Genevieve LeFranc Workshop #7

Sorry it's so long guys!!

September

It was an unusually warm Thursday evening in September of the first semester of my first year of college. Having only been at school a few weeks I was still rather new to the idea of going out on Thursday nights, and, seeing as how I’d already finished my light homework load and nothing interesting was on the television, I decided to flirt with the idea of being out on a school night. I was restless and full of energy, but I had no idea where to go or what to do. I sat on my bed, which I had neatly made out of sheer boredom, and mindlessly flipped through the channels of my roommate’s television. With each static click of the remote I grew more and more restless, ready and impatient to give my newly acquired independence a test run. Gone were the days of cleaning my room before going to the movies or folding the laundry before the Friday night football game. I was officially a college student and I could do what I pleased! As I was rounding out my third pass through the channels, my cell phone sitting on my desk chirped intriguingly. I threw down the remote and lunged for my phone, punching the tiny buttons in anticipation of some glamorous and thrilling invitation to some fabulously exclusive party. I found no such invitation, simply a flirtatious text from Ian, a deceptively attractive junior I had met at a party the weekend before. We flirted and danced, and at the end of the night he paid for a cab ride for the two of us to share. He was tall with downturned brown puppy eyes and a big white smile. He was a witty, smooth, and hilarious fraternity president, and his evenly tanned skin rippled over his nicely developed biceps. I could tell he was trouble, but then again, that had always been my type, and the fact that he had taken an interest in me made me feel mature and popular. We flirted over text messages back and forth constantly over the next couple of days, and whenever we would bump into each other on campus during the week the attraction was undeniable. The fact that he wanted to take me to his house on a Thursday made me feel like I was floating.

Ian casually invited me over to his place to hang out, meet his roommates, and maybe watch a movie. It wasn’t a party, but I figured it was better than watching old Friends re-runs all night. And besides, this rendezvous made all my suitemates jealous and gave me a nervous, almost dangerous feeling in my stomach that I actually enjoyed. Like the feeling I had when I snuck out of my parent’s house for the first time to go skinny-dipping in a neighborhood pool with a boy. I hastily yanked off my ancient lacrosse warm-ups and threw on a sexy but casual shirtdress and gold sandals, shook loose my wild tresses, and, with a final spritz of my perfume, I was ready. I waited outside my dorm for Ian to pick me up, and I was terrified. My stomach turned and my palms sweated while I nervously spun my ring around and around on my middle finger. Would he look through me the way all the other boys did, simply nodding along to everything I said, but not absorbing a single syllable I uttered? Would he be like the countless imbeciles before him with whom I’d have to awkwardly laugh and ignore it when they mispronounced my name, feeling too gauche to even bother to correct them? I warned myself to be cautiously optimistic, and that maybe this frat boy from Newport News wouldn’t be like all the other wolves I had encountered so far this year.

My heart skipped a beat when Ian pulled up in his purple-black sedan and shook me out of my frenzied thoughts back to reality. I skipped over and slid into the cracked leather passenger’s seat, giving Ian a big smile and a casual “hey.” He gave me a smoldering grin back, and turned up the volume on the radio. As he pulled back onto the road and began to tear through the streets of Harrisonburg at around 75 miles per hour, I gripped the dashboard and the door handle for dear life. I forced myself not to beg him to slow down; I didn’t want to look like a baby or some sort of prude. I heaved a sigh of relief when we reached a stoplight, only to catch my breath in my throat again as Ian slipped his big, rough hand onto my tanned, exposed knee. He looked at me with lazy eyes and a crooked smile, and when he opened his mouth to speak, he slurred and stumbled over every word. I suspiciously sniffed the air and immediately detected raspberry vodka. My heart started to pound as I realized how drunk Ian was, but told myself to keep it together until we reached his house around the corner. Once we pulled into the driveway and stepped out of the car, I heard the bass of a stereo system making the earth bump and hum, along with cheers and shrieks of laughter. I was frustrated and put off that Ian didn’t tell me about the little festivity going on in his backyard, but, sensing the nervousness furrowed in my brow, he coolly took my hand, led me inside, and assured me that everyone would love me.

I walked through the door and immediately panicked when I saw the crowded, cluttered living room and was met with countless looks of disdain and confusion. I felt my cheeks burn hot with embarrassment. I was now extremely aware of my limbs, and awkwardly shifted them into different positions. Arms crossed, hip jutted out, hands clasped behind back, fingers playing with hair, or shifting from foot to foot while spinning my ring around and around on my middle finger. I couldn’t decide what to do or think or say. Those few seconds of walking into the room felt like an eternity.

A large group of Ian’s friends were playing drinking games on a makeshift coffee table while watching a Redskins football game, some of the meatheads were even wearing football jerseys, but everyone stopped when they saw me. The overly tanned blonde girls gave me three identical sneers and whispered to each other behind acrylic French manicure talons, while the sloppy, whiskered, beer-bellied guys just looked me up and down with bleary eyes. I stood there with my arms awkwardly crossed, waiting for Ian to introduce me, but he never did. My heart sank and I was irritated, but I shook it off, refusing to lose my cool. Ian grabbed a beer, found a spot on the couch, and yanked me down onto his lap. I tried to look confident and breezy, but all I could manage to do was yank my dress down and feebly laugh at all the idiotic things people were saying. I felt like the annoying little sister tagging along and had no idea what to do or say. Every once in a while Ian would give my thigh a reassuring squeeze or give me a polite kiss on the cheek, and I started to feel a lot better. Why should I feel uncomfortable? I was at a cool upperclassmen get together, and an insanely sexy Junior had invited me. I had every right to be here. I eventually began to loosen up and relax.

