Free An Untamed State by Roxane Gay Page A

we are trying too hard to make this work. You let your mother believe we are casual and that’s fine if we are casual but you say one thing to me and let her believe another and so you can see, I hope, why that makes me doubt you.”
    He turned on his side, propping himself on one elbow. He put his hand on my stomach. “Is that what you think?”
    I turned away. “Yes, Michael. That is exactly what I think.”
    “Sometimes,” Michael said, “you say the stupidest fucking things.”
    I sat up so quickly I felt dizzy. “Excuse me? Did you just call me stupid?”
    Michael got up on his knees, pushed me onto my back, and straddled my waist. “No, I did not.” The whites of his eyes glowed. Frustration pulsed from his skin. He looked very different, dangerous. It excited me. He grabbed my arms and pushed them over my head.
    I tried to extract myself from his grasp, my heart beating faster than I thought a heart could beat. “Have you lost your mind?”
    He shoved my wrists deeper into the old mattress. The bed creaked. I wondered what his mother might say if she could see her son the way I have seen him. We fucked hard and angry, his hand sweaty, covering my mouth to keep me quiet. I didn’t know him until that night. I did not truly love him until that night.
    Later, after he fell asleep, I found one of his old T-shirts and a pair of shorts. My sneakers were waiting neatly by the front door. In the driveway, I looked up into his bedroom window for a long while. There’s a gravel road that circles his parents’ farm. In the deep of night, I started running, enjoying the sound of the gravel spreading away from me with each footfall. When I finally stopped running, it was still dark but the air felt cooler, thinner. I was covered in sweat and the threadbare T-shirt clung to my body. Michael was waiting on the front porch. He looked exhausted and his hair stood on end. He jumped down the porch steps and pulled me into a long embrace, burying his face in my damp neck. When I tried to push him away, he only held on to me more tightly. I have always appreciated how he never lets me go. I need that. My natural instinct is for flight and the safety of solitude.
    “I thought you left,” he whispered.
    I shook my head. I could feel sweat and him on my inner thighs. “Where would I go?”
    We sat on the porch stairs. I said, “I’m tired.” In the distance, we heard the echoing call of a rooster and then another. I shivered. “Your mother hates me.”
    “No she doesn’t. She’s slow to warm. There’s a difference.”
    His answer bothered me. I slid out of his embrace and stood. “It’s not that simple and if you don’t understand why this bothers me, we have a problem.”
    Back in his bed, we lay side by side, pretending to sleep.
    When it became clear I was, indeed, more than a fling, Michael’s mother sat me down on her sunporch for a serious conversation . She brought out a pot of tea, pound cake. She sat uncomfortably close, our knees touching. She said, “I’m sure you’re a nice young woman,” and I said, “Yes, ma’am, I am,” and she said, “I’m sure your parents are very proud of you,” and I said, “Yes, ma’am,” and she said, “You’d be opening yourself up to a whole lot of trouble if you took things any further with my son.”
    I shifted in my seat. “I don’t mind trouble.”
    Lorraine took a bite of pound cake. She set her fork down and it made a soft, unexpected sound. A small constellation of crumbs dotted her lower lip. “Marriage is hard. Life is long.”
    “Michael and I are not talking marriage.”
    She ignored me. “His father wants him to take over the farm someday. Could you be happy out here? Could you be a farmer’s wife? There aren’t a lot of people who look like you. We don’t have a problem with it the way you think we do but you and my boy would be making things a lot harder for yourselves if you took things any further.”
    I did not know what to say. I