The Second Home

by Christina Clancy

  Anthony quickened his crawl and swam toward her. He was a strong swimmer. When he got close enough he went underwater and circled her. She knew his eyes were open. She could feel him watching, the water clean and clear in the moonlight.

  He surfaced and moaned. “Good Lord. You’re naked. Oh, Ann. You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”

  Anthony put his arms around her from behind. His hands were on her breasts. She could feel his beard in the crook of her neck and the soft hair of his chest on her back. The water wasn’t deep. She leaned against him and put her feet down, shocked and grateful for the solidity of his body and the earth. Ann was turned on, but she was also scared and struck by the wrongness of what she was doing, a wrongness that was dulled by the alcohol. Was this even real?

  She knew it was when he moved one hand down to her crotch and rubbed it with his fingers, slowly, deftly. Ann could tell this was a part of a woman’s body he knew well. Desire began to erode her fear. This was natural, right? It was what people did all the time. Half of her friends had already lost their virginity, and they lost it to dorks who didn’t know what they were doing. Anthony was a man. He had children. She was almost eighteen, after all. She was old enough.

  She turned around and slid against him, pressing her mouth against his, delighting in the sensation of his soft whiskers against her face. Then his tongue darted into her mouth again. He tasted like garlic and wine, while Michael’s kiss—why was she thinking about Michael? He’d tasted sweet and fresh.

  She ran her fingers through his hair, because that’s what lovers did in the movies. His hair looked like it would be coarse but it was wonderfully soft. She thought this was a show of tenderness, but she hardly knew him. He pulled her hand away—was she doing something wrong?—and moved it to his penis, thick and hard. She held it and marveled at how solid it was. It turned her on to feel him, but what was she supposed to do? She just held it the way she might hold a softball bat while waiting for the pitcher to toss the ball.

  “Like this,” he said, and he put his hand over hers. Then he moaned. The sound was so animalistic, so loud, it broke her out of her spell. She looked at the beach to be sure nobody was there, but then again, she wished someone would show up. She wasn’t turned on anymore. She felt sick, sick! How could she do this in the pond her parents took her to? She imagined Maureen standing on the shore in her pink dress, her hands on her hips, watching …

  He grabbed her by the hand and led her to the private nook where their clothes waited. The sight of her shirt hanging in the tree made her want to put it on. The air felt cold against her damp skin. Her legs shook. She looked around in the trees hoping someone would show up and interrupt them, give them a reason to flee.

  She stopped, suddenly sober and scared. “I need to go home.”

  Home, home. She’d never wanted to be home so badly, never even understood what home meant to her until that moment.

  “No, this is where it’s at.” He picked her up like she weighed less than a sack of flour and set her down on the sand. It felt cold, hard and damp. He knelt over her and stared at her breasts. He dragged his fingertip down her breastbone, down her hard stomach, and let his hand rest over the soft patch of pubic hair. She had so much she wanted to say but she didn’t have the words. “We can’t go. It would be like waking up from the best dream ever.”

  “But you’re—” He put his hand over her mouth. “I’m—”

  He hovered over her with his elbows next to her ears, pinning her down. She could feel the damp warmness of his skin, smell his musk. He reached between her legs and with two fingers he made a part. His finger dashed inside. “Oh Jesus, you’re dripping. See? You want this.”

  “I didn’t mean to lead you on. I’m sorry. Please. Maureen wouldn’t want us to—”

  “Shhh, don’t worry about her. We haven’t touched each other in months.”

  “But I don’t want this.” She thought of what she’d learned in health class. They made it seem easy to make good choices, easy to say no, like declining the green beans when they are passed to you at the dinner table. Her gym teacher never told her about situations like this. His rubbing became more insistent. “No. Please, stop.” She tried to twist away from him, but he was stronger than she was. She should have listened to Michael when he’d warned her about him.

  “Why are you acting this way? Don’t deny yourself pleasure.”

  “I don’t want it. Let’s go, can we—”

  He put his hand over her mouth. “Don’t ruin this.” She bit his fingers. “Stop!”

  But it was too late. He pushed himself inside her, so far inside she ceased to exist. She was nothing but that deep feeling of hurt. She cried out in pain but he was oblivious to her discomfort. She swore she was being split apart. He pressed her shoulders down with his hands so she was pinned to the beach.

  “Stop! Don’t.”

  “Oh, good Lord. Oh man. I … can’t.”

  His lips covered hers and his tongue, like a giant sock, filled her mouth. Tears dripped down the side of her face. His movement became more hurried and urgent until suddenly he let her loose and shuddered.

  The entire weight of his body came to rest on top of hers. He was heavy, hot, suffocating. She could see beads of sweat on his back. He rolled off to the side and ran his hand over her hip, a gesture that would have seemed erotic a few minutes ago but now she thought he did it to show that he owned her. She’d seen him touch things around the house like that, like he couldn’t believe his good fortune.

  “You shouldn’t have done that.” She was surprised to hear her own voice.

  “Your skin is like velvet.”

  “I asked you to stop,” she whispered.

  “Oh come on, you wanted it too.”

  “No.”

