Cycler

by Lauren McLaughlin

Her wild black hair is still damp from the shower and, even from a few feet away, smells of coconut shampoo.

  She was expecting me.

  “Hi,” I say.

  She holds my gaze for a second, then looks down. Behind her, the trench coats hang like a row of sentries.

  “I, um, I guess you’re prepared for rain,” I say.

  She glances over her shoulder. “Yeah,” she says. “My mom used to collect them.” She backs up and fingers the hem of a black coat. “She was going to toss them, but I think I can do something with them, maybe. I’m kind of into fashion.”

  “Cool,” I say.

  I take a tiny step toward her and her muscles tense. Her eyes shift to the door, which is cracked open to the dark hallway. Her parents sleep downstairs all the way on the other side of the house, but they’d hear her scream. She’s planned this geography carefully.

  “Ramie,” I say. “I don’t have a lot of time. I can’t come back tomorrow.”

  “Why?” she says. “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere.”

  I take another step toward her and her body stiffens. I’m closer to her than she is to the door. But she’s not running.

  As she stands still with the limp trench coats behind her, I realize the next step is mine to make. All she can do, all she will do, is react. Scream, run, or succumb. But she won’t do anything until I do something first.

  I reach for her hand. She stiffens at first, then lets me interlace my fingers with hers.

  “Who are you?” she whispers.

  Dazed by the shock of actual physical contact, I stare dumbly for a second, then mutter, “Does it matter?”

  She stares back, then shakes her head, releasing more of the lush coconut scent of her hair. Her dark eyes are hungry but passive until something like impatience flickers across them. Kiss me, asshole, she’s thinking.

  That’s when I realize she has orchestrated everything tonight. But furtively. She knew I’d come to the window and she knew she’d let me in, but she had to make me beg first. She had to make it seem like she had no choice.

  Damn it, why do I know these things? I want to lunge at her and wrap her long limbs around me. I want to thrust my tongue down her throat. But I don’t move. I can’t move. Something vague and half buried stops me.

  “Are you okay?” she says.

  “What?”

  Her fingers slide from mine, leaving the slick chill of palm sweat. She brushes past me to the little table by the side of her bed. “Do you want to see some of my looks?”

  “Your what?”

  “Looks,” she says. “It’s what we call an outfit. In the fashion industry.”

  I know this, of course, but she doesn’t have to know that I know it. “Sure,” I say.

  She picks up her laptop and sits cross-legged on the bed, leaving a vast empty space the size of Montana next to her.

  Phase Two. That’s what’s happening here. Ramie is evolving the proceedings to the next level without ever showing her hand.

  But I shouldn’t know this. These are Jillthoughts. I should be diving over the brass footrail of Ramie’s bed and pressing her warm body beneath me in a hurricane of wet kisses. Shouldn’t I? Instead, I walk over and sit next to her, letting my legs hang chastely off the side of the bed.

  Ramie scrolls through some of her “looks” while I try to replace the noise of Jill’s thought process with my own.

  “The photos kind of suck,” she says. “And I had to use my friend Jill as a model.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Ramie’s barefoot and her jeans are cuffed, revealing smooth ankles. She shaved, which means she was definitely expecting me and is ready for action.

  “Most people think fashion is this deeply vapid label-whore thing, but they’re missing its true cultural significance.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  I wonder how long it would take to get both her sweater and her jeans off.

  “Because everyone wears clothes,” she says. “Even people who say they hate fashion.”

  “I totally agree.”

  She looks at me. “Really?”

  “I mean, yeah,” I say. “Sort of. Yeah, that seems right.”

  “You really don’t care about fashion, do you?”

  I freeze. She stares at me for a few seconds, then glances up and down my body appraisingly.

  “Maybe you can educate me?” I say.

  She nods. “You do all right. I like your socks.”

  She reaches down and pulls up the hem of my jeans to get a closer look. “Bright colors are really big right now.”

