by Mara White
Losing her virginity had been clinical, a task not a reward. Julian was gentle easing in, but ejaculated so quickly that Salana thought they were just beginning when it was already over. Underwhelming. More like a gynecological exam than a Harlequin romance.
“Thanks for the tea, Mother. We’ll be in my room watching TV. Call us for dinner and we’ll need a car ready to return to Leysin before their ten o’clock curfew.”
“What time is that, dear?” Maybe she was sauced? Maybe there was vodka in her tea and that’s why she let her son take Salana to his room and fuck her, loudly, for dragging, unending minutes, without a lock on the door.
“Shut the fuck up,” Salana would whisper through her teeth and clamp her hand over his mouth rather than die from the embarrassment of discovery.
“I like you feisty,” he’d respond. Flip her over and fuck her from behind while she lay her cheek on some sheets that felt like they were hand-stitched for sultans. Then feel sad when Julian blew his load all over them. She felt worse for the sheets than herself.
“Ten o’ clock, mother. Same as the curfew for your four children who attended ISS before me. It’s been the same for years.”
“That’s right,” she said, hands in her lap. She reached out and cupped her son’s cheek delicately with her palm. It would have been sweet, were Julian not such an entitled monster with more money to burn than personality. The gesture kind of made Salana want to puke. But not as much as Julian smacking her ass loudly as they rushed up the stairs.
He pulled her back and stuck his erection against her butt.
“I love this horse rump,” he said as he ran small circles over her hip and down her ass with his hand. Horse rump? No, between the two of us, you’re the horse’s ass.
But it wasn’t all bad. Julian was truly popular and knew everyone, students and faculty alike. He liked to have fun and paid for every extravagant adventure or party he insisted she attend. In town he had a running tab at every restaurant and bar. He was such a dick that sometimes he was funny. And the sex was all right. She appreciated getting to knock her virginity off the list without the heartache of falling in love, which Salana had always viewed as a necessity when it came to high school. She didn’t ever want to be the girl sitting home in a wrinkled prom dress staring at unanswered texts on her phone. The other students seemed to look up to Julian as if they worshiped him. He always devised the plans and footed the bill unasked for anyone who couldn’t afford to play at his level. The students all adored him, so she certainly wasn’t going to complain about him.
“Salana, we’re going to the lounge to watch the game.” She looked up from her laptop. This was how he asked her to do something. It was how his mother spoke to their servants, and unfortunately, often how her own father spoke to her mother.
“I’m studying. Chemistry’s got me all like!” She threw up her hands and clawed them through the air like a caged rabid animal.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Shepard would never think to give you less than an A.” His eyes were so pretty and the hair always did her in, romantic and bratty all at once. Some curl on top, short on the sides.
“I’d like to earn my grades. And I hate sports unless there’s booze involved and yelling.”
“So fucking American.”
“And face painting and show us your tits-ing. Fuck you Lawrence, I am an American.”
“I know, a deficit I constantly try to look past.”
“So noble of you. They should put that in your title. His Royal Generousness-ness, who tries to look past Americans.”
“I like it. Fucking close the computer, Salana. Liquor can be arranged. Paul will be there and you can do your tedious US things with him.” Paul was the only other US citizen in their class. That made him and Salana friends by default. His parents were film business impresarios with Hollywood power and money, and of course they were what Julian also disdained as nouveau riche. But they both liked Paul. He was funny, smart and knew enough about popular culture to make them all feel inept. “Cloistered Nerds” is what he liked to call the students at Leysin. It wasn’t too far from the truth. They were cloistered from real life, which always left Salana feeling guilty. It wasn’t normal to charter a plane to hit up Ibiza for the night with a few friends, but they did that and more.
“Who’s playing?”
“Brazil? France? Fuck if I know, Salana. But I like soccer games, they get people so passionate.” He raised an eyebrow at her and she burst out laughing.
“No you don’t! Jesus, Julian, you are such a piece of work. I thought you were strictly rugby, cricket, skiing, and archery. Aren’t those the badges you had ironed on your middle school sweater?”
“Everyone loves football, Salt. I can too. Stop being a louse and take off those horrible slippers and spectacles and come downstairs. I’ll make you that awful hot chocolate packet thing if you wish.”
“You mean you’ll get someone else to make it for me. Give me ten minutes, I’m feeling kind of sick.”
They watched the game, the news, and then some reruns of a British show that everyone adored, but which Salana had never heard of. Then breaking news busted through and ruined their night with the announcement of a terror attack in England. Silence filled the room and some kids left to call their parents or text them. Salana felt so far away from the violence nestled up in the mountains of Switzerland, even more insulated than in Connecticut if that was possible. She snuggled into Julian’s shoulder and nuzzled his sweater.
“Sometimes I feel like we’re so sheltered, Julian, don’t you? Like we never have to get our hands dirty like the rest of the world.” She was sleepy, homesick and suddenly riddled with guilt.
“Come to my room for a bit, I’ll get you dirty.”
Salana rolled her eyes at him.
