Mango and Coconut Jelly

I worried about boundaries before Bois Grioux. I worried about where my skin ended and my insides bared open. This was nothing new, nothing unnatural. I realized that I had openings to guard. We all learn this, though perhaps girls are forced to, need to, learn it earlier.

The hair that was growing down there was not like my sister's. Hers was curly and thick—even curlier and thicker than the hair on her head. Mine was thin and gray. I was an old woman down there. My sister saw it and was jealous. She pulled on the hair to see if they were just duds. I winced. "You're special," she said. But I was devastated. I never told my mother—she was crazy enough to think it meant wisdom. But I didn't want vaginal wisdom. I wanted coarse curly black hair down there. At least down there, since it wasn't on my head. That was what the pamphlet Auntie Jayla mailed us from America said would happen. Sometimes white girls got a dirty-blonde puff. I had been adopted into my black family so I didn't know exactly what I was. But I knew I wasn't a white girl.

I guarded my gray pubic hair. I didn't trim it down or shave it. I just covered it up. I wore boy briefs instead of girl panties. I wore the bathing suits with the pants bottoms. I was afraid to shave the hair. Afraid it would come back something different, something even worse.

The hair grew long and silky. This was unnatural. By high school it was silver like the fake icicles on the Christmas tree, and I wasn't sure guarding this would be enough.

Then after the prom Bois Grioux did not take me to the expensive hotel and resort where Blake Greenberg took my sister. Bois took me to a boat. One docked up on the waterfront. It was the kind of boat that took tourists around the island. It had "Crazy Lady" painted on the side. He laughed when I stared at the icy-blue lettering. "That's you," he said. But he didn't have to say it.

Bois stepped in first. And then reached his hand to help me. I climbed in with my spiky rhinestoned heels and puffy white chiffon dress. The boat could hold six, and downstairs Bois showed me how it could sleep six too. The ceiling above the beds was too low. The beds were cornered and walled off. The spaces were tight. And it was dark. The boat swayed calmly. I didn't need the red wine he opened to feel drunk, to feel giving.

I had no intention of having sex with Bois, but I thought I would take off my shiny shoes and kneel to him. He would be the first one I did this for. I'd been planning it. I'd studied up on it. This wasn't in Auntie Jayla's pamphlet. I had to get this information from my sister, who demonstrated on a cucumber. She said not to worry because Bois wouldn't be cucumber big. But I was worried. We'd touched each other through our clothes already. I knew that he filled my hand. I was afraid my teeth would get in the way.

But that is not what happened. What happened is that Bois sat me down in the dark bottom of the boat. He lifted my chiffon and eased down the pearl white pantyhose my mother had insisted I wear. The wine he poured over me stained my dress. It was too dark for him to see the silver hair. It was too dark for him to think he was kissing on an old lady. I was ashamed at how easily I spread my legs wide open for his mouth to have its room. I was ashamed at how my lower back contracted, at how I pressed my bare heels to his back to pull his face in. Something was racing in the dark. That something was me.

"Was...