Indecent

by Corinne Sullivan

  “Did you really give Keith a—” I lowered my voice, “—b-l-o-w…”

  She sighed with an impatience I’d never had directed at me by anyone besides my mom. “This is why I can’t tell you these things.”

  Things? I wondered, what else was I not privy to?

  “You’re immature, Imogene. You make a big deal out of everything.”

  I wondered, were these two faults related?

  Then—the worst part—she put her hand on my shoulder and smiled, pityingly. “Your time will come,” she said, “and when it does, you’ll understand.”

  I wondered, Understand what? What is it that I need to understand?

  * * *

  Dean Harvey called assembly before classes on Monday to announce that our joint theater program with Baylor Academy, Vandenberg’s sister school, would be cancelled until further notice. Rehearsals had just begun for Oklahoma! the Thursday before, but due to “unforeseen circumstances,” we would no longer be collaborating with the girls of Baylor for our productions. We sat in the chapel, and the groans of the boys reverberated up to the ceiling.

  “Good luck trying to get any fags to join theater now,” a second year sitting near me whispered to his friend. I was the only person within earshot, and I wondered if he knew I could hear him or, like the boy who grabbed his friend’s scrotum in the classroom on my first day, he thought of me as someone who could be privy to misbehavior, cool enough to get it.

  “Good luck trying to get laid now,” his friend replied under his breath.

  It wouldn’t be until later that night that Babs would tell me what had happened: a first year was found in the prop closet back stage with his pants around his ankles, a Baylor girl kneeling before him performing—Babs reddened here and leaned in to mouth the words too horrible to speak aloud—oral sex. I felt a mix of pride, for having more sexual experience than Babs—at least I could allude to oral sex without blushing seven shades of pink—and shame, for knowing that a fourteen-year-old girl had done what I had only attempted to do once—with Zeke Maloney in college—before embarrassment forced me to stop after just a minute.

  “What’s the big deal?” Zeke had asked me. “It’s just a dick.”

  It’s only a mountain, I’d thought. I wondered what this girl had thought, what my old friend Stephanie had thought, when they kneeled before that strange, insistent appendage.

  My head ached dully from last night’s wine. The girls didn’t comment on my sudden departure the night before, but the feeling I’d had sitting around the table just hours before had dissipated. Their voices felt too loud, their faces too eager, their gestures fraught and uncoordinated. I could tell ReeAnn had overheard the conversation between the two boys near us as well, and she tried to smile at me conspiringly. I managed a grimace. Even Raj had lost all appeal for me overnight; as soon as he kicked off his shoes and folded his bare feet under himself on the bench, I inched away. It wasn’t that his feet smelled bad; I was repelled by their startling nakedness. (Inappropriate, I thought suddenly. Arrogant.) In doing so, I moved closer to Chapin, who sat with her back flat against the wall, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes blank. I sat back and assumed a similar pose: cool, unperturbed. Then I spotted Adam Kipling.

  He sat in the back row between his redheaded friend Skeat and a tall black guy I’d seen around campus a few times before. Adam’s eyes were closed and his tie loose as he tapped a rhythm with his palms on the back of the bench in front of him. A teacher came by to tap his shoulder and shake her head at him and he assumed a look of appropriate contrition, but as soon as she walked away his drumming continued. He is unembarrassable, I realized in wonder; the embarrassment that he was supposed to have felt as the receiver of scolding seemed entirely absorbed by me, the mere bystander, instead.

  After revealing that Timon of Athens would be the new winter production and tryouts would be held that night, Dean Harvey rang his bell on the pulpit, and the boys were dismissed.

  I watched as Adam Kipling stood and swung his book bag over his shoulder.

  “What are you looking at?” asked ReeAnn, following my line of vision.

  I turned away. “Nothing.”

  Her shoulders slumped almost imperceptibly. I’d disappointed her.

  As I followed her and the other apprentices towards the chapel door, I chanced another look. The tall black guy was telling a story, gesticulating wildly, and Adam Kipling was laughing, his head thrown back and shoulders shaking, looking just like he did in his ID photo. I wished I were closer, so I could hear what his laugh sounded like.

