by Mara White
“I’ll get it, just watch. You need more eyeliner on the bottom.”
I take the curling iron from Yari as my hair is still mid-curl. She shuffles into the living room where Mami is watching a telenovela and smoking her nightly cigarette.
“Mrs. Heredia, is it okay if I make Belenny and I a snack?”
“Of course, mi hija, there’s leftovers if you’re really hungry. I can make sandwiches. Won’t there be food at your party?”
“Okay, thanks!” Yari shouts and hops off to the kitchen. I don’t want to get caught; I’m excited about this party and I don’t want anything to ruin it. Yari comes back in with two cans of soda and a huge bag of chips. She reaches in the chip bag and pulls out a king can of beer. She pops the top and hands it to me. She does the same to hers and then smashes it against mine in a toast.
“Here’s to hot boys with big dicks and to high school graduation parties.”
“Gross!” I say and then guzzle my beer.
We get dressed in my room and Yari has brought an entire bag of party clothes to choose from. I put on my nicest jeans and a long-sleeved T and Yari just wags a finger at me and says, “Um, no. Not even close, B.”
She’s got on a jumper that shows off her really great ass. It’s low cut in the front and you can see all of her cleavage.
“I have a dress that’s just like this but it’s blue, wanna try it?”
“Okay,” I say and shrug, but that’s really the beer talking because normally, I wouldn’t be caught dead in that outfit. I shimmy into the blue dress and it hugs all my curves. I bet if I dressed like this all the time, I could get a real boyfriend.
We finish our beers, gloss our lips and throw sweaters over our outfits. We tiptoe past my mom giggling and she hollers at the both of us.
“Midnight, no boys, no drinking! Is Lucky going to be there? If not, call Hector and he’ll come pick you up after he gets off his shift at the hospital. Keep your phones on, write the guy’s number on the marker board. Take that shit off your lips, hija, it looks like you been eating fried chicken!”
I roll my eyes but I love my mom and how much she cares. It’s funny that she thinks it’s “safer” for us with Lucky there. If she only knew what went on behind closed doors. She’d be horrified. She’d lock me in my room and throw away the key. And she’d get Titi to send Lucky to reform school. My mom took a lot of shit when she was younger. Her parents didn’t know how to help her succeed in the real world and she did it all on her own. Then she helped out my Titi and made sure she got her GED. She would have helped Hemi too, but she took off with a convict before anybody could stop her.
The party is in full effect on the penthouse floor of a stately old building on Riverside Drive. Jeremy’s apartment is an entire floor of the building and Lucky was right, there aren’t many people with that kind of money in our neighborhood.
There’s house music playing and a lot of the kids are already drunk. Most of the boys greet Yari and then burp out, “Belén?” like they’ve seen a ghost. I guess I don’t usually wear my hair down or take off my glasses or put on make-up for that matter. But where have they all been, because I get dressed up every year for yearbook pictures and homecoming and winter frolic week.
But they all notice and it makes me feel pretty high. I don’t need any beer or drugs, I’m soaring off a few compliments. Either that or the pink drink Naomi handed us when we walked into the kitchen. The lights are brighter in the kitchen and so is the atmosphere.
Jeremy is in here and he makes everybody laugh recounting a story from Econ. He comes over when he sees us and thanks us for coming. He kisses first Yari and then me on the cheek and says, “Belén you look stunning.”
I blush because stunning doesn’t really describe how I feel.
“Thanks, asshole! How do I look?” Yari says and I giggle when she punches his arm.
“Stunning as well, Yaritza! Asshole yourself,” he says as he toasts her.
The apartment is bigger than a real house and has amazing views of the Hudson. There are enormous windows overlooking the river in every room. The furniture, the rugs, even the glasses seem expensive. I hope that no one messes up his parent’s place. Some of the kids from our school are so street I’d be worried about them pocketing the silverware or stealing the knickknacks on display.
