The Bay at Midnight

you. All of you. The friendship we used to share.”

I wasn’t certain how to answer. Did I miss him? Yes, I did, but it was the physical part of our relationship I missed. Charles met my needs for adult conversation and companionship, but there was a puritanical quality to his infrequent lovemaking that left me wanting more. I longed for the stolen, impassioned sex Ross and I used to enjoy in the blueberry lot.

“I miss…” I gently pushed his hand away. “I miss things I have no right to miss,” I said.

Ross glanced toward my house. “Where are your parents?” he asked.

“Out,” I said.

He stood up and held out his hand. “Come with me,” he said.

I stood up, not stopping to think, and took his hand, which was smoother than Charles’s, the skin softer, cooler. I had almost forgotten the feel of it. We walked through my small yard, then along the path between our two houses and past the bedroom window through which I used to escape to meet him. We continued down my short, packed-sand driveway and only then did I admit to myself where we were headed. I felt the cool orange dirt beneath my feet as we crossed the narrow road, and then we were on the white, moonlit sand of the blueberry lot.

“We shouldn’t do this, Ross,” I said.

He didn’t reply, and I didn’t let go of his hand. I could feel my heartbeat—or perhaps I was feeling his—where our hands were pressed together. The delicious sense of doing something forbidden and daring propelled us, as it always had, and soon he was pulling me down inside the half circle of blueberry bushes. He plucked a few of the berries from one of the bushes and held them to my lips. I took them in, rolling them around in my mouth before biting into them. I would never again be able to taste blueberries without feeling the rising tide of guilty pleasure.

He lay me back in the sand, then leaned over to kiss me. Briefly I thought of Charles, of how the feral hunger I felt in my body at that moment was something he had never experienced from me. I returned Ross’s kisses as I unbuttoned his shirt. He took off my blouse, my shorts, my bra, my panties, leaving me nude and aching with desire for him. I felt the moonlight reflect off my skin as he sat back on his heels to look at me.

“I’ve missed your beautiful body,” he said. He leaned over to run his tongue across my nipple. “Joan has a boy’s body,” he said. “Even when she was pregnant, she had no breasts to speak of.”

The words were his mistake. At the mention of Joan, my body went cold. I could not do this to her. I could not do it to Charles.

Ross pressed his thigh between my legs to spread them apart, and I gripped his thigh with mine to stop him.

“Let’s not do this, Ross,” I said.

“Don’t be crazy,” he said. Somehow, he’d managed to get both his legs between mine. I felt the pressure of his penis against my pubic bone.

“Ross, I mean it,” I said, trying to squirm out from beneath him. “I don’t want to do this.”

He drew back slightly, letting his penis find its mark. No matter how desperately I wanted to keep him from entering my body, the earlier hunger I’d felt had left me wet and vulnerable, and he slipped inside me effortlessly. Furious, I pushed down on his shoulders. I bit his collarbone and dug my fingernails into his back. My attempts to stop him only seemed to increase his ardor, and he thrusted harder and deeper, his breath ragged in my ear. I started to cry, my body going limp, my own breath coming out in small gasps.

“Please, Ross,” I begged. “Please stop.”

He finished quickly, and for that much I was grateful. He pulled out of me, then rolled onto his back, and I sprang to my knees as I searched the sand for my underwear.

He caught my arm as I picked up my bra. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Don’t get dressed yet.”

I stared down at him, incredulous. “I told you to stop,” I said.

“I didn’t think you meant it,” he said.

I swatted his chest with my bra. “I did mean it. You forced yourself on me.”

“Maria,” he said. “Come on. You were an animal. Just like you used to be.”

“I was trying to fight you off.” My voice broke.

“If you really wanted to fight me off, you could have.”

“You’re a thousand times stronger than I am,” I said.

“I don’t remember any objections when I kissed you,” he said. “Or when I undressed you.”

He was right, and I was so filled with shame that I wished I could rewind the night back to the moment I spotted him from my porch. I would have chosen differently if I’d taken two seconds to think about Charles and Joan—and the little baby, Ned.

I put on my brassiere while he watched.

“Let me do that for you,” he said, when I struggled with the hooks.

I stood up, nearly leaping away from him as I tossed my blouse on over my unfastened bra.

“Are you really upset?” He sounded perplexed.

“Yes!” I said. “I’m extremely upset.”

I pulled on my shorts; I could not find my panties.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sitting up. He reached for my ankle and missed. “I’m very sorry, Maria,” he said. “Honestly.”