  I realize if she pulls my jeans up any farther, she’ll notice I have razor stubble. But I don’t want to discourage her from touching me, so I attempt a diversion by brushing my hand down the back of her head. Tensing, she releases my jeans and looks right at me.

  I stare back.

  This is the moment to make my move. She’s practically begging for it.

  She closes the laptop very gently.

  It’s now or never.

  She bites her lip nervously.

  The air between us is so hot with expectation, I’m starting to sweat.

  But I don’t act.

  “Are you ever going to tell me your name?” she whispers.

  I nod.

  “When?”

  I shrug. “Ramie?”

  “Yes?”

  I can feel the primal forces from deep within compelling me forward, but something else paralyzes me.

  “Ramie, there’s something you should—”

  She leans forward and kisses me.

  For a second, I disappear into the lush, wet softness of her lips, until she pulls away suddenly.

  “Ow!” she says.

  I’ve bitten her lip.

  “Oh God,” I say. “I’m so sorry.”

  She laughs gently and licks her lip. “It’s okay.”

  How could I be so clumsy?

  I’m hurled back in time to the dreaded Travis Kitterling Incident. Jill made out with him behind the dugout at the baseball field and accidentally bit his lip. He called her a vampire and everyone at school teased her.

  But now I have Jill and Travis Kitterling in my brain, when all I want is Ramie and her luscious mouth.

  “Can I try that again?” I say.

  “Are you going to draw blood?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  She stares at me, blank-faced.

  “Joking?” I say.

  She nods but doesn’t smile. Have I blown it? Is the moment over?

  She’s not moving away. In fact, she’s still staring right at me. Her face is impossible to read, and I have so many conflicting ideas churning away inside of me that I hardly know who I am.

  The only thing I do know is that I want to be kissing Ramie.

  Right now.

  I decide to start small. Inching closer, I bring my lips to the soft skin in the curve where her neck meets her shoulder.

  She lets me.

  I work my way up to her cheek. She pulls back and looks at me. I run the back of my finger along the line from her cheekbone to her jaw. She mimics the gesture on my face with a touch that is nothing less than electric. She lingers on my chin and pushes it up slightly.

  “Hmm,” she says.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  She pushes her fingers through the hair behind my ears. I do the same to her. Then I bring my lips very gently to hers and—without biting—let the whole world disappear into the dark magic of her mouth. Every few seconds, I feel the tender poke of her tongue. When a hot, urgent wave overcomes me, I press her torso to the bed, the soft, yielding cushion of her breasts pressing against my flat chest. Her mouth opens wider and her jaw clenches more firmly onto mine. Finally, my body takes over. I position my knee between hers and gently part her legs. The metal of our zippers taps as I take both of her hands in mine and stretch them over her head. I position our legs and torsos so that every possible inch of
our bodies connects. And all the while, our mouths explore each other, lips, tongues, even teeth touching and retreating.

  When the bones of our pelvises grind against each other, Ramie’s back arches. I pull my lips from hers with a painful wrench and bury my mouth into her neck. Her arms wrap around my head.

  “Why do I feel like I know you?” she says.

  The sound bleeds through my body like hot liquid.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  I press my jeans into hers and she gasps.

  Pulling my lips from her neck, I look into her startled face. She closes her eyes and drops her head back.

  My hand finds the hem of her sweater, then rests on the soft, doughy skin of her stomach. Bringing my lips to hers, I begin to inch my hand upward until it rests on the underwire of her bra. The rough edges of lace tickle my finger, hinting at the Shangri-la of Ramie’s breast. The soft, slick movements of her mouth against mine signal unambiguously that she wants me to scale this mountain. For some reason, my hand is stuck at base camp.

  She pulls her lips from mine and tries to wriggle from beneath me. I don’t want to let her go, so I hold tightly and pull her over on top of me. She wraps her legs around my hips and hovers a few inches from my face.

  “Can I call you?” she says.

  I try to kiss her, but she backs away.

