Damaged Goods, page 5
Love,
Cassie
December 2007
Cassie
Fall of Junior Year 1974
Bren hated that I liked Larry. Said he was trouble. But to me, he was the coolest kid in high school. So when Larry invited me to a party with him in Devil’s Den on Halloween Friday night, I almost peed my pants. On the night of the party, I wore a red tube top, hip-hugger jeans, black dingo boots, and a black belt with a peace-sign buckle, sneaking out the back door so Mom and Dad wouldn’t see what I was wearing. Bren had a football game the next day, so he wasn’t gonna party with me and Emily. She met me at the entrance to the town forest, and we followed a narrow, moonlit path covered with pine needles through the pitch-dark woods. As we entered the clearing known as Devil’s Den, I fixed my tube top so it pushed up my boobs and tugged down my hip-huggers to expose my belly. Emily didn’t need to make any last-minute adjustments. She could look sexy in a burlap sack. She pulled out an empty peanut butter jar filled with sloe gin from her shoulder bag, and we pinched our noses and chugged it. The taste of cherry cough syrup coated my mouth and lips.
The first person I noticed in the Den was Larry. He stood atop Satan’s Throne—a fifteen-foot-tall rock in the center of Devil’s Den—with his legs straddled, daring the other boys to knock him off. No one even tried. When he spotted me, he climbed down from the rock, pushed his sweaty long black hair back from his face and kissed me. My stomach churned. Then he pulled two beers from his leather motorcycle jacket and handed one to me.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Emily said, fading into the crowd.
Larry stood quietly, one fist on his hip, the other holding the beer, legs apart, gazing at me with a smile. “Drink up,” he said.
The beer was warm and tasted awful. But I didn’t want to disappoint him, so I forced it down.
“Did you hear that noise?” Larry asked, his eyes glossy. “It’s a coyote. Let’s track it down.”
“No freakin’ way,” I said.
“Come on. I’ll keep you safe,” he said, grabbing my hand and pulling me down a path deep into the darkness. I didn’t want to go, but I did anyway. We stumbled forward, stepping over rocks and fallen trees until we reached a narrow clearing and sat on a damp log. The moisture soaked through my blue jeans and made my backside clammy. The night air felt cold against my exposed belly and shoulders.
“Let’s go back,” I said, attempting to stand up, but he tightened his grip on my wrist and pulled me back down.
“Don’t be such a baby,” he said. “I thought you were cool.”
We sat quietly on the log for a few minutes, listening to squirrels rustling in the leaves. I convinced myself the coyotes were creeping closer. I said I was cold. Larry removed his leather jacket, draped it over my shoulders, and tightened his grip on me.
“Let’s go back,” I whined.
With that, he grabbed my hair and pulled my mouth to his, prying my lips open with his tongue before shoving it in.
“That was gross,” I said. It was nothing like the soft, warm kiss he had given me when we first arrived. “I want to go back.”
Then he did it again, shoving his tongue so far down my throat that I thought he was going to lick my tonsils. Before I knew it, he had pinned my wrists behind my back with one hand and yanked down my tube top with the other. I struggled to free myself, but he was too strong. I cursed myself for letting him lead me so deep into the woods. It was entirely my fault. But he was acting insane. He must have been so drunk that he didn’t know what he was doing. I was scared, but I tried to stay calm.
“That’s enough, Larry. Let’s go back.”
He stopped kissing my lips and began kissing my boobs.
“Stop struggling,” he said in a low, angry voice that I’d never heard before.
“Please, Larry. This isn’t why I came here with you. I want to go back.”
“Shut up,” he shouted.
I was so scared I didn’t know what to do. I wanted him to stop but didn’t want to anger him further. What would he do next? I didn’t want to find out. I wondered where Emily was. Did she see us go into the woods? How long had we been gone? Wouldn’t she know enough to come after me? I prayed she’d rescue me. Suddenly, he stopped. Thank God.
That’s what I believed, at least.
“Let’s go,” I tried to say sternly, but it came out like a whisper.