  “This is disappointing. I didn’t take you for a tease, Ann. Do you tease that ‘brother’ of yours the same way you tease me?”

  A tease? That brother? She was drunk and sober at the same time, trying to untangle his words from what just went on between them, trying to figure out what she was supposed to think and do, trying not to feel the burning of residual heat, the grit of sand and ache of pain in her crotch, the guilt for being so stupid, for getting in over her head, for betraying Maureen, for betraying Michael.

  She thought that when she finally had sex it would open up something, reveal a new world; it did, but she didn’t like this new world she was in. She felt dirty and guilty. Sad in a way she’d never before been sad.

  “I was a virgin.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  Anthony stood up and went back into the pond to rinse off. When he got out, he shook his head like a dog to get the water out of his thick hair. She could see red dots like zits on his ass and a giant mole on his back. She rolled herself into a ball and stared at the roots of the oak tree that stuck up above the soil, wishing Anthony would just go away, and that she could rewind the evening, do everything differently.

  “You gave me every reason to believe you wanted the same thing I did. It was fun. It was hot.”

  “I didn’t want that.”

  “Really? I didn’t undress you.” His tone was warmer. “You kissed me back. Gave me all the signals. That’s what I’ll say if anyone asks.”

  Ann thought about other people finding out what had just gone on. No, no. She’d never tell anyone. She couldn’t.

  “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “You’re a piece of work, you know that? You don’t know what you want.”

  He was right; she was. She didn’t. She dressed in silence, her fingers shaking, a cry or a scream pounding wordlessly inside her.

  “Let’s go,” he said. He sounded irritated. This was the impatient voice she’d heard him use with the boys. Just fifteen minutes ago, she’d felt herself a woman. Now she was a child again.

  She took one last look at the pond and saw that house, the lights off now, dark. She knew it wasn’t just her virginity she’d lost; the pond would nev
er be the same place for her ever again. She felt like a part of her drowned in that pond.

  He led her back to the beach and up the long, sandy path to the parking lot. It was all a blur through her teary eyes. When she walked this trail with her dad he always walked behind her to make sure her footing was safe with all the tree roots and loose branches. Anthony didn’t care that she could trip and that her legs were shaking—her whole body shook. She’d felt this way after her friend’s car had been rear-ended at a stoplight and Ann was the passenger. At first, she was fine. Then she shook and shook.

  Anthony walked ahead, twirling the key ring to the Jeep around his finger.

  He turned on the engine and looked straight ahead at the forest of pine trees. Ann expected him to back up right away, because he was always moving from one thing to the next. Instead he put his hand over hers. “Let’s forget this ever happened.”

  She yanked her hand away. She was sore and tingling and damp and filled with confusion. Forget it ever happened? Easy for him to say. He could forget. She would never forget this.

  Anthony returned his hand to the wheel and threw the Jeep into reverse. She thought she might throw up with every bump on the long dirt road. When he got to her house, he didn’t drive up the driveway but stopped right on Route 6. “Good night.” He looked straight ahead.

  She wanted to get out of the car and get away from him, but her body had grown stiff. She couldn’t move.

  “Look, you say one thing and do another. How am I supposed to know what you want?”

  She stepped one foot out of the Jeep, but before she got out, he set his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it—hard.

  “Don’t you dare mention this. I mean it. Not to your sister, not that kid Michael, not your best friend, not your parents. Nobody.”

  These were so many words, like mosquitoes swarming in her ears. She didn’t want to hear his voice anymore, didn’t care what he had to say.

  “You can do that, right? Keep a secret?”

  Ann didn’t say anything.

  “Because if you tell anyone about this, I’ll deny it. Life is simple for you. But it’s not simple for me. You saw that tonight. One word about this and you have no idea what kind of shit will rain down on you. Besides, just think of what people would say if they knew you seduced me.”

  “I seduced you?”

  He tapped his wedding ring against the steering wheel with every word. “We wouldn’t want to hurt Maureen. You saw how unstable she is. Her problems are deeper than you know. If she heard about this, it would push her over the edge. You wouldn’t want to do that, would you?”

  She couldn’t even think about Maureen.

  Anthony opened the wallet he’d left on the dash and pulled out some hundred-dollar bills. “Here.” He pushed the bills under her nose. “Consider it severance. We won’t need your services anymore.”

  “I wouldn’t ever come back anyway.”

  “Take it. Do whatever the fuck you want with it.”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “I know how you work. You say you don’t want what you want. Everyone wants money.”

  “No.”

  “Take it.”

  “No!” The emotion she felt was outsized for her body. “I’m not a … a prostitute.” She moved to step out.

  “Remember.” His voice was low, menacing. “Not one single word. You have no idea what I’m capable of, what I could do to you and your family. Where I come from, we take care of business the old-fashioned way. Understand?”

  “You’re such an asshole.”

  “Just take it.” He thrust the money at her again.

  “You think paying me will make you feel better? I told you, I don’t want your damn money.”

  “You’re fucked up.”

  “I’m fucked up? I’m your kids’ babysitter.”

  She jumped down from the Jeep and fell by the road. She saw him throw the bills out of the window and speed away on Route 6. She thought about picking up the money, but no: that money was dirty.

