Breathless

by Jennifer Niven

  Mara’s face is back in her phone. “It’s only thirty bucks to ‘turn back the clock and bring the va-va-voom back to the bedroom.’ ” And that’s it. We fall apart at this.

  Saz sings out, “To va-va-voom in the bedroom!” The four of us clink cans and bottles.

  And then we forget all about artificial hymens and virginity and stare as Kristin McNish walks through the cafeteria like a perfectly timed public-service announcement, with her chin jutting out and an unmistakable bump around her middle.

  * * *

  —

  At home, I dig through the laundry pile, but the Nirvana shirt is still nowhere to be found. I find a black minidress lying on my floor and settle for my dad’s Ramones shirt, which I throw on over it. For dinner, Mom and I order from Pizza King because Dad has a work thing and he’s the cook in the family, his specialty being elaborate meals paired with theme music and wine. Saz loves eating at my house because it’s almost always an event, but I love eating at hers. The Bakshis eat at the bar in the kitchen or in front of the TV—takeout, fast food, or Kraft macaroni and cheese, best thing on earth, something I never get at home unless I make it myself. My dad refuses to cook any food that requires you to add orange powder to it.

  When I open the door to the delivery boy now, the one Saz calls Mean Jake, even though his name is Matthew and he isn’t mean at all, I’m like, “Well, hey, you,” as seductively as possible.

  He goes, “We were out of ginger ale, so I brought you Sprite instead.”

  * * *

  —

  Later that night, I lie in Trent Dugan’s hayloft, underneath Shane Waller, my senses in overdrive, lost in the heat of his skin and the smell of his neck. I’m thinking, Maybe this will be it. Maybe I’ll lose it right here, right now.

  It’s what I love about making out with someone. The possibility that this could be the one. Cue the lights. Cue the music. Love raining down on us all. Not that I’m all that experienced, especially compared to Alannis. I’ve officially given a few hand jobs and three or four unsuccessful blow jobs, had five and a half orgasms—not including the ones I’ve given myself—and made out with three boys, counting this one.

  Shane is kissing me, and his hands are everywhere—Oh yeah, I think, there. That’s good. The kissing is strictly for my benefit because Shane, like a lot of other guys at Mary Grove High, is more about all the things that aren’t kissing. His goal, always, is to get in my pants. I know this and he knows this, and he will kiss me for a while just to get there. And I’ll let him because he’s actually good at it, and hey, I love kissing.

  And then all he’s doing is grabbing me, but it’s working because he’s so obviously into me that I’m starting to feel a bit into me too.

  I think, Don’t let it get too far, even as I’m helping him unzip his jeans. And then we’re kissing again, harder and harder until I half expect him to inhale my tongue and my mouth and my entire face, and in the moment I want him to because of the way my body is pressing into his, wanting to feel more. I feel swept away and powerful at the same time. What are you waiting for?

  Shane has his tongue in my ear, but I can still hear the music outside. Laughter. Someone yelling something. At first I’m like, Oh God, yes, but then his tongue is a little too wet and he’s giving me swimmer’s ear. I want to push him away and shake the saliva out, but then he says, “God, you’re so hot.”

  Being hot is not what I’m known for, so I kiss him a while longer. But then I can’t get over the fact that we’re making out in a barn. At first I think, Okay, this is kind of sexy and Oh, look at me, but now I’m not sure I believe it. I imagine losing it to Shane Waller here in this hayloft, but of all the ways I’ve pictured my first time, it’s never once been in a barn.

  Then he gives my underwear a tug, chasing the thoughts away. Leaving just Shane and me, nearly naked on top of all this straw, which is jabbing into my flesh like sharp little pencils. It’s funny that I haven’t really noticed the straw before this moment because I’ve been so swept up in the feeling of my flesh against Shane’s flesh, the little fireworks that are springing up between body parts, threatening to set the hayloft on fire. This isn’t the first time I’ve been nearly naked with Shane Waller, but it’s the first time in a barn. I feel drunk, even though I’m not, and some far-flung part of me worries that if I can get turned on under these circumstances—sharp, jabbing straw, drunken classmates yelling outside—I will probably sleep with too many boys in college. Because making out is that much fun, even when you aren’t in love. Sometimes it’s just about his mouth or his eyes or his hands or the way they work all together. Sometimes that’s enough.

