Until He Comes: A Good Girl's Quest to Get Some Heaven on Earth

by K. Dawn Goodwin

  “Yeah, well, I gotta go home,” I said.

  “Yeah, I know,” he said, picking up his keys. “Need a ride?” His tone had changed.

  “Yeah.”

  “No, I mean on my big, throbbing dick.”

  Shocked, I rolled my eyes like I’d heard that one before. I hadn’t.

  “It is really big,” he said as we walked out to the dark parking lot.

  “I know, you told me.”

  “Wanna see?”

  “No, no, I don’t,” I said, not even considering if maybe I did.

  He swerved out of the drive, speeding full throttle all the way, running red lights and passing over the double yellow.

  “Trent,” I murmured, wondering if I would die. He raced down my quiet neighborhood street and passed my driveway. He put the car in reverse and swerved in backward, idled, and looked at me, eyes twitchy and wide. I went for the door but he flipped the locks down. We stared each other down.

  “So,” he said, “what do you want me to do?”

  “Uh,” I said.

  “Do you want me to kiss you?” he said, not sweetly. “What do you want me to do? Should we have sex before you go?” A crooked grin. “In the back? Fuck you hard?”

  Whoa. That was inappropriate. That was awesome.

  “Um, no thanks.” I laughed, like we were making small talk. My hand was on the door latch. “Are you like trapping me?”

  He stared.

  “Bam, bam, bam,” he teased, banging his fist into the socket of his palm. I watched his hands the way a deer watches headlights. “What?” He smiled, like this was so stupid.

  “Trent,” I said.

  “WHAT THE FUCK YOU WANT ME TO DO?”

  When I said nothing, he grabbed my head and filled my mouth with his teeth and his wagging, violent tongue, locking my head in place with his arm. His other hand clamped down on my bra—total domination, so not Harlequin Romance. Interesting. I imagined my face on the TV screen, face blurred out to protect my identity.

  Did you lead him on?

  No, I don’t think so. I mean, it all happened so fast.

  I pictured Trent mounting me, pinning my hands back while he ripped my shirt off with his fangs, whipping out his oversize dick and ramming it in. Like the rape scene on Guiding Light where I had secretly rooted for the attacker, which of course I knew was wrong, wrong and perverted. But I liked the way he commanded her to strip, and she obeyed tearfully, slipping off her top, her bare back to the cameras. “Please!” she begged. “Don’t do this.” And then, of course, the Lysol commercial. But before I could beg Trent not to do anything that exciting to me, someone flipped the floodlights on over the driveway, as if from God’s very own watchtower. He let me go, erupting into laughter.

  “Just kidding!” he screeched. “Ha-ha, look at your face!”

  I got out, angry and ready to brag to someone, anyone, about crazy Trent. He had, like, almost raped me! His car peeled away, leaving me breathless.

  Trent left me alone after that. And back in drama class, Jimmy joined the cast. He had a part as the grandfather clock in the spring play.

  “Dong! Dong!” he bellowed.

  “Awesome job,” everybody cheered, overcompensating just a tad.

  As usual, Jimmy was my number one fan. Whenever I walked in, he ran to me with his arms outstretched, calling my name so loud it echoed through the auditorium.

  “Jimmy!” I shouted, as he swallowed me up in a powerful hug, knocking the air out of my lungs.

  “She’s my girlfwend,” he announced, and stood there, beholding me with abject happiness. “My girlfwend.”

  While the class sighed with a collective “aw!” I squirmed in my shoes, flattered and afraid. I took my seat next to him in group anyway, and accepted my fate. At least he was nice to me. At least he wasn’t a dipshit. And with Jimmy’s platonic love restored, maybe my breasts were finally safe, commended unto the eager and omnipotent bosom-loving hands of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

  10 | In Wondershorts We Pray

  “They saw he was a comely babe, and they feared not the king’s edict.”

  —HEBREWS 11:23

  The real and true test of my acting ability was not going to be on a stage at my high school drama class. It was going to be on the beach. Right before our family’s annual summer trip to south Florida, I got a stomach flu that nearly killed me, but left me conveniently emaciated. Thin! And sixteen! In Florida! If I pulled this off, I had a second shot at starring in a commercial for the American dream. It would last about three days.

