“Vera . . .” he started, hesitantly, “you and I have gotten to know each other a little today.” He gulped. “I like you. I like you a lot. I . . . I was thinking that maybe . . .”
Vera came up to him quickly and gently placed her hand upon his mouth, covering his lips with the tips of her fingers. “I don’t think so,” she said, trying to say it as gently as she knew how.
Shelly dropped his gaze to the floor, feeling his face burning with embarrassment. He felt like an idiot.
“Look,” said Vera, feeling sorry for him, “I’m going outside for a few minutes. And when I get back, we’ll talk, okay?”
She turned and walked out the front door, onto the porch. Shelly moved over to the living room window and watched her for a moment as she sat down on the porch steps.
“Sure, we’ll talk,” he said, a world of bitterness in his voice stemming from a lifetime of rejection. “Bitch.”
Vera ambled down the porch steps to the front walk leading to the driveway. The sun had gone down and the night was cool. She took a deep breath and sighed, unaware that Shelly was watching her with desperate longing through the living-room window. He really wasn’t a bad guy, she thought, even if he was a bit of a nerd. He’d shown a lot of guts at that convenience store with the bikers. Still, she thought, just because he wasn’t a bad guy was no reason for her to give in to what was obviously a fairly potent sexual fantasy he was having about her.
What was it about guys, she thought, that they couldn’t seem to think about girls in any other terms except as potential sexual conquests? They either wanted to take you to bed or they didn’t. That’s all there was to it so far as they seemed to be concerned. Friendship? Forget it. That’s what other guys were for, right? When it came to women, guys either wanted to ball them or they didn’t and girls would either put out or they wouldn’t. It really didn’t seem to be any more complex than that. How the hell could they expect to have reationships with women if they weren’t even willing to accept women as individuals, with wants and needs and feelings of their own?
Damn it, she thought, I like Shelly. At heart, he really is a decent sort of guy, but why do I have to feel guilty just because I don’t want to sleep with him? Why does my acceptance or rejection of him have to come down to whether or not I’ll go to bed with him? That’s just not fair, she thought.
Maybe she could explain it to him. She didn’t know if he would understand, but it was certainly worth a try. Look, Shelly, she imagined herself saying to him, just because I don’t want to go to bed with you doesn’t mean that I don’t like you as a person. It doesn’t mean that I’m rejecting you. Don’t you see that by putting me in that position, you’re putting me in the same unfair position that people have been putting you in all your life? They’ve looked at you and seen a kid who was overweight and they never bothered to look beyond that to find out who you really were. Well, it can be exactly like that for someone who looks the way I do. Have you ever thought of that? They look at me and all they see is a pretty face and a terrific body. Not that I’m complaining, but there’s a lot more to what I am than great legs, a tight ass, and nice tits. Just as there’s a lot more to what you are than chubby cheeks and love handles. You’d like me to see that, to recognize that there’s more to you than what you look like on the outside, but at the same time, you don’t seem to be willing to give me that same consideration!
When you look at me, Shelly, she imagined herself saying to him, what do you see? My pretty face? My tits? My legs? My ass? Do you think about who I really am, or do you think about what’s between my legs? What do you really know about me, anyway? Can’t you see that you’re victimizing me the same way people have been victimizing you? You like the way that feels? No? Then why are you doing it to me?
She sighed and continued walking down the path leading to the lake. The male thing was especially hard for a young Hispanic woman. She had to deal with the whole Latino macho trip. In order to preserve her virtue, her desirability as a potential mate, she had to be a virgin. Yet, at the same time, she was subjected to countless assaults upon her virginity, and the rules of the game were clearly defined. It was all right for the guys to do whatever was necessary, short of outright rape, to try and get between her legs, but the only way that she could maintain their respect was to continue to resist them. If she relented and gave them what they wanted, she could be regarded as nothing more than a cheap slut. Anglos pulled the same kind of number, only in a much more subtle way.
Maybe she was expecting too much of Shelly to think that he could ever understand. He was probably in there right now, feeling sorry for himself and thinking that she was a bitch because she wouldn’t respond to him the way he wanted. And what about what she wanted? Or didn’t that matter? She felt like going in there and asking him if he’d still
