It’s all he needs to hear. He leaps from the bed, then at his bag, goes through all the zippers until what is in his hands is another aluminum seal that he’s broken. She watches him unroll it over his cock. Her stomach gets tight. Okay, it’s a thank you for last year. Her breathing has got a bit heavy, but she doesn’t think it’s blackness breathing, just normal stuff. I already lost my virginity. I can’t lose it again. But, somehow, like last night, it’s started to replicate. She’s no longer on her side, but on her back, and her legs are fully spread.
He sits up between them. He’s looking at her pussy.
It’s just a penis. And it’ll be over soon. Relax.
He lowers himself to her, and then lies himself on top of her. She feels his chest on her own and puts her arms at his sides and tries to keep them steady. Relax. He is trying to keep his hips up, but he’s never done this before, so it takes him a moment to find stability in his knees. Then he has to fight her legs, which’ve waned shut. He tells her she needs to open further. Do it! Open you legs! It takes a lot, and they open, yet it feels like she opened her heart—it’s her chest that’s open. It’s the year anniversary. This matters. She scrunches her face, then resists her own hip contractions when she feels his penis against her vagina, moving around, looking for the grove that signals her entrance.
He digs.
I can’t do this! I can’t do it!
“Stop!”
He does.
His voice isn’t that sensitive. “Sykosa…”
She opens her eyes and tears, which she didn’t know she was holding onto, fall down her temples. He’s still against her, his hand also still at his base, ready to guide him in. She forces her arms outside of his own, then locks them around his neck, pinning him against her, and he does his best to hold her back.
She puts her cheek in his own.
“I’m afraid, Tom. I’m afraid.”
He tries to be supportive. “I swear, I’ll go slow. It’ll be fine.”
“No, Tom, it’s… I’m afraid.”
“Sykosa, you’re—”
She interrupts. “I’m afraid they’ll find me.”
Tom shakes his head. “No, they’re gone. They’re all gone.”
Donna. Mike. Lonny.
It’s true. They’re all gone.
Last year happened and they disappeared soon after.
She cries more. “You don’t know that. You don’t know if I’m safe. Nobody does.”
“You’re safe with me. I’ll protect you.”
She gasps for air. There are no thoughts in her head.
“What if they come back? What if…”
Tom whispers. “Then, I’ll kill them.”
It’s a terrible thing to make him say. It’s also the only thing that makes her feel even slightly better. Just the promise he’ll do it—it means … She can feel her body again, she can feel how warm he is, how cold she is, and she can feel every one of his scars that run along her. She opens her eyes to find that he’s looking at her. She puts her hand onto his cheek. “You love me, right, only me?”
“I love you.”
He tries to kiss her. She turns her face away.
“Okay.”
He doesn’t know what that meant.
“You’re ready?”
She wipes one eye. “Yes.”
“Okay, I’m going to start.”
He shifts around in the bed and he reaches back down.
He’s almost there again.
Wait…
“Stop.”
He stops. “Sykosa, maybe this isn’t—”
She interrupts. “That’s not what I meant, I… I meant I love you, too.”
She hugs him again, then kisses his cheek and holds him close to her. Her thoughts have changed. He loves me. And she knows he does. And she knows she loves him. And as much as she wishes for this to be romantic and problem free, she’d have never found Tom otherwise. Relax. This time it works. She can keep her legs open. They’re still nervous, but they’re open. She stays steady when she feels him against her. Just stay calm. It takes some time. No different from yesterday, he’s struggling—digging and turning and retrying and…
He finds his stride. His force is grand.
She jumps. “Ouch!”
He freezes. “You’re alright, right?”
That’s funny. She didn’t think it would hurt.
Maybe I was a virgin?
Too late, she’s definitely not one anymore.
“It was a surprise, that’s all.”
