by Paloma Meir
“... spurned by his lover, knowing his heart would never mend. He walked, not looking back, into the warm goo, his heart so cold...”
“You don’t really believe that,” I laughed, almost doubling over.
“It’s true, someone told me once. I think it was my 4th grade science teacher,” she replied in a very serious tone, her wide eyes dreamy, lost in the romantic retelling of her story.
“You’re not big on critical thinking are you?” Her eyes met mine, and that was it.
“Stop it, Serge,” she laughed.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled her close to me, and held her in my arms, my lips on hers. A lifetime of waiting, over. I kissed her gently, a million miles away from my aggressive sexual thoughts. She was tender, delicate, her mouth moving with mine. An otherworldly feeling overcame me. Time that had only ever moved forward before, suddenly slowed down, and reversed. The past was flying through my mind.
I let go of her, not knowing what I felt, but seeing whatever it was reflected back in her soft, lulling expression. Then she opened her mouth.
“I don’t want to bore you with talk of Danny, but I plan to get back together with him very soon. I don’t need you to fall in love with me like everyone else does. It’s a pain and would be awkward because you’re my friend.”
Haughty? She got haughty with me? That wasn’t going to happen, Ms. Moreau.
“It would be a pain? I’m not in love with you. I just want to fuck you hard, but I know that won’t happen. So don’t worry.” I regretted saying the words as soon they left my mouth. The mouth that had just kissed the true goddess that was her. She jerked backwards surprised by my words as much as I was, but then she softened. The warmth returned to her eyes, her mouth slightly open, inviting.
“Don’t speak coarsely to me. Kiss me one more time, but that’s it.” Not a problem Zelda. Back in my arms, I held her, kissing her, wanting to be everything for her. I ran my hand against her back and without thinking, my hands traced the side of her coat-covered breast. She let go of me, but did not step backwards.
“Don’t get carried away.” We stood so close together, our noses were practically touching.
“Your 'Danny idea' is not going to work, sweetheart. He is supremely angry with you and he has a girlfriend.” I swatted her nose, hoping to wake her up her up from her deranged childish fantasy.
“He’s had a million girlfriends, but he only loves me. I sent him a letter. I’m sure he’ll call me soon.” I had no doubt she was right. He did love her, but he wasn’t going to be with her again. It wasn’t a healthy love. He was clear on that.
“You could do better.” Me, Zelda. You could do better with me.
“I’m not kissing you again until you cut off that hair. It’s embarrassing. I’m worried people will think I’m a pothead standing with you like this.”
“You don’t want to be my Ganja Queen? I’ll go home and cut it off if you kiss me one more time.” My hair Zelda, that’s all you ask for? Next time ask for my arm.
“Fair enough.” Back in my arms, my mouth moving over hers. The sweetness of our kiss punctuated with tender pecks on the lips. The lost in the universe feeling fell over me again, but that wasn’t all. I was aware of the physical sensations coursing through my body, my blood rushing quickly, filling my groin. My massive erection on par with the day I had my way with myself while looking at her picture. I moved my hips away from her, not wanting to alarm her. Her hand ran lightly down my back bringing us back together, my groin against her. She did not and nor did I, move against it.
“Let’s go. Tomorrow my hair will be gone. I’ll take you to Chinatown. Good for you?" The grey skies above us opened, sending a sprinkle of rain down upon us. I let go of her and led her towards the parking lot.
“I wonder if this is what high school was like,” she asked as she linked her arm through mine.
“We have to work on your communication skills,” I patted her head and ran my hand through her angel hair. “What do you mean?”
“Well, we just kissed. I feel frustrated inside. Sexual frustration? That’s what this feeling would be. I’m used to being satisfied. Even with Danny in the very beginning long before we had sex. He would take care of me with his hand. I never went through the dating years of just kissing people that my friends went through.”
“What?” I stopped and abruptly turned to face her, shocked by her words. Sex was not something we had ever in our lives talked about.
“He would kiss me, and then use his fingers... he said it’s not healthy to be frustrated, so I was never...”
“My question was rhetorical,” I interrupted her, not wanting to think about my fingers in her folds. There was only so much I could take as a man. “Do you always say such deeply personal things to people? I don’t know what to say. I’ll satisfy you, Zelda.”
“Was that inappropriate? What’s the point of any of it if you can’t be honest? Thanks for the offer, but I like this feeling.” She shrugged as if I were the prudish one in this conversation.
“You want a high school experience?” I put my hand on her waist, pulled her body against mine.
