I felt my neck tense. Barbra closed both her eyes. I had to grab her hair to lift her up like she asked for. Her hairs twisted round my knuckles that were big and strained white. I pulled from the roots. My cock started pulsing so hard that it hurt.
‘Higher,’ she said.
I took her head up by the hair so it cleared the whole pillow. Her hairs threaded through my knuckles; they wound around my thumb. It was easy. She smiled. I would show her my cock. Yeah, she would see how my cock could explode. I jerked her up by one side. She kept smiling. She liked it. I was hardened all over, like concrete, no cracks.
All of a sudden, Barbra opened her eyes wide. ‘In Israel, bruh, they treat us like dogs.’
I dropped her. She squealed. I covered her mouth. I tried to unwrap my fingers of all her hair. My parents were sleeping. Barbra pushed my hand off her mouth.
‘Stop,’ she hissed.
‘Sorry.’
‘You racist?’ she said.
What? Did she mean because she was Black? Because I’d dropped her? What? Who in Israel treated Barbra like a dog? Barbra started to hiccup. I was scared that she might vomit. This person was drunk. My father said she was an orphan, abandoned when she was five. I wasn’t racist. Jews can’t be racist. People all over the whole world hate Jews. I didn’t understand. Israel rescued the Ethiopian Jews. ‘The Ethiopian Jews are lucky to be in Israel!’ my father said. ‘The army transferred more than fourteen thousand Jews in less than two days!’
Pressing the wall, Barbra tried to sit up and move to the side of my bed.
‘Can I sleep up here tonight?’ she whispered.
The hairs raised on my arms. ‘Not a good idea.’
Suddenly, Barbra launched herself forward. I realized she was going to be sick. There was cud in her cheeks. It looked like she had to spit. I’d just scratched her back and she hated me now. She called me a racist. Was I a racist? Barbra toppled toward my door, reaching out for a wall.
‘Wait,’ I said.
In one single-armed sweep, Barbra took off her T-shirt. Her back was a graph of welts that I’d made.
I heard Barbra pounding down two flights of stairs. I thought my parents would both for sure wake up. I was afraid of my father finding out she’d been here.
I scuttled over to her T-shirt. The wrinkles exuded her musk. I felt myself spinning so fast, like this was not my room, like I was not on the carpet, like I was not even there.
I thought, I can’t touch this person ever again.
§
Two years ago, in Grade 10, Joel took me to a party near his cottage where some really short girl with dyed black hair said she would suck me if I gave her the rest of my flask. Joel said, ‘Yo, bro, it’s your lucky day.’ He said, ‘Yolanda’s a slut.’ I told Joel to fuck off. I knew that was stupid. Joel always called girls bitch and slut. I thought calling a girl slut was a totally abstract insult. And that wasn’t even from my mother. Slut just sounded amphibian to me.
I followed Yolanda into a bathr
oom in the basement. She had white flecks in her scalp, a rigid part line. The bathroom had mint-coloured tiles and an old deer-legged sink.
‘Sorry,’ Yolanda said, showing me her tongue. ‘I might be out of commish.’
There was a stud in there, stuck, a metallic cyst. A little vomit-taste flowered the back of my tongue. I held out my flask for her. She took a long swig.
No one had ever sucked me before. Joel knew that. He knew it.
‘Getting numb now, thanks, man,’ Yolanda said as she drank the jb we’d pilfered from Joel’s dad.
‘You don’t have to.’ I shrugged.
‘I actually just want to see if it hurts.’
Then Yolanda went down on her knees. She went down by herself. Pimples frothed under her dusted pink cheeks. Then she yawned and I quickly unzipped my jeans. My cock bounced right into her chin. Then she just put her hand around it, like grabbing it, and I was suddenly inside her mouth. It felt like she was flogging the side of my cock with her tongue. It felt hard. It felt amazing, like a tickle, like a wrestle. I forgot all about her silver cyst. I put one hand on her head, one hand on the sink. Hot spit churned in her cheeks. It occurred to me that she liked this. This girl I’d never met before liked sucking me. She clamped my cock without her teeth. I didn’t know how she did that. She seemed greedy to feed. Her lips felt like tightening rubber elastics. Then this fucking incredible washing-machine suction churned up from my balls and I spewed right inside of her. It felt endless. I swear I blacked out for a second.
Then I heard water running. Yolanda leaned over the sink.