  I stare at her silently until I realize I’ll never be able to improvise a satisfactory lie to smooth over the ugly truth of my circumstances. She’s too smart.

  “No,” I say. I glance at the window, imagining a speedy exit, when I realize I have a boner the size of a Buick.

  Ramie kisses my forehead. “Why?” she says. “I don’t mean to be boring or anything. It’s just . . .”

  I run both hands through her hair and pull it from her face. “Ramie,” I say. “Nothing about you is boring. In fact, your non-boringness knows no limits.”

  She crinkles up her forehead and I realize that was a very Jill thing to say.

  The warm yellow light traces the breathtaking curve of her cheek and jawline, but this only feeds my hard-on. I have to get to the window now, before I am undone by the lie-exposing probe of Ramie’s mind.

  “I have to go,” I say.

  The slow rise and fall of her chest ceases.

  I start to sit up and Ramie peels her long limbs off of me.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  Keeping my back to her so as to hide my erection, I slide off the bed and go to the window. I yank it open and start climbing through. Halfway over the sill, I spot her sitting on the bed, unable to squelch the hurt feeling on her face.

  “I’ll be back,” I say. “I promise.”

  She says nothing as she watches me escape into the cold night air.

  May 7

  Jill

  The next time I wake up, I have a sickening feeling in my stomach, the kind I get when I know I’ve been having dirty dreams. There’s a good chance, however, that these dirty dreams will have been Jack’s, not mine. Since I deeply want to avoid allowing anything from that mal swamp of perviness from sticking to my own mind, I rush through my Plan B rituals.

  When I finish, cleansed and purified of all possible Jackness, I get out of bed and check the date on the clock. But as I’m crossing off the days of deleted Jacktime on my calendar, my memories begin to trickle in.

  Memories of the Bump.

  Memories of Tommy’s face, that fragile, hopeful face, as he told me his secret in the purple twilight. Then I remember the aftermath. His stony face studiously avoiding me in calculus. The way he sat by himself at lunch instead of coming over for a calculus lesson.

  And the way I sat there and let him.

  I peel off Jack’s sweaty T-shirt and underwear, then drag myself to the bathroom. I start the shower and stand underneath it despite the firm conviction that nothing will wash the unrelenting gloom from my life.

  Tommy Knutson is bi.

  All last cycle, I grappled with this stubborn fact, but no amount of strategizing, philosophizing or denial changed it. Ramie was no help either, despite her attempts at assuring me that it doesn’t matter. She even called me a homophobe! I am deeply not homophobic. I didn’t want it to matter. I even tried multiple thought experiments where I imagined myself as Tommy’s girlfriend while he told me about the guys he’d dated in the past. I wanted to be okay with it. I deeply did. But my stomach wouldn’t let me. Maybe my stomach is a homophobe. Why is my stomach a homophobe?

  Besides, what if Mom’s right? What if bisexuality is a pit stop on the way to homosexuality? What if I became the girl who finally pushed him over the edge? I don’t need that kind of baggage. I’m over the limit already, baggagewise.

  I have to be strong. I have to put him behind me. I must evict him from my mind.

  As a symbolic gesture of purging, I wash my hair and tell myself to knuckle down and start strategizing a backup prom plan. If I focus on the prom, maybe I won’t think about Tommy Knutson so much.

  When I dry off and check the mirror for a note from Jack, here’s what I find: “Hey, Jill. Sorry to hear about Knutsack. I guess everyone has their secrets, right? Chin up and keep the porn coming.”

  Is that supposed to be deep? Am I receiving pseudowisdom from Jack?

  I zombie through breakfast with Peter Porn and the Mombot, request more pervy DVDs, then drive to school in a daze. I try to focus on the prom, but my thoughts keep wandering back to Tommy Knutson, and every time they do, my stomach flips over.

  In homeroom, I sit staring at the whiteboard while Mrs. Schepisi takes attendance. Ramie, fashionably late, bursts through the door just as the bell rings for A Block. She smiles nervously at Mrs. Schepisi, who marks her present with a warning scowl. As I drag myself up from my desk to trudge into the hallway, Ramie grabs my elbow.