He withdraws enough so she feels her canal close without his presence, then she scrunches her cheeks, and she struggles as he goes back inside her. The second time, a little deeper. Then, a little deeper on the third. Like her fingernails into his back, a little deeper. All the way until his hips hit her hips and his force forces back her knees. God, it hurts. It really does. Especially when he starts the full motion, it’s like paper slicing down the middle and her hips scoot up the bed to spare herself the agony. He follows her up, then he grabs onto her, and she grabs onto him.
“Are you okay?”
She is.
He hasn’t moved for five seconds. Already it hurts less.
“I think I’m fine. We just needed to stop for a second.”
That was true.
She slides back down the bed with him, then hugs him in such a way that, when he hugs her, he is really holding her in place. I need him to help. I can’t do it myself. And she closes her eyes as he begins to go at her again. The soreness is there, and it’s far worse than this morning, but otherwise, she’s lubricated him, and everything’s working better. He’s getting in and out, and she’s dissociated the pain. All she feels are his movements, and all she concentrates on is the changes inside her, the wideness of her canal, and trying to pin-point exactly how deep he’s gone, so she might be able to point there later. Finally, it gets to a point where she can think, and she thinks nothing useful—just, I’m having sex.
Actually, she was having sex.
He’s moaned directly into her ear and spasmed like a gunshot! (She doesn’t like how that read). He’s also collapsed on her and his heart beats down on her breasts harder than his hips did her own.
She feels smothered. “Did you enjoy it?”
“Yeah, it was nice.”
“Good. Can you get out?” He carelessly pulls himself free. She gasps and holds him in place! As it is, once he’s gone, she feels her vagina return to its original shape, like memory foam or something. It still hurts. Her poor and injured organ needs time to mend. Her breath is short, and she feels normal again. He’s sat at the edge of the bed. She can see he is covered in red splotches. She touches his thigh. “It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.”
He looks back at her. He wants to say something. Instead, he holds out his arms and pulls her in close. She’s crushed into his collar. “That’s was great. You were perfect.”
I was?
She feels girly, and she smiles, then surrenders to cuteness.
“Aw! You were perfect, too!”
XIII.
Interstate I-90 West to Seattle is a vast nothingness of desert rock with scattered patches of farming amongst the pertaining dust. Air that cracks the skin and bloodies a nose. She wants to saddle up her horse and go hunting for Injuns. And this fantasy is as good as any, especially since fantasies are all that remain. Scratch that. Complications are all that remain. Complications and feelings. Frustration. Over how her fingertips are without the cigarette that lies between Clyde’s own. (She left her pack with Niko). Clyde notices, and probably thinks she’s itching to hookup with him, no longer afraid of the rock ‘n roll and jealous like a woman over his hook-up with SS1.
He is wrong, as he is so often.
And what was that word?
Frustration.
As not only does she not get to smoke, she doesn’t get to have Tom. He’s not far. From the back row, she sees his reflection in the window, one row up with Mackenzi
e. He had a choice of where to sit. And that’s where he sat. Or where Mackenzie led him. They came downstairs, him carrying their bags and herself giggly and happy and… Mackenzie dominated him, then cornered him in the car. It’s almost exactly what Clyde did to her on the way out here. It drove Tom crazy; yet, if she mentions this, she’s gonna hear how it’s different cause, “Mackenzie’s my friend. Clyde isn’t your friend.”
Don’t get mad at him.
This isn’t real. It’s a stupid game.
Clyde did it to get Tom upset and start a fight.
Mackenzie did it to get her upset and start a fight.
Knowing not to get angry and not getting angry end up being two different things, especially when not getting angry involves, A) riding bitch between the Sluts, SS1 passive-aggressively slugging her, shouting, “No, Dawson’s a horse-face!” while SS2, on the lap of SS3 with her legs laid across all them, says, “No, he isn’t!” “He is!” “He isn’t!” “He’s a horse-face!” and, B) being separated from him for this massively long car ride, with only a sore vagina to remind her of how close she had felt to him, has gotten her to do exactly what she shouldn’t. She’s listed every single thing that must change in their relationship. It’s funny… She thought things were fine, but now that they’ve had sex, or she should say: if they’re ever to have sex again, she can see things are gonna have to change.
