The First Time

by Joy Fielding

  “Oh.” Teddy shrugged. “Cool.”

  “It’s a print.” How could he mistake a print for an actual painting? How could she give herself to someone who couldn’t tell the difference?

  “Cool,” he said again, plopping down in the center of the bed.

  Was that all he ever said? Kim wondered, standing in the middle of the room. True, he wasn’t the smartest boy in the school, but he wasn’t the dumbest either. Think positive, Kim admonished herself. Don’t dwell on the negative. Think about all the things you like about Teddy—his chocolate brown eyes, the dimples in his cheeks when he smiles, his tight lean body, his long tapering fingers, the way he kisses, the way his hands feel on your breasts. Let someone else love him for his mind, Kim thought, as Teddy patted the space beside him on the bed, beckoning her over. Wasn’t it enough that he was older, more experienced, that he’d selected her over any of the other girls he could have chosen? Wasn’t it enough that she was the envy of all her friends?

  Except they weren’t her friends. Not really. Caroline Smith, Annie Turofsky, Jodi Bates—they only liked her because Teddy liked her. They’d dump her like a hot potato as soon as Teddy did. No, the truth was she didn’t have any close friends. The truth was that her mother had always been her best friend. You and me against the world, her mother used to sing to her when she was a little girl. What would happen to her when her mother deserted her? Who would she be able to turn to then? Her father?

  “Your father’s such a hunk,” Jodi had all but swooned after he’d picked her up at school one day.

  “I wouldn’t mind a shot at him,” Caroline volunteered with a rude laugh.

  Go for it, Kim had been tempted to say, but didn’t. Caroline had a way of getting the things she went after, and the last thing Kim needed was Caroline Smith for a stepmother. Kim groaned. Was there no limit to the baseness of her thoughts? Her mother wasn’t even dead yet, and already she was thinking of her replacement.

  “Aren’t you going to join me?” Teddy was asking, looking at Kim expectantly.

  Pushing thoughts of her mother roughly aside, Kim approached the bed, pulling her white turtleneck over her head as she walked, letting it fall to the floor.

  “Wow,” Teddy said, as she unhooked her plain white bra and tossed it aside.

  Kim felt her body flush red with embarrassment. What was she doing? Was she really going to let Teddy see her naked?

  “Wait for me,” Teddy said, jumping to his feet, shedding his shirt, jeans, shoes, and socks in one easy motion, as if each article of clothing were part of the same cloth, as if they were attached to him by Velcro. He discarded them with no more embarrassment than if he were peeling off unwanted remnants of an old sunburn. He stood naked before her, his erect penis all but dancing in front of him.

  “Oh,” Kim said.

  “Aren’t you going to take those off?” Teddy indicated Kim’s jeans and heavy black boots.

  Kim sat on the edge of the bed, trying to ignore Teddy’s dancing organ as she pulled off her boots and squirmed out of her jeans. “Did you bring a condom?”

  “They’re in my pocket.” He nodded vaguely toward the floor.

  “Don’t you think you ought to put one on?”

  Teddy moved like an automaton toward his jeans, quickly locating the small packet he was looking for and tearing it open. Kim pulled back the comforter and climbed underneath the blanket, gathering the pale yellow sheets up under her chin as Teddy struggled to put on the condom. “Dressed for success,” he said finally, a triumphant smile across his handsome face.

  “Are you sure that thing’s going to work?”

  “I won’t let anything happen,” Teddy assured her, crawling into bed beside her. “I promise.”

  “What if it breaks?”

  “It won’t break. These things are like steel.” His hand moved to her breast. Kim pushed it away.

  “Could you turn off the light?”

  Wordlessly Teddy jumped to his feet and shut off the light beside the bed. He was back beside Kim almost before her brain had time to register he’d been gone.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be doing this,” Kim stammered, refusing to relinquish her grip on the blanket at her chin.

  “What? Come on, Kim. You’ve been teasing me for months.”

  “I haven’t been teasing you.”

