I remembered what she told me before about not knowing if she loved Ray or not. Even though she hadn't said anything about that for a while, I didn't think she'd much like licking his a.s.s if she didn't love him.

"It's not like a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b," I said. "You're really, really with someone when you do it."

"But you like it."

"I like to do it and I like to have it done."

Even though she didn't say anything else to me, I knew she understood that this was another thing I'd learned and needed her to know. That was the kind of friends we were.

5.

THAT June, right before we graduated, Del's mom and dad went away for a weekend for their anniversary. Del and his brother Frank divided up the nights to use the house. I wanted to stay the whole weekend, but Del didn't want to be in the house with Frank around.

"Why not?"

"I hate that son of a b.i.t.c.h," Del said. "I know he's going to do something and I'll get blamed for it."

The two of them were always fighting. Del had four older brothers, but Frank was the only one still at home. He was a year older than Del, and even though Del was nineteen and too old to boss around, Frank still tried to do it. Their dad ran an auto salvage yard on top of his regular job, and a lot of the work of breaking down cars for parts fell to Frank and Del. The two of them were always fighting over who should do what. Other times, whatever fight one of them was having with the old man spilled over into a fight with the other brother. Del thought his brother was a liar who would say anything to get out of trouble or make things better for himself. He wouldn't even call Frank by his name but referred to him as "you know who." When he did that, I sometimes wanted to laugh, but then I'd see the look on Del's face and I wouldn't laugh.

"Why doesn't he move out already?" I said, but Del didn't answer me.

He said, "Just be ready on Sat.u.r.day," and I knew better than to make any suggestions.

ON THE big day, Del brought me out to the house around five, and we drank a six-pack and smoked cigarettes, right there in his mom's kitchen with her embroidered tea towels all around. We could have gone upstairs to Dels bedroom as soon as I got in the house, but we didn't. I think we were both trying to save that, because we knew we could f.u.c.k all night if we wanted, and because it was good just to be together in the house.

"I'm making a steak dinner for us," he told me when we finished the six-pack. "We'll eat up some of the old man's G.o.dd.a.m.n steaks."

I didn't say anything when he told me what else he was making, which was baked potatoes, corn, and Tater Tots. They were his favorite foods, and it didn't matter to him if they were all starches. He was cooking, and I was impressed by it. I liked sitting on the hard kitchen chair and watching him do stuff. He wore jeans but no shirt, and I knew that was for me. I loved to watch his heartbeat make his skin jump, there at the base of his neck, and I loved to kiss the heartbeat place and the hollows his collarbone made. But then, I loved everything about Del-the riot of his teeth and the smell of his mouth and the color of his b.a.l.l.s.

Del did a good job cooking. Everything came out okay, and it was even done about the same time. Still, I had a hard time even putting away half of what he served me, and in the end I had to push back my plate with most of the food still on it.

"You have to eat more than that," he said.

"If I wasn't drinking maybe I could."

"Girls are always like that. They hardly eat anything."

"I ate. My jeans are already tight."

"Give it here, then," Del said, and reached across the table for my plate. "Take off your jeans if they're too tight."

"I'm just going to undo the top b.u.t.ton."

"Are you going to unzip them for me?" he said, and from the way he talked and the way he looked at me, I could tell it pleased him as much as it did me to be sitting at the table like that, me with my jeans open and him with his shirt off.

"Naw," I said. "Finish your dinner."

I watched him shovel the food in and he knew I was watching, so he made a purposeful show of it. He wasn't rude-he just did everything in a way that would hold my eyes. He kept looking from the plate to me, and kept his eyes on me when he chewed and swallowed. I liked watching the muscles in his jaw and cheeks move, and I kept wondering if he had a hard-on, because I could already feel the fluttering starting inside me.

When he finished the last mouthful and laid the fork on the table, he said, "You're dessert."

"What about you?"

"I'm dessert, too," he said, and put on a goofy grin. He looked like a crazy kid and he made me laugh.

