Little Cat by Tamara Faith Berger Page B

said once. He was pulling off my underwear. ‘It doesn’t even matter what she’s wearing or how she’s walking. If it’s late on the streets and she’s all by herself, he’s gonna roll down his window and stare at her ass. It’s like he’s waiting for something, Mira, that one tiny click when he knows that she’s going to get in his car.’
    John had my underwear down at my feet. I kicked them off and twisted my legs together.
    ‘No girl’s going to get in a strange man’s car,’ I said.
    ‘You would.’
    ‘I would not.’
    John laughed as he worked at wrenching my thighs apart. ‘Yes you would, Mira.’
    ‘Stop. I would not!’
    ‘You’d get in my car.’
    ‘No!’
    ‘I’d follow you and keep telling you how hot your ass is.’
    ‘Shut up!’
    ‘Oh yeah, I know you. You’d get in my car.’
    I rolled my eyes and kept struggling. It was like this every single time we saw each other.
    ‘Come, Mira, come,’ John would end up crooning to my pussy. ‘Come, baby, come, please come, come, come … ’
    My mind wandered while he licked me. I scratched my arms and watched his bobbing head. His eyes were slit and heavy between my bent thighs. It didn’t feel real. All I could feel was wetness on top of wetness.
    I thought of how men were always looking at me. How it happened this one time when I was ten. I was at the supermarket with my father and the guy at the cash said, ‘You better keep a close watch on that one.’ His eyes squinted down at my chest when he said it, at the two lumps pressing up under my shirt. Then the guy made a noise, a grunt through closed lips. My father looked down at me and laughed quickly, too, but it sounded like he didn’t really mean it.
    When we got in the car, my father didn’t say a word. He just turned up the news and started driving really fast. I put my forehead against the window and watched us pass all the cars. I could still feel that guy looking right through my shirt. For a second I thought my chest had pushed out more when he was staring at it. I heard my father’s breathing get loud. Air scratched past the hairs of his moustache. Then something started happening. Between my thighs on the seat I felt hot little beats, like a pulse or a bird was whipping around down there. It started getting louder. I had to squeeze my thighs tight. I was trying not to make any sound from the pulsing, trying not to let it come out in my breaths.
    When we finally got home, I kept hearing what that guy had said, how it made them both laugh. You better keep a close watch on that one . I didn’t really know what it meant. I thought the guy meant – maybe – I was pretty, but when I tried to think more about what he really meant, I felt strange. Lying on my bed, the pulsing wouldn’t stop spreading. It filled up my underwear with hot little beats. It felt okay, it felt good, but I didn’t want it to keep happening, because I thought my father knew what had happened. I thought, in the car, he could smell it.
    Things started to happen more often after that. I would get that feeling around men, older men, men in stores and on the street. It was always when I thought I saw them looking at me, especially the ones I knew I’d never get to meet. The construction men working in crews on the road. The businessmen with their kids and their wives. The guys on the subway who sweat strange perfume. That beating between my legs started happening so much that I thought those men could see right through me. Just from the way I was standing or walking, I thought it meant I wanted them to see. All those beats inside my body, throbbing so loud.
    Sometimes I’d imagine a man in my house, a stranger in the bathroom, watching me shower. His two big hands would open a towel when I stepped out. Then he’d dry me, rub me, move the towel really fast back and forth behind my shoulders, behind my back and all the way down. My flesh would shake close to the man’s face. My ass red behind me, my eyes