Blind Date (10 page)

Oscar told Levanter that he had found a short cut through the forest to the girls' camp and that it was an ideal place for blind dating. The forest was dark, the foliage above would mute any screams, and the mosses underfoot offered nice soft padding. He could stalk his blind date even before twilight, safely break her eye, and return to camp unnoticed in time for supper.

Once the two boys bicycled along the short cut. Oscar stopped midway and they dragged their bikes out of view and hid in the
underbrush. From behind the dense bushes, they watched an occasional camper go by. When they saw a girl, Oscar started to outline how he would reach for her hair, shove her into the woods, and force her to kneel. He would tear off her clothes, then grasp her pillows, and for a moment hold her, all tense, with his groin pressed hard against her until she began to writhe and thrash under him, and then he would spread her apart even more and pump into her with all his force, one hand over her lock, smothering her scream, the other holding her sun deck as she bucked back and forth, in pain and fear.

Levanter was captivated. What his friend envisaged was to him an adventure, a thrilling game of hide-and-seek. The girl would be hurt, but Levanter tended to agree with Oscar, considering the bruises and scratches of the forced entry as the only sources of her pain. He rationalized that a virgin making love for the first time, even willingly, had to suffer some pain. Defloration was an act of violence. Thus, he reasoned, it approximated rape. He argued with himself that, in the manner of an ordinary virgin being deflowered, the blind date would not be visibly crippled or mutilated and might even become aroused.

The distance between talking about a rape and actually performing one still seemed enormous to Levanter. He argued with Oscar that, unlike a city, a vacation camp could not assure one of anonymity. But Oscar dismissed his caution as naive. Fear is the same everywhere, he said, and everyone is blinded with panic when jumped from behind, no matter where, no matter when.

Oscar stopped taking Levanter to the path. Levanter began to suspect that Oscar was annoyed by his apprehension and didn't want him around anymore.

One morning, browsing in the sports shop that serviced the two camps, Levanter saw the blond girl with the long braid. He was too shy to approach her, even to attempt to strike up a conversation; all the chats he had rehearsed in his mind became useless the moment he was near her. Carefully Levanter edged to the counter. He heard a salesman tell her to return at five o'clock to collect the table-tennis nets that she had brought in for repair. The girl left the
shop. Levanter followed her discreetly until she entered the forest short cut. Suddenly, he knew what he was going to do.

After lunch, Levanter feigned a headache and was sent to his bunk. He remained there, under the covers, eyes closed, until the last of the boys had come in to change for the afternoon swim. Then he slipped out through the rear exit and picked up a bike left there by a counselor who had gone to town and was not expected to return until the next day. Levanter pedaled around the camp and soon was in the forest.

Halfway through the short cut, he veered into the bushes and stopped. He hid the bike near the place Oscar had evaluated as the best spot for a blind date and sat behind the large bush, waiting. He checked his watch: four-thirty.

It was quiet in the forest. The sun had barely begun to set. It still brightened the highest trees, keeping the birds away, but below, where Levanter waited, twilight descended.

A uniformed YM janitor pedaled his bike along the path. He puffed and panted, trying to ride over the roots that swelled out from little patches of sand or moss. Finally, he disappeared from sight. Levanter found himself almost hoping the girl would not show up.

Then he saw her. She walked fast, with a firm stride, as if training for a parade. Her long single braid swayed from side to side.

He felt neutral, neither aroused nor afraid. He expected his body to act when the time came but could not think about it now. The braid was all he concentrated on. The girl was a few feet away. She passed the mark he had fixed for striking.

As he was about to sprint toward her, he remembered another of Oscar's rules: once you start running toward your blind date, run as fast as you can; the sooner you grip her, the smaller the chance that she will have time to hear your footsteps and turn around to see you. To the police, once you grip her she has been assaulted, so you might as well continue and make the best of it.