  Shane’s hands are snaking their way down, and the thinking, responsible part of me—the one that’s saving herself for a boy named Wyatt Jones—mentally pulls back into the hay, just enough to separate from him, even as the physical part of me keeps right on going. I try to lose myself in him again, but the only thing I can feel is a million straw pencils digging into my back and the fireworks fizzling to an end so that all that’s left is the after-haze and a distant burning smell.

  Suddenly there’s something hard and damp against my thigh, and I shift a little so he can’t slide it in.

  “Claude…”

  His voice is blurred, like he’s out of focus, and my name sounds like Clod, which I hate. I feel momentarily bad because I was never going to have sex with him. It always ends the same way—him coming into the air or into his shirt or onto himself or against my leg.

  Saz says I feel safe in my virginity, like Rapunzel in her tower. That I let down my hair just enough, enjoying the shine of it in the sun and the way it temporarily blinds the poor bastard waiting on the ground, before I yank it back up out of reach. And maybe I do feel safe in it, not just because I’m saving it for Wyatt Jones, but because my life is safe and Saz and I are best friends and I actually like my parents and I don’t have anything to prove to anyone. It’s my body and I can do what I want.

  Shane is staring at me and his eyes are rolling and his breath is coming faster and faster, and he’s humping my leg like a dog. His face is half lit from the sliver of moon that shines through the crack in the door. I’ll give him this: he’s pretty good-looking and he smells nice. And for whatever reason he seems to like me. From what he can tell right now, I’m still in it. I haven’t told him to stop or pushed him away. Until he strays a little too far from my leg and I go, “Slow it down, cowboy.”

  He’s going to tell his friends either that I’m a tease or that we did it. I wish I could explain that it’s not about teasing or doing it; it’s about the possibility. It’s the almost. It’s the Maybe this time, the Maybe he’s the one. I want to say, For a few minutes I make you greater than yourself, and I’m greater than myself, and we’re greater than this barn because we are all this possibility and almostness and maybe.

  But you can’t explain things like almostness to a guy like Shane, so I maneuver my lower half away from him, and that’s when he groans and explodes. All over my inner thigh. And this is where I freak out a little, because I swear I can feel some of it dripping into me, and I roll over fast, pushing him away.

  He groans again and falls back onto the hay. I use his shirt to wipe myself off and then I untangle my dress from around my shoulders and smooth everything into place, and I can already hear what I’m going to say to Saz, the funny little spin I’ll put on it just for her: Unlike so many of our classmates here in farm country, I guess I’m just not a person destined for barn sex.

  I stand up, and to make conversation, I say, “Did you know the Germans used to have a specific word for a male virgin? A Jüngling. Doesn’t it sound like it means the exact opposite?” I’m an almanac of virgin trivia, especially in awkward situations when I don’t know what else to say.

  Shane says from the hay, “You know, you’re like this series of boxes, and every time I open one,
there’s another one inside. It’s like box after fucking box, and I don’t think anyone will ever be able to open all of them.” He gets up, pulls on his jeans, pulls on his wet, crumpled shirt.

  He stares down at the stain and I say, “Sorry.”

  “It’s my fucking Snoop Dogg shirt. Jesus, Claude.” Clod.

  I say, “I think we should just be friends.” Better to have too many boxes than not enough.

  He says, “No shit,” and leaves me there.

  * * *

  —

  I find Saz at an old weathered-looking picnic table, talking to a group of people that includes Alannis and Mara, as well as Yvonne Brittain-Muir, musician and gamer, and her girlfriend of three hundred years, Leah Basco. For the past few weeks, Saz and I have envisioned every possible scenario in which Yvonne dumps Leah and professes her undying love for Saz. Or at least agrees to have sex with her.