            Eventually the guests left one by one, until the last person trickled out the door unnoticed. Now I was more nervous than ever, because Ian and I were completely alone, not to mention he was pretty drunk. As soon as we heard the metallic click of the front door closing, Ian shoved me down on the couch and began kissing me furiously. It was a hard, painful, angry kiss, and it tasted like Miller Light. His whiskers scratched my face and his enormous frame crushed me further and further down into the moldy old gray couch. I murmured for him to stop and get off of me, but he didn’t listen. I desperately tried pushing his chest away with my seemingly child-like hands, but he was just too heavy. I felt his sweaty, meaty palms fumble their way up my dress, groping me violently. He squeezed and grabbed at my thighs and buttocks so hard I let out a little yelp. All I could do was panic.

My mind was racing back to all those dated movies we watched in Health class in Junior High. I tried to remember what the crooning voices told us to do in situations like this, but they never mentioned what you ought to do when the boy was a solid mass of muscle and there was absolutely no way to get him off of you. As though my prayers had been answered, one of Ian’s roommates walked into the living room and startled Ian. The second he glanced back to see who had interrupted us, I rolled away from him and scooted as far away from him as I could. I rearranged my disheveled dress and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I could feel my cheeks and chin sting from the rash his beard had left on my delicate face. I let my long hair fall over my eyes and stared at a bottle cap on the dirty brown rug. I was kicking myself for being so stupid and naïve. I was confused and angry and uncomfortable, and embarrassed that I actually thought I could meet a decent guy in college. The roommate said something to me but I couldn’t make out a word. I just kept staring at the glinting red and gold bottle cap tangled in the rug. Once the roommate had finally left, it must’ve hit Ian how uncomfortable, awkward, and embarrassed I felt and looked. In an attempt to repair his drunken advances, he stroked my back and spouted apology after sweet apology, blaming it on the booze. He enveloped my dainty hand in his big, fleshy, strong hand and said he’d take me on a proper tour of the house. It took me a few seconds, but I was surprised at how soon I forgot about being mad at him. I wanted to forgive him so he would still want me. I felt a little better, but I suddenly wondered to myself just how much Ian had drunk. When I met him for the first time he was manning the keg at a party and was completely sober.  He seduced me with him charming nature and had made me feel like a goddess. Now I questioned whether this was actually the same person.

            As promised, Ian showed me around the crumbling house inhabited by a handful of fraternity brothers. When we were finished with the tour of the upstairs and main level, he told me there was one last place he wanted me to see, and led me down a mucky, steep, uneven staircase to the basement. It was damp and cool, and completely pitch black. I instinctively reached for the light switch on the stale wall, but nothing happened when I flipped the switch. Ian explained that his roommates had forgotten to buy new bulbs to replace the dead ones. As my pupils began to adjust, I made out the silhouettes of dozens of decaying cardboard boxes and the foam underside of an old carpet strewn in the middle of the floor. That same uncertain feeling began creeping into my stomach. I wondered what was going on, but I didn’t know what to think. Before I could continue scoping out the scene, I felt Ian’s ridiculously strong arm wrench me down with him, the carpet foam erupting in a cloud of dust under our weight. Ian began to kiss me again, gentler this time. I kept mumbling about why we couldn’t go to his room or my room or somewhere not so eerie but he pretended not to hear me. Eventually he got more and more aggressive and violent, treating my frame like a rag doll. He grabbed and squeezed and dug his nails into me with animosity. He was shoving his slimy, beer-soaked tongue in and out of my mouth and biting my lip over and over again. He pinned my wrists above my head with one hand and yanked my underwear to my knees with the other. I desperately clamped my thighs together and squirmed out of his grasp. He drunkenly lunged for me to pull me back and explain, but I dodged his huge arms. I couldn’t catch my breath and I could barely see through the thick darkness and my heavy tears, but I somehow clamored up the stairs and ran out the front door. My body shook with sobs the entire walk back to my dorm, and I stumbled straight to the shower stalls. I ripped off my ruined, cologne-drenched dress and threw it in the garbage. Even though the faucet was turned as hot as it would go, I wanted it hotter. I wanted to boil my skin clean, and I furiously scrubbed every inch of me until I was red and raw, desperately trying to erase every moment of that night.

            I would tear up when his name appeared in my Facebook news feed or get that feeling in my stomach when he would text me every now and then, but I never spoke to Ian again. He would approach me at parties and try and flirt with me on AIM when it was past midnight on the weekends, but I never let myself forget what happened that night. When everything is new and exhilarating, you believe what you want to believe. And I almost let him fool me. Since I’ve been at college I haven’t learned anything as valuable as the lesson I learned that night in September.