Jeremy is oddly formal and I guess it fits with his surroundings. He follows me around the whole time and I start to think that inviting me to his party meant inviting me to be his date. Jeremy is really nice, and he’s takes a lot of AP classes like I do, and he’s definitely going to get into a good college. He’s got sandy brown hair and big blue eyes to boot. I want to ask him if he likes me but I know you’re not supposed to do that. It just seems like such a novelty that I want to get it out in the open.
Lucky and his friends show up a good hour after we do. They tromp into the place like they’re rock stars but they’re just all the bad boys from the neighborhood. Lucky goes to Yari and peels her off a guy. It doesn’t even seem like he’s into her but he gives her a look that lets her know to back off. I see him mouth, “Where’s Belén?” and Yari just shrugs.
I wait for him to notice me in the shadows. I’m sitting quietly on a stool next to Jeremy, sipping my pink drink and talking about teachers at school. Lucky goes into the kitchen.
Jeremy offers to give me a tour of the house. He shows me his parents’ room, which has a huge canopy bed, where all of the furniture and detail are in a beautiful dark wood. Then he takes me to the library, which I get really excited about. Imagine, having a whole library right inside your house! I tell him about my book collection, leaving out the sort-of-crucial part that I don’t have a bookshelf.
“What do you like to read, Belén?” Jeremy asks and it sounds like a sexy question. I think I’m drunk off of pink drink and this fancy house and this boy’s undivided attention.
“Anything I can get my hands on,” I say breathlessly and it come out in kind of a whisper.
“Have you read Joyce?” Jeremy says and he gestures to the ladder. “My dad has a collection from the chapters when Ulysses was first serialized. It’s laminated, ‘cause the paper is too fragile. It’s kind of cool to look at. Did you read it in Parson’s AP English class?”
“I did,” I say but I think I’m just staring at his lips.
Maybe this is what life was meant to be like. Kind-of-chubby rich boys in light blue polo shirts with early laminated serials of James Joyce to impress you with. Who have fancy cars instead of tattoos and trust funds instead of bullet-graze scars. I’m intrigued. I think he wears cologne. I’m imagining myself coming over here for dinner and sitting at the long polished table with his parents. An expensive crystal bowl filled with perfect fruit as a centerpiece, instead of a bowl of bills from collection agencies and a little shrine to the Gods of the New York state lottery.
Jeremy will go to college, become a financier or a lawyer. We’d get married in a big church and my family would behave, even Hemi and the cousins. All I have to do is think of the word “cousin.” My eyes fly open when they were at half-mast with alcohol and fantasies. I thought he was going to kiss me but he’s halfway up the ladder.
“Or you might like these,” Jeremy says. “My mom is in fashion. So she has all these old editions of Vogue going back to the seventies. I guess she references them a lot for work. They’re pretty cool to look at.”
Maybe Jeremy is gay. Maybe no boy wants to kiss me except for Lucky and that’s only when he’s drunk. He hands me an issue with Twiggy on the cover. I smile and skim through it.
“Jeremy, should we go back to the party?”
The music is thumping and people are dancing and probably ruining his house. But Jeremy is drunk and jolly and he joins in instead of trying to take it down a notch. If I were him I would kick everyone out. I wander around and feel d
izzy. I can’t find Yari, I can’t find Lucky, but I find twelve other people I know from school and do two shots of tequila, which tastes absolutely terrible.
Jeremy asks me to dance and I’m not sure I get how you do it to a fast song, but we dance in the living room and it’s so fun that we’re both laughing and smiling. I think Jeremy might be my new best friend. We can get married even if he’s gay. We’ll just decorate the library and have babies and read books together. Maybe throw dance parties in the living room to house music without any bachata.
“Come this way,” Jeremy says, grabbing my hand and pulling me down a hall that shoots off to the side. His place is like a museum because the music fades out almost entirely when you walk away from it toward another exhibit. There are oil paintings on the lush walls, which are covered in real silk, and the floors are padded with thick oriental carpets. He opens a door and flicks on the light. It’s as bright as the kitchen in here and everything is white. It’s a bathroom. It’s regal. It looks like it stepped out of a mansion or a magazine, or a palace for that matter. It’s so pristine that all the chrome shines and flashes reflections of the bright lights. I feel like I’m making it dirty just by standing in it.
