Age of Consent

by Amanda Brainerd

  “What did you want to show me?” she asked, stepping back.

  David held a finger aloft. “Listen.”

  The trees surrounded them in a colorful ring. A bird trilled somewhere in the forest, peter peter peter. Another answered it. A duet. Grass rustled around her legs like skirts. Peter peter.

  “What is it?”

  “Tufted titmouse. And look. Purple martin.”

  A bird swept past. Then another song, a rapid jumble of rising and falling notes.

  “Doesn’t it sound like ‘If I sees you, I will seize you’?” David said.

  Eve flung herself down on the ground, arms spread. The sky was growing dark, a single star shone above. She gripped a clump of grass and tore it like hair from a scalp. David lay down. There she was, she thought, ripe for the picking.

  “So, are you going to seize me?”

  David looked sideways. “If I could be sure that was what you really wanted.”

  If only I knew, what you alone know,

  If you only knew what you wanted.

  Eve chucked the grass into the night and gazed back at him. I want him, she thought, feeling the warmth of his breath on her cheek. David would take her right here, right now, not the Wanker, never the Wanker.

  “I can wait,” David said.

  A martin arched over her head, forked tail dipping in and out of the tall grass. The birds would soon migrate, fighting wind and weather for warmth and sunshine. How Eve wished she could shrink herself down and, clinging to their bony shoulders, ride home on their beating wings.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered.

  David leaned down and kissed her gently, but briefly. He sat back and stroked her hair.

  Her stomach rumbled. He glanced at his watch. “Shoot. Dinner’s over in twenty minutes.” He jumped to his feet and held out a hand. Reluctantly, Eve let him pull her up and walked beside him across the footbridge toward the dining hall.

  THIRTEEN

  Mr. Winkler opened his door, swirling brandy in a snifter. He was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt and looked casual and young. Which, it occurred to Eve, he actually was. He was barely out of college. Or graduate school, anyway.

  “Greetings,” he murmured. “How was your holiday?”

  “Good, and yours?” Eve said, sick with nerves.

  He did not answer, but beckoned her in and closed the door behind her. She followed him into the living room. “Drink?”

  “What are you serving?”

  “Anything you desire,” he said, his eyes sweeping across her and resting, ultimately, on her face. “At my house you can relax.”

  “Luxe, calme et volupté?”

  “Miss Straus, you amaze me . . .” he said.

  Eve threw her jean jacket on the sofa.

  “Seriously, what can I offer you?” He gestured to a rolling cart full of liquor bottles. So much for tea, she thought.

  “Bourbon.”

  “Neat?”

  “Okay,” Eve replied, having no idea what that meant. She sat on the sofa and swung one leg over the other, hoping she looked confident, like a girl who knew what she wanted. She remembered the brush of David’s lips on hers.

  He poured the caramel liquid into a glass and handed it to her. It burned her tongue, like cotton candy gone wonderfully wrong.

  “So . . .” he said, sitting beside her, “I have a poem I’d like to read you.” He picked a book up from the coffee table and leafed through it. “It’s called ‘The Shark’s Parlor’ by James Dickey. He signed this collection for me. He spoke here last year and made a big impression on—”

  “You’re going to read me poetry instead of discussing my essay?” Eve interrupted, poking his thigh. “What would people say?”

  “They might say I was educating you. But if you aren’t interested in poetry . . .” Mr. Winkler tossed the book back onto the table.

  She looked into his face, which was aglow with excitement. Excitement Eve had caused. Fuck poetry, she thought, he was going to kiss her.

  “Shall I put on some music?” he asked. “Do you like Steely Dan?”

  “Um, got any Bach?”

  He pulled an album from the shelf and set the needle on the vinyl; lugubrious organ music filled the room. It was like being in a cathedral in Europe.

  “Now, if that doesn’t set a serious enough tone for you, Miss Straus, we’re in big trouble.” He sat next to her on the sofa and donned his tortoise reading glasses. They made him look very intellectual.