  * * *

  I prepared a ten-minute bit on the history of animal domestication for the end of Dale’s lecture that day. After the disaster that was my first class, I’d been improving day by day; by Thursday of that first week my hands had stopped shaking violently every time I stood at the podium, and by Friday I’d even worked up the nerve to call a few of the boys by name, which seemed to both startle and please them.

  Dale asked to meet with me fifteen minutes before class to go over my lesson, and after assembly, I headed to his classroom and knocked on the door. Through the glass panel I could see him sitting at his desk bent over papers. He raised his head and motioned for me to come in with an eagerly beckoning hand.

  “Imogene! Hello, hello!”

  Dale’s hair was loose around his shoulders, wispy and limp as a toddler’s. His grin was manic as ever, the grin of someone who had just downed a pot of coffee or an amphetamine. I sat in the chair facing his desk and attempted to return a smile of equal enthusiasm.

  “So? How has your first week been?”

  I shrugged one shoulder. “Um. Interesting.”

  He threw back his head and barked a full-bodied laugh. “Interesting. What a wonderful word.”

  “It’s been great, really. Just—”

  “A learning experience.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “A learning experience.”

  He leaned towards me over the desk, propping his chin in his hands. I reflexively backed away; I hated anyone being too close to my face. “I began teaching at Vandenberg nine years ago after I finished my doctorate. And I’m going to tell you the truth, Imogene. These boys, they scared the shit out of me. They’re shrewd, they’re exacting, and given the opportunity, they’re scarily influential. Because we’re not just talking about your average high school guys here. We’re talking about the most well-read, well-bred high school boys out there.”

  I thought of the boys I’d gone to high school with in Lockport, the ones who always had the first pick of players on their kickball team in gym class and of dates for the prom. The ones who doused themselves in Axe body spray and revved the engines of their souped-up secondhand cars in the parking lot for attention. Dale was right; I’d been scared of those boys then, but not one of them would have stood a chance against a Vandenberg boy.

  “Never let them see you falter, Imogene,” Dale continued. “Remember, you’re in control in this classroom. Don’t let them forget it.”

  “I just—” I returned for a moment to the bus, to Duggar Robinson telling me stand, so confident that I would submit. “How do you get them to like you?”

  Dale bobbed his head in his hands, considering. “Yes, being liked is nice, isn’t it? I wasn’t quite the most popular boy in my class back in high school, so it’s definitely nice to be liked. But to be frank, Imogene, it doesn’t matter if you’re well liked here or not.”

  My palms felt sweaty, and I swiped them across my thighs under the desk. I kept myself from saying but it does.

  “What matters is that you’re respected.”

  I nodded, wishing I agreed.

  “Now, let’s see that lesson.”

  After the bell for third period rang, I stood before the class and talked about the earliest known evidence of a domesticated dog, a jawbone found in a cave in Iraq and dated to about 12,000 years ago. I talked about selective breeding, about how the gray wolf evolved into the modern canine. The b
oys seemed interested and asked questions, wondering how man taught the wolf to be submissive, to be subdued, to obey the will of a master. It wasn’t until one of the boys in the back raised his hand and asked (to the delight of his friends) what the men did to the wolves that couldn’t be tamed that I realized the joke—they had made an unspoken agreement that the wolves were women.

  “Gentlemen, please.” Dale made a settle-down motion from his desk.

  I feigned ignorance to the joke. “The tamer wolves were more likely to survive and evolve into dogs,” I admitted. “But, the wolf was also domesticated at a time when humans weren’t very tolerant of carnivorous competitors. Humans were already successful hunters without wolves, and wolves don’t exactly like to share.”

  “So why do we even need them?” the same boy from the back called. His friends snickered.

  “More than likely, it was the wolves that approached humans, not the other way around. The ability of dogs to read human gestures is remarkable, and with this ability, having these protodogs on a hunt gave people an advantage over those who didn’t.”

