by Kata Čuić
“If you were going to say yes anyway, then why make me agree to be your date?”
Kenny sticks his index finger in the air. “One, ‘cause Jo Ellen Cox was only thirteen when she birthed her first baby last year at the center and almost died for her trouble, and two,” he raises another finger, “’cause I ain’t passin’ up a chance to make Jesse squirm. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks and all that.”
He winks then walks away whistling.
I glance at Jesse for a clue about the inside joke that’s obviously gone over my head.
He simply shakes his head and chuckles as he throws down enough money to cover the full bill. “Ya wanna go for a walk and finish ironin’ out the Homecomin’ plans?”
“I need to get home to Anne. Thank you for dinner.”
Jesse nods and follows me toward the exit then leans against my car as I unlock it in the parking lot. “I know I’m takin’ up a lot of your time, and I don’t wanna keep ya from her, but…”
“If you’re worried about Homecoming, I’ve got all the papers locked in my desk at school. I’ll show you the plans first thing in the morning.”
He reaches for my hand, his gaze steady on where our skin meets. “How long did ya labor with her?”
“Thirty-two hours,” I whisper, afraid to reveal even an inconsequential truth to him too loudly.
He raises his eyes. “Alone?”
I nod. It’s really not such a big deal. The men around these parts consider birthing babies women’s business. Fathers don’t usually go into the delivery room with their wives like on TV, and plenty of babies around here are born at home with the aid of the local midwife—Jesse and me, included. “We were safe and cared for in the hospital in Chicago. It was fine.”
He brushes his thumb against my hand, setting off sparks that dance up my arm. “And after? Ya went where with a brand-new baby? Back to your dorm? An apartment?”
I breathe a sigh of relief. This line of questioning isn’t horrible. After all the years I spent helping him learn how to be a good friend, I’m happy he’s still capable of showing genuine concern for another person in spite of the way I abandoned him. “I shared an apartment with a roommate. She was a really big help. Her name is Liz, and she’s the closet thing Anne has to an aunt. She was my best friend at Northwestern.”
And she has been giving me mental whiplash over this whole situation. She wavers between spitting nails mad and swooning like she’s reading a romance novel. Multiple times, I’ve talked her out of driving the ten hours south to sucker punch the man who’s making me feel things I don’t want to be feeling. Just as many times, I’ve hung up the phone when she tries to convince me to seduce him back into my bed.
He smiles. “I’m glad ya had someone there for ya. I’d sore like to meet your new best friend Liz, someday.”
I struggle to think through the sensations of what his simple touch is doing to me. “My new best friend?”
His smile turns sad. “I used to be your best friend. If you’d have called, I would’ve come. I wouldn’t have let ya be alone for those thirty-two hours. Or after.”
“She was born at the beginning of the fall semester our senior year. You had classes.” I have to look away. This conversation is veering too close to dangerous territory.
He tips my chin up, refocusing my gaze on his, which is unwavering. “I still would’ve come. No matter what it took.”
He kisses my temple then walks away and climbs into his truck.
I watch as his taillights disappear at the top of the ridge that leads down to our shared holler.
I know he would’ve come. That’s exactly why I never called.
Nine Years Ago
Jesse’s in his corner, surrounded by quilts and pillows, just as I expected. The new battery-powered lamp he bought a few weeks ago gives him away when he’s up here. The light casts his face into a curious combination of visible and not. He never looks up from his book when I climb up the rest of the way. He’s gone back to being distant and moody ever since the day Bobbi Sue dropped her little bombshell on me.
That was two weeks ago.
“Jesse? Is it all right if I sit up here with ya for a bit?”
“I guess so,” he mumbles.
Jesse’s only been here a few nights in the past two weeks, but I’ve been too busy spending my nights lying awake in bed and wondering if Kenny would ask me out to come up and visit. It ain’t been too bitterly cold of late, so I figured Jesse would be all right out here alone. Besides, it’s not like I ain’t seen him at all. We stand at the bus stop together every morning and walk home after school every day. I still go visit him at Pete’s Pizza until he kicks me out.
