“I’ll call you. We can set something up.”
“Sounds good.”
“Good,” he echoed.
“Good,” she said.
C
ome on in. Hurry up.” Kim quickly ushered Teddy Cranston through her front door, casting a furtive glance down the quiet dark street, mindful of potential prying eyes peeking out from neighboring homes. Not that she was doing anything wrong, she thought. At least, not technically. She was grounded. That meant she couldn’t go out. It didn’t mean she couldn’t invite somebody
in
. Besides, her parents were out for the evening, so what difference did it make? What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. Undoubtedly her mother or her father, possibly even both, would be calling home at some point in the evening to make sure she hadn’t left the house, and she’d be ready for them. Just like she was ready for Teddy. Tonight’s the night, she’d told him over the phone. Get your ass over here in half an hour or miss your chance. Exactly twenty-nine minutes later, he was at her door.
“My room’s upstairs,” Kim said, leading the way. Why waste time on preliminaries? They’d spent months on preliminaries. Now they had only a couple of hours to get the job done.
“Nice house,” Teddy remarked, taking off his heavy brown leather jacket, dropping it over the banister as he followed Kim up the stairs.
“It’s okay.”
They didn’t speak again until they reached the door to her room. Kim took a quick peek inside to make sure it looked presentable. After calling Teddy, she’d hastily tossed everything that wasn’t weighted down into the closet. She’d even made her bed. Her mother was always going on about how uncomfortable it was to sleep in a bed that hadn’t been made. Not that they’d be doing any sleeping, Kim thought with a silent chuckle, banishing her mother from the room with a shake of her blond hair.
“Cool,” Teddy said vaguely, stepping onto the wheat-colored carpet and looking around. “Great quilt,” he said, eyes coming to rest on the queen-size bed.
Kim nodded. Actually, the comforter was a mock quilt, made up of a series of brightly colored patches, each patch individual and distinct, red-and-white stripes beside blue-and-white gingham up against yellow flowers and large green dots. Her mother had selected the comforter, just as she’d chosen everything else in the room, although ostensibly it was Kim making the decisions. “Whatever you want,” her mother had told her when they first moved in. “You’re a big girl now. We’ll decorate your room exactly the way you want.”
Except what did Kim know of what she wanted?
She was only eleven when they’d moved in. She hadn’t had time to develop a sense of taste or a semblance of style. And so she’d gone along with all her mother’s suggestions. Even her walls were a reflection of her mother’s personality. While most girls her age plastered their walls with posters of the latest Hollywood heartthrob, supermodel, or singing group, the sand-colored walls of Kim’s room were covered with framed posters from the Art Institute, signed and numbered lithographs by the likes of Joan Miro and Jim Dine, even a wonderful black-and-white photograph of a mother embracing her daughter by famed photographer Annie Liebowitz.
What was she supposed to do when her mother was gone, Kim wondered helplessly, when she had no one to tell her what she liked and disliked, when she had no one to rely on for her sense of self?
“This is so cool,” Teddy remarked, moving in for a closer look at a brilliant yellow rendering of the number 4 floating on a background of red and black. “Did you do it?”
Kim searched Teddy’s face for signs he must be joking. “Hardly. It’s by Robert Indiana.” Immediately she bit down on her bottom lip. Had she gone too far by correcting him? Had she embarrassed him? Would he mumble some dumb excuse about having to be somewhere else, leaving her and her irksome virginity intact?
“Oh.” Teddy shrugged. “Cool.”
“It’s a print.” How could he mistake a print for an actual painting? How could she give herself to someone who couldn’t tell the difference?
“Cool,” he said again, plopping down in the center of the bed.
Was that all he ever said? Kim wondered, standing in the middle of the room. True, he wasn’t the smartest boy in the school, but he wasn’t the dumbest either. Think positive, Kim admonished herself. Don’t dwell on the negative. Think about all the things you like about Teddy—his chocolate brown eyes, the dimples in his cheeks when he smiles, his tight lean body, his long tapering fingers, the way he kisses, the way his hands feel on your breasts. Let someone else love him for his mind, Kim thought, as Teddy patted the space beside him on the bed, beckoning her over. Wasn’t it enough that he was older, more experienced, that he’d selected her over any of the other girls he could have chosen? Wasn’t it enough that she was the envy of all her friends?