  “So you’re saying the wolves tamed us,” Dale volunteered. I glanced at him and he winked. I felt faint from gratitude and—perhaps something else?

  I turned back to the class. “Dogs may even have been the catalyst for our civilization.”

  Nobody protested. The bell rang, and as the boys collected their books, I turned towards the chalkboard to hide my grin, feeling as though I had just won something.

  * * *

  Clarence was feeling well enough to watch lacrosse practice that afternoon. He sat next to me on the wooden bench facing the practice field, a white splint taped over the bridge of his nose.

  “How are you doing?” I asked. I felt a little awkward, having not talked to him since depositing him at the hospital, but I knew not to talk to him would only make the situation more uncomfortable.

  “Okay,” he said, his voice dolefully nasal. “The doctor said there shouldn’t be any change in the size or shape of my nose.”

  “That’s good.”

  “My cousin, he broke his nose playing hockey three different times when he was in high school. He never even saw a doctor. He’s got this big bump in his nose now.”

  I searched Clarence’s face for a hint as to what my reaction should be. “Yikes.”

  “I didn’t want a bump in my nose. I’m glad I won’t have one.”

  “You should be. You have a nice nose.”

  Clarence grinned widely and then put a hand to his splint. “Ow.”

  We turned to watch the boys running drills up and down the field. While waiting his turn in line, Duggar stuck his stick between his legs and rhythmically thrust his hips forward, poking Baxter in the back.

  “Coach, Duggar is poking me with his shaft,” Baxter called.

  Larry groaned. “Robinson, stop poking Baxter with your shaft.”

  Clarence took out a notebook and started doodling. I peeked over his shoulder to see what he was drawing. On the page was a massively muscular Mexican luchador poised for a fight, his fists held up in front of his bare chest and his eyes narrowed behind his mask.

  “That’s really good.”

  Clarence jumped and shut the notebook.

  “Whoops, sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s nothing. It’s stupid.”

  We turned back to the field. After a moment, Clarence turned to face me again.

  “His name’s El Músculo. He’s just this character I draw sometimes.”

  “That’s cool. Are there others?”

  Clarence nodded, and he smiled shyly as he flipped through his notebook and showed me a few of the other characters he’d invented. A skinny masked man with a gun slung over each shoulder and a sly grin, a spandex-clad woman with hair that flowed past her waist and enormous breasts. Larry blew his whistle; practice was over.

  “Do you want one?” Clarence asked.

  “Oh, no, that’s—”

  “Here.” Clarence flipped to a finished drawing of El Músculo and ripped out the page, which he then handed to me. “Take it.”

  I held the drawing in my hand. “Thank you.”

  The boys ran off the field to the locker rooms. I turned to slip Clarence’s drawing into my bag and felt someone standing behind me. I turned around to find Duggar, his eyes magnified behind his goggles.

  “Hey, Squeak,” he said, “how about you spend less time flirting with your boyfriend and more time watching the practice?”

  I looked at Clarence. He’d busied himself with packing up his backpack, his eyes unwilling to meet mine. I turned back to Duggar and his bug-eyed stare, feeling like a sample beneath a microscope, his to poke and pick apart and eventually throw away. The thrill of my afternoon victory drained away; before Duggar, I was fourteen again, unsure of myself, unsure of anything.

  * * *

  I waited until a few days after my fourteen birthday party, which Stephanie left early from to hang out with Keith Stern (she’d told me she had a dentist appointment her mom couldn’t reschedule), to confront her. I waited until before gym class, when the locker room was nearly empty, to stand by her gym locker and say, “You’ve changed.”

  “For gym class?” It wasn’t clear whether this was a joke or a communication failure. Stephanie reached up to the top shelf for her sneakers. She’d purposely ordered her gym shirt a size too small, so that when she raised her arms a strip of her stomach showed.

  “I mean, you’re different than the person I used to know.” This was more than likely a line I’d taken from a TV show. Ruth Walter was the only one left in the locker room, and she watched us from the sinks excitedly.

