Joan Kelly: Rape me!

"Hey, go down Maple Street, will ya? There's plenty of streetlights."

It wasn't half so scary as Janey had made it out to be. Olema was a sleepy little place, at least it seemed that way to me as I cut down Maple like my new friend had told me and turned on the street that the trailer court was on. An old man passed me. A carload of kids on their way home from the movie downtown. I took big lungfuls of air and tried to cleanse my mind of the evening's events. A night breeze sprang up and swished the trees above my head, made my skirt dance. I held it down, feeling naked because of the mined panties. The panties were one reason I hadn't wanted to stay at Janey's. I always slept in my panties at least, and it would've been embarrassing to borrow some of Janey's. I could see her start a whole new batch of questions about what Phil had done.

There was a strange car in front of our trailer, next to my dad's pickup. A red and white blazer, the four-wheel-drive kind. It was dented and muddy and a crack ran across the windshield on the driver's side. I shrugged and went up the steps to the trailer.

"Hey, my girl's home!" Dad reeled against the wall as he tried to get up, slumped back down again. There was a bottle of whiskey on its side on the floor… empty. The stranger squinted up at me from where he sat on the floor. He didn't look quite as drunk as Daddy, but drunk just the same. When he pushed himself up, I saw how big he was. Even bigger than my dad, who was darn big himself.

"This here's Tony," Dad said, waving the empty bottle. "Hey, Tony, I'm gonna have to go get us some more booze. Looka here!"

Tony gave me a half-shy smile, nodded. The other half of his smile did something that I wasn't in the mood to put up with. I looked back to my father.

"Where's Mom?"

He laughed, nodded his head towards the back of the trailer. "Went to bed. Didn't want to join the Goddamn party." Dad yawned, leaned his head back. "Gotta get some more booze…"

I glanced over at Tony. He was rubbing his blond mustache. His hair was blondish, too, and his blue eyes took in my body with blatant frankness. But that shy smile on his lips made him seem kind of sweet at the same time.

"I think I'll get to bed," I told him. My dad gave a rattling snore.

"Yeah, sure." Tony stood up. He had to be over six-four. There was dirt on his Levi's and I noticed the folding knife in its leather scabbard at his belt – like the one Phil had worn. But Tony didn't seem at all like Phil. I had a silly flash of imagining, imagining that Tony had pulled Phil off of me and beat the hell out of him. Why was I still standing there? Why wasn't I going on to bed like I'd said?

"You working on the construction of the bridge?"

Tony put hands in his hip pockets. "Nope. I met your dad at that bar down the block." He grinned. "The Tip On Inn. Crazy place, you know." My dad was snoring loudly now and Tony squinted over at him, amused. "He can drink some, your old man."

"Was my mother… mad?" I didn't want to get into personal troubles, but I'd seen Dad get rough with her before and wondered if it had happened tonight.

"Yeah." Tony turned towards the door, paused long enough to get a cigarette lit. "I thought maybe Al was gonna slap her or something, but she cooled out."

He took a long drag on his cigarette, looked down at me. He was so damn big! I shrugged, smiled. The wind was up again outside. I could hear it in the trees that lined the court.

"Hey, you want to step outside for a little bit?"

"Oh no, thank you very much anyway. I… I think I want to go to bed…"

"It's nice out." He cocked his head. "Wind's cooling things off." He opened the door, gestured with a big hand. "Come on, I'm just gonna finish this smoke and push on."

Sometimes I do things I don't really understand. That's why I followed Tony outside I guess. It was nice out. And talking to someone who didn't know anything about my awful night made things better somehow. Like a completely fresh conversation, a new moment. Tony was good-looking, too, and obviously more mature than those creeps Janey knew. I liked the way his blond hair curled thickly over his shirt collar. Not freaky, just long enough to be sort of cool. And he did kind of like me. I knew he did.

"Your car sure is beat up…" I laughed as the wind beat around us.

"Well-used is the word." Tony's cigarette glowed orange as he sucked on it. "I got it in Alaska."

"Alaska?"

"I was logging up there." His smile was far off, hinting something wild. "And doing other things."

