Free Suitable Precautions by Laura Boudreau

this class every Monday for about a month. This female cop came to lead a seminar called I Am Not a Victim that mostly seemed to be about my bum falling asleep on the gym floor while we watched videos about girls in miniskirts sneaking off to lame parties where guys with pimples gave them spiked drinks. The girls were always named Tiffany or
Crystal, or something, I don’t know what that was about. They drank the booze and then got raped off camera. More often, though, they just almost got raped and then had to run home through an alleyway to their moms who made them tea and told them they were proud that they hadn’t been a victim. I don’t know what planet these videos are made on, but if I came home at three in the morning looking like an extra from In Living Colour and stinking of booze, my mom would have a conniption, and for once it’d be me, not Margot, who was going to send my dad to an early grave.
    The cop also made us do these weird partner exercises, which I was glad of because at least they brought my ass back to the land of the living. Alice was my partner. For this one, Alice was supposed to close her eyes and I was supposed to walk towards her, and when Alice felt that her personal space was invaded, or whatever, she was supposed to put one hand out in front of her and say, Please back up. You’re in my personal space. It was supposed to make us assertive about the rights of our bodies, or something. I forget exactly, now. But the point is that when we did it I just kept walking closer and closer to Alice until our noses were practically touching, and she didn’t say anything. Finally I was so close that I could smell her skin, the heat of it, I mean, and I was like, Alice, am I invading your space yet or what? She just shrugged, her eyes closed and said, I know it’s you.
    About halfway through the last class we had this guy come in all covered in foam and hockey kind of equipment and a mask, and he was this make-believe attacker. We were supposed to go up one at a time and scream in his face I am not a victim! in order to empower ourselves. If we wanted to, we could kick him in the crotch, and, just in case we didn’t know where his crotch was, like if we’d been sleeping through
all those date rape videos, or something, he was wearing this big bull’s eye on a kind of paper plate thing between his legs. Alice was the only one who did it. Who kicked him, I mean. I didn’t do it because I thought it must be a pretty crappy job to have to come to a gym and get kicked in the balls by fifty sixth-grade girls, no matter what kind of gear you’re wearing. He’s probably some junior cop trainee and this job, which they say is part of serving the community, is actually new-cop hazing, and everybody at the station is snickering when he comes in the next day and has to sit at his desk with an ice pack on his junk. But Alice did it.
    She walked right up to him and looked him in the hockey mask and screamed I am not a victim! in a voice that gave me the shivers. Seriously. Then she wound up her foot like she was a cartoon donkey, or something, and totally socked him. I mean, the guy is wearing his paper plate shield and a jock and foam and who knows what else, and he actually crumples to his knees. The female cop was all like, Uh, well done, oh-kay, but you could tell she hadn’t been expecting that one. It’s funny, right? You could tell that on the one hand she was proud of herself, like she’d taught us Krav Maga, or something, and on the other she was worried, like, What have I done here? But that’s sort of the thing about Alice. She does that to you, once in a while.
    What?
    Yeah, right. Surprises you.
    Some people think she’s kind of a loser, or whatever, but she’s totally not. She’d be cool. I mean, she’s not as mature as me about this kind of stuff, obviously, but I’d talk to her about it. I’d just tell her that I