He started to his feet, then lunged forward. In an instant he had the braid and, using all his strength, held the girl's head from
moving. She screamed, but when he put his other arm around her neck and tightened it as a threat that he could choke her, her voice faded completely. His arm tilting her head up to the sky, his knee pushing into her thighs, Levanter steered her off the path and into the bushes. Only when he had her behind the thicket, safely away from the path, did he catch his breath. The girl was pleading with him to let her go. Terrified that she detected a weakness in him, Levanter panicked and shook her by the hair. She stopped begging and sobbed quietly. Levanter looked down at her slender neck, then lower, at her back, where her dress was soaked with perspiration.

Slowly he removed his arm from under her chin while increasing the pull on the braid. The girl made no sound. Then, with his free hand he ripped her dress and, as she began to moan and whine, he pulled her panties down around her feet. Following Oscar's lessons, he tripped her, and, as she stumbled, he kicked her panties aside and guided her body by the braid, lowering her to the ground. Completing the twist, he fell upon her. She was now immobilized, her face pushed into the leaves and moss, her breath coming in staccato gulps. With one hand, Levanter pulled down his pants and placed himself between her legs. When he felt his flesh against hers, he slid his hand beneath the torn dress, found her breast, and began pinching the nipple. He licked her neck, his tongue gathering the droplets of sweat that surfaced like sap on her skin.

He was becoming aroused. He reassured himself that as long as he maintained his grip on her there was no danger she would ever know who he was. He was safe. Dusk continued to fall. In the dense bushes of the hollow, he was as safe as the little lizards that had scurried away when he pushed the girl through the thicket.

He began to think about her. He recalled how she had stood in the shop, smiling, talking, glancing around, unaware of what she meant to him. And he remembered seeing her once on the river-bank, with a tall, handsome boy, a YM swimming champion; every time the boy had inclined his head toward her, her face had lit up with such admiration and joy that Levanter had been filled with
envy and had to look away. If she were a thing, he thought, one day he could own her.

He began to think about her body as he had thought of her all those times; he could remember the filtered rays of sun upon her corn-silk hair. The images seemed remote, yet the girl was now under him. He was preparing to sink into her with all the force of nature's spring unwinding.

He was fully aroused. Gently, he kissed her neck. Listening to her sobs, he moved his hand down, stroking her, pushing aside the moss and leaves that stuck to her. Her body eased a bit, and when he detected that, in one smooth motion he planted his flesh in her, guiding it with his hand until it was firmly in place, deep and hard, breaking through a delicate inner barrier that seemed no thicker than a leaf. She screamed, and he thought that, without having spoken a single word to her, he had just become her first lover. The thought quickened his movement. She tensed and lay whimpering. He did not want to rush, reminding himself that as long as he was behind and inside her, pinning her down with his weight, she could not see him, and he could do as he wished for as long as he wished. But, like bark pried off a tree, his thought separated from his body; and he stiffened, ready to scream, his hand pulling her hair harder, almost against his own will. Then, his entire body seemed to let go, suddenly free of the inner pull. He collapsed, but the physical release did not bring about the release of his need. He became conscious of time and glanced at his watch: only a few minutes had passed. The girl moaned under him. He became tender, kissing the soft skin on the nape of her neck, sniffing its fluffy hair, tasting the salty sweat, his fingers lightly stroking her temples. He rested.

Then a wave of excitement came again. He felt more in command this time, less at the mercy of his flesh. She seemed to sense that her attacker was not through with her and began pleading with him to let her go. He pushed her face deeper into the earth, and when she gasped and coughed, he entered her again, more forcefully, changing the angle of pressure, feeling her resistance and steadily breaking it. When, at one moment, she tensed and he slipped out, she started to thrash. He grew impatient and angry; he
spread her flat. She let out a high-pitched scream and strained to pull away from him. He remembered another of Oscar's lessons; he slowly moved his legs, first one, then the other, until they were over her shoulders and he was sitting upon her with all his weight. As his feet forced her face harder into the ground, he thrust into her once more, but not where he had entered her the first time; her moans turned into a piercing shriek. There was something unnatural about the sound. He imagined an inner spring had snapped inside her, and even though he thought of withdrawing, he once more succumbed to his own need. His body grew taut and he pushed into her with all his might, no longer able to withdraw. He felt his neck tensing, his fingers involuntarily digging into her skin. Soon it was over; he was drained.

