Джон Макдональд - A Flash of Green

“Early this year he decided he would ‘cure’ himself by making love to a girl. He selected a little slut in his class who was reported to be ready to oblige anybody. He went to her house. She was alone. She kissed him hello, locked the front door, took him directly to her room, stepped out of her shorts, shucked off her blouse and bra and spread herself out on the bed and said, ‘Hurry up , tiger!’ Poor Jigger ran like a gazelle. He paused a block away to throw up, and kept running. The girl spread it all over school. By then if he hadn’t already learned he couldn’t kill himself, he would have tried again. It pushed him a little further from reality, that’s all.

“Then I came along. I had two advantages, I guess. One, I hadn’t had a chance to hear any of the talk about him. I wouldn’t know, unless I suspected by just looking at him, which is ridiculous, of course. Two, I’m scrawny, not all big bazoom and fatty hips, which apparently the experimental girl had more than her fair share of, and he felt they had put him off. I guess you could say I had three advantages. He didn’t want me to expect anything of him. Can you imagine what the poor thing wanted of me?”

“Just... maybe to be seen with you.”

“Exactly! You’re very wise, Kat. He wanted to have a girl to go on dates with, so the world would know he was dating a girl. He sensed I didn’t want to get involved in any way, certainly not with a kid of seventeen. Actually, if he could have bought a robot girl, that would have been perfect, as long as everybody thought she was real. He wanted me to like him. He wanted to talk nicely to me so I would want to be with him. And I guess he wanted to practice being with a girl, walking with her and talking with her, so that he could be more at ease. He wanted a status he thought he didn’t have, and I was to be the symbol. He really talked very nicely on our walk up the beach, but it was a little bit strained. I think he’d sort of memorized a conversational line he thought would keep me amused. I thought he was tense because he was working up to a pass. And then I stumbled and he grabbed at me in the dark when I half fell against him, and his big dear innocent paw clapped right over my left breast as if he’d planned it that way. And it was such a horrible moment, he froze. The very last thing he wanted to do was make a pass at me.

“It took a long time to get that out of him. He’s terribly sensitive. And he’s brighter than you’d think. I knew he was not homosexual. But how can you convince anybody who’s gotten themselves tied up in such knots they can’t listen to reason?” She lit another cigarette, shook the match out too violently. “I don’t put much value on myself. Not after last year. When somebody takes everything from you, and decides it isn’t enough. And you crawl and beg and humble yourself, and they laugh and walk out of your life, it doesn’t leave you a hell of a lot to hold dear, does it?”

“Natalie!”

“I’m as much a woman as I’ll ever be. You see, I felt involved in Jigger’s problem. And maybe in some sick little way it made me feel better, because here was somebody messed up a little worse than I was. There’s a kind of rare justice in it, Kat. I seduced that big scared kid. I took the risk I could seduce him, because if it hadn’t worked, I don’t know what would have happened to him. On that same beach, the first time, because it seemed to have to be something that happened by accident, almost. If he’d known I wanted it to happen, he’d have become impotent out of fright. Hours, it took. And all kinds of sneaky tricks. God, I was so tender and cautious. When it finally began to happen, I felt ten thousand years old, the mother of all, holding that great trembling scared lummox, that sweet whimpering ox. But he needed more assurance than that. So we’ve had a couple of motel dates. Are you shocked?”

“I guess so. Sort of.”

“At the Drowsy Lady. I made the arrangements both times. It’s like giving life to something. That bumbling shyness and all that fright is gone now. He can laugh at the way he was. He’s a man now, and he struts and smirks and looks so incredibly smug. He makes love joyously now. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t let me give you the idea it’s something I just endure. He’s learned how to make it good for me. Does it spoil the purity of the motive if I enjoy it?”

“Stop trying to hurt yourself, Natalie.”

The girl made a face. “Now, of course, he is certain it is love undying. He’s certain I’m not too old for him. He wants to come to school at Michigan. He’s sure we’ll get married. He has it all worked out. I don’t want that, of course. I don’t love him. He’s a sweet, intelligent boy. If I stopped right now, he might just be trading one obsession for another. I had the idea I’d let him have... so much of me, the charm of the idea would kind of fade away after I go back to school. Do you know what I keep thinking when I’m with him? I keep thinking there is some girl he hasn’t met yet, some girl I’ll probably never meet, who can be grateful to me later on. Jigger will be a good husband. This isn’t going to make him promiscuous. He’s learning that, too, how promiscuity is such a silly shallow thing. Well, somebody found out about it. And they’re using it.”

“Does Jigger know?”

“The people who talked to my father didn’t give him the name of the male involved. I refused to tell him. He’s absolutely furious with me. No, Jigger doesn’t know. I’m afraid of what it would do to him, and I’m afraid of what crazy thing he might try to do about it if he knew. If he knew somebody was trying to hurt me, he could be murderous. He... he hasn’t got the stability he’ll have later on, in a few more years. I don’t feel soiled and messy. If you place no value on something, what harm does it do to give it to somebody who needs it badly? He writes poetry about me. Some of it is really quite good. I’ve watched him asleep. He doesn’t look over twelve when he’s asleep. I’ve felt proud to hold him, Kat. He was on some terrible edge when I found him. And now he isn’t. Was I wrong? Is the whole thing dirty and cheap and wrong? Tell me, Kat. I trust you. I feel so defensive about it, too defensive, maybe.”

“It isn’t an easy question. There isn’t any easy answer. If you could have gotten him to go to someone for help...”

“I tried, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Natalie, I understand. I really do. It was the combination of two kinds of unhappiness, actually. But I think there’s a part of it you don’t understand, or you’re trying to deny.”

“Such as?”

“A masochistic streak in you. You’re ashamed of last year. So you were willing to find some way to abuse yourself, if you could find a rationalization for it. You don’t hold yourself cheap. If you did, you wouldn’t be struggling so hard to justify the relationship with Jigger. You just wouldn’t give a damn, would you?”

“M-maybe not. I don’t know.”

“But you can be awfully certain, dear, that few people could ever understand it. Very few women, and almost no men. They wouldn’t comprehend the sacrificial flavor to it, and the kind of strange inverted motherhood. I’ve never liked that boy.”

“He’s never let anyone else know him. I didn’t like him either.”

“The world is going to turn it into filth, if it ever comes out.”

“I pleaded with my father. I begged him. I told him to let them do their damnedest. I told him it wouldn’t hurt me, and I didn’t tell him that I wouldn’t let it hurt Jigger. I despise the idea of anybody being able to get at him through me. But nobody can talk to him now. Claire is wandering around wondering what the hell happened. It’s up to him to tell her if he wants to.”