  “Having a boyfriend doesn’t make me different, Imogene.” She squatted to lace up her sneakers.

  I fought an urge to stomp my foot, to slam a locker door, to somehow express the frustration I was feeling with an ineffable blast of sound. “Yes, it does! They change everything!” I knew, by they, I did not mean boyfriends; I meant boys.

  Ruth crept towards the door.

  “I just want things to be like they used to,” I said.

  She shrugged, locked her locker door. “Well, they’re not.” And then, smiling sadly, as though I was Ruth Walter rather than the girl who helped her bury her hamster, “Sorry.”

  But we stayed friends through high school, Stephanie, Jaylen, and me. Even after Stephanie gave Keith Stern a blowjob, even after Jaylen started sneaking vodka into her morning coffee, even after we stopped having Friday night sleepovers and their bedrooms no longer felt as familiar to me as my own. Even after Stephanie and Jaylen got boyfriends and I began spending too much time in front of a magnified mirror, examining my skin.

  What changed was what I then understood: that you could never know what people were capable of, even yourself.

  * * *

  ReeAnn asked me how lacrosse practice had been after I returned to the Hovel, and I immediately thought, she knows. The cartoon drawing from Clarence still sitting in my bag felt like an admission of guilt—though really I had nothing to be guilty of—and I excused myself upstairs to my room, where I folded the picture into a tiny square and slid it into my desk drawer.

  Had I flirted with Clarence? Had I led him to believe that he had a chance with me, that I could become his girlfriend? Was that just Duggar talking, or had Clarence told his teammates his own imagined version of the afternoon in the ambulance? I replayed the scene in my mind. Had I done anything to encourage him? No, the thought was ridiculous. Clarence was a kid, the little brother I’d never had. All I’d wanted was for him to feel less alone.

  I took out the drawing again and smoothed it out on my desk. He’d signed the drawing in the corner of the page with his cramped boyish scrawl. It wasn’t fear of getting into trouble I felt; I was almost sure I wasn’t in the wrong. It was fear of being judged. I’d seen the look in Duggar’s eyes when he’d sneered the word boyfriend. It was disdain, not because I had maybe flirted with a student,
but because I had maybe flirted with someone who wasn’t cool.

  “What’s that?”

  I looked up. Chapin stood in the doorway. Her hair was braided messily down her shoulder, loose pieces framing her fox-like face, and her bitten nails were painted blood red. She nodded towards the cartoon drawing on my desk.

  “Nothing.” I flipped it over, then flipped it back again. “Something one of my students gave me.”

  “Fucking adorable.” She stepped into my room and took the drawing from my desk. She’d never been inside my room before; none of the girls had. I felt intensely aware of the period stain on my sheets and the stretched-out cotton underwear in my drawers, things she couldn’t even see but that I knew were there nevertheless. I was forever surprised by how comfortable the other girls were around one another. The other day, I’d walked into the living room to find Babs clipping her toenails at the coffee table while she watched the news. The Woods twins often peed with the bathroom door open and would ask you how your day was as you walked by, peering out at you from the toilet seat as casually as though they were sitting at the kitchen table. ReeAnn even once left a used sanitary pad spread open on the top of the upstairs bathroom trash barrel (I knew it couldn’t have been Chapin’s, so it must have been hers), her dried blood laid bare. I was so horrified (and so worried that Chapin might think it was mine) that I took the trash out right then, disposing of the evidence.

  Maybe I’d once been this comfortable around Jaylen and Stephanie—we’d fart and burp and change our clothes in front of one another—but that had been years ago, long before I finally revealed to my mother the crusted-over mess of skin hidden beneath my newly-chopped bangs and was sent to therapy, long before I learned the consequence of relinquishing privacy.

  “Who’s Clarence Howell?” Chapin asked, studying the drawing.

  “A third year. He’s on the lacrosse team.” I paused, and then added, “I took him to the hospital after he broke his nose.”

  “El Músculo.” She smiled and set the drawing back on my desk. “Careful, Imogene. Sounds like someone has a crush.”