by Barry Lyga
"Let's try the white today." She padded into the living room. I poured the white and followed her, gave her the wine, and settled down for some serious Xbox action. She was wearing pants, so there'd be no panty shots today, and that shirt was too loose to make her chest interesting. Fortunately, I was twelve years old and easily distracted by video games.
I was ostensibly at the apartment to help Eve with her project, but in truth it was done now and we basically just hung out together. I can't remember a time when we definitively stated that I would keep coming over. Neither, now that I think about it, can I remember when she officially said that the project was over. My time there just sort of morphed over a period of a few weeks from test subject to test subject/video-game guest to video-game guest/afterschool buddy.
"Do you want to try this one?"
I looked up from the game. Eve was sitting on one of the big stuffed chairs, holding her wineglass out a little. "Me?" I asked stupidly.
"Sure. You wanted to know what the other tasted like."
True. "OK." I took the wineglass and sipped. It was much better than the red! It didn't taste as fruity—it was cleaner, somehow, with bubbles like club soda or ginger ale. And it didn't burn my throat as much going down.
"That's pretty good!" I took another sip, then another.
"OK, that's enough!" she said, laughing. "I don't need you getting drunk on me."
I handed the glass back to her, embarrassed. "Sorry."
"Don't be sorry. It's OK." She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. "Josh, you really can't let your parents know that I let you—"
"I won't tell them! I haven't told anybody anything."
I noticed another taste, another feeling—something waxy and slippery. I licked my lips.
"Oh, you've got ... Come here," said Eve. I leaned toward her and she did the same. From the greater height of the chair, it made her loose T-shirt gape open at the neck, revealing some of that cleavage that the wedding picture promised. "You've got some of my lipstick from the glass right ... Ah." She stroked the pad of her thumb across my lips, wiping away the lipstick. It took all my willpower not open my mouth and taste her thumb.
"There," she said, showing me the thumb, imprinted with a light burgundy smear. "Now you don't look like you've been kissing someone."
Kissing ... It felt like forever as I watched her raise the glass to those lips and drink. I wanted to be kissing someone, I realized.
"Why doesn't it make you drunk?" I asked, pointing to the wine. "Drunk" I knew—I'd seen Mom and Dad come home from friends' houses sometimes, Mom stumbling a little bit or giggling too much. Those were usually nights when I closed the vent to my room and tried not to listen.
"Not everybody gets drunk quickly," she said. "Your size and weight have a lot to..." She stopped. "Well, you're practically as big as I am, so that doesn't really apply, does it? But I've built up a tolerance because I'm older and I've been drinking for a few years. You haven't been drinking ... have you?" This last asked like a cop, her jaw set and her lips pressed into a thin, shimmering line.
I laughed. "No. Why do you drink it if it doesn't make you drunk?"
"Getting drunk isn't the only reason to drink wine. It relaxes me."
"I guess you need to relax after being with us all day, huh?"
She laughed. "Not you, but the others, yeah. God, Josh—you're so grown up sometimes..." She cocked her head and gazed at me over the rim of the wineglass. Those shining green eyes held mine for what seemed forever. I stared until I no longer felt uncomfortable doing so, and then until I felt uncomfortable again.
I was the one who broke contact, clearing my throat (it seemed like a gallon of saliva had suddenly settled there) and turning back to the Xbox. I could still feel her eyes on me.
Later, when she dropped me off at home, she leaned over to the passenger seat before I got out and said, "Have a good night, Josh."
And then she kissed me goodbye.
It was just on the cheek. And I knew it was just a friendly goodbye kiss, but I wanted it to be more. I wanted it to be more so badly.
I fumbled for the door, finally pushing it open. I didn't trust my legs to carry me out onto the driveway and into the house.
"Josh, wait a sec."
I turned back to her.
"Do this." She mimed wiping at her cheek.
I obeyed, then looked down at my fingers—her lipstick blurred the tips.
