I don’t know what that means, but most things Dan does to me make me feel good, so I nod. “Okay.”
“Does your mama have any oil for cooking with?” he asks.
I nod.
“Get it, beautiful.”
I like it when he calls me beautiful.
When I come back with the vegetable oil, he takes it and sets it on the floor. Then he tells me to get down on my hands and knees.
I do. I don’t like to have sex this way, ‘cause he can’t kiss me. I like kissing him.
He touches me from behind, and it feels good. Then I hear him tear open the rubber package, and he puts his penis inside me. It feels good, but he’s holding my hips and crashing into me with his, a lot faster than he usually does.
“I’m gonna miss this,” he says. I don’t know what it means. He talks a lot when he’s inside me, and it usually don’t make a lot of sense. Mostly curse words, which I know is a sin, but when he says ‘em with his chocolate crème pie voice, they don’t sound like sinning.
I feel him pull out, and he picks up the vegetable oil bottle and takes off the cap. I don’t look back to see what he’s doing with it. And then I feel the hair on his chest sticky with sweat on my back, and he whispers in my ear, “Just relax, or this will hurt. I don’t want to hurt you, Jane. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say.
“Deep breaths if it hurts. Deep breaths until I’m done. You want me to feel good, right?”
“Yes,” I say without thinking.
And then he spreads my butt cheeks with his hands, and I feel something slick and warm against my behind. And then he starts pushing his way in, but it ain’t my privates. It don’t feel right. “Relax,” he reminds me.
But I can’t relax. I don’t understand what’s happening.
He stops moving. “Breathe.” The way he says it makes me wanna please him. So, even though I can’t relax, I take a few deep breaths.
“That’s it,” he says it like my favorite teacher does when I answer a question right.
But then he starts pushing again, and all I wanna do is push him back out. He’s going slow, but it don’t stop the bad feelings. I feel yucky and like I need to go potty. “I don’t like it,” I blurt. I shouldn’t have said nothing, but I can’t keep it in.
“You’re doing just fine. You’ll be fine. Just keep breathing.” He pulls back a little bit, and it feels better, but then he pushes back in real fast. “I’m sorry, this feels too good. It will be over quick. Don’t think about it.”
And then it hurts. It hurts real bad. He’s holding my hips tight. I can’t get away. I can hear his skin slapping against mine, and he’s talking, but I don’t hear most of it ‘cause the pain’s making it hard for me to hear. It’s like I’m wrapped up in a blanket, only it ain’t my favorite blanket Grandma Tressa made me, this blanket’s made of hurt and pain.
I’m crying out, “Please stop, it hurts! It hurts! Please stop!”
But he don’t, not until I hear him yell, “Fuck me, your ass is so tight.”
When he pulls out, the pain’s still there. I don’t wanna look at him, ‘cause he hurt me.
He goes to the bathroom and cleans himself up, and when he comes back to me, I’m lying on the floor crying.
He pulls me into his lap and holds me. It’s real gentle, just like when I held a puppy from the neighbor’s dog’s litter when I was little. “Listen to me, Jane. You’re my special girlfriend. I’m sorry that hurt, but you made me feel so good, beautiful. And I needed our last time together to be special. When I leave today, you’ll never see me again.”
I look up at him. “What about school?”
He shakes his head. “I won’t be there. But we’ll always keep our secret. We won’t tell anyone about our special time together.”
“I’ll never tell no one,” I promise.
He smiles the smile where I can count all his teeth. “Good.”
And then he sets me on the floor, and he gets up and leaves.
And I wonder if he meant what he said and if he won’t be at school tomorrow.
*****
Dan wasn’t at school the next day.
I didn’t see him at lunch or in the hallways between classes.
It makes me sad that he’s gone, ‘cause he’s my only friend.
Just to be sure I stop by the office after school and ask Mrs. Peacock, the school secretary, ‘cause the first day of school she told me if I ever had questions I could always ask her. “Is Dan gone? Did he leave for good?”
She looks confused. “Dan? Dan who, sweetie? Do you know his last name?”
I don’t know his last name, so I shake my head and tell her what I do know. “Dan. He sweeps the cafeteria after we make it dirty at lunchtime.”
Her eyes change like she knows the Dan I’m talking about. “Oh, Dan Crestmoor, the custodian. I’m sorry, sweetie, he no longer works here. He called this morning and said he had a family emergency and his family needs him out of state. His elderly mother is sick. He was moving today.” She’s smiling when she says it, like she don’t know her words are making me sad.
Poor Dan. I’m sad his mama’s sick. I hope he can make it better when he gets there.
*****