He wanted to do it with me, he wanted me to be like one of those college girls on the beach, bums offered up. But I also knew that something else was going on. If this was simple, or normal, I would’ve already been near him, we would’ve already been kissing.
‘Come on. You can come over here.’
The guy stopped tracing the wobbling light on his chest. He looked down at his penis. He shifted on the chair, got it into the light. The sun struck a ray right through it. It was standing up hard, hard-bobbing in little circles. The guy didn’t touch it, he was feeling how it was shaking.
‘Come. Come here. I’ll show you how to do it.’
I wasn’t afraid at that moment, I wasn’t afraid of his thing or of him. But I was just getting used to looking at it and wanting to get closer when the guy leaned back and shut the curtains.
‘You don’t like light,’ he said.
The ripple left his body. He closed the curtain and made the room dark. I was going to run if he got up and tried to touch me. I wanted to run and smash into his window like a bird.
But the guy didn’t get up to try to touch me. He kept swaying silently in the chair. The darkness softened around my eyes.
The guy started stroking himself, squeezing after the strokes, squeezing at the bottom.
‘I’ll show you how to do this,’ he said. ‘Come.’
It looked like he was thinking about something and then looking at me. I felt myself hard-bobbing like him now, from side to side, then back and forth. My feeling of being in the room turned into a flicker. The walls and the ceiling met in a curve. My thighs pulsed too hard. I felt paralyzed.
‘I don’t want to,’ I heard myself say.
‘Come on. Come over.’
‘Not yet.’
‘When are you going to be ready?’ the guy said. His voice was strained. He was about to get up. ‘Hey, girl. We don’t have all day.’
He was about to get up and come get me.
I had to get back the sun.
I heard the guy laugh as I ran past him: ‘Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you.’
I pulled too hard at the curtains. A chain of rings clinked and the curtains came down. I crouched in them, hiding. I couldn’t see. The curtains got lifted quickly off me and the sun was back inside. The guy was right there. He had a foot on either side of me, his ankles were at my bathing-suit holes.
‘Stay there, just stay. Shhhhh. It’s okay.’
I was swallowing my breaths.
I felt him way up above me, whispering: ‘Stay there, stay. Stay, just stay ... ’
Sharp wet heat hit my bathing suit. Eyes open, I felt it soak through my hair. Prickles of sun and prickled piss. My forehead fused with the grains of the rug.
‘Yeah, god.’ I heard him saying. He was rubbing himself fast above me now. His cock was fat and humping the air.
Like a bug I found my book and my towel. The guy was talking to himself, hunched over himself, and I ran.
Down the stairs, the wind touched me and people looked. Everything blurred through the streets. I didn’t care. I ran across the sand and into the ocean and dunked my head under. I stayed down scratching and plunging myself like a dog.
LEE: He marked you. That’s what he did. That guy knew he could sniff you out anywhere now.
GAYL: I don’t think you should extrapolate his desires.
LEE: Why? You think he didn’t want to fuck her?
GAYL: Of course he did, he wanted to fuck her.