Dark Places(58)

“Oh, sweetie, don’t be mad. You look great. You really do. Ignore us.”

“They are cool, dude. And stewing in another guy’s juices might be just what you need to grow a pair, right?” He started laughing again, but when Diondra didn’t join, he went to the fridge and got another beer. Trey still hadn’t put on the new shirt, he seemed to like walking around shirtless, sprigs of black chest hair and dark nipples the size of fifty-cent pieces, muscles lumping everywhere, a treasure trail down his belly Ben would never get. Ben, pale and small-boned and red-headed, would never look like that, not five years, not ten years from now. He glanced at Trey, wanting to take a long look but knowing that was a bad idea.

“Come on, Ben, let’s not fight,” Diondra said, pulling him down on the sofa. “After all the shit I heard today about you, I should be the one who’s mad.”

“See? Now what does that even mean?” Ben said. “It’s like you’re talking in code or something. I’ve had a shit day and I’m not in the goddam mood!”

This is what Diondra did, she baited you, nips and bites here and there til you were half crazy, and then she was all, “Why are you so upset?”

“Awwww,” she whispered into his ear. “Let’s not fight. We’re together, let’s not fight with each other. Come to my room and we’ll make up.” She had beer breath and her long fingernails rested on his crotch. She pulled him up.

“Trey’s here.”

“Trey won’t care,” she said, and then louder. “Watch some cable for a little bit, Trey.”

Trey made an mmmm sound, didn’t even look at them, and flopped headlong on the sofa, his beer spraying like a fountain.

Ben was pissed off now, which was always how Diondra seemed to like him. He wanted to ram it into her, make her whine. So as soon as they closed the door, that plywood door Trey could surely hear through—good—Ben reached to grab her and Diondra turned around and scratched his face, hard, drawing blood.

“Diondra, what the hell?” He now had another scrape on his face, and he didn’t mind it. Scar up these big baby cheeks, do it. Diondra stepped back for a second, opened her mouth, then just pulled him toward her til they fell on her bed, stuffed animals bouncing to lemming deaths on either side. She scratched him again on his neck and he really wanted to f*ck her good then, he was literally seeing red, like they say in cartoons, and she helped him get the pants back off, peeling down like a sunburn, and his dick bouncing right up, hard as it ever had been. She pulled off her sweater, her tits huge, milk-blue and soft, and he ripped down her boxers. When he stared at her belly, she turned her back to him and guided him in from behind, her yelling, Is that it? Is that all you got for me? You can do me harder than that and him pounding away ’til his balls ached and his eyes went blind and then it was over and he was on his back, wondering if he was having a heart attack. He was heaving for air, fighting off that depression that always came to smother him after they had sex, the that’s-all blues.

Ben had had sex twenty-two times now, he was keeping track, all with Diondra, and he’d seen enough TV to know that men were supposed to fall peacefully asleep right afterward. He never did. He got more agitated, actually, like he’d had too much caffeine, snappy and mean. He thought sex was supposed to chill you out—and the during part was good, the coming part was great. But afterward, for about ten minutes he felt like crying. He felt like, Is this it? The greatest thing in life, the thing men kill for and this is it, over in a few minutes, leaving you all gutted and depressed. He could never tell if Diondra liked it or not, came or not. She grunted and screamed but she never seemed happy afterward. She lay next to him now, her belly up, not touching him, barely breathing.

“So I saw some girls at the mall today,” Diondra said next to him. “They say you’re f*cking little girls at school. Like ten-year-olds.”

“What are you talking about?” Ben said, still dazed.

“Do you know a little girl named Krissi Cates?”

Ben tried to keep himself from bolting up. He crossed an arm behind his head, put it back down by his side, crossed it over his chest.

“Uh, yeah, I guess. She’s in that art class I been helping out after school.”

“Never told me about no art class,” Diondra said.

“Nothing to tell, I just did it a few times.”

“Just did what a few times?”

“The art class,” Ben said. “Just helping kids. One of my old teachers asked me to.”

“They say the police want to talk to you. That you did some wrong stuff with some of those girls, girls who are, like, your sisters’ age. Touched them funny. Everyone’s calling you a perv.”

He sat upright, a vision of the basketball team mocking his dark hair, his perviness, trapped in the locker room while they f*cked with him til they were bored, drove off in their bigass trucks. “You think I’m a perv?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Why’d you just have sex with me if you think I might be a perv?”

“I wanted to see if you could still get it up with me. If you would still come a lot.” She turned away from him again, her legs pulled up to her chest.

“Well, that’s pretty f*cked up, Diondra.” She said nothing. “So do you want to hear me say it: I didn’t do anything with any girls. I haven’t done anything with anyone but you since we started going out. I love you. I don’t want to have sex with any little girls. OK?” Silence. “OK?”