First, I’d eat several Schwan’s confetti cups, then, I’d make out with Morgan. It wasn’t gay because we were playing boyfriend and girlfriend. My role was “girlfriend,” because Morgan was bigger than me—stocky. The hotter the garage, the more perspiration. Teen Spirit deodorant filled the air with what smelled like flowers growing in Heaven. She pushed me up against the four-wheeler, her fat fifth-grade hands slick as they groped my upper thighs. The garage smelled like oil too, or gasoline. Morgan’s long orange hair mopped across my face and fell into my mouth. It tasted like Pantene Pro-V. When cars crunched down the gravel road, we burst apart, hearts thick with guilt. I fought the impulse to run twenty towns away.
Morgan’s mom was a financial advisor, and my mom called her a bitch. I didn’t mind Mrs. Peters, but her husband was a slug. Clyde sat in front of the television with a TV tray and shoveled SPAM into his mouth with a spoon. He burped when he drank Bud Lights, smashed the cans in his fists when he was finished, then threw them in the general direction of the trash. When he made a shot, he pumped his fist into the air and yelled “Yeehaw!”
When the Peters were at work, Morgan and I watched porn. We sat side-by-side, a blanket draped over our bald, bouncing knees as we scrolled through channels 485-497. We liked the one where the guy snuck up on the sleeping girls, because it was easiest to reenact. We took turns lying down, blankets up to our chins, and pretended to sleep. The Creeper would spoon the Sleeper, then slide her fingers down the Sleeper’s pants. Morgan wore basketball shorts every day. I loved the mesh, still do. It felt good to rub my crotch against her enormous ass, to trace my fingers beneath the tight elastic bands. I never came.I didn’t know what it meant. But I pulsed with a heat that made me feel restless at church.
That summer, we attended Vacation Bible School. Glen Oak Baptist was just a five-minute walk from my front door, down my own gravel road. Even though it was summer, Morgan was only allowed to do sleepovers on weekends, so we had to meet there. I chugged my orange juice, devoured my Pop-Tart, and ran the whole way to the chapel, sweaty in dread of God. Morgan sat cross-legged with the other children. My knee bumped her thigh, which was heavily bruised.
The morning sermon was about Genesis. I was already familiar. It was the part where Eve ate the apple that screwed us all. “What should Eve have done?” asked Pastor Jimmy. We all screeched in unison, “Eve should have listened to God!”
I wanted snack time. My mom promised Glen Oak would have good stuff because its members were rich. First, it was sermon. Then crafts. Then snacks. Then lesson. Then another sermon. Then Morgan’s house. Time moved like the sun made me dizzy. At craft time, we did paper mâché. Mrs. Linda brought a bag of red balloons that still said “$1!” We blew and blew the balloons until veins bulged from our flawless foreheads. My cheeks ached, and slobber forced balloon after balloon out of my mouth. We each had to inflate three. I glanced at Morgan, who seemed to have no issues at all.
The balloons were to transform into apples. I thought it was stupid to cover the balloons with newspaper just to paint them back to red. But we didn’t paint them red. We painted them green, because green is sour, and so is sin. Mrs. Linda said the paint had to dry, so snacks came early.
Morgan and I sat painfully apart due to the alphabetical gulf between our last names. She ate three Dixie cups full of iced animal crackers, and I ate two. We each refilled our fruit punch, which left our lips painted red. Triangular portions of PB&Js sat stacked on a silver catering plate. Jelly stuck to our fingers and we wiped it on our shorts.
After snack time, Mrs. Linda led us back to the craft room and revealed a pink, glittering makeup bag. When she dumped it, darts scattered across the table. “These,” she said, “are our resolve. Does anyone know what resolve means?” No one did. “Okay, these are our wills. Does anyone know what will means?” Morgan’s hand shot into the air. “It means a promise.”
Mrs. Linda pinned our apples to a corkboard. I wanted to be blindfolded and spun, but Mrs. Linda said this wasn’t no pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. We had to face temptations head-on, had to go to war with them, had to win. We squealed with excitement as our palms opened for the darts. We got in line. We stood behind duct tape. We popped the balloons.