Except they weren’t her friends. Not really. Caroline Smith, Annie Turofsky, Jodi Bates—they only liked her because Teddy liked her. They’d dump her like a hot potato as soon as Teddy did. No, the truth was she didn’t have any close friends. The truth was that her mother had always been her best friend.
You and me against the world
, her mother used to sing to her when she was a little girl. What would happen to her when her mother deserted her? Who would she be able to turn to then? Her father?
“Your father’s such a hunk,” Jodi had all but swooned after he’d picked her up at school one day.
“I wouldn’t mind a shot at him,” Caroline volunteered with a rude laugh.
Go for it, Kim had been tempted to say, but didn’t. Caroline had a way of getting the things she went after,
and the last thing Kim needed was Caroline Smith for a stepmother. Kim groaned. Was there no limit to the baseness of her thoughts? Her mother wasn’t even dead yet, and already she was thinking of her replacement.
“Aren’t you going to join me?” Teddy was asking, looking at Kim expectantly.
Pushing thoughts of her mother roughly aside, Kim approached the bed, pulling her white turtleneck over her head as she walked, letting it fall to the floor.
“Wow,” Teddy said, as she unhooked her plain white bra and tossed it aside.
Kim felt her body flush red with embarrassment. What was she doing? Was she really going to let Teddy see her naked?
“Wait for me,” Teddy said, jumping to his feet, shedding his shirt, jeans, shoes, and socks in one easy motion, as if each article of clothing were part of the same cloth, as if they were attached to him by Velcro. He discarded them with no more embarrassment than if he were peeling off unwanted remnants of an old sunburn. He stood naked before her, his erect penis all but dancing in front of him.
“Oh,” Kim said.
“Aren’t you going to take those off?” Teddy indicated Kim’s jeans and heavy black boots.
Kim sat on the edge of the bed, trying to ignore Teddy’s dancing organ as she pulled off her boots and squirmed out of her jeans. “Did you bring a condom?”
“They’re in my pocket.” He nodded vaguely toward the floor.
“Don’t you think you ought to put one on?”
Teddy moved like an automaton toward his jeans, quickly locating the small packet he was looking for and tearing it open. Kim pulled back the comforter and climbed underneath the blanket, gathering the pale yellow sheets up under her chin as Teddy struggled to put on the condom. “Dressed for success,” he said finally, a triumphant smile across his handsome face.
“Are you sure that thing’s going to work?”
“I won’t let anything happen,” Teddy assured her, crawling into bed beside her. “I promise.”
“What if it breaks?”
“It won’t break. These things are like steel.” His hand moved to her breast. Kim pushed it away.
“Could you turn off the light?”
Wordlessly Teddy jumped to his feet and shut off the light beside the bed. He was back beside Kim almost before her brain had time to register he’d been gone.
“Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this,” Kim stammered, refusing to relinquish her grip on the blanket at her chin.
“What? Come on, Kim. You’ve been teasing me for months.”
“I haven’t been teasing you.”
“You’ve been driving me crazy. That’s what you’ve been doing.” His tongue began exploring the inside of her ear.
Is sex all you ever think about? Kim wanted to ask, but didn’t because she already knew the answer. Of course sex was all he thought about. It was all
all
boys thought about, and not just occasionally, the way girls did, but all the time. Literally every minute of every
waking day. No wonder they could barely string two sentences into one coherent thought. No wonder they couldn’t tell the difference between a painting and a goddamn print.
Besides, tonight had been her idea, not his. She was the one who’d telephoned his house and practically ordered him over. She was the one who’d invited him upstairs to her bedroom. She was the one who’d started the ball rolling by taking off her sweater. She was lying naked in bed beside a naked man, for God’s sake. How could she call the whole thing off now?
“You’ll be careful?” she asked.
“I won’t let anything happen,” he said, as he’d said moments ago. “I promise.”
And the next thing she knew, Teddy was shoving his way roughly inside her, or at least trying to. “You have to relax,” he whispered between grunts. “Just relax and let it happen.”
“You’re in the wrong spot,” she told him impatiently.
“What do you mean, I’m in the wrong spot?”
“I don’t think that’s the right spot,” Kim said, trying to shift her position, to crawl out from under him, her actions causing Teddy to pump all the more strenuously.
