Free Thief by Maureen Gibbon

slid beneath his arm. It was good to have him touching me, to be driving on the quiet black
     road.
    At the camp all the cabins were padlocked but Cree used his knife to slip open the hook of a shutter on one of the windows.
     He climbed in easily, but I had to boost myself up on my hands first and then swing my leg up onto the sill. I waited there
     for a second for some of the burning to stop.
    “Let’s find a bunk with a mattress,” Cree said when I got inside.
    I could hear him moving in the cabin but couldn’t see him.
    “Here. Here’s one.”
    I followed his voice and then lay down with him on the narrow bunk. I tried to act like nothing was wrong, like things were
     the way they always were. I slipped my arms around him and let one hand rest at his hip, one on his back.
    We kissed for a long time and it soothed me. The air in the cabin was damp and musty, but when the breeze came in through
     the opened shutter, I could smell the woods. The smell wasn’t just pine— it was the smell of all the trees and the leaves
     mixed together. A green smell. I wished I could just be there with nothing on my mind, just smelling the green and holding
     Cree.
    I couldn’t, though. When he pulled away from me and reached for my jeans, I stopped him.
    “I can’t,” I said.
    “What, do you have your period?”
    I could feel his hand resting on the soft part of my belly, waiting. For a second I thought I might tell him. I got afraid
     of the words again, though, and could only nod. I knew he couldn’t see me in the darkness.
    “It doesn’t matter if there’s blood,” he said. “You know that.”
    He waited a second and then started to open my jeans again. That time I pushed his hand away. Even in the darkness I knew
     he was watching me.
    I still didn’t say anything. But I moved away from him so that I was lying beside him rather than underneath, and then I moved
     again so I was the one on top. I moved down over his body and he pressed up against me, but I didn’t let him reach for me.
     Instead I unbuttoned his shirt and kissed his belly. Slipped down his jeans.
    After Cree came in my mouth, we lay together. He kept touching my face, kept wrapping his hands in my hair. I listened to
     the wind outside in the trees and then stood up to get a tissue from my pocket.
    “You all right?”
    “I’m okay,” I said.
    “You sure?”
    “It just makes my nose run.”
    If Cree thought anything was strange about my refusal to fuck, he never said. He was used to my moodiness, and maybe he thought
     it was that, or maybe he thought it was connected to my period, or maybe he was just content to come in my mouth.
    “Did you get your dress yet?”
    “I’m going to pick it up Friday,” I said. Our prom was a week away, and I was having someone make my dress because I didn’t
     want one of the frilly affairs the stores were selling. I wanted a black halter instead. “I have to wait to get my paycheck
     on Thursday,” I said.
    “You need money?”
    “I’ll have enough. Besides, you’re paying for everything else.”
    “Well, let me know if you need it.”
    He held my hand as we drove back to town. “Are you glad we came?” he asked.
    I knew what he meant, but for a second I thought,
Well, you’re the only one who came.
It wasn’t his fault— I was to blame, and an orgasm was the last thing on my mind— but I still thought it. But instead I said,
     “You know I am.”
    I moved over to sit close to him, and that’s when I decided I would never tell him what had happened or what I’d done. I knew
     I could take care of everything myself. It was easier to protect him by giving him blow jobs. That way he wouldn’t have to
     know, I wouldn’t have to tell, and everything could stay the same.
    As it turned out, we broke up a few weeks after prom anyway. In spite of my oral skills and secrecy, nothing stayed the same.

14
    THE CASINO was called the Northern Lights but the name was a misnomer: the only aurora came