Mahogany Butterfly

special.

Don’t Touch Me There

Aside from dealing with my parents’ issues with each other, it was easy growing up in Gaston, North Carolina. It was quiet for the most part, other than the occasional drunk or two who fought each other every now and then. When something major happened, it was guaranteed to be talked about for quite some time. Being over two hours from any major city, the town was populated largely by families who knew each other well, and it had that old-fashioned village-raising-the-child feel, especially in my neighborhood, commonly referred to as the Reef.

There were plenty of children in the neighborhood, and a few I was close to. My friends included my cousin Ryan, and little chubby, light-skinned LaRoy. Zeta was a girl who was two years older than me, thickly built and very strong. She was also protective of her friends. Whenever I or one of the other girls was being pushed around by one of the boys, she would come to our defense, throw the boy aside, and with a fierce frown, say, "I bet you won’t pick on somebody your own size! Try me! Go ‘head, try me! I swear ‘fore God you gon’ be sorry you did!"

The boys would usually walk away, muttering something like, Ole crazy girl. And she would respond, "Yeah, I thought so! Punk ass." If a boy did decide to try and fight her, sure enough, they ended up being sorry for the decision.

When LaRoy’s older cousin David came to visit from Detroit, you would have thought somebody was handing out free ice cream with sprinkles on top. Everybody came out to see him, like he was a superstar. David had thick, curly, dark brown hair and his complexion was this odd shade of light brown, like Nestlé Quik powdered cocoa mix before you add the milk. I didn’t think he was all that, really. He was a few years older than me, and he played basketball really well. The neighborhood boys kept trying to outdo him on the small cement court in LaRoy’s backyard, and the older girls, even the ones older than David, acted like they suddenly had a reason to constantly walk by LaRoy’s house. They waved and smiled at David whenever he glanced towards the street, and sometimes he smiled back.

That weekend, LaRoy’s mom, Ms. Sherry, was having a cookout because David was just accepted into some fancy private school in Michigan to play on the school’s basketball team, and she wanted to celebrate. Since I was the only girl there so far, Ms. Sherry told me I could go inside and watch TV if I wanted because I looked so bored watching the boys playing ball. Nearly all of Ms. Sherry’s furniture was white, so was her carpet, the walls painted beige. Everything in her house always looked bright, shiny and new, like one of those mansions in Hollywood. I sat on the white couch and started watching one of my favorite movies, Short Circuit. I set my plastic cup of fruit punch slowly and carefully on one of her white coasters, and almost knocked over the whole thing when I was startled by David walking through the room.

Hey, why you ain’t outside? he asked rudely, like it was his house.

’Cause Ms. Sherry said I could stay in here if I want to, I answered, trying not to roll my eyes. I did not like this boy.

You one of LaRoy’s friends, right?

I nodded, watching the movie.

How old are you? he asked. Dang, this boy is nosey! I was thinking. He walked into LaRoy’s room.

Twelve, I called out, lying to him. I was ten, but I knew I was tall for my age.

Oh, for real? I’m thirteen. And? David walked back to the room where I was seated.

Hey, can you help me find something in here? I don’t know where LaRoy keeps all his stuff. I can’t find the football. He said it was in the blue chest, but I don’t see it.

David was getting on my last nerve, because my favorite part of the movie was coming, when Johnny 5 was going to learn about everything in the world at super speed with his robot brain. I got up in a huff, letting him know I was annoyed.

I walked straight to the chest in LaRoy’s room where I knew the ball would be. I heard the bedroom door click shut behind me.

I turned around with the ball in hand, and David was walking towards me. I held the ball out for him to grab it, and he took it, but dropped it. I rolled my eyes and started to walk past him back into the living room.

Hold up a second, let’s try something, he said.

Huh? Try what? What was this fool talking about? I looked up at him, eyebrows raised.

Can you sit on the bed with me for a second? Just real quick?

I drew in a breath, surprised by the question. I knew all about those nasty boys from what I heard the other girls talking about at school.

No! Why would I wanna do that? You’re nasty!

I am not! You like me don’t you?

Says who? Boy, you’re stupid. Move!

He grabbed my arms, holding me still.

I just know stuff we can do, that’s all. Let me show you.

David started pushing me towards the bed until the backs of my knees hit the edge of the mattress, forcing me to sit.

What are you doing? I demanded. I was indignant, not appreciating how I was being treated. David didn’t answer me, and pushed me further until I was lying on the bed, my feet still on the floor. I was getting scared.

David climbed on top of me and started awkwardly hugging me. Then I realized he was pushing himself onto me, grinding on me.

