I woke with two fleas jumping on my face, the back seat of this car often a transporter of stray dogs and cats to local shelters and hospitals. My friend Kevin often rescued collar-less strays found starving or hurt on the roads and streets of this overpopulated city. I felt my face for any flea bites, but there didn't seem to be any. I silently thanked Gosh, a temporary stand-in for God. Throughout my life I'd had substitutes for God. Mental places my prayers and wishes would go. It felt like until I met God or knew God or understood God I shouldn't be asking the guy for favors or have him listen to me mentally speak my hopes for others.
Kevin had given me a key to his family's house, and once they'd all left for work I'd let myself in and do a quick, neat 'shit, shower and shave'. Cleaning up after myself so as not to leave a single piece of evidence I'd been around. The house was immaculate. Not a dusty spot on anything. Not a streak on any glass. The bathroom always smelled like it had been wiped clean that morning. I marveled at Kevin's mom, a woman who spoke little English. She'd raised 3 boys and one daughter, and worked about thirty hours a week. Her husband worked full time, and in full Portuguese tradition he'd only do yard work. Housework was for women, he'd often say. Kevin told me he agreed with his father, because when the last child was born, a daughter, Kevin's father had done a load of laundry while his wife was recovering in the hospital and Kevin had worn shirts with large bleach stain blotches over all of them until he outgrew the clothes. Kevin summed up that men should not do any housework because his father had ruined about 3 of his favorite concert shirts.
Kevin mistook my cleaning-quirk to be one of a sense of duty, years before when we'd met at a yard-sale my friend's mom was having. I had been wiping and dusting down all the items, to make them more presentable while simultaneously giving myself an OCD-fix, and Kevin was there to help her move everything for the yard sale out of her garage.
Because it's a man's duty to help women move stuff.
I guess Kevin's mom knew my friend's mom. We'd flirted all day, and then he had asked me to go out to eat with him and to see a movie. So I'd gone. As we were driving back, I felt so awkward, being on a date with a boy so close to my age. I was, at age 16, so very comfortable around grown men, it sometimes felt odd to be in the company of a male younger than age 30. Kevin was 19. And the date aspect of it felt odd as well. I wasn't sure what exactly the expectations were. It was so easy to know with men who gave you money. I respected the way the transaction took away any of the guessing, wondering, and replaced it with accountable services and sexual pleasure.
So, as Kevin pulled over to the curb to drop me off where I'd lived at the time, I did the one thing he never expected from a female who, in his mind, knew it was her duty to clean. I jumped into his lap and told him I wanted him to fuck me. Now. Boy, was he mad when I did that. He'd pushed me off of him and scolded me. Told me not to act like a whore, which of course made me laugh.
"Kevin," I said and unbuttoned my shirt and untucked it from my jeans. "I am a whore." Then he'd just grabbed me and fucked me silly in the front seat of that car, not even giving himself, or me, the comfort of the back seat. Not that it would have mattered, as comfort was not to be had in any aspect of what the situation had turned into. He wasn't comfortable with me like this. The woman I was in his mind was not the woman I was.
He fucked me, he came, and then he sat there and punched his dashboard.
"What's wrong?" I'd asked.
"Now I can't marry you, or want things with you. You're just a slut," he'd said to me.
"Ok, but what's wrong?" I'd asked again.
"What, this doesn't bother you?" he looked at me angrily. "You have no problem just throwing yourself at me like this? You just met me, just today, not even twenty four hours ago, and you've got no problem taking off your clothes and just letting me have my way with you?"
I stared at him and waited until he didn't look so pissed off. Then, right as he was about to say something else, I put my hand to his cheeks, turned his face to look directly into my eyes, and I said "Hey, you didn't seem to have a problem with it, so why should I? If I wanted to, I could still think thoughts about wanting you after what we just did in this car. And you know what? I probably will. You're a good fuck."
And that's about the time I knew I'd said to much, but before I could stop myself from speaking I had to stop Kevin's hand from smacking my face. I held it there, so close to impact, and then I kissed his fingertips. He was fuming. More angry than I'd ever seen anyone. I went to get out of his car, but he reached over to stop me by strapping the seatbelt around me.
"Let's go for a ride and talk about what in the hell just happened," he said, and we drove back into the late, late night.
I told him all my secrets. I explained to him how and why. And instead of ditching me along some highway to hitch-hike my way home, he told me all of his secrets, and we became good, good friends. Now, two years later, I stood drying off in his bathroom, my personal belongings in his car, while he was at work a block away, managing his father's landscaping business.
I dressed and headed out, to wait for night to fall so I could earn some money to get a new place to live. Sometimes I got lucky and daytime clients would appear, as if by some sixth sense. How they knew how to find me was always a mystery to me. I was never in the same place each day or night.
I was sitting on the stone wall near the avenue when a car drove by and somebody yelled "Capri!" The car went around the block and then pulled up slowly and the window went down, revealing Joe, the Vietnam Vet. He smiled at me so genuinely, and I lifted myself off the flat slate rock and then had to steady myself from all the excitement of seeing him after weeks of blurred events.
"Joe!" I said happily and walked to the car and leaned myself inside the window to kiss his cheek.
"Renee," he said as he put his hands around my hair and head.
"Capri, goofball," I said and he laughed.
"Capri goofball is right," he teased. "You busy?"
Nodding my head no, I walked around the car and got inside the passenger's side. One of the girls I had been working with waved to me from the wall as I gave her a wink and a smile goodbye, to show her I knew I had no worries and was in safe hands.
Posted by nft at August 15, 2004 09:41 PM