Maidenhead

‘What?’ I said for the second time.

‘What, what?’ the guy said, mocking me.

‘She’s fucking jailbait, E.’

Then Elijah pushed me against the shut door. It was rough and I got scared. My eyes flew down to his grey cracked-up feet.

‘How old are you?’ he whispered in my face. ‘Say eighteen.’

I heard the woman laughing on the bed. She clutched her gut. Elijah had me trapped. He smelled like smoke and caramel. I felt his eyes on my T-shirt that was too tight across my tits. I stayed as still as I could while he pushed his chest up against me. The woman wouldn’t stop laughing, then coughing. It was wrong, it was like she couldn’t stop her own sounds.

‘Does she need a doctor?’ I whispered. I was so turned on being held there at the door by this guy, but I also felt like I was going to throw up.

‘Get her fucking out of here!’

That woman had bolted up from the bed. She was staggering towards us, breasts eye-like, alive. Elijah peeled himself off me and left me exposed. This woman was two heads taller than me.

‘What the fuck is this, Elijah?’ The woman was angry. Her body gave heat, I felt it, purplish, fluorescent. ‘Why do you like this baby-faced one?’

I knew I stared at her one second too long.

The woman slapped me hard on the cheek.

‘Is she going to wake up or what?’

The woman smiled after she slapped me, like it relieved her of being angry. She walked backwards. I held my face. Wake up? I was shaking. You can’t just slap someone for fucking staring. I hated her. I was not a baby. I was totally awake! I was going to fuck her boyfriend endlessly.

Elijah took me by the shoulders and opened the door.

‘It’s time for you to go now,’ he said.

‘Go? Go where?’ Pain flared in my cheek.

He was forcing me outside. I wanted to push back against him. It wasn’t my fault what he had done, how much he liked me. I didn’t know that he was with her. You can’t just slap someone you don’t know. It wasn’t fair the way that woman, that fucking bitch, came at me. She had to wake the fuck up, not me! I wanted to push back against Elijah and say something right, like: I’m old enough. But I couldn’t let go of my burning cheek. That woman looked like she hated me. She’d hit me so hard.

‘You have to go, angel.’ Elijah was looking at my body.

Angel? I’d dressed up on purpose to be his little bitch.

‘You have to go now, come on. I’ll see you soon.’

‘But we’re leaving tomorrow!’

Elijah shut the door. The wind wrapped tight around my temples. It made the palms shake. I took the one-hundred-dollar bill out of my pocket and I shoved it in under the crack of the door. Open up! I kicked the door. I am old enough, you fucking asshole! I’m not jailbait!

The sun burnt my scalp. I felt my scalp sting.

I thought about going home, I thought about Jen. She always got sex and I didn’t even get near it. I got pissed on by a guy, this beautiful African guy.

I went to that room to have sex with that man.

I didn’t want anyone ever to know I’d been hit.

LEE: Myra, you need to explain why you even wanted to stay with him. That woman was horrible to you, she slapped you, and that guy had no balls to stand up to her and protect you.

GAYL: I was in pain, okay? My man fucked up my work. Serious work. You don’t have any sympathy for that?

LEE: None of that was Myra’s fault.