Instead of letting me get up, he grabbed my belt and unbuckled it. I tried to say no, but the words caught in my throat once more, and before I realized it, I was lying on my back with my jeans tossed onto the leaves beside me. I clung to the waistband of my underwear as if my life depended on it.
“Take them off,” Larry insisted.
“No, Larry, please, not that.”
Suddenly, he was on me, his thick thighs pushing against mine, his hard penis grinding against my pubic bone. I reached down and felt strangely grateful that my underwear was still on.
“Stop, Larry. Please stop,” I said, unsure whether I had spoken or thought the words. My head spun, and I lost all sense of time. After what felt like an eternity, he finally stopped. I gasped for breath, struggling beneath his weight, until he rolled off me, buttoned his pants, and yanked me up from the ground, nearly pulling my arm out of its socket. I quickly adjusted my tube top, found my pants, and pulled them on, brushing the damp, decaying leaves off my legs and back. As I zipped up my pants, I felt a thick, slimy wetness on my belly. I thought I was going to be sick. I wiped it with a handful of dead leaves, then finished buckling my belt.
Larry was just a few feet away, peeing on the ground. I sprinted away as fast as I could, my boots slipping on the rocks and leaves, unsure of where I was going, following the path, listening for sounds from the party and moving toward them. I climbed a steep trail and realized I was close. I could hear him panting behind me. Just when I thought I couldn’t take another step, I burst into the clearing and dropped to my knees, my lungs burning and too exhausted to cry.
Emily approached me with a crooked smile. “What happened to you?”
I wanted to scream at her for not saving me. Instead, I grabbed her jar of sloe gin and chugged what was left. A moment later, I puked cherry-red liquid all over my boots. Emily reached into her bag and handed me a breath mint. We both sobered up instantly.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, wrapping her arm around my waist and guiding me out of the woods. We went to her house and up to her bedroom, where I shared the entire terrible story, or at least what I could recall. I was still shaken.
“Promise me you won’t tell Bren,” I kept repeating.
“You can count on me,” she said.
I got home past midnight, took off my boots, and tiptoed past my parents’ bedroom, where Dad was snoring so loudly that I worried he might wake up Mom, forcing me to come up with some excuse for coming home so late. I ducked into the bathroom, washed the vomit off my boots, and tossed my clothes into the hamper. I scrubbed the crusty residue off my belly and threw the washcloth in the wastebasket. I stared at my body in the mirror; my pubic area was bruised and sore, and my boobs were marked with hickeys.
I kept revisiting why I’d gone to the party. I’d wanted to make out with Larry but not that way. The longer I stared into the mirror, the more I convinced myself it had all been a big mistake, that Larry was drunk and didn’t mean what he’d done. I was sure Larry would call me in the morning to apologize. But he didn’t.
On Monday morning before school, I was smoking a cig with Emily in our usual spot, holding my thick science textbook. Despite Emily warning me to stay a hundred miles away from Larry, I waited for him to come over and apologize. But he stood across the parking lot, smoking with his friends, talking and gesturing with his arms and hips, rolling his eyes, and laughing. I knew what he was telling them. Then the school bell rang. He dropped his cigarette and walked past me, purposely looking away. I stepped into his path, holding my textbook like a shield in front of my chest. “What were you telling those guys?” I asked.
“None of your business,” he said.
“I thought you’d call me over the weekend,” I said.
“Come on, Cassie,” he scoffed. “See that girl, and that girl, and that girl.” He pointed to three other girls smoking in the corner. “Join the crowd.”
I heard Larry’s friends laughing and calling me a slut. Without a second thought, I slammed the sharp edge of my textbook against the side of his temple. He collapsed and hit the back of his head on the asphalt. For a few seconds, he lay there, rubbing the back of his head and checking for blood.
“You cunt!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Fuck off,” I said, flicking my cigarette at him as he staggered to his feet.
That marked the end for Larry and me.
