Free Spring Fire by Vin Packer

boy. "Can we sit this out with you?" she said. "Every place is filled."
    Marsha's date was Ken, and he impersonated professors and they laughed for a while, but Bud did not laugh enthusiastically. Ken heard the music when it started, later, after they had talked together, and Marsha said, "Well, let's all go back. There's going to be a pinning. Jim Keeler is going to pin Kitten tonight."
    A huge circle formed in the dining room and Jim Keeler stood in the center, his arm around Kitten's waist. From the side lines, Mother Nessy beamed as the girls sang the "Sweetheart Song." When it was finished, the orchestra played "I Love You Truly," and Jim pinned his large fraternity pin on Kitten's bosom. Then they danced and the others joined in.
    "C'mon," Bud said to Mitch, "let's get some punch."
    The kitchen was empty and Bud poured a large shot of whisky into Mitch's drink. "Susan Mitchell," he said, holding his glass high, "the picture of innocence."
    The taste was gone and Mitch drank easily. Bud came to her and kissed her and his hand went down to her skirt. "No," he said when she started to squirm away, "just wait a minute. Wait a minute now, Susan Mitchell, just let me alone for a minute. Feels good, doesn't it?" he said, and Susan Mitchell shut her eyes and the room was going around in grand yellow and red circles. He helped her down the steps and it was still and musty, but he talked all the way. When he found the light switch, he turned it on once and then off again quickly. He led her over to the couch near the ping-pong table.
    "You're sweet," he said, his hand working the buttons on her blouse, pulling it gently from her shoulders, kissing her. "You're sweet, Susan."
    Very softly, almost too softly for her to hear her own words, she said, "No," but her eyes saw the circles and there was a new feeling in her body when he touched her and she could feel her clothes being pulled.
    "No," she said. "No, please, no!"
    Then swiftly, suddenly, and with terrific pain, she felt pressure and her eyes opened wide and she would have screamed but his hand covered her mouth and he struck her hard.
    "Shut up," he said. "You wanted to know. You wanted this, Miss Virgin."
    For a long time she was down in the mire of pitch black and the quicksand sucking her in and her whole head dizzy and the pain. Then it was over and she could feel him kneeling beside her, his head on her breasts, his breath coming hard. When she stood up, she hung onto the table and her head throbbed and spun. He got up too and turned the light switch on and she saw him looking at her.
    "Better get your clothes on," he said, "and get upstairs with me."
    Her voice was not her own. "You go to hell," she said. "You go to hell."
    "Come on," he said. "Get your clothes on."
    She did not cry. She reached for her things, scattered there on the floor, the brown orchid squashed beside the couch, everything strewn. He turned his back and ran his fingers through his hair, and then he turned around and she was dressed, walking toward him with dead eyes, swerving slightly from side to side.
    "Listen," he said. "That's 'Good Night, Ladies’. It's the last dance."
    She moved past him toward the cellar steps. He caught her arm and she stopped and did not look at him.
    "I'll go out the side door," he said. "Look, take a hot bath. You're not hurt. Go up and take a hot bath and keep your mouth shut. Look, you're all right. Don't act this way."
    When he let her go, she walked up the cellar steps and up the back steps to the second floor and her room. There was no one up there. They were all finishing the last dance. She lay on the bed, her eyes shut, and the circles came back, but they were black now and she was very cold.
    Leda found her like that when she came in the room, threw her coat on the chair, and let her arms reach out in a wide yawn.
    "What's the trouble?" she said.
    Mitch did not move. Her eyes were fixed on the ceiling, her lips parted, a gray-white color to her face, and she