Page 71 of Tell Me Softly
That was the first time I’d ever heard the wordfuck. I wish the first time hadn’t been hearing some man talk about it with my mother.
“Where are the kids?” she asked, looking around as Travis sucked on her neck and raised her dress up.
“Far away, I hope,” Travis said. And after that came a series of kisses, moans, and groans that had a totally different meaning from any sound I’d ever heard a person make before.
Thiago tried to distract me, putting a pair of headphones on my ears and telling me in a reassuring tone, “Listen to this. It reminds me of you.”
I didn’t understand, but I was happy to let the music muffle the sounds coming from below, and I let that melody take me away from the discomfort, the fear, the misunderstanding…
***
On my bike now, I heard those notes again, those voices: Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell singing “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” And suddenly I was back in reality.
Without realizing it, I’d gone farther than I meant to, and the road was unfamiliar to me. That song…years ago, it had changed our lives, and now I was hearing it again. I pedaled and pedaled, flinching when a bolt of lightning tore through the sky.
Why was I going there now?
Was I sick in the head?
A masochist?
***
“Promise me, promise me you won’t say anything,” Thiago said after it was over, gripping my shoulders.
I was filled with doubts. “But…” I started to say.
“If our parents find out, they’ll split up. Is that what you want?”
“No! Of course not!” I was angry that he’d even asked. I tried to escape his grasp, but he just squeezed me tighter. “Let go of me, Thiago!”
“Promise!” His eyes were deadly serious.
“Fine! I promise!”
He let me go, and I rubbed the spot where he’d been clutching me. It hurt still, and I started crying. Thiago must have regrettedit because he apologized. “I’m sorry. But it’s really important that you not say anything.”
“But…my dad needs to know,” I said a second later. Who was he to tell me what people should and shouldn’t find out? I felt grown up now––I felt as if someone had thrown a pitcher of ice-cold water on my head and I’d been cast into the world of adults, where not everything was pretty and my mother didn’t love my father and his mother didn’t love his father and…they were all supposed to be friends! Even a ten-year-old girl could tell that wasn’t right.
“Why? Why does he need to know? Do you want to hurt him? Make him sad? Do you want to start a fight and ruin their marriage? Because that’s what will happen when he learns the truth.”
Thiago was furious. Looking back, though, I could see he wasn’t angry with me; he was angry with his father. But he was taking it out on me then because I was there and because if he couldn’t change the truth, at least he could try to change me.
I promised I wouldn’t open my mouth. But the days passed, and I felt more and more guilty. My father was worried, my mother was distant… She was like a gorgeous doll in her perfect dress, with her perfect blond hair and perfect makeup, but with no real human feelings.
I remember one day she was at breakfast wearing a pretty gold bracelet with tiny pearls. I wondered when I could have something that nice. My father asked her, “Where’d you get the fancy bracelet?” It was an innocent question, but my mother got all defensive.
“Again with the interrogation, Roger?” she shouted rudely.
My father dropped his silverware on the table and looked up.
“Oh, sorry. I guess I was just a little worried at two o’ clock this morning when you still hadn’t come back from your friends’ house.”
“I told you: we were drinking margaritas and we lost track of time.”
“Yeah, at least half of that I’m willing to buy. You stank like a distillery when you got back.”
“How dare you! Do you even know how to do anything besides criticize me?”
