Luna Rising

by Selene Castrovilla

“Exactly.”

  Sunny shuddered. “Dating sounds horrific to me.” She crunched into another egg roll.

  “Well, it can be… but sometimes it’s nice. I had a great time with Alex until he dumped me.”

  Sunny brushed crumbs from her chest. “And then you were a mess.”

  “Does that mean the whole thing was a waste… because it ended badly?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Look, I was in a low spot in my life, and I shouldn’t have been out there. Things were bound to go wrong. But I’ve done a lot of work on myself. I want to give dating a shot.”

  Sunny shrugged. “I guess you’re the best judge of yourself.” She gave a salute with her chopstick. “Mazel Tov.”

  Luna felt better with Sunny’s blessing. She drank her soup and downed one piece of skewered chicken, even though it was a tad dry.

  They opened their fortune cookies. Sunny’s said: You make the world a brighter place.

  “Must be confused by my name,” said Sunny.

  “You make my world a brighter place,” said Luna.

  “Aw, gee. Ditto for me. Too bad we don’t have lesbian tendencies, or we’d be all set.”

  Luna’s said: Luck is falling hard on you.

  “Talk about a good news/bad news scenario,” said Sunny. “You’d better wear a helmet.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Luna went home and wrote an ad for CraigsList.

  She was looking for honesty, and that’s what she led with: “As Billy Joel sang, honesty is such a lonely word. But I know it’s out there somewhere.”

  She went on to describe herself, and the kind of relationship she wanted.

  “I’ve got a lot of love to give,” she wrote at the end.

  Luna was about to post her ad when Jiminy spoke up. Are you sure you want to do this?

  “Why? You don’t think I should, either?”

  My opinion doesn’t matter, replied Jiminy. The question is: Do you really think you’re ready?

  “I do.”

  Then go for it.

  She hit the “post” button.

  The responses rolled in quick. Most were atrocious: “i just happened to read your post on craigslist and liked what you wrote. that sounds kind of generic, but i really did and was thinking we may share a similar outlook on things and be looking for someone similar. i’d love to find out more.”

  Kind of generic? But that was nothing compared to the other problems with this note. Luna cringed from poor writing skills and grammatical errors. When did capitalization fall by the wayside?

  Some of the men were downright creepy: “I am an NRA shooting instructor looking for a good female friend for LTR and yes SEX also so I am glad to hear you have a VIGINA!!”

  Luna actually hadn’t mentioned she had a vagina. Wasn’t that a given?

  There were also a fair amount of husbands who claimed to be on the verge of divorce: “My marital status is married, but it’s about to change in the following month. Divorce is on the way since this is a no turn back situation.”

  Sure.

  Luna wound up answering no one. She didn’t feel sad about it.

  Proud that she hadn’t reached out to anyone who seemed “off” (which was everyone), she deleted all the e-mails and figured she’d try again in a couple of weeks.

  But then she got another response in her in-box.

  And somehow, before she even opened it, she knew this one was a keeper.

  She was going to have a relationship with this man.

  The subject of his email was: “A bottle of red, a bottle of white, what shall we toast tonight?”

  Inside he wrote: “I’m not Mr. Universe, and far from Bill Gates in wealth, but I have a deep heart, an open mind and lots of room to listen.” He kept his note short, putting in just enough details to reveal that he was actually writing a response for her specific ad.

  He closed with, “Maybe I’ll have enough luck that you will reply. If not, enjoy life and best wishes in your search. He’s out there, trust your heart and a few friends :)”

  His name was Trip.

  She wrote him back.

  When Trip learned that Luna’s screen name was Lady Macbeth, he sent an email quoting Shakespeare. That really got her. He’d played a witch in Macbeth, in college. She loved that.

  One of the excerpts was this, which he’d dubbed his “Shakespeare mix” – a collage of Bard quotes:

  Does thou hint of an inner being that pulls at the

  skin of your mortal costume? I sense you protest too

  much, yet desires are truer then you speak! Unleash if

  you must, but beware of the moonlight, since it has

  the power to fold us within.

