Spring Fire (8 page)

The orchestra that Tri Epsilon had hired was a small combo that played half an hour out of every hour. Then they staged a gala intermission, during which the orchestra members raced to the kitchen to refuel themselves with many bottles of assorted liquors. Mother Nessy permitted the musicians to have "alcoholic refreshments," so there could be no suspicion on her part if she were to enter the kitchen and see a young man pouring a drink. He was merely "servicing" the hired musicians. During intermission there were scores of young men occupied this way.

"That kitchen's a mess," Roberts said, "and the porch is jammed. How about sitting in your car?"

Mitch felt lively and excited and she said, "Yes, that'd be fun."

When he kissed her she did not mind the kiss. She snuggled up close to him and laughed at nothing.

"You feel good, don't you?" he said.

"Yes."

He kissed her again, and this time her mouth was forced open and she was hurt from his teeth and she drew back.

"Listen," he said, "you've never been kissed much that way, have you?"

"No."

"Let me show you something," he said. “Let me show you how nice it can be."

The back door of the car opened and Marsha stood there with her date, a large, happy-looking boy. "Can we sit this out with you?" she said. "Every place is filled."

Marsha's date was Ken, and he impersonated professors and they laughed for a while, but Bud did not laugh enthusiastically. Ken heard the music when it started, later, after they had talked together, and Marsha said, "Well, let's all go back. There's going to be a pinning. Jim Keeler is going to pin Kitten tonight."

A huge circle formed in the dining room and Jim Keeler stood in the center, his arm around Kitten's waist. From the side lines, Mother Nessy beamed as the girls sang the "Sweetheart Song." When it was finished, the orchestra played "I Love You Truly," and Jim pinned his large fraternity pin on Kitten's bosom. Then they danced and the others joined in.

"C'mon," Bud said to Mitch, "let's get some punch."

The kitchen was empty and Bud poured a large shot of whisky into Mitch's drink. "Susan Mitchell," he said, holding his glass high, "the picture of innocence."

The taste was gone and Mitch drank easily. Bud came to her and kissed her and his hand went down to her skirt. "No," he said when she started to squirm away, "just wait a minute. Wait a minute now, Susan Mitchell, just let me alone for a minute. Feels good, doesn't it?" he said, and Susan Mitchell shut her eyes and the room was going around in grand yellow and red circles. He helped her down the steps and it was still and musty, but he talked all the way. When he found the light switch, he turned it on once and then off again quickly. He led her over to the couch near the ping-pong table.

"You're sweet," he said, his hand working the buttons on her blouse, pulling it gently from her shoulders, kissing her. "You're sweet, Susan."

Very softly, almost too softly for her to hear her own words, she said, "No," but her eyes saw the circles and there was a new feeling in her body when he touched her and she could feel her clothes being pulled.

"No," she said. "No, please, no!"

Then swiftly, suddenly, and with terrific pain, she felt pressure and her eyes opened wide and she would have screamed but his hand covered her mouth and he struck her hard.

"Shut up," he said. "You wanted to know. You wanted this, Miss Virgin."

For a long time she was down in the mire of pitch black and the quicksand sucking her in and her whole head dizzy and the pain. Then it was over and she could feel him kneeling beside her, his head on her breasts, his breath coming hard. When she stood up, she hung onto the table and her head throbbed and spun. He got up too and turned the light switch on and she saw him looking at her.

"Better get your clothes on," he said, "and get upstairs with me."

Her voice was not her own. "You go to hell," she said. "You go to hell."

"Come on," he said. "Get your clothes on."

She did not cry. She reached for her things, scattered there on the floor, the brown orchid squashed beside the couch, everything strewn. He turned his back and ran his fingers through his hair, and then he turned around and she was dressed, walking toward him with dead eyes, swerving slightly from side to side.

"Listen," he said. "That's 'Good Night, Ladies’. It's the last dance."

She moved past him toward the cellar steps. He caught her arm and she stopped and did not look at him.

"I'll go out the side door," he said. "Look, take a hot bath. You're not hurt. Go up and take a hot bath and keep your mouth shut. Look, you're all right. Don't act this way."

When he let her go, she walked up the cellar steps and up the back steps to the second floor and her room. There was no one up there. They were all finishing the last dance. She lay on the bed, her eyes shut, and the circles came back, but they were black now and she was very cold.

