The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls

by Anton Disclafani

  “Don’t stop,” I said, and he unbuckled his belt, and it all felt so good, and then I wanted him, I needed him, because what I felt in this instant was not pleasure, exactly: it was the promise of pleasure, an itch that needed fingernails raked across it. And maybe, I thought, as I felt him next to me, as he guided my thighs apart while he traced my nipples with his fingertip. Maybe, I thought, as he pushed himself into me, it was enough, that Georgie would try to understand me later, that right now there was a need and when we were done the need would not exist anymore.

  “Loosen,” he said, and I tried. It hurt, now, but the pain, I saw, was a part of the pleasure. I should not have done this, I had been very bad, and now I was being punished. It was all so clear, now. I looked out of the stall window into a black, black night. I felt the cloth of Georgie’s shirt, I put my hands on his shoulders and brought him closer to me. If a door had slammed, if Mother had stepped onto the back porch and called my name.

  Sam’s face flashed in my head, not as he was now—angry, hurt—but as he used to be, a little boy who felt the world too deeply. “We should switch you!” Mother used to say, as if little girls were better suited to feel the weight of things than little boys. Georgie bent down and licked my breast like an eager dog and I shuddered, pulled him up—I felt excluded from what he was doing right now, he was inside me but he was enacting a private fantasy, one that required my presence but not my love.

  Mother had been right. I was too much like a boy, too dumb to the consequences. I remembered the tent Mother let us make between our beds when we were little. Sam clasped my face between his fat hands: “Thea,” he said, “Thea!”

  Georgie heaved against me, once, twice, and he seemed so large inside me, impossibly large. Then he put his head on my chest and breathed deeply. It was over very quickly.

  What had Sam wanted? I couldn’t for the life of me remember.

  I slid down the cold wall until I was sitting. Georgie stood over me, tucked his shirt into his pants, fastened his belt. It was something about seeing him do all those things, those normal, everyday gestures, that made me feel very alone. I put my head in my hands.

  “Thea?”

  “What have we done?”

  “Don’t you know?” There was, outrageously, impossibly, laughter in his voice.

  “I don’t mean that.”

  He sat down next to me. “It’s all very natural,” he said.

  “It doesn’t feel like it.” I shook my head.

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “We should have waited.” I looked away.

  He laughed. “Why?” he asked. “There was no reason to wait, for us.”

  I was naked and my cousin was completely clothed. He traced a pattern in the sawdust and seemed to consider what to say next, which was unlike my cousin, to think before he spoke.

  “We were wrong,” I said.

  “I didn’t make you do anything.”

  I shook my head. He understood nothing.

  “I want my dress,” I said, and pointed to it.

  He retrieved my dress from the middle of the stall, and it seemed to me that he moved like a stranger. Then he stood over me, watched me.

  “Didn’t you think that would happen?” He sounded genuinely curious. I wanted very badly to be alone.

  I felt very keenly that I had given up too much for ninety, one hundred seconds. And that minute, those two minutes, had been painful for me, it had all been for Georgie’s pleasure. I saw very clearly our future: we would do this a dozen more times, two dozen more times, and then Georgie would be finished with me, with our arrangement. Boys could do this, I understood now, watching my cousin, how he stood over me, so carelessly, so confidently. Boys were meant for this world. “We’re not the marrying kind,” he said. “Thea? Did you think we were the marrying kind?”

  “I don’t know what I thought,” I said. “Not this.” I gestured at the stall, the walls brown with mildew; they needed to be scrubbed, one of my summer chores. Georgie followed my hand, followed it to where it stopped: him, in clothes my parents had bought him, the only nice things he had. My cheeks burned. “It’s dirty.”

  He knelt next to me and touched my cheek. “It’s not like that.”

  “It is,” I said, and removed his hand. “It’s exactly like that. It’s what you do, in your family.”

  “In my family?” I felt all the words forming in my heart, ready to tumble out; I clutched my dress to my chest and saw how I would end this. I pitied him, now. He stood so dumbly; he was so confused. I didn’t want to pity him. I didn’t want any part of him. I wanted to wash my hands of him, and in this moment that felt possible: I could be done with him forever.

