“I’ll stay,” she says, but it don’t sound like she wants to. It sounds like she wants to hit me with the belt she keeps hanging on a nail in her closet.
The doctor tells me to take my underwear off from under my cloth gown and lie down on my back while he fiddles with some rods at the end of the table that look like they have a big ice cream scoop on the end. I do like he says, and he puts on gloves and gets some packages out of a drawer and tears ‘em open. I never saw what was inside, but I hear some clinking sounds when he puts ‘em on a little metal table next to him. I don’t like the sound they make. It’s too loud.
He lifts up each of my feet and puts my heels in the ice cream scoops. They fit perfect, and it makes me smile to think that my heels are like balls of ice cream.
I stop smiling and thinking about ice cream when he tells me to scoot my hips toward him and bend my legs. “No,” I say. He’ll be able to see under my gown, and I don’t want him looking.
I hear him and Mama both sigh. Hers sounds angry, like when she does it right before she punishes me and quotes the Bible, “I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins.” His sounds annoyed, like my least favorite teacher when I tell her I don’t understand her questions.
“I can’t examine you unless you bend your legs and move closer to me.”
I didn’t want him to examine me. But when I look at Mama she’s telling me with her eyes how mad she is, I know I better just do like he says.
I try not to think about what’s happening and bend my knees and scoot down toward the doctor. When he pulls my knees apart, they’re shaking, and I can’t make ‘em stop.
“Stop shaking and just let him look,” Mama snaps at me. She says it like she does when she tells me to go to my room when she has a man friend come over.
That’s when I start crying. I hold my breath ‘cause when I do that the sound don’t come out, only tears do.
The doctor’s gloves are cold and wet on my privates. I don’t like it at all, and it makes the tears feel hot in my eyes. So hot that I squeeze my eyes shut. And when I close my eyes it don’t hold in the tears, and more come.
“You may feel a pinch,” he says.
I don’t understand until there’s something sliding inside me. It feels like a spoon. The spoon’s cold, but it don’t pinch like he said. And then he does something, and it don’t pinch, it hurts. The doctor is a big, fat liar. It feels like he’s prying me open from the inside out.
I hold my breath through the pain that ain’t a pinch.
When he takes the spoon out, the pain stops. But then he sticks his fingers inside me. It makes me feel like throwing up. Only Dan’s supposed to touch me there. I keep swallowing, trying not to throw up.
“Everything seems normal. Does she have an OBGYN?” He says this to Mama like I ain’t in the room with ‘em.
“I’ll make her an appointment with mine,” Mama says.
And he leaves.
“Put your clothes on and meet me at the front desk. You have a lot of explaining to do.” My eyes are still closed, but I can see her anger. It’s bright red, like fire.
It’s hard to get dressed ‘cause I’m still crying hard and shaking harder.
Mama don’t talk to me the whole way home. I know she’s saving all her mean and mad for when we get home. Inside our house is the only place she lets mean and mad loose on me. And it always hurts when she does. She makes sure of it.
I don’t tell Mama I had sex with Dan. I promised him I would never tell no one, and I’m good at keeping secrets.
*****
The next Wednesday, when Dan walks me home, I tell him I’m pregnant. He looks surprised, and his face gets real pale, like Mama’s face last year when I told her I’d eaten four of her special brownies. We go in my room and we kiss for a few minutes, and then he stands up and tells me to get on my knees in front of him. I do. Then he tells me to open my mouth. I do. Then he puts his penis in my mouth. It makes me choke, but he just keeps saying, “Relax, Jane. This makes me feel good. You want me to feel good, don’t you?” I nod ‘cause I do. He tells me to suck and pretend he’s one of the popsicles I like so much. I do, but he don’t taste like a popsicle. He starts moving in and out of my mouth while I suck. Then he grabs my hair by my ears in his hands and moves faster. “That’s it, Jane. That’s perfect. Keep doing that.” I like that he’s using his chocolate crème pie voice. Until I feel something hot fill the back of my throat. It makes me cough and gag and when I do I feel something warm and wet on my chin and neck. I swallow back against what’s in my mouth, it tastes sticky and salty, and I don’t like it. Dan has his hand wrapped around his penis, and he’s jerkin’ it back and forth. It looks rough like it hurts, but stuff’s squirting out of it on my chest, and the look on his face makes me feel good. It’s the same look he wears when he does this inside my privates. “Good girl,” he says. “Very good. I want to try something else new before I go today.”