Stop it! I demanded. This felt weird, and wrong.

But David ignored me, kept grinding himself into me, and was nearly crushing all the breath out of me. I could smell him—that boyish smell, like dirt, must, and sweat.

David, stop it! That hurts!

Open your legs. Let me feel it.

Feel what? Get off of me! Stop! I almost wished that someone would come to help me, except I didn’t want to get caught like this.

I felt David trying to get one of his hands into my pants, but they were too tight at the waist. He tried to undo my rainbow-colored nylon belt, but it was tied in a knot because the belt was too big for me. Then I felt something hard against my leg, like he had something in his pocket. I was slightly curious as to what it was, because it felt like a part of his body was literally growing. I tried to lift my knees to kick him off, but he was too heavy.

Stop! Get off of me! I struggled for some space. I can’t breathe!

David let up some, giving me the ability to move my hands. I immediately reached down to whatever was poking my leg, grabbing it in my hand, and I felt it move. I let it go, knowing somehow that I shouldn’t have done that.

Oddly, I was reminded of Josh, a boy who had moved to the neighborhood one weekend and moved away again as quickly as he had come.

David had drawn a quick breath when I grabbed him, and said, Do it again! Please?

I didn’t respond. I just looked at him, frowning though I was embarrassed.

Come on, he said. You know I like you, I picked you out of all those girls out there. Come on, just do it. Please?

For some reason, maybe my curiosity, I did. I closed my eyes, reached down, grabbed him and held him. I could feel it move again, like it was jumping or something, as if it was alive. I knew I was doing something bad, but it was just so different from anything I had felt before. And he had picked me, out of all of those stupid girls who thought they were all that.

Take it out, David said, eyes closed and waiting.

He was so close I could smell the barbecue flavored potato chips on his breath. Something about that smell made me come to my senses. There are other people here! Grownups! I could get caught! What if he tells them I wanted to do this? I looked up into his sand-colored eyes and hated him. Hated that he’d gotten me to touch him at all. I had never liked him anyway. Now I couldn’t stand him.

I said get off of me! I whined.

Uh-uh. Not yet.

Just then, the bedroom door flew open.

"What in the hell?!" someone yelled.

It was Zeta! I heard her heavy footsteps coming towards us, then I saw two hands reach around David’s neck before he had the chance to get up off of me.

You heard this girl tell you to get off her, didn’t you?

I sat up and looked on in amazement as Zeta looked like she was going to choke the life out of David. David tried to defend himself, but he was no match for Zeta. Her attractive features seemed transformed. Her thick, black hair flowed away from her pretty brown face, her dark brown eyes nearly lost in a deep scowl, and her thick, heart-shaped lips were contorted with rage. She was like a real-live superhero! David’s eyes were huge and his mouth was wide open as he gasped for air.

"I thought I heard something when I came in this house. Boy, I should beat your lil’ bony ass! Get on up outta here!" she said.

Zeta finally released David, shoving him towards the door. He stumbled and nearly fell, coughing and rubbing his neck. I noticed the football on the floor.

Wait, David! I called. I didn’t want anyone to know something had gone wrong.

I stood up to pick up the ball and tossed it to him. Zeta looked at me, puzzled, then back at David.

Now get the hell out! Zeta yelled.

I told Zeta exactly what happened, and let her know that I didn’t want anybody else to know about it since nothing had really occurred. I was sure I didn’t want to tell Ms. Sherry. I was afraid that David might tell her that I grabbed his privates, even though I didn’t mean to. I especially didn’t mean to do it twice. I didn’t hate him, I realized. I had just been jealous because it seemed like he only looked at the older girls, not at me. But the way he went about letting me know he had noticed me—I was so embarrassed! I definitely couldn’t let anybody know about this. I went home and didn’t come out again until I heard through the grapevine that David had returned home to Detroit.

Shortly after that, life returned to normal. Well, at least my home life was normal enough on the outside. I mean, to other people my family seemed perfect. I had friends who wished they could live with us because we always looked so pleasant. What a misperception that was!

Sometimes during my parents’ squabbles, I was rescued by my brother, Bruce. He was eight years older than me and looked just like me, but without hair. As most big brothers are, Bruce was usually my tormentor. He would eat all of my Fruit Loops on purpose, change the TV channel to Kung Fu right in the middle of a great episode of I Love Lucy, and trip me nearly every time I walked past him. We would fight, but because he was so much older than me, he easily won every battle. I considered Bruce to be such a menace at times, I wondered why he was sometimes left in charge of me.

