Skin

by Napoli, Donna Jo

  I’m so glad to be in his arms. I lift my face to his and we kiss. “You smell like cinnamon.”

  “Sweet potato pie.”

  “Don’t tell me you cooked your arch.”

  “New sweet potatoes. Mrs. Spinelli actually liked the idea of building models out of sweet potatoes. No harm to the environment and all that. Turns out she hates Styrofoam. So she said she’d give extra credit from now on to anyone who does projects with biodegradable materials. And she brought in a recipe this morning for sweet potato pie and told us all to try it, so we can see how great the aftermath of a sweet-potato project could be. She’s, I don’t know…”

  “Eccentric?”

  “I was going to say whack.”

  “And you tried the recipe?”

  “My mother did.”

  “You asked her to?”

  “Well, yeah. I couldn’t help it. Mrs. Spinelli named the recipe Joshua’s Sweet P Pie—I mean, what could I do?”

  I don’t really care about recipes right now. My hands are shaking. It’s time time time. I kiss Joshua hard. My hands slide up into his curly hair and hold his head fast.

  He makes a contented, muffly sound. “What’s so urgent that it couldn’t wait for lunch tomorrow?”

  “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  “Of course I am. I’m just kind of behind in physics. But I’d rather be with you any day. What’s up?”

  I loop my fingers over his belt and pull him into the gazebo.

  “Good start,” he breathes.

  I undo his belt.

  His hands are on my upper arms. He’s breathing so deeply I can feel his belly move in and out against my hand. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “You can tell me if I do it wrong.”

  He gives a small laugh. “That isn’t what I meant.” His lips make a little noise, like he just gulped. “Have you thought about this?”

  Have I thought about anything else? I unzip him.

  “We, uh, we’re going pretty fast, Sep. It’s only been a little while since we started talking to each other again.”

  “It’s been weeks.”

  “Two. Two weeks. I’ve kept track. That’s not much, Sep. What’s the rush?”

  “Do you want us to stop?”

  “No. That’s not what I mean.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask.

  “I’m sure. But are you? Are you sure, Sep?”

  I pull down his trousers.

  He makes that gulping noise again. “Good answer.” His voice is husky.

  I push him lightly so he drops onto the curving bench on this side of the round table. I get on my knees and push his legs further apart and insert myself between them and fondle him through the cloth. He breathes so hard, I sense his whole torso rise and fall. I pull down on his boxers and he lifts his butt just enough so that I can get them down past his knees.

  He lets out a half grunt.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “No. It’s good.” He reaches down to a pocket and pulls out something.

  I’m clumsy. I have to try to go slow—careful. But all I can think about is how hard he is. And how silky soft the skin on the tip is. I brush my cheek against it.

  He makes a noise as though he’s having trouble catching his breath. I love that I can do that to him.

  I can’t stop. I can’t think. It’s like my whole body has become my cheeks and lips and tongue.

  Almost instantly, he clamps a handkerchief over himself and groans. He jams the handkerchief back in his pocket, and stands, drawing me up with him. He pulls up his boxers and trousers, and buckles his belt. And I’m still panting, still inside that other place, that other feeling. He kisses me. “I didn’t expect that.” His voice is so quiet I can hardly hear it.

  “Mmm,” I manage. I try to slow my heart. “I could tell. Do you always have a handkerchief in your pocket?”

  “Actually, yes. You never know when it will come in handy.” He laughs.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Masturbation.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I’m just not quite, you know, thinking straight yet.”

  “You’re amazing,” he says.

  “I’m glad you liked it.”

  “I loved it. Your turn now.”

  “What?”

  “Your sex manual didn’t explain turn taking?”

  “I don’t have a sex manual.”

  “Then that truly was amazing. You’re a natural. So relax now, and let me take over. Let it happen naturally.” He unsnaps my jeans and opens the zipper and pulls my pants all the way off, yanking them over my sneakers.

  And now I’m glad it’s too dark to see.

