We Need to Talk About Kevin_ A Novel - Lionel Shriver [183]
“It would be better if you used her exact words, as well as you can remember.”
“Okay, you asked for it.” Kevin inhaled. “She wanted to know if I’d ever seen a horse’s cock. How big it was. And all this time I’m feeling kinda—funny. Like, restless. And she put her hand on my, uh. Fly. Of my jeans. And I was pretty embarrassed, because with all that talk, I’d got . . . a little worked up.”
“You mean you had an erection,” said Strickland sternly.
“Look, do I have to go on?” Kevin appealed.
“If you can, it would be better if you finished the story.”
Kevin glanced at the ceiling and crossed his legs tightly, tapping the toe of his right sneaker in an agitated, irregular rhythm against the toe of the left. “So I said, ‘Miss Pagorski maybe we should work on this scene some other time, ’cause I’ve got to go soon.’ I wasn’t sure whether to say anything about her hand, so I just kept saying that maybe we should stop, that I wanted to stop, that I should go now. ’Cause it didn’t seem right, and, you know, I like her, but not like that. She could be my mother or something.”
“Let’s be clear here,” said Strickland. “Legally, it’s only so important, because you’re a minor. But on top of the fact that you’re only fifteen, these were unwanted advances, is this correct?”
“Well, yeah. She’s ugly.”
Pagorski flinched. It was the brief, floppy little jerk you get when you keep shooting a small animal with a high-caliber pistol and it’s already dead.
“So did she stop?” asked Strickland.
“No, sir. She started rubbing up and down through my jeans, all the while saying, ‘Jesus’ ... Saying, and I really apologize Mr. Strickland but you asked me . . . She said every time she saw a horse’s cock she ‘wanted to suck it.’ And that’s when I—”
“Ejaculated.”
Kevin dropping his head to look at his lap. “Yeah. It was kind of a mess. I just ran out. I skipped class a couple of times after that, but then I came back and tried to act as if nothing happened since I didn’t want to wreck my grade-point average.”
“How?” I murmured under my breath. “By getting another B?” You shot me a glare.
“I know this hasn’t been easy for you, and we want to thank you, Kevin, for being so forthcoming. You can take a seat now.”
“Could I go sit with my parents?” he implored.
“Why don’t you sit over there with the other boys for now, because we might need to ask you a few more questions. I’m sure your parents are very proud of you.”
Kevin hove back to his original perch, curling with a tinge of shame—nice touch. Meanwhile, the classroom was pin-drop silent, as parents met one another’s eyes and shook their heads. It was a bravura performance. I cannot pretend that I was not impressed.
But then I looked to Vicki Pagorski. Early in Kevin’s testimony she’d emitted the odd repressed squeal, or she’d dropped her mouth open. But by the time it was over she was beyond histrionics, and this was a drama teacher. She was drooped so bonelessly in her folding chair that I feared she would fall off, while the frizz of her hair evanesced into the air as if her whole head were in a state of dissolve.
Strickland turned to the drama teacher’s chair, though he kept his distance. “Now, Miss Pagorski. It’s your contention that this encounter never happened?”
“That’s—.” She had to clear her throat. “That’s right.”
“Do you have any idea why Kevin would tell such a story if it wasn’t true?”
“No, I don’t. I can’t understand it. Kevin’s class is an unusually talented group, and I thought we’d been having a lot of fun. I’ve given him plenty of individual attention—”
“It’s the individual attention he seems to have a problem with.”
“I give all my students individual attention!”
“Oh, Miss Pagorski, let’s hope not,” Strickland said sorrowfully. Our small audience