In the front seat of his white Pontiac LeMans, I told my cowboy boyfriend, “I want to.” When I unbuttoned my pants for him, I said yes. “Yes,” when he asked was I sure. He’d already been my boyfriend for a month.
Sex was nothing like in the books. Nothing like what I did for myself when I was alone. It was fast and quiet and I didn’t feel much of anything other than the armrest pressing in my back, the cool of the red vinyl seat, the relief that I hadn’t waited any longer to have this secret of my own.
Afterward he said, “Are you sure you didn’t do this before? You sure seem to know what you’re doing.”
I sat on the bleachers before volleyball practice. I touched thumb to fingers, counted days. A week late. The other girls came out of the locker room and started hitting practice serves and sets. I put my elbows to my knees, chin to hand.
The cowboy and I had been together three months and we’d had sex plenty of times since that first time. He didn’t like to use condoms. It didn’t feel good. I told him that was okay. I knew when I could get pregnant.
I could tell when an egg was there. On those days I had a small headache and felt a fullness in me. I knew how long to wait on either side of that headache. I’d read a book that said there were spermicides and condoms and now there was the Pill. I didn’t know how to get any of those. The book said what I was doing was old fashioned. But it had worked so far. Until now.
I’d seen that girl who got pregnant in high school. The older women cooed and held her child. That girl was a pale thing next to her shining baby.
I wouldn’t have a baby. And Mom couldn’t know I’d been this dumb. More than once over the years Mom said to me, “You may be smart, but you have no common sense.” I never asked her exactly what she meant by that, but I figured it had to do with thinking things through beyond a first thought or an idea or a want.
My friends on the volleyball court called to me, “C’mon, Shannon! Get down here and start hitting some balls.” And they laughed. Shoes squeaked on the shiny gym floor. The slap of open palms on volleyballs.
I pictured a calendar in my mind. Red days circled. The rhythm of my body. My periods always came when they should.
I wouldn’t tell my cowboy boyfriend. Not now. Maybe not ever. In the months since that first time in his white LeMans, he went from gentle boy to one who wanted sex whenever we were alone. He said it hurt if we didn’t. On the days I thought I could get pregnant, he showed me how to do something else. Use my hand or use my mouth.
Everyone at school, the teachers and the other kids, thought I was a good girl. They had no idea how much time the cowboy and I spent on back roads.
I forgot how to say no to him. This became a habit, me not saying no. Maybe this was how it was. Maybe all the girls stopped saying no once they had said yes.
My boyfriend talked about us getting married. He said his mom had been fifteen when she married his dad. She was a nice lady, but I saw her life. Staying at home, hardly any friends, a husband who told her what to do.
I didn’t say yes and didn’t say no when the cowboy said marriage. Mom was already talking to me about college and careers. I didn’t tell the cowboy that I wanted what Mom wanted for me.
How could I want a boy to love me so much but not want to be with him forever?
If I was pregnant, someone would help me figure it out, tell me where to go. Help make it go away. I’d read Valley of the Dolls, seen that TV show Maude. From the little bit of news I paid attention to, I knew abortion was legal now. For sure there were girls I could ask for help.
Smart came from learning things from books. Common sense would have kept this from happening in the first place.
The coach blew her whistle. I got off the bleachers and pulled up my knee pads. I powered my serves and dove for wild balls. If I could knock it loose, I would. If it was there.
Three more days went by. I tried not to think about what might be growing in me. I didn’t tell my boyfriend. The worry settled in with an ache low in my back. I didn’t want to marry him.
The ache rested heavy and low and I didn’t recognize it until two more days passed. Then came the rush of blood. A different kind of release than the first time I had bled. I breathed it in. I hadn’t told anyone, so I had no one to tell my relief to.
I stretched out the days on either side of those headaches, the days I counted when the egg might be there. Sometimes I wasn’t careful and hoped it would be okay.
The cowboy told me what to wear and what I couldn’t wear when he wasn’t around. He didn’t want me talking to other boys. He said my short haircut made my nose look even bigger. He said I was getting fat. A friend told me my boyfriend had gone out with another girl.
At first, I tried to keep him without ever thinking whether I wanted him anymore. I missed the way it had been at first, the excitement of falling in love. My boyfriend didn’t seem to know the sex should be for me too.
I missed how it felt when I wanted to do anything for him, when I would do anything for him.
Years later, when we became the kind of sisters who talked about such things, Leanne said she’d waited until she was eighteen and had moved out of Mom and Dad’s house. She said she didn’t think it was right, not respectful to our parents, to do it before then. She’d thought it through so clearly. She had rules about what was right and what was wrong. How did she know that? How did I not?