* * *
Brendan’s hands trembled as he finished the passage. He had no recollection of the party and could barely remember Larry, one of those guys who came and went in his life without leaving a ripple behind. Yet for Cassie, Larry felt like a heavy boulder plummeting from above and shattering her. Everyone carried the memory of their first kiss throughout their lives, and while Brendan cherished a beautiful memory with Emily, Cassie carried this . . . was “rape” too strong a word?
Brendan
Summer before Junior Year 1974
“D’you wanna come to the beach with me, Lisa, and Emily?” Cassie shouted through Brendan’s closed bedroom door. “Emily’s picking us up in her Camaro in twenty minutes.”
“You’re inviting me to hang out with you guys?”
“We’re planning to have a few beers, so we’ll need a driver,” she said.
Brendan jumped out of bed, showered, slipped into his lucky blue gym shorts and a white sleeveless Nehoiden Football T-shirt, poured a cup of coffee, and wolfed down a stale doughnut while gazing out the window, thinking about Lisa in a bikini on the beach. When Emily pulled up in the white Camaro her daddy had given her, the ragtop down, he strolled to the car, trying not to seem too anxious about going with them. He spotted Lisa in the back seat wearing an oversized red Coca-Cola T-shirt that hung off her slender shoulders, revealing the straps of her black bikini top. Her silky blond hair was styled in a French braid. Brendan started to climb into the back seat.
“Sit up here. You’re our chauffeur, Bren,” Emily said, smiling widely, leaning forward and revealing her large, beautiful breasts spilling from her tiny pink bikini as she hopped over the stick shift and landed in the passenger seat. Cassie climbed into the back.
“First stop, the packie,” Cassie said. When they arrived at Lucky’s Liquors, Lisa went inside and came out with two six-packs of Schlitz, a few cans of Coke, a bag of corn chips, and a sleeve of ice. She wasn’t eighteen yet, but the old guy behind the counter didn’t seem to care. The girls drained a six-pack as Brendan sped along the highway on the hour-long trip to Duxbury Beach. Once they arrived, Brendan carried the cooler and his towel while the girls raced ahead to claim an open patch of sand on the crowded beach. As Lisa laid out her towel, Brendan tried to spread his towel next to hers, but Cassie got there first.
Emily spread out her towel, which was big enough for two people, and patted the space beside her and said, “We’ll share yours to dry off, Bren.” Brendan glanced at Cassie and Lisa, who rolled their eyes and nodded for him to comply.
Settling beside Emily, he closed his eyes and inhaled the fresh scent of salt and sand. Soon, the smell of Emily’s amber-scented perfume and warming skin overwhelmed the scent of the shore. When he opened his eyes and glanced her way, she smiled and leaned on her elbows like the Sphinx, pushing her breasts together with her slender biceps and licking her lips. Sweat dripped in her cleavage like condensation on a cold glass of water.
“Tell me about your football team,” Emily said, taking off her sunglasses and revealing brown eyes like tea saucers.
“I didn’t realize you were interested,” Brendan said.
“I’m suddenly curious,” she said.
Brendan told Emily about the upcoming season.
“That’s sooo fascinating,” she said, crossing her arms beneath her ribs and pushing up her breasts as she leaned closer to him.
“Come to a game,” he said.
“I want to come,” she said, sliding her hand onto his biceps, “as long as you don’t hurt anyone with those guns.”
He felt a bulge in his lucky gym shorts.
She handed him a tube of suntan lotion, tied her long brown hair up in a band, and rolled onto her stomach. “Let’s lather each other up. You go first.”
He dropped the tube on the sand to create a diversion and rolled away from her until he regained his composure. Then he knelt beside her and rubbed slow circles on her back, hamstrings, calves, and around the pukka bead anklet on her right ankle. She rolled onto her back.
“Don’t forget my toes, Brendan. Rub your fingers between the gaps of my toes.”
Her wish was his command. He worked the lubricant between her toes and, for a moment, thought he was going to explode. But somehow he managed to calm himself as he worked the lotion up her shins, stopping at her knees.