  With the name ‘Luna’, she was well aware of the moon’s pull, and perfectly willing to surrender to that higher power.

  He also wrote, “You do know, in order to be a Lady Macbeth, there needs to be a Macbeth.” How intoxicating! Problems aside, Macbeth and his wife had a tremendous passion for each other.

  But they also had a pretty bad ending.

  All in all, Macbeth was one of the darkest tragedies in literature.

  Luna wrote back suggesting she and Trip try a romantic comedy, like All’s Well That Ends Well.

  As their electronic conversations progressed, Trip talked about his roots in the “wilds” of Jamaica, Queens, before moving to Long Island. His early years were spent in a three-story apartment building near the El, a large cemetery and a rock quarry. They had a small back yard, in which they housed a pet chicken named Fred.

  He wrote about the theatrical productions he’d worked in during college, both on-stage and back, doing scenery and technical work. Besides Macbeth, he’d had roles in Blood Wedding, Billy Budd, Bye, Bye Birdie, and Seven Nuns in Las Vegas.

  Here are some other things Luna learned about Trip:

  Stats on Trip

  Name: Lucas Tripodi

  Age: 49

  Ethnic background: Italian and Spanish.

  Marital Status: Never married.

  Children: None.

  Body: Looked pretty good from the pictures.

  Hair: Nearly none.

  Occupation: Installing cameras and digital video recorders for security systems (where he secured the bulk of his income), fixing computers, light contracting, pyrotechnics, and anything else his clients asked him to do (if he didn’t know how to do it, he figured it out.)

  Favorite physical activities: Scuba diving, dumpster diving.

  Other likes: TV crime dramas, Halloween, selling things on EBay.

  Dislikes: He seemed to have a problem relaxing.

  Religion: Another lapsed Catholic. He didn’t follow the tenets, but he still believed in a traditional God.

  Favorite writers: N/A – Books put him to sleep, literally.

  Favorite Dessert: Pistachio ice cream.

  Favorite saying: “Better late than never.”

  Typically, Trip composed his emails when he finally got home. One night at 2 a.m. he wrote, “I know, WOW, I work too much.”

  They IM’d frequently, something Luna usually found aggravating because it was hard to type correctly and keep up with the conversation. Somehow, with Trip, it was fun. They were sending questions back and forth, and he wrote, “Tats?”

  Unfamiliar with computer lingo, Luna didn’t understand that the question was short for “Do you have any tattoos?” She thought of Tweety, and typed, “Putty tat?”

  He wrote, “Where?”

  She wrote, “What?”

  Finally, Luna realized he’d meant ‘tattoos’, but their banter reminded her of a character on the ’70s TV show Welcome Back Kotter, famous for such muddled conversations.

  She wrote, “Now we are Vinny Barbarino.”

  Luna’s communications with Trip turned sensual pretty fast. She couldn’t help it. If she felt it, she expressed it. It was part of that honesty thing. What some called boundaries, she called lies. It started with a simple reference from Tri
p at the end of an email in which he was sharing a chunk of his history. He wrote, “In the next chapter, I’ll give you some food, fun and sex, but now I have to go to work.”

  She wrote him back, “Gosh, you had to go and mention sex. I was doing so well and now my mind is ablaze…”

  He responded, “Mind ablaze, hmmmmmmmm, DO TELL!”

  Luna told.

  Oh God, said Jiminy. Just when I thought we were making progress.

  But Luna was too caught up in sexy talk to hear Jiminy.

  Modems sizzling, Luna and Trip agreed to meet in that Mecca of on-line first-date spots: Starbucks. Well-traversed and providing caffeinated stimulation, the cozy, earthy coffeehouse was perfect. She didn’t love their coffee, but it wasn’t great coffee she was after. And anyway, who could really taste anything but anticipation when they were about to meet someone?

  She’d arrived early, ordering a vente soy misto (steamed soy milk tamed the harsh coffee to the point where she could endure it), and parked herself at a table near a power outlet for her laptop. The plan was to write. Edit, actually. She was too excited to type anything new.