"Good night," she said.
"Good night." I realized I was whispering.
It was dark out. I stood in the cold night air and watched her pull away, watched until her car's lights disappeared over a hill. Then I went inside.
Dad wasn't home yet, but Mom was eating a TV dinner by herself in the kitchen. I washed my hands and checked my cheek in the bathroom mirror, just to be sure.
"Hungry?" she asked.
"No. Mrs. Sherman made something."
In bed a little while later, I thought about the kiss. I focused on the memory, trying to transfer the sensation of her lips from my cheek to my lips, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't stop thinking about the taste of her lipstick.
I lay awake a long time and went through many tissues before I slept.
8
December 15 is the day everything changed for good, though I didn't realize it until much later.
As usual, I went home with Eve. In the car, she told me she had a small headache and that she was going to lie down when we got to the apartment.
"Kids acting up today?" I asked.
"More like the teachers," she said. I knew that she didn't get along well with the other teachers. She was new to the school and they didn't like her for some reason. She always ate lunch alone, in her room, not in the teachers' lounge. Sometimes the assistant principal came by to talk to her, but she always asked him to leave.
I counted six—half-turn on the landing—and six again going up the steps. She sighed with relief when the door opened.
"Do you want me to get your wine?" I asked.
"No, Josh. I'm just going to lie down. Let me sleep a little bit, OK?"
She retreated to the bedroom and I went into my usual routine—switched on the Xbox and got my Coke from the refrigerator.
Something was wrong, though. The Xbox usually announced itself with a dinosaur roar as the game loaded. I knew that sound, knew how long it took to come up. It always came up while I was in the kitchen. Was the disk broken? Had George taken the disk out last night?
I heard something else. Something unfamiliar. I went into the living room.
On the TV, there were three people. A man and two women. They were naked.
And they weren't sitting around talking about the weather.
My breath got locked up somewhere deep in my lungs and I almost dropped the Coke.
I had seen naked bodies before, thanks to Zik's filching of his Dad's and Mike's porn, but never in motion. And never with sound. I stood, paralyzed, as the three people on screen entwined themselves into something that looked almost painful. The sounds they were making didn't sound painful, though. They were quite the Happy Trio.
I grabbed the Xbox controller and turned it off. My breath, restored, was making up for lost time by coming hard and fast. What the hell—?
I remembered Eve saying that they didn't have a DVD player; they just used the Xbox.
This was hers? She watched it?
Well, of course she did. This was her apartment—who else would be watching it?
I slowly came to realize that my heart was pounding ferociously and I was fiercely erect at the same time. The images and sounds from the DVD seemed to be imprinted on my brain itself, pressed there like a fossilized footprint. What should I do? Take out the movie and play Xbox like nothing had happened? But where would I put the DVD in the meantime? Eve would see it when she came out.
Or should I leave the movie in and just not do anything at all? Maybe that was the best thing to do.
Or maybe...
; Maybe Eve didn't even know about it. Maybe this was George's DVD. Maybe he watched it alone. Zik had told me that his father hid his porn from Zik's mom. So maybe it was something like that.
Yeah, that could be it. Maybe Eve didn't even know about it. That was a lot better than the idea that she was watching it with George.
With George...
Anger suddenly burbled up from deep within me like water foaming as it boiled over on the stove. I didn't understand it or anticipate it—it was just there. It was there as I thought of Eve curled up on the sofa with George, watching naked people have sex, kissing him with those lips, kissing him on the lips, not caring if he had a smear of lipstick on his cheek or lips.
It had to be George's. I had to tell her about it.
I went down the hallway. The bedroom door was open.
Eve lay on the bed, turned on her stomach, one leg brought up, the knee bent. The room was dark, but I could make out the smooth curve of her calf, the crook of her knee before her leg disappeared up her skirt.
