—Don’t draw my belly.
—I’m drawing …
The pen busy, her eyes hungry with it —everything, Cole.
Birds fighting on a tree out my window. Really fighting, not cute, flutter and feather and weird soft hoarse noises. She’s not worth it, I want to tell them, but she probably is.
—If we start down low on the bed, your head won’t end up against the wood.
—I don’t care.
—Doesn’t it—
—I don’t care, Cole, if it hurts sometimes.
Because I don’t feel safe with her I guess. It feels, not dangerous, but with no seatbelt, no helmet, hanging onto her on that roaring motorcycle day after night after day. I feel endangered a little, probably looking at her the way, Alana was it, Abby, used to look at me when I realized her brother wasn’t around and we could go up to her room. Safe, everyone says about sex. Everyone says everyone should feel safe. I always did, but they never, not quite, I think, I know. My turn, with Grisaille. I can’t always say I like it. But it’s very, don’t-touch-that, hot.
—Make me spaghetti.
It’s a rainy afternoon. We are under a blanket with both our pants pushed down but not off. Everywhere is sticky with it.
—Is that a euphemism?
I am hoping. She pokes me. —Spaghetti.
—I can’t cook at all, ever.
She elbows herself up to look at me like a cheap broken something, not worth the money to fix. —Look it up on a phone. Boil water. Put it on a plate. Make me spaghetti and Cole, I will show you a new trick I do— But I’m already in the kitchen, pulling my pants up.
—I really,
She’s rolling off me with an enormous smile.
—I really enjoy fucking.
I feel the flushiness on my face. I stumble out the word, —Good.
—I mean, I really enjoy it as an activity.
—Well, that’s good.
—It is very good. Don’t you like it?
I raise my hands. —Eh. It’s OK.
She crawls back and nips me on the face. —Then I! Must! Fuck! You! Better!
—There’s gum in my bag I think.
A girl’s bag is an abandoned warehouse. Stupid people in horror movies are the only ones to venture in. I plunge anyway, a tattered pursey thing with old thick buckles and the lining frayed like a mongoose tried to get out. Rise above the tampons. Wallet, pen, here’s the gum and then the thing small and plastic in my hand like a ring of shivery light.
—I was going to tell you.
—You’re on the pill?
—Just started.
—How did you, um?
—How did I what? They’re pills. You put them in your mouth. Every day, there’s a schedule. See, little days of the week on the thing. If you’re not diseased— —I’m not. My doctor checks, without telling my mom, which is cool.
—The clinic’s like that.
—The clinic.
—It’s on, what’s the street, near the overpass.
—There’s protestors sometimes. Guys yelling.
She shrugs a little, her mouth wrestly on her gum. —There’s another entrance. If you call ahead.
I didn’t know, slightly, at all, what I was saying. —Isn’t it, but why—
—It’s OK there. I mean, not my idea of a good time, an exam.
—So why,
It was a smile, I guess, but mostly it was—determined, is what she is like, looking at me. —Because, Cole, it’s worth it.
It’s one thing to write love poems.
She moans face down like a devout prayer, naked with her bra on. My tongue moves all over her legs and her hand cheats up to masturbate. I mean, this is something I never even thought to search for online.
—Show me the porn you look at.
—No absolutely no never no.
—C’mon. Here? Tell me what site.
—I am not doing this.
—A lot of pigtails here. You like this?
—No.
But she was already pigtailing herself. It was our first fight, my first fight ever that left me still mad after the sex.
—I was just curious. I just wanted to know how it is for you. It’s OK you masturbate.
—I. Do. Not. Want. To.
—Talk to me, Cole.
—Talk. About it.
She can draw, and she can dress well, and she can make me come so hard with her mouth, but holy fuck she cannot sing. It is like a joke about a puppet show when the song comes on she likes. I turn it up. The song’s OK but so loud it drowns her out.
Saving me money and shame she says —Can you believe some girls, at this school, get from their boyfriends, stuffed animals?
—I know, right?
I am trying not to be astonished when I say this. So many girls, so many, cooing at the little kitten or whatever. The money for bunnies I have spent, and Grisaille, so beautiful rolling her eyes. This isn’t that.
—It’s pervy how little kid it is. Look Anna, Daddy got you a teddy bear.
—I have my period.
I force nothing onto my face for her. I know enough what not to say, but the right thing I haven’t learned.
—OK, we can just—
—No, I want to do it, Cole. But we need two things. We need a towel, and for you not to freak out.
—Who? Maddy?
—No …
—Tell me. I’m new here. There is so much, you would not believe, gossip about you. So, Kaitlin?
—Yes.
She squealed.
—We didn’t go all the way.
—Alice?
—Alice White or Alice Davenport?
—Both.
—Yes. Stop squealing.
—Anne-Marie.
—Yes.
—Amber.
—No. Well, once.
—Why don’t you list them all?
—Why don’t you?
—OK.
She curled up against me. We both had our socks on, the weird texture of it, cotton and jealousy.
—OK, first was Marco. He was very hairy.
—Please let’s do something else.
She’s at the bus stop typing to me. —Nothing personal Cole but guys are assholes. Three dudes here with hip-hop so loud, shouting over and over, suck my nuts, suck my nuts.
—Well, are you going to do it?
She snaps a picture of her middle finger which even like that looks gorgeous to me.
Kristen wants to ask me something.
—OK.
She sighs, rattles her fingers on the desk. Mark went and got her a ring, clacky and blue. Not what I like, but if you like that sort of thing. —Forget it.
—What?
—Forget it.
—OK, I forgot it. But what did you want to ask me?
She pokes me, then sighs. Takes off the ring for a second. If I was Mark seeing this, I would uh-oh. —You’re a guy.
—That’s what’s on your mind? Yeah, I am. Thought you’d never ask, Kristen.
—Shut up. But do you, I can’t believe I’m asking.
—What what?
She looks away from me and then looks at me and away and a few more times before she exhales, and, —Do you love them?
—What?
—Did, I mean. Did you love them. All the girls, and now Grisaille. When you say I love you, and I know you do sometimes, is it real, did you mean it— —Kristen—
—or is it just a thing to say?
I start to answer, but it’s an answer for the team. Then I see her look. In her eyes is a kid too old for a magician, not knowing how it’s done but wise to the trick that the coin is not, of course, plucked supernaturally from her ear. So the truth, is what I decide, OK yes, to spill. —Both.