  “You’re like your father.” I was speaking quickly; I pictured my kind, mild uncle and felt like a nasty, nasty girl but I had no choice. “Your father came to my father like you came to me, begging. You’re just like him, shameful.”

  I held my dress to my chest and wished for nothing more in the world than to be clothed. My cousin looked out the stall window, into the night, black as pitch, here where the lights of town did not reach. I felt sick. I wanted this to be over. But I watched my cousin’s profile and knew it would never be over; we were family, we could not be rid of each other.

  I looked down. When I looked up again, Georgie’s face was mean. And what choice did he have? I ask that question now, years later, too late, everything a ruin. “Look at yourself,” he said, and his eyes roamed over my body, the dress that covered me so inadequately.

  “If you don’t leave,” I said, “I’ll scream.”

  “You’ll scream?” What if I had waited a beat before I’d threatened to scream? Or, better, if I had stepped back in time and said nothing at all and kissed him good night and acted as if everything was the same, and let our arrangement end slowly, as Georgie said, naturally. He could be thick and clumsy and cruel; he was also kind and funny and sincere. And anyway, none of that mattered. He was mine. He was my cousin. I wanted to take everything back. I wanted him to take everything back. For the first time in my life, I understood that certain words were brands, etched onto the brain. “Who will hear you?”

  “Everyone.”

  “I don’t think you want everyone to hear you.”

  We watched each other. God knows what you were thinking, Thea. Only God knows. I could hear Mother’s voice. Georgie watched me, but I wouldn’t meet his eye. Finally, he left.

  I slept in the barn. I felt unclean, but not unclean enough to wash. It seemed natural to fall asleep in this empty stall, to stay in the barn until it was light.

  I slipped upstairs at dawn and bathed, thought of Georgie, who slept in the next room. I might as well not have bothered with closing the door. He had seen me naked. But there was Sam, who hadn’t. I pressed my fingernails into my forearm. I had been used by my own cousin. I was a young woman when young women were powerless. You would think I could have predicted what would happen. But I never felt powerless in my home. I hadn’t known to be careful in that regard.

  When I went downstairs to breakfast, Georgie wasn’t at the table, and neither was Sam. I assumed they were still sleeping—it was early, not yet seven.

  “Has your pony calmed down?” Mother asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you all right, Thea?”

  I wanted so badly to tell her. I wanted so badly to be comforted. I’m so ashamed, Mother, I’ve done something so awful you won’t believe me.

  She tapped my wrist. “Thea?”

  Her voice was so soft, so lovely.

  “Yes,” I said. “Only tired.” She looked at me, her head tilted, and I knew I could never tell, not in this life.

  After breakfast I saddled Sasi, headed out into the orange groves. I rode all morning, turned around and let Sasi canter back in the direction of the barn. I felt careless today. There would be consequenc
es—Sasi would fight for his head the next time we went toward the barn—but they felt small, and I felt large and bad. And I felt scared, though I tried to ignore the feeling of fear as it rose, tried to dampen it, send it back; I had always been so good at being fearless. I’d felt near tears all morning; now the cantering lulled me into some sort of trance and I flopped around in the saddle like a rag doll. I began to cry, like a girl, like a child.

  Then Sasi swerved to avoid something—I couldn’t see what—and I gasped and grabbed Sasi’s short mane and righted myself in the saddle, just barely, while I tried to murmur soothingly, while I tried to pick up the slack in my reins. It was always like this when you rode, doing a million things at once, all by instinct.

  “Sorry,” Sam called behind me, and I wished I had fallen, so that I would have an excuse for my tears.

  “Thea?” Sam asked. “Are you all right?”

  No, I wanted to say, no, I am not, and then I started to sob. I had let Georgie do things to me that had turned unimaginable in my mind; I had done things to him that I could never speak of, not to anyone. Not to Mother, not to Father, not to Sam, not to—and this occurred to me only now, on the back of the pony I loved, in the middle of an orange grove I had ridden through thousands of times, no, millions—my husband. I felt sick and dizzy.