One afternoon when Daddy was working and Mama went to the store for some milk, Bruce changed the TV channel from what I was watching as soon as Mama went out the door. I couldn’t jump up to try to grab the remote because I had a cast on my left leg at the time from the knee down. I had fractured my ankle falling off of my bike the weekend before, right before the school year began. When I started to complain, Bruce came over to the couch and tickled my stomach until I cried.

Say uncle! he said, grinning at my helplessness.

Nooo! I said loudly, refusing to give up so easily. I flailed my arms wildly, hitting myself more than I hit him, until I tired myself out completely.

"Uncle! Uncle!" I yelled, exhausted. He had gotten the best of me yet again.

Bruce had stayed over at Grandma Vonnie’s so often, he ended up living there. In fact, I don’t remember him ever having spent the night under the same roof as my parents. If he happened to be around when they started arguing, Bruce would sneak me out the back door and we would go to our grandmother’s house right next door. He would take me to his room so I could sit on the twin bed I used whenever I was there. Then he would turn on the TV and let me watch one of my favorite shows.

Whenever I spent the night at Grandma Vonnie’s, I stayed there for as long as I could, usually no more than three or four days. Grandma owned a small hair salon in Gaston ever since Daddy was little, so she wasn’t always home. She made sure she let me know when she had a few days off in a row.

When my mother came to pick me up from her house, I would hug Grandma Vonnie around her thick midsection, almost pulling her down, begging her, "Please Grandma, I wanna stay longer! I’ll be good, I promise! Pleeeeeease?"

She would look at me with a concerned expression, her eyebrows raised, making the lines in her forehead look like little rolls. The rest of her gentle round face was a smooth copper brown framed by short, salt and pepper colored hair.

I know you ain’t never no trouble, she would gently say, but your mama and daddy want you home now. You know you can come back and stay anytime you want to, okay?

Okay, I would reply, defeated, as I sadly trudged out the door with my mother.

I sometimes wondered why Bruce was the only one who got to live at our grandma’s, and not me. It wasn’t like they didn’t have the space.

On a Saturday when it was too hot to play outside, I decided to explore the forgotten recesses of my room to keep myself busy. Under my bed was like a storage area. There was a small racetrack with two cars that I got one Christmas, shoeboxes containing holiday greeting cards from family members, workout equipment that my mom dusted off and used about twice a year, and a stack of magazines.

Neena! I’m making a quick run to the store! I’ll be right back! Mama yelled to me from the kitchen.

Okay Mama! I sneezed a few times as dust bunnies tickled my nose.

I was crawling under the bed reaching for the scattered parts to the racetrack to see if it still worked. My fingertips were barely touching the black plastic curved part of the track when I accidentally knocked over the stack of magazines. Frustrated, I crawled around the corner of the bed to pick them up, then froze on my hands and knees, clapping my hand over my mouth at what I found.

New Discoveries

I drew in a breath and held it. I had never seen so much of this before, especially not all in one place. I had seen some mischievous boys passing these around at school, but I hadn’t actually looked at them. I was nervous. What if somebody thought I did this on purpose? I’ll be in so much trouble! Where did they come from anyway?

I finally breathed out and, listening for the front door, picked up one of the magazines. The one I picked up from the top of the fallen stack featured a picture of a white lady with little flames coming from her fingertips, and she was holding both of her bare breasts up with her hands. She had blonde hair that was dark brown at the roots with icy-looking blue eyes and deeply tanned skin. She was scowling like she was mad at somebody. On her head was one of those sparkly red devil headbands with the two little horns attached to it that they sell in the stores for Halloween, and she had on a pair of lacy red panties. Above her, in bold, bright red letters, was the title of the magazine. Hustler. Surrounded by the blonde’s huge picture in the middle of the page were seven or eight smaller pictures of other completely naked women with their legs spread, hands touching their privates, and some touching a man’s privates. I stared in wide-eyed surprise at the man. I thought I already knew what men looked like down there, because I had seen one.

It had been a few weeks before David’s cookout. Josh was a light-skinned, freckle-faced boy who had just moved to the neighborhood. During a game of hide-and-seek, Josh told me that he would show me his if I showed him mine. I had frowned, wondering why he had followed me to my favorite hiding place between a row of bushes and the wall of an old shed. Of all places to hide, he had to try and take my spot!

Go ahead, you go first, Josh had said, licking his dry lips. I didn’t know what he wanted me to show him, but he was getting on my nerves.

Would you shut up? I said in a hushed voice.

This stupid boy was going to get me found! I rolled my eyes and tried to ignore him, hoping that he would go and find another spot to hide.

