Be Mine by Laura Kasischke

had taken lessons all through childhood. It was studied dancing—although, unlike me, he had a natural affinity for it.
    He was graceful. He could hear the music, it seemed, in his limbs. I felt awkward at first, dancing with him. He rocked on his heels and watched me for a while, waiting for me to begin a rhythm, or a style, and at first I wanted to turn, go back to the table, ask Jon to take me home.
    But then I saw the appreciative look he had on his face, watching me dance (was I good at this?) and at my body, and I couldn't help it, I slipped out of my self-consciousness like a sheath, and then, as if we were having a conversation, he began to dance in response, his body close to mine, brushing up against me. At one point I felt the back of his hand brush against my breasts. Surely, I thought, it was an accident, but my whole body responded to it—and then a slow dance started up, and without asking me, he took me by the waist, his hands pressing into the small of my back, and my face pressed into his shoulder.
    The man singing the lyrics to the country song was belting them out with such passion I felt the intensity of it move down my neck, down my spine, to the place where this trucker, whose name I never learned, had his hands.
    His face was next to my ear, and I could hear him breathing.
    It was like making love in public, with a stranger, and every once in a while we turned so I could see Jon over his shoulder—and Jon was staring, sipping his beer, leaning back in his chair, watching me in the arms of another man in front of him with a look on his face I'd never quite seen before—as if he were a stranger, watching strangers, but also as if he were a part of it, as if he could feel that trucker's hands on my hips, his body hot and moving against mine.
    This one smelled plainly of sweat.
    He was younger than Nathan.
    He didn't want to talk about where he was going, where he was from. When the song ended he moved his hands up and down my back, looked into my face as if he were considering kissing me, then thought better of it and said, "Thanks, beautiful," before leaving me standing on the dance floor, trying to regain my bearings, to find my way back to Jon.
    In the parking lot, Jon said nothing.
    He unlocked the passenger side of the car for me, and when I got in, he reached down and pushed the hem of my dress up over my knee, leaned over, caressed my calf, looking into my eyes in the vapor light attached to the eaves trough of Stiver's. He slid his hand up, then, to my thigh, and said, "You've been naughty," in a mock-serious tone—then put his hand fully between my legs, and for the first time I realized, myself, how warm and wet I was, and he said, "When we get home, I'm going to fuck you hard for this."
    I could hardly catch my breath. When we got home, my knees were so weak he had to help me out of the car.
    ***
    "W HAT the hell is going on? Where the hell are you?"
    "What's going
on?
I've been waiting by the phone all night. When you get this message call me
right away.
"
    "Jesus Christ, I have to get news about my own mother now from
Garrett Thompson?
Should I call
Garrett
to find out where the hell my mother is?"
    "You can call me, you know. It's three hours earlier here. I haven't gone to beddy-bye yet. I'm waiting to find out what the hell is going on there."
     
    It wasn't until we were done in bed (Jon hadn't pulled out of me before he started again) that I saw the message light on the answering machine blinking with seven messages from Chad.
     
    I was, I guess, too drunk to remember his phone number. I had to look for it on the caller ID, and then I misdialed and a groggy-sounding woman answered, then hung up on me when I said I thought I had the wrong number.
    Chad answered the phone on the first ring, sounding wide awake and furious. I thought his voice was shaking—a tremor he'd always had, even as a two-year-old, when he was angry or upset, and which made him sound as if he were speaking from