The next summer I wore shorts and sandals bravely. I found a place in the park where I could read. Once a car circled the area near the bench. I caught the driver looking at me from behind the wheel. I stared right at him. He sped off. Minutes later he returned. I stopped reading. He asked if I’d like to take a ride somewhere to get a cold drink. I said yes. We talked. He brought me to a furnished room. We talked some more.

“How do you want it?” he said.

I said nothing.

“You want it big? Big like this?”

The word squeezed out of me. “Yes.”

“Where do you want it?”

“All over, I guess. Will it hurt?”

“It’ll feel good. Lie back. Relax.”

Cautiously. First my chest, then hips, thighs, I climbed up on him, then under him.

He looked at me. “You don’t really want it, do you?”

“Yes, I do. I want it.”

“Where do you want it?”

“I want it in, all the way in.”

“You don’t want it bad enough.”

“Please.”

“Taste it.”

“Huh?”

“You got to want it bad enough to taste. Crack your jaw, baby. And when I’m ready you can crack your ass.”

I didn’t even know his name.

In another room at another time, with someone I thought I knew, I learned a different dance. He threw a yellow silk scarf at me. I tied it about my head, then tied it around my waist. He smiled. “I want to see how much of a woman you can be,” he said, almost laughing. I looked hard at him. He wasn’t smiling.

I tried to laugh. “You got to be kidding.”

His face went blank, his words like nails. “I want to see how much of a woman you can be.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Dance with it,” he said, pointing to the scarf.

“Dance?”

“Dance till I tell you to stop.”

He held himself in at the thighs. I took the square of yellow silk and circled the air with it, wrapped it around my waist and threw it back into the air as I turned and whirled and the scarf dipped and whirled like the sun in a storm. My arms flailed before it, around it, my legs bending and pointing straight. I whirled and turned and whirled again.

“Faster,” he said, his face contorting away from me. I could see him strain.

“Look at me,” I called to him. “Look, look, I’m dancing. Dancing.”

His hands went deeper into his thighs. He pulled at himself and his face showed every line of concentration. The eyes flashed open and shut, open and shut, the hands still digging and pulling in his pants. “Dance,” he said again, almost to himself. “Dance, you bitch. You black son-of-a-bitch.”