  God, he was so unlike David, Eve thought. So at ease with girls. Chucking the essay aside, he would have his way with her. Bach would be their soundtrack. It would hurt as he ground her into the sofa, but she would want it to, she was ready. The reading glasses would be crushed beneath their bodies.

  He picked up her essay and flipped open the cover page.

  “Damn, where’s my red pencil?” Mr. Winkler opened a drawer. “The beginning is strong.”

  “At least they taught me how to write a topic sentence at Beaverton.”

  “You never told me you went there. One of my girlfriends at Princeton was a Beaver. Amazing school. Here, this sentence needs some tweaking. . . . Vonnegut meant that ice-nine . . .”

  Mr. Winkler had had a girlfriend? Of course he had. Probably many. It dawned on her that he might even have one now.

  “Are we going to go over this sentence by sentence?” Eve poked his thigh again. He removed his glasses and looked at her. She swirled her drink, trying not to spill. Now she was in for it.

  “I’ve been thinking about you,” he said.

  Should she admit she had been thinking of him too? Surely that would do it. He would pull her to him, his beard tickling her face as he slipped his hand under her shirt and unhooked her bra with an expert hand. It was as inevitable as the birds migrating. But she couldn’t form the words.

  Mr. Winkler picked up her paper and waved it at her. “I’ve been thinking this paper is a C plus.”

  “What?!” Eve exclaimed. Her teacher just looked at her.

  “I’ve never gotten anything less than an A minus in my life!” she protested. “How could it be so bad? Please! Let me revise it, I’m sure I can make it better.”

  “I certainly hope so,” he said. She felt like she was clutching on to the back of a moving train.

  “Tell me what to do,” she asked, her voice unsteady.

  “With your paper?”

  Eve blinked at him. “Could you give me comments and let me do another draft?”

  “Don’t you think I’ve made enough exceptions for you?” He touched her thigh slowly, deliberately.

  She watched his finger, the hairs on his hand, the depression on her jeans that remained.

  “Yes,” she said, her heart thumping, “you have.”

  The clock chimed.

  Eve gulped the bourbon. Her veins were on fire with the stuff.

  “I’ll give you one more chance on the draft.”

  “Thank you, I won’t disappoint you, I promise.”

  “No, I don’t imagine you will. Just don’t look at me with that sad face. It kills me.”

  The mantel clock showed ten minutes until curfew. “I have to go,” she said.

  He nodded, handed her the jean jacket from the back of the sofa. “We’re all set for Saturday. The Mill. Seven p.m.” He smiled his cat grin as she pulled on her coat. “Nighty,” he purred.

  Outside it had started to drizzle, and Eve took off at a run across Elm Street as a car whizzed past, tires hissing on the wet asphalt. The air was cool with mist. Her footsteps echoed in the deserted stone courtyard of the arts center. She was a surrealist painting of a girl running with a wheel.

  She would run forever and never come back.

  Eve reached the footbridge, pounded across, then skidded to a stop, seeing
the dorm mistress, Mrs. Tibbets, checking the clipboard behind the glass door.

  “Thirty seconds, Miss Straus.”

  “Sorry! I was meeting with Mr. Winkler.”

  “Well, you barely made it. Were you stargazing on the way home?” Tibbets asked in a gentle voice as she fingered her turquoise necklace.

  FOURTEEN

  Justine dreaded bumping into Bruce with Christina. She decided to lie low for a few days, avoiding the smoker and eating on Upper campus. She would love to get revenge, but it was probably impossible. Did Bruce tie Christina up and come all over her stomach?

  She also dreaded bumping into Clay.

  On Friday afternoon, after slipping her Cat’s Cradle essay through the mail slot at the Wanker’s, she trudged toward the smoker. She had written the essay in a hurry and it was far from her finest effort.

  It was just above freezing, and cold bit through Justine’s coat. She had only a thin T-shirt on underneath and her cotton pants were far too light for the weather.