After Bible School, Morgan’s house was empty. Clyde worked on a farm that was bigger and better than theirs. The only animals on Morgan’s property were a couple of passion cows Clyde milked after dark. He liked to fill big glass jugs that had once contained Memory Lane milk with the stuff from out back. Morgan and I poured the thick cream over frozen strawberries, dumped in cups full of sugar, and blended the blender so loud we had to scream. “Let’s ride the four-wheeler!” she yelled. I shook my head. “Fine, then let’s go online!” I wanted to play basketball, but it was her house, so I grabbed two confetti cups to go with my milkshake, and we got online.
The dial-up internet made a funny noise we liked to sing along to. First was the sound of the numbers being dialed by an enigmatic hand. Then, “bee da bum bee da bum bum beeeeeeeeee beeeeeeeeeee.” It ended in static. I always messed up the song somehow, but Morgan nailed it. My house didn’t have Internet. At Morgan’s house, we logged into our shared account, ItalianoBabe008, and talked to boys.
Two users from a chat room private messaged us. They both spoke in lime green letters, one with a black background, the other with navy blue. When they sent pictures of their dicks, they took a while to download, from top to bottom. Morgan and I guessed what they would look like by drawing sketches on Post-It notes. We were wrong. We shred the Post-Its then flushed them down the toilet like goldfish.
The next day at Bible School, we learned about cheap grace. We read from Matthew 21:28-32, in which a farmer tells both of his sons to work in the vineyard that day. The older son said no, but changed his mind and did it. The second son said yes, but never did. Pastor Jimmy asked which son obeyed his father. A girl with blonde pigtails raised her hand and said, “The first.”
At craft time, Mrs. Linda asked us each if we would work in the vineyard. We didn’t know what it would entail, but we were excited to say yes. She hauled giant tubes of newsprint from the storage closet and unrolled them onto the floor. She grabbed grapes from the fridge and threw them onto the paper. We took off our shoes. The grape skin was slimy, the juice cold. Little bursts splattered all over.
“These look like ink plot tests,” Morgan said.
“More like Jackson Pollock,” said Mrs. Linda.
I was too shy to ask what they meant. I squished the grapes with my toes and thought of my mom’s wine, how it was just expired grape juice. I stomped harder and harder until it squirted high in the air. Everyone giggled as Mrs. Linda threw more grapes on the floor. But eventually someone slipped, so we had to stop.
Morgan lived off the highway, and once we were out of the Glen Oak’s sight, she held my hand. Heat rose from the asphalt and looked like big black snakes in the distance. My mom once said they weren’t poisonous, that they just look real mean but hardly bite. She said the same about garden snakes, but those were green.
Morgan and I watched Scooby-Doo before we made the milkshakes. She pulled a bag of strawberries from the freezer, and I watched the cold air curl out the door. I threw yogurt into the blender because I wanted them to be thick, for us to eat them with spoons. Morgan pressed the blend button down until it locked, threw me up against the island, and shoved her tongue down my throat until we heard the door slam shut.
Clyde stood in the doorway and unbuckled his belt. I wanted to run, to bolt out the door, but I froze. I froze and stared and Morgan did too. “Well go on,” Clyde said. He set a flask down on the kitchen table. “Go on,” he repeated louder. I turned to leave and he said, “No, go on and continue.”
Morgan and I looked at each other, not sure what to do. “Go on and kiss my daughter.” He slowly pulled off his belt, one belt loop after the other. Morgan pushed me up against the island and kissed me again, this time trembling. Her quick, hot breath panted into my mouth. I closed my eyes as tight as I could and silently counted until the numbers turned to dial tones like the Internet. My eyes flashed open again when I heard the belt. Morgan bit my tongue, hard. My mouth filled with what tasted like pennies, and I screamed. Morgan collapsed to the ground. Clyde flipped her over and beat her again with the belt. “You better go now,” he said, sweat on his brow. “You better fucking go.”
I ran out the front door, toward the retreating sun and the highway’s black snakes, and I kept running until I reached my gravel road. A cow stood behind a fence, with eyes like dark marbles, staring like it knew. That night, I bit my tongue until it bled and gripped a belt with my small sweaty hand.