A dull sour certainty clots in his chest that she is angry at him, whether she understands it or not, for failing to satisfy her. Surely girls must experience some physical form of frustration like blue balls. No wonder she’s such a wench so much of the time; all the screwing around she does and she’s never had an orgasm even once. If she was expecting more from him, she must be even more pissed off.
“I’m sorry I was so bad at it.”
She flicks her head impatiently. “Oh give it a frigging break. You were okay. You got it in the goddamn bucket. You scored. You’re not cherry anymore. Maybe we’ll even make it again sometime.”
All at once, he is aware of having worked most of the night. Numb and flat enough to mail. Lowering his head, he waits for her to lick an enormous stamp and slap it on his crotch, then pound it down with a closed hard fist, before she dumps him into the LOCAL slot.
She pushes out of his arms and reaches for her shirt. “Don’t get all bent out of shape. We have to work together. There’ll be sore losers bellyaching about favoritism if we start playing kissy-face in the parking lot.”
He follows her out of the cubby.
She plucks her headrag from the heap of their outer clothing on the floor. “I’m staying here awhile. See you at practice tomorrow.”
“If I’m there.”
“You’ll be there.”
She looks different now, he thinks. Her body moves with newly meaningful suppleness.
“What makes you so sure?”
Mocking dark eyes flick up to his and little frown lines knit between the fine slashes of her dark brows. “I need the ride.”
The innuendo makes him laugh. A tired laugh but still a laugh. Tugging her closer, he bumps hipbones with her. “I have to go to work.”
She steps away from him.
For an instant he hesitates. Shouldn’t there be something more?
Ends snapping and flapping at him, the cloth twists smoothly through her hands as she whips it around her skull and turns away from him.
The Mutant carries her coat into the cubby, shrugs into it and flops down onto the mattress. Can’t go home yet, not with Tony just waking up from last night with a New Year’s Eve hangover. Tucking her knees, she curls herself into a fetal shape. She had wanted ‘god to go away but now the Mill is huge and cold and empty around her. She doesn’t even have a basketball.
She tucks her hands into the warmth between her thighs and closes her eyes. Tender, swollen there. Nobody ever asked her to do anything before besides spread her legs. But it worked too well, felt too right, the way he made her move with him; she is too much of a jock not to recognize improved mechanics. He hadn’t lasted any longer than any of them but he was the only one who seemed concerned about it.
Tentatively she tucks her hips a little in that rolling movement. Something almost happened to her and then it went away, like a dead short. But something was happening. Maybe it even happened. How would she know? Maybe that deadness is what they mean. For girls anyway. So far as she knows what girls get out of fucking is a little mildly pleasant tension. And either babies or a lot of sweat to avoid getting one. And bad reps, of course, provided by guys who seem to resent you for putting out for them in direct proportion to how much they insisted they wanted it before you spread for them. Maybe getting off isn’t what they expect it to be either, except they act like it when it’s happening. It seems like fucking is really just a way to make it clear they could do what they want to you, the nastier the better.
But when they were moving together, Bigger and her, it didn’t seem so much like fucking. It was more like trying to execute a play on the court, being in sync with someone else’s physical reactions, only belly to belly. Smooth and rhythmic and going somewhere. Just because she doesn’t want to think about it, she can’t get it out of her head.
There was also his concern for her. She isn’t sure she likes it. It feels intrusive. Suffocating. And humiliating, too, having him, cherry ‘god, teaching her moves. In her weariness, she feels empty and flat and defeated when she should be savoring a triumph, ‘god falls to the Mutant, not some blue-eyed blonde cheerleader with ten pounds of hair and an IQ to match her bra size. It’s a nice sweet secret to hold tight to herself.
But she doesn’t feel triumphant. She feels ravaged and irradiated, changed at her most invisible, microcosmic levels. Mutated. Dread and exhaustion pour out of her. That’s the only reason she’s crying so hard. She’s so whacked out and there’s this sense of being in over her head no matter how hard she tries. No big deal, no big deal.
19
The cold brings stinging tears to his eyes as he coaxes the truck to life in the parking lot. Sam wipes hastily at his eyes. Frigging cold. Feels like a vacuum, trying to suck him inside out. He turns on the radio and a blast of “Ninety-six Tears” nearly blows out his eardrums. Hastily he punches down the volume, then cranks it up again a little. That pumping
