I'm fourteen years old, and I'm on top of a boy two years my senior who's lifting the hem of my shirt up past my stomach.
Things are getting out of hand.
Funny thing is that most of the female population of my school would be willing to chop off an arm in order to change places with me in this situation. And no, don't worry, the sweet, sweet irony of this is not lost on me. In fact, I'm almost laughing, but I'm afraid to make a sound. The only thing that I'm fully and consciously aware of is the fact that if this kind of thing is happening, it shouldn't be happening on my best friend's bed while he's out shoe shopping with his mom, and his dad is choking back gin and tonic in the kitchen below us.
"Um," I say.
Up close, Spot Conlon's eyes aren't the crystal blue they seem to be. There's shots of green and gray and a weird silver that you'd miss if you didn't see it this close. His lips are kind of thin, and you can see bits of blonde stubble guilding the space in front of his ears and the sharp ridge of his chin. But his smirk is still the same. You'd think it was worn into his face, it came so natural. This is the smirk that has many girls weak in the knees, but I think that I can safely say at this point in time that I, yes I indeed, am the weakest.
But why am I thinking this? Why aren't I thinking of condoms or birth control or counselling or those lovely rape relief centers that you can reach at the end of eleven easy numbers? 1-800…
"You afraid?" He asks.
"Um," I repeat.
Up close, Spot Conlon isn't as skinny as he looks either. In fact, wiry muscles thread their way across his arms and chest. I know this, because he's not wearing a shirt. Exactly when he took his shirt off is a mystery to me, one moment it was there, and the next it wasn't. But that's the way everything started here. We were sitting on opposite sides of the bed, our feet barely touching, my eyes wandering around the room and alighting on the different posters that Racetrack had pinned up on his off-white walls. The next thing I know, we're cross legged and inches away. Then, he's laid down and rested his head on my lap. Then I've laid down too, staring up at the cracked white ceiling. Then he's cinched up so he's lying on his front, chest pressed into my stomach, chin resting on his folded hands which are inches away from where the wire of my bra lines my shirt. Then we're on our sides, facing one another, his hands rubbing up and down my ribs.
And now I'm on top of him. And his shirt is gone, and my shirt's half up my stomach, and my hair is covering my eyes so I don't have to look at him.
Yes, yes I am afraid. I'm so afraid that I feel like my teeth are rattling inside my head and my flesh is going to burn and broil and char until I'm just a pile of tight, tight bones and loose, loose ashes. But I'm also on top of you. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't being on top a sign of aggression and instigation? I'm initating, aren't I? What's my line? What do I do? Why am I doing this at all?
Spot's hands encircle my waist underneath the shirt, rubbing against my skin, and he pulls me down against his body. This is not good. This is not good. This is not good. 1-800…
"We're just cuddling, s'all." Spot says, but his smirk seems to say something else. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. My neck is tired from holding my heavy, heavy head up so our faces don't touch.
"I think Racetrack's home," I say.
"No he ain't,"
"I think he is," I repeat. Spot's smirk deepens.
"You are afraid, aintcha?" He asks. One hand slips out from under my shirt and darts to my face where, with cool long fingers, the hair in front of my eyes is pushed back and I find myself caught like a deer in the headlights in his own searing gaze. I avert my eyes from his, but he's already seen what I had been hiding. Feeling lost, I droop my head down against his neck and press my face up against the skin, trying to regain my composure. Cuddling. That's all. Just cuddling. I try to make the words soothe me. After all, I've never cuddled with anyone before. This is just cuddling.
"You've got a hot body," He whispers to the top of my head.
Still cuddling. Still cuddling. Still cuddling.
I realize, with a strange sensation forming at the pit of my stomach, that my face is burning. I know that the skin above my cheekbones is turning a slight pink. Humiliating. I feel humiliated, but I'm not sure why. It might just be my body…pressed up against someone like this is not something I'm familiar with, and the way he's edging his hands along my waist and sketching my shape against my skin is making me tingle with embarassment and anxiety. This past year I've almost been working to make myself as unnatractive as possible…ill fitting jeans that are torn around the knees and my dad's old work blouses that are disgusting colours and make me look pale and skinny, buttoned up over a dirty tank top. Hair that's too short and makes my eyes look faded and sunken, hair that I dyed green on a whim only to find that it looked awful. The idea of someone even wanting to find a shape under that mess was ridiculous…
And the idea of someone actually going ahead and reaching under all that mess was even more ridiculous. And even more frightening.