We sit in silence for a good while—him reading and my mind wandering. I got so much to think on lately, I just don’t know what to do with myself. Times like this I wish I had a girlfriend to chat with. I can’t talk to Mama about what’s eating at me, and I surely can’t talk to Jesse about it. He don’t like to talk much anyhow.
“Kenny ask ya out yet?”
My surprise at Jesse breaking the silence—and how—makes my brain stop working. “Yeah, just today. How’d ya know?”
“Small town and smaller school. Word gets around.” Jesse pulls his nose from his book to fix me with the look.
A gasp escapes my lips, and I’m on him thicker than fleas on a dog. “Jesse! What happened to ya?”
His bottom lip is busted and already scabbed over. His left eye is ringed in bruises, and his jaw looks all puffy. I ghost my fingers over his face until he reaches up and pulls my hand away.
“Nothin’. Don’t worry none about it.”
“This ain’t nothin’. Who did this to ya? Was it one of the menfolk who came callin’ on your ma?”
My hand goes back to its task, gently caressing the bruises to try and make it better.
“What’d ya tell Kenny?” He don’t try to move my hand this time. His eyes bore into mine. They’re the deepest, saddest shade of green I’ve ever seen.
“How can ya even ask me a stupid question like that at a time like this?”
“What’d ya tell him, Lenore?” He only uses my real name when he’s losing patience with me.
“Did Kenny do this to ya? That why ya wanna know?”
“No.” He shakes his head, moving my hand from his cheek. “Stop bein’ so willful and just answer the question.”
I crawl back to my spot a little ways away from him and bring my knees up to my chest. I didn’t wanna talk about this none with Jesse. Something about it just don’t sit right with me, but he’s forcing my hand.
“I…I told him I’d have to think about it.”
He turns to blink at me, completely confused. “Why?”
I shrug, trying to not say too much. Just like Jesse. “I dunno.”
“I’d have thought you’d jump at the chance to go on a date with someone. Not just anyone neither. He’s on the football team. Everyone likes him. Hell, all the girls swoon for him, just like you’re always goin’ on about.”
All the stuff I’ve been holding in comes pouring out of me like molten steel. “I’m afraid to say yes, Jesse! Bobbi Sue done told me the only reason he was askin’ me was to sex me up. I already heard her and Ruby Mae talkin’ about it last year, and they said it hurts somethin’ fierce when a man puts himself in ya!”
His laughter derails my train of thought. The sound of his head meeting the wall of the treehouse echoes through the small space, but he just keeps right on laughing at me. “What’d ya just call it?”
“What?” My cheeks feel like they’re on fire, and my chest tightens. It’s just like Jesse to not take me seriously.
“It ain’t called sexin’. It’s fuckin’. He wants to fuck ya not sex ya up.”
Ever since Jesse started his job, he’s gotten awfully foul-mouthed.
“Well, that’s just crude, Jesse Yates. A lady don’t talk like that.”
He sobers up and turns his gaze back on me. “So, ya wann
a say yes, but you’re afraid of it hurtin’. That all that’s stoppin’ ya?”
“I don’t know. I guess so.”
“It don’t hurt after that first time, ya know.”
“No, I didn’t know that. They never said anythin’ about how it felt after their first times. They just talk about how they’re havin’ sex all the time now. I reckon if Kenny wanted to spend time with me and pay attention to me, I’d like that. If he’s only askin’ me for sex, then I don’t want to. I don’t want him to hurt me. I don’t never wanna have sex if it hurts as much as the girls all say it does.”
My last words are lost in a garble of tears. Putting my head down on my knees, all the fear I’ve been keeping to myself rushes out onto my worn nightgown.
“I’ll do it.”
The words are so soft that I stop up my tears for a minute and just listen. Might be I imagined ‘em. Slowly, I turn my head to face Jesse. His eyes are downcast. He’s chewing on his busted lip, and his brows are pulled real low like he’s thinking.
