Chapter 10

The next morning, Erica’s feelings were complicated.

She left for work without looking in on Will. Some of that was because of the embarrassment she felt. What had happened the night before had been a huge step for her to take, feminist or not. She thought about it as a step she had taken, even though he was intimately involved. His position had already been established, years ago, and she was the one who had done something out of character with who she thought of herself as being. Going to school was a normal part of her routine, and she wanted to feel more ... normal.

Another part of it was because a little piece of her wanted to go into his room and do it again. She wasn’t stupid, even when she tried to reject obvious facts. She knew she had enjoyed what had happened and that bothered her, because she wasn’t sure whether it was his pleasure ... or hers ... that made her want to repeat it. She told herself she had done something for him ... because she loved him ... and because he deserved what happiness she could provide.

But she had enjoyed it too, and that shocked her. The pleasure she had felt went far beyond “just doing something for Will.”

Another thing that was complicated was the brother/sister part of things. The part of her that was his sister was happy she had been able to make him happy. She did love him. He was all she had in the world. The teacher part of her saw the word “incest” scrawled on the wall in dripping, red letters, a condemnation she would be ostracized for. She’d never given much thought to the concept of incest before, much less wrestled with the morality of it. It was wrong. That’s what she’d been taught. Everybody knew that.

She didn’t try to convince herself that merely opening her robe for him and letting him masturbate while looking at her didn’t constitute incest. She didn’t indulge in semantics. She knew what had been going through his mind as he stroked, both back when she was fifteen and now. He’d been imagining having sex with her and those were incestuous fantasies. But the truth was that this didn’t feel like incest to her. It was just a sister taking care of her badly injured brother, helping him find what pitifully small amount of joy he could in a harsh world that didn’t care that he’d given up everything for his country ... for her.

As she pulled into a parking space at school, it wasn’t too difficult for her to decide that it really wasn’t anybody else’s business anyway. This was between her and Will.

That wasn’t the end of it, of course. The routine of classes settled her emotions initially. Then, at one point, a boy in her class was staring at her breasts. That didn’t surprise her. What surprised her was that she didn’t feel the urge to pull him aside and give him a tongue-lashing about objectifying women. Instead, she thought of Will. There hadn’t been any feeling that she was being objectified while he stared at her. She had perceived only adoration and appreciation for her femininity.

She was thinking about that during a break in classes, when it occurred to her that the women who let men see their pictures in magazines thought they were doing the same thing. That she had done it in person, rather than on a printed page, only made her think of strip clubs, where women exposed themselves for the lustful gratification of the men watching. She was so distracted by this conundrum - that she had behaved like a common stripper and had not felt objectified - that a girl in her next class had to raise her hand and ask, “Are we going to start class?”

She remained unsettled until after school let out. She looked forward then to the musical practice, because she thought it would take her mind off of what was bothering her. That only lasted as long as it took her to see Bobby Dalton, working with two girls and a boy on fastening sheets of cardboard to the tree frames they had made. Bobby’s smile, and his easy banter with the kids, who obviously thought he was “cool,” or “boss,” or “groovy,” or whatever other word was in vogue, brought about the completely unexpected and unwelcome image in her mind of her exposing herself to him too. She told herself that the only reason that had popped into her head was because she wondered whether his reaction would be anything like Will’s.

Then she blushed furiously, chastised herself for losing control of her thoughts, and threw herself into practice. The problem was that she kept finding herself looking for Bobby. She noticed it when she couldn’t see him and moved until she could. When she realized she’d done that, it bothered her a lot.

Attraction between members of the opposite sex (or the same sex for those of you who are gay or lesbian, for that matter) is something that has been studied thousands of times, but rarely published. That’s because nobody really understands it yet. It defies logic.

You will find articles about how the biological urge causes us to evaluate others as potential partners. They say we do it all the time ... literally. Every person you meet gets evaluated almost instantly, according to scientists. What they can’t tell you is how that evaluation works.

They know that some potential mates are discarded immediately. Sometimes the reason is obvious, but quite often it is not. What is even more curious are the ones who are not discarded. When that happens, there is ... interest ... on some level. For the sake of argument, let’s identify four basic levels.

