Free Marijuana Girl by N. R. De Mexico Page B

body aching with exhaustion. Her dress she let fall to the floor. Her arms hurt. She looked in the mirror. Her shoulders and neck and upper arms felt bruised, but they showed no marks. She stretched the rubber waistband of her panties, let them drop to her feet, stepped out with one foot and with the other kicked them onto a chair. Her hair was wild with the slip stream of the convertible and she had no energy left to brush it. She went to the bathroom and washed away the lipstick smears around her mouth--but nothing could wash away the smear inside her. She started to the closet for her nightgown, thought of the vast energy that would require, and turned back to the bed, pulled down the sheet and single blanket and slipped in.
    What's the matter with me?
    She pressed the convenient switch that turned off the light over the bed and tried to settle herself for sleep.
    Why did I do it?
    She fluffed up the pillows and shifted her head, then turned and tried the other way, but there was no rest in her.
    She thought, how could you do such a thing? How could anybody let themselves get like that? What was wrong with a person who behaved like that? What was it old Iris had said, "... you need psychiatric help ..." Was that it? Was she crazy?
    She remembered things in school. Defiance. That had been the thing. Why did she have to write a shocking paper when everyone else was satisfied with things like measles and virus pneumonia? Why had she insisted on smoking in the school corridors between classes? After all, she hadn't actually needed a smoke. Why had she tried that idiotic dance during the auditorium study period? That was so stupid, so meaningless, so ridiculous except as defiance. Or was defiance the whole story? Wasn't it also something else, almost as if you were courting disaster, searching for trouble, demanding punishment?
    And the afternoon, just one day over a week ago, right after Dean Shay had kicked you out of school--what had happened that you had to tempt Tony so disgracefully? Supposing you got--got yourself with child? Was that it? Was that the trouble you were courting this time? Or was there still something else?
    She remembered it another way, then. There had to be someone. You had to belong to someone, be someone's property, so they would take care of you and keep you safe, because people did take care of the things that belonged to them, didn't they?
    And then, when Tony was so angry, why shouldn't you have gone out with Mr.--with Frank. And everything had been so wonderful--the fine, safe feeling, the protected feeling of being with a grown man.
    But tonight--first one and then the other. Betrayer. Delilah. First betraying Tony with Frank, and then Frank with Tony. Awful--but just wonderful, wonderful, the feeling of being loved. And two loves were better than one.
    Now she belonged to two men, but it was horrible. No, wonderful. No ...
    Tony drove his car into the garage, switched off the lights and climbed out closing the garage doors behind him. The moonlight cast long shadows over the lawn, making it look vast and deep and mysterious, and the huge darkened house where his father and mother lay sleeping loomed like a castle out of a fairy tale. He walked over to the grape arbor and seated himself on the long bench that ran the length of it.
    There was something wrong with Joyce--something he would have to figure out. Maybe, if he were to write to her parents--but no, you couldn't do that. There was honor among kids. You couldn't betray that.
    And for a while--he took out a cigarette and lit it--he had thought she was getting herself into trouble with that Frank Burdette. No. Nothing like that could happen. Frank was too nice a guy. And he had a wife and kid, and that kind of thing just didn't happen. Besides, he knew better now--after the way she had demonstrated, in the car, her ardent regard for him.
    Still, it was too bad Joyce couldn't graduate. After all, what could her aunt do to her? Nothing. She'd