My father kept the factory open even when seventy-five percent of the workers were gone and the skeleton crew didn’t have much to do. He’d cut their hours, their insurance, their benefits. They understood, taking their lumps like warriors. Twice a year, on Memorial Day and Labor Day, he threw a free barbecue for anyone who wanted to come. Mom hated it because it was all Barrington people. She always invited her Doverton friends, but they turned up their noses. She claimed migraines and bellyaches, but she was expected to be there, same as the rest of us.

Some of Harper’s elementary school friends were going to Montgomery High with her. She was awkward and too smart for her own good, but she was genuine. They found her tolerable because she wasn’t interested in gossip and romance. She wasn’t competition.

At the Labor Day barbecue, she abandoned her friends to their flirtations so she could run around with the litter of bloodhound puppies nipping at her heels. Reggie kept a booth with paintings of lightning bolts and rollicking planets. Juanita and Florencio had a booth with pupusas. There were more crafts and energy in that square than any other day of the year. The rock music was provided by a bunch of guys from the public high school. Bernard, who was a year older than me and worked at the lumber yard, sang in a gravelly voice that was strangely dazzling.

I wasn’t as awkward as my sister, but I didn’t find the girls in my grade tolerable. They ranged from rigid religious anger-bombs to Doverton kids who found me beneath them. Marsha and I spoke, but not much outside school.

I stood on the grass, surrounded by my neighbors, each of them too poor, too crass, too unseemly to associate with. Listening to Bernard sing and watching my sister roll on the ground with a bunch of puppies, I was trapped, and yet, somehow free.

Leaning on the bleachers, Chris cracked peanuts between his teeth and spit the shells. I hadn’t seen him in days and it seemed like years. Every time I saw the kick of his hips and the way his lips stretched across his teeth when he smiled, it seemed like the first time.

I watched him.

He watched me.

School started the next day. We’d go back into our different worlds. Would we meet again? Would we see each other at all? We’d grappled with the question by avoiding it.

A waft of smoke from the grills came between us.

We were alone. Surrounded by people, we were alone.

He pitched his peanut bag in the trash and washed it back with a bottle of off-brand cola. When he finished, he sucked in his bottom lip to catch an errant drop.

He tossed the bottle up. It spun in the air, and with a tap of his knuckle on its way down, he sent it into the trash.

I stepped toward him, and he stepped back. Not away. He stepped back toward something, flicking his finger that I should follow.

Easiest decision I’d ever made. It was barely even a decision.

I glanced around for Mom and Dad. They were in the gazebo with Badger, the new mayor, and his staff. Harper and the kids played with the puppies while Johnny and his wife watched. Lance jaunted around the perimeter, peeing on poles whenever he could, nipping back any sibling who got too big for their britches, ever the alpha.

I tilted directions slightly toward the bathrooms, then once past the bleachers, I saw Chris peeking from an alley between the hardware store and the library. I picked up my skirt and ran toward him, cutting the corner so hard I lost my balance. Out of nowhere, his hand was on my arm, keeping me from falling over.

Finger to lips, he led me to a black iron door. He clinked through his keys and opened it, stepping out of the way so I could pass through. We were in an office.

He closed the door with a loud clap, leaving the window as the only light.

“Chris?”

I barely got out the S before his lips kissed his name away. He put his hands on my jaw, keeping it still so he could invade my mouth. It felt good to give it to him. My body lost all its strength, held up only by the electrical currents between us.

“Catherine,” he said in a breath, keeping his lips an inch from my face as he spoke.

“Where are we?”

“Back of the hardware store. I open on Thursdays.”

“What are we going to do? I’m scared.”

“Of me?”

“Of not seeing you anymore.”

“I’ll find you.”

I clutched his shirt as if I’d be swept away without him. “I don’t fit in anywhere. Harper is so smart she tolerates me. The only time I feel right, like I’m part of something, like I belong, is when I’m with you.”

“One more year. Then you can go to college and I’ll come after. We’ll be so far away, we’ll forget our names. When people ask where we’re from, we won’t even know.”

“I don’t know if we’ll make it a year. I feel like they see us. Even now.”

I must have been shaking, because he put his arms around me so tightly it hurt. I loved the pain of his attention. It was the pain of safety, of care, of being broken just enough for release.

“Harder,” I said into his shoulder.

He squeezed me so tightly I could just barely breathe, and the tension rolled off me like water.

He let his arms go slack enough to look me in the face. “We’ll make it. Then I’ll follow you anywhere. I’ll be your puppy dog.”

“Oh, Chris, don’t be silly.”

“Don’t deny me. I’m yours.” He said the last word with a gusto I’d never associated with myself. As if life was something to grab with both hands and free like a bird that could carry us into the sky.

Together, we were freedom.

The bird launched from my chest and flew to my lips when we kissed again. Not a kiss of relief this time, but a kiss of passion. Ours was a kiss that began a string of thoughtless acts.

His hands slid down my body, grazing my breasts, landing at my waist. I felt the hardness under his jeans. I should have been scared, or freaked out, or ashamed, but I wasn’t. I was free.

