When I was sixteen my mother set me up on a date with a boy from a respectable family.
In his glove compartment he had a gun.
I sat in the front seat of his sports car in my polka dotted electric blue miniskirt, hair pulled back into a tight braid. We were in the alley behind my house.
I watched as he demonstrated how well the gun fit in the palm of his hand.
“Here, hold it — feels pretty great, huh? You have to be careful with it. It’s heavy,” he said, placing it in my hand. “Just make sure you don’t tell your mamma,” he said, licking his lips.
I held it with both hands on my lap, like a baby bird, like a loaf of bread you bring as an offering to a new neighbor.
I wanted to know if it was loaded.
“Put it in the glove compartment,” he ordered. “Push it toward the back.”
I did as I was told. The son of a prominent Soviet physician, he was five years my senior.
He pressed on the gas, leaping into Saturday evening traffic. I liked his cologne, the track suit he was wearing. I liked his hands on the wheel and the smell of the leather interior. I was hoping it would take a while to get to wherever we were going.
I knew nothing about intimacy. Dating was something popular girls did. They wore Dolphin shorts and mascara, played volleyball, and ditched last period. Even if I ditched, I had nowhere to go, and my lunch money was all I had to spend. I tried not eating and saving the one-dollar bills my mother gave me. I hid them in the back of my closet behind...
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