1. “I want you right now!”

2. “I want to know much more about you, and I want to start learning it right now!”

3. “I like being around you, but I don’t really see you as somebody I’m going to hop into bed with.”

4. “Get lost, turkey!”

There are many more levels of interest, but the odd thing there is that people don’t react to their levels of interest the same way every time they meet a potential mate.

Take, for example, a man and woman who are in the same work environment. Let’s say she is attracted to him. In our hypothetical work environment, she’s not likely to pursue a level one relationship. Level two is much more likely, but may be delayed until later, after work. But have those same two people meet in a bar instead of at work, with some alcohol thrown in, and level one becomes the first choice instead of the second. Same people ... different processing of interest.

Why the difference? Scientists will argue about that for a hundred more years.

This all matters because another thing the scientists all agree on is that we start establishing levels of attraction, or our sexual filtering system, when we enter puberty ... sometimes even before that. It all depends on when certain hormones begin to be produced and start racing through our bloodstreams. That’s complicated too, and it takes many people almost a decade for the hormones to level out and for that filtering system to result in a match that they’re willing to really go for. There are lots of missteps along the way. We learn from those missteps. It’s really just part of the maturation process, which is also not understood by scientists.

What really complicates all this is that you might bump into what could be level one people dozens of times ... just not in the right circumstances. Maybe you’re sick that day, and not paying attention. Maybe you’re already in another relationship with a level two person who might make it to level one. Maybe you have a pet peeve that puts what would normally be a level one candidate into a level three position.

Now throw in another concept ... that we all go around with semi-invisible signs that sometimes say, “I want to be in a level one (or two) relationship with you!!”

As I said, it’s complicated.

Now, if you’re wondering why the author went off on a tangent ... here’s the reason.

Erica Bradford adopted certain principles when she was in her early teen years. They were feminist principles, and some of them were designed to interrupt or even destroy the rating system. As a result, her sorting mechanism was shoved into a dark corner. It never developed, because she wasn’t looking for a mate. In fact, she was actively avoiding potential mates. Whenever she felt something that, in another girl, might start a level two relationship, she didn’t understand those feelings of attraction, so she made it a habit to avoid the boy that caused them.

Another way of looking at this is that, as she avoided being “objectified” by the boys in high school, if a boy looked at her breasts, he was level four. And, boys being boys ... they all looked at her breasts.

In college, she continued that, which was made easier by the simple fact that she was working on becoming independent of the need for a man to “take care of her,” which to her meant “enslave her.” She saw herself as a modern woman who was going to change the sexist attitudes of the society in which she was born.

Which brings us to what we’ll call level five in men: “Fuck you, bitch!”

Erica had been pretty consistently on level five of the men she met when she left college and began teaching in Chicago.

So, instead of spending a decade refining her sorting system, Erica suppressed the feelings her hormones were trying to get her to pay attention to. She got virtually no experience at dealing with attraction. She was basically stuck with only levels three and four of our hypothetical list.

But nature is stronger than most of us will admit. She will be denied only so long. Given the slightest crack in armor such as Erica Bradford had built around her, one of Mother Nature’s tendrils will sneak through it and take root. No man-made (Okay, wo-man-made) armor can withstand that force of nature.

Which brings us full circle back to Erica, as she kept sneaking glances at Bobby Dalton on the stage of the Granger High School auditorium.

She didn’t understand why she was doing that. She didn’t understand why the image of his naked chest kept coming to her unbidden, in the dark, in her room. She didn’t understand the tingling in her nipples and the irresistible urge to masturbate. She didn’t understand why she was so eager to get back home, where Will was, and where something exciting might happen when he went to bed that night. She didn’t understand any of the attractions that were battering at her, because her sorting system had rusted solid from disuse.

When she got home from school, things only got more confused. Will was watching TV, and he acknowledged her arrival, asking how her day had been. He acted as if nothing had happened, which made Erica’s world tilt a little, and made her feel like she might slide sideways if she didn’t compensate.