Leda found her like that when she came in the room, threw her coat on the chair, and let her arms reach out in a wide yawn.

"What's the trouble?" she said.

Mitch did not move. Her eyes were fixed on the ceiling, her lips parted, a gray-white color to her face, and she did not answer.

"You sick?"

She put her hand on Mitch's forehead. "Roberts," she said. "What did Roberts do to you? Did you fight? Talk to me, kid. Please tell me."

Mitch started up. Her feet touched the floor and moved toward the door. She shut it and turned to Leda.

"He did it to me," she said slowly. "He did it to me in the basement. I feel
—horrible."

Outside there was singing, men's voices coming clearly, singing, "Dream girl, dream girl, you are a frat man's dream girl," in rich, deep tones. Mitch held her head and sat next to Leda.

"That goddamn bastard," Leda said. "That no-good damn bastard!"

Mitch said, "When he came over tonight, I thought
— he was sorry and he liked me and—" She could not finish, or cry or scream as she wanted to, and Leda's cursing jarred her and teased her.

"Kid, listen. Can you hear me? Don't say anything about this. Don't trust anyone. Don't tell anyone what happened in the cellar. The basement was off limits, and you've been drinking. God, it isn't your fault! God knows that. But honey
—no one cares when a rule is broken. They don't care. Can you straighten out? Do you want me to get a wet rag for your head?"

"He said to take a hot bath. He said
—"

"He would! A hell of a lot a man knows. Take a hot bath!"

"Leda, what's wrong with me? How did
—"

Leda said, "Don't try to talk, kid," and she helped the girl take her clothes off. She said, "It's all right now. You're O.K. now. You'll feel better after you sleep." The voices outside were singing in a lively chorus, singing fast and clear:

"We are the great big, wow!
 Hairy-chested men, wow! Hairy-chested men!
 Wow! Hairy-chested men!
 We are the great big, wow! Hairy-chested men!
 We can do an-nee-thing! Wow!"

Leda helped Mitch into her bed, and stripping, slipping into white silk pajamas, Leda crawled in beside her after flicking the light off. She put her arms around Mitch.

"It's a lousy break, kid. It shouldn't have happened to you. Marsha should have known better."

"I'm afraid, Leda. Will I have a
— What if I'm pregnant? I can't even think. I wish I wasn't here or alive or anything."

"Everything will be O.K., Mitch honey. Let me stroke your back gently. I know how men are, Mitch. I know how rough they are. Mitch, does my hand feel good?"

"Yes."

"Jake is rough too. You get sick of it. You get sick of them pawing you around as if you were an animal. Men don't understand. They're tough and they don't care what they do to you. I know, honey. I've been through it and I don't know why I go back, except that it just-
— You have to. Jan always thinks if you don't have a man hanging around that you're abnormal or something. Mitch, you don't know what I'm talking about, I know. I talk like an idiot, Mitch. But I like to touch you. I die when I think of that Roberts bastard laying a hand on you. Listen, kid, I never felt about a person the way I feel about you. You're different. I want to keep the damn world away from you, so it won't kick you in the teeth the way it has me. You're special, Mitch, and as long as I'm alive, you're going to be O.K. I mean it"

Long after Mitch was asleep, Leda's hands stroked her arms, and Leda lay there, hoping the evening would stay and never let morning come, for now there was a restless peace in her, akin to finding something that was lost, and yet something that had never been hers before.

* * *

Up on the hill overlooking the towers and the town, there in an alcove, the Sigma Delta house was bright with lights and young men laughing. In the living room downstairs, faces were awake with lively talk and collars were open at the neck, with the ties hanging freely and the coats unbuttoned. A few of the boys kicked off their shoes and leaned back luxuriously in the deep chairs and couches. Others were coming through the front door in groups of twos and threes, and in the corner a radio played a late disc-jockey show from Louisville. At the card table, four fellows began a poker game, and one stood near them, holding a glass, discussing the evening, telling about the bad roads near Cranston Creek and the way "Gloria's no fool, you know. She takes
real
precautions. That's what I mean about her acting older than the rest of these coeds."

On the third floor, in the room with the banners and the signs and the skeleton hanging from the hatrack, Bud Roberts sat with a bottle and his roommate, Clive McKenzie, and Jake was there too. Bud was talking about it. About the way the girl had looked afterward, and how he felt, and their faces were serious and interested.