“Keep going,” she urged. “You wouldn’t want my thighs and belly to burn, would you?”
He compliantly reloaded his hands with lotion, rubbing it into her thighs, belly, along the snow-white sides of her breasts, and across her décolletage. It was the closest he’d ever come to second base.
“Okay, okay,” she said with a smile. “We’re in public. Try to keep it PG.” She took the lotion from him. “Now take off your T-shirt and roll down the tops of your shorts. I don’t want to miss a spot.”
He sensed the bulge once more.
“Don’t worry,” Emily said, glancing at his gym shorts. “These things happen. Just relax.” After she finished rubbing in the lotion, she lay beside him, pressing her arm and leg against his side. “That feels nice,” she said. “I’m glad you came today.”
Gradually, Brendan relaxed and started to doze off until Emily suggested they go for a walk.
They strolled along the shoreline, weaving between toddlers digging in the sand as the small waves lapped over their feet. By the time they returned to their towels, Cassie and Lisa had polished off the second six-pack and were passed out, turning red under the relentless sun. Brendan nudged them to wake up.
“Let’s go home before you do any more damage to yourselves,” he said, packing the towels as Emily guided them to the car. Cassie and Lisa flopped in the back seat while Emily settled in front, resting her head on Brendan’s shoulder. Soon he felt her drool on his biceps and glanced at her, accidentally catching a glimpse of brown nipple that had slipped out of her pink bikini top. He thought she was asleep until he felt her hand sliding up his leg, creeping into his lucky blue gym shorts. He jolted the gas pedal and nearly crashed into the black Gran Torino ahead. The Gran Torino’s driver honked the horn and flashed his middle finger out the window. Despite Brendan’s erratic driving, Emily remained undeterred for the rest of the ride home. When they reached his driveway, Emily pulled her hand away, kissed him on the cheek, then slid into the driver’s seat and drove off.
The following afternoon, Emily called his house.
“Are you looking for Cassie?” Brendan asked, pretending that the day at the beach had been a wonderful dream.
“I’m looking for you, Bren. What are you up to tonight?”
“The football team is lifting weights at the high school gym, but I’ll be finished by eight.”
“I’ll pick you up outside the gym,” Emily said.
They drove around town in her Camaro with the ragtop down, reveling in the cool breeze on the hot August night, stopping for ice cream, and finished around midnight in the parking lot at Raven Bay. They climbed into the back seat and gazed in awe at the gazillion stars painting the sky milky white. He was still wearing his sleeveless T-shirt and blue gym shorts from the workout, and as she rested her head on his lap, he worried about his sweaty smell. But she didn’t seem to mind. She pulled her shirt over her head, unclasped her bra, and tossed them aside. “Much better,” she said, smiling blissfully, her eyes rolling back. “Take off these shorts, Bren,” she whispered. But before he could react, she tugged them down to his ankles and did things to him that made his head spin. The wonderous dream is real, he thought, the dream is real.
Cassie
Junior Year 1974
I was balled into the fetal position on my bedroom floor, feeling like I’d been gutted with a hunting knife. Larry had broken something inside me. The next thing I knew, an ambulance was taking me to Nehoiden Hospital, where a white-haired doctor asked me questions and said that an exam was necessary. I closed my eyes, took deep breaths, and tried to relax as he probed inside me. Little did I know how long the hurt would last.
A nurse led me to the doctor’s office, where he sat behind his desk and handed Mom a piece of prescription paper with a name and phone number scribbled on it. “I’ve arranged for Dr. Horowitz at the Boston Hospital for Women’s Dysplasia Clinic to examine Cassie on Tuesday. He’s the top cervical specialist in Boston.” Then he turned away and gazed out the window at the large elm tree in the center of the hospital’s expansive front lawn as if watching the leaves change color.
“Mrs. O’Shay, is there any chance you were given diethylstilbestrol—DES—the anti-miscarriage drug, during your pregnancy with Cassie?” he asked as he turned back to face us.