By accident or design, he finally stumbled into the right orifice, and immediately began thrusting his way farther inside her. Kim gasped as a sharp pain shot through her body, and her insides stretched to accommodate him. The parting of the Red Sea, she thought, feeling a sticky substance on the insides of her thighs, wondering if there was blood on the sheets and how
she’d explain it to her mother. I’ll just tell her I got my period, Kim decided, grabbing Teddy’s buttocks in an effort to slow him down. But he either misunderstood her intentions or chose to ignore them. In any event, he did the exact opposite, quickening his already frantic pace until he cried out, a small frightened sound, as if he’d been hurt, and she felt his body shudder to a halt on top of her. Seconds later, he slid off her to lie on his back, his left hand stretched out over his head in a posture of either triumph or utter exhaustion. That’s it? Kim thought. That’s what all the fuss is about? She reached over to draw the comforter up under her chin.
“You okay?” Teddy asked, as if suddenly remembering she was there.
“Fine. You?”
“Great. You were great.” He turned on his side, kissing her wet cheek. “You crying?”
“No,” Kim replied indignantly, wiping her cheek. What was
that
all about?
“It’ll be better next time.”
“It was great
this
time,” she lied, glancing at his naked torso, seeing his once charging organ now lying flaccid and vulnerable amid his soft tangle of pubic hair. Where’s the condom? she thought. “Where’s the condom?” she said.
The condom, of course, was still inside her, she realized with a sick feeling in her gut.
“Oh God, what are we going to do?” she wailed.
“Take it out,” Teddy told her.
“What do you mean, take it out?”
“Just reach in and get it.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t.” What was the matter with him? “You promised me you’d be careful. You promised you wouldn’t let anything happen.”
“I
was
careful.”
“Then what’s the stupid thing still doing inside me?”
“It must have slipped off when I pulled out.”
“Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
“All you have to do is—”
“I’m not doing anything.
You
do it. Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she repeated, covering her face with her hands as Teddy disappeared under the comforter and began poking at her with his fingers.
“I’ve got it,” he announced after several seconds, triumphantly displaying the spent condom. “And look, see, it’s okay. It didn’t rip. Everything’s still in there.”
“Oh God, gross,” Kim exclaimed, feeling sick to her stomach, as Teddy dropped the condom into the nearby wastepaper basket. “How do you know none of it spilled out?”
“None of it spilled out,” he said, as if his word should be enough to quell Kim’s growing panic.
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
“Oh God, oh God, oh God.”
“It’ll be all right.”
“Oh God.”
“You think you could stop saying that?” Teddy asked. “You’re making me kind of nervous.”
“What if I’m pregnant?” Kim asked.
“Oh God,” came Teddy’s immediate reply.
Don’t panic, Kim told herself. There’s nothing to worry about. He wore a condom. It didn’t break. No pesky little sperm escaped. Besides, you just finished your period two days ago. No way you could be pregnant. No way. No way. No way.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
Is this how her mother felt sixteen years ago? Kim wondered. And was that why she’d taken such a stupid risk—as a way of getting to know her mother better?
“Kim?” Teddy was asking. “Are you all right? You suddenly got so quiet.”
“I’m fine,” Kim told him, feeling strangely calm.
“Kim?”
“Yes?” She felt his body stirring beside her.
“You want to do it again?”
Mattie sat in the backseat of the taxi, trying to ignore the persistent tingle between her legs where Roy Crawford had been. She felt the now-distant echo of his body thrusting into hers, the way one feels an amputated arm or leg, the sensation still present despite the absence of the limb. The sensation of absence, Mattie thought. So much preferable to the absence of sensation.
What was it they said about sex? When it was good, it was great, and when it was bad, it was still good. Yes, that was it. “Turn here,” Mattie directed the cab driver. “Fifth house from the end.”
The driver, a middle-aged man with a white crew cut, whose nameplate identified him as Yuri Popovitch, pulled to a halt in front of Mattie’s house. Mattie noted
the lights on in the front hall, though the rest of the house was in darkness. She checked her watch. Almost ten o’clock. It was possible Kim was already asleep. Mattie hadn’t bothered calling to check up on her. If Jake wanted to keep tabs on his daughter, that was fine. Mattie had decided to trust her.