Dodging Trains (3 page)

It’s the second day
of the first year of high school. Girls are tall and pretty, and boys short and ugly. One boy is shorter than the others and pretty like the girls with long, pitch-black curls. His eyes are round and golden, too golden, and the boys don’t like him for it.

“Fag!” they shout at him during the breaks, a new word I ask Mom about at night. “Don’t look at me, fag!”

He’s in my homeroom, spine ramrod straight in the seat next to me. He doesn’t meet my eyes the first days we’re in the same school, but I see the defiance in them from the side. I pass him notes. Later, I whisper that
they’re
the fags though Mom never explained what it meant. On the fifth day, Keyon enlightens me on the way home from school.

“They’re jerks. They’re saying I like guys, not girls.”

I blush because I like him. I also like his long hair, his eyes, his skin that’s a little bit brown. “Do you?”

He looks up. Meets my stare with as much hate as he bores into his tormentors at school. “Hell no! I love chicks. I wouldn’t touch a guy with a fucking knife.”

“Good,” I whisper low, because I didn’t mean to upset him. And I don’t want him to prefer boys to me.

His laugh is rich and clucking, a funny laugh I know from raspberry lollipops and backyard swings. I peek up from the sidewalk.

“You’re right,” he says. “It would’ve been bad if I touched someone with a knife.”

That’s true, and his mood change is contagious. Soon we’re both cracking up. “Rule number one,” I manage through our fit. “Don’t touch people with knives.”

We would have kept laughing if Tyler’s gritty voice hadn’t interrupted us. “Oh my, if it isn’t our little homo. Are you done grooming your girly-curls and now you’re getting ready to pick up a dude? Paislee, what’re you doing with that loser?”

“Stop it, Tyler. Keyon isn’t a—”

“Fag! Loser! I’ll mash in your pretty-girl face,” Aaron interrupts, passing Tyler and socking Keyon in the mouth.

I don’t register Keyon’s moan as much as the shriek ringing in my ears. It’s loud and disturbing, and it comes from me
.

“What’s your problem?” I scream. Keyon’s knees fold under him on the asphalt. He covers his mouth, blood sliding around his fingers like Halloween rings. We’re on Cider Street, a busy street, a miracle no one sees us. Tyler and Aaron must realize, because they run off, hooting.

I tattle to Mom.

Mom tattles to Keyon’s mom.

Keyon’s mom tattles to his dad, who tattles to the principal.

The principal suspends Aaron and Tyler for a week, and when they return, it’s with a vengeance.

“Hey.
I’ve been watching you. You come here often, don’t you?” Preppy Boy sidles up next to me as Ivy’s fills with thirsty Wednesday night regulars, keeping the waitresses busy.

I don’t swing toward him. Instead I turn my head slightly and brush my chin against my shoulder. With my lashes lowered, I gaze at him playfully. Preppy Boy gets that look on his face, the one telling me I can rule him tonight.

“And you like what you see?” I ask, surprising him. I feel the smirk on my face grow at the awkward pause while he rummages for a reply.

“Maybe,” he finally counters. It’s lame, and I let it slide. “So I’ve just moved here from Atlanta, and— It’s for AT&T.” He straightens on the stool, proud. “I’m in charge of setting up the new office down on Cider Street.”

“That’s you?” I say, impish, because it’s hard to muster
impressed
when you’re not. I don’t care about status or money.

“Yeah, that’s me.” He clears his throat, misinterpreting my response, and I play into it.

“The Boss, huh?” I flirt.

He laughs, scratching his baby-bottom-clean neck. I think I see a blush growing up his cheeks. “Ha, you could say that.”

“Nice. I’m honored, Mr. Boss-man.”

“Aaron Jones,” he says, stretching out a hand. After my last film clip, Aaron isn’t a good name, so I don’t memorize it.

“I’m Paislee.”

It’s late by the time I say my goodbyes at the café. Mom waves. Tries to ignore that AT&T Guy leaves with me. We’ve been through this. She knows she doesn’t get to make choices for me. Back when she could have, she was too busy picking up the pieces of her own sanity after the divorce. I don’t blame her for taking a few years’ vacation from being a mother. I’d have done the same thing, I’m sure.

Note to self: never have kids.

“I had a good time tonight,” AT&T says at my side, and I realize he’s still trudging alongside me. Something to be said for that when a girl isn’t paying attention.

I look at my watch. Twelve. I have to get up early for work.

“Me too,” I say sweetly.

“You wanna come to my place for a, um, nightcap?” Despite his meticulous grooming and his baby face, he doesn’t seem practiced in the pickup department.

I do my regular bit, check in on my feelings.

The street we’re on is gloomy. Though I hate the cold, I like it better when snow falls, softening the night and leaving a blanket of hope on the ground. The darkness turns less dark that way. I clamp down on sucked-in lips, verifying that I don’t feel content.

“Where do you live?” I ask.

He answers quickly. “After Yellow Pub, it’s the first corner if you know where I mean?” AT&T points down the street. Of course I do. I walk past Yellow Pub every day to get home from Ivy’s, and only by two blocks. Things are looking up for the boy.