He broke the kiss and stroked my bottom lip with his thumb. “Should we go back?”

“No.” I took his wrist and put his hand on the triangle below my belly.

He gasped and his lashes fluttered. Seeing that he liked it sent my body to the edge of common sense. This was crazy and I didn’t care. Being the good girl hurt, and this felt good.

“My parents have to stay at the barbecue,” I said. “That’s their job.”

He hesitated. Swallowed hard. Pinched a bit of my skirt fabric.

I nodded.

He pulled my skirt up until my cotton underwear was exposed. I ran my hand over his jeans, feeling his erection. He seemed harder and bigger than humanly possible.

When he kissed me again, I backed into the desk, leaning on it. Chris twisted his finger around my underpants leg. His touch was pure magic, and in the milliseconds before his finger hit home, it gathered enough electricity between my legs to power the entire factory.

I didn’t realize how wet I was until he touched me.

“Oh, shit.” His face contorted.

I could barely breathe. Standing up straight seemed impossible, so I let the desk bear my weight.

“Rin,” he said, looking down between my legs.

My skirt was around my waist and my underwear was printed with roses. Old lady roses. My underpants looked like a dinner plate and his finger was stuck under them, ready to unleash otherworldly pleasure.

“Please, don’t stop.”

“I’ve never done this before.”

“Me neither.” I lifted his shirt just enough to see the line of light brown hair that disappeared under his waistband.

“I don’t know how to make it good. And I don’t have a condom.”

“My period finished yesterday.” I unbuttoned his jeans. “And it’s going to be good. I know it.”

Was I convincing him? Did that make me a whore?

As if the sound of my mother’s voice in my head was audible to him, he took his hand out of my underwear. “I love you, Rin.”

I melted and relaxed. You weren’t a whore if it was love. Rushing things, maybe. But not a whore. Everyone knew that.

“I love you too.”

With that, I unzipped his jeans. He kissed me, wrestling my underwear off while I got my hands on the stretched skin of his shaft.

Was I even real anymore?

Was I made of skin and bone or was it all just thick liquids vibrating in his direction?

Shifting my bottom back onto the desk, he wedged himself between my legs and slid his length along me. It felt so good—better than when I did it myself. Better than anything I’d ever felt in my life. I understood why adults wanted to keep us away from this. I’d beg and steal for it. I’d break walls and set the town on fire for what he made me feel. I was weak from it, and powerful inside it.

He ran it along the hard nub at the top again and again. I came, and when he kept on rubbing, I came harder, pressing my lips together to keep from screaming.

I didn’t know if I’d broken some rule of sex etiquette by having an orgasm, but when he smiled at me, I knew it was all right by him.

“You’re beautiful,” he said. “I’m never going to forget what you look like right now.”

He’d seen me. Watched it. Shame was like a snake in the basement, ready to slink up the steps and under the door. I felt it coming. I could hold it at bay, but I knew it was there. The only way to block it was with more sex. More vibrations. More Chris.

I still wanted him. The orgasm hadn’t made me want it less.

His bare head slid up to my opening as if drawn by the force of my desire. We were a gasping, sore-lipped, sweaty mess. I pushed my hips against him. Now. I wanted him to enter me immediately.

“Here goes,” he whispered.

“Here goes.”

He forced himself inside me. I bit back the pain. It wasn’t too bad, but he stopped.

“Are you—”

“I’m fine. Go.”

He didn’t go. He looked confused, unsure.

“Please,” I said. “If you love me, then make love to me.”

Love. Always the great convincer.

He pushed all the way down to his base, stretching me as I’d never been stretched before. Slowly sliding his body into mine. Then out. Slowly. He closed his eyes and grunted deep in his chest.

I ran my fingers through his hair, pulling him down to me. He kissed my cheek and slid inside again, watching my expression. He hurt me less than last time. Maybe he could tell, because the next thrust was harder. Really hard. It pushed the air out of my lungs.

Did people talk during sex? I didn’t know how.

I managed to get out a single word. “More.”

As if I’d opened a gate and let a bull charge through, he pulled out and slammed into me again. And again. Harder and faster. Then slow and deep. Pleasure welled up inside me. Hard. Fast. Slow. I never knew what was coming next and it made me throb all over. His lips on my cheek, one of his hands leveraging the desktop as the other grabbed my ass, he grunted hard and pulled out.

“Wha—?” I didn’t finish.

With his fist moving fast along his shaft and my naked legs spread wide in front of him, he closed his eyes and spurted on my belly.

I was appreciating the warmth and the look on his face. I was thinking about how this dishonorable thing of having my legs spread where he could see everything was actually pleasurable and freeing.

But as he was coming on me, a dog yipped outside. Lance, for sure. Then someone rapped on the window above. A man’s voice came through the glass.

“Catherine Barrington!”

I saw Chris first, looking out the window with his hand around himself, his face lit in stripes by the iron bars. Then I bent my head back.

The man at the window was Sheriff Brady, and the horrified woman next to him was my mother.

