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By Root 539 0

went years ago – I made sure of that, thinking I won’t have my wedding night ruined. What a joke. It would hurt, all the same. It would be bound to. I can’t let him know that about me. A woman’s most precious possession. My mother’s archaic simper voice, cautioning my sixteen-years’ self, and the way she said it made me want to laugh or throw up. But I was neither one way nor another, not buying her view but unable to act on my own. It would have been better for me if I’d wanted to keep myself withheld, or else could have rid myself easily of that unwanted burden with the first boy who asked. The first boy who asked wasn’t very insistent, though. I wish he had been. I wasn’t more or less afraid then. Just the same. Only then I had more time.

“What’s the matter, darling?” Nick’s voice, puzzled. “You want it, too. You know you do.”

His eyes are smiling in a bewildered way. He can’t fathom my hesitance. I’m not a child, after all, not a young girl. What in hell is the matter with me? I can’t take off my clothes in a field. What if someone saw?

“I can’t – here.”

“I told you – no one ever comes to this place.”

“That was years ago.”

“Oh darling,” he says, quite gently, but smiling some reproach, “it’s as private as the grave. What more do you want?”

The grave’s a fine and private place

But none, I think, do there embrace.

That’s why he said that, maybe. My mother said, “One thing about your father, he was never one to make many demands upon me, that’s one thing you could say for him.” And I thought how terrible for him, the years and years.

“Not everything, Nick. Not my slip.”

“All right, darling. Have it your way.”

In the mind, in that deep theatre, no one ever had to stumble through the awkward acts of undressing. The clothes vanished by themselves. I don’t want to watch him, although God knows he does it neatly, slithering out of his grey flannels like a snake shrugging off its last year’s skin. No, not a snake, of course.

Naked, he’s warm and cool. The smoothness of his skin, and the light roughness of the hair along his thighs and between his legs. His sex, unfamiliar and giant and real. Now nothing matters and I’m not afraid of anything and nothing is around us, only the dark blue of the night, and I will never again be afraid of anything and he does want me after all.

“Put it in, darling.”

His low voice, speaking some words, and then I realize that if I wanted to change my mind now, I couldn’t. It has to be done. But – I hadn’t thought or considered or remembered until this instant –

“Nick – you haven’t – you know, taken any –”

His mouth searches my face, my eyes.

“Haven’t you, Rachel?”

“No. No. I thought –”

I thought the man always would. Not so? Or not any more? Any seventeen-year-old would have known that. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t want –

“Did you think I went around like a Boy Scout, darling,” he says, “always prepared?”

I can’t bear his anger, if that’s what it is. Not now. Not like this. And yet it angers me, too.

“Did you think I did?”

“Sh, Sh, darling. It’s all right. Don’t worry. I won’t go off in you.”

A brief searing hurt, and then his sex is in mine and I can feel him piercing warmly, unhurtfully. And – oh, Nick, I can’t help this shuddering that is not desire, that’s something I don’t understand. I don’t want to be this way. It’s only my muscles, my skin, my nerves severed from myself, nothing to do with what I want to be. Forgive me. Forgive me. Then –

“Oh hell, darling,” he says. “I meant to get out before that happened, but I –”

I don’t care, I don’t care about anything, except this peace, this pride, holding him.

“Never mind.”

“Well, you were so worried, before. You’ll – take care, when you get home?”

“Yes.”

But I wish he wouldn’t talk about it. I’m hardly aware of what he’s saying.

“You didn’t make it, did you, Rachel? You were pretty tense, darling.”

The peace is gone. I turn my head away from him.

“Yes, I know. I’m sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s never much good the first time.”

“Was it so obvious, then?”

“Was what so obvious, Rachel?”

“That it