Page 27 of Yield to Me

As we walked to the car, he smacked my ass, hard enough for the sound to echo in the parking lot. I immediately punched him in the arm, and he yelped and started laughing. “Don’t do that,” I said. I thought of Owen, how he had spanked and stroked my ass hard enough to leave bruises that were now finally fading into a light yellow. I wondered if Michael would notice, but I knew that in this drunken state, he probably wouldn’t.

“Oh, I get it. You like to give the beatings, don’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

He winked. “I like a woman who can beat my ass.”

I wrinkled my nose, dismissing the idea of being a dominatrix. Why was it okay, I wondered, for Owen to do something like spank me so hard that I bruised, but when Michael did it, I was repulsed?

Because he did it to see if he could get away with it. Because he didn’t respect me. But I could play that game too.

“Do we need to call a cab?” I asked.

He shook his head. “It’s around the corner,” he said. “I had no idea you lived so close to this place.”

Laughing up the steps to the house, the front door swung open, hitting the doorknob into the wall. The lights from the television flickered like a night light to the front room, and I pushed Michael towards it, leaving my bedroom door closed. I pushed him onto the couch, straddled and kissed him. His tongue fished in and out of my mouth with such fever that I thought he might not be able to feel it. He unbuttoned his shirt quickly, knocking over a picture frame as he whipped it open.

“Shit, shit. I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

It was a picture of Grayson, sitting on Stinson Beach, his shirt off, sunglasses on. I smiled inwardly. Perfect.

“Shut up and fuck me,” I said. I pulled the tank top over my head, revealing a pink bra. He grasped my breasts like balls of dough, working them over. It’s one time, I thought, He’ll leave me alone and Mom will know that she pissed me off. I’ll rub this thoughtless encounter in her face, and show her what I thought of ‘being’ with someone. I unbuckled his belt and watched as he undid his jeans, his erection poking through the opening in his boxers. For some reason, I thought of Owen. I had never even seen his member, only felt it through pants against my skin. I wondered if he would care that I was about to sleep with Michael.

But he wouldn’t, I told myself. We had both agreed to stop seeing each other.

So why did this feel wrong?

“We can’t tell anyone about this,” I said. Even if Owen didn’t care, it seemed like a better idea to keep our tryst a secret. For the sake of the classroom.

“Of course,” Michael hummed into my neck.

I closed my eyes, wondering if he actually heard me. He sucked my nipple into his mouth, and I arched my back, trying to lean into it. I opened my eyes for a brief second and saw my mother in the hallway, a wispy robe covering her body. As I locked eyes with her, I made a promise to myself that I would rip that picture of Grayson to pieces, leaving it next to the sculpture to blow away like the tiny fragments of stone. I closed my eyes, moaning, faking it with everything I had to convince Michael that I was actually into his frenzied movements, and to make sure my mother heard everything, hoping that she would hurt with each grunt and moan. You haven’t been with anyone in ages, I imagined telling my mother, And yet you keep telling me to follow love. How’s this for love?

When Michael sat up to roll a condom on, my eyes fluttered open again, glancing at the hallway. My mother was gone.

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