"Wow! Wow!" he breathed, trying to pull me embarrassingly close. "We all hate these sissy exchange dances, but when you showed up, honey, it wasn't boring anymore."
It was the red dress, of course, not me. This was exactly the kind of dress that Fanny would scream and fight for. Red, the color medieval aristocracy had assigned to the street harlots. Red, still the color associated most with women of loose virtue. Red, the color of passion and lust and violence and blood. And here I was having to fight off strong, male bodies seeking cheap thrills from rubbing against me. Whirled around as I was, pulled from the arms of one boy by another, I caught but brief glimpses of the other girls. My hair, which I'd piled high on my head, was caught by sparkling barrettes; soon I felt it beginning to slip. My hair fell and the curls bounced on my shoulders. I grew tired, angry that my partners wouldn't let me sit between dances and take a breather.
"Let me go!" I finally yelled above the loud music. I saw the teachers and others in the room hazily as I pulled away and tried to seat myself on one of the pretty settees taken from one of the formal parlors and put in here for dance night. Dainty cups of punch were shoved at me, plates with tiny sandwiches and pretty canapes, and male fingers several times successfully managed to feed me. The tea and fruit punch had been spiked. Two cups to slake my thirst had me feeling giddy. Two tiny sandwiches I nibbled before my treats were taken from my hands, and I was pulled back onto the dance floor. The twenty girls of Winterhaven with enough merits to attend this dance watched my every movement with peculiar intensity. Why did their eyes glow so expectantly?
I was having a good time, or so I had to believe when all the boys were lavishing on me such flattering attention. A good time at the expense of all the other girls who were neglected. Why were they watching me without envy? Even when other couples danced, it was I who drew all eyes. It made me uneasy the way everyone watched only me. What was I doing wrong, or doing right? Even the members of the faculty stood off to one side with dainty cups in their hands and kept their eyes riveted on me. Their curious interest added to my nervousness, when before I'd been terrified I'd have none.
"You sure are beautiful," said the boy whirling me around. "And I love your dress. Are you trying to tell us something by wearing red?"
"I don't understand why the other girls aren't wearing their party dresses," I whispered to this boy, who seemed less bold and insensitive than the others. "I thought we were supposed to dress up."
He said something about wild and crazy Winterhaven girls who were never predictable, but I only half heard him. A cramp, sharp and dreadful, shot across my abdomen! It wasn't my time of the month, and even then my cramps were never really severe. The dance ended, and before I could recover my breath, my next partner was heading my way, a devilish grin on his face. "I would like to sit the next one out," I said, heading for a settee.
"You can't! You are the belle of this ball, and you are going to dance every dance."
Again one of those hideous pains in my belly almost doubled me over. My eyes went unfocused. The faces of the girls watching me smeared into distorted images such as seen in fun-house mirrors. A short, plump, nice-looking boy was tugging on my hands. "Please, you haven't danced with me. Nobody ever dances with me." And before I could protest again he'd tugged me to my feet and I was out on the dance floor, this time moving to a different kind of music. Today's kind of music that had a strong beat. All my life I'd dreamed of being so popular every dance was taken, and I'd never have to sit as a wallflower.
Now all I wanted to do was escape. Something dreadful was going on in my abdomen. The bathroom! I needed the bathroom!
Even as I broke away from one boy, another seized me and began his grinding motions, but this was hands-off music, and I turned to run, Suddenly, the music stopped, a new record was put on--a slow waltz, the cheek-to-cheek kind, the kind I needed least of all at this particular moment, and yet someone had me, trying to hold me too close, and the pains, the horrible pains were coming faster, closer together!
Violently I shoved him away and took off on the run. I thought I heard laughter behind me-- vicious, spiteful laughter.
The first floor lavatory had been assigned to our guests, so it was the stairs I raced toward, running as fast as I could for the bathroom. The door was locked!
Oh, my God! I raced for another in a distant wing, feeling panic that it was so far away. I'd never make it in time! And when I reached there, it too was locked!
I was sobbing by this time, unable to
understand what was happening to me, but happening it was.
Back to my rooms I sped, doubled over and groaning, gasping, my breath coming hard and fast. When I reached there I slammed and locked the door behind me. There was no commode in my room, but I hadn't lived fourteen years in the Willies and dreaded going to that distant outhouse without learning how to improvise. And when it was over, I still sat on, feeling any second another attack would begin.
For a solid hour my bowels rampaged, until I was quivering and weak, and a film of moisture clung to my skin, and by this time the dance downstairs had ended and the girls were returning to their rooms, laughing, whispering, quite excited about something.
Rap-rap-rap on my bedroom door. No one ever knocked on my door! "Heaven, are you in there? You certainly were the queen of the night! Why did you disappear so quickly, like Cinderella?"
"Yes, Heaven," called another voice. "We just loved your
dress. It was so right!"
Very carefully I removed a frail plastic garment bag from my wastebasket. When I had it out, I quickly put it into a second bag, then tightly twisted the thin, plastic-covered wire. I had solved my dilemma, and saved my clothes in the nick of time, but now I was left with a bag full of filth I didn't know how to dispose of. The dirty linen chutes in the bathroom were one solution; nothing in the soiled linen baskets below would be ruined unless the plastic broke.
With the bag hidden beneath a robe I carried over my arms, I headed for the bath. I entered quietly, though I needn't have. All twenty of the girls who had attended the dance were in the lounge section, where several hair dryers were set up, and there were small vanities with lights for putting on makeup. In there they were laughing almost hysterically.
"Did you see her face? She went dead white! I almost felt sorry for her. Pru, how much of that stuff did you drop in her punch?"
"Enough to give her a blast--a real blast!"
"And weren't the boys wonderful, how they cooperated?" asked another girl whose voice I didn't recognize. "I wonder if she made it to a bathroom in time?"
"How could she, when we had all the bathroom doors locked?"
Their hilarity could have generated enough electricity to light up New York. And I was feeling sick enough without adding to it. Even in the Willies people hadn't been so cruel. Even the worst village boys in Winnerrow had respected some things. I dropped my plastic bag into the largest towel shoot, thinking it wouldn't break open when all those wet and damp towels down there would cushion its fall. And then I set about taking my shower and shampooing my hair. I used the one stall with a door that could be locked from the inside. After ten minutes of lathering and sudsing and using conditioner, I toweled dry, pulled on my white terry-cloth robe, and stepped out. All the girls who'd been in the lounge had gathered to watch what happened next. Forbidden cigarettes dangled from slack lips and fingers.
"You look so clean, Heaven," merrily chirped Pru Carraway, out of her college-girl clothes and into her transparent baby dolls. "Did you feel a special need for staying so long in the shower?"
"Just the same old need I have every night since I came to Winterhaven--to wash the atmosphere from my skin and hair."