Danny had run through every nonsexual thought his mind could conjure during the experience in an effort to avoid immediate ejaculation—algebra equations, football plays,
Grand Theft Auto
cheat codes, the image of his grandmother urinating in her pants at the last family Christmas—but he reached a point at which he could no longer hold back. He had no idea what the proper etiquette was to let Brooke know what was about to happen. All he could do was tap her shoulder three times in rapid succession, which only served to confuse her enough to remove his penis from her mouth slightly just as he ejaculated. She first felt his semen hit her on the upper lip and go slightly up one nostril; the second contraction of Danny’s prostate expelled semen onto Brooke’s cheek, which caused her to recoil. The final contractions of Danny’s prostate resulted in semen being deposited all over his Old Navy boxer shorts and Goodrich Olympians T-shirt.

They were silent for a few seconds, Danny looking directly at his ceiling, not wanting to make eye contact with Brooke, feeling slightly embarrassed. Brooke, too, felt some embarrassment at not being able to contain the semen better. She had heard that guys prefer a girl who swallows the ejaculate. The smell of it was slightly disgusting to her, though, and the taste, she imagined, was even worse. She wasn’t sure that she’d ever be able to swallow semen. She tried wiping the semen off her face with her hand, but its texture made it difficult to manage. She said, “Um, I think I need a towel or something.”

Danny said, “Okay, hang on,” and got up off his bed, still without making eye contact with her. He went into the upstairs bathroom and found a hand towel. He used it on himself first, cleaning up as much of the semen as he could, hoping that his mother wouldn’t find it on his clothes when she washed them the next day. Then he went back into his room and handed the towel to Brooke, who eventually managed to clean herself up satisfactorily, despite getting some of the semen Danny put on the towel on her face and hands a few times.

Brooke said, “Did you like that? I mean, did I do it okay?”

Danny said, “Um, yeah.”

Brooke said, “Was there anything I could have, like, done better?”

Danny said, “Um, I don’t think so.”

Brooke said, “Okay, cool.”

Danny said, “Yeah.”

Brooke said, “Well, in my opinion, I’m glad we did it, aren’t you?”

Danny said, “Yeah.”

The truth was that neither of them was glad. Danny felt strange upon the act’s completion, as did Brooke. They had crossed some line, performed some act that signified their emergence into an adult world. Whatever innocence they once had was, although not completely gone, tarnished in some way, and they both recognized this.

Danny knew immediately that he didn’t want to do this again anytime soon. And, more than repeating this act, he feared that the escalation of their physical relationship would now culminate in sexual intercourse, something he felt unsure about and unready for. He wondered if he could do anything to stave off this eventuality until he felt more ready. His thoughts drifted to ideas of breaking up with Brooke. It might be his only option.

Brooke, too, regretted doing what she’d done. Her sense of competition had driven her to perform the act, and she took some solace in feeling that she was on equal ground with Hannah Clint, but she assumed that Danny would now expect at least that level of physical intimacy at every subsequent encounter. Brooke knew she wouldn’t be able to meet his expectation, let alone exceed it with sexual intercourse, which is what she logically assumed he would require in the near future. She, too, began contemplating a breakup.

Danny and Brooke walked downstairs past Danny’s parents, who were watching
Dancing with the Stars
at Tracey’s behest, and out the front door, any evidence of their sexual activity unnoticed. When they came to Brooke’s house, she leaned in to kiss Danny on the lips, their standard parting display of affection, but Danny said, “Is it cool if we just hug? You just had my, you know, like in your mouth.”

Brooke said, “Yeah, it’s cool.”

They hugged. Brooke went inside to find that everyone else was already asleep. She was relieved to be able to avoid the strange conversation with her mother or father that she had assumed would happen—the conversation in which she would have to lie about the details of the night and hope that her mother or father wouldn’t notice any evidence of the night’s actual activities. She made her way upstairs where she washed her face properly, finding a few tiny bits of Danny’s semen in the hair above her right ear, then got into bed and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, trying to overcome the strange nausea she had felt since performing fellatio on Danny. She reached for her cell phone and sent Danny a text message that read, “luv u.”