  “You’ve been driving me crazy. That’s what you’ve been doing.” His tongue began exploring the inside of her ear.

  Is sex all you ever think about? Kim wanted to ask, but didn’t because she already knew the answer. Of course sex was all he thought about. It was all all boys thought about, and not just occasionally, the way girls did, but all the time. Literally every minute of every waking day. No wonder they could barely string two sentences into one coherent thought. No wonder they couldn’t tell the difference between a painting and a goddamn print.

  Besides, tonight had been her idea, not his. She was the one who’d telephoned his house and practically ordered him over. She was the one who’d invited him upstairs to her bedroom. She was the one who’d started the ball rolling by taking off her sweater. She was lying naked in bed beside a naked man, for God’s sake. How could she call the whole thing off now?

  “You’ll be careful?” she asked.

  “I won’t let anything happen,” he said, as he’d said moments ago. “I promise.”

  And the next thing she knew, Teddy was shoving his way roughly inside her, or at least trying to. “You have to relax,” he whispered between grunts. “Just relax and let it happen.”

  “You’re in the wrong spot,” she told him impatiently.

  “What do you mean, I’m in the wrong spot?”

  “I don’t think that’s the right spot,” Kim said, trying to shift her position, to crawl out from under him, her actions causing Teddy to pump all the more strenuously.

  By accident or design, he finally stumbled into the right orifice, and immediately began thrusting his way farther inside her. Kim gasped as a sharp pain shot through her body, and her insides stretched to accommodate him. The parting of the Red Sea, she thought, feeling a sticky substance on the insides of her thighs, wondering if there was blood on the sheets and how she’d explain it to her mother. I’ll just tell her I got my period, Kim decided, grabbing Teddy’s buttocks in an effort to slow him down. But he either misunderstood her intentions or chose to ignore them. In any event, he did the exact opposite, quickening his already frantic pace until he cried out, a small frightened sound, as if he’d been hurt, and she felt his body shudder to a halt on top of her. Seconds later, he slid off her to lie on his back, his left hand stretched out over his head in a posture of either triumph or utter exhaustion. That’s it? Kim thought. That’s what all the fuss is about? She reached over to draw the comforter up under her chin.

  “You okay?” Teddy asked, as if suddenly remembering she was there.

  “Fine. You?”

  “Great. You were great.” He turned on his side, kissing her wet cheek. “You crying?”

  “No,” Kim replied indignantly, wiping her cheek. What was that all about?

  “It’ll be better next time.”

  “It was great this time,” she lied, glancing at his naked torso, seeing his once charging organ now lying flaccid and vulnerable amid his soft tangle of pubic hair. Where’s the condom? she thought. “Where’s the condom?” she said.

  The condom, of course, was still inside her, she realized with a sick feeling in her gut.

  “Oh God, what are we going to do?” she wailed.

  “Take it out,” Teddy told her.

  “What do you mean, take it out?”

  “Just reach in and get it.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I can’t.” What was the matter with him? “You promised me you’d be careful. You promised you wouldn’t let anything happen.”

  “I was careful.”

  “Then what’s the stupid thing still doing
inside me?”

  “It must have slipped off when I pulled out.”

  “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

  “All you have to do is—”

  “I’m not doing anything. You do it. Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she repeated, covering her face with her hands as Teddy disappeared under the comforter and began poking at her with his fingers.

  “I’ve got it,” he announced after several seconds, triumphantly displaying the spent condom. “And look, see, it’s okay. It didn’t rip. Everything’s still in there.”

  “Oh God, gross,” Kim exclaimed, feeling sick to her stomach, as Teddy dropped the condom into the nearby wastepaper basket. “How do you know none of it spilled out?”

  “None of it spilled out,” he said, as if his word should be enough to quell Kim’s growing panic.

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

  “It’ll be all right.”

  “Oh God.”

  “You think you could stop saying that?” Teddy asked. “You’re making me kind of nervous.”

  “What if I’m pregnant?” Kim asked.

  “Oh God,” came Teddy’s immediate reply.