  It’s a warm enough night, but still I get goose bumps. “I don’t take anything. You know, like birth control pills.”

  “What we’re going to do can’t make you pregnant.”

  Well, of course not. He has his jeans on. What a dumb thing I said.

  He pulls off my panties.

  I’m standing with the bottom half of me naked in my neighbors’ gazebo. Or naked except for my shoes and socks.

  He kneels in front of me and runs his hands up and down my legs. They go over that ghost of a spot on the inside of my right thigh. The newest spot, and the biggest one yet. It’s still faint, barely there, so it might not even be a spot—it might just be my fears. But so far all my fears have come true. His hands touch it and keep moving. His eyes don’t see. Thank you, clouds. Thank you, thank you.

  His hands go everywhere, till I’m wobbling so bad I think I’ll fall.

  He pulls me down beside him on the floor of the gazebo and stretches out on his back. “Straddle my face.”

  “What?”

  “Just do it. One knee on either side of my head. Just do it.”

  “Facing which way?”

  He laughs. “Facing the top of my head.”

  I straddle him and he pushes my knees out, till I’m low enough. He kisses the inside of one thigh, then the other. So soft it’s like the best dream. Then his tongue flicks. Zap, like an electric shock. I jerk upward, rigid and more alive than I’ve ever been. He pulls me down again and holds me tight. And I implode, I explode, I fly apart, my head is twirling and I’m moving so fast, on and on and on, till it finally ebbs. And ends.

  I slip my hand over his mouth to make him stop, and I collapse beside him.

  He kisses my hand. Then my lips. “You’re a wonder.”

  “I had an orgasm,” I say between pants. “I came. I really came.”

  “Yeah.” He laughs. “I could tell.”

  I like the way he does that. The way he takes words and turns them back on me. It’s just a little thing, but right now it seems huge, earth-shattering. “I never came before.”

  “I wouldn’t have known it.”

  “If that had lasted one more second, I think I would have vaporized.”

  “That’s what it sounded like. I was afraid you’d wake the whole neighborhood.”

  I’m surprised and a bit chagrined. “Was I noisy?”

  He laughs again. “Didn’t you know? Yes. Yes, Sep, you were noisy. Very noisy.”

  “Oh.”

  “I loved it. And I love the little purring noises you make when we kiss.”

  “Do I make purring noises when we kiss?”

  “Yes.”

  “You groaned. And I loved that, too.”

  “Well, good, ’cause you’re stuck with me now.” His teeth gleam white in that terrific smile of his.

  And suddenly I realize I can see him! Oh no, the lights are on in the Weisskopfs’ house. Someone’s coming out the back door with a flashlight. Mr. Weisskopf! I stand and the light centers on my crotch.

  I put my hands over my face. “Run,” I say. “Run home.”

  I grab my jeans and feel around for my panties and give up and dash straight for my back door.

  I lock it behind me and pull on my jeans. Then I tiptoe up the stairs as fast as I can and jump in bed.

 
I’m such an idiot. I should have run down the block and come back later, after Mr. Weisskopf went back inside. Now he knows it was me.

  And he has my panties, to prove it.

  Only how could I run down the block with no bottoms on?

  I wait for the doorbell to ring. Or the phone.

  I imagine Mamma’s face when she gets the news. And Dad’s. And Dante’s.

  I stare through the dark at the ceiling.

  Nothing happens.

  I think of bewildered Mr. Weisskopf, his flashlight illuminating the triangle of my pubic hair in his backyard gazebo. I pull the pillow over my mouth and laugh.

  I did it. Even though I doubt Ms. Martin meant anything like this when she encouraged me to be a warrior, I feel the triumph of a warrior. It doesn’t matter that I started off awkward, I stood up for myself. I was brave.

  And I made Joshua happy.

  Vitiligo hasn’t stopped me. Yet.

  A SMALL PAPER BAG drops on the table in front of me. It’s crumpled. I look up.

