“Something happened to Cathy Ann.”
“What happened to her?” My mother’s arm moved as she flipped a pork chop in the skillet.
“She fell.”
“Well have her come in here so I can look at it and get her cleaned up. Dinner will be ready soon and your father will be home. She needs to get cleaned up anyway. Both of you do.”
“She can’t come in, Mom. She fell. I don’t think…I don’t…You just better come outside.”
My mother repeated, “I don’t have time to come outside, Lester. Have her come in here.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
I was getting frustrated with her. It was bad enough that I was struggling with my emotions, torn between being happy and feeling guilty, but I didn’t want to stand there and explain myself to my mother any longer.
I snapped and said, “Because she’s dead.”
The fork my mother was using to flip the pork chops fell from her hand and clattered against the skillet before coming to rest on the stove top. The room was silent but for the sizzle of the frying meat and the low rumble of the boiling water. The room smelled delicious, and even though my sister lay dead in the back yard, my stomach roared with hunger. I wondered if Cathy Ann’s death would interrupt supper.
It only took my mother a second to spin around and face me, but by the time she did, her hands were already trembling. Her eyes were wide, mouth agape.
“What?”
“She fell out of the tree.”
“Why was she in the tree?”
“You said to let her play with us, so we did.”
Before I could explain any further, my mother pushed past me and raced outside to kneel beside Cathy Ann’s lifeless body. I followed, hoping I wouldn’t get in trouble for this.
“Cathy Ann,” she shouted, “Cathy Ann, wake up.” Charlie and I watched as my mother lifted the girl’s eyelids and let them fall closed. We stood silently by and looked on as she tried to rouse the girl, tried to make her wake up and live again. And we said nothing when the screaming and the wailing began.
There were two bodies collapsed on the grass. One was that of a dead little girl, the other her grieving mother who sobbed uncontrollably, lost in hysterics as she held her daughter’s body, hugging it close to her chest and rocking back and forth as she screamed at the heavens.
After a while, Charlie looked at me and said in that hushed, funereal tone I hated so much, “I guess I better go home. I’ll talk to you later. I’m sorry about your sister.”
I nodded but said nothing. I didn’t watch Charlie walk out of the yard but I felt him leave, sensed his absence beside me. Caught up in the spectacle of grief unfolding before my eyes, I became lost in my thoughts, overwhelmed by my conflicting emotions. I barely noticed when my father shouted from the back door before running across the yard to join my mother. In fact I hardly noticed anything for a while after that.
The day of the funeral dawned cloudy and breezy. From downstairs came the sound of sniffling and nose-blowing. I dressed in my Sunday best and prepared to face the mourners.
We rode in silence to the church, neither of us saying a word. My mother cried quietly and wiped at her red, swollen eyes with the white handkerchief that had suddenly become part of her everyday attire. I sat in the backseat, still as stone, hoping for it all to be over soon.
It wasn’t.
I sat in the front pew of the church, watching as a string of people went up to the little white casket and said their goodbyes. The condolences that were given to my mother did nothing to quell her sorrow. She collapsed into my father’s arms many times throughout the day. As the coffin was lowered into the ground at the graveyard, she lost consciousness altogether and had to be carried to the car. We rode home with her sprawled out across the backseat and me in the passenger seat next to my father. All I could think about was how Cathy Ann had looked lying in the little casket, her curly hair cascading around her head, eyes forever closed, hands loosely holding a white lily.
Never again would she pester me to play with her. There would be no more intrusions on the time spent with my friends. Though I was happy that she wouldn’t be there to bother me anymore, I was also a little sad. I could easily recall how happy I’d been to find out I was going to have a sister. I remembered the way she used to smell when she first arrived, the sound of her tiny laughs and the pitter patter of her little feet as she ran past the closed closet door. It hadn’t been all bad. There were some good times with her, times that I would forever look back on fondly and miss, even long for.
I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes with the back of my hands. I didn’t want my father to see my cry. I don’t know why it mattered. He had been crying for days and wouldn’t have even noticed if I’d burst into tears on the seat next to him, but I didn’t want to be seen as one of those guys, the kind who lets things bother him. And maybe, I realized some time later, maybe it was that I didn’t want it to bother me. I didn’t want to let someone I couldn’t stand in life affect me so profoundly in death. Either way, I tucked away those tears and swallowed them down deep, making sure they were never shed. Not even when I was alone in my room.
That chapter of my life was over. Cathy Ann was to become little more than a memory. She was a ghost that floated through our house, haunting our thoughts and dreams. Her bedroom remaining unchanged, the door kept closed except for the times my mother crept in during the night to cry herself to sleep. Though my parents didn’t speak of her, I could tell she was always on their minds. It seemed that even in death, she had stolen their attention away from me.
I’d expected my parents to replace Cathy Ann. I don’t really know why I thought that except maybe that my ten year-old mind couldn’t really grasp the concept of death and all that goes with it. I figured they would just go out and get another daughter, one that wouldn’t follow me around and harass me, one that wouldn’t fall from a tree and break her neck. But they didn’t. It remained the three of us for the next couple years. Had things gone differently, maybe they would’ve replaced her eventually, but they never had that chance.
