Black Tickets Read Online Free Page A

escape.

    Daniel and I go to the Rainbow, a bar and grill on Main Street. We hold hands, play country songs on the jukebox, drink a lot of salted beer. We talk to the barmaid and kiss in the overstuffed booth. Twinkle lights blink on and off above us. I wore my burgundy stretch pants in here when I was twelve. A senior pinched me, then moved his hand slowly across my thigh, mystified, as though erasing the pain.
    What about tonight? Daniel asks. Would your mother go out with us? A movie? A bar? He sees me in her, he likes her. He wants to know her.
    Then we will have to watch television.
    We pop popcorn and watch the late movies. My mother stays up with us, mixing whiskey sours and laughing. She gets a high color in her cheeks and the light in her eyes glimmers up; she is slipping, slipping back and she is beautiful, oh, in her ankle socks, her red mouth and her armor of young girl’s common sense. She has a beautiful laughter. She and Daniel end by mock arm wrestling; he pretends defeat and goes upstairs to bed.
    My mother hears his door close. He’s nice, she says. You’ve known some nice people, haven’t you?
    I want to make her back down.
    Yes, he’s nice, I say. And don’t you think he respects me? Don’t you think he truly cares for me, even though we’ve slept together?
    He seems to, I don’t know. But if you give them that, it costs them nothing to be friends with you.
    Why should it cost? The only cost is what you give, and you can tell if someone is giving it back.
    How? How can you tell? By going to bed with every man you take a fancy to?
    I wish I took a fancy oftener, I tell her. I wish I wanted more. I can be good to a man, but I’m afraid—I can’t be physical, not really …
    You shouldn’t.
    I should. I want to, for myself as well. I don’t think—I’ve ever had an orgasm.
    What? she says, Never? Haven’t you felt a sort of building up, and then a dropping off … a conclusion? like something’s over?
    No, I don’t think so.
    You probably have, she assures me. It’s not necessarily an explosion. You were just thinking too hard, you think too much.
    But she pauses.
    Maybe I don’t remember right, she says. It’s been years, and in the last years of the marriage I would have died if your father had touched me. But before, I know I felt something. That’s partly why I haven’t … since … what if I started wanting it again? Then it would be hell.
    But you have to try to get what you want—
    No, she says. Not if what you want would ruin everything. And now, anyway. Who would want me?
    I stand at Daniel’s door. The fear is back; it has followed me upstairs from the dead dark bottom of the house. My hands are shaking. I’m whispering … Daniel, don’t leave me here.
    I go to my room to wait. I must wait all night, or something will come in my sleep. I feel its hands on me now, dragging, pulling. I watch the lit face of the clock: three,four, five. At seven I go to Daniel. He sleeps with his pillow in his arms. The high bed creaks as I get in. Please now, yes … he is hard. He always woke with erections … inside me he feels good, real, and I tell him no, stop, wait … I hold the rubber, stretch its rim away from skin so it smooths on without hurting and fills with him … now again, here, yes but quiet, be quiet … oh Daniel … the bed is making noise … yes, no, but be careful, she … We move and turn and I forget about the sounds. We push against each other hard, he is almost there and I am almost with him and just when it is over I think I hear my mother in the room directly under us—But I am half dreaming. I move to get out of bed and Daniel holds me. No, he says, stay.
    We sleep and wake to hear the front door slam.
    Daniel looks at me.
    There’s nothing to be done, I say. She’s gone to church.
    He looks at the clock. I’m going to miss that bus, he says. We put our clothes on fast and Daniel moves to dispose of the rubber—how? the toilet,