  Joshua’s smiling. “Any repercussions?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Maybe there won’t be. Look in the bag.”

  I reach my hand in.

  “No!” Joshua leans over. “Don’t take it out. Just look inside.”

  And there are my panties.

  “Thanks.” I smile up at him. “But repercussions will follow. Mr. Weisskopf must have seen me go in my back door.”

  “Maybe not. I ran around a tree a couple of times, dangling your panties in my hand like a flag. I think he was so confused by that, he kept his eyes on me.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  I laugh.

  Joshua laughs, too, and he’s shaking his head. “He flashed that light and you covered your face instead of your crotch.”

  “In my neighborhood we don’t recognize each other by our crotches, Joshua.”

  He laughs harder. “I can still see the whole scene.”

  “Sit down, you big goof. People are looking at us.”

  He sobers up. “I can’t. The team’s having lunch together again. Most of us, anyway. Coach might actually cancel practice because the rain’s so hard. I’ll talk to you tonight?”

  I nod.

  He pulls a plastic container out of his pack and a little plastic fork and sets it on the table.

  “What’s this?”

  “I saved you some. But I wasn’t real careful, so maybe it got jumbled up. Still, it should taste good. The recipe’s in the bag with the panties.” He takes a step backward and turns, and I miss him already. But then he spins on his heel and comes back and stands in front of me again. He taps his temple and he’s grinning like a madman, like he’s so full of whatever it is he has to say that he’s about to burst.

  I grin back. “What?”

  “You’re in my head. Always.”

  And he’s gone.

  I open the plastic container. There’s a mashed piece of sweet potato pie. Joshua’s Sweet-P Pie. I eat it slowly, even though I haven’t yet touched my sandwich.

  There is something corny about Joshua Winer. Corny and wonderful. It makes me feel corny. Like I’ll blurt out that I love him or something.

  A spasm of cold fear shoots up my spine.

  I have a boyfriend. I used to tell myself I was in no hurry for romance. There was plenty of time for that later, when I was older. Then vitiligo changed the clock on me. And here I am. And it’s all so unutterably dangerous, this romance thing.

  But so is crossing the street. If there’s a drunk driver around.

  And so is eating produce in a restaurant. If they haven’t cleaned it properly.

  The memory of a little boy named James hits me like a granite slab. When I was in nursery school, James fell off the swing and broke his neck. Died—from such an everyday thing—swinging on a playground swing.

  Life is dangerous.

  But we have to live it. Right? Sex, like crossing the street, like swinging, is part of living. We have to take our chances.

  The only question is when.

  And, oh my God, my body sure is telling me that when is now.

  Sex doesn’t seem dangerous around Joshua.

  Love does.

  That’s why I’m shivering now.

  What if I love Joshua and then he walks away? He could. Boys have eyes. Every time Joshua says I’m beautiful, he reminds me of that.

  I jam the bag of panties into my pocket and put the plastic container and fork in my lunch bag. Forget my sandwich. I’m off to the library.

  And there they all are, nine hundred articles about love.

  How do lovers act? Do they stick together or not?

  I skip around various sites for a long time. If love can be measured in terms of lifelong pairings, the Kingdom Animalia is stingy on love.

  The whole Phylum Arthropoda, insects and crawly stuff, seems crazy. I mean, look at praying mantises. The male mates for up to six hours (oh my God), then flies away unless the female bites off his head first. I doubt male mantises have any idea of the chance they’re taking, but if they do, that’s as close to devotion as insects get.

  This is significant. There are zillions of insects. If you had a giant balance scale and put all the insects on one side and all the vertebrates and mollusks on the other, the insects would outweigh them. Even including elephants and whales.

  So you might figure that what insects do is the general rule for animals. And since there is no love outside the Kingdom Animalia (you don’t see affection in trees or sponges), you could say generalizations about insects show how the world works.

  On the other hand, people aren’t insects.

  What really matters, at least to me, is what members of the Phylum Chordata, the vertebrates, do. Humans’ phylum. Joshua’s phylum.

