Until the Peanut Butter

Until the peanut butter, this is not a story of coercion, even though you are a 17-year-old virgin and he is your RA. Your RA named Ray.

At registration, Ray takes you under his wing, and then under his coat, in a sudden

thunder shower. By midterm, your high school boyfriend, having written you a letter “Dear Sweat Heart,” is history, and sometimes Ray walks with you to class or sits at your table in the dining hall.
            If Ray isn’t clear in the note he’s placed under your pillow (thanks to his master key) inviting you (packing list included) to meet him in the parking lot at 5AM Friday morning, he makes sure you see him pack condoms in the outside pocket of his backpack. Ray starts the VW Bug, and you throw your dad’s army bedroll and yellow Jansport in the back and slide into shotgun. You rub your fingers together in the gust of warming engine air from the vent. You decide this isn’t a very seductive pose, so you lean back and try to look like Stevie Nicks. But instead of Fleetwood Mac, you launch into camp songs. He laughs and sing along. Funny, boy scouts know these songs too.
            Ray has hiked Mt. Lassen all through his eagle scout youth, and, several hours north of Stanford, you’ll be outside the gossip radar. From the parking area you walk up along a ridge sharing stories of childhood adventures. Yours are SoCal suburban—playing Harriet the Spy and Nancy Drew; his are full of bravado with brothers, traipsing all over these trails.
            You can see the crest, but clouds are gathering, and Ray thinks you’d better make camp. He pulls a 2-man tent from his full-sized Kelty pack, a stove and little freeze-dried packages. You pluck rocks from the flattest area. He says your sleeping bag is as heavy as his whole kit, and you shrug, knowing it was a lucky thing your roommate had hiking boots.
            The wind picks up, and you settle between his legs into the armchair of him. You give up on the stove and eat gorp. Ray teases you for picking out the peanuts, for saying, “I just don’t prefer them.” He’d carried peppermint schnapps all the way up the mountain in a plastic bottle, flat as a paperback. You say it tastes like Christmas, and the conversation turns to holidays and families until it starts to rain.
            The tent is water-proof, he says, and in you duck. You sing Cat Stevens songs. You are cold and the goose-feathers of the army bag are lumpy. Ray says you can snuggle in his sleeping bag, but there really isn’t room. He looks at you with disappointment that doesn’t look too serious. You say everything will be better in the morning and fall asleep.
            The tent is water-proof from the top, but the way you’ve situated it on the hill, a stream pours into the sponge of your bag, and the wind is slapping the tent flaps. It isn’t even dawn when you wake, a soaking wet, achingly cold virgin.
            Your bedroll is drenched through. Ray says it must weigh 40 pounds as he wrings it out and straps it below his pack, dripping onto his bottom and down the sides of his legs. You stuff his bag, magically almost dry, into your pack. You bury your hands into the down to warm them. They are turning yellow, your nails grey. The shivers start in your wet hair on your shoulders, up your arms and down your spine. Your socks are wool, but so wet. Your Levis cling to your legs. Your jacket is soaked on the inside.
            Ray isn’t even packed up, but you say you have to move. “Just a minute,” he says, and you start to walk. “Okay, I’ll catch up,” he says, and you start to run. “You just try to catch me!” you say, actually, “Cash-me,” which you think is funny and mumble “cash-me, cash-me.” You stumble downhill, you know the car is somewhere below you. The wind is coursing uphill though, and you spread your arms like the Flying Nun.
            Ray catches up, your bedroll glogging behind him. He holds both your hands, stares at them, and presses your cheek against his. The look of fear on his face makes you afraid. You slump to your knees. He tucks both your hands in his crotch and reaches around your head, pressing his fingers gently against your neck. He’s kneeling now, and you lean into his chest. You hear his heart like a metronome. Ray un-stuffs the drier sleeping bag from your pack and starts unbuttoning your shirt. You want to help, but your fingers are stones. He lays you on the bag and wrestles the jeans off as well. You’re in the bag now, his pack is off, and he lies on top of you, wringing your hair like a rag. He sings “Summer Lovin’” hoarsely, and with his free hand reaches into his pack. Peanut butter, creamy peanut butter, and with his fingers he scoops and thrusts his fingers into your mouth.

“Pah!” you shake your head, but he’s already coming in with a second wad of it. “I doan-prefer pb-dudder!” and you gag. Puked all over his fancy bag, schnapps smells less like Christmas.
            Ray swishes cold water in his mouth to warm it and tries to spit it into yours. You mostly spit it back, but you relax then and close your eyes, which makes him start up “Summer Lovin’” again. He looks into your eyes and makes goofy faces so you’ll look back. He rocks back and forth so you don’t get too comfortable.
            Of course, when the Sierra Club couple crest the hill and spy the two of you, a beast with two backs in the trail, Ray comes up to his knees and hails them. “Hypothermia!” he shouts, and they take charge. She dresses you in dry things, including her husband’s windbreaker. He manages to light their little stove and soon you have a silver cup of Postum in your stiff hands, which everyone agrees don’t look good.
            You have a three-person wind block on the way downhill. No singing. Your cover blown, Ray drives you to his mom’s house. She’s a nightshift nurse, and Ray wakes her up, but she’s gentle and puts bubbles in a lukewarm bath for you, gradually adding hot water as your skin turns red and raw. She rubs your hands with Neosporin and says it looks like you’ll keep your skin for a while, but don’t be surprised if they peel. She says to go to the health center when you get back to campus.
            You drink soup and watch The Rescuers with his sister, your roommate for the night on her trundle bed. Breakfast is oatmeal, and you look sideways at Ray when they all swirl peanut butter in it.

When you arrive back at campus, no one notices you’ve been gone or together, or that anything has happened, which in one sense is true.