  Stanley was there alone.

  “Where’ve you been?”

  “In the city.” As if it happened every weekend, as if she were a maggot herself.

  “I stayed here.”

  Oklahoma was pretty far away. Did Stanley stay for Thanksgiving and Christmas too?

  “How’d you end up here anyway?”

  “It’s a long story, but basically one of my teachers found an ad in a paper for Griswold and encouraged me to apply. It was a miracle.”

  Stanley must also have a full scholarship.

  “Bruce is going out with Christina.”

  “I heard,” Stanley said. Of course, everyone had.

  She had just been the girl he could drag into the janitor’s room, or tie up at a drunken party.

  “Asshole,” she said.

  “Hell hath no fury.”

  “Fuck fury! I’m going to chop his dick off.”

  They sat in silence. Justine watched the paper on her cigarette burn down, the ash tail growing dangerously long.

  “How would you feel if I had a go with him?”

  Justine stared at Stanley. He stared right back. The ash on her cigarette fell to the ground.

  Suddenly it was all so ridiculous that Justine started to laugh, then choked on the smoke. She hacked and coughed until she finally regained her composure.

  “My instincts have had years of fine-tuning,” Stanley said, moving the dial on his boom box to another station. “He’s such a horndog he’ll do it.”

  Should she be offended? Did Stanley know what he did to her at Barbara’s? Justine squinted at him, searching his face. He was absolutely serious.

  Then maybe it hadn’t been her fault after all. Maybe Bruce was just an organ with no brain. She clenched her jaw in disgust.

  A lopsided moon had risen in the sky.

  “He’s such an asshole.”

  “Do I hear foul language?” Eve asked, coming around the corner.

  “Stanley thinks Bruce will get it on with him.”

  “Oh, give me a break!” Eve snorted, pulling out a cigarette. “Talk about wishful thinking!”

  “You’re going to get busted again.” Stanley wagged a long finger.

  Justine suddenly had an image of Clay throwing the shawl over her. She put two fingers on her forehead, trying to press the thought away.

  “I’m one hundred percent correct,” Stanley said.

  “Jesus H. Christ. Why do gay men think everyone else on the planet wants to try it? Bet you ten bucks,” Eve said, holding out her pinkie finger.

  “You know I don’t have any money,” Stanley said.

  Eve offered Justine her pinkie.

  “Broke,” Justine said, holding out the lighter.

  “Oh fine!” Eve said, grabbing it and lighting her cigarette. She inhaled deeply and let out a cloud of smoke, then waved her cigarette in the air. “How’s this? If Stanley can screw Bruce by the end of the year, we each have to eat five of those gross dining-hall sausages.”

  “Nah. He can do better.” Justine said, playing along. “How about, if he succeeds, we both have to dance in the Skeets naked and Stanley can invite anybody he wants to watch?”

  Eve’s jaw dropped open.

  “How would he prove it?” Eve asked.

  Justine thought for a second. “Pubic hair,” she said.

  “The tuft test . . .” Eve said, bursting into giggles.

  It would never happen, but just imagining Bruce bent over and Stanley having his way with him made Justine feel there might be justice in the universe.

  “You’re on,” Stanley was saying. “I’ve always wanted to score with one of the P.E. gods.” He grinned happily. Justine eyed him. He must be bluffing. She couldn’t imagine him scoring with anyone.

  She stood up, tossed her hair, and said, “See you naked in the Skeets.”

  Eve was chewing a thumbnail. She didn’t think Stanley was bluffing. “Will I see you at supper?”

  Justine nodded and headed back to her dorm. The moon gazed down on her. The moon that had seen it all.

  She turned up the Roxy Music on her Walkman and tried to disappear into Bryan Ferry’s lament.

  As she was crossing Elm Street, Justine felt a tap on her shoulder.

  Clay.

  She removed her headphones.

  “Hey,” he panted. “I wanted to see how you were.”

  Had he been running after her?