  But the editing wasn’t going well either. For some reason the persistent whirring of foaming milk and the grrring of the grinder churned through her thoughts, although she’d tuned sounds out countless times before. Between whirs and grrrs, she kept running the same sentence through her head over and over, trying to focus on the words instead of Trip’s impending entrance, and failing.

  Nervous wasn’t the right word, but she felt something along those lines.

  In one of his letters, Trip said he’d always thought he had time. He’d assumed that down the road he’d meet someone who clicked. Then suddenly, there he was: down the road and alone. He’d written, “I guess I’ll just have to hope that things work out with you.”

  She felt like that, too.

  Down the road and alone, hoping things would work out with Trip.

  He texted her. The “da-da-da-DA!” tones made her jolt. She wasn’t used to text messages; she didn’t understand why people didn’t just call and talk.

  Before Trip, only Sunny had texted her once, and she’d never read the message because she didn’t know how to open it. But she’d recently gotten a new phone which popped messages right on the screen. Trip’s message said, “Are you ready?”

  Luna tried to write back but wasn’t yet versed in quick return texts. She was fumbling over tiny touch-screen letters when Trip strolled in with a quirky, endearing smile on his face. Luna felt this weird pang of knowing, like they weren’t strangers at all. She laughed and said, “I was trying to answer you, but couldn’t quite work that out.”

  Trip wasn’t particularly tall but carried himself high. He stepped to the counter and snagged a green tea. Then they relocated to a more secluded section, sinking into purple velvet armchairs and chatting about all those small-talk topics people use when they first meet. The weather, the movies, news of the day: preambles to any meaningful conversation. They talked about the pimple on her nose she’d warned him about in advance; he said he wouldn’t have noticed. All this was kind of like wading at the edge of the water before plunging into the waves. And as though she were in the tide, she felt a tug. It wasn’t sexual – well, it was partly, but this was more.

  Trip was lean and well-toned, looking a lot younger than forty-nine. The one thing that revealed his age was his hair. What was left of it was curly grey, circling the lower outskirts of his head. If Luna were him, she’d ditch it. Bald was sexy. But it was his head…

  He eyed her outfit. “Do you shop in thrift stores?” he asked.

  She glanced down at her off –the–shoulder silky blouse, recently bought at retail. “Do I look like I shop in thrift stores?”

  He shrugged. “I always shop in them.” He tapped on his jeans. “Bought these there.”

  Her phone rang. Actually, Ozzy Osborne shrieked, “Allllll aboard! Hahahaha,” the opening to Crazy Train, her ring tone. It was Sunny, calling to confirm that Luna hadn’t been hacked to pieces by a maniac date.

  “Alive!” Luna proclaimed.

  “Cool! Call if you need me.”

  They hung up.

  Then Luna told Trip she wanted to do what they’d talked about, via IMs. She wanted to go to the beach.

  “Really?” he asked.

  Really, she did.

  Luna felt so secure that she got into Trip’s car, a nondescript grey mid-sized sedan filled with paraphernalia for his alarm and computer businesses. He grabbed some stuff from the passenger seat and chucked it in the back.

  The beach was five minutes away, if that. He parked by the boardwalk and they got out. From the other side the ocean called. As they walked, Trip asked if she was a Democrat or Republican. She knew he sometimes listened to Rush Limbaugh and therefore figured him a Republican, but answered truthfully that she leaned way more to the donkeys.

  “Me too,” he answered.

  Then why did he listen to Rush Limbaugh?

  He said, “I like to hear how the other half thinks.”

  They hit sand, passing through the beach entrance under the boardwalk and tramping through the mounds like clumsy camels. The sky glowed with sparkling stars. A new moon had yet to take shape.

  Luna breathed fresh air in deep.

  When they reached the hill piled high for the lifeguards with the chair on top, they dropped. Him first, on his back. Then her, on her stomach, on top of him. The cotton fabric of his polo shirt pressed through her sheer blouse.

  Their energies were mingling. The current shifted, like when music switches tempo. It had spice now, zinging through it. An electro-magnetic tango.

  The waves in front of them roared and rolled in and out, in and out. The air smelled like a beginning.

