Chapter 5 #2
It is jarring, to see the pale of your body exposed in bright sunlight, to see the contrast of his tanned hands against it.
He touches you through your jeans and you whimper, but too soon he takes his hand back, starts working at his belt buckle and then his fly.
You feel embarrassed when you see him exposed, have to fight back the urge to giggle and wonder how he’s not embarrassed too.
But he only grabs your wrist and clamps your hand where he wants it, guiding you up and down and up and down.
His head drops back. His hand—your hand—moves faster and faster.
This can’t be it, you think. This can’t be the reason Sabrina takes so much time choosing her outfits, why she roots through the Goodwill looking for new T-shirts she can knot at her hip, slash the necklines with scissors.
Why she spends hours in her room, prodding and poking and posing.
You wrestle your hand out from under his and for a moment he looks at you with such disdain you are worried he might slap you.
And then, that smile again, the half smile that makes you both excited and nervous. “I know what you want.”
He reaches into the back seat for a blanket, opens his door.
You don’t know if you should wait for him or not, as you watch him spread the blanket on the ground next to the car.
In the end he opens your door for you and guides you to the ground.
A pebble bites into your shoulder but you forget it as he unbuttons your jeans, the zipper so loud in the silence.
With a single hooked finger he gets your underwear off too.
You watch it move down your thighs, over your knees, your shins, your ankles, like it is happening to someone else.
It feels good, his mouth on you, his hands wrapping around your thighs.
It helps you understand why Sabrina has pulled away from you these past few months.
There is so much in life that you both want, so little you can claim as your own.
And here is something to want, this pleasure, that you can reach out and take, just like that.
He stops, positions himself so that his pelvis lines up with yours.
You know what comes next and yet you can’t believe it will actually happen.
You are afraid and you wonder if he notices, the way your fingers have started to tremble.
If you don’t say anything now, today will be the day you lose your virginity.
You will be transformed, remade, by him, a deep crack running through your life, Before and After.
The Coyote. Why does Sabrina call him that, you wonder.
The thought costs you a few seconds, and before you can resolve whether or not you are ready he is over you, and then inside of you.
The pain is immediate and shocking, and instead of making you cry out it makes your voice crawl somewhere deep inside you, small and hidden.
You hardly notice him moving above you, the sounds he’s making.
All you can think about is Sabrina. Had Sabrina felt pain like this?
How did she survive it? How did she get to the other side?
Your eyes prickle with tears. You count backward from 1,000 and reach 364 before he shoves into you one last time.
He makes a high, loud sound, not the groans you’ve seen in the movies, or that you once heard from your parents’ bedroom at night.
You aren’t sure whether you want to laugh or cry.
You want, most of all, to tell Sabrina that you understand now.
That you are in on the joke. The Coyote. It suits.
As he stands you turn your head to one side, notice a single blond hair caught in the weave of the blanket, and wonder whether it is yours or hers.
He drops you off, your face raw and stinging with stubble burn. Already the afternoon has taken on the feeling of something unreal. Something that you will tuck away in your mind until you have the time and space to make sense of it.
“You might be even crazier than she is,” he says, that rough chuckle again, a sound that makes the hair on your arms stand up.
“Who?” The word emerges as a mouse’s squeak. Because you already know the answer.
He juts that cruel, handsome chin in the direction of the house.
Your throat constricts. You thought you had him fooled.
But if he had been confused, it had only been for a moment.
You had been ready to give yourself away when he didn’t know exactly what he was taking.
But he knew. He knew the whole time. Crazy.
That word sticks to you, a burr. Are you crazy? Is she?
You turn your face away, fumble for the doorhandle.
“See you around, kid,” he says, his mouth around a cigarette before you get out of the car, the silver of his lighter flashing in his palm.
You hoped that Sabrina would be busy, but she’s in the kitchen when you come home, leaning over a bowl of cereal. Your stomach rumbles at the smell of sugar and milk and you realize you must have left your bag of food in his car.
“Where were you?” she asks.
You have no time to fortify yourself. Even if you could come up with a convincing lie, you are worried about the way the story will tell itself in your gestures, will play out on your face.
The two of you have always been able to read one another this way, sometimes unwillingly.
Twinship a forced sharing of thoughts, moods, pain.
When you were girls, Sabrina would wake from across the room if you had a bad dream, climb next to you in bed, and stroke your hair until you fell asleep again.
You could always feel Sabrina’s headaches coming on, a change in the atmosphere of the room.
It takes you too long to answer.
“A walk,” you stutter. Whatever decisiveness or boldness that possessed you when you climbed into the man’s car is gone. You are back in your own body, your sore, damp, lonely-feeling body, where the words get caught in your throat.
Sabrina stares at you, unspeaking. It’s in the air between you, the ionic crackle of a secret.
Only now, seeing Sabrina in the flesh, do you think about what you have done as a form of betrayal.
So little, nearly nothing, has ever belonged to one of you or the other—until the Coyote.
You had merely been trying to right the balance, return to your equilibrium.
Sabrina finishes her cereal, clinks her dish into the sink, which is piled high with other bowls and plates, water cups clouded with fingerprints, coffee mugs whose rims are printed with lip gloss.
You run the water, hot, so hot it is nearly steaming. You start to scrub, dish by dish, taking your time, until the countertops are covered with wet, shining plates and slashes of glistening knives and forks. Until your hands are red and raw and no longer look like your own.