His gaze snaps to mine, then he nods his head once. “I’ll be the one to hurt ya, so ya can have a good time with him.”
I sniffle a little and watch his face for signs of a trick, but he looks a might serious. It’s just another new expression on his face I ain’t never seen before. I been seeing a lot of new Jesse faces of late.
“It ain’t just bein’ scared of the pain. I don’t wanna be like my mama the way Bobbi Sue said. I don’t wanna get knocked up and have to quit school. I like school!”
Jesse’s eyes turn sad. He shakes his head a little. “They really didn’t teach ya girls nothin’, did they?”
I shake my head and watch as he crawls over to me, stopping to pull something out of his back jeans pocket.
He holds the little square up for me to see. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Ya ain’t gonna get pregnant.”
“Why not?”
“This here’s called a condom. If I wear it, ya won’t get pregnant.”
I crinkle my nose and look between Jesse’s face and the little square. There are words on it, but they’re too small and the light in here’s too dim for me to make them out. “How’s that supposed to help?”
“It keeps the cum from gettin’ into ya.”
“What?” Now he really ain’t making no sense.
He rolls his eyes and heaves a sigh. He’s losing patience, I can tell. “Seed, girl. If I put this here condom on over my manhood, ya ain’t gonna get my seed in ya. No seed means no baby.”
“Oh.”
He sits down beside me and nudges my shoulder with his. “Well. Whaddya think? We can get it over with tonight if ya want. I’ll be workin’ the rest of the week.”
“I’m scared, Jesse.”
“I know ya are,” he whispers. He rests his head on my shoulder and says nothing else.
We sit this way for a long while. Him just breathing next to me, and my mind working through it all.
“All right.”
He lifts his head up, and I feel his eyes on me. “All right?”
“Yeah. You’re my best friend, and ya know a lot more about…fuckin’…than I do. I’m bettin’ ya know even more than the boys at school on account of the way things are.” I don’t wanna come out and say on account of all his ma’s menfolk, but the idea of it hangs in the air between us like a heavy swell of summer air.
His hot breath rushes out over my skin in a gush. “Well, all right.”
He crawls back over to the blankets and pillow and pats the middle. “Come on over here and lie down.”
I do as he asks and watch as he pulls off his shirt. He unbuttons and unzips his jeans then pulls them off. The front of his underwear sticks out, and I know that’s the hardness I’ve felt on him before.
“Take off your underwear,” he says quietly.
I reach under my nightgown and pull them down and off, making sure to keep myself covered.
“Ya ever seen a man before?” Jesse asks, looking down over me. He’s on his knees, not moving or making to get all the way naked.
I shake my head no, but it’s a lie. I’ve seen Jesse’s manhood before.
Last summer, early one morning, I ran to the natural spring in the woods behind my house right after Daddy left for work. It was painfully hot even in the early light of dawn, and I wanted nothing more than a cool drink of that fresh, sweet water. I thought to maybe drown myself in it after sweating away in the treehouse all night with Jesse wrapped around my back.
Jesse always made sure to wake me before sunrise and send me back to my own bed. He made me promise our camping nights would be a secret between us. I reckoned he was so ashamed of not being able to sleep in his own trailer, he didn’t want no one to know where he hid at night. I always thought he went back to his own place after I went back to my room.
The closer I got to the spring, the more a strange noise that didn’t fit the usual sounds of the morning woods floated to my ears. It was an odd kind of moaning. I crept forward on quiet feet, unsure of what I’d find. I knew it wasn’t no animal. The groans were distinctly human, but I couldn’t tell if it was from pain or not.
With my heart in my throat, I peered around some wide trees to look into the clearing around the spring. I should have been more afraid of what I’d find, but I was just sorely mad I wouldn’t be getting my drink and cool bath because someone else was already there.
In a million years, I’ll never forget what I saw.
