Waiting for Next Time

The first time was during the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, back in the spring of 2010. One of the largest environmental disasters in history, they said, the equivalent of about 4.9 million barrels spilled. The Deepwater Horizon spill broke records that had previously been set in 1979, with the Ixtoc I oil spill—didn’t just break them, but obliterated them.

I know this not because I am particularly interested in oil spills. I remember all of this because we left the TV on the whole time, and it was on this that I focused when I bit my bottom lip and turned my face into the crook of my elbow. My eyes were wet, pressed shut by the weight of my arm, and through the pain and under his clumsy weight, I listened. “Could be spilling for months…unimaginable consequences…”

I listened to the doomsday predictions and heard the New York City fire trucks pass by our window. They sounded different from what I was used to in Philadelphia, almost like they were playing a silly tune for some levity as they drove to the next disaster. It almost sounded like “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” was playing, and I was crying silently, and I thought briefly about ducks and dolphins covered in oily muck, the excrement of our human greed.

Earlier, I hadn’t given a precise answer: was I, you know, ready? We had condoms, and I had started birth control last month. I guessed that made it a yes, but still I wouldn’t answer the question directly. “Let’s see how we feel.” “I mean, if it starts to hurt, I don’t know…” It occurred to me, when these answers didn’t seem very pleasing to my boyfriend, that if I couldn’t come up with a reason not to do it, I was supposed to—or, at the very least, I might as well.

And yet as the fire truck’s sirens died off and were replaced by a police car’s, the news anchor droned on about plumes of oil miles deep in the ocean, and my boyfriend pawed rudely at my breasts, I knew my answer. I whimpered when he pushed against me, but he continued using his knees to widen the area between my thighs, and he didn’t look at me when he finally managed to roll his hips and move into me. I bit down on my arm, and suddenly, I was no longer underneath my boyfriend as he panted on his elbows above me, grunting in time to the crude sound of his skin meeting mine. I stared up at the ceiling, imagining myself floating above: a vague shape, disconnected from all of this, not feeling my pain but rather only imagining it.

“Can you…just…” He slowed as I breathed out the words and felt me pressing a hand on his hip, asking to him to stop for a moment, but when he looked down at me, something hungry flashed in his eyes and he leaned down to bite my ear. What was supposed to be intimate and erotic was sloppy, aggressive, and I whimpered again as he moved faster, sweat beginning to pool on his chest and create a slickness between us. It felt cold and sticky, and I wanted to be sick.

I continued staring at the ceiling, where I imagined that amorphous form, that shape-of-me-that-wasn’t-me, knew what to do. She saw my tears and the bulging veins in my neck as I strained my face away from what was happening to me. It’s okay, she would say. It won’t always be like this. The first time always hurts. He’s 18. Even if he can see you’re in pain, he can’t help himself.

It will all be over soon.

The thing is, I believed her. After I put my pants back on and he was scrubbing at the blood on the sheets, I put an arm around his back, kissed his shoulder, and agreed with phantom-me. We're both still kids, I thought. Of course that was awful. There’s always next time. He’ll learn.

As it turned out, phantom-me was full of shit.

For the last 15 years, she’s followed me into many bedrooms, hovering in the periphery of my nightmare encounters. Next time, she promises, and I always want to believe her.

Next time, when you’re not feeling well and really don’t have the energy, he won’t start pulling your clothes off until you give in.

Next time, your ex won’t manage to get you alone at a party, locked in someone else’s bedroom, and explain to you that since you’ve already had sex, it’s fine, you’ll enjoy it.

Next time, a “friend” won’t push you down and start shoving his hands up your shirt just after you say no, you’re grieving the loss of a dear friend, and sex is really the last thing on your mind.

Next time, she says, and I could almost laugh. But still—still, after all this time!—there she is, some shape of me that holds out hope that things might someday change. I see her every time a bedroom door is shut and locked, trapping me: some ghost-like form floating above, invisible and naïve.