"You didn't answer my question," he tells me. "Are you afraid?"
Making a grandiose effort to regain my composure, I take in a deep breath and reply.
"I'm not afraid," I tell him. "After all, we're only cuddling."
His laugh is rough, his breath hot on the top of my hair, his fingers becoming more insistent underneath my shirt.
"You're cute," he tells me. "And you want me t'stop. I can tell." My breath catches in my throat as he brings my face up and catches my eyes once more in his. "Kinda turns me on."
1-800…1-800…I've seen this commercial a thousand times. My brain scrambles for the number as he leans up, his gorgeous eyes fastened on mine the entire time. 1-800…773? 774? 77…
I'm not thinking because I'm kissing Spot Conlon.
Well, he's more kissing me, really. I'm stiff as a board, as though my body has decided that now is a good time for rigor mortis. I feel as though I'm speaking in slow motion, lips barely moving as he attacks me. Steamy porno kisses would be a good description, but when I think "porno" I want to throw up. I can feel his tongue, and it's making me feel even sicker, pressing against my mouth and trying to part my lips for me.
I'm out of breath. This has to stop.
I pull back, but his hand is on the back of my neck while the other one is fiddling around my front somehow. I'm still stuck in porno kisses, and it's only when I feel the rough pads of his guitar player fingers brush my collar bone that I realize he's unbuttoning my shirt.
Letting loose an ungainly "mmm" sort of sound, I roll over to the side and let my fingers wrench away from the mattress and close tightly around the buttons, fumbling at them and trying to redo them back up. He props himself up on his elbows, looking more like a model in a magazine than a sixteen year old punky kid with messy hair and beautiful eyes. I get one done up, but now he's on top of me, his hands around my wrists, pressing them above my head, his smile nearly against my frozen mouth. His fingers fit all the way around my wrists until I'm encircled with him. 1-800-772? 872? 873?
This is the first time I've lain with anyone like this, his hip bones are pressing against the inside of my things and his chest is flat against mine, I can feel his heart beat drumming in rhythm with mine through the cage of his ribs. He holds my wrists with one hand and begins to undo the buttons on my dad's shirt with the other. I have a picture of my dad in this shirt hanging on my wall at home. I have to close my eyes.
"Um…don't do that. Spot, don't do that," I tell him, feeling my face burn red. I must look like an idiot. One moment I'm on top of him in the sort of position you'd only see on the late night sex shows, and the next I'm acting like I'm thirteen.
I'm not. I'm fourteen.
I can hear him laugh slightly, and I can almost feel the smirk that's lining his face.
"Don't worry," He tells me. "It's not like you're not wearing anything underneath,"
This is true.
But it doesn't mean that this doesn't suck.
He finishes with the buttons and presses himself back up against me. My tank top has ridden up past my stomach, and the sensation of his skin pressing up against mine makes me feel warm and naked and sick. Swallowing is difficult, every word I seem to choke on.
I open my eyes to see him smirking again.
"Hmm," he murmurs, bringing a hand up to brush putrid green lock of hair off my forehead. I start when I feel that it's slick with sweat. "Flushed face…pounding heart…kinda sweaty…now unless you've just had a workout…" He leaned in and pressed his lips against my ear. "This can only mean one thing…"
This can only mean one thing? What's that supposed to mean? His laugh seemed to make me freeze. His hand slid down my front and slid the button on my jeans open. And I suddenly realize.
Alarm bells.
This can only mean one thing.
"Side effects to the medication I take for genital herpes?" I blurt out.
He stops. His fingers are just barely under the band of my underwear. The silence that comes over the both of us seems thick enough to make me suffocate. His breath suddenly doesn't seem so heavy any more.
"What?" He asks.
"Heart palpitations," I tell him, surprised at how matter of a fact I sound. "Flushed face, breaking out in sweats, nausea…the doctor told me that they would be on again off again…but I guess you caught me at the wrong time."
