“There were promises made,” I said. I thought that was safe and somewhat logical even though a bit cryptic.
“Oh, so your father did know your mother?”
“Yes, he knew her.”
“Well, what about your real father, then? Where was he at the time?”
“I don’t know.”
He nodded. “I see. This is a little complicated.” He was thoughtful again.
I hated making all this u
p, but I saw no other way. “I’m all right with it. I love my father very much, and he’s very devoted to me, to all of us.”
“That’s good. Maybe if your father met me, he would see I’m a decent guy and—”
“No,” I said, perhaps too quickly and vehemently. “No,” I added softly. “Not yet. For now, I’d like to keep everything as it is.”
“Okay. Whatever you say. I’ll do whatever you want, as long as I can be with you, Lorelei. Besides,” he said, smiling again, “we’re wasting precious time.”
He leaned in to kiss me again. His lips moved off mine, to my cheeks, my chin, and my neck. Any girl doing this for the first time had to feel anxious and even a little afraid. She wouldn’t want to seem cold and awkward, so innocent and unsophisticated that she would make a fool of herself. I was sure that just as I was caught in an emotional tug of war for my own special reasons, any girl would be pulled in opposite directions.
One half of her would want to test her own passions, discover whatever wonderful surprises her body had waiting for her. She could read about it, imagine herself as a character in a romance novel or in a movie, but to feel a boy’s lips actually on hers, moving over her body, his hands touching her in places never touched by anyone other than herself, in short, to enter her private space, her private places, and stir whatever wonderful part of her had been in waiting since she first felt she had stepped into maturity, was impossible to dismiss or belittle. Could a girl really ever be a woman without bringing all that to life?
But there was also that second part of a girl, the part that resisted, that pulled her back, that system of alarms her parents, her teachers, and other adults planted in her mind and heart, those warnings that told her not to go too far, not to surrender herself too quickly and risk losing all those years of joy that lay ahead. How confusing it was to think that something that brought her so much pleasure, made her feel so much like the woman she was meant to be, could at the same time destroy a significant part of her, steal away her most precious years, those years before she had to be sensible and responsible. Surely, a part of life was meant to be carefree. The laughter was different then. Even the air she breathed seemed different. Mornings and nights were certainly different. She felt immortal, capable of doing anything, going anywhere. All of that was at risk.
And it wasn’t simply solved by taking a birth-control pill or having any other protection. They weren’t perfect, and besides, even with that, a girl was giving up what Ava had called “the mystery of you.” Even if it was cool and defiant to be intimate with any boy or man a girl was with, at the end of the day, she made something special into something ordinary. In her rush to be her own woman, she might have given away the one thing that made her so.
I had spent many hours thinking about all of this and especially listening to other girls talk about it in school. Most thought I wasn’t paying any attention to them, that I didn’t care what they had to say, but I very much did. Where else would I learn about it? My older sister had a different agenda, a different goal and objective for sex, and although that was going to be mine as well, I was, after all, the daughter who asked too many questions, thought about too many things. Ava didn’t care one iota what other girls thought or felt about themselves and sex. She had made that clear to me many times. But I did. Was that another thing that made me different, dangerously different?
All of this raced through my mind as Buddy’s kisses became more passionate, his breathing hotter and faster, and my own heart began pounding. I heard his tender expressions of love, his promises and admiration for me. The sound of his voice and all that he was saying did embellish the excitement raging inside me. Yes, I wanted him to touch me, to turn up the heat inside me, to drive me to the point when I would demand more and more from him, causing him to have that sweet and passionate desperation that made him whimper with desire.
Sex, I discovered, could also fill you with agony, an agony that intensified until you surrendered to it. Although I wasn’t quite there, I could feel that he was. I could hear it in his now more desperate-sounding pleas for me to accept him, to be more compliant, more willing.
He began to undress me.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “So beautiful you bring tears of joy into my eyes.”
When he began to undress himself, Ava’s furious warnings began to echo in my head: You’ll be of no use to Daddy. He’ll hate you. You won’t be part of our family anymore.
I couldn’t help but think of Daddy’s loving caresses, his soft kisses. Buddy thought my moans were moans of pleasure, but they were moans of fear and sorrow. And then, just as he was lowering his head to kiss my stomach and move down even lower, I looked past him and thought I saw Mrs. Fennel’s face in the living-room window. She was glaring at me with those fiery eyes. I screamed and pushed him away.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as I rushed to dress.
“I can’t do this, not now.”
He looked devastated. “I didn’t mean… I couldn’t help myself, but I really love you, Lorelei. Thoughts of you have taken over my brain. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I hear other people talking, but I don’t hear their words or make any sense of them, or anything for that matter. It’s as if you’ve possessed me, only I’m not complaining. I love that I’m possessed by you.”
“It’s all happening a little too fast,” I said. “Don’t be angry.”
“Oh, I can’t ever be angry at you.”
“Don’t say that so fast, either,” I told him. I continued to dress.
“Are you upset with me? I just thought… I mean, since you agreed to meet here, that…”
“No, it’s not your fault. I guess I’m just too nervous about what’s happened. I did want to be with you, Buddy. I do. Maybe I’ll be able to meet you again tomorrow,” I offered. “We’ll see.”