Okay. I’ll go first then, I heard Josh say. I rolled my eyes and looked at him again, giving him as much attitude as I could.

Josh lifted the front of his tee shirt and started unbuttoning his shorts.

What are you doing? I asked with alarm as I backed against the wall of the shed.

Look! Wanna touch it?

Sticking out of Josh’s pants was something that reminded me of a swollen finger. It was somehow darker than the rest of his skin, almost my color. It looked like it could have been a fat, squishy worm, and was definitely nothing I wanted to touch.

Ewww, that’s nasty! I said, and ran away, not caring if I got tagged.

As I sat on the floor to look more closely at the magazine that had landed on top of the pile, mouth open in wonder, I couldn’t stop thinking that Josh’s privates that day had looked nothing like these did, and I didn’t think that David’s were like these either. Oh my gosh, that’s so nasty, I thought as I browsed the rest of the magazine. Yuck, why does she have that in her mouth? Ewww, why is he doing that to her? I thought some more about Josh asking me to touch him. I thought of David, who risked getting caught to have me touch him too. Was this what they wanted?

I was glued to the magazine, intently gazing at each page. Eventually, I realized these magazines were supposed to be hidden from me, under my own bed, no less. But I found them, so what was I going to do now? I gave myself just a few more minutes to study the magazine before I estimated Mama would be heading back from the store, then I carefully stacked all of them up as neatly as possible, hoping they were in the same order as before.

By the time Mama came in, I was looking for batteries for the remote controls so I could play with the racetrack that I assembled on top of my bed in record time. I couldn’t wait until the next time I was left alone for a few minutes to grab a magazine and learn more. At the age of ten, I was hooked.

Later that year, something devastating happened. Bruce was eighteen and had just graduated high school. Two weeks following his graduation, he decided he wanted to move to Florida. I was so upset, I acted like I didn’t care that he was leaving by refusing to mention it. When family members asked if I was going to miss my brother, I responded with a lie, saying, No! I don’t even like him!

Nothing was further from the truth. I was crushed.

Grandma Vonnie had a going-away dinner for Bruce at her house that we all attended. There was Grandma, my grandfather whom everyone called Papa G, Uncle Max, Uncle Marvin, Mama, Daddy, Bruce and me. We stood and held hands for a long prayer asking for Bruce’s safety and success, then we all sat down at the large, lavishly decorated dining room table. Instead of slowly savoring the turkey with gravy and stuffing, yams, collard greens and macaroni and cheese like I usually did, I hurried through it all, barely tasting anything. I just knew that at any second, Bruce would stand and announce that he wasn’t going anywhere. However, he never changed his mind about leaving.

Once I was done, I excused myself from the table, walked to the kitchen to place my plate and glass in the empty sink, and sat alone in the living room sulking. Even Papa G, who usually ate in the living room by himself while he watched Bonanza, was in the dining room with everyone else being festive. I couldn’t understand how they all could treat this like it was a holiday! Didn’t they understand that this was the worst day ever? Mama came to ask me if I was okay. I told her yes, then she went back with the others, talking and laughing, giving Bruce advice on being out in the real world.

I didn’t know how to express what I felt, but I was hurting because I felt like the only protection I had ever had from the craziness going on around me was suddenly being taken from me. No, not taken from me. Leaving me. I felt that only Bruce knew how irritating it could be to have to smile when you don’t feel it inside. Although we weren’t always side by side, he knew all about what I was going through, and always helped me if he could. My big brother. I was really proud of him, but felt sorry for myself.

A few months after Bruce left town, Mama got a new job at the bank, and her, Daddy and I moved away from our old home in the Reef to a community that was very pretty and peaceful with lots of trees and green lawns, surrounded by the beautifully serene Lake Gaston, after which the town was named. My great grandfather had bought land there way back when it was worth next to nothing, and Mama had inherited some of it. Now it was a place of prominence in Northampton County, and many people went there to retire and live out the rest of their lives in natural surroundings.

In just a few months, my parents’ property looked amazing with intricate details on the two-level deck, a bricked-in tropical fish pond, aromatic flowers and shrubbery that adorned the more than three-acre lawn, and my dad did it all himself. I loved my new home! It was a huge step up from the tiny trailer in the rented lot that we came from.

I still saw my old friends at school, but it wasn’t the same because I wasn’t able to hang out with them every day afterward. Now I only got to spend time with them when I was visiting my grandmother. Which was just as well, because it seemed like a few of the neighborhood boys were forever trying to get me to show them my budding breasts, or touch their little things, or let them touch me. At this point, I was no longer afraid, so I sometimes did what they asked, if I felt like it, and if I was curious myself. Still, with my new magazine knowledge, these boys were no match for the grown men I’d seen, and I was soon bored with the childish touching game.