“All right, I’ll make you feel better.” He kissed her temple, squeezed her thigh, looked deep into her eyes with his vibrant blue ones. Wealth, not unlike Julian himself, had the ability to make her feel simultaneously trapped and free. She had a great need to feel protected, but an underlying yearning to fly free and discover her own strength. Salana wanted to find out who she was really meant to be.
Chapter 7
Tiago
It was around three o’clock in the morning when he got the call, smashed his hand all over the nightstand trying to find the culprit, his damn phone, which he had a mind to toss out the open window. Head pounding and spinning from too much booze, when he sat up his brain swam, and it took a minute for his eyes to focus. He saw the evil screen lighting up in green. But his anger dissipated when he realized the display showed a number that was too long to be local. He accepted and pressed the phone to his ear.
Hope lit up his chest brighter than the phone in the dark. Was she home for the holidays? Gotten expelled and moved to New York? He doubted it. She was perfect, thriving. He was the one who’d fucked up his life by dropping out of high school. The horse farm excursion was at least a year gone by, if not two. The tags on the subway? Long gone, maybe even power-washed off by a maintenance crew. Why the fuck was she calling him?
“Hey, what’s up?” he said. “Christ, it’s the middle of the night.”
“Tiago? It’s Salana. I’m sorry to call you so late. The time change is difficult.”
“Naw, it’s all right. I ain’t got nowhere to be. You still in Switzerland?”
“I’m flying home tomorrow. I was hoping you could help me with something.”
Him help her? What could he possibly help her with? Did she need a drug connection? Needed to slum it up for some research project at school?
“Yeah, man, I’ll be around. I can’t pick you up from the airport ‘cause I don’t got a vehicle, but one of my boys owns a car service so I could send somebody for you if you need it.”
“I can take a cab. What’s your address?”
“Oh, you coming straight here?” This was the most unexpected phone call Tiago had ever gotten in his life and it was getting stranger by t
he minute. “Listen, my grandma got fucked with the rent control thing, so we moved across town. We’re in East Harlem now, uh, section eight in one of the NYCHA houses.” Even worse than where we were before, Salt. Can you believe it? he told her silently in his head. Might as well get it out now before she had to live it for real. If their tenement in the Heights hadn’t scared the shit out of her, this hellhole would do the trick.
She paused for a minute and Tiago clenched his fists.
“Anywhere is fine. As long as you’re there.”
It might have been the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him. She didn’t care where he lived, just as long as he was present. He was absolved—run-down projects and shitholes be damned. Salana wanted to see him, not where he lived.
She pulled up in a yellow cab and he was waiting outside for her. It was drizzling and his clothes were wet, but he’d be damned if he was going to let her walk into the building alone. He was wearing a sweatshirt, hood pulled up to keep the rain off his face. He probably looked like he was waiting for a pick-up, but this time he was squeaky clean. The houses were like a big box, no character, zero comfort. He truly preferred the run-down building in the Heights; at least it was their own, not a replicated cheap-as-shit box for eight hundred families down on their luck.
Her eyes were red and puffy like she’d been crying, shoulders slumped, but she was still beautiful, delicate, and untouchable.
“Long flight?” he said as he took her suitcase and bag. No hug. She just lifted her chin and barely smiled. They were virtual strangers and he had no idea why she would contact him again. The elevator ride was miserable up the twenty-five floors. They sat nearly silent with Tiago’s grandmother, Florencia, while she made tea for Salana and put out a roll of María cookies to munch on. Salana sipped the tea and thanked them both profusely. She didn’t want to say much about Switzerland except that school was difficult and the country was beautiful.
When Florencia retired to the living room to watch her novelas, Tiago suggested a shower to Salana while he stored her things in his room the best he could in the small space. He heard Salana vomiting over the rush of the shower. Maybe she’d had cocktails on the plane, maybe the drinking age was different in Europe.
She came out dripping wet in a towel, looking defeated. Tiago wasn’t sure what to do. He stood up off the bed and gestured to it in case she wanted to lie down. He should give her the room and he would sleep on the couch.
“Wanna take a nap? You can use my bed and I’ll get out of your way.” She shook her head and tears dripped down her face. Tiago took a couple of awkward steps and pulled her into a hug. Though he was aware of her nudity, her dismay made the contact not feel sexual at all.
I’m here. I’m here. You said as long as I was here. I’m here for you, girl.
“Can you lie down with me?”
He nodded and they snuggled into his twin bed. He wished he’d thought to put on clean sheets, but at least his grandmother did the laundry religiously once a week, on Sundays after church at Holy Immaculate Conception, a place he’d stopped going to as readily as he’d dropped high school, but he hadn’t forgotten the thick smell of frankincense and the guilt by the goblet-load.
Tiago put his arms around her and pulled her to his chest, wet hair and all. She was naked under the sheets, but he was on top of the blankets.
“Tell me what’s going on, Salt. Something bad happen to you over there?” She hid her face in his armpit. He wished he’d maybe squirted some cologne with that morning’s deodorant. “Somebody hurt you?” He wanted to be a playa but he could sense that wouldn’t work. Salana needed him, the real person underneath the persona and he readily accessed his true self because he sensed it was serious. People didn’t often need him short of a favor, a couple bucks, or a quick run.