Jesse was lying back on one of the flat rocks around the spring, his clothes all off and thrown on a nearby fallen log. His body and hair were all wet. He must have had the same idea to cool off as I had. His eyes were closed, and his mouth was hanging open. He looked like he was hurting something fierce. Another moan escaped him, and his chest heaved, his breathing hard like after running a long time.
I stepped from behind the tree to find out what was wrong with him, worried he’d been bitten by a snake. That’s when the movement caught my eye. His hand was in a fist low on his belly, and it was pumping up and down real quick. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
When his fist would touch his belly, something long, red, and hard slipped out through his hand. The faster his motions, the louder he groaned. Up and down, up and down he went all along the rod, squeezing and sliding as he went. His hips started bucking up in time with his hand moving down. All at once, Jesse let out a loud, long moan and white stuff shot straight out of the end of that rod, some of it flying into the air, but most of it landing on his belly and dripping down his fingers. It came out in quick bursts—one right after another—maybe four or five in all.
His hand slowed down but kept rubbing for a few more strokes. That’s about the time I put together what was going on. That rod was the same hardness I could feel in Jesse’s pants when he kissed on me and rubbed himself against me. That was his manhood, and he’d been making the same motions he made when he was on top of me but with his own hand.
I stepped back into the shadows and cover of the trees, my heart and mind racing against each other. The uncomfortable heat that’d been in control of my body all night was soaring to new heights. My cheeks felt flushed and damp. I didn’t even know I was crying, and I wasn’t real sure why I was. My chest felt heavy and sad, like I’d done and lost my only friend to his own hand. I guessed this was what Jesse meant when he said we were growing up all those years ago.
As I ran through the woods to the safety of the creek—hoping no one would find me for the day—I kept thinking how Jesse was a grown man who was gonna go find a pretty woman to mate with. I was still just a little girl, sad and frightened like an animal caught in a hunter’s trap.
I spent the whole day at the creek, cooling off in the rushing water. Once in a while I could hear Jesse calling for me, but I’d just find a shady spot to hide until I didn’t hear him no more. I thought long and hard about how I was supposed to be a good angel even if he didn’t want my help and was growing up without me. So, I came up
with a real good plan. Since Jesse was so stinky all the time, and I figured he never bathed at home, I’d leave a bar of Mama’s special homemade soap by the spring. Least that way he’d smell nice for whatever woman he wanted to mate with. I reckoned I was doing them both a might nice favor.
The next morning that’s just what I did, and I never went back to the spring again.
“Nora.”
My eyes blink out of my memory to find Jesse hovering over me, looking at me funny.
“We ain’t gotta do this if you’re not sure ya want to. I’m gonna fuck ya the way a man is supposed to, and it is gonna hurt.”
Tears prick at my eyes, waiting on the pain to start. If I gotta get this over with, I’m glad it’s with Jesse since he’s so smart and knows so much about it. “I know it is. Just do it.”
His eyes get all soft and mossy the way they do when he’s being nice to me. His voice is real quiet when he talks. “Ya know what’s gonna happen? How it’s supposed to work? From seein’ the animals?”
I nod my head. My throat feels like it’s squeezing shut, and I can’t talk none.
“All right. Ya ready?”
I nod again.
The feeling of his manhood pressing against my womanly parts is terrifying. I squeeze my eyes shut, expecting the worst. I imagine it’ll feel like falling down and landing with a pole between my legs. It ain’t so bad. He’s sliding along my folds, up and down, until he stops and pushes against me. It’s a might odd sensation, but it don’t hurt none.
I open my eyes to find he’s watching me, his brow pulled low and sweat beading on his forehead.
“I’m gonna push in ya now, all right?”
“Ya mean, ya ain’t already?”
“No, girl.” He don’t laugh none, so I know he’s serious. “I was just findin’ your openin’.”
He don’t say nothing else. Before I can open my mouth, his whole body moves as he shoves himself in me, hard as he can. A scream tears out of my throat, but the pain is so unbearable, no sound escapes. It’s like being ripped in two from the inside out. It burns and hurts fiercely. My body feels too full like he ain’t supposed to be in there.