  “Thea?” And this voice belonged to Georgie. Of course. Georgie was being nice to Sam, perhaps because I was no longer his favorite. “Thea?” he said again, and then Sam was beside me, holding Sasi’s rein, speaking quietly to him. Sasi nipped Sam’s shirt, nervously, but then calmed down. I remembered what Mother always said, that it was in our blood to love horses. And what else was it in our blood to do?

  “Why are you crying?” Sam asked, but I could only sob harder. The beauty of the day amplified my misery; if it had been raining, I would have not felt so alone, so wretched.

  Sasi panted heavily, and for a moment or two that was the only sound—his grave, rhythmic breaths.

  “Thea?” Sam asked again. Stop saying my name, I wanted to scream. Stop. I turned my face so I wouldn’t have to look at him and saw Georgie, sitting on a rock. He had not come near me. I noticed then that both he and Sam had guns slung over their shoulders. I wondered if Sam had shot anything. Surely not. You did not raise orphaned squirrels only to hunt them as adults.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I wiped my face, thick with sweat and snot and tears. I felt slimy, like a monster.

  Georgie rose and walked toward me, and before I knew it he had put his hand on my thigh, braving his fear of Sasi, and I screamed at him, “Don’t touch me!” I had never felt like this before. I saw sparks against the clear blue sky. I felt hot, so hot. “Don’t touch me!” I screamed it over and over, until my voice was hoarse. I could feel both boys watching me, in wonder.

  Sam turned to Georgie. “What did you do?”

  “What did we do,” Georgie said, and his voice had turned mean. “What did we do together.” And then he began to walk away, and Sam lunged after him, and pushed him to the ground. It took Georgie a second to get up he was so surprised.

  Sasi, wound up, trembling beneath the saddle, started to trot, but I was still looking back, so I saw Sam—the back of his head, which I knew so well, his thin shoulders, his graceful pose—raise his hand and slap Georgie across the face, his palm open, and then Georgie responded with a punch to Sam’s face, and Sam began to bleed from his nose, heavily.

  “Stop,” I cried. I leaned forward; Sasi gave a small rear and I slammed down onto the pommel of the saddle because I wasn’t paying attention. Now there was a sharp pain in between my legs, and I was almost glad for it, because it made things real again, Sam and Georgie were no longer surreal figures backdropped by a giant orange grove, hitting each other sloppily.

  “Stop,” I yelled once more, and waved my hand, as if that would help. When I turned back again, I saw Sam raise the butt of his rifle and strike my cousin—his cousin, our cousin—on the shoulder, and Georgie, stunned, fall backward, regain his balance, and lunge at Sam. He looked like a child trying to throw an adult off balance. Georgie was scared of horses; I flailed my legs against Sasi’s side and directed him to gallop straight toward my brother and cousin. I wanted to stop their fighting. And as I was galloping, I was most aware not of what might happen—that any one of us might be terribly injured, that I was putting into effect a course of action that would almost certainly leave one of us damaged—no, I was thinking of how sloppily I was riding, how ugly I must look on top of my frantic, overheated pony, and I was ashamed for Georgie to see me this way.

  Georgie looked up at us, his mouth bloody, an expression of terror on his face; I shifted my weight in the saddle so that we would gallop right in between my brother and cousin. Sasi flew, I’d never gone so fast with him, the orange grove was a blur. There was a bitter taste in my mouth. I wondered if it was fear.

  I did not divide them, as I’d hoped. Instead, Georgie panicked and ran in front of us to Sam. He thought that I meant to run him over, he thought he would be safe with Sam. He didn’t know that a horse would never do that; a horse would rather stay in a burning building than trample a human. Sasi stumbled; his hoof hit something hard—the rock, I realized, that Georgie had been sitting on—and in that instant I saw Sam raise the butt of his gun and hit Georgie on the side of his head, but Sasi regained his balance and he was going so fast, he would not slow down. I put all my weight against the bit, but Sasi was an electric wire beneath me, so I slid off while he was still cantering and hit the ground hard.