Though content that night as he went back home and lay in his bed, Danny was also trying to overcome a certain nausea, one that came from an all-consuming uncertainty he felt about his future with Brooke and what impact a breakup might have on his eighth-grade year. He briefly thought about having to perform oral sex on Brooke in order to placate her at their next physical encounter. He realized he would have absolutely no idea how to perform even the most rudimentary version of the act. He decided he wouldn’t make the attempt unless she asked. He replied to her text with one that read, “u 2.”

chapter

five

B
rooke Benton and Allison Doss each held one side of a twenty-by-six-foot butcher-paper banner that read, “Olympian Strength, Win! Win! Win!” stretching it tight as they stood near the end zone closest to the Goodrich Olympians’ field house. Hannah Clint, along with the other Olympiannes, stood nearby facing the home crowd doing various cheers, kicks, and claps. Hannah’s mother, Dawn, was on the field taking photographs of the girls. She had convinced Principal Ligorski and Mrs. Langston, the Olympiannes’ coach, to let her serve as the photographer and organizer of the Olympianne scrapbook that year, agreeing to perform these services at no cost, thereby saving the school the seven hundred dollars that was normally charged by the local photographer. Dawn saw it as an opportunity to get some impressive action shots for her daughter’s website that would be impossible to get otherwise.

In the stands, Don Truby, Jim Vance, and Kent Mooney stood next to each other. Don passed a flask of bourbon to Jim, who declined the offer, prompting Don to pass it to Kent, who drank generously and said, “Thanks. Needed that more than you know.”

Don said, “Work getting shitty?”

Kent said, “Nah, no more shitty than usual. Just Lydia being gone and Tim not playing tonight, you know?”

Don said, “Yeah, Chris mentioned Tim quitting. Sorry about that, man. But on the bright side—and I know this probably isn’t what you want to hear right now—but with the wife thing, you’re better off, man. Seriously. You’re a free man. You can bang any chick you want.”

Kent said, “I haven’t really been in a bangin’ mood lately, Don.”

Don said, “I’m just saying, Rachel lets me bang her maybe once a month. I’m stuck with her, man. That’s what married guys have to deal with until we fucking die.”

Jim Vance said, “Speak for yourself.”

Don said, “Oh, Mister ‘My kid’s the fucking quarterback and I fuck my wife three times a day’ over here. Fucking bullshit.”

Jim said, “It’s not bullshit. Tracey and I still have sex at least a few times a week. So not all married guys are in your situation, Don.”

Don said, “Fuck. Twice a week?”

Jim said, “Yeah.”

Don said, “Really?”

Jim said, “Yeah.”

Don said, “Jesus fucking Christ. Lucky piece of shit. I actually—I don’t know why I’m fucking telling you guys this—I actually got so desperate a few days ago I used Chris’s computer to look at porn.” He took a long pull from his flask.

Jim said, “Oh my god. You’re a disgusting individual. You know that, right? You need help.”

Don said, “Don’t we all?”

Jim said, “Kent, you think Tim might come back out this season?”

Kent said, “I don’t know. I don’t know what his deal is. He just seems like his heart’s not in it, but I think it’s just a phase, you know? I’m hoping he will.”

Jim said, “I think we all are.”

In the announcer’s booth, Principal Ligorski switched on his microphone and said through the PA system, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first game of the season here at Goodrich Junior High. Thanks for coming out tonight to support your team. And now, here they are—your Goodrich Olympians!”

On the field, Brooke and Allison pulled their banner as tight as they could. The field house doors opened and the Goodrich Olympians eighth-grade football team ran toward the field, each player screaming. The visiting team, the Park Panthers, were not granted such an entrance. They stood silently at the opposite end of the field, watching as Danny Vance led his team at full speed, tearing through the banner held by Brooke and Allison. Brooke tried to make eye contact with Danny as he ran by. She had come to the conclusion, in a day’s time, that she did not want to break up with Danny. In fact, she wanted desperately to stay together, but still was uneasy about the new nature of their physical relationship. She planned to put off any future sexual encounters as long as she could and then, if she was pushed to do so, she would talk to Danny about how she felt, at which point she assumed he would break up with her.