I trembled in the doorway. I had meant to tell her about the DVD, but she was sleeping, her back softly rising and falling with each breath. I took a step into the room; she didn't move.
What did her leg feel like?
I was possessed by a sudden urge to lay my palm flat on her calf and run it up to her knee, taking the curve into the hollow there, then running up—
I swallowed, hard. A memory slammed into me from nowhere, hitting me like a line drive: When I was little, maybe five or six, Mom used to have me rub lotion on the backs of her legs at night before I went to sleep. My dad didn't like the greasy feel of the lotion, so I did it.
That memory—along with the sense of touching the leg—came back to me. My fingers twitched. I knew what her leg would feel like. I knew. And looking at her while knowing...
My breath was so loud that I thought she had to hear me. She would wake up and turn to see me standing there, evidence of my lust tenting the front of my jeans.
But I didn't care. I wanted her to see. Somehow, imagining her seeing drove the image of her and George on the sofa out of my mind, and it was very important that I kill that image.
I took another step. My feet made no sound on the carpet. My hand, running up her leg, up under the skirt ... fingertips brushing against ... against ... shiny black—
I stopped before I could take another step. What the hell was I thinking? Before I could imagine any further, I backed away slowly, making no noise as I retreated to the hallway and then the living room. I sat on the sofa, shivering as I drank my Coke.
I didn't touch the Xbox.
It was none of my business, I decided. I just watched TV for a while, surfing the sports channels mostly, until my breathing and trembling subsided and I felt like I was, if not in the strike zone of normal, at least close enough to fool an ump.
After maybe an hour, Eve came out of the bedroom. I heard her in the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of wine. My heart kicked into high gear again.
She came into the living room. She had a sort of sleepy vibe about her. It was strange and exciting. Her hair was fuller somehow; her eyes were enormous.
"What's this?" she asked. "Did you beat the game or something?"
I shook my head. I didn't trust my voice. My heart pounded.
She sat down on the sofa, at the end opposite me. "Then what's wrong? Why aren't you playing?"
And I realized that I would have to tell her. I could stonewall for a while, but not forever. And if she didn't know about the DVD, then seeing it might make her angry at George, and that would kill the image in my mind ... and the weird anger that went with it.
I've never been one for theatrics, but for some reason, instead of telling her, I hit a couple of buttons on the remote, and suddenly there was the Happy Trio again, bucking and moaning.
"Oh my God!" she shrieked and covered her mouth with her free hand. The wineglass shook and threatened to spill. "Oh, God! Josh, turn it off! Turn it off!"
I obeyed.
"Oh, Lord," she groaned, pulling her legs up under her on the sofa. "I'm so embarrassed."
And that was that. I knew. It was hers. Hers and George's. They watched it together. They liked it.
I was stupid.
I was an idiot.
Eve was married. Like my mom and dad. She loved George. They had sex.
Stupid. I was just a kid.
"I'm so sorry," she mumbled, setting down the wineglass so that she could go retrieve the DVD. My anger, which had flared bright and hot, now cooled. But it didn't go away. It didn't vanish. It just dimmed and settled and became a dull, nerveless ache in the center of my chest, throbbing there in time with my heartbeat.
As I watched her go back down the hallway with the DVD, I realized what the anger meant: I was in love with Eve.
I hated her, too, of course. Hated her for loving George, for kissing him, for having sex with him. The love and the hate got all tangled up and twisted together until they became the anger.
We sat in silence as I played the Xbox game. Eve started out on the sofa, but then moved to a chair, then back to the sofa, clearly nervous and upset. I played terribly, constantly getting killed performing routine combos, reloading over and over again. I hardly saw the game—I was seeing the Happy Trio, seeing George and Eve in my mind.
Seeing Eve and me in my mind.
Earlier than usual, she said it was time to go. I didn't protest. I just gathered up my things and got in the car.
About halfway to my house, she said, "Do you want to talk about it?"
"About what?" As if there was anything else to talk about!