---

We hadn’t thought about the blood. It wasn’t much, but it seemed as if it was everywhere. We scrambled to get dressed as Sheriff Brady used his universal key to get in. Lance came in first and sniffed our ankles. My skirt had twisted, leaving a streak of blood on the fabric over my left thigh. Chris barely had his pants up when Brady threw him against the wall so hard his head bounced against it. Lance bit the cop’s pant cuffs, growling like the puppy he was.

“Stop!” I shouted.

But my father, who I hadn’t seen through the window, took me by the arm in a skin-twisting grip. My eyes adjusted to the light as he pushed me outside. I yanked away, but he held me tight as a bird in the hand.

“That boy’s going to be sorry,” my mother said from behind me. “He forced you, obviously.”

“He didn’t.” I was sure she didn’t hear me, so I looked back and said it again. “He didn’t force me.”

“Of course he did.”

Dad loosened his grip. He wouldn’t look at me.

“This is humiliating,” Mom continued.

The grassy square was visible in the slit between buildings. My shirt stuck to me where Chris had unloaded, and I tried to cover the blood with my hand. My thighs slid against each other from dripping fluids. I wondered if Sheriff Brady was going to return the underwear I’d left behind or if the office manager of the hardware store would find them.

The sheriff’s black-and-white car was parked up the street, its windows wide open.

“Don’t hurt Chris,” I said. “I’ll be good. I’ll never see him again.”

“I know,” grumbled my father, lighting a cigarette.

“We’ll discuss him later,” Mom interjected.

“Daddy?”

“Don’t worry about it, Peanut.”

“I’m not letting you go soft, Earl.” We broke into the town square and my mother brightened, giving me a sidelong glance. “Smile, darling.”

Dad shook hands with some of the guys and talked the way men talk when a bunch of them get together. I could still see the police car. No Brady. No Chris.

Mom waved at my sister. “My God, look at her. Harper, dear! Come along! It’s time to go.”

“Maaaaa, noooooo.” Harper’s shoulders dropped and her knees bent as if leaving was a grievous hardship.

One split-second look of sternness got her to wave good-bye to the puppies.

“What happened?” Harper poked the blood-soaked spot on my skirt.

Mom slapped her hand away. “Stop asking questions.” She put her hand on my father’s shoulder. “Time to go, honey.”

“Just a flesh wound,” I whispered to my sister. Was she looking at the way my shirt stuck to the now-cold slime on my belly?

Harper scrambled into the limo. Behind me, Dad dropped his cigarette and smothered it with his shoe. I stole another glance at the police car.

It was gone.

I was sure Chris was in it. I was sure he didn’t have the money to get out of trouble. Whatever that trouble was, it was going to be decided by my parents. His mother could barely get out of bed to go to court. How would she defend him? He had no one. It wasn’t fair. I loved him and it wasn’t fair.

“Get in,” Mom snapped over my shoulder.

I put my hand on the doorframe and straightened my arm, locking it at the elbow. “No.”

“Catherine,” Dad said softly. “Let’s just get home and discuss this.” He arched an eyebrow and indicated the back seat with a quick tilt of his chin.

“Promise Chris will be all right and I’ll get in.”

“That boy is not going to be all right,” my mother said.

“Then I’m going to go find him.”

“Get in this car!” Mom’s face was red.

“We’re going to run away together and you’ll never see me again!”

“Catherine Daisy Barrington.” My mother’s arm was stone-stiff, extending toward the door.

“Peanut,” my father said gently, expectantly, threateningly all at once.

“I’m old enough to marry him.” I took a backward step toward the town square. “I’ll do it. If anything happens to him, I swear I will.”

They looked at each other, then at me, then each other again, speaking in the silent way married people do. I had an opening.

“Promise you’ll call Sheriff Brady as soon as we get home.”

“I will not—”

I took two steps closer to the square. “Promise!”

I was losing my nerve by the second. I didn’t have the strength to do what I threatened to do. I had to keep Chris first in my mind. The consequences for him were worse than a bad reputation. They’d get him fired. Send him to jail. Kick him out of school. Drain whatever money he and his mother had.

“Don’t hurt him.” I shifted my gaze to my father.

“Can you just grab her, Earl?”

“For what?” He seemed baffled. “If she’s not going to ruin her life today, she’ll do it tomorrow.”

Wait.

Was that a promise?

Could I get in the car before someone passed close enough to see my sticky, bloody clothes? I looked from Mom to Dad as they killed each other with their stare.

“I need satisfaction,” Mom growled.

“Get it somewhere else,” he said before he looked at me. “Princess, we have a deal. I won’t hurt him.”

“You won’t get him fired from the club?”

“Oh, for the love of…” Mom threw her hands up. “Now I can’t go to the club?”

“I won’t go anymore,” I said. “I don’t like tennis anyway. I just won’t see him. Ever. Never again. Just… no charges. No lawyers. Promise.”

Dad answered before Mom could object. “That’s a fair deal.”

Mom covered her face with her hands. While she was blinded by her humiliation and frustration, I caught my father’s eye.

“Thank you,” I mouthed silently.

He pointed at the car.

I got in.