ISSUE 16 | FALL 2013
only a few feet in front of me before the fog blurred the world into gray. Dizzy and nauseous, I stumbled often. The party was in a house that had been attractive fifty years ago, but now sagged and creaked. The fraternity that lived there had cleared out the living room, put in a large sound system that throbbed with techno music, and dimmed the lights to near darkness. Bodies packed the room, and mud-soaked beer stains streaked across the floors. Sheena went into a kitchen to get a drink from the keg. I pressed myself into a wall at the corner of the dance floor. I felt a hand pull me into the middle of the gyrating forms. A man who looked old enough to be a graduate student was holding my hips and moving them to the music. He smiled when he looked down at me, and his hands squeezed harder. He was tall with full red lips, and skin a few shades lighter than mine. Thick wavy hair rippled onto his collar. He looked over my head to someone behind me and laughed, exposing large white teeth with pointed incisors. His head bent to mine and I felt his wet lips. I was startled into stillness. With his nose inches from mine, he told me I couldn’t kiss, and then he proceeded to show me. His tongue entered my mouth, and I gagged from the taste of warm beer. Still kissing me, he backed down a small hallway into a room a few feet from the dance floor. By now, the tequila’s effect had intensified. He shut the door behind him. The walls in his room were bare. He brushed a pile of clothes off the bed and maneuvered me onto it. With pink-tipped fingers he traced patterns onto my trembling arms. “You should show more of that pretty skin than this,” he told me. He took his time unbuttoning and tugging off my blouse. I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to keep going, or to stop. He said, “I like how you look so dark against me,” and showed me the contrast with the pale underside of his arm. When he examined my body, I held my breath. The way he watched me made me uncomfortable and I tried to wrap my arms around my chest. He leaned in to kiss me, his torso blocking my arms. He kept the low lights on, but he wouldn’t look me in the eyes. I told myself to run out of that room and into the thick fog outside, but my body wouldn’t respond. At least he likes me. If he didn’t like me, would he be pressing his lips to mine? “I want to touch you,” he said. He was stronger than me and my arms buckled when I placed them on his shoulders to push him back. He wrapped his fingers around my wrists, and I went down onto the white sheets. I smelled starch and musk cologne, felt sweat, the hard bed. He told me this was what I wanted. I didn’t say no; I didn’t say anything. I thought: He must be right. I thought: Maybe I should believe him. He broke me as I kept still in the cage of his arms. 99