  I picked myself up and turned and there was Georgie, Sam shaking him by the shoulders as if he were a doll. I could see how Georgie’s head flopped, I could see that he was not well.

  “Sam,” I yelled, “you’ll kill him.” Sam looked at me, aghast, and I saw that he was in shock. I was not in shock. There was blood all over his face, smeared across his cheeks and neck like paint; Georgie was bloody, too, and so was the ground. There was so much blood. I had never seen so much of it, but it occurred to me that surely Father had, that surely he would know what to do.

  I motioned for Sam to come to me, and he ran wildly, his limbs unrestrained, like a child. “Go get Father,” I said. Saliva glistened around his mouth. “Go get Father,” I repeated.

  I was alone with Georgie while Sam ran to the house. I smoothed his hair from his forehead. His skin was hot. His hair was matted with blood; Sam had hurt our cousin with his gun, his gun that he had never before used against a living creature.

  I knelt beside him and arranged him so that he did not look so disheveled. I straightened his vest and used my handkerchief to dab the blood from his lips, but his mouth was still too red, so I tilted his head back and ran the handkerchief along his teeth. He looked better when I was done. I smoothed his forehead again. He was breathing and I half expected him to open his eyes and smile at me, as if last night had never happened. But he would open his eyes and smile at me and I would not be able to smile back. I would not have forgotten.

  I heard a shout from the house—Mother, or Aunt Carrie, I couldn’t tell—and I noticed Sam’s gun, which lay next to me. There was a little blood on it, and so, without thinking, I wiped it on my breeches, which were bloody already, and threw it away from me, as far as I could, which was not very far at all.

  He was still lying like this when my father appeared, with the rest of the adults. I held his hand, and my father looked at me strangely for a second before I was pushed to the edge of the circle that surrounded Georgie—my mother and father, my aunt and uncle.

  Sam looked at me. I took his hand, impulsively, and he shook it off. His eyes were glassy. He looked like he did not know me.

  “Sam?” I said softly. I tried to ignore the circle of adults on the periphery, tried only to focus on my brother’s bloody face.

  He looked at me briefly and then squatted on the ground, wra
pped his arms around his legs, and began to rock gently, back and forth. I squatted next to him, and put my hands on his shoulders, and he looked at me again, and again he did not seem to recognize me. Then I wanted to die, I wanted Sam to smash me in the head with his gun.

  Mother peeled herself away from the circle and came to us. She looked to Sam, then to me, then back at Sam. She leaned down and grabbed each of our upper arms, like she used to do when we were children, my right and Sam’s left, like we were a single person, and leaned down to see us at eye level. This was also reminiscent of childhood.

  “Go to your rooms,” she whispered, and her breath fanned across our faces. She squeezed our arms too tight, dug her nails through fabric, but we said nothing, Sam did not even seem to notice her, and Mother did not seem to notice how odd Sam looked. “Go,” she whispered again, and released us with a nod toward the house.

  Sam stood, and I watched him from the ground. I rubbed the place where Mother had gripped my arm. He wandered away, his gait unsteady, but then he turned around and stared at me. I looked away.

  “Thea,” he said, “Thea, Thea, Thea.” He kept repeating my name. He sounded possessed; he was not himself.

  “Stop!” I cried, “stop! Now!” I put my hands over my ears. This was what he did when we were little, when he wanted to bother me. I’d hated it, hated how my name turned into nothing more than a sound when it was strung together. I’d almost forgotten. He hadn’t done it in years.

  He stopped then, his lips parted. I wanted very badly to say something else, but knew there was nothing to say. Sam pointed behind me; I turned and saw Sasi, who stood at the entrance to the barn, his sides heaving. I’d forgotten about him. I went to him, took the reins and smoothed his neck, and watched the graceful figure of my brother disappear. I couldn’t return Sasi to his stall like this, he would colic and die, and so I was hand-walking him around the ring when I saw Uncle George in the distance, trailed by the other adults, holding his son in his arms, his inert, damaged son.