Free Borrowed Light by Anna Fienberg Page B

present.
    We’d only gone out together twice. On our first date we went to a movie. It was full of big-breasted women with startling cleavage. He kept gawking and digging me in the ribs. But afterwards we kissed in his car. It was lovely, the kissing, all wet and soft and generous. He kissed my hair and my nostrils and my chin and my neck and everywhere he kissed, I felt alive. I wanted that part to go on forever. That’s all I wanted to do.
    But you’re not allowed to do that. If you kiss that way, then you have to go further. Otherwise the boy suffers terribly. That’s what Tim said. When it was time to go, he groaned a lot and acted as if he were in pain.
    On the second date, we went back to his place. His parents were asleep. We tiptoed into his room. The doona on his bed was a startling white. I wondered how his mother got it so sparkling. She must have been very Organised. On a small square sofa on the other side of the room, the cushions were lined up one after the other like soldiers. There were surfing posters on the walls, with blue-eyed bronzed gods looking out of them, just like Tim. My heart lifted a little—after all, here was I, picked out of the masses by one such god. I smiled at him, and sat down on the bed.
    â€˜No, not there,’ he said.
    He pointed to the polished timber floor, where there was today’s newspaper spread out. He took my hand and pulled me down. ‘If it’s your first time,’ he explained kindly, ‘you might make a bit of a mess.’
    He began to take off my jeans. I helped him with the zip. I felt like a puppy he’d decided to train. Maybe I’d get a nice bowl of meaty bites if I performed well.
    He didn’t kiss me first. He put two fingers straight inside me. I hoped I didn’t smell down there. His nail scrapedagainst me. I winced. I was so dry. ‘Sorry,’ I whispered. He said nothing and took them out.
    I didn’t know how he would get anything else in there.
    I was clamped shut like the Reserve Bank.
    He persisted. Our bodies moved against the newspaper, which crackled like nobody’s business. I thought of uncle Dan’s cane toads, and wondered if Tim’s mum, so efficient with her washing, could get both of us with one arrow. Over Tim’s shoulder I kept my eyes on the door. At any moment I was sure she’d hear this tremendous crackling and burst in.
    When it was finished I stood up and put my jeans back on. I looked at the newspaper. There was only one drop of blood, like a fingerprick. It made me think of Snow White.
    Maybe some girls bled hugely. They might have covered all the newspaper, dripping over the weather section and into Sport. You could hardly even see where I’d been.
    He could have told his mum he had a nose bleed. He could have washed the spot himself. I could have told him cold water takes blood stains out. It could have all been different. But it wasn’t. That is how it was, if you really want to know.
    W HEN I ARRIVED home after that first time with Tim, I went straight to the bathroom to look in the mirror. I looked into my eyes, at my mouth, I ran my fingers down the sharp bones of my rib cage. I looked at all the places that had been touched. I bit my lip in disappointment. Nothing looked any different. I was still the same.
    In bed, I hugged my arms. I touched my nipples, the softest circles on my body. Pushing my breasts together, I forced a faint line of cleavage in between. Invisible ink. I kept searching for signs of change, my entry into womanhood. But there was nothing.
    After a few more outings, I decided that after all, I was relieved. Seeing as I felt so little with Tim, it seemed only natural that it had no lasting effect on me. We progressed from the floor to the soldier sofa. I never did get to lie on the bed. It frightened me now anyway, all that saintly white. It was a marital bed, I thought, suitable for grown women with big busts who felt