Even with the personal and family issues I dealt with regularly, I still spent a lot of time on academics. I wanted to get a good education and go to college. All the adults I had ever met who had careers that I might someday want for myself had a college degree. At all the career days I attended, not one of the guest speakers said they could have gotten where they were without going to college. In fact, the college they attended was one of the first things they mentioned, after their names and hometowns. I hoped that someday, I would be important enough to be a speaker at a school’s career day. I had my path to college all mapped out. If I kept getting good grades and did a few extracurricular activities, I was bound to be accepted into at least one of the colleges I was interested in. My main requirement for myself was that I went to college out of state. I was determined to get out of Gaston and become a success. I was just unsure of what my occupation would be.

The other kids at school always told me I needed to talk more. I was more interested in paying attention to the teachers and doing my school work than gossiping with them about who liked who. I was an A student and always had my head buried in a book. I was pretty standoffish, preferring mainly to talk only to those I knew very well. I usually hung out with a girl named Kim, whom I befriended in fourth grade.

Kimberly Easton was a little taller than me, light brown, and a little heavier. She had wavy dark brown hair that she loved to brush constantly. She had lots of friends, but was loyal to a select few and seemed to forever be on top of the latest happenings with the other kids. She was quick-witted and quick-tongued, and was somehow able to talk herself into trouble and back out of it in a hurry. Kim loved herself some gossip too.

When we first became friends, I would ask Mama to take me to Kim’s house so we could play while Mama did her grocery shopping or went to see Grandma Nen and Grandpa Harold. I was never able to visit her for longer than a couple of hours, but I loved every minute of it. It seemed like her mom didn’t have any limitations on what we ate while I was there, so I easily ruined my dinner on chocolate bars, honey buns, and Now & Later candy.

I’m still not sure how or why Kim and I became so close, she just always seemed to be around. She would sit with me at lunch, read with me at my table in the school library, and that time I sprained my ankle and was still learning to use my crutches, she volunteered to help me hop all the way out the school’s front door to the school bus every day. Of all the kids I knew, other than family, I trusted Kim the most. So a few years later, we were almost inseparable.

One day, we were walking to our lockers at the end of our sixth period PE class. We were now seventh graders at Gaston Middle. Although I talked to her all the time, I still didn’t tell Kim about my curiosity about boys, even at times when our conversation was about boys in particular. I was too embarrassed to let anyone know I even thought about stuff like that, even though Kim had no shame in this area.

Girl, you see Nelson’s thang stickin’ out through his shorts? Kim asked. It looked big, didn’t it?

I didn’t see it, I lied, trying to sound dismissive.

It was hard to miss. We had played volleyball in class, and the ball nearly hit me in the face one time because I was so busy looking at the print in Nelson’s shorts, imagining how he might look with his clothes off. Then I had spent the rest of the class feeling self-conscious thinking someone had noticed me looking at it.

"I don’t know how you missed it! Kim continued, too loudly, in the hallway. He probably wouldn’t know what to do wit’ it anyway!"

You wouldn’t either! I joked with her.

Pssh. Whatever!

Since we were older now, we were able to have sleepovers at one another’s house. Kim’s parents argued all the time like mine, so I didn’t feel so shy about her staying over, but I still went to her house more then she came to mine. We loved singing like the performers on TV, belting the lyrics to the latest popular hits while taking turns with the big wooden spoon we used as a microphone.

At Kim’s house, our audience was either her mom, Mrs. Easton, or her cousin Terrence, who was always around. He was a tall, brown-skinned boy with extra-long arms and legs, and huge feet that he couldn’t seem to help but drag on the floor, scuffing his fresh Nikes. Terrence’s most unnerving feature was his bright blue eyes that seemed so out of place with his copper skin. He was the same age as us and in the same grade.

Terrence would sit on the couch and listen to his Walkman, rolling his eyes at us and shaking his head.

Y’all look crazy! That ain’t how Salt-N-Pepa do it! he said one day. They do like this!

He took off the headphones to his Walkman and got up to do the dance that the female rap duo originated.

Ooooh, baby baby, baby baby, ooooh, baby baby, b-baby baby! Terrance sang off key.

Me and Kim cracked up as he tried to copy the sexy gyrations they did in the Push It video.

Go Terrence! Go Terrence! we shouted between laughs.

As we played the cassettes over and over while singing our versions of the songs, Mrs. Easton eventually yelled, "Y’all go outside right now! I don’t want to hear that mess no more!"

By midnight,