When Del got up from the table then to put some of our dishes in the sink, I didn't help him. Instead I went to stand in the back doorway. I stretched both my arms over my head and leaned the side of my face and one of my b.r.e.a.s.t.s against the wooden door frame. Even though I had never moved like that before, something in my body knew how to do it, and I could feel in the small of my back what I must look like with my a.s.s jutting out like that.

When Del turned from the sink to get dishes he saw me. And he came to me, just the way my body knew he would.

He pressed along my a.s.s and my thighs, and in a few seconds he unzipped and started poking and b.u.mping against me. I let myself feel that for a while, then I unzipped my own jeans and pushed down my panties. I didn't turn to see Del's face-I just stood on my tiptoes so he could get in me.

We f.u.c.ked in the door for a long time, and though my shirt was still on, I could feel the breeze coming through the screen on the wet place between my legs. Just when my feet and calves were starting to ache from standing on tiptoe, he pulled away and said, "Jesus, Vangie, let's go upstairs."

When I turned to look at him, I saw his c.o.c.k slick with me. Maybe it was because we were inside a house instead of outside or in a car, but he looked like a stranger to me just then. In the dim kitchen-the room was lit only by the light above the stove-his face was filled with shadows. He looked angry. But I knew if I could see my own face it would be serious and intent, and I figured it was wanting that was changing Del's face.

It didn't embarra.s.s me anymore to be the one on top for sixty-nine, so upstairs in Del's room I spread my c.u.n.t open over Del's mouth and face. The more he licked me, the better it felt to have something in my mouth to suck on, but the more excited I got, the harder it was to keep my head moving up and down. Part of it felt like trying to walk on a railroad track, and the other part of it was like being underwater. I kept trying and trying, and then I couldn't try anymore, and I came.

I scooted up on the bed then and lay beside Del, ran my hand over his chest and belly. When he was lying down, his stomach scooped out under his ribs. I put my nose and mouth to his skin, licked his side and up into his armpit. He had his arm around me, and his one hand was running up and down my spine, from the small of my back to my nape. He hadn't come yet, so I said, "How do you want it?" I wanted to know if I should lie on my back or on my belly.

"I want your a.s.s, Vangie."

I didn't say anything then. It didn't bother me that Del wanted to f.u.c.k that way, but the few times when we did it, it hurt, and I'd had to make myself stand it. It still scared me, but I wanted to do it, too. Part of me wondered why I wanted to do something that frightened me, but being with Del was about not saying no. If I said no, the next thing couldn't happen.

"Do you have some lotion?" I said.

He pulled baby oil out from under his bed. "I thought it would work better," he said.

"You have to go slow in the beginning."

"I remember."

So I lay facedown on the bed and let him oil up behind me. He did himself first, then started coating me with his fingers, slipping in one at first, then two. When he got between my legs and I felt him get ready to move into me, I reached around to take him in my hand.

"Guide me in, Vangie."

I took him in inch by inch, and when he was all the way up, I let myself start breathing again.

"How does it feel?"

"All right," I said. "Better with oil. How does it feel to you?"

"Tight as h.e.l.l. Good."

He lowered himself onto me then, moving into me with his whole body. After the first few strokes, it felt good to me, too, and I knew it could happen that way: something could hurt at first and then feel good. I relaxed then and put my arms all the way out. Let Del drive me down into that bed.

DEL AND I did not f.u.c.k all night at his mom and dad's like we said we would-we pa.s.sed out for a little while, then we slept off and on, both of us trying to find a way to be comfortable in his single bed. I was next to the wall, so in the middle of the night when I needed to pee, I had to crawl over Del. He woke up a little when I moved over him, but started breathing heavily again as soon as I was out of the bed. I crept downstairs and didn't turn on any lights until I got to the bathroom.

When I was done peeing and farting-it was something I couldn't bring myself to tell Del, that if he f.u.c.ked me in the a.s.s I filled up with air-I looked at myself a long time in the mirror. I was trying to see if my face looked any different, because I always thought my face should look changed as things happened to me. I was sure that spending the whole night in a bed with Del would have an effect, and when I looked in the mirror it seemed like I was different. I figured it was mostly because I looked tired, though, and because I was wearing the black nightgown my mom gave me for the first time. The black made my skin look pale.

