I lay back on the bed, and he surprised me by lifting my sweater and kissing me on my stomach, moving the sweater up to make a path for his lips. my heart was thumping so hard I was sure he could feel the beat in his face. When Peter reached behind to undo my bra, the memory of Luke's sexual attack came rushing back. For a moment. I actually saw Luke's face instead of Peter's. I couldn't help it. I began pushing him away.
"What is it? What's wrong?" he demanded.
"I can't. I... can't." I said, pulling my sweater down.
He got up and glared down at me, his face filling with blood. He looked more embarrassed than I was. . .
"You know, there is a name for Girls who do what you do," he said, quickly exchanging
humiliation for anger.
"What did I do?" I wailed.
"You take me home after school, you kiss me after meeting me only twice, you invite me out with you and dress like this, and then you come to my house, and when I try to be intimate with you, you push me away. You're playing with me," he accused.
"No. I don't mean to. I'm sorry."
"Forget it," he said, turning away. "You'd better leave. My aunt might be home soon, and she might not like me bringing a girl here at night."
"Don't be angry at me, Peter,"
"I'm not angry at you. I'm angry at myself," he said. "Go on home. It's better if you go," he insisted.
I rose, the tears floating over my eves now finding the strength to climb over my lids and streak down my cheeks. He kept his back to me.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I really am."
He said nothing, and the way he kept his shoulders up made me think every word I said, my very presence, was unpleasant for him.
"Good night." I mumbled, and hurried out of his house.
Just as I was opening the car door, another car pulled up beside mine. I saw his aunt looking at me with great interest. She was a dark-haired woman with a face rounder and more chubby than mine. Before she could get out of her car and ask me anything, I got into mine, started the engine, and backed out of the driveway. The tires squealed as I accelerated and pulled away.
I don't know how I drove home without getting lost or getting into an accident. I was crying so hard at one traffic light that I missed the change, and the drivers in four cars behind me sounded their horns. The angry blasts shot me forward again.
Neither Brenda nor Celia was home when I arrived, which pleased me. I hurried into my small apartment and scrubbed every bit of makeup off my face. I took off Celia's sweater and bra and sprawled on my bed, burying my face in the pillow to stop my sobbing. All I could see in my mind was Peter's look of condemnation and disgust.
Why had I pushed him away so hard and so frantically? Why couldn't I see him and not Luke? Why had I gone to his home, to his room. if I didn't want him to kiss me and make love to me? My own actions confused me as much as I imagined they confused him. I'm such a little idiot, I thought.I'll never be happy.
I didn't fall asleep. I just lay there staring at the ugly bland wall with the glow of my small ceiling fixture spilling gauzelike shadows down to the floor. I felt numb, almost as if I had left my own body, a body I had come to despise. Not only was my body awkward and heavy, it was full of betrayal. It let me dress it up so I could be optimistic about Peter's affections toward me, and then as soon as he showed desire, my body reacted with reflexes of rejection. It snapped like a body of rubber bands to retreat from his touch, his kiss, his caresses. What good was a body like mine? If I could take a knife and trim it down like a piece of soap being sculpted. I would. I was raging inside, my hands fisted, my teeth clenched, my eves bulzing with anger.
Suddenly, there was a soft knock on my door. At first. I thought it was in my imagination, but I heard it again and again, and then I heard Celia call.
"April?"
"What?"
She opened the door and entered. I forgot I was lying on my bed naked. She stood there a moment staring at me and then closed the door softly.
"What happened?"
I turned my head away. "I made a fool of myself." I mumbled.
She came to the bed and sat beside me, putting her hand on my shoulder,
"How? Why? Everything seemed all right."
"It wasn't. Right from the start, it wasn't," I cried through my tears. "I shouldn't have dressed like that. He thought I was... was a tramp."