I hop up on the counter just like Jeremy does and fold my hands in my lap.
“Why’d we come in here?” I whisper. “Do you have to go to the bathroom?”
“I thought we could use some privacy.”
“Are you going to kiss me?” I know you’re not supposed to ask out loud like that and it certainly does eat up all the intimacy. But I’m nervous because the only person I’ve ever kissed before is – Lucky.
Jeremy jumps down from the counter and dims the light.
“I don’t know. Do you want me to?”
“Yes,” I say, closing my eyes and tilting my chin. Jeremy moves in close to me and he’s a mouth breather, which probably means he suffers from allergies.
He kisses me softly and it’s a wet, slippery kiss. His tongue glides into my mouth and I let him slip his body between my legs. We kiss like that for a long time; his hands rest sort of mechanically at my waist. No noises sneak out of me and he doesn’t make any either. I can’t help but compare this kiss to the others and how it’s only Lucky’s kiss that releases the beast inside me.
In a bold move, or maybe a drunk one, I take his hand and place it on my breast over my dress. He squeezes immediately and it gets my blood running a little. I kiss him harder to let him know I like it and to my surprise he reaches inside my neckline and sticks his hand right into my bra. My nipple gets hard with the brush of his fingers. I scoot forward on the counter and wrap my legs right around him.
“Oh, Belén,” he says, straightening up and pulling my dress from my shoulders. He pulls my bra straps down too and my breasts fall out into the cold air. He fingers both of them at the same time and I can’t help but rub my groin up against him. He’s hard through his pants but not as hard as Lucky. I still like that it happens though, that I can make him feel like that with my body.
He kisses my neck and then dips down to pull a nipple into his mouth. I gasp in shock at what sucking that little tiny part of me can do. Blood roars through my body and I rub shamelessly against his hardness. I push my other nipple to his mouth because I can’t seem to stop myself. I moan again when he sucks it in and this time he grazes it with his teeth. I groan out loud and feel wetness drench my panties. I guess Lucky isn’t the only one who can drive me crazy.
Jeremy reaches his hands under my skirt and grabs both sides of my underwear.
“Lift your butt up, Belén,” he says, and I comply a little too eagerly. He slides my panties down my thighs and they slip right off my feet. He reaches around and his big hands grab my butt and shove me forward until my pussy is pressed right up against his dick. He rubs up and down a few times and the slide of the fabric against my sensitive lips is almost more than I can take.
“You want to fuck?” he asks and I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I guess that means he’s done it before. We really didn’t come in here for sightseeing.
What surprises me even more is my throaty, breathless voice saying “Yeah,” without missing a beat. He keeps his cock pressed up against me and I grind softly against it. It’s like my body has a mind of its own and my head is no longer part of the equation. Without moving his body he slides open a drawer and reaches in to produce a gold foil packet.
Aha, that’s why we’re in the bathroom, because that’s where the condoms are kept!
I never thought I’d lose my virginity like this—in a bathroom, at a party. With a guy I really barely know and without even knowing whether or not later on he’ll want to be my boyfriend.
He unzips his fly and takes out his cock. The sight of it makes my blood rush even more. I want to impale myself on it, I want it in me. I almost can’t wait for him to slide the condom on.
He unfurls it along his solid length and grabs it at the bottom of his shaft. It looks fucking huge when he does it, but I’m not scared. I still want it.
“You look so sexy,” he says and I tip my head back, ready for his entrance.
But instead there’s a suspended second where we both look toward the door. I hear my name hollered. It sounds angry. Then the door smashes open almost hard enough to come off its hinges. And Lucky is in the bathroom with us, charging at Jeremy like he’s gonna beat his head in.
They connect and it isn’t pretty. Lucky is strong and he takes Jeremy down with one swing. But the worst part is that from the force of it, Jeremy’s head comes into contact with the towel rack, and it’s hard and it’s metal. I swear I can hear his head split. Then Jeremy is on the ground with his pants down and there’s blood all over the perfect white bathroom. There’s blood on the towels and the wall and the snow white fluffy rug. Lucky is nostril-breathing like a bull and his chest is heaving. He grips my arm. In one fell swoop he leans down and grabs my panties, then yanks me out of the bathroom with my breasts exposed and drops of Jeremy’s blood spattered on them.