  But who cared about the inevitable plateau and spiral? I’ve got God on my side, I wrote in my journal in big, loopy girl cursive. My handwriting seemed to match the dimming wattage of my brain. I feel so close to Him these past few days. God, thank you. Thank you for healing me. I thank you for your compassion, your understanding, your love.

  What I meant was, thank you for making me throw my guts up. But I loved kissing God’s ass with flowery love letters, especially when I didn’t have to practice violin or piano for two whole weeks. Yesss.

  I learned an important lesson that summer. Anyone—anyone with a head—could pass for hot, so long as you have an excuse to feel the part, and your audience is mainly composed of drunk frat guys. None of the hunks on the beach knew that fifteen hundred miles away someone was probably drawing a goatee on my yearbook photo. If I could convincingly play the role of cheerleader, then maybe, just maybe, Jesus would let me hook up with a real live football player.

  At high noon I sat in my beach chair at the water’s edge and slipped my toes into the warm, lapping waves. I splashed water on my boobs, smeared oil on my thighs, stretched out my newly visible rib cage, and scanned for the hottest guy I could find. There was a slew of college-aged studs playing beach volleyball, and one of them drew my gaze like a magnet. He was the human equivalent of a Dove Bar, with short black hair and shoulders that swelled above his waist. The more I watched him spike and dive, the more completely beautiful and unattainable he became. It was hard to look away. I held up my book to suggest that I was reading. Then I glanced down at the sun shining on my boobs. The ocean sparkled for miles, and a few yards to my right young men grunted and sweated and flexed. For an hour, I was the Eye of Providence atop the magic triangle—bronzing boobs, brimming waves, black-haired stud. I could’ve stayed there all day. I could’ve stayed there for the rest of my life.

  Then someone served the volleyball out-of-bounds at high velocity and it came rolling right over to me, where it bobbed in the shallow water at my feet. I froze. Holy crap. My stud was jogging over to get it. Within seconds, he was right in front of me, striding into the waves, bending to splash sand off the ball. Shocked, I dropped my paperback into the water. I reached in to fish it out, realizing in a millisecond that (a) his shorts were soft like sweatpants, (b) I had just rendered my prop/book unusable, and (c) I was slapping and clawing my arms like I had a nerve disorder. My fingernails left little white lines in my sunburn.

  “You okay?” he asked, pausing to watch me.

  “Bugs!” I blathered. “They’re eating me alive!”

  Wait, what? What did I just say?

  “I’ve got some spray,” he said kindly. “Want me to get it?”

  He was shirtless. Shirtless in a way that numbed my mind. He had tan freckles, just a few, on the bridge of his nose. He had some kind of tough-sounding accent, picked up from the faraway land of Hot Guy. Boston maybe. Or Philly.

  “Yeah,” I said, confused by the rampant stupidity of my speaking voice. “I mean no, I’m okay! But thanks!”

  Stupid! I thought as I watched him saunter away. Stupid! If bugs were actually biting me, it would’ve been in character to say yes. Why would I have said no? Stupid! Only a demented masochist would say no to a blatant act of kindness. Ugh. Dork. If he ever offered me anything ever again, I vowed, even if it was a slap upside the head, I would say YES YES and YES bring it ON.

  I packed up my chair and retreat
ed to our condo on the top floor. It had a rooftop balcony, and with our family binoculars (voyeurism was an important part of our annual tradition) I could spy on him to my heart’s content. I scanned the beach and zeroed in on the volleyball court, but a cluster of palm trees kept getting in the way. I watched and waited, waited and watched, and finally he emerged with some kid, maybe his little brother. They were throwing a ball back and forth as they jogged along the grassy path. As they passed by below me, I leaned over the rail to zoom in. From this bird’s-eye view, you could see all kinds of things you normally couldn’t. Like, for instance, the shape of his dick swinging back and forth in his soft shorts. Yup, there it was. Holy crap. Sweet Lord above. God almighty.

  It wasn’t even icky. It was the absolute opposite of icky. Angels sang before it. Jesus wept.

  That night’s journal entry, I wrote one line: Thank you, God. Florida is like HEAVEN.