  Like fish. The male anglerfish attaches onto a female and his body grows together with hers. He withers and becomes nothing but a source of sperm. I could do without that kind of devotion. I want a whole lot more from Joshua than just sperm.

  Seahorses—some choose a mate for life. Some are serially monogamous—with a different mate each breeding season. And some take mates any old time, blithely.

  Birds seem haphazard. Flamingoes mate for life, ducks for a season, and most others have lots of trysts. Even those who take a mate for a season fool around, so that clutches contain eggs fertilized by several males.

  Mammals seem random, too. Any male hamster will jump on any female hamster. But gerbils, their genetic cousins, form pairs or triads for life.

  And, oh my God, bonobos, their promiscuity is amazing—they’re gleefully sexual with everyone—males with males, and females with females, and males with females—a great big orgy.

  Maybe only three percent of mammals mate for life. And humans aren’t among them. I rub my hands to warm them up, but it doesn’t help because I’m feeling cold all over.

  I have to think straight. Mating for life isn’t the same as loving. It can’t be, or humans wouldn’t have any idea of what love is. But we do. Just look at poetry, novels, movies, plays, songs.

  Hey, so many of them are about unrequited love. Or breakups.

  So maybe I have found what I was looking for, after all—the big answer. Chances are, if I fall in love with Joshua, he will leave me. That’s what happens.

  And it’ll happen regardless of vitiligo. Even if he never finds out, he’ll leave me. Joshua Winer will walk out of my life sooner or later. And given that we’re only sixteen, probably sooner.

  So do I let myself love him or not? If I have any control over it, that is.

  The question: Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?

  I think of Joshua’s finger tapping his temple. His words: “You’re in my head. Always.”

  Then I laugh. The answer is so obvious.

  Yes, Mr. Tennyson. Damn straight it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

  IT’S A TOE DAY. Ms. M
artin is talking about connections between our toes and our arches. She says when we make those connections, we’ll have intelligent feet. And this morning Mr. Dupris told us that flamingoes walk on their tiptoes. He sang “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” Everyone groaned, but he wasn’t half-bad. Anyway, it’s true. What we think are flamingoes’ knees, bending backward, are really ankles. Their knees are hidden under their feathers. And what we think are their feet are really their toes. It turns out tons of animals go on tiptoe. Even elephants.

  Now I mimic Ms. Martin in stance. I imagine that a giant hook from the sky is connected by a filament to the center of the top of my skull, and the rest of me falls downward, weighted equally around my long, straight spine. I am one tall Homo sapiens on intelligent feet.

  “Sit now. Sit in Baddha Konasana.”

  We all drop to sitting and look around to see who remembers what pose that is.

  “Bottoms of your feet together. Sit tall, with your hands holding your feet and let your knees open to the sides in an act of compassion.”

  Someone whispers, “What guy paid her to say that?”

  People giggle. But I’m listening closely.

  “On an exhalation, relax your eyes and let gratitude allow your top eyelid to meet your bottom lid.”

  Compassion and gratitude. Who am I showing compassion to when I open my knees? Someone else, or myself?

  Owen said the point of yoga is to still the drunken poisoned monkey inside us. Maybe he’s right; maybe the monkey is easing up a bit. I feel almost calm. I’m focusing on the present. Specifically, on this pose. That was Mamma’s advice. That’s what Ms. Martin always says. The present.

  I can sense a change in the room, but I don’t know what it is.

  As if by some secret cue, Melanie and Becca stand up and go to the closet where the CD player is. Everyone opens their eyes at the noise and drops into a more relaxed position, which I find strange, since nothing could be more natural for the body than the pose we were already in.

  We all get to our feet and Ms. Martin retreats to a chair at the side of the gym.

  The music comes on and Becca’s at the front and we all just do what she does. It’s a singer today, with a honeyed voice. I bet the name of the song is “Afro Blue” because that’s in the refrain. It’s sad and sexy at the same time.