She ignores it for a more pressing concern.
The van is toast. No one wants to admit it.
Niko admits it. “Something is wrong, now pull over!”
Timmy’s busy slapping the steering wheel like a jockey slaps his steed, bent over like a jockey, too, to investigate the gauges he cannot read. “It’s not a big deal. I’ll figure it out.”
“What’s wrong? Your engine looks like it’s on fire!”
“Funny joke, now seriously, what is it?”
“Do you ever look at the road when you drive?”
Timmy looks up. “Ah, my car is on fire!”
“That’s fucking awesome!” And that was fucking Clyde! The douche muscles his way between the front seats, then against the front console, to see white steam burst from the grooved hood. “Do you think it’ll blow up?” It’s a bit like crying fire. At first, the panic is contained. Then, somewhere along the way, all senses are lost and nine skulls kick forward. It’s the brakes. They’ve locked. And they’ve done so without regard for Clyde, whose face smashes and streaks the windshield in boogers and teeth. Once the van skids to a stop, it explodes with kids instead of flames. Clyde is between the front seats, but now he’s rolled over on his side. “You asshole! You fucking prick!”
Timmy pulls up his sagging skater shorts. “What? You said the van was gonna blow up.”
“Fuck you, asshole!”
On the shoulder, Niko watches smoke shoot from this twice-rolled-over beast, and she wishes for her RX7. On this straight-away, she could push 130mph, maybe 140mph and more importantly, be in her bed in her bedtime clothes, salting some low butter popcorn and sucking on frozen bananas, swearing to stave off the alcohol with another drink. Niko forgets it, then prepares herself for this latest crisis. It’s difficult for her. After Sykosa’s confession this morning, Niko felt uncharacteristically guilty and has been moody and cruel all afternoon.
Niko tries to rein it in. She fails.
“What the fuck is the matter with you?”
Timmy puts his hands to his chest. “Me? What did I do?”
“Who knows how much damage you did while you kept driving like a moron. I told you to pull over.”
Timmy shouts back. “I was trying to fix it.”
“Like you would know how!”
“I know how to fix my car, alright? Don’t tell me about it!”
Mackenzie hears this and gives Tom a look.
He responds. “Why’re you looking at me like that?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, M, I hate it when you do this.”
Unmoved by the Mackenz-ian drama, Niko yanks the lever that dislodges the hood, and underneath said hood, feels for the release latch. “Let’s see what damage your stupid ass did.”
Clyde laughs. “Dude, you’re such a woman, you know that?”
“Fuck you.” Timmy ushers Niko aside. “I got this, baby.”
Niko’s quick. “No, don’t do it.”
Timmy lifts the fiberglass corners and bonfires of steam, which volley for the free air, envelop his face. The hood smacks shut and he smacks the pavement, grabbing at his skin and cursing manically, then loses it when he hears Clyde laughing. “Shut the fuck up! I don’t need your fucking voice.”
Niko approaches him. “Let me see, what’s wrong?”
“My face, it’s burned.”
What a wuss. “You’ll be fine.”
He points to a rosy blemish beneath his nostril. “Niko, tell me the truth. I can take it. How bad is it?”
“That’s not a burn.”
“What is it?”
“It’s your acne.”
Clyde’s out of breath before the first laugh leaves his mouth. “Oh shit, I can’t believe you said that!”
Timmy and Clyde continue their fight while Niko resumes her analysis, save her efforts are again impeded. “Niko, how long will this take?” It’s Tom. Somehow, Mackenzie convinced him to handle this situation. “Niko, Mackenzie’s worried about school. Attendance is important to her.” In response, Niko stares into the engine bay to coax her brain into a viable solution. It upsets him. “Niko, answer me.”
Answer, Niko does. “I’m not talking to you.”
“But, what about…”
“But, what about…” Niko disappears under the hood. The cigarette muffles her voice. “Unless you have some expertise I’m unaware of, could you give me some breathing room?”