As she moaned, her body splayed under him like a grotesque puppet with its limbs dangling; all he wanted was to see her face. Her body alone could not tell him what he wanted to know. Only on her face would he be able to read what she felt.

Both his body and his mind were empty. Slowly he lifted himself from her, reflecting that his blind date was not over yet. He kept her pinned down with one hand, and with the other used her torn dress to wipe the blood off his groin, thighs, and hands. He stuffed the panties into her mouth, then ripped strips of fabric from her dress and bound them loosely around her feet and hands so it would take her some time to get free. He remembered to tie one strip over her eyes so she could not see him as he left.

He was finished now and ready to get away. It was almost dark and he was not afraid. He dressed slowly, as if to convince himself that he was in no danger, then jumped onto the bike and rode back toward camp, ready to slip into the bushes if anyone approached from the opposite direction. He replaced the bike and quickly entered the bunkhouse through the back door. No one was there. He crawled into his bed and pretended to be asleep. The smell of her lingered on his hand. His memory randomly protracted or compressed images of her in the forest; he was astonished that he could recall so much without having made any effort to remember.

Soon the other boys returned. He opened his eyes and told them
his headache was almost gone. He took a shower, but even when he was dry, the scent of her flesh persisted on his body.

Oscar came in. Levanter was at first tempted to tell his friend about his blind date. But he was feeling possessive about the girl and didn't want to share the details of his encounter with her. Instead, Levanter complained about his headache and the lost afternoon.

In the middle of the night, everyone in the bunkhouse was awakened by a sudden commotion. All the lights were turned on and, as Levanter and the other boys watched, two uniformed policemen, accompanied by the camp director and two camp counselors, marched in and took Oscar and all his belongings away with them. The lights were turned off, but Levanter could not sleep.

Even before morning roll call, the whole camp seemed to have heard of Oscar's arrest. As Levanter was known to be Oscar's closest friend, he was besieged with questions. Levanter shrugged and said that he too was astonished by the arrest.

After the routine morning ceremonies, the camp director, looking quite angry, addressed the two thousand boys lined up before him. He announced in a stern voice that the previous afternoon a vicious sexual attack on a girl camper had been committed and that police authorities had already arrested the perpetrator. It was a boy who had confessed to similar crimes in the past: Oscar.

Levanter felt overcome by a horror he had never experienced before. He realized for the first time how irreversible was the process that had already claimed the girl and Oscar. He stood paralyzed by panic. He knew only one way to end it.

The director had finished and was ready to give the signal to dismiss the campers. Levanter stepped out of line.

“Sir,” he called. He felt his knees begin to buckle under him and summoned all his strength to stand straight, before the whole camp. In the past, he had been called forward to receive praise. Now he was stepping forth to turn himself in.

He felt numb again, as he had before he sprang upon his blind date. He could no more step back into line than he could undo the rape. He waited.

The director recognized him instantly. “There is Levanter, our gold medalist,” he announced, his voice turning cheerful. “What is it, my friend?”

Levanter's mouth was dry. His tongue moved sluggishly as he started to speak. “I raped that girl, Oscar didn't,” he heard his own voice say. “I did it alone.”

A frightful silence fell. Levanter heard the wind snap the flag around its pole.

The director looked at him baffled. “We appreciate your motive for making this statement, Levanter, because we know Oscar has been your friend,” he said firmly. “But we know Oscar is the only culprit.” He was about to end the roll call.

“As I'm making this statement officially, sir,” Levanter interrupted, his voice now clear, “I insist that my admission be formally entered in the record of the investigation.”

“Let it be in the record, then,” the director said indulgently. “Come to my office in an hour.”