Chapter 44

If Ethel thought she’d knocked some sense into her daughter, she was wrong. All of those angry cuffs to Gwen’s head and face had done little else but empty her of all the good sense she might have once had.

The next day, lips still pulsing in pain, Gwen dropped a nickel in one of the pay phones scattered around the campus of the World’s Fair and dialed Harlan’s number. When he answered, she asked if he wouldn’t mind meeting her after work, and he agreed.

And so it began.

Gwen, telling lies, sneaking off to be with that mess of a man-child who favored dark liquor, who smoked reefer and Viceroy cigarettes. Who frequented illegal card and dice games in rooms hidden behind false walls and had so many women, he couldn’t bother to remember their names so just called them all baby.

Three weeks into their courtship, Harlan convinced Gwen to give up that part of herself that Ethel warned she’d better save till marriage or be fated to spend eternity in the underside of heaven.

Ethel’s threats fell on deaf ears and on a Thursday evening, Gwen found herself in Harlan’s bedroom, sitting on his bed.

“C’mon,” he coaxed, floating the lit joint near her mouth. “Just take one pull.”

“I better not.”

Eyeing her seductively, Harlan slipped the joint between his lips and pulled. After a few seconds, he blew a stream of smoke into her face. Gwen fanned it quickly away.

“Stop,” she whined girlishly.

“Just one,” he urged. “You’ll like it, I promise.”

Gwen’s eyelids fluttered. “Okay.”

Harlan guided her through it. One puff, two. “Hold it, hold it,” he cautioned, laughing.

The smoke bit her throat, her eyes watered, and she gagged. Harlan rubbed her back, smiling. “How do you feel?”

At first Gwen felt as if her chest was on fire. When the flames subsided, she became supremely aware of her heart’s steady drumming. At first the sound only filled her head, then it filled the room. Covering her chest with her hands, she turned wonder-filled eyes on Harlan.

“Do you hear that?”

“What?”

She fell back onto the mattress and closed her eyes. “It’s so loud.”

“Is it?” Harlan leaned over and pressed his mouth against hers, using his tongue to pry her lips apart. Somewhere beneath the thump of her heart, Gwen realized she was experiencing her first kiss.

His fingers slowly, expertly undid the buttons of her blouse. Gwen was barely aware of her undressing, focused as she was on her heartbeat. When his fingers grasped hold of the button closest to her navel, Gwen’s eyes flew open, she caught his hand and sat up. Her eyes swept over the chaos of the room. Molehills of dirty laundry, shoes thrown here and there, an open suitcase spewing clothes.

“Are you going somewhere?” she asked.

Harlan’s mouth fell into his lap. “W-what?”

Gwen nodded at the suitcase.

Harlan barely glanced at it. “Nah, I haven’t unpacked from Georgia.”

“Oh,” Gwen moaned, falling back on the bed again. Her blouse spread out around her, providing Harlan with a full view of the white cotton brassiere she wore.

“You’re so beautiful,” he announced thickly.

Gwen covered her face in giddy shame.

Harlan rose from the bed and hurriedly shrugged off his trousers and T-shirt.

Outside, the evening sun faded from the sky. Inside, on top of freshly washed sheets—that Emma herself had pressed and placed on his bed—Harlan suckled Gwen’s breasts and drowned his fingers in the river of warmth between her legs.

When she started mewing, he climbed atop her and the sound of his panting drowned out the knocking of her terrified heart. If Gwen had been a seam, she would have burst.

A few penetrating strokes later, and sweet mercy—that roller-coaster feeling swept through Gwen like a rogue wave. Every cell in her body erupted, setting her limbs to rattling.

Afterward, when they saw the blood shimmering on Harlan’s penis, Gwen flew into a panic because he seemed as shook by the sight of it as she was.

Harlan gasped. “You’re a virgin?”

To which Gwen responded, “Do I need to go to the hospital?”

An hour-long explanation and nearly a pack of cigarettes later, Harlan was finally able to convince Gwen that no, she didn’t need to go to the hospital, and no, he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“It’s normal to bleed the first time,” he kept assuring her.

Emma and Sam came through the door, laughing and teasing each other in that way that long-married couples do. Gwen had never met them and wouldn’t meet them that night because Harlan hustled her down the stairs and out the door like an embarrassment. At the subway station, he hesitated at the top of the stairs.

“You gonna ride to Brooklyn with me, right?”

“Not tonight, I’m tired.” His lips barely brushed hers. “All right, baby, get home safe.”