“I’m pregnant, Tiago.” She could barely get it out. She cried openly and painfully, enough that his heart sort of broke. “He dumped me right before I found out,” she said. Her voice was muffled and she was pushing her face deeper, trying to tunnel under his body. Salana was scared, she was ashamed, that he could clearly see. When she was completely hidden she told him her story. It seemed easier to her to swallow some pills or jump off a roof than make that decision. And her parents, her father, especially, was the very worst part about it. They’d be so livid at her that she couldn’t even imagine the scenario. She was afraid they’d disown her, that they’d force her to have a child and never forgive her for having sex, let alone reproducing before marriage.
“But what’s any of this got to do with me?” He was still at a loss for why she’d contacted him. Why not Justine or a friend from the horse farm?
Didn’t Salana have friends or even distant family who she could talk to? Maybe he seemed more accessible because she knew he wouldn’t judge her. She knew he’d lived through tragedy and his road hadn’t been easy. But what he couldn’t tell was why she thought of him or what the hell he could do to help.
He grabbed her hand and held it while she sobbed into his neck. He didn’t say anything, just cradled her back and her head. He petted her hair. Girls got pregnant all the time, it wasn’t a big deal to him. But he could tell that to Salana it was monumental—a very big deal and a source of great strain for her. Poor people are different, they just roll with the punches. Rich people feel like they get to make all the decisions so when a surprise like an unwanted pregnancy happens, they can’t deal with not having a say in whatever makes the world go round. He understood it was a big deal to her, so he caressed her cheek, kept his hand on her upper arm and shushed her quietly. They fell asleep like that, Salana into a delirium of emotional exhaustion. Tiago could sleep anywhere, anytime—one of the tenets of late teenage-hood and living in the projects.
SALANA
Salana woke up to the sound of a dog barking. It took her a moment to remember where she was, so she stayed still and listened to all of the unfamiliar noises that came through the walls loud and clear in the monstrous housing project. Her bare leg was thrown over Santiago’s jean-clad form. Remembering she was naked under her towel didn’t cause her the appropriate amount of shame that she thought it should. He was asleep on his back, face placid and aimed toward the ceiling. She wasn’t quite sure what the hell she was doing in New York, in this man’s bed, but it soothed her to be near him. The intense anxiety of the last few weeks somehow dissipated in his presence. He wouldn’t think she was ruined like her parents and friends would.
She reached out and touched his face gently and he sprang to the defensive. She screamed when he pinned her to the bed violently. He blinked a few times before he regained consciousness and took the pressure off of her neck.
“Fuck, don’t wake me up like that! You lucky I didn’t grab my gun or a bat.” She swallowed hard knowing that he slept so defensively, something really bad must have happened for him to have violent reflexes like that.
“I think I want to get an abortion. That’s why I’m here. I couldn’t do it alone and I knew if the school found out—they’d tell my parents and that can’t happen,” she blurted, trying to explain her presence.
TIAGO
His temper blossomed red and fiery hot in his chest.
“Okay, and what’s my part in all this? ‘Cause I didn’t get you pregnant—that I would fucking remember.” He wasn’t malicious, just confused. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and noticed that she was still naked. His dick got hard in response so he looked back up at the ceiling instead of at her body.
“I need you to come with me and to take care of me afterwards.” Tears began to flow down her cheeks again. She was being candid, this wasn’t a show. “I don’t have anyone else.”
Everything in him jumped at the word need. He wanted to show up like a knight in shining armor and rescue her valiantly, drag her away toward safety. But another part of him was angry. Angry that he wasn’t good enough for everyday shit. That he couldn’t be her boyfriend but she would certainly use him to be her bitch.
&nb
sp; “Salt, I ain’t the one who got you knocked up. You taught me how to giddy-up and gave me a ride home once. How’s that make me your fall guy for when you fuck up your perfect life?” Whoa. Was he bitter? He didn’t think he was, but it came out so harsh.
“What about the night on the train?”
“That was a good night, Salt, but it don’t make me your daddy or your baby daddy.”
“My life isn’t perfect. And I came because I trust you, that’s all.” She turned away from him and began to cry again. He glanced down at her ass and groaned.
What did she think he was, some kind of mark? A loser who would pick up after other guys? Clean up her mistakes?
“Listen, your instinct is way off. You don’t know me and I ain’t someone you can trust. And I’m not gonna be your bitch, Salt. You think I know all about abortions ‘cause I’m broke? Let me tell you something, if my grandmother heard you say that word, she’d throw you the fuck out the house right now. On the street, throwing holy water at your ass and calling you the devil’s creed. She’s as Catholic as they come and thinks babies are a gift from fucking God no matter how they get here. Maybe I do too, for all you fucking know.”
Salt continued to cry, turned away into the wall. Guilt crept its way up his body until it took over his mind and he felt like a fucking asshole.