  One of the guys passes around a joint, and another is telling this long story about the college party he went to last weekend. Leah holds out her hand to Yvonne—pale as a ghost in the moonlight, long yellow hair dyed blue at the ends—and they go rambling off toward the barn of iniquity, Saz staring after them like they just ran over her dog.

  I say to her, “Do you want to leave?” Even though it’s not even eleven o’clock.

  “More than anything on earth.”

  I throw my arm around her and we walk across the field toward the house and the long gravel driveway where we parked. As we go, I sing Saz the cheer-up song we made up when we were ten: “Ice cream, ice cream, freezy, freezy. You can get over her easy, easy.”

  A lone figure comes toward us, and Saz is jabbing at my ribs, going, “Stop it, maniac, before someone hears you,” which makes me sing louder, and then the figure steps into the moonlight and of course it’s Wyatt Jones. Like that, I forget about Saz and Yvonne and Shane and boxes and everything else that came before this moment.

  Wyatt is going away soon, across the country, across the world, to California and girls with long, swinging hair and sundresses. A fact that makes him seem taller and separate from the rest of us. Saz and I were supposed to go to California too, where I would find him and get to know him, strangers in a strange land, initially bonded by our unfortunate Midwestern roots, and then—gradually—as two worldly adults who discover they are destined to be together.

  Wyatt catches my eye, and my bones turn to liquid. There’s a rumor that he likes me. That he wanted to ask me to prom but was too shy to do it. That the reason he and three of his friends toilet-papered my house two months ago was because somehow I was special. Until my dad the marathon runner interrupted them and chased them around the neighborhood on foot. I break our gaze now and stare at my own feet because the memory is still mortifying.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey,” I say back.

  I make myself look at him again. Deep brown eyes, light brown skin, broad shoulders, smiling mouth. Even though my lips are still throbbing from all the kissing I was doing minutes ago, I want his hands on me.

  “You leaving?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Too bad.” He breaks into a full-on smile, as blinding as the sun, and everything fades away except for the two of us. His dad is black, his mom is white, and she died when he was a baby. He doesn’t remember her, but he always says she gave him his smile.

  He’s saying something else right now, but it’s drowned out by music and laughter and someone screaming. We turn at the same exact moment, and it’s Kayla Rosenthal, who always screams at parties. She’s standing on the picnic table, waving her drink around like a human sprinkler.

  He nods in her direction. “And she got a scholarship to Notre Dame.” I laugh a little too hard. “Did you come with Waller?” he asks me.

  “No, but he’s here somewhere.” I wave my hand like, Whatever, and hope these five words imply everything he needs to know: I don’t care where he is because he’s nothing to me. It’s you, Wyatt. It’s always been you.

  He nods again, like he’s thinking this over. “Hey, congrats on salutatorian.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Does that mean you give one of the graduation speeches?”

  “A shorter one, but yeah.” Jasmine Ramundo gets to speak for ten minutes, but I only get to speak for five.

  “Can’t wait to hear it.” He grins and then does this thing that always makes my stomach flip—contemplates the ground like there’s something profound and important there. He looks up at me. “Are you here for the summer?”

  “I am.”

  “Me too.”

  We are staring at each other, my face getting hotter and hotter, and all I can think is, I want you to be my first, Wyatt Jones. If you ask me to go into that barn right now, I will race you there and be naked by the time I reach the door.

  He coughs. Looks away. Glances up. Smiles. “See you around, then.”

  “See you.”

  He sails past, and it’s just an ordinary party filled with ordinary people, and I am one of them.

  “We can stay.”

  I turn and blink at Saz. Where did you come from? But even though I want to stay, I see her face. “No way.” Friends first. Always. I sing the rest of the way to the car.

  * * *

  —

  An hour or so later, I lie in my bed and think of Wyatt Jones. Of every dirty thing I want him to do to me. My room is heavy with night, except for the moon, which is making everything glow.

  I close my eyes, and I am still me, lying here in these yellow daisy sheets and the navy blue pajama shorts and top I got for my last birthday, books everywhere because ever since I was six years old I’ve liked to bury myself in a pile of them.