  A little chilly, she pushed against him tighter. He felt so solid.

  He said, sputtering, “I’ve got sand in my mouth… Now you’ll never kiss me…”

  He couldn’t talk anymore because she kissed him. It was the perfect kiss, despite the grit, or maybe the grit enhanced it. It was the perfect fit, his tongue nestled in hers. Kissing him like she’d never kissed anyone, she wrapped her tongue around his in a long embrace.

  Afterwards he said, “Boy, I hope you don’t suck my nipples like that.”

  She laughed. “I won’t.”

  His bristly whiskers brushed her cheek. She felt protected.

  She kissed him again.

  For some crazy reason they talked about old lovers. She told him about her sham marriage, and the men (some of them) that followed.

  Trip talked about the endless supply of sex he’d had in the eighties, an overload which anaesthetized him. As a DJ at a local club, he’d had his pick of women.

  He told her about one lover who’d been wearing glitter, how the bed was coated with it, the whole room covered in it, glimmering like Tinkerbell had exploded in there.

  And he talked about the girl he’d loved three years ago - who’d suddenly fallen out of love with him and asked him to collect his things.

  Maybe they’d shared all this to cleanse themselves, to make a fresh beginning like the air suggested. Or maybe it was a way to admit they were scared, without actually saying it.

  Then they pushed their pasts aside and kissed some more.

  The craggy sound of an idling motor interrupted them a while later. Loosening their embrace, they found themselves caught in the searing white beam of a searchlight, attached to a police jeep. Stunned and blinking, Luna and Trip were, at least, fully clothed. “Beach is closed,” a shadowy female voice behind the light said. Only her elbow was showing, crooked from the jeep window. “You gotta go.”

  Evicted from their place in the sand, Luna and Trip lurched back to the exit, giddy and holding hands. Entangled, they stumbled even more, but to Luna the walk felt so smooth it was as if they were floating. Luna knew from Trip’s emails that he’d always wanted a child. He’d told her in an IM about a woman who’d aborted his baby,
confessing this to him only years later. Luna told him that down the road, she’d consider another baby. He liked that.

  But, unromantic as it was, she said they’d have to ‘spin the sperm’ to ensure a girl.

  He laughed, and said that would be fine.

  In the car she asked, “You think we could find somewhere to park?”

  “You wanna park? No one’s asked me to park since high school.”

  She did want to park, so they headed to a lot by the bay next to the recreation center. She worried about it being too public. He said not to.

  He moved his seat back and she climbed on his lap, facing him. He wore a small silver hoop that she found incredibly sexy.

  “I like your earring,” she said.

  “Thank you!” he said, sounding quite pleased. “I got it three years ago. It was my niece’s idea. She said, ‘Unk, when you’ve had your heart broken, an earring’s just the thing.’”

  He showed Luna the woven bracelet knotted around his wrist. “This is from her. She met the Dalai Lama, and asked him to bless it for me.” Luna ran her fingers over the colorful threads, and his surrounding skin. Maybe it was the power of suggestion, but she felt centered, like balance was tingling into her tips.

  “I never take it off,” Trip said.

  He gave her that little, secretive smile again, lifting the corners of his mouth ever so covertly. He had glistening brown eyes with beautiful, flirty eyelashes. When he focused on her there was such magnetism between them, it really was like they already knew each other. They kissed again, and the energy level rose. He reached into her pants, touching the small of her back, and she climaxed.

  He moved across her body, touching different parts and making her climax again and again. He asked her to take her pants off; she was nervous, but did it.

  There was no denying him.

  He didn’t want anything in return. She asked, adding, “You know I’ll do whatever you want.”

  He said, “Just enjoy yourself.”

  Sand sifted around them, moving from their clothes and bodies to the car. Luna’s energy swirled and surged, relentless and euphoric to have found a mate. The window was open but still their bodies overheated. Trip said, “That’s it! This shirt’s coming off!” She helped him out of it, tugging it over his head and across his outstretched arms. Then he held her against him, against his chest. She nuzzled his neck. He smelled sweet and tangy, like butterscotch pudding.