“Want to get out of it?”
“How?”
“By going out with a friend of Jake’s. He’s a fraternity brother. We’d double-date. It’s OK with Kitten so long as you’re with a fraternity man.”
Mitch said, “I’d like that, I guess.”
She knew what it would be like if Leda were along. She knew that she would forget how to act and what to say and that she would laugh too loud and too often. But she did not want to go on a date alone with a stranger, either.
“Like men, Mitch?”
“Sure, they’re all right.”
“I mean, really like them?”
Mitch’s lips were tired from the painful grins she had been stretching them into all day. Leda laughed. “Never mind,” she said. “You’ll learn. I used to think you just had to lie there and that was it. Then I learned better.”
Mitch pulled nervously at the string of pearls around her neck. Her face flushed scarlet. Leda noticed. “You’ll have to get used to me, Mitch. I believe in being frank.”
“I don’t mind,” Mitch answered. “I guess I’m kind of dumb.”
“We’re all dumb at first. But don’t get fooled by some of them that play dumb. My God, to listen to this bunch, you’d think they were all virgins. But take it from me, most of them have had it. You ever fool around?”
“I—I don’t know too many fellows.”
“Ever been kissed—hard?”
“A few times, I guess.” The pearls snapped then and rolled onto the floor. Mitch jumped down to chase them and Leda stopped one with her foot. “Couple of them under the desk,” she said. “God! Never been kissed more than a few times. I started when I was six. Then I used to play doctor out in back of my house. God!”
Mitch did not answer. Her hands felt huge as she groped for the tiny, round pearls, and bending down there before Leda, she felt like an immense malformed giant. She was remembering how many other times she had heard references to sex, behind locked bedroom doors in boarding school, interspersed with thick laughter and raised eyebrows, and hands held at the mouth in gestures of awe and excitement. But now …
“You’ll grow up in college,” her father had said. “You’ll be a real lady when you come home.” She wondered vaguely what her mother had been like, and if she were a real lady, and how she would have told her about men and women and the things they did together. She thought of Billy Erickson—the day in the bushes when he had showed it to her. The snake, she had called it to herself. The snake that men have.
“You’ll have fun tonight,” Leda said. “You’ll like Bud Roberts. That’s Jake’s friend.”
Mitch put the pearls in a box and sat awkwardly on the bed beside Leda. “I hope he likes me. You see, I’m not too used to men. In the other schools, I didn’t see many. You know—rules and all.”
“Forget it! Look, we’re going to buy some beer and get out on the Creek Road and just take life easy. You’ll like Bud. He’s no movie star, but he gets around plenty. He’s Sig Delt president. Say, what about your car? We could walk, but—”
“Sure,” Mitch said. “Might as well take it. Only I don’t like to drive at night very well. Not in a strange city.”
“Can Jake drive? He’s a peach on the roads. Careful as anything.”
Mitch hesitated. Then she agreed.
Leda pulled her sweater up over her head and loosened her bra. “Scratch my back, will you, kid?” she said. “God, I’m tired.” She flopped on the bed, face down.
Timidly Mitch’s hands reached over and rubbed her shoulders, and with her eyes fixed half shyly on Leda’s body, she recalled doing this before—a hundred times—but never so fearfully as now with Leda.
“Ummm. That’s nice. Your hands are wonderful.” For long minutes Leda let them run up and down her back. Susan Mitchell was an enigma. There was strength and force and power in her, queerly harnessed and checked, Leda thought. If it should be released, she would be stronger. Masterful. There had been a hint of this in her look that first day. It was the kind of look that an old acquaintance gives another, in a crowd where no one is aware that the two have known each other a long time. Leda balked at her own thoughts. This tall child was naïve and uncomplicated, she scoffed inwardly, and there was no reason to be wary. Suddenly, on an impulse, Leda rolled over and lay with her breasts pushed up toward Mitch’s hands. The girl jerked her hands away quickly and stood up.
“F-f-feel better?” She forced the words out.
Leda stretched luxuriously. “Mitch, honey,” she said, “look in the left closet and see if my yellow blouse is there. The one with the buttons down the back.”
Mitch turned toward the door to the closet and opened it, grateful for this sanctum. She stood there moving the hangers down the rack. I used to think you just had to lie there and that was it.
“See it, honey?”
“No,” Mitch answered, not looking at the color of the clothes. “I don’t see anything at all.”
Bud Roberts was a straight, narrow boy with a long nose and a square jaw. A cigarette hung loosely from his mouth, and as they rode along in the back of Mitch’s car, he held his hands firmly, cracking his knuckles in regular, even movements. Mitch sat beside him, smoothing her skirt and glancing up at him now and then, searching frantically for something to say. The radio blared forth from the front seat, where Leda leaned blissfully on Jake’s shoulder.
“I love to ride along like this,” Mitch managed to say. “It’s so cool and everything,” she added.
They turned down a dirt road and drove fast around the sharp corners and Mitch fell against Bud Roberts. “I’m sorry,” she said, pulling away.
He had not said anything beyond “Hi” since they started on their evening. He had simply said, “Hi,” and then they had climbed into the car and he had not said another word. Mitch tried to pretend that the silence was natural and she hummed a bit from one of the songs the Tri Eps had sung at dinner. The radio was noisy and she could not hear her own humming, but it made her feel better. She thought of Leda and how beautiful she was, and she felt a warm glow in her stomach when she remembered the way Leda had turned on her back that afternoon, and how lovely she had been. At her feet, in the car, the beer bottles rattled and she remembered how she hated the taste of beer. A slow panic mounted inside her as she imagined the hours ahead with the beer and the boy who did not talk. The panic was edged with anger and resentment.
When the car stopped and Jake called, “All out!” she was sick inside where a drummer beat fast against her breast, and dull loneliness gnawed there.
Bud Roberts caught the blanket that Jake tossed at him.
“We’re going on up ahead,” he said, and Leda called out, “See you later, Mitch.”‘
Mitch stood
