“We drove around and he told me more about what’d been going on in town since I’d left: who married who, who moved away, what stores had changed, small-town news. You think you don’t care about that once you’ve left and are out in the big world, but when you hear it you’re fascinated.
“We ended up at Dairy Queen eating banana splits. Mark kept asking about different famous people he was sure I knew. Oh, the tales I told! How he ate them up. You’re right, it was a performance and I loved it. I remember him listening so intently that he held a spoonful of ice cream in front of his face for minutes, not eating it because he was too enthralled with what I was saying. That handsome face, his mouth hanging open like a kid’s, chocolate sauce dripping onto the table.” She went silent, sighed, cleared her throat. “I put my hand over his and said I wanted to fuck him.”
“You didn’t! That’s bad.”
“Sssh. Let me talk. I thought: What the hell, I’m going to act this out to its total end both for me and for him. We got back in his car and I told him to drive to the parking lot behind the high school. There were famous town rumors and jokes about people doing it back there, but you knew none of them were true, because it was too dangerous; the police patrolled the area about five times a night. They followed no fixed schedule, so no one ever knew when they’d come next. Mark knew what I was getting at and got scared. He didn’t want to go, but I said either there or no place, deal’s off. If he’d said no, and was more scared of the cops than hot to have me, it would’ve been the crowning blow to my ego. As it was, he hesitated a long time before turning the car around and going back. But that was the whole point of telling him to go there! It had to be dangerous, there had to be risk involved. Who’d remember just another fuck at the end of a dark country road? I wanted it to be a solid-gold memory. One that’d make him chuckle and shake his head when he was fifty-eight and sitting on a porch with arthritis and not much else. How many of those do we have?”
“I’ve noticed something. You keep using the word ‘fuck.’ That’s not a ‘you’ word. Plus, you make it sound like you’re trying to club something with it. ‘Who’d remember just another fuck—’ Why are you talking like that?”
“Because that’s what this was—fucking. Fuck—hard, fast, get to the point and then get off. Men like to fuck. Fuck and come. That’s what I wanted to do with Mark—fuck him like he’d never had it before, and then disappear in a puff of smoke. A dream come true and gone a moment later before any of its glitter fell. Let him remember me that way. This one night in the back seat of his new car behind the school when he finally got to fuck Lily Vincent and she was a firecracker deluxe.”
“Were you a firecracker?”
“More! As soon as we got there, I straddled him and took my clothes off as sexily as I knew how. When he reached out to touch me, I wouldn’t let him, because I wanted him like corn in hot oil. Know how it sizzles and dances around in the pan right before it explodes into popcorn? I wanted him scrinching around in the seat and going crazy with sex for me. I wanted someone to want me! And he did.”
“Were you wonderful?”
“I was.”
“Were you turned on?”
“A little toward the end. But no, not much. It was too much like gymnastics. I was working too hard to make him hot and think he was driving me crazy.”
“I’m jealous.”
I heard her turn. Her voice was high and excited when she spoke. “Really? Why? It was so long ago and I was faking the whole thing.”
“Because jealousy is greed. I want it all and don’t want to share any of it ever. Sometimes when I think about it, I’m jealous of the men in your past and what they did with you. I’d like to go back and take all of the kisses and fucks away from them and keep them for myself.”
“That’s nice, Max. I never thought of it that way.”
“I do. Go on, firecracker.”
“Well, we did it a couple of times and I think I was satisfying. You asked before if it was good and I said a little, but that’s untrue. It was good because I threw myself into it totally. I licked him and kissed him and hugged and groaned. At first, I was thinking: What else will make him hot, what else’ll make him howl at the moon? But you get caught up in it, even when it’s a performance. I liked it and it was good.
“When we were totally exhausted and done, we got dressed and sat there not speaking. After counting slowly to a hundred, I said I wanted him to go now and leave me here. I wanted to walk back through town alone to my car. He was flabbergasted. Go away? How could I say such a thing after what had happened? I started growing impatient, wanting to be out of his car and alone again. He said he loved me, and besides, how could I have done it so wonderfully if I didn’t feel anything for him? I didn’t answer, but began to resent him although the whole spiel had been my doing. He got desperate and asked, was it a time thing? It had happened so quickly and spontaneously, was it just that I needed some time alone to sort out what’d happened? Luckily he supplied that excuse to escape, because I was in no mood or shape to cook one up. Yes, you’re right, Mark, I am confused and want to be alone to think. That calmed him. Ever since then I’ve wondered what would have happened if he had said no. Just been strong and absolutely insisted I stay with him the rest of the night. But old sweetie Mark Elson didn’t do it. Instead, he got out of the car and raced around to open my door. We kissed goodbye. He pulled me close and out in the middle of that big empty parking lot whispered, ‘What’s going on, Lily?’ Which was a bull’s-eye question, because I hadn’t the slightest idea, and had come today hoping to find a way home. Or else I did know what was going on: me breaking apart, faster than the speed of light. I pushed him away and started running in the opposite direction. He called me, but when I didn’t stop, he yelled out, ‘I’ll be at the store tomorrow, if you need me!’ I needed him, all right. I needed everyone in the whole world holding one of those giant firemen’s nets people fall into when they jump from a burning building. But it was too late.”
“Why? Why was it too late?”
“Because by then I was so far gone, I was jumping from every corner of the building, not just one. They wouldn’t have had enough nets to catch me.
“Running felt good. As I moved, for half an instant I considered going home and asking Dad to let me spend the night. What a laugh! Home, Sweet, Dark Home.
“I could feel Mark’s warm sperm begin to run down the inside of my leg. I thought of babies. All those Mark-babies that would never be. No babies would ever come out of me. The sickness and the scars had put an end to that. Another possibility down, how many more to go? It had been so long since I’d thought of children. This was the town where I’d been a child, but I was running from it now, running from my life, running out of life, and knowing there was nothing to run to. I would never be able to create life. It hit me so hard then.
“I ran and ran. It was about three miles from school back to the bar but I got there fast. Gasping, I hopped into the car and started it up. It bucked backward into a retaining wall because I’d forgotten to take it out of gear when I turned it off. That lurch scared me into clearness a little. I put my hands on my face and rubbed up and down till it got hot. Then I started the motor again and drove slowly out of the lot.