2
The year I turned thirteen, my father fell ill. He spent the next few months growing thinner and paler until he was no more than a long bag of bones. Before I saw my fourteenth birthday, the cancer had consumed him completely. His frail body was placed in the ground alongside Cathy Ann on a blistery cold day in November of 1957. My mother didn’t seem to grieve the loss of her husband as much as she had mourned her daughter’s passing. I didn’t understand why at the time, but as I got older I figured out that a sudden death is always harder to accept than one you see coming. Unlike Cathy Ann, who was running and laughing one minute, then lying still on the ground the next, my father had fought for a long time before he lost his battle. It wasn’t a surprise to us when he passed. In fact, my mother said it was a blessing because that meant his suffering had ended.
Though my father was no longer in pain, my mother now was. She withdrew further into herself, which meant further away from me. There were days when she never even got out of bed. Gone were the mornings of home-cooked meals and the evenings of gathering around the oak table to eat and share our day. She was too sad for any of that.
For a while, my mother and I lived off my father’s life insurance money. The house was paid for, as was the car, so the money went for utilities and food. It lasted a couple of years before it ran out. My mother was still deep in her depression and unable to work, so it was left up to me to provide for us.
In January of 1960, I turned sixteen years old. I spent that summer stocking shelves at a nearby grocery store. It was easy work, and I enjoyed doing it. Most kids my age got to blow their money on things like cigarettes and beer, candy and pop, magazines and whatever else they wanted, but mine went to pay bills and buy food. I was forced to grow up much faster than my friends, but it didn’t much bother me at the time. Hell, I enjoyed having a reason to leave the house and get away
from the sadness that hung over it like a storm cloud waiting to burst.
It was in that little grocery store that I met Susan, a leggy brunette with big boobs and a round ass. She came in wearing this short skirt and low-cut blouse, smacking a piece of gum and batting her eyelashes at me. I could tell she was older, but couldn’t guess by how much. A few years maybe. But she looked too good for me to care about the numbers.
Up until then, I’d never been interested in girls. I mean, of course I was interested in them. Who wouldn’t be? But knowing there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of me ever getting a girl to go out with me, I didn’t think about them much. Except maybe when I was alone in the shower. Then I thought about them plenty. But mostly I just focused on my work. Susan’s flirtatious ways changed all that for me. She awoke parts of me that had lain dormant up until then. Suddenly it was difficult to focus on work and damn near impossible to think of anything other than her and her enormous tits.
Soon she was coming in the store under the pretense of buying an item or two just so she could sashay in front of me a few times. She’d curl her hair around her finger and smile at me, all bashful like, but I knew that there wasn’t a single thing bashful about her. Bashful girls didn’t wear blouses that were cut low enough to damn near show a nipple. They didn’t wear skirts so short that a slight bend at the waist would reveal the color of their panties—or the lack thereof. And they didn’t make eye contact with young stock boys while seductively licking a lollipop the way this girl did.
One night, I was walking home from work and Susan pulled up beside me in a car every bit as sexy as she was. It was a blue and white 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air with polished chrome and an engine that purred. I stood in awe of the car, running my eyes over every inch and wishing like hell it was mine. It wasn’t until she spoke that I leaned down and saw her. She had her left hand on the steering wheel. With her right, she patted the seat next to her.
“Get in,” she said.
Any other boy would’ve thrown open the door and jumped inside, eager to find out what was in store for him and his raging hormones. Like a fool, I stood there on the sidewalk looking up and down the street, wondering whether or not I should get in at all. Every image of her strutting around the store in front of me sprang into mind, yet I couldn’t help but wonder what a girl like her wanted with a boy like me.
“Well? Are you gonna get in?”
I opened the door and plopped down onto the seat. She smiled at me when I glanced at her, and then she pushed down on the gas pedal and we were gone.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
I tried to play it cool, tried to act as if this was normal for me, something I did on a regular basis. The truth of the matter was I’d never taken a ride from someone I didn’t really know and I was a bit nervous. Especially since the driver was a smoking hot woman who had for some reason chosen me to go with her.
Susan drove out to an abandoned factory on the outskirts of town. She parked in the center of a large parking lot with weeds growing out of the jagged cracks that crossed the pavement. She then turned off the engine.
Turning to me, she reached into her blouse and pulled something from between her breasts. I watched, trying to pretend I didn’t have a hard-on.
“You want some?” She held up a joint.
“Sure.” I tried to sound cool, like I smoked pot all the time. The truth was I’d never smoked it, never even touched the stuff. The only time I’d even seen marijuana was in the gym locker room when a joint fell out of Bobby Smith’s pocket and rolled across the floor. He picked it up and made a joke about the school going to pot.
After lighting it and taking a couple of puffs, Susan passed the left-handed cigarette to me. I took it from her and replicated her movements. The first inhalation sent me into a coughing fit. She threw her head back and laughed, deep and throaty, while I tried again. I got it right the second time and every time thereafter. By the time the joint was gone, I was flying.
Feeling as if I may float up and out of my head, I rubbed my hands over my face. The sight of them made me laugh. I flipped them over and studied the backs. The hair. The veins. The bumpy knuckles. They seemed so big and alien, like they weren’t even my hands.