He said, "It was the first time I ever got such a creepy feeling. Now, I've fooled around a lot. Plenty. But I never got such a creepy feeling."

Clive McKenzie crushed his cigarette on the floor. "Yeah, I know what you mean. One time I had a virgin and after she
—"

"Listen," Roberts yelled. "Listen, I'm telling you it wasn't like that! You don't know what the hell I'm telling you. I'm so goddamn drunk I don't know what I'm telling you either. But this girl
—she was like my dog at home after I kick her when I don't mean to but I lose my temper. Ever kick your dog and see his eyes? She was like that. I never—"

"What the hell, Roberts. You asked for it. You said you were going to make her. I don't know why you wanted to bother with the girl anyway. She's built like a barn. You knew it Jesus, what the hell! You want us to cry in our beer over your mess? God, what an act!"

Jake took a swig from the bottle and coughed. "Do I yell around here over troubles I got? And troubles I have got You make me sick sometimes."

"All right, shut up! Shut up!" Roberts yelled, standing up quickly. "We got a pledge in this room. Shut up, Jake, you damn fool!"

"You brought it up. You brought the thing up, for God's sake. What do you want?"

"I want you to shut up about it now," Roberts answered, lurching toward Jake and grabbing his shirt He raised his arm to swing it out at Jake and Jake caught it, twisting it back until Roberts was on his knees.

"Break it up, fellows," Clive ventured in a scared tone, stopping short when Jake let Bud free.

Jake looked at Bud kneeling there and his anger softened. He said, "G'night, Clive, Bud. I'm going to bed. Get some sleep, men!"

When he said "men," Clive knew that it was all right then. He watched Jake go and he turned his back on Roberts. He took his toothpaste and his brush and he swung a towel over his shoulder. Whistling weakly, he left the room and walked down the hall in the direction of the bathroom.

After the door shut, Bud dragged himself up on the bed. He sat there, pulling his ear and looking hard at the floor. With his fist, he hit his head hard. Then he stood up.

"Hey, you party-poopers," he called out hoarsely, "where the hell did you go? It's only one-thirty, for God's sake! Hey, you four-legged bastards, come back and finish the bottle!"

* * *

The light sound woke Leda. Beside her, Mitch tossed restlessly, a pulsating whimpering rising inside her. "Mitch, are you all right?"

She opened her eyes and looked at Leda. The room was not dark, early lights of dawn casting a rusty hue over everything, and the wind from the open window was mild and steady.

"I was dreaming. What time is it?"

"About five."

"I was having an awful dream. Bud Roberts and
—"

"Don't," Leda said, her arm catching the girl's waist. Mitch turned on her side, facing Leda, feeling the hand rub her back. It was quiet and warm. Leda moved her hand forward and ran her fingers lightly over the buttons on Mitch's pajama top. Then, gently, she slipped the round, plastic buttons from their loops, leaving the coat open. Almost as if Mitch knew what would follow, she held the top of the sheet back while Leda moved down and lightly kissed Mitch's breasts. A soft sigh broke free from Mitch's throat and evolved into a plaintive cry. Leda pulled herself up and her lips found Mitch's and crushed them, burning and moist.

"Mitch," Leda whispered, and they held each other fast and hard. "Mitch."

Mitch settled back in her seat that Monday morning and watched the thin, bespectacled man on the rostrum in the front of the room. Around her, students sat with open notebooks, waiting for the lecture to begin, doodling in circles and squares on the lined paper, talking busily, watching the slight rain on the windows, and stacking the books on the floor beneath their chairs. There was a sharp rap, a final rearranging of position on the part of the boys and girls, and Professor Aimes's voice broke through the stir to say, "Shelley's dates were 1792 through 1822. He attended Oxford as a boy, and while there he
—"

He was like her father, this professor. Mitch noticed the resemblance in the way he stood, legs spread, hands stabbing his pockets, rocking back and forth as he talked. And his build, in the gangling structure of his body, the way his arms hung loose in defiance of all tailoring, wrists jumping out of his sleeves. Even his voice was similar
—high and full and self-assured. Her father was not an intelligent man. Mitch realized that much about him. He had been a very lucky man, and a very skillful businessman, and a man who was strange to other men and to most women and to Mitch. She could imagine that she and her father had never known each other, and yet they had spent many long hours together when she was on vacation from school, in the summer, and when he visited her on his rare trips that brought him to her vicinity.