  So I am me, but right now I am me with Wyatt on top of me. Wyatt Jones, with his soccer legs and swimmer’s shoulders and hair that smells like chlorine and the sun. Wyatt Jones, with eyes that burn when they look at you. He is above me. Under me. His skin on mine. My mouth on his.

  My body is warm against the sheet, and my hand is where I’d like his to be. I kick the books away and they go crashing to the floor. My nose starts to itch and I scratch it. A hair tickles my forehead and I blow it away. Holy hell.

  Breathe.

  Concentrate.

  Wyatt.

  Wyatt.

  And there he is again in all his naked glory.

  Wyatt.

  After a minute, a thousand little needles start prickling my skin.

  He says, Are you sure?

  For all his beauty, Wyatt Jones is famously shy. When he does speak, it’s in this soft, scratchy voice that implies great thoughtfulness. I’ve built an entire inner life for him in my head, one where he is kind and empathetic and sensitive, yet strong enough to pick up a girl—me, specifically—and throw her onto a bed.

  Yes, I say. YES.

  It’s you, Claude. It’s always been you.

  Stop talking, Wyatt. Stop talking right now.

  The needle pricks are spreading throughout my body, and Wyatt morphs into the boy I saw on a plane once, the one who stared right at me as he walked down the aisle. Now I am on that plane, dressed as a flight attendant—a stylish one, the kind on overseas flights. Red lipstick, red uniform. Or maybe navy because it goes better with my clown hair. I follow him to the bathroom and he pulls me in after him and locks the door, and picks me up in his big, strong hands and sets me on that little counter, the one with the sink, and I wrap my legs around him.

  Just as he kisses me, hands in my hair, he fades into Mean Jake, the delivery boy. We’re in his vintage Trans Am, and it smells like pizza and cigarettes, but I don’t care because we’re tearing off each other’s clothes, and suddenly he blurs into Mr. Darcy.

  No. Mr. Rochester. Only I’m not Jane Eyre, I’m me in some sort of riding costume, and he’s kissing me by candle
light. We’re in front of the fireplace, and suddenly there’s a bear rug, only I’m not sure why there’s a bear rug. Is there one in the book? I’m staring at the bear, and the bear is staring back like, You murderer, and it’s just so depressing, so I get rid of the rug, and now we’re lying on the floor, Rochester and me, but it’s freezing because Thornfield Hall is, after all, a castle in the English countryside. Rochester produces a blanket, but it’s too late; I send him away.

  And now it’s Wyatt again, sauntering toward me like he does in the halls at school, and his eyes are on me, and they are so intense and serious that I know this is it. And we’re in his room and his parents aren’t home, and things slow down so much that I can hear my own breathing, short and fast, and I can almost hear his as he looks me in the eye and I can see everything—him, me, us—reflected there.

  He says, Claude.

  Claudine?

  Claudine.

  And then I can feel him. All of him. And I don’t worry if I’m too small or too big anywhere because he doesn’t even have to say, You’re beautiful. He’s already telling me.

  And it’s Wyatt and me, closer than I’ve ever been to anyone, and I’m wrapped around him and into him, and all at once I breathe, Yes! as my entire body lifts off the bed. It just rockets right off and hovers there in midair, shooting off fireworks of every color. I am an explosion of color and fire, and my room spins with light. A million fireflies of light swirling and sparkling around me, holding me in the air.

  I want to live up here, circled by this flickering light storm. I want it to last forever, but one by one the fireflies start to ghost out and die away. I try to catch them and keep them, but gently, gently, I feel myself floating back down to the bed.

  Gradually, the bed absorbs me, head to toe, and I go limp and still.

  I open my eyes and the only light is coming from the moon. My body is heavy now, so heavy, and I feel myself drifting away in these daisy sheets, thinking I should have studied more for Mr. Callum’s class and I never did find my left sneaker and I can’t forget to bring Alannis her green sweater on Monday. And then my mind drifts to Shane and the barn and my wet, wet thigh, and what if some of it got in me and I get pregnant and have to have a baby and marry Shane Waller and live in Ohio forever?