  “Why?”

  “Uh, you know. The party?”

  She stared at the pavement, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “It’s not like that kind of thing happens all the time,” he said, almost apologetically.

  “No, it just happens to me.”

  “I know how you feel,” he said softly.

  That was impossible. Justine knew it was. And she didn’t want his pity. Or anyone else’s.

  Clay’s breath made clouds in the cold air. He shifted from foot to foot, trying to stay warm. Rubbing his hands together, she noticed the tips of his fingers were blue. “What are you doing tomorrow night?” he asked.

  Saturday night and no plans. Championship tiddlywinks.

  “Come see WarGames.”

  “In town?”

  “No, right there.” He gestured to the arts center.

  “Who with?”

  Clay smiled, cocking his head. “Me! Who did you think?”

  Was he asking her out? She blushed. “Uh no, NO! Yeah, sure. It’s a date. I mean . . .”

  God, she hated her fumbling idiot self.

  “Excellent! I’ll come get you around seven-thirty?”

  “Yeah, great.”

  He touched her shoulder briefly then started to walk away. Justine watched him for a moment.

  “Clay?”

  He turned back.

  “Thanks.”

  Clay shrugged, as if to say this is the way boys act. But they both knew it wasn’t.

  * * *

  • • • • • • •

  Eve tore several blouses and dresses from her closet and threw them on the bed. Thank God Tabitha wasn’t here to ask where she was going.

  Blouse and skirt or dress? She was going to sweat right through anything she wore, she was such a wreck. Eve imagined her unsteady hand as she tried to sip her cocktail, imagined sloshing it down her front.

  At last she chose the vintage teal and black dress with jet buttons. Her mother didn’t let her wear heels, but maybe that was just as well, she’d probably trip. She put on black flats and then, at the last minute, a bit of mascara and lipstick.

  * * *

  —

  The Mill was in an industrial brick building with steel casement windows overlooking the Wormley River. It must have been some kind of real mill at one point,
Eve thought as she climbed out of the taxi. The interior was now a series of small wood-paneled rooms, with gold-framed paintings of fruits and flowers, and brass lamps on the tables.

  “Reservation, mademoiselle?” asked a red-faced man with a roseate nose, behind a chipped oak lectern.

  “Wanker? I mean, Winkler?” she said, her voice shaking.

  The host led her into a warmly lit bar with a mural of a battle on the wall. There he was, sitting casually on a stool, sipping a martini. Only he had shaved off his beard. His denuded chin had a deep cleft, which his facial hair had previously concealed. Eve couldn’t help but gape.

  “Like it?” Mr. Winkler touched his face, stroking the bare skin.

  She nodded mutely. He looked suddenly vulnerable, barely more than a boy.

  “Wow,” he said, eyeing her up and down, “you look beautiful.”

  “Oh, thanks.”

  Eve climbed onto a stool, crossing her ankles. Mr. Winkler’s face was illuminated in the glow of the lamp, his transformation unsettling. Had he done it for her? She felt her cheeks redden. This felt like a date, a real date.

  She glanced away, around the low-ceilinged room, looking to see if anyone she knew was here, anyone who might see her with the Wanker. But there was only one other couple in the bar, a woman with a meringue of white hair with a man in tomato-colored corduroys, sitting at a small table under the battle mural. They both had creamy-looking drinks with umbrellas and pineapple as garnish.

  “What would you like?”

  “Sloe gin fizz, please.”

  He called to the bartender, “Hank! Coke and grenadine for the lady.”

  The bartender glanced at them, then busied himself with the soda gun.

  She gave Mr. Winkler a questioning look.

  “Eve”—he lowered his voice—“at my house you can be any age you like. But in public, you’re sixteen.”

  Fifteen, actually, but she decided not to enlighten him. “Fine by me. I hope he puts in extra cherries.” Eve grabbed some bar nuts and started munching on them, wondering, with a twinge of nerves, if tonight she could—or should—call him Bob.