I closed my thighs so I wouldn't be reminded of my naked cunt. I wished I'd borrowed a pair of panties from Janey now. I pulled the hem of my jersey down, turned to face Tony so he wouldn't notice the size of my tits so much.

"What do you do now?" I asked.

"Nothing much. Just cruising through town, heading west again." He flipped his cigarette in a long arc and I watched the sparks scatter in the wind. "Well, I guess I'll be moseying on."

It was so weird how I didn't want him to go quite yet. He was nice, Tony was. He hadn't tried to put his hands all over me like Phil. We'd just talked. I felt like a human being again after spending just a few short minutes with him. But he was leaving. I watched him climb behind the wheel of his blazer. I waved.

"Good night!"

"Yeah, see ya." His smile was lit by a streetlight. That same smile I'd seen inside the trailer when we'd first met. Half-shy… I waved again. He was a funny guy, just drifting around. I wondered how old he was, twenty-three, twenty-four? When his brake lights blinked and he swung out of the court I felt a funny kind of emptiness in my stomach. I went inside. Daddy was snoring drunkenly in his chair. My depression came back strong and heavy; I felt like I was trying to breathe underwater. In the bathroom I brushed my teeth, brushed away the taste of Phil's mouth, the taste of his cock. Then I went to bed.

When I first began to wake up, I wanted to sleep some more. All the morning had to offer was the memories of the night before. Everything was just going to pick up where I'd left it. Janey would be over sometime during the day to remind me of things I didn't want to be reminded of. Sympathy for a virgin. What was wrong with being a virgin? It didn't make me look any different, walk any different… Or did it? I remembered Janey's swaying, sexy gait and wondered if getting fucked really did change the way you walked. I squeezed my eyes tight, pretending that I was still drowsy. Birds twittered loudly outside my window. What was missing? My mom and dad arguing like always… this morning they weren't. There were no voices at all, no sounds from the front part of the trailer. I turned over, looked at the sun on the wall. It was late. I wasn't sure just how late, but late enough for Mom to be bugging me. She didn't like me staying in bed past seven. Then I saw the note behind my clock. Mom's handwriting. I reached it down, looked at the hurriedly scratched words. She hadn't wanted to wake my dad, had gotten out early so she could help Mrs. Caruthers with something at the church. She'd see me at noon. I smiled, shook my head.

I looked at the wrinkled mess of my clothes on the floor, glad I'd stuffed my ruined underwear in the bottom of a drawer so no one would find them. The clock said ten. I was hungry.

The mess on the stove told me dad had fixed his own breakfast. Fixed it while he was hung over, too. I scrambled me some eggs, mixed fresh orange juice. Dad would be working at the bridge site until late in the afternoon, Mom wouldn't be back till noon. I was rested, but lazy. At loose ends. I ran a tubful of water and stayed in it for a long time. After I dried, I powdered myself with some talc my aunt had given me for my birthday, wondering idly if sixteen was the legal age for such luxury. It was funny but when I went back in my room to dress, I didn't really want to. I looked at the pale-blue panties in my hand and then put them back in the drawer. I did a twirl before my mirror, noticing the way my tits quivered when I put my heel down hard. There were splotches of powder on my belly, on one leg. A tinge of white hung in the dark brown of my pussy curls. I made a coy, silly face and lifted my hair above the nape of my neck. What had Phil said about my body? A fine little ass… yes, that was it. I tried to forget Phil, tried to guess what he'd meant. Little like narrow? I wasn't really big in the rear like some girls. My waist was small enough tough to give me nice curves where they were supposed to be. I ran my palms down, tracing the outward flare of my hips, the bulge of my pelvic bones. I licked my lips like I'd seen Janey do once. It looked silly. It didn't feel comfortable to see myself like that. Maybe I was the shy type, shy like my friends back in Billings had always said. One thing I knew for sure, I didn't want any more dates for a while. Not the kind of dates Janey seemed to like. I danced before my mirror, fucked my ass out and then laughed again at how silly I felt. But movement did something to me, made me shiver. I touched a hand to my cunt mound. It was silky with the perfumed powder, and I brushed the kinky mat of hair until I felt more shivers.