The Shining Girls A Novel

Kirby

24 JULY 1992

It feels really good to have someone’s warm breath on her neck, someone’s hands under her shirt. It’s sweet teenage fumbling, making out in his car. The safety of familiarity. Nostalgia, the national pastime. ‘You’ve come a long way, Fred Tucker,’ Kirby whispers, arching her back to make it easier for him to unclip her bra.

‘Hey! That’s not fair,’ he says, pulling away at the reminder of that first long-ago akward attempt at sex. It must be nice to have the space for small humiliations to hurt so much, she thinks, and immediately rebukes herself for being ungenerous.

‘Stupid joke, I’m sorry. Come back.’ She draws his mouth to hers. She can tell he’s still a little cross, but the bulge in his jeans doesn’t give a damn about his once-upon-a-time wounded pride. He leans over the handbrake to kiss her again and slips his hands under the loosened cups of her bra to graze his thumb over her nipple. She gasps against his mouth. His other hand slips down her stomach, exploratory, heading towards her jeans, and she feels him freeze at the raised spiderweb of scars.

‘Did you forget?’ It’s her turn to pull back. Every time. The rest of her life. Talking someone through it.

‘No. I guess I wasn’t expecting it to be so … dramatic.’

‘Do you want to see?’

She raises her shirt to show him, leaning back so that the streetlight catches on her skin and the network of angry pink ridges across her stomach. He traces them with his fingers.

‘It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful, I mean.’ He kisses her again. They make out for a long time, which feels really f*cking nice and uncomplicated.

‘Do you want to come up?’ she says. ‘Let’s do that now.’

He hesitates as she is reaching for the car door handle. His mom’s, while he is in town.

‘If you want to,’ she says, more cautious.

‘I do.’

‘There’s a but there.’ She is already on the defensive. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not looking for a relationship, Fred. That whole thing about taking a girl’s virginity and she’ll love you forever? I don’t even know you. But I used to. And this feels good, and that’s really all I want.’

‘I’d like that too.’

‘There’s still a but.’ A spike of impatience pierces up through what has been, up until now, some very lovely and all-consuming lust.

‘I need to get something out the trunk.’

‘I have condoms. I bought them earlier. In case.’

He laughs, softly. ‘You bought them the last time too. It’s not that. It’s my camera.’

‘No one’s going to break in for it. My neighborhood’s not that rough. If you left it in full view lying on the back seat, maybe.’

He kisses her again. ‘Because I want to film you. For the documentary.’

‘We can talk about that later.’

‘No, I mean, while we’re…’

She shoves him away. ‘F*ck off.’

‘Not in a bad way! You won’t even notice.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. Maybe I misunderstood. I thought you said you wanted to film me while we were having sex.’

‘I do. To show how beautiful you are. Confident and sexy and strong. It’s about reclaiming what happened to you. What’s more powerful and vulnerable than showing you naked?’

‘Are you even hearing yourself?’

‘It’s not exploitative. You’ll have full agency. That’s the whole point. It’ll be as much your film as mine.’

‘That’s so thoughtful.’

‘You’ll obviously have to get the stuff with your mother, at first, till I can win her over, but I’ll help you. I’ll come back for a few months to do the filming.’

‘Isn’t this unethical? Sleeping with your documentary subject?’

‘Not if that’s part of the film. All filmmakers are complicit anyway. There’s no such thing as objectivity.’

‘Oh my God. You are such an a*shole. You had this planned the whole time.’

‘No, I just wanted to propose it to you, as an idea. It would be astounding. Award-winning.

‘And you happened to bring the camera in your car.’

‘You seemed open to the idea at the Mexican place.’

‘We didn’t even start to get into it. And you definitely didn’t mention making a home porno.’

‘Is this about the sports guy?’ Fred whines, turning it around.

‘Dan? No. It’s about you being a colossal insensitive moron who is no longer getting laid, which is a tragedy, because I thought, maybe, for once, I could have uncomplicated sex with someone I kinda liked.’

‘We can still have sex.’

‘If I still kinda liked you.’ She slams out the car, gets halfway to the door and then turns back to lean in the window. ‘Hot tip, stud: next time bring up the stupid movie idea that’s pretty much guaranteed to piss off your date after you’ve been to bed with her.’