  “Big news,” she says.

  “Tommy?”

  Her face falls. “No. Sorry. Come to my locker after A Block?”

  I nod and shuffle off to history class. This brings me to the Jed Barnsworthy cluster, where the North Wing and East Wing meet. Tommy, per usual, walks toward me on his way to Spanish class, keeping his eyes glued to the dim gray tiles. I too avert my eyes, fully planning to let him pass without a word or a glance. Then something comes over me. A moment of temporary insanity, perhaps. I speed up my pace, pass Jed and his toady boys and grab Tommy by the arm.

  “Come here,” I say.

  He stops and stares at me as if bracing for a blow.

  I pull him over to the trophy case, where cheerleaders from eons past smile giddily from black-and-white photographs. “Can we talk?” I ask him.

  His face crinkles in deep suspicion.

  “Come on,” I say. I take his hand and lead him down the North Wing toward the exit. We follow a group of kids entering the locker rooms for gym class, then cut outside into the parking lot. By the Dumpsters, a trio of cigarette-smoking goths hug their black trench coats against the still-cool May air.

  “Jill, are you kidnapping me?” he says. “ ’Cause my mom’s not rich.”

  Holding his hand firmly, I rush him through the parking lot toward the soccer field, then pull him underneath the bleachers.

  He shivers, then hugs himself against the chill. “She could probably scrape together a few thousand, but—”

  I put my finger to his lips.

  He laughs nervously, then looks at the ground, which is littered with condom wrappers and cigarette butts.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I guess I should start with that. I acted like a jerk.”

  “It’s okay,” he says. “You’re not the first girl to react that way.” He flicks his eyes up to mine, then stares at the ground again. “You don’t have to worry about my self-esteem or anything.”

  “Actually,” I say, “I think I was worried about my own.”

  He looks up at me.

  “I didn’t want to be the girl who made you . . .”

  He stares expectantly. “Made me what?”


  “Gay?” I say.

  He keeps staring for a second, then laughs coldly. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Really?”

  “I don’t see people as male or female. I just see people.”

  I take a deep breath and try to understand this concept. “But—”

  “But what?” he says. “Don’t you think the world has expended enough energy keeping men and women separate, trying to convince us we’re from Mars or Venus? For what? We’re from Earth.”

  I stare dumbly.

  “We’re just people,” he says. “Why does it have to matter so much?”

  I have no answer, only a deep, almost physical, aversion to the idea.

  “Maybe I am a freak,” he says.

  “No.” I stare into his kind and beautiful eyes.

  The thing is, although I find the idea of his being into guys stomach-churningly mal, I don’t find him mal at all. In fact, up close and personal like this, he’s just as swoonworthy as he always has been.

  It’s so confusing.

  “You’re looking at me like I’m a freak, Jill.”

  “Sorry.” I shake my head and look at the ground. Then I take his hand and lead him out from under the bleachers. I sit down on the lowest bench and he sits next to me. But not right next to me.

  “Tommy . . .” I turn to face him. “I want to understand.”

  “Maybe you can’t.”

  “Try me?” I say.

  He sighs. “Could you explain why you’re into guys but not girls?”

  I stare out at the soccer field.

  “Not so easy,” he says. “Is it?”

  “No,” I say. “I just know that boys make me feel a certain way and girls don’t.”

  “All boys?” he says.

  “Of course not. I’m straight. I’m not a slut.”

  He stares at me in full seriousness, but I don’t count the Mississippis this time. I’m too scared.

  “Tommy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell me about one of your . . .” My voice dries up.

  “One of my what?” he says.

  “Tell me about your first time with a guy,” I say.

  “Why?”

  “Because . . .”

  “Because you want to know if you can handle it?”

  I nod.

  “All right,” he says. “I’ll tell you about Michael Tinsley.”