All the Beautiful Lies(56)

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she said. “I bet he’s just worried about your eyes, is all. But, really, if it has to do with money, I’d be happy to just let you have my old television set, one of those things they made just after the war, looks more like a radio with a screen in it, but I’m sure it still works. Or, you’re more than welcome to come over anytime you want in the evening and watch some television with me. I wouldn’t mind the company.”

Jake knew that his father would never accept the television, especially from Emma Codd, a woman he often referred to as “that rich bitch,” and whose husband he called “cuckold Codd,” using a word that Jake didn’t understand. But he did mention to his parents that he’d been invited to watch television at the Codd household. He knew there would be no objection. His was a cold and loveless house, but that also meant there was freedom. He could come and go as he pleased; his parents never expressed any desire to have him around, and his father even grumbled sometimes about how much the weekly food cost had increased now that Jake, who’d grown four inches in under a year, was eating so much.

Jake started going to Emma Codd’s house weeknights after suppertime, only after the dishes were cleaned, dried, and put away (his nightly chore), and only if he’d finished all his homework. In her large living room, Mrs. Codd and Jake would watch television together while she drank a Tom Collins, and talked over most of the programs. She would move around the room, freshening up her drink, or stretch out on the sofa next to Jake, sometimes brushing his legs with her bare feet.

Back at home, under his covers, he’d allow himself vague and dirty thoughts about Mrs. Codd, which would always end with him feeling repulsed by himself. Jake had limited knowledge about sex, not having learned anything from either of his parents, and having absorbed a fair amount of misinformation from kids at school. But in all that misinformation he’d never heard about a kid having any kind of relationship with an adult. It never occurred to him that Mrs. Codd would want to have sex with him. Jake knew that married couples did it, and he’d heard stories about spin-the-bottle games, and the two or three girls from Menasset who would let you get away with more than kissing, but he was still utterly surprised when Emma Codd, one night, asked Jake if he’d ever kissed a girl.

“Not really,” he said.

“Not really?” she laughed, so loud that it led to a coughing fit. She stubbed out her cigarette in the plate-sized glass ashtray on the coffee table.

“One or two, I guess,” Jake said, which was true. Margie Robinson and he had kissed on the lips in the woods behind the middle school playground. She’d claimed she wanted to see if the lipstick she was wearing would get onto his lips.

“No tongue?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did your tongues touch when you kissed? Was it French kissing?”

“No,” he said, shifting uncomfortably on the sofa. Just hearing Mrs. Codd say the word tongue had caused an instant reaction in his jeans, and he moved so she wouldn’t see what was happening to him.

“It’s not real kissing, you know, if you don’t use the tongue. I can show you if you like? That way you won’t be embarrassed when you next kiss a girl.”

“Okay,” Jake said, his mouth instantly drying up.

As though she could tell, Mrs. Codd passed him her tall Tom Collins. “Have a sip of this. It will help.”

He drank the sweet, icy drink, and it did help, at least with the dryness of his mouth. Mrs. Codd slid down the sofa next to him. He was worried, more than anything, that if they got close enough to kiss, she might notice the hardness in his pants. Would she be disgusted, kick him out of the house, tell him to never come back? Would she tell his parents?

“Now just relax,” she said, taking the drink from his hand, sipping some herself, then placing the glass on the coffee table. They began to kiss, and just like she’d said, there was a lot of tongue. She tasted of gin and tobacco, and they kissed so long that Jake began to worry he would suffocate. When she pulled away, she said, “Not bad for your first time.” Her lipstick was smudged around her lips, and Jake thought of Margie Robinson in the cold, damp woods.

“Now let’s try it again, but a little bit closer this time.” She turned toward him, sliding a leg across his lap, and Jake shied away.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said.

“What for? This?” She put a hand on his crotch, and Jake nodded, feeling so ashamed that he was worried he might start to cry.

She laughed again, a deep, raspy laugh, and said, “That’s what it’s supposed to do, sweetheart. As soon as we’ve mastered kissing, I’ll give you lesson number two, okay? Trust me, you’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” Jake said, but his voice sounded shaky and pinched.

“Leave it up to me, Jake,” she said. “I’ll teach you everything you need to know to be a man. Would you like that?”

He nodded.

“Okay. There’s only one rule, though, and it’s a big rule. You can’t tell anyone about us. Anyone at all. That includes your friends at school, even if they’re bragging about girls. It’s not that I’m ashamed, or that you should be ashamed, it’s just that some people would think it’s wrong. Do you promise, Jake?”

She was fully straddling him now, her stiff, satiny skirt bunched up around her waist, and Jake, heart tripping in his chest, promised her he would never tell another living soul.