“It wasn’t on my list, but yes that would be one of the things I would like to have before going off with Danny for good.”
“I had no idea how strange you were until today. My whole life I thought you were this cute innocent kid. I’m going to give you your high school experience.”
“Really? That’s so sweet. I’ll have to tell Danny when we get back together. I don’t think it will bother him, but I can’t make any promises about that.” At the mention of Danny’s name, I released her.
“You seemed so together with your business and living in Spain with your older man for all those years, having a baby. This new side to you is throwing me off. You have some strange ideas about love and sex.”
“Oh forget it then Serge. You’re too narrow minded for me.” She turned away to continue our walk to the car. I took her hand.
“No, I’m not going to forget it.” I couldn’t even if I tried, “We’ll do this. You and me, high school. One rule. I don’t want to hear about Danny. No talk of plans. I had enough of that on his end. I’ll let him know about us, but no questions from you. Deal?” This was for me. She could work out her infantile feelings for Danny on her own time.
She tilted her head and looked at me for a moment, her kissable lips pursed, a mischievous sparkle in her eye. “Okay, but I don’t want to call it a high school experience. Let’s call it a casual arrangement. I’ve never had that either. I know what I said about your hair and expect you to do it tonight, but I want you to kiss me right now.”
Happy to Zelda, in my arms again, my hand in her hair, kissing her endlessly, until the stars burned out in the night sky. If it weren’t for the rain, that’s what would have happened.
Chapter Twenty-One
I thought of how she felt in my arms as I drove down Sunset Blvd. towards home. I couldn’t imagine how I had ever thought of dragging her off like a caveman to tear off her clothes and fuck her in semi-public places. The softness of her, her vulnerable nature washed away those thoughts. I only wanted tenderness with her. It didn’t matter either way. Our game was strictly a kissing game. Satisfaction, as she stated, was off the menu of activities and that was surprisingly okay with me.
I felt something close to blissful until I turned the corner on Sunset to PCH. Looming down the road was my home, with my brooding, anger-prone friend inside. The reality of the conversation I would be having in a few minutes hit me hard as thoughts of Zelda slipped away.
I reminded myself how many times he had stated that he had wished something had gone on between the two of us before they met, how it would have taken the pressure off their relationship. Completely different circumstances now, but all that had really happened was a few kisses. Other than ten days of phone calls, and one night together or I guess two, they had been apart for over seven years. He had a girlfriend, she had a baby, time
had passed. A million excuses and rationalizations went through my head as I pulled into our driveway. They were all worthless.
I walked into the house defeated. I knew my day with Zelda was just a day, and wouldn’t be repeated. Danny would see to that, maybe even come to his senses, and they would be together as she wanted. It wouldn't be good for him in the long run. His love for her had long ago turned to obsession. I didn’t see how one could turn back from that.
I dreaded the end of Zelda more than the conversation that would end it. Nervous I stood in the entryway and watched Danny out on the balcony scraping the wax off his boards. I would have been happy to never interrupt him.
I bought myself a few minutes by going into the kitchen for the scissors. A promise was a promise. “We need to talk. I’ll be right back,” I yelled out to him as I stomped into the bathroom.
My hand shook as I cut the dreadlocks off. I had never really liked them. They had a tendency to smell, but they had taken on a strong emotional importance over the years. The gnarled knots fell into the sink.
My hair was short, very short, not more than an inch anywhere, with little longer bits sticking up. I had never had short hair. As a boy I had worn it longer in the front and had liked to push it back when solving the complicated mathematical theorems. In college and Peru it had been around my shoulders, the habit of pushing it back ingrained, triggering my mind to process analytically.
I went back to the kitchen having lost interest in whatever my hair looked like. It would grow, bigger problems to deal with, I thought as I returned the scissors to the drawer in the kitchen. “Danny, I know you don’t want to talk about this, but we have to.”
“Zelda, didn’t like your dreadlocks? Predictable. Do what you need to do, Serge.” He looked up at me with his simmering anger, snorted, and went back to scraping his boards. I was tempted to say okay and go back to my room. Live my life how I wanted to live it.
“It’s not what you think. I don’t know what it is.” Is what I said instead because it would have been good to talk to him about my complicated feelings. I knew that wasn’t going to happen.
“Enjoy the tailspin.” Thanks Danny.
“She loves you. She thinks you two are getting back together. Did she write you another letter?” I would not proceed without everything being out in the open.
“Tell her to stop texting me before I say something she doesn’t want to hear. No Serge, we are not getting back together. Why doesn’t she go back to France? Or Nepal? Anywhere off my continent.”
