I think that around that time—right around when I went out with Maria, even before I broke up with Lynn—was when I started becoming caught between the two extremes, like a fly trapped in a web. I was growing up, I guess, so I had to start acting serious, to appreciate “matters of consequence,” however inconsequential they were. Dad, you wanted me to do well at that summer job, and Mom, you wanted me to quit smoking. All ‘matters of consequence,’ if you ask me. But, at the same time, I didn’t want to act serious. That’s why I say I just stopped gaining knowledge. Because the more I learned, it seemed, the more serious I had to be—the less TV I could watch, the less bullshitting I could do. So somehow—and I don’t really know if it was conscious or not—I just tuned out. I really didn’t want any responsibilities. I was trying so hard not to be like the grown-up in The Little Prince. The serious adult I was supposed to become constantly wrestled with what was left of the child. I tried so hard to hold on to that little prince within me that, I don’t know, I somehow wound up being different than both. A lot different.
I really missed Maria after a while. I thought about her constantly—about her voice when I wasn’t speaking to her, about her body when I wasn’t holding her. Sometimes, I even helped myself fall asleep imagining her cuddled in my arms, her perfumed hair draped across my chest like a security blanket. I couldn’t wait to see her again. We continued talking on the phone for a while, and she kept asking me to go out again. But I had to break up with Lynn first.
It was about a month since I’d first gone out with Maria, and I’d pretty much given up on calling Lynn completely. Like most guys my age, I never broke up with girls. I just sort of let them fade away. Sometimes, Lynn would call and I’d rush her off the phone. Other times, I told my parents to tell her that I was busy or not home. This strategy forced Jeff, a Lynn loyalist, to give me cold glances at school. He and his fat sister were always wondering what was going on with me and Maria. Jeff probably was wondering why I was still dating Lynn when I’d gone on a date with Maria—I know he knew about me and Maria, because she had a big mouth. I stopped speaking to Jeff after a while. He was such a nosy goddamn bastard, anyway, and so was his sister.
One day, Lynn just stopped calling me. I was so pissed off. Until that point, even though she knew something was up, she’d still call me and act nice. I couldn’t believe she had the nerve to break off all communication with me. The least she could do was formally break it off. I didn’t know what to do. I thought about asking Jeff or his sister for help, but I knew they didn’t give a shit by that point.
About a week went by and I didn’t hear from her at all. Just to fuck with her, I decided to surprise her after school with some flowers. Lynn and I were supposed to be celebrating our four-month anniversary—I think it was four at that point—so I knew she’d be real happy to see me. And I knew that all her friends would be there, too, as she walked out of class that day. So when Lynn came out at around three o’clock or so, I hoisted the flowers above my head as she was walking down the hill to the subway stop. She almost wet her pants, she was so happy. I recoil at the thought of her sappy announcement. “You remembered!” she kept saying, with a smile on her face as wide as her head. All her stupid friends giggled around us, saying “awww” and “how sweeeeet.” But Lynn was happiest, and I knew that for just a few moments, she’d forgotten all about Maria. And so had I.
I escorted Lynn onto the subway, with all of her stupid friends giggling and smelling the flowers and saying how beautiful they were. We didn’t get off at her stop, though. Instead, we went to the Queens Center Mall, where every hood and his girlfriend loitered for hours after school each day. Lynn and I walked around for a good hour or so. She was shopping for a bathing suit, as I contemptuously eyed every hood that walked buy, each dressed typically with a pair of mile-wide jeans and a backwards baseball cap.
We didn’t hold hands or make any other sort of physical contact. But the more I looked at Lynn, the more turned on I got. Suddenly, I started to become really horny. God, there she was in that little plaid skirt—she still had her uniform on—and a blue blouse unbuttoned twice at the top. It’s amazing how all the girls at her school wore the same blue and yellow plaid skirt, but when you looked really close, each one looked so hot in her own way. Some were big, some were small, some short, some tall. Just thinking about it now drives me nuts.
And Lynn was a really beautiful girl. I always liked petite girls, like Maria, but something about Lynn was so sexy. She was actually taller than me. She had wavy, silky brown hair that fell just short of her shoulders. Her eyes were narrow and squinty—not Asian squinty, but still more squinty than a regular person’s. Her skin was always just a bit tanner than mine, even during the winter. Lynn was terribly flat-chested, but her slim, athletic body more than compensated for that flaw. She looked like a Baywatch lifeguard as she tried on bikinis, one after the other.
Kyle and I used to make fun of her breasts. And after he first saw her, we started calling her a horse because she was so goddamn tall. And her breasts were simply too small to match her big body. But even though they were tiny, I’d always wondered what they looked like. Lynn was sixteen or so, I guess, but she’d never shown a guy her tits. Ever since Seven Minutes in the Closet, I’d been dying to see them.
In between trying on bathing suits, we walked around to all of the stores, starting with the bottom floor and ending with the top one. When we reached the top we decided to take the elevator back down to the first floor and go home. Lynn was now clutching the flowers in her right hand, and holding my arm with her left. I started liking her again, just for a second. I don’t know, she was just so pretty. And she liked me so much that day. I get chills just thinking about how cute she looked.
The elevator bank was in a little shadowy cove near the mall’s parking lot, a good hike from the shopping area. It had a noxious smell, and looked like a regular elevator bank, with one of those mirrors in the ceiling corner across from the three sliding doors, the kind that you glance at before you get out of the elevator to make sure nobody’s there waiting to mug you.
Before we got on the elevator, Lynn hugged me, placed her head on my shoulder, and thanked me for the nice surprise. I don’t know if she intended to kiss me but, somehow, we started making out.
I just couldn’t resist, she looked so damn good. Soon we were really going at it. I wrestled her against the elevator door where she remained pinned as we necked passionately. I spread her arms out as if I were a cop ready to frisk a suspect. Her left hand swung toward a silver fire extinguisher hanging off the wall, and the sound of her ring against it made a huge gong. We stopped for a second, wondering if anyone had heard the noise. Nobody was there. The elevators seemed to have stopped dead. I buried my head into her neck and sniffed and kissed while grabbing her ass. We were two animals in heat, ready, willing, and able to play around as much as the mall’s dubious privacy allowed. She put her hand under my chin and forced her tongue into my mouth. Lynn was so big and strong. I remember Kyle joking, ‘If you ever fuck her she’ll make you her bitch.’ I chuckled to myself as I licked her chest bone like a dog. Kyle was so right, and I couldn’t wait to tell him about it in school.
The next thing I knew, my hands were kneading her little breasts like pizza dough. I rolled the point of her left nipple gently between my left thumb and forefinger, right through her blouse; for small breasts she seemed to have huge nipples. They were much bigger than I thought they’d be. I crammed my other hand down into her pants, pressed my palm against her belly. I curved my fingers inward. She was wet.