When I turned off the bathroom light and opened the door, it took me a second to be able to see again in the darkness. When I saw a person, I thought it was Del, but it wasn't. Del's brother Frank was standing there, even though it was his night to be away from the house.

"What are you doing here?" he said.

I was going to pretend I didn't hear him, but instead I said, "What do you think, Frank?" Because of course I was standing there in his mom and dad's living room in the middle of the night in my shorty nightgown, and he knew what I was doing there.

"I guess you're f.u.c.king my brother."

"I guess," I said.

"Come here, then. I want to f.u.c.k you, too."

I thought he was teasing. Del was right upstairs and I thought Frank just wanted to get me going. I kept on thinking that even when he put one hand at the back of my neck and pulled me to him. He tried to kiss me, but I twisted my head. When he couldn't kiss my mouth, he held his face against mine and got his other arm around my waist. He hit hard across my spine a couple times.

I should have yelled then-Del would have been down the stairs in seconds-but I didn't. The whole thing caught me by surprise, and yet even as it was happening I knew that every second I stayed silent made it look like I wanted to be there.

I felt the bones in Frank's face against the bones in my face. When he used one hand to yank a nightgown strap down off my shoulder, I could see the dark homemade tattoos he had on his knuckles and wrist. He sucked and snuffled at my breast, then turned his head so he could bite my nipple with his back teeth. In a little while he tried to kiss me again. That time I let him. The kiss was hard, and I tasted alcohol when he licked the inside of my mouth.

We got on the floor, and I could feel his pubic hair scratching against me when he tried to use his fingers to push himself up inside me. He was too soft, though, and after clawing at me for a while, he gave up. We lay breathing against each other, and I could have left then but I didn't. I didn't know why I did the next thing I did-except that it seemed easier to go on than to stop. I moved down over Frank's body and took his p.e.n.i.s in my mouth.

He stopped me after a little while. "I don't want you to blow me," he said. "I want to f.u.c.k you."

What I did was enough to get him a little harder, though, and this time when he used his fingers, he was able to push his d.i.c.k inside me. It didn't feel like much of anything to me. He moved against me for about a minute, then quit. I couldn't tell if he came or not, though I doubted it. He was too soft and too drunk.

As soon as he rolled off me, I got up from the floor and away from him. In one more moment I was moving silently up the stairs.

When I got upstairs, I stood in the bedroom doorway a long time, listening to Del's steady breathing, waiting for my own breath to calm. When I could move without shaking, I pa.s.sed through the air of the room and slipped back behind Del. I wrapped my arms around him, burrowed into his back. I did not let myself think of that other one moving through the house.

The rest of the night I only dozed-the same sleep I slept when I lay beside June after we had been doping. Del slept hard. He didn't move much on the bed, and he didn't wake me up in the middle of the night for s.e.x the way he told me he would. When we did screw again, it was getting light, and we did it without talking. I kept thinking it was an angry f.u.c.k, but at the end when Del came, he said, I love you, I love you, and I felt s.h.i.tty.

Though I couldn't believe what I'd done with Frank, I knew part of why I did it. I knew it even that morning as I lay beside Del in the blue light. I'd wanted the thing to happen. Not the part where Frank was pounding his arm across my spine, and not the lousy f.u.c.k itself- I wanted the wanting. It was a sign of my power and my body and my effect. And when Frank kissed me, it was exciting to me because it was a stranger's kiss-except Frank was not a stranger. He was more dangerous than a stranger. I would not have chosen to f.u.c.k him if he hadn't been Del's brother. And I clearly did choose to f.u.c.k him when I took his d.i.c.k in my mouth.

One other thing went through my mind when Frank started to touch me. When I watched his mouth pull at my nipple, I liked the look of it: the lips concentrating, the cheeks hollowed out a little from the sucking. His face was unfamiliar, yet it was familiar. I felt the same tug inside me as I did when Del sucked on me. There was nothing so different about it. I didn't know what it said about me that I felt that way, but it was the truth. So I let myself f.u.c.k him. It wasn't hard. It was only after, when I came upstairs to Del, that everything got hard.