He seems to be as frozen as I was less than a few minutes ago. Was it a few minutes? Or a few seconds? Time seemed to be on a track of it's own, speeding and freezing and stretching. Spot's fingers had inched out from under my jeans, and the pressure on my wrists wasn't quite as intimidating. It was clear that he was at a loss for what to do, but all that mattered to me was that getting me out of my underwear was no longer a preferable option. The silence seemed to smother us. Something had to be said.
"Um…can you get off me, please?" I ask.
I could have stunned him with a cattle prod and he wouldn't have moved quite as fast.
Before I can speak again through the pounding of my heart deep in the root of my tongue, his shirt is over his head and I'm already buttoning mine up as though nothing had happened. He's grabbing his bag off the back of the computer chair and slinging it over his shoulders, and avoiding my eyes.
"I'll call you later," He says. He doesn't have my phone number. This would be the perfect time to say something scathing, something biting, something that would make him coil up and turn bright red. Yeah, give me a shout when I feel like being violated next. Oh yeah, I'll just have to make time for you between my other rapists. Why not? I love a good asshole.
"Okay," I say.
He's gone.
I'm left alone, a skinny girl with gross hair and a shirt hanging off her shoulders waiting for her friend to get back.
Yes, my fingers are shaking so hard I can't do up the buttons and Racetrack is going to think that I'm trying to entice him with my half open shirt. Yes, my heart is pounding so hard I'm sure it's echoing in the cavern of my mouth and stomach. Yes, I feel as though my veins are screwed up tight to make my blood go cold before it reaches my extremeties.
But I've never been so relieved in my entire life.
--
When Racetrack comes in, I'm on his computer.
"Jesus," He says, dumping a shoe box onto his bed and kicking off his older sneakers. "When I say to come over at 4:30, I mean to come over at 4:30. How long have you been here?"
"Dunno," I say, opening up Google. My fingers flash over the keyboard as I type a few words in the search box and press the grey button underneath.
"Why don't you just take up a permanent residency?" He cracks, turning back to the box and lifting the lid.
"Converse?" I ask.
"Of course."
There's a small silence as he fits the shoes onto his feet once more and sits on his mattress. The blanket is rumpled, but he doesn't seem to notice as he lifts his foot and roughly admires it.
"Say," he remarks suddenly. "Didn't that Spot Conlon character invite himself over as well?" I shrug, glad that my face is turned away so he doesn't see the way I blink hard.
"He left," I say. "He was only looking for some action."
"What, from you?" Racetrack asks incredulously.
"Naw, from you. He was upset you weren't home," I reply sarcastically, glancing over my shoulder and rolling my eyes.
"S'more likely than trying to cop a feel offa you, cabbage head," He grins. I don't answer. I've pulled up the a site with a dark colour scheme and photos of women along the top, happy smiling women who look relieved. A number is printed at the bottom in thick yellow.
"Can I use your phone?" I ask.
--
Take one of your worst moments.
Stick it in ANY era.
Pick a POV (first person).
Make it one of their best.
--
Trolley: Ah, yes. The stupidity of internet explorer is a familiar thing to me. A very…very…familiar thing. Thanks very much!
Strawberri Shake: It would be Racetrack that is my favourite and Snitch my least favourite. I can't explain my prejudice against Snitch I just…don't like 'um. Thanks!
shakespearean fool: Heh. Your name is teh awesome. Shocking and befuddled. I'm glad that I inspire such emotions. Thank you, dahling.
studentnumber24601: Heh heh heh. Basically, Jack pays Snitch to kill Racetrack. Jack's motives for killing Race? Who cares! Secrecy is the best policy. Love!
Queen Kez the Wicked: Ooh, I love titles. I understand what you're trying to say about the detatchment, basically because that's what I was going for. I'm glad you noticed! –preen- I think that was the vaguest I'll get for a while. As much as I love witholding information. –sigh-
Brooky. is. STONED: Excellent. I inspire insanity. First Brooky, next the WORLD. I wouldn't say amazing, but thanks anyways! Your blown mind is much appreciated.
Paul: I emailed youuu…I emailed youuu…ah ha ha!