“Stop, Luciano, stop!” is all I can say. But instead of bringing me back into the party he yanks me down a dark corridor which ends in a maid’s kitchen. He opens a door and I can feel the chill of the night. There’s a freight elevator in front of us and he pushes the down button. I pull up my bra straps and yank my dress back up over them.
“He’ll bleed to death,” I’m crying. “Where are we going?”
Lucky says nothing and just shakes his head and looks at the floor. It seems like he’s struggling so I try another angle.
“Call an ambulance,” I sob. The elevator door opens.
“He’s not going to fucking die, Belén. At the very worst he cracked the back of his head open. A couple stiches, some Neosporin. That faggot will be just fine.”
“Don’t say that! You’re not supposed to say that! How are they going to find him?”
“Maybe the, I don’t know, sixteen squad cars that busted the party?”
“What?”
The elevator doors close and Lucky hands me my underwear. His eyes catch mine and I’m terrified he’ll yell at me. It’s bright in the elevator and only one side is padded; the other two are mirrors. I take my panties from him and open them and gently step into them. I’ve never been so humiliated. I feel sweat gather on my upper lip and my brow. I’m almost nauseated with embarrassment.
Lucky won’t look away or give me an ounce of space. He stares me down ruthlessly, with unmasked enthusiasm. I lift my dress up over my bare ass and slide the underwear back on. I know he saw my privates and a roaring heat surges through my body with the thought. Lucky licks his lips. He bites the lower one. Our eyes connect. He just saw every single part of me and I know he could feel that my panties were sopping wet.
“Why did so many cops bust an underage drinking party?” I ask, trying to take the spotlight off of
my nudity. He nods his head fast like he does when he’s either angry or messed up on drugs.
“Your little faggot friend Jeremy sells coke and tonight was his idea of a fun set-up.”
“What?” I say, shaking my head. “He likes books and he does well in school.”
“Yeah, so did fucking Ted Bundy. Lenny, don’t make me talk about this.”
“How did you get out? Do you have any drugs on you?”
“That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Fucking Jay called me and told me a set-up was going down. That’s why the order was so tall. I searched that whole goddamned place for you and then hid in the broom closet when they busted down the door.”
“Jaylee from the park?”
“Yeah. But where was little Lenny? She was hiding in the closet too, letting some fucking asshole pop her cherry!”
“That’s not fair!” I yell, turning my face away from him. “What about all the things you do with girls right in front of me? What about Yari? What about fucking my best friend so I have to hear every terrible little detail? How about ignoring me until you broke my heart? How about that, Lucky! You think you’re any better than me? You’re a coward and I hate you!”
The elevator opens into a dark garbage room that smells like rats and cat urine. I take my heels off and just fucking run away from him. It’s probably not safe, since I’m drunk and it’s late. But being with Lucky isn’t safe either. Lucky is probably the most dangerous mistake I could ever make.
Chapter 12
Lucky
I stay inside all of the next day and the one after that. It probably looks like I’m lying low but it’s much, much more than that. Some people might think my relationship with Belén is fucked up. But this is how it is and I can’t fucking change myself.
Our moms are from the Dominican Republic—they grew up on a farmhouse in rural Santiago, then followed their uncle to New York. One by one they came over and tried to make something of their lives. Awilda, my ma, Beatríz, Belén’s mom, and Jimena, Tía Hemi, that’s the order of their ages and the same order they left the island. After Hemi was born, Grandma got real sick. She died from a fever that may have been caused by a mosquito. Then Gramps had three girls on his own and a whole farm to take care of, not to mention Hemi was still just a baby. Gramps started her on warm, frothy, unpasteurized cow’s milk. Straight from the barn into her baby bottle. My ma always said that’s why Hemi can’t help but eat like a barnyard animal.
