Maidenhead

e was a security guard sitting on a stool in the corner. He had acne on his cheeks and his hair was slicked back, like an eagle’s crest. In the etching that my mother was standing in front of there were four women, naked, with short dark hair and hanging breasts. They were on the deck of a ship. The card on the wall said: The Wildfire, 1868. Artist Unknown. I was sweating. My thighs rubbed each other under my skirt.

‘Myra, I think I’ve had enough. This is phenomenal. It’s making me feel funny. I’ll wait for you outside.’

My mom’s eyes were all red. I watched her walk quickly out of the room. The security guard watched her too. I thought maybe he was Cuban. Maybe that’s why he worked here. Maybe he told people his story, maybe he knew one of the people who’d drowned seventeen years ago. He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. I thought he was thinking my mom couldn’t take it. I shrugged my shoulders back at him. Then I looked at the very last etching on the wall. It was a child, close-up, with a bloated gut. That security guard’s eyes were too big for his face, he had really thick eyebrows too. The child’s eyes were not sad. The anonymous fucking artist who drew that child’s eyes not sad, but really open, with a criss-crossed reflection of a sail inside, made him actually look happy, or peaceful. That child was beside a bucket of slop, in chains. That child was a slave.

‘They say there are these unmarked graves, like, out at Higgs Beach of these people.’

The security guard was behind me, looking at the picture with me. His breath smelled like bread. I was breathing in time.

‘They do a ceremony out there, every year, where the slaves were buried. An African guy, like, a priest or something, he comes every year special to do that and it’s a big party, like, lots of drumming and music, a fire.’

Maybe this guy liked the way I looked from behind. Maybe he wanted to make love to me too. I wanted to make love to the Tanzanian guy.

‘You wanna meet me there? It’s, like, a big party, we could dance. You look like you like to dance, yeah?’

I turned quickly, shaking my head no and left the room. I knew the guard thought I ran out of that room like my mom.

This time, in the stall of a bathroom that was designed like a boat, I knew exactly what I was doing. I pulled up my skirt and sat down on the toilet. I used both my hands. I was thinking of the security guard out there, outside the door, imagining he was going to come in in a second and call me bitch. Don’t run away, little bitch. Come back, little bitch. He’d have his knees on either side of me and he’d hold the door with his back and hold me in front of the toilet and take down his pants and show me his thing and he’d say Come on, bitch, stay with me, bitch. Bitch was a compliment. That child was a slave. I felt it bigger inside me this time, coming like a parachute opening. I felt it pulsing and rising up even in my throat. Bitch. My mother couldn’t take it. This time I spasmed throughout my whole self.

My family was waiting outside of the museum for me in the sun.

‘Where were you?’ Jeff said. He looked worried. My father had his back turned.

‘Myra, we’re going for lunch now,’ my mom said carefully. ‘Something light.’

Maybe she thought I’d just puked. Adolescent girls like to puke.

‘What do you feel like?’ Jeff asked me, trying to make things better.

‘I don’t care,’ I said.

‘I want a Coke,’ Jody said.

‘Hamburgers okay?’

‘Hot dog,’ I said, thinking about my mouth.

As we walked towards the beach to one of those crappy beachside BBQ shacks, I realized that I was really the only one in my family who could handle looking at those pictures. I saw those slaves for what they really were: people caught in a horror show. Men were now wanting something from me too. Having an orgasm was like this private transmission of what their wanting did to me.

GAYL: I like the way she mixes it all up and pulls it all together. I didn’t get to see that exhibition. But, you know, it sets a nice tone for our abject adventure.

LEE: You’re so critical. You’re being mocking, right?

GAYL: No. It’s for real.

LEE: I don’t believe you.

GAYL: A smart female has got to be critical, you better believe that.

LEE: I do. I believe that. But you don’t have to be a bitch.

GAYL: Why not? Bitches are the best.

§

By day five of our vacation, I was masturbating every time I went to pee. By day five of our vacation I was always wet. I felt it walking and sitting down too. I felt it the very first thing in the ­morning. On day five of our vacation, I knew I had to go back to his room.

I walked through the same alley where I’d walked with him last. I promised myself I was going to stay there this time. I was going to stay there this time and lie down on his bed. I was going to stay so he could take off my clothes. I didn’t know what he’d think of me naked, without my bathing suit. Come back, little bitch. The only person who’d ever touched my breasts was the woman who’d fitted me for my first bra and she had scolded me for not coming sooner. She’d picked up my breasts and then kind of let them go roughly. She said to my mother outside the change room: ‘Her breasts are going to sag. You should’ve come sooner.’ I thought that that guy would suck my breasts. Masturbating felt amazing. I mean, why would someone be afraid of sex? Sex was going to feel amazing. Sex was going to blow my mind. Sex with that guy was going to make me want it more and more and more and more.