  Don’t panic, Kim told herself. There’s nothing to worry about. He wore a condom. It didn’t break. No pesky little sperm escaped. Besides, you just finished your period two days ago. No way you could be pregnant. No way. No way. No way.

  Oh God, oh God, oh God.

  Is this how her mother felt sixteen years ago? Kim wondered. And was that why she’d taken such a stupid risk—as a way of getting to know her mother better?

  “Kim?” Teddy was asking. “Are you all right? You suddenly got so quiet.”

  “I’m fine,” Kim told him, feeling strangely calm.

  “Kim?”

  “Yes?” She felt his body stirring beside her.

  “You want to do it again?”

  Mattie sat in the backseat of the taxi, trying to ignore the persistent tingle between her legs where Roy Crawford had been. She felt the now-distant echo of his body thrusting into hers, the way one feels an amputated arm or leg, the sensation still present despite the absence of the limb. The sensation of absence, Mattie thought. So much preferable to the absence of sensation.

  What was it they said about sex? When it was good, it was great, and when it was bad, it was still good. Yes, that was it. “Turn here,” Mattie directed the cab driver. “Fifth house from the end.”

  The driver, a middle-aged man with a white crew cut, whose nameplate identified him as Yuri Popovitch, pulled to a halt in front of Mattie’s house. Mattie noted the lights on in the front hall, though the rest of the house was in darkness. She checked her watch. Almost ten o’clock. It was possible Kim was already asleep. Mattie hadn’t bothered calling to check up on her. If Jake wanted to keep tabs on his daughter, that was fine. Mattie had decided to trust her.

  “Thank you,” Mattie told the driver, handing him his fare along with a handsome tip. She pushed open the car door and swung her feet around. But Mattie’s feet refused to find the ground, and her knees buckled under her, sending her flying facedown into the layer of fine snow at the side of her driveway.

  The driver was instantly at Mattie’s side, picking her up, dusting her off. “Missus, you all right? What happened to you?”

  “I’m sorry,” Mattie apologized, unable to stand without his assistance. Dear God, what was happening to her? “I must have had too much to drink.” Yes, that was it, she told herself. Too much champagne. Champagne and sex—a deadly combination. Especially when you weren’t used to it.

  “Good thing you not sick in my car.” Yuri Popovitch helped Mattie up the steps to the front door, waited while she fished in her purse for her keys.

  “Would you mind—” She handed the keys to the driver.

  Yuri opened the door, returned Mattie’s keys to her outstretched hand. “You okay, Missus? You can manage now?”

  “I should be fine. Thank you very much.” Mattie grabbed the door handle as he released her. She watched him run down the steps to his cab, then drive off without looking back. I should be fine, she repeated silently. “But I’m not,” she acknowledged out loud, as her body collapsed to the floor. “Jake!” she called out. No answer. Who was she kidding? Her husband wasn’t home. “Kim!” she called, receiving a similar response.

  Kim must have gone to bed early, Mattie thought, forced to crawl on her belly across the needlepoint rug to the kitchen. “Goddamn it,” she cried, sliding across the ceramic tiles to the breakfast table, pulling off her coat, leaving it in a discarded heap on the floor as she used the back of one of the chairs to pull herself up. Sobbing and cursing, exhausted by her efforts, she collapsed into the chair. “Goddamn it. What’s happening to me?”

  You know exactly what’s happening to you, her tearful reflection in the sliding glass door told her.

  “No,” Mattie insisted. “Not now. Not yet.”

  You have something called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, she heard Lisa say, her friend’s image appearing in the glass next to Mattie’s.

  “Sounds serious.”

  It is.

  “How long do I have?”

  A year. Maybe two, even three.

  Mattie closed her eyes, wiping Lisa’s image from her mind. But the voices continued, like a TV set whose picture tube is on the fritz, the screen suddenly blank, the sound remaining strong and clear.

  “And what happens to me during that year or two or three?” Mattie heard herself ask even as she covered her ears with her hands.