Then, throughout supper, he still didn’t bring it up. She was on pins and needles, because she was no longer sure how he felt about what had happened. She knew how she felt. Though she hadn’t analyzed it, she was the kind of person who made a decision and then just stuck with it. If “that” was what she had decided to do ... it had to be the right thing ... didn’t it?

But he wasn’t looking at her ... and he wasn’t talking about it. Did that mean he regretted it? Did that mean he didn’t want to see her again? It made her jumpy.

Erica finished the dishes after dinner that night, but only because she made herself do that. She was jittery. She didn’t know what to do. It was only eight, too soon for bedtime. But her nipples were torturing her. She had never needed to rub this early. Finally she couldn’t take it any longer.

Will was watching TV again when she walked into the room.

“We have to talk,” she said.

He looked up. “I know,” he said softly. “I just didn’t know what to say.”

“Just say whatever you feel,” she moaned. “If you’re sorry, then just say it.”

“I didn’t mean to make you mad,” he said. “I really do love you.”

“I’m not mad,” she said, confused. “Why did you think I was mad?”

“You just ran out,” he said. “Like you couldn’t stand to be there anymore.”

“No!” she yelped. “That wasn’t it! I had to...” She couldn’t say it in front of her brother. She thought that was interesting ... that she could show him her body, for the purpose she had shown him, but couldn’t admit she did the same thing she had just watched him do. “It wasn’t because of what you did.”

She blinked. That wasn’t entirely true.

“I mean what you did didn’t bother me. I just got excited and ... um ... I just had to leave.”

“You’re really not pissed off at me?”

She went to him and got on her knees beside the chair. Her hand went to his chest.

“No, Billy,” she said, her face close to his. “I told you. I love you. I’ll always love you. I wasn’t mad. I’m not mad now. I did that for you. I did it because you deserve some happiness. I’ll always want to make you happy.”

His eyes took on a wet look.

“Does that mean you might ... do that again someday?” he asked. There was a note of longing in his voice that made her want to giggle.

“I’ll do it whenever you want me to,” she said.

“You’re kidding!” he gasped.

“No,” she said.

“Wow.”

“Do you want me to do it again tonight?” she asked.

She told him to go get ready, and that she would do the same. She didn’t have any experience at being seductive, and didn’t know how to go about that, so she just stripped naked and put on her robe again. That had seemed to be okay the night before.

When she got to his room, his readiness was evident. He was lying on top of his bed, naked, and his penis was standing up, though leaning to one side a little. He wasn’t touching it this time, and she could see it better than before. As she walked around the bed, she peered at it, and took in the full looking sack that was below that long, bumpy looking thing.

His eyes followed her, but neither of them said anything.

For lack of anything else to do, Erica just opened the robe again. She had the sudden image in her mind of a man in a trench coat, flashing people who walked by. It caused her to open the robe wider and shrug her shoulders. The robe slid off her shoulders and down her arms. She caught it with one hand, and let it hang.

She didn’t know how to stand. She had seen models walk and strut, but of course she’d never practiced something like that. Just standing there, though, seemed stilted somehow.

“I don’t know what to do,” she said.

“You don’t have to do anything else,” he sighed, his eyes drinking her in.

“I feel stupid,” she said.

“You’re so beautiful,” he sighed. He still hadn’t grabbed his penis.

“Aren’t you going to ... um ... do it?” she asked.

“In a minute,” he said. “You have no idea how many times I dreamed about something like this when I was in the Army.”

“About me?” She felt a little flutter in her belly.

“Yes,” he said. “Do you remember Beth Gardner from school?”

“You took her out a few times,” said Erica.

“Yes. Well we kind of necked a little, and one night she said she’d jerk me off if I wanted her to. Of course I said yes. She wouldn’t take her top off, though. As she did it, I laid my head back on the seat of the car and closed my eyes. It was like I was peeking at you. You were there, in the car with me.”

Erica’s nipples screamed for attention. Her left hand had the robe still hanging from it, and her right hand came up without conscious thought to squeeze her right nipple. The explosion of sweet shooting jets of joy made her drop the robe so she could squeeze the other one too. Then she realized what she was doing, right in front of her brother, and dropped her hands back to her sides.