The Pull of the Moon by Elizabeth Berg Read Free Book Online

the floor until he said it was all right to get up. He said no one should see me or we’d get in a lot of trouble. I lay on the floor trying to keep my sweater from getting dirty—it was a light pink, angora; and I was wearing a gray straight skirt with it, new nylons, and my black flats that I’d polished the night before. I had a barrette with pearls on it anchored to one side of my hair. When I put it in, I had imagined him taking it out, my hair falling to my shoulders in a way I thought he might admire. I thought he might touch my curls, gently, hold one strand of hair up to the light to see better the reddish color it could take on. I’d thought he might kiss my hair, then my neck, and then my lips. Now I could only see his shoes, his foot working the gas pedal and the brake with some impatience. I thought, I don’t know those shoes at all. I could hear his keys in the ignition jingling softly against one another and I wondered why he had so many keys. It seemed dangerous to me, that he would have so many keys. He stopped the car, told me he was going into the office to get a room, and not to move. “Okay,” I said, and my voice was so high and strange. And I remember I looked at each of my fingernails when I waited for him, because I wanted him to think every part of me was pretty. I’d painted my nails pearl pink the night before. I’d put perfume in places I’d never put it before .
    Well, I am just shaking! Perhaps there is no point in remembering this. I don’t think there is any reason. It was a very bad experience, over now. I am fifty. It is over, now .
    All right. I will say the worst part. Let me do that. Then it will be over .
    There was a point at which he was straddling me, we were both naked, my God, I had never been naked with anyone before, not even partially, except for the ancient doctor I went to, and he had the sensitivity to look at the wall when he put his hands to me under the paper gown. But Joey looked directly at me and he put his penis on my chest and pushed my breasts together hard. Then he rubbed himself between them. “Doesn’t this feel nice?” he said, his voice hoarse, close to cruel. He was so far above me. If I looked up, I could see the inside of his nose, which seemed too intimate, and which seemed rude for me to do. Anyway, I didn’t want to look at him, it embarrassed me to do that. I’d caught a glimpse of his penis and the fleshy sight of it made me feel like vomiting . I didn’t know where to look. The wallpaper was peeling, the lamp buzzed, the door to the bathroom was cracked open, and I could hear the drip of the faucet. I closed my eyes and tried not to cry. I could see my bed at home, my heart-shaped pillow lying against the other pillows. And then he put his hand to my face and opened my mouth. “Don’t bite,” he said, and he was laughing a little, and then he was not, and the bed squeaked and squeaked and squeaked and squeaked. The barrette had slipped to the back of my head and it pressed into me, and I felt I could not move to adjust it. It ended up making a small wound that kept me tender for a long time .
    Why tell more? The silent ride home? The way he barely looked at me when we said good-bye?
    I am exhausted again. I am going to sleep until I wake up far away from this place I’ve been to .

Dear Martin,
    Today, around noontime, I suddenly got tired of the car. And so when I came to the next town, I pulled over and parked next to a church and got out to take a little walk. It was a small town, the requisite town hall and police station and library all clustered together like gossiping friends. I sat on the steps of the town hall eating an ice cream and trying to decide which direction to go in. I could see some railroad tracks off in the distance and I decided to walk along there.
    I’d forgotten all the pleasures of walking in a place like that—the low twist of anxiety about a train coming when you’re in a narrow spot, the crunch of