  After a few days of trying to find an in with the one I had knighted Sir Wondershorts, I discovered the missing link to popularity. It was beer. When hot guys drink beer, they will talk to anybody.

  Late one night, I found him with his college crew, drinking Michelobs out of a cooler at the condo pool. They were playing a raucous game of volleyball in the shallow end. I knew all this before I even got there because, like Jane Goodall, I had my binoculars pressed against our screened-in porch, studying their complex social behaviors and erratic migration patterns.

  It was time for some hands-on field research.

  Quickly, I reapplied my makeup, drenched my neck in perfume and my hair in conditioner, leaped into my bathing suit so fast I nearly ripped off the straps, and raced down three flights to the pool. As I approached I became slow, demure, and nonchalant. Casual-like, I stopped to take in the wonder of a palm tree. I paused to consider an ant on the railing. Hello, fellow traveler. Then, I made my red carpet entrance at the pool, perched on the ledge and dipped my feet in. Just here to swim, said my laid-back body language. It’s a free country, right?

  My plan was to relax, and pass the time as all wannabe blonds do, staring directly into shiny lights. And also pondering this one particular muscle on Wondershorts’s body. Later, I would dig through an anatomy book until I located the word for the burn between my legs: deltoids.

  “Hey,” someone called out to me, snapping my trance.

  It was Wondershorts. Talking. Talking to me. With words.

  I stared.

  “Would you mind being our referee? The pool is full of CHEATERS.”

  His voice was low and hoarse. Scruffy. The kind of voice that made you want to cover yourself in cooking oil and piña colada concentrate, and present yourself as a nubile sacrifice to the volcanic gods of beach sex.

  “Me?” I said, almost swallowing my tongue. “Sure, I’ll ref.”

  “What?” laughed his friend. “What? Who’s cheating?”

  “Dude. We need a ref.”

  I had an hour and a half till curfew. I also had Mom sitting in a chair on the screened-in porch, pointing her binoculars directly at my back.

  The game resumed with me somehow miraculously included. One of them reached up to slam the ball. It slipped just over his fingertips and he came down with a huge splash.

  “Touched it!” someone yelled. “He touched it!”

  “Did not!” He laughed.

  Then they began water wrestling. It was like rabid, breaching whales. Only they were tan and glistening, with dark, firm nipples.

  “Ref!” Wondershorts called over the tumult. Two others waded over to me, so close to my legs I could reach out and lick them.

  “You saw that, right?” one of them said, breathing hard.

  “Hmm,” I said, grinning. “What?”

  “If it’s in, you can have a beer.”

  The other: “It was out. And we’ll give you a case to prove it.”

  Wondershorts hung back a bit.

  “Guys,” he said, laughing, “c’mon. She’s a baby. How old are you, sweetheart?”

  “Sixteen.” I smiled at him. “Y’know. Like Princess Aurora.”

  “Huh?”

  He’d called me sweetheart. And baby. Oh, sweet Lord above, Christ almighty, God help me. Oh Jesus! Oh Jesus Jesus Jesus! I love Jesus!

  “How old are you?” I stuttered.

  “Twenty-one.”

  If only I had a camera, to prove this was actually happening. I had friends. Hot older guy friends who liked me. Oh, my goodness, I wanted to move here! We’d all become close and live in the same neighborhood and marry each other and our kids would play ball together and live happily ever after because Florida was a-MAZ-ing!

  Wondershorts looked right at me and flashed a gorgeous smile. I, on the other hand, had no idea what my face was doing.

  “How about you forget the beer,” he said. “If it’s out, you can just have me for the whole night.”

  The catcalls erupted. The tiki torches went out of focus. He liked me. He liked me. The world, a voice in my head whispered, the world has been set aright.

  “That’s it,” yelled another, hopping out. “Beer break!” Then to me: “Want one?”

  There was some other dude on my left, hoisting himself to sit next to me on the ledge.

  “I’m Josh,” he said, dripping on me. “Where you from?”

  “No thanks. I’m drunk,” I lied, staring at them all. “I’m from Connecticut.”

  “All of us and one drunk chick,” he scolded. “Trouble.”

  “Jail bait.”

