or town like a warm, fluffy towel waiting as you step out of the bath. It was three and a half blocks to the boarding house, and the harvest moon was shining orange and huge in a sky that was not quite black, just the darkest shade of blue possible.
She shivered. Surely the heckling wasn’t bothering her now? She turned around, but saw nothing behind her. A striped chipmunk skittered up a small, skinny tree as she walked by, and she jumped at the sound.
When she turned the corner, a man stepped out from behind a car. He wore a hat and a light coat. Val stopped and looked around at the dark, empty street, at the small abandoned playground behind her. “Shit,” she whispered.
She braced herself for the assault. When he grabbed her and pulled, her feet remained on the ground, her hands in fists. She could hear him grunting, smell his armpits. Turning, she looked into his face. She saw the roughness of his skin and the dark stubble lining his cheeks and jaw. A hard life, she thought. She squirmed in his grip, and he swore. She was stronger than he had thought.
He said, “Fine. You don’t want to move? We’ll do it right here.” He pulled open her coat and thrust his hand between her legs. He smiled.
She looked him in the eyes and spat, spraying saliva on his nose, his upper lip. He let go but didn’t run away, only stared at her coldly. She planted her feet on the pavement, ready to scratch or slap or bite.
“How dare you? You’ve been flaunting yourself on a stage all night long. I’ve already seen everything you’ve got, Kitten.”
He rushed at her and knocked her to the pavement. He grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her into the playground and behind the small, wood-sided playhouse. The blunt ends of cut grass were too short for her to grab. He struggled with her stockings and panties and with his own trousers (nicely pressed, how incongruous). She balled her hands into fists and punched at his head, but he didn’t seem to feel it. When she screamed, he pressed his thumb into her throat, and she choked, angry that tears were filling her eyes. He positioned himself on top of her, and she realized that his weight on her body was too much and she couldn’t push him off. She tried to will her body to be as heavy as possible, letting her arms and legs go limp and cumbersome so that anything he tried would cost him too much effort. She felt him pressing against her, felt that familiar sensation of unaired genitals touching each other. He muttered to himself, and she stiffened, waiting for the inevitable push and burn of unwanted sex.
But he stood up, zipping his fly. His face seemed swollen, angry in the moonlight. Val’s underwear was still down around her ankles, but she felt nothing—no pain, no dry soreness.
“You see? You’re just a used-up hag. I wouldn’t do it with you anyway.” He lifted his foot and stomped on her belly with his brown, well-worn boot.
Val stayed curled up in a ball on the grass for a long time. She cried silently through the night, barely seeing the light change as the stars faded into a daytime sky. He had winded her, and she thought she might have some broken ribs. She pretended the playground was her mother’s lap and that the smell of the dirt was the smell of her mother’s hands, like soap and dry, thick skin. If her mother were there, she might sing to her. Maybe “Hush, Little Baby,” while she stroked her hair. Val remembered how light Joan’s baby had been in her arms and how carefully she had bathed him, as if he had been a thinly painted porcelain doll with fine, breakable hair. Val even wished for her father, for the comforting smell of his tobacco, his curt nod whenever she cooked dinner.
At dawn, she heaved herself up and stumbled to the boarding house. In her room, she lay on the covers, panting like a cat. She was to get on a bus that afternoon for a performance in San Diego. If she missed the bus, she would miss her gig the following night, and they would have to replace her, which meant that they might use the substitute dancer for the rest of the week. The Siamese Kitten was never late and had never missed