Educated

Every night for a month, when I came in from the junkyard, I’d spend an
hour scrubbing grime from my fingernails and dirt from my ears. I’d brush
the tangles from my hair and clumsily apply makeup. I’d rub handfuls of
lotion into the pads of my fingers to soften the calluses, just in case that was
the night Charles touched them.
When he finally did, it was early evening and we were in his jeep, driving
to his house to watch a movie. We were just coming parallel to Fivemile
Creek when he reached across the gearshift and rested his hand on mine. His
hand was warm and I wanted to take it, but instead I jerked away as if I’d
been burned. The response was involuntary, and I wished immediately that I
could take it back. It happened again when he tried a second time. My body
convulsed, yielding to a strange, potent instinct.
The instinct passed through me in the form of a word, a bold lyric, strong,
declarative. The word was not new. It had been with me for a while now,
hushed, motionless, as if asleep, in some remote corner of memory. By
touching me Charles had awakened it, and it throbbed with life.
I shoved my hands under my knees and leaned into the window. I couldn’t
let him near me—not that night, and not any night for months—without
shuddering as that word, my word, ripped its way into remembrance. Whore.
We arrived at his house. Charles turned on the TV and settled onto the
sofa; I perched lightly on one side. The lights dimmed, the opening credits
rolled. Charles inched toward me, slowly at first, then more confidently, until
his leg brushed mine. In my mind I bolted, I ran a thousand miles in a single
heartbeat. In reality I merely flinched. Charles flinched, too—I’d startled him.
I repositioned myself, driving my body into the sofa arm, gathering my limbs
and pressing them away from him. I held that unnatural pose for perhaps
twenty seconds, until he understood, hearing the words I couldn’t say, and
moved to the floor.