“Can you at least guess how long it will take?”
“No, I can’t!”
Tom returns to Mackenzie. “I tried! She wouldn’t tell me!”
“Unreal! Who takes a trip if their vehicle is unreliable?”
“I know, but the best we can hope for is…”
It doesn’t matter how that sentence ends, or any thereafter; none will deter Mackenzie from her spoiled princess routine. At least Mackenzie has a routine. Something to rely on. Like how Timmy and Clyde—who’ve already made up—share slugs off a flask. Or how the Sluts—who’re worried the others will resort to cannibalism—have crowded together. Safety in numbers! Everybody gets something. And she gets loneliness.
That’s unfair. She needs something.
Him! That’s what she needs!
By chance, his bum rests on the sandy shoulder. She joins him, sitting Indian style. Given the condition of her cooch, it’s not a great position, and her body tells her that. She abandons it and sits on one leg. “I’m sorry about Niko.”
“What was that about?”
“We talked this morning about some stuff.”
His hands hold up his face. “About us?”
She sounds soft. “She needs time. Too much has happened this weekend.”
“You’re telling me. The van.”
Even here, she smells broken car. It should worry her, and she’s sure it will soon, but for now she’s happy to be separated from the Sluts—it doesn’t matter why. “Yeah, weird, huh?”
“It sucks is what it is.”
“Hey…”
“What?”
“Do you love me?”
The words seem to bring him physical discomfort.
He says them, anyhow. “I love you.”
“Good, then feel better!”
The results are inconclusive.
She decides it probably isn’t the opportune time to list her grievances with their relationship. Or to behave as if she has any. She kind of wobbles closer to him, and he gives and sets himself next to her, putting his arm around her. He’s in shorts and a hoodie and, for some reason, not very warm.
He whispers. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Everything’s okay, like, physically?”
It is.
Other than feeling sore, and sore might be understating it, she feels fine. Her feet work. Her hands work. Her eyes see. If she didn’t know she had sex, she might not think she had sex. In truth, she subconsciously operated under the assumption that losing her virginity would be like a war wound—it’d be traumatic and involve a lot of blood, and like, she’d need a field medical kit to fix her. But, aside from her blood-spotted panties and the toilet paper she wiped herself with after, there hasn’t been another drop, nor was there any on the sheets.
In retrospect, that seems normal.
How else would girls survive this for millions of years?
Her body knew this was coming, and how to handle it.
She shrugs. “I’m fine, no problems.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure?”
“Did you, like, enjoy it at all or—”
She interrupts. “In a way, I did.”
They’re interrupted by Mackenzie.
The perpetual third-wheel, who can’t sit since she’s chosen a Bitch’s-style skirt and top outfit with exposed legs, holds out her cell-phone. For being so bratty, Mackenzie looks perfect. It’s the sign of a fantastic makeup job, and Mackenzie must’ve put in an hour. Also, her retro flip hairstyle is in tremendous shape, considering the weather and the wind and the general discomfort of the car ride. “Tom, I can’t get into roaming!”
Tom extends a hand. “Let me see.” He examines the phone, and while he does, he explains, “Neither Mackenzie or I have good reception out here. We can’t call for help.”
Mackenzie reiterates that. “Trapped, that’s us.”
She begs to differ. “I know no one believes it, but Niko’s good at this.”
Mackenzie doesn’t and lets it be known. “Sure, she is.”
Tom doesn’t say anything. He’s looking at the phone.
She insists. “No, I mean it. Niko’ll fix it, you’ll see.”
Mackenzie ignores her. “What do you think, Tom?”
“I don’t know. Maybe if we tried it away from the road.”
“Then can we try that?”
He agrees and stands. When his back is to her, Mackenzie gives her a snide look before snatching his arm. What a bitch. She reminds herself not to get angry over this, but it puts one or two new things on the grievance list.
Sykosa, Part I: Junior Year Page 28