Innocence

by Lucy St. John

Chapter 13

  Maybe we didn’t find he keys to the universe that night. But it was wonderful, just the same. Seeing the campus like that – like some unopened present in the pre-dawn just before Christmas morning – would stay with me for the rest of my life. It was a metaphor for beginning. For starting anew. For striking off on the journey of a lifetime. I saw the campus – and the future – more clearly in the dark of that night that I ever would in the daylight. We walked and talked for hours. But I can’t for the life of me remember what about. Not after our non-kiss and the revelation it imparted to Alec. It doesn’t matter now, anyway.

  I had found my teacher. My mentor. My special friend.

  Had I found a boyfriend? A lover? A soul mate?

  Alec would laugh at such questions. They’re so conventional. Small-minded. Irrelevant.

  Indeed, I laugh at them now. Because what I had found was so much bigger. I had stumbled upon truth.

  No bullshit, as Alec would say.

  He walked me back to the dorm. We didn’t kiss, of course. That would have been acting, playing out a meaningless, pre-determined scene found in every college movie under the sun.

  But we did hold hands that entire night. And I never felt closer to someone of the opposite sex, outside of my own father.

  There were no grand words exchanged at the moment of our parting. A simple, goodnight. And then Alec retreated into the enveloping dark. And I walked on a cloud into the dorm and down the hall to my room.

  Excitement thrummed through my body. I didn’t know how I would sleep as I keyed the lock and stepped quietly into the darkened room. I tip-toed and slowly shut the door, trying not to make a sound.

  That’s when I heard the low moans.

  I turned, cat like. I saw the slight glow of a nightlight – or was it a candle – near the floor underneath Sonya’s loft. I couldn’t see because Sonya had draped a sheet over the loft. It hung down like a curtain, creating a private space under the loft. I noticed that she had removed her mattress from the loft’s high perch. It now lay upon the floor, behind the muted glow of the shroud.

  And projected on the sheet, backlit by the candle, were the silhouette images of a man and woman, he atop her. The movements of bodies intertwined played like shadow puppets on the sheet.

  I froze where I stood. I felt like a Peeping Tom – both guilty and intrigued, at the same time.

  It was Sonya and Josh, I was sure. Were they having sex, actual sex right in our dorm room?

  I didn’t know. But whatever they were doing, it was close to it. When the man rose up, his silhouette was shirtless. And when Sonya lifted herself to a reclining position on her elbows, I could see the projection of her erect nipples, as she displayed herself to him. And as she reached for him, reached down there, for him, I saw the projection of his erect manhood flash like a long, thick sword projected on a movie screen.

  My breath caught in my throat. I didn’t know what to do.

  My mouth was cotton, so I couldn’t talk. I don’t know what I would say, anyway.

  Instead, I remained silent, as if my life depended on it. I slowly slipped off my shoes, and tip-toed to my bed. My eyes kept glancing to the sheet, which danced with silhouette images of their silent sexual shadow show. It was all rhythmic movements, subtle moans and rustling sheets.

  I sat ever so gently on my bed, trying not to make a sound. My heart stopping with every squeak from the overused springs. I lay myself flat and still, like a corpse in a coffin. And I stayed that way, staring straight up at the ceiling.

  I tried not to hear, as breathing quickened and rhythms accelerated. But my eyes kept sliding to their corners to see those beautiful, interlocked bodies in shadow.

  Alec would say this was yet another college cliché. Two beautiful people hooking up on the first night, after their first party. And it probably was.

  But for a police chief’s daughter from whom all the bad boys with sex on their minds shied away, it wasn’t cliché at all.

  It was breaking barriers and taboos that I wasn’t ready to break. And despite myself, the buzz of sexual pleasure built down there. The thrills and excitements of the entire night, gathered at that special pleasure place that I so tried to ignore.

  But the next thing I knew, my hand was there. Down there. Against everything I was taught and everything that I thought I was, my hand moved against my will. And my knowing fingers played my body like the ripe sexual organ that it was.

  My release was both blissful – and mournful. But above all, urgent. Even a little violent. I stifled all sound as my body broke into tiny pieces, all tingling with pleasure, then slowly, as the waves receded, reassembled.

  Afterward, I slowly surrendered to sleep, salty tears of guilt and imperfection sliding hotly into my hair as I stared straight ahead at the ceiling, wishing I was anyone but myself.

  Wishing I were anywhere but here.

  At college.

  And all alone.