Totally naked. Brenda was on her bed. faceup. Celia was straddling her and rubbing some sort of cream into her shoulders and her arms and then over her breasts. What made it look even stranger to me was that Celia was in her panties and naked from the waist up herself. Neither of them had heard the door open. Brenda gazed to her left and saw me.
"April!" she cried. "Close the door!"
Celia shifted and turned to look at me. She looked quickly at Brenda and then back at me.
"Why didn't you wait downstairs in the rec room?" she asked.
"There's only one girl down there, and she's watching some stupid soap opera." I swallowed hard and then asked, "What are you doing?"
"She's giving me a massage,' Brenda said. 'Go take a walk or something."
The two of them continued to stare at me. I wanted to ask why the person giving the massage had to be almost naked. too. I wanted to ask if women usually had their breasts massaged as well. I wanted to ask if all college roommates were as physically intimate as they seemed to be. I wanted to ask so many things, but instead. I turned and left the room quickly.
It wasn't until I was standing in the hallway that I realized my face was flushed and my heart was thumping like a flat tire on a car, each beat ripping under and around my breasts.
Nasty things said to me at school began to submerge from the dark, dank pool of unpleasant memories. Jenna's threat returned. The girl downstairs in the rec room's remark about BC echoed. I actually put my hands over my ears, as though the words were returning from the outside instead of being resurrected from the cemetery of horrid thoughts.
I shook my head and charged down the hallway to the stairs, practically flying over the steps. Then I hurried out of the building and, without knowing where I was going or even thinking of any direction, just walked down the drive and continued along the street.
What was I fleeing? My brain reeled with memories and thoughts, images and tantalizing emotions. Was I shocked? Yes. Did it frighten me? A little, Did it excite me? I didn't want to answer, even if I was answering only to myself.
When Luke touched me in places no one other than my own mother had ever seen. I was shocked and frightened but not tantalized or in any way sexually excited. All I could think of was how to escape.
For a while up there in Brenda and Celia's room. I was mesmerized. I was filled with the erotic exhilaration of a voyeur, especially during th
ose few moments when neither Brenda nor Celia knew I was in the room watching them. Shouldn't I have been disgusted? Why was I so flushed? Why couldn't I get the sight of them out of my mind?
Was I going to be like Brenda? Why didn't I have deeper crushes on boys at school? Why didn't I care more about my appearance, my figure? These questions circled me like a swam of mad bees.
None of us knows who we really art. I thought, My father became a different man. Mama had changed so much I hardly recognized her. Brenda was one sort of big sister and person to me, and now she was another. Who was I? Whom would I be most like?
I heard laughter behind me and saw a girl and a boy walking together, holding hands and swinging their arms as they walked. Suddenly, they stopped, and there on the sidewalk in broad daylight, they kissed as if they couldn't take another step forward without doing so. What was that sort of passion like? Would I ever find it?
On and on I walked, until I realized I was getting lost and nearly panicked. If there was one thing I didn't want to do, it was that. I traced my way back, hurrying along. This time. I knocked the door. and Celia opened it. She was in a robe.
"Oh, we wondered where you had gone. You were away so long."
"Where's Brenda?" I asked, seeing she wasn't in the room and the bathroom door was open.
"She's off to the gym. She never eats before a game. Go change into whatever you brought, and we'll walk over to the gym. There's a sandwich shop on the way, and we can have a small bite to eat first, if you want."
"I don't need to eat before the game, either." I said. "Whatever. That's fine."
She reached out to brush some hair off my forehead. and I instinctively pulled back. She held her smile and her hand frozen in the air between us.
"You could do some nice things with your hair. April."
"I'll change," I said.
"If you want to shower first..."
"No, I'm fine," I said.
She still held her smile. -.Are you all right?"
No, I wanted to say.I'm not all right. What's going on between you and my sister?
"I said I was fine," I replied instead, and went to my room to change.