  As the disease progresses, you’ll lose the ability to walk. You’ll be in a wheelchair Your hands will be rendered useless. Your body will start contorting in on itself.

  “I’ll be a prisoner of my own body,” Mattie acknowledged, withdrawing her hands from her ears and opening her eyes, staring into the darkness of her backyard, her heart pounding against her chest, as if trying to get out while there was still time. “I’m dying,” she said, forcing herself to her feet, pushing her legs toward the glass door, unlocking it and sliding it open, stepping slowly, carefully, onto the balcony. The cold night air quickly wrapped itself across her shoulders like an old sweater as she stared toward the pool, hidden beneath its protective winter cover. Would she ever swim again? Unlikely, she thought. “I’m dying,” she repeated, the words no easier to digest or understand, despite their repetition. “But not yet. Not until I’ve see Paris.”

  Mattie laughed, forcing her legs forward until she was leaning against the railing. Paris was three months away. She could probably function well enough till then. She’d had these episodes before. They came and went, although each episode lasted longer, left her weaker. But after Paris, then what? Almost half a year would have passed since Lisa delivered her devastating diagnosis. Six months of the little time she had left would already be gone. What of the next six months? Could she sit helplessly by and watch as her nerve cells collapsed around her, until she could no longer speak or eat or breathe without choking? Could she do that?

  Did she have a choice?

  We always have a choice, Mattie thought. She didn’t have to wait around for the ravages of the disease to claim her. She could take matters into her own hands while her hands still worked. She didn’t have a gun, so shooting herself was out of the question, and she doubted she’d have the strength and accuracy a knife would demand, even now. Hanging was too complicated, and throwing herself down a flight of stairs too uncertain of success.

  “I could drown,” she said simply, her mind floating beneath the ugly green cover. Open the pool a few weeks early. Wait till everyone was out of the house and go for a little swim, disappear under the water quickly, quietly, with a minimum of fuss.

  Except that Kim might find her, Mattie realized in horror. She couldn’t risk that. No matter what, Kim had to be protected.

  She’d have to find another way.

  Mattie pushed herself away from the rail
ing, teetering precariously on legs that were only now beginning to regain their bearings. She stepped back into the kitchen and slowly made her way across the room. “I’m going to die,” she repeated in wonder, crossing the front hall to the stairs. “I have a year. Maybe more.” Her hand reached for the banister, came to rest on an unfamiliar brown leather jacket.

  Mattie examined the jacket. It was a man’s jacket, she determined quickly, although it didn’t look like anything Jake would wear. Was it Kim’s? Had she borrowed it from one of the boys at school?

  The jacket became too heavy for Mattie’s hands to hold, and it slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor. “Maybe less than a year,” Mattie whispered, tears filling her eyes as she slowly mounted the stairs.

  Less than a year.

  Mattie reached the top of the stairs, resting on the landing for several seconds. The door to Jake’s room was open, as was the door to Kim’s bedroom. That was unusual, Mattie thought, knowing Kim liked to sleep with her door closed. Was it possible Kim had disobeyed them and gone out after all?

  “Kim?” Mattie called gently, approaching the open door to Kim’s room, peering inside.

  The room was dark, but even in the darkness, Mattie could see that Kim had done some serious straightening up. Poor thing, Mattie thought. She must be exhausted. That’s why she went to bed so early. That’s why she didn’t hear me call. That’s why she forgot to close the door.

  Mattie inched her way into the room. She wanted to give her daughter a kiss good night, the way she used to when Kim was a little girl. Her sweet, beautiful baby, Mattie thought, approaching the bundle hidden beneath the heavy comforter, pulling it aside, about to kiss her daughter’s forehead, when the bundle beside Kim suddenly moved.

  And then all hell broke loose.

  Mattie was screaming. Kim was screaming. The boy, whoever he was, was tearing madly around the room, gathering up his clothes, shouting his apologies as he ran from the room and down the stairs.

  “How could you do this?” Mattie was yelling, hearing the front door slam.