She sighed. It was already dark out and I could barely make out her lips parting.
"About the—about the movie you saw."
Talk about it? How? I didn't get it. "I don't know what you mean."
"Well, I imagine it was a shock for you. If you want to talk about it—"
"I don't have anything to say—"
"—about how it made you feel—"
And that was when I had my first flicker.
It was so weird—one second, I was in the car, fuming in the dark. The next, I was back in Eve's apartment, two steps into her bedroom, my hand twitching as I contemplated touching her calf and running my hand up her skirt...
I blinked and I was back in the car. I gasped at the shock. It had been so real. I hadn't just remembered the moment in her bedroom. I had relived it. I was there again, for just a second.
"Josh? Josh?" Eve's voice had jumped up into panic altitudes. She looked over at me, back to the road, over at me. "Are you OK? What's wrong? Can you breathe?"
"I'm fine." And I was. With the flicker over, everything was back to normal, except for the ball of pulsating lead where my heart used to be.
"You got so quiet. I thought—" She cut herself off. I never learned what she thought.
At my house, I waited for my usual kiss on the cheek, but nothing came. Eve watched me, worrying her bottom lip. I flickered again
—taste of her lipstick—
but it was so fast that she didn't notice and all I did was blink and lick my lips, expecting to taste the lipstick and wine. But nothing.
I went inside. No one was home yet. I went to bed without eating. It wasn't even seven o'clock yet.
***
I dreamed of Eve, of course. Dreamed of her sleek and free like the women in the Happy Trio.
Mom and Dad coming home woke me up. I told them the first thing I could think of—I had a headache and wanted to sleep. Mom kissed my forehead and left my room. I thought of the backs of her legs, of the scent of the lotion, the feel of it, slippery. Dozing, they became Eve's legs.
I woke up again at four in the morning, this time wide awake, reeling from a dream that I could barely remember but that still had its hooks in me. Something about George, yelling, and Eve stepping on grapes to make wine, the juice painting her toenails blood red.
I lay there, panting, until the sky
outside my window began to lighten on a new day.
But in school that day, Eve called me up to her desk as history class ended. She looked tired, drawn. Her face was pale, her eyes dim.
"Josh, I think it's probably for the best if you don't come over to my apartment anymore."
"Why?"
"Keep your voice down." She got up and closed the door. I hadn't realized my voice had been loud.
"Look, Josh, after what happened yesterday ... last night ... Maybe it's just best if you don't come over."
"But ... But, Eve!" Her name was out of my mouth before I could stop it.
"Josh, I could get in a lot of trouble if anyone knew that you saw that. Plus, it was very embarrassing for me."
"I didn't tell anyone. I won't tell anyone. I promise!" She didn't look convinced. "And you don't have to be embarrassed. It's just, you know, it's just a movie. That's all. I've seen pictures before. Of naked people. It's no big deal."
Her eyebrow lifted and I thought some light came back into her eyes. "No, Josh. It was a lot of fun, but I don't think—" Someone knocked on the door. "That's my next class. Here." She scribbled out a hall pass and handed it to me. "Don't be late."
I wanted to stay and argue, but I knew I couldn't. I raced to my next class and spent the day in a whirl of confusion. What had I done wrong? I wasn't the one who put the movie in the Xbox, so why should I be punished for it? Why should I lose out on something?
The flickers came back at the end of school; one hit me while I was getting my books from my locker. I staggered away from the locker, aware that I was being watched by the kids around me, who no doubt thought I was about to collapse. Instead, I marshaled my guts and managed to walk out the door into the cold December afternoon.
The bus driver looked at me suspiciously. It had been a while since I'd ridden the bus on the way home.
It was like being on an alien planet. No one sat with me, and why should they? I was a stranger now. It was loud and obnoxious and annoying, not like driving home with Eve, where she'd play some soft music or NPR and we'd talk about how my day was and how her day was ...