When I turned my head to ask Susan if my hands looked normal to her, I saw that she was now naked, her dress and boots lying in a heap on the floorboard beneath her feet. It would be a lie to say I didn’t look at her. Perhaps a gentleman would’ve looked away and asked her to get dressed, but I was no gentleman. I was a teenage boy, high on pot, with a throbbing erection and raging hormones.
My heavy-lidded eyes soaked up every inch of her body, every curve, every dimple. I watched as she turned toward me and got up on her knees, breasts jiggling with her every move. On her knees, she crawled across the seat, graceful and lithe, and straddled me. As she slid down onto my lap, I felt the heat of her through the denim of my jeans. I’d never been so hard in my life.
She leaned down and began kissing my neck, gently biting my earlobe. Her breath was hot on my skin and her hair tickled my nose.
As high as I was, I had to wonder if I was imagining the whole thing. Had this sexy chick really taken me out to the middle of nowhere to try and seduce me? That had to be my imagination, didn’t it? When her hand slid down my chest and under the waistband of my jeans, it certainly felt real.
When she cupped her hand around me, I gasped. This was the first time I’d ever been touched down there by someone other than myself.
She stroked me up and down, her huge breasts pressed against my face.
“You’re so cute,” she purred into my ear.
“So are you.”
“I’ve wanted you for so long.” She stuck her tongue in my ear, swirled it around.
“I want you too.” I ran my hands up her sides, feeling the smoothness of her skin, the gentleness of her curves.
When I raised my arms and cupped her breasts, one in each hand, she gave me a little squeeze and I lost it. My eyes rolled back in my head, my toes curled, and my hands clamped onto her tits, fingers digging into the soft flesh. I was locked in a head to toe muscle spasm while I shot my load all over the inside of my jeans.
“What the fuck?” she asked.
“Sorry,” I whispered, dropping my arms to my sides.
She withdrew her hand from my pants and held it up. By the dashboard lights, I could see the slick juice dripping from her fingers.
“Ew.” She quickly wiped her hand on my shirt and retreated to her side of the car.
I straightened up in the seat and apologized again. “I’m so sorry.”
“What the hell, man? Haven’t you ever had sex before?”
I shook my head slowly, embarrassed to admit that I was a virgin.
She laughed and shook her head. “I should’ve known. You’re just a baby.”
“A baby?”
“Yeah. I should’ve known that you wouldn’t know what to do. I should stick to guys my own age.”
“What age is that?”
She glared at me. “You should never ask a woman her age.” Her face softened and she said, “I’m twenty-five.”
Holy shit. She wasn’t just an older girl. She was a woman. An actual woman. Fully developed and grown.
She sighed. “Well, I wanna get something out of this. Have you ever done anything before?”
“Like what?”
“Like finger a girl?”
I shook my head, remembering the tales my friends had told me about sticking their fingers inside their girlfriends and wiggling them around. It had sounded gross to me at the time, but now, in the moment, it sounded like something I definitely wanted to do.
“I guess if you’ve never done that, you’ve never gone down on a girl.”
I didn’t even know what that was, much less how to do it. Once again, I shook my head.
“Jesus,” she muttered. “Well I ain’t leaving until I get off too.” She slid back acro
ss the seat toward me and stopped when her right leg was pressed against my left.
“Give me your hand.”
She took my hand and put it between her legs. She guided my hand over the hills and valleys of her crotch and I committed them to memory.
“Put your fingers inside me,” she ordered.
I didn’t know how many, but she said fingers—plural—so I started out with two. I was clumsy. I had no idea where anything was or what to do with it when I found it, but I did everything she told me to do.
After a few minutes of awkward fumbling on my part, she got frustrated with me and slapped my hand away. I looked at my fingers, slimy and slick, and wiped them on my jeans.
Susan sighed again, running her hands through her hair and throwing her head back. She thought for a second, and then grabbed my head. Pushing me down, she said, “I want you to lick it.”
“What?” None of my friends ever said anything about licking it. Gross. Was that even a normal thing to do? It sounded pretty damn disgusting.
“Lick it. You’ll figure it out when you get down there.” She spun around and laid down on the seat, propping her right leg up on the seat behind me and the other on the dash. She was spread out before me, this gorgeous, sexy, horny full-grown woman, and I didn’t know what the hell to do with her. I was living every teenage boy’s fantasy and I’d already screwed it all up by blowing my wad in my pants, and clearly I’d failed to satisfy her with my hand. My last chance was to use my mouth, and I had no idea what the hell to do with that either.
“Do it,” she urged.
I adjusted myself and placed my face between her legs. The sweet smell of sex radiated off of her, and I wanted nothing more than to climb on top of her and find out what it felt like to be inside a woman. But my dick wouldn’t get hard again. Maybe it was the pot. Maybe it was my nerves. Or maybe it was because I’d already shot off once. Whatever it was, I’d had my chance and I’d blown it. I would kick myself in the ass for that for years to come.
“Come on, kid. Do it.”
Held, Pushed, and 22918 (3 Complete Novels) Page 35