I do another check. Imagine what it’ll be like to return to my apartment. Old-Man doesn’t live in his kingdom of mirrors, and the falafel place owners don’t either. It’s just me there. Will loneliness flood me tonight? Will it make me think of railway stations, of World War II trains, or will I fall asleep before I get that far?

AT&T’s hand settles on the small of my back as he alerts me to a puddle. The gesture is considerate, and from within his spineless appearance, he makes me less forlorn and afraid of the dark.

“Thanks,” I say. “A small nightcap won’t hurt, I guess.”

“Sure won’t,” he agrees, a smile plumping his cheeks.

An hour later, I’m out of my shower. I rub my hair dry and lock the dark lengths in a fresh towel before I go to bed. Then I warm myself on the film clip of the last sixty minutes. Quick but pleasant, AT&T seemed new to one-night stands, but attentive and letting me rule him the way I needed.

“What’s your poison
?” AT&T asks, holding a well-stocked fridge door open like it’s a weaponry cabinet.

“I’ll take a Diet Coke.”

“Here you go. Sorry about the mess,” he apologizes. I laugh softly. The apartment screams “tidy man.”

“Have a seat?” His is a question, maybe because I show no such inclination.

“Where’s your bedroom?”

The sound isn’t there, but his chest sucks in surprised air. Cute. “Speak up if I’m talking too fast, honey,” I say. Poor guy blushes. Goodness, he’s too much.

I help him off with his clothes, and he’s so ready it looks painful. His Adam’s apple trembles with every swallow as if he can’t believe his luck.

It’s turning me on. Doesn’t matter that he’s got baby fat going around his belly, that his arms are working-stiff skinny and his shoulders are rounding and not from workouts.

He has a nice happy-trail, one of my weaknesses. I stroke my way down it, making him shiver with anticipation. I bite my lip and wink at him. He smiles a weak smile back, fingers digging into the bed at his sides as he watches me.

God, I love their groans when I take them in my mouth. I do that to him a little bit, before I let go to undress. He watches me hungrily but doesn’t dare to move. I know what he’s thinking, and I love this game so much.

He’s afraid to break the spell, because maybe I’ll reconsider and run off. I could too—I really could—and he wouldn’t stop me. Men are good people. They aren’t bastards. Numbers speak volumes, and only that one time, only then and never again, have they been evil.

I’m here now, enjoying this. I’m warm, craving to connect with him.

“Do you have condoms?” I ask though I’m always prepared. I’ve got a package in my purse. It’s just an awkward power game, perfect for tonight.

“Yes! Sorry, what was I thinking?” he whispers, his stomach tightening as he sits up and gets off the bed. He returns quickly. Scrambles to open the foil. When he’s done, he takes in my curves. Reaches out and touches my waist. Besides the one move, he has no plan, so I tip him to the bed and climb up over him. Rub myself against his belly to enjoy the friction and feel him hard and nudging against my behind. He groans, which I like.

“You ready?” I ask him the way some guys ask me. AT&T looks like he needs reassurance, like he needs to be warned.

“Uh-huh,” he squeaks. That Adam’s apple bobs thickly again.

“Okay, you asked for it,” I tease, hold him still, and pop him inside of me.

“Shit,” he wheezes, angling his chin up so the back of his head digs into the pillow when I sink down on him.

“You like it?” I’m so in charge. I’m on top of the world, ruling every man’s desire, every man’s lust because I want to, not because I have to.

“God, yes.”

I stretch in bed,
smiling. AT&T was fun. He came fast too, but then he serviced me, which was nice. Someone had taught him well back in Atlanta.

Afterward, he mentioned the movies, dates, and I was honored. So nice of him, but I’ve been through this before.

Small-town gossip will get to AT&T. He might be rosy-eyed now, but it won’t last long. At first, he’ll be surprised when he learns my treatment of him wasn’t special, that I’ve been with half the virile guys in town over eighteen. For a minute, he’ll still think we’ve got
something
special, and he might even take me out on that public date.

He’d soon understand that I’m an outcast and not someone he should be associated with. There are no whores in Rigita, but Rigita does have me, the town slut.

I can’t complain. My curves do wonders for me. My face, my eyes, my lips, my hair. I’ve heard it all from every male; they love different parts of me, being with me, being
in
me. They come back and back, and they know better than to give me money. At times I do accept gifts though.

Some men are polite. Others don’t meet my eyes when we pass in public. The worst ones stare straight at me, upper lip curled in a silent snarl.

I’m used to every variety. It rarely hurts anymore. But when the most hostile of them text me for “hugs” more than the others, I can’t deny that it surprises me.

I want to fall asleep on a good thought. I think of the wonder in AT&T’s gaze when I went down on him without being asked. It morphed into gratefulness as I rasped my teeth over his member and made pleasure shudder up his spine.

When I wake up with the morning light teasing my eyes, the last flash of a film clip comes from a dream—

A smooth face on a too-thin neck, a young boy growing into a teenager. Dark waves in tousled disagreement with the mandated orderliness at school. Years ago, he raised his chin so he could keep my quivering lip within view. He wasn’t going to let me leave crying.