Lauren Holmes - Barbara the Slut and Other People

My parents looked at each other and my mom coughed and my dad adjusted his glasses.

“New Jersey is a town,” said my mom, “near Boston.” We lived forty minutes north of Boston.

“But you’ll pick me up at after-school,” George said to me.

“Uh,” I said. I was starting to feel guilty that George even had to go to after-school. I had wanted to keep my afternoons free, but now that I was trying not to have sex I didn’t actually have much to do, and I went on long runs and made egg sandwiches while George sat in a classroom and read marine biology books and ate saltines.

“We’ll see,” my dad told George. My parents were pretty stupid for a math professor and a shrink. Even if George didn’t look up New Jersey as soon as we got home, when I got in they were going to have to explain that it was three or four states away, depending on which highways you took, and that I was never going to pick George up at five again.

• • •

Three weeks before Thanksgiving, I finally had sex. Jesse Spence showed up at my locker and asked me if I wanted to go to his house after school. I wondered if he hadn’t heard that I was on strike, or if he was just really cocky. He said he liked me, which seemed unlikely, but his smile was sweet and he was the senior pitcher for the baseball team and he had huge meaty hands with chewed fingernails, so I said okay.

Jesse waited for me outside after last period, which was a good sign because some boys didn’t. Then they were so mad at themselves for chickening out that they would tell everyone I wanted to sleep with them but they didn’t want to sleep with me.

Jesse said, “Hey,” and smiled his sweet smile and followed me to my car.

When we got to his house he put carrot sticks on a plate and said he didn’t have any other snacks because his parents were on a diet together. We went up to his room and his bed was made, and I wondered if he always made it or if he was planning on me. I sat on the bed and he sat at his desk.

“How was your summer?” he said.

“It was good,” I said. “It was a pretty long time ago. How was yours?”

“It was good,” he said.

“You can sit next to me if you want,” I said.

He stood up too quickly and his chair rolled back and hit the desk. I laughed and he blushed. I love boys who blush.

He sat next to me and I moved the plate of carrots to the floor. When I sat back up he kissed me and it felt good and warm, like he was still hot from blushing. I kissed him back with tongue because the boys who don’t start with tongue are the ones who are good at it.

Jesse kissed me and kissed me and he was going to kiss me all afternoon if I didn’t stop him. I pushed him back onto the bed and he looked nervous.

“What?” I said.

“We don’t have to do it,” he said. “We could just hang out.”

“I have to go soon,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. He let me kiss him and take off his shirt and pants and boxers until he was naked and I was fully dressed, waiting for him to make a move. Finally he slid his hands under my shirt and they felt like I hoped they would — soft and rough and enough to cover my boobs and a little more. He took off my shirt and bra and I slid out of my pants and underwear. He took a condom out of his drawer and put it on the nightstand but he seemed content just to touch me all over. I felt like I was Cleopatra and he was my boy. It never happens like that. I could have stayed in his bed forever, but it was already after four o’clock. I opened the condom.

“Fuck me,” I said.

“Are you sure?” he said.

I laughed and he blushed again.

• • •

I left Jesse’s house at four fifty and was late to pick up George.

“Barbara, did you hear about the world’s loneliest whale?” George said when he got in the car.

“Ha ha,” I said. “No, what?”

“This is not a joke about whales, so you shouldn’t laugh because it’s not a joke. This is a story about a whale with a communication disability.”

He buckled his seat belt.

“This whale sings at a fifty-two hertz frequency. The other whales sing at fifteen to twenty-five hertz frequencies. So that means the other whales can’t hear her. Only the navy can hear her. The navy is listening to her. They started listening to her in 1989. They know where she is. She doesn’t follow the same migration patterns as any of the other whales and the other whales don’t know where she is and she doesn’t know where they are. The marine biologists think she’s a hybrid of two species or the last survivor of an unidentified species. And that’s the reason why nobody can hear her.”

“Wow,” I said.

“Yes,” said George.

When we got home George started up the computer to listen to the whale songs and I painted my nails. I replayed the afternoon with Jesse in my head. I wished I could sleep with him again.

“Here is the blue whale song,” George said. It sounded like snoring. “Here’s the fifty-two hertz whale song,” he said. That one sounded like an owl hooting. “Those are sped up so that we can hear them,” he said. “Here’s what the fifty-two hertz really sounds like. You can’t hear it!”

Obviously that one sounded like nothing.

• • •

The next time I saw Jesse he asked me if I wanted to hang out that weekend, maybe Sunday morning. But I was not about to let him fuck me on a Sunday morning if he was only offering Sunday because he had better things to do on Friday and Saturday. Sunday morning is the best time of the week to have sex.

I looked for Jesse after that, but I didn’t see him at all the next week. Instead I started seeing Roger Vasquez around. Roger was the other pitcher on the baseball team and I had noticed him before. He was tall and dark and he had perfect teeth. He started smiling at me in the hallways and I started smiling back at him. It didn’t seem like a good idea to sleep with another boy on the baseball team right away, especially not the junior pitcher. But it was a catch-22 because the baseball team was the best-looking team in school. They weren’t stupid like the football team or assholes like the lacrosse team or pretentious like the crew team, and they looked so much stronger than the track team. I liked the swim team, but the boys’ and girls’ swim teams only slept with each other.

Finally I got tired of all the smiling and decided to talk to Roger. That Friday he walked by while I was waiting outside my brother’s classroom to give him his lunch.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hi,” said Roger.

“What are you up to later?”

“Uh,” he said. “Nothing, I’m free.”

Then Ms. Danielle opened the door and let George out.

“I forgot my lunch in the car!” said George.

“I know, dummy.” I handed him the bag.

Roger looked at the door of the classroom. “Is your brother retarded or something?”

“What?” I said.

“Barbara’s brother is not retarded,” said George. “But there is a retarded boy I can show you. His name is Christopher.”

I didn’t look at Roger. “Okay buddy,” I told George, “I’ll see you at five.”

“Okay,” he said. He gave me a hug from the side and when he was done I thought he was going to give me a kiss but he stuck his tongue in my ear and I jumped.

“George!” I said.

George smiled.

“Sick,” said Roger.

“Why are you still here?” I said to him. He looked nervous. “Go away.” I knocked on the door and Ms. Danielle let George back in.

“I’m serious,” I said. “Go away. I wouldn’t sleep with you in a million years.”

“Whatever,” Roger said, and started walking away. “Slut.”

“Fuck you,” I said. “What’s wrong with you?”