  She ran toward the house. Through the window she could see the unfinished jigsaw puzzle her parents had been working on all summer. She couldn’t go in there, not with a wad of underwear in her pocket and her face blotchy from tears. She walked past the barn, past the hammock that hung between the two big spruce pines, and went down the path to the cove, lit by the blue light of the moon. She wished she could walk out into the quicksand and disappear. It was low tide. She could.

  Instead, she turned around and looked back at the old house. There was light coming from Michael’s room in the attic. He was probably reading in order to impress her mother, who took him to the Wellfleet library twice a week and forced all the books on him that she thought would complete his childhood, the same books Poppy and Ann had read years ago—old Edward Eager books like Half Magic and Magic by the Lake; the Chronicles of Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, The Prophet.

  She walked inside. The living room was quiet and still. She could hear the whirring of old metal fans in the bedrooms, fans that were so loud they allowed her to arrive home without waking up her parents. She stood there for a minute, staring at the grooves her parents’ bodies had worn into the couch, the age spots on the mirror on the wall by the porch, the ancient needlepoint pillow on the rocking chair. It was a space she knew so well, but now the house seemed small to her, different, the same way her body felt different.

  The door to the bedroom she shared with Poppy was open. Poppy wasn’t home, and it was late. Where was she? Ann desperately wanted Poppy to be there. She missed the way they used to play go fish and war, missed fighting with her about things that didn’t matter, missed looking through magazines together and talking with her about their futures—the jobs they’d have, the perfect men they’d marry, the children they’d name Austen, Reed, Rowan, Emily, Nicole. She wanted to confide in Poppy, but even if she’d been home, Ann wasn’t sure she would have been able to tell her about what had happened with Anthony. For the first time in her life, she had a secret that was too big to share.

  She couldn’t stand the smell of Anthony on her skin, the taste of his tongue lingering in her mouth. She went to the outdoor shower and made herself vomit. She brushed her teeth and soaped herself, then stood under the stream of water until the heat ran out. She wrapped herself in a towel, still feeling dirty from what she couldn’t wash away. She thought about going back into her bedroom, but she couldn’t stand the idea of being alone. There were two stairwells to the attic, one by the living room and another on the front side of the house behind the big fireplace. If she went up the steps by the fireplace her parents wouldn’t hear, so she lifted the metal thumb latch and crept up the narrow stairs.

  Michael was surprised to see her. He sat up in his bed, his chest bare and hairless the way a young man’s chest should be. It was nothing like Anthony’s.

  “Ann? What are you doing up here?”

  “Can I just lie with you?”

  “No way. Your parents.”

  “I don’t want to be alone. Please, Michael? You’re the only person I want to see right now. You don’t know how much you mean to me.”

  He scooted over to one side of his twin bed. She rolled in next to him, grateful he was there. Maybe this was why she pushed so hard for her parents to adopt him; she knew she’d need him. He put his hand on her bare shoulder and she pulled away.

  “You OK? What happened?”

  “Can we not talk?” She turned out the light so he wouldn’t see her weep.

  “Is this about the other day? I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

  “Just shut up. Please?”

  “It isn’t a good idea for you to be up here.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Ann closed her eyes and listened to Michael’s steady breathing. She longed to go back to a place that no longer existed, to a feeling she could never capture again.

  * * *

  A FEW HOURS LATER SHE WOKE to the sound of the door slamming and Popp
y laughing maniacally. “Two hundred dollars! I found two hundred dollars cash right at the base of our driveway! Kurt Cobain left it for me. He’s alive, you know. He’s in Wellfleet!”

  “Poppy,” Ann’s mom said, “you’re high. What are you on?”

  “I’m on life! Check it out, Mama! Two hundred bucks! I mean, it was just right there. The walls, the walls. Can you see them move? Did you know they did that? They’re talking.”

  “Where were you? Who were you with? Where’s your sister?”

  The next thing Ann heard was her dad’s feet clomping up the narrow attic steps. “Michael, have you seen Ann? I don’t think she came home and Poppy’s—”

  Her father stood at the foot of Michael’s bed looking at Ann’s bare shoulder peeking out from under the sheet.

  “No.”

  “It’s not how it looks,” Michael said, sitting up abruptly.

  “No!” Ann’s father bent over and held his stomach. “What happened?” he asked, his pain visible. “First Poppy, now this. What the hell happened to my family this summer?”

  Her mother limped up the stairs and stood behind him, her hair wild from sleep. Ann wanted so badly to collapse into her mother’s arms at that moment.

  “Oh, Ann,” she said. Ann was used to hearing the disappointment in her mother’s voice directed at her. Usually she could deflect it, because it was because of something minor. This time it hurt. This time she wanted to push back and tell her mother that she was good. She was. Or at least, she used to be.

  “Pack your stuff,” her father said.

  “I didn’t do anything, I swear,” Michael said.

  “Pack your stuff! All of you!”

  Ann saw panic in Michael’s eyes, and she felt sorry for him in a way she hadn’t before. He’d wanted so badly to fit into her family. This was all her fault.

  “He’s telling the truth, Dad.”