WHEN DEL and I finally got up and went downstairs the next day, even after I saw for certain that Frank was gone, I felt sick in my stomach. Del started making breakfast right away, but I knew there was no way I'd be able to eat what he was making.

"You sleep okay?"

"Okay," I said, and tried to pretend I was the same person I was ten hours ago, before I f.u.c.ked his brother. I went on pretending when Del and I screwed a couple last times, and when we showered together. I touched Del all the ways I knew he liked, and I wondered if that made me an even bigger traitor-because I seemed to have no difficulty with licking Del's a.s.s or playing with his c.o.c.k in the shower until he came. I could do that to Del, but I could also f.u.c.k his brother. It made me wonder what I was.

All I know is at the end of the morning, after we'd sucked and f.u.c.ked, I did not feel so far away from Del. I felt terrible, like the worst kind of liar, and I knew I'd never tell Del the truth. I betrayed Del with my f.u.c.king and my lying, but those were also the only ways I could make a bridge back to him, so I chose them.

If Frank Pardee ever looked at me any differently after that night, I didn't know. I never again looked at his face or met his eyes. I never told anyone what I did, either. Not even June.

6.

RIGHT after I graduated, I got a job waitressing at Dreisbach's, a restaurant there in Mahanaqua. It wasn't a very nice place and I'd never thought of working there before, but it was a job and it wasn't carrying chickens. They were willing to teach me to wait tables, so I was willing to learn.

My father wasn't crazy about me working at Dreisbach's. In his younger days, he drank in the bar of the restaurant, and he thought it was a rough place. There were always stories of fights that started there, and one of the bartenders had been killed when he tried to break up a fight between two hunters. My father said, "The only way you're going to work there is if I come to pick you up every night."

"You can't control me. I'm eighteen."

"You still live under my roof."

I didn't live in my dad's house, so what he said wasn't exactly true, but he did pay the rent on the kitchenette.

"Not much longer," I said. "Del and I are saving up. Soon I'll be long gone."

"Well, until then, you live by my rules."

To me his remarks mainly signified that I had to move, but the whole argument made me realize I was handling my dad wrong. So I said, "Okay, all right. You can come get me after work. I work until midnight."

"I'll wait for you in the bar."

And of course he was well on his way to being looped by the time midnight rolled around, and I was the one who ended up driving. He showed up two more nights after that, and then he must have figured it was too much trouble to worry about me, because on the fourth night, he told me he wouldn't come again.

"You didn't have to come in the first place. I can look after myself," I said.

He waved my comment away. "I've decided to give you the truck, Evangeline. You need a dependable vehicle if you're going to be working. I haven't been much of a father to you, but I do what I can."

I could have said, You haven't been a bad father, but something inside would not let me. But I did think the words, and I let myself be thrilled driving the truck back to my dad's house. Even though it wasn't the kind of vehicle I would have picked for myself, I was glad to have it. A rust-colored Ford with 87,000 miles on it.

When I pulled into my dad's driveway, he asked me for his house keys off his key ring.

"How are you going to get to work tomorrow?" I said. I didn't want him to get in trouble for his generosity, or maybe I wanted to give him one last chance to back out.

"You better go before I change my mind," he told me. Then: "You've been a good daughter, Vangie, to put up with your mother and me." Then he said, of all things, "You're a good girl."

I thought his words showed me how little he knew of me, but I was still grateful to him. I waited until my father let himself into his bachelor house before I drove away, and then I was on my own again, as always.

TO LEARN the job at Dreisbach's, I worked on slow nights with Lorraine: I knew of her before I started working there, and she knew of me because she knew my mom and dad. Lorraine had dark auburn hair that she wore in a French roll-the most glamorous hairdo I could think of when I was a little kid, and one that I still thought looked glamorous on Lorraine. She favored black-and-white uniforms, and she explained everything to me in her gravelly voice. If I became a good waitress, it was because of her.

"You never bang a plate down, honey. You set it down nice on the table. And the customer is always right. If he ordered peas and you bring peas to the table, and then he tells you he ordered corn, you just say, 'Oh my, I'm sorry,' and you take the peas back and you bring him corn."