She wanted to blow him a kiss as he ran on the field, but he never looked anywhere other than straight ahead as he tore through the banner. He, too, was consumed with thinking about the nature of their physical relationship. The game and his role in it should have been his primary focus, he knew, but he found that the only thing in his mind was a slow replay of Brooke putting his penis in her mouth and eventually of semen spraying her face. It disturbed him. He had seen pornography, but the sight of his own penis in the mouth of a girl he actually knew was somehow far more disturbing to him. He came to the conclusion that he would avoid any kind of situation that led to a physical encounter with Brooke until she forced the issue. Then he would tell her how he felt and endure whatever her reaction might be, presumably a breakup.

The parents of the players clapped and cheered at their appearance on the field. Kent took out his telephone and thought about sending a text message to his son, Tim, to tell him that the game was starting. He put his telephone back in his pocket without sending the text message, assuming there was no point.

The two Olympian co-captains, Danny Vance and Chris Truby, walked out to the fifty-yard line along with two players from the Park Panthers and the referees. Danny called heads to win the coin toss and elected for the Olympians to receive the ball first, and a few moments later the game was underway.

Chris Truby, as the fastest player the Olympians fielded, served as their kickoff and punt returner. The opening kickoff of the game was a line drive that bounced several times before finally making it to Chris, who returned it for twelve yards before being brought down in a dog pile near his own thirty-five-yard line.

As Danny Vance and the rest of the Goodrich Junior High School offense took the field for their first drive of the season, Coach Quinn pulled him aside. Despite the fact that it had already been predetermined that the first play of the game would be the X fade, a passing play designed to deceive the defense—making them think all of the receivers were running short routes while Chris Truby stalled on the line and then sprinted down the sideline as the primary receiver—Coach Quinn said, “Danny, let’s switch it up. Run the seven-three-nine flip.” Danny had no time to protest Coach Quinn’s decision to go with a running play as the first play of the season. He ran out onto the field, into the huddle, and said, “Okay, seven-three-nine flip on one. Ready—break!”

The abrupt change of play caused some minor confusion. Danny quelled it by saying, “I know we were supposed to run the X fade, but Coach Quinn changed it. So let’s do it. Hit your blocks.” They ran the play for a loss of one yard, as a result of Randy Trotter missing his block assignment and letting one of the Park Panthers’ defensive ends straight into the backfield.

From the sidelines, Coach Quinn sent in Tanner Hodge with the next play. It was the four-two-six pitch wide right, another running play. Danny ran the play as Coach Quinn requested, for another loss, this time for three yards, as a result of Tanner attempting to run through the incorrect hole. The third play was another running play, this time executed for a gain of four yards leaving the Olympians with fourth and ten. In spite of the fact that little more than forty-five seconds had passed in the first quarter of the game, Danny called a time-out and went to the sidelines. He approached Coach Quinn, who immediately said, “What are you doing?” Danny said, “Coach Quinn, don’t punt. Let me throw. We can get a first here with the Xfade or a deep cross. Just let me hit Chris. We can get this.”

In the stands, several parents of the other players made comments in Jim’s general direction like, “What’s your kid doing calling a time-out, Vance?” and “Does he think he’s in the NFL?” and “It’s the first goddamn quarter.”

On the sidelines, Coach Quinn thought about the likelihood of Danny completing a pass to Chris Truby for enough yards to get a first down. He knew the Park Panthers wouldn’t be ready for a pass play. They already had a player lining up deep in anticipation of the punt. It seemed like it might work, but more important to Coach Quinn was making Danny understand that he couldn’t undermine a decision that came from the coach and certainly couldn’t undermine a decision that cost his team a time-out.

Coach Quinn believed he was more than just a football coach to the players on his team. He believed he was teaching them skills that they would carry with them into whatever endeavors they may encounter in their later lives. Discipline and the ability to follow instructions from a superior were skills he thought every one of his players should have by the time they made their way into high school. He took personal offense at Danny’s defiant attitude, but also saw it as an opportunity to teach Danny the value of subservience.

And beyond all this, Coach Quinn had recently been through two significant events in his life that left him feeling somewhat powerless. After attempting unsuccessfully to conceive a child with his wife for three years, Coach Quinn had been told by a fertility doctor that his sperm count was insufficient to father a child. There were methods by which he and his wife could conceive a child using his sperm, all of which were surgical—leaving the decision on which method would be employed entirely up to his wife. Then, within a week of learning about his low sperm count, Coach Quinn was passed over for the head-coaching position at a high school in a neighboring district. The position would have meant more money and would have signified a move toward his true goal, coaching at the college level.