  I could have any guy on either team. I could pick A, B, or C, or just E and F. Any combination thereof. But I only wanted the alpha. I wanted Wondershorts, who was now getting out of the pool and heading for the hot tub. Without me. My heart sank. He sauntered past me and paused. I looked up at his wet body, slick hair, the grin still playing on his full lips. His thumb was resting on his hip, just above the waistband. With his other hand he beckoned.

  “Wanna come?” he asked.

  And yea, the light shoneth down from heaven and the heavenly hosts did sing greatly.

  “Be right back,” I told what’s-his-name beside me. As I reared back to do a running slide into the hot tub, which was conveniently out of binocular range, my sister suddenly appeared in dry clothes, like a boom box mangling my Bel Biv DeVoe tape. Her eyes conveyed a clear message: Virginity at Risk.

  “Why are you here alone?” she asked. “These guys are total… dicks.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, shocked that she had said dicks out loud. We were so not in Kansas anymore. I used her as cover as I shifted my boobs around for maximum bustiness. “I’m totally fine. You can go back to the room.”

  “I wouldn’t trust these dudes as far as I could throw them. Plus”—she sighed—“Mom told me to come get you.”

  “No!”

  “Just hurry up and come.”

  “What?”

  “You have to come in.”

  “Oh okay, just a sec,” I said, almost knocking her down.

  Just a sec? Hurry up? I had no intention of doing that. This was not swimming laps. This was not practicing the goddamn piano. This was my life-or-death shot at being Sleeping Beauty.

  “Be right there,” I called back to her.

  My sister, possibly inoculated by all the airborne testosterone, became part of the backdrop and I sank into the hot water with Wondershorts.

  “Looks like Sean’s outta the game,” said someone far, far away. The bubbles churned and steamed around us, much like the molten lava feeling in my crotch, much like the Lake of Fire that corresponded to this situation in the afterlife.

  “I’m Sean.” He grinned.

  “Hi, Sean. Nice to meet you. So, where you from?”

  “Philly.”

  “Oh. Philly. I like your accent.”

  “Thanks.” He laughed softly.

  I moved closer to him, so he would know. He said nothing, reading me. Then he ran his hand along my forearm under the water. Such a light touch for such a big guy. We w
ere making conversation about something, I think, but I was distracted. My body had just been plugged into a wall socket in the general area of my vagina, and the circuit board was about to fry. I looked up at him and held his gaze, just long enough to signal a kiss. And with my sister filling in for my conscience, leaning on a bored elbow under the tiki torches, I got to find out what it was like to French kiss a wet, hot guy. I pressed my lips to his and caressed his neck and hair. Soft tongue, hard shoulders, and he smelled like lotion. Better than any dessert I’d ever tasted. I pulled his head into mine. I wanted to tell him with my tongue how agonizing it was to look all week, all my life, and never touch. I ran my fingers down his chest and up his sides, making him breathe harder, his finger hooked around the bikini strings at my hip.

  “Do you want to take a walk?” he whispered, looking past me. The other guys were watching him get me, the coveted prize, and this I found pleasingly in line with National Geographic animal shows. Sean seemed to like it slightly less. “Let’s go somewhere private.”

  “Private,” I repeated, dazed. “Sure.” We stepped out, steaming from head to toe, and made a beeline for our towels. He toweled off, grabbed his room key, and put on some bug spray.

  “Got some if you need it.” He smiled, holding up a can of Off! I sucked in my breath: oh! It was our first inside joke!

  “Be right back,” I said to my sis as we passed. “He just wants to go look for sea turtles! Really superquick!”

  “Wait!” she hissed.

  “Tell Mom we’re looking for sea turtles!” I reminded her.

  Sea turtles. Two feet out of sight we were on top of each other, sucking each other’s faces. He was trying to slip his hands inside my bikini, which would have been marvelous, only I couldn’t let it be marvelous.

  “Just one thing,” I breathed, pulling away from his glorious tongue. “Not here [breasts] or here [crotch], okay?”

  He stared at me, needing a review, but I attacked his body, tangling my legs with his in the sand, straddling the hard-on in his swim trunks like a human C-clamp. When you sit on someone, I reasoned, it’s touching by accident. No foul. I began galloping feverishly toward the horizon, while Sean’s hands stopped obediently short of my end zones.