Coach Quinn used his hours on the field as the leader of the Goodrich Junior High Olympians as his time to take control back in his life. And, as much as he believed that his players needed to learn discipline and respect, he also needed to administer these things in order to feel like he had control over something in his life. He looked at Danny and said, “We’re kicking it, Danny. Take a seat.” And, in that moment, some switch was thrown in his mind that made him decide that this game, and every subsequent game, would be dominated by the running game, if only because he needed to have absolute control over something and that something was the eighth-grade football team he was coaching.

Danny took his helmet off and sat down on the bench next to Chris and watched Jeremy Kelms kick a twenty-five-yard punt. Brooke saw Danny sitting on the bench and took a momentary break from cheering to approach him and say, “You look seriously awesome out there. I love you.” Danny said, “Thanks. I gotta stay focused, babe,” and then put his helmet back on. Brooke understood. She turned back to the crowd and began cheering again.

The Goodrich defense took the field and in the stands Jim said, “I guess we’ll see how bad we need Tim out there. Here we go.”

Kent nudged Don, prompting him to offer his flask again and took a deep drink from it. He had never watched a youth football game in which his son wasn’t playing. He obviously wanted his son’s school to win, but he found himself wishing not only for his son’s replacement to fail but to be significantly injured in that failure. He wanted it to be more than obvious to everyone watching that his son, the way he had been before his mother left, was sorely missed.

The Park Panthers ran a quarterback sneak as their first play and gained eight yards, their quarterback running straight past a diving Bill Francis and finally being stopped by the free safety, who moved up to cover the middle linebacker’s mistake. Jim said, “Shit. That’s not a good sign.” Kent was happy. He thought again about sending a text message to his son and again thought better of it. He was content to know that Tim was missed.

T
im was at home checking his Myspace account, thinking only briefly about the fact that he was missing the season opener. He tried to find some small part of himself that cared or missed playing football, but he couldn’t; it seemed meaningless to him. His nightly raid had been canceled due to the raid leader, at the age of twenty-six, taking the next few days to move out of his parents’ house and into his first apartment. Tim had no new messages from his one hundred and two friends, most of whom were other Goodrich students, but some of whom were people he’d met through Myspace based on various common interests, people who belonged to fan pages for Noam Chomsky or
World of Warcraft
.

Near the bottom of his home page, six profiles were suggested to Tim as people he might be interested in based on other common friends. One of them was a profile for a gothic-looking girl named Freyja who claimed to be twenty-five years old. Freyja’s resemblance to Brandy Beltmeyer, the girl Tim had unsuccessfully attempted to ask out on a date via text message the year before, was uncanny. The makeup Freyja had on was transformative enough to stir significant doubt in Tim’s mind that this person actually was Brandy Beltmeyer in some type of alter-ego disguise, but the small scar over her left eyebrow, which he knew Brandy also had, erased whatever doubt the makeup had conjured.

He saw that Freyja was online and had the impulse to send her an instant message asking if she knew Brandy Beltmeyer or was related to her in some way, or perhaps even overtly proclaiming that he knew her true identity. Instead, he clicked on Freyja’s picture section and viewed twenty-three albums containing pictures of Brandy dressed in various gothic outfits and makeup schemes. He found it a strange coincidence that her profile was randomly suggested to him by whatever means Myspace defined these suggestions. Tim reasoned it must have had something to do with he and Freyja both having a large number of friends who had links to other friends who were involved with fantasy and gothic games and lifestyles. He read some of her blog entries: “My First 3some,” “Anal Only Hurts A Little At First,” “My First 3some With 2 Grls,” and “Swallowing.” He wondered how many of these blog posts were based on actual experience, or if they were all fabricated. If they were based in reality, he wondered if his sexual inexperience had played a part in her ignoring his text-message movie invitation the year before. He had a vague notion that Brandy’s mother ran some kind of parental watch-group for Internet abuse, based on the fliers his father had received advertising monthly meetings at Brandy’s house and giving helpful tips for parents to keep their children safe from Internet predators. He wondered if her mother knew her daughter was Freyja.