“Tell me you mean this, and you’re not speaking out of your crazy anger. You mean more to me than her, in that way at least.”
“I’m never going to get past my hate.”
“Did you read her letter?” Because some closure between the two of you would monumentally improve the quality of my life, I did not say.
“I threw it away.”
“I’m not going to sleep with her. It’s not about that.”
“Well then you’re missing out. That’s her skill set. If she ever lost her money, she could make a good living. I would pay for it, if it meant she would go away after.”
“You’re crossing a line. Pull it together dude. She’ll always be my friend.” It took me a moment to realize he had compared the sweetest Zelda to a prostitute. He’s lucky to have lived through that.
“Word of advice? She doesn’t like slang. Don’t do your dude, bro, man around her. You can’t curse around her either. It flips her out.” His voice cracked as he spoke, but I didn’t care. Fuck him.
“The dude, bro, man was for you.” He seriously thought I spoke like a “bro” outside of my time with him? I went to MIT, graduated first in my class at law school. Fucking idiot, I thought as I slammed the door to my room.
…
I woke the next morning late, purposely, to avoid the asshole I shared a home with, not because of late night phone calls. I took a quick shower, ran my hand through my wet hair, trying to keep the stray bits down. They wanted to stick straight up. I shrugged at the hopelessness of it and headed to the kitchen to make my morning vegetable shake before going to pick up Zelda.
I opened the door to find Danny, sitting at the dining table with architecture plans all around him, his computer open, busy. I ignored him and headed towards the door. I would get my breakfast elsewhere.
“Serge, you can’t go out like that. Your hair, it’s worse than the dreadlocks. Transient hair, dude.” He closed his computer and leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, staring at me.
“I’ll head up to Barbara later this week.” Barbara was his hairdresser up at the Country Mart, cute with red hair and a lot of boyfriend problems. “I haven’t had a real haircut since Boston...” I stopped myself from making unnecessary conversation.
“Dude, you’re not leaving the house like that.” He got up out of the chair and went to the kitchen, took the scissors from the drawer. “Come on, sit down.” He patted the barstool by the kitchen counter.
“Okay,” I sat down more out of curiosity than for the haircut.
I could feel him pulling up the long strands and snipping, running his hands through my hair, gripping a section and evening out the lack of symmetry. He didn’t speak, and neither did I. My anger towards him dissolved as he fixed the mess I had made of my hair.
“You’re good to go buddy,” he patted my shoulder, and I got up, not looking back, not thanking him.
“Serge,” he called out as I opened the front door.
“What Danny?”
“Nothing,” he waved me away.
“Tell me you don’t want me to see her, and I won’t do it Danny.”
“Like I said, do what you need to do,” he ran his hand through his hair. “You going to be home for dinner? I was going to make lamb, cauliflower soup. Sarah’s coming over around 7:00.”
“Sounds really good Danny. I’ll be home.”
…
“Serge, you did it...” She cooed to me as she jumped in my car and ran her fingers through my hair. It felt pretty good, nobody, not even myself had been able to that in years. “I don’t normally like short hair. It reminds me of the military, but I like in on you. You look like a boy again, baby faced.”
“Boy? Baby faced? I’m a man, a manly one at that. But okay, boyish. I’ll take you somewhere boyish today. We’re going to go bowling... Mar Vista has a good bowling alley, pies too, in the restaurant. You can have a slice of every flavor.” I leaned over to strap her seatbelt over her, something she lost the habit of with her private car in Paris.
“Bowling, how American. What fun.” She ran her hand through my hair again.
“Yes, very American.” I started the car up.
“Serge, aren’t you forgetting something?”
“I don’t think so.” Distracted by the perfection of her I pulled out of the parking spot and almost sideswiped another car, “Sorry about that Zelda.”
“Serge, look at me," I turned her way. “You forgot to kiss me.”
“Yes I did,” I slammed on the brakes and pulled back to the curb, “And it won’t happen again.” I kissed her, holding her close for a long time before driving off to the bowling alley.
I kissed her at the bowling alley. I kissed her at the Natural History Museum. I kissed her at The Science Center. I kissed her at Planetarium. I kissed her at The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, they hadn’t liked that, so we walked over to Olvera Street around the corner. No problems with our affections on that crowded tourist street.
One day we only spoke French to each other, another day Spanish. The Spanish was difficult. She spoke with an aristocratic inflection. Mine was peasant-like from traveling through all the small towns in Peru.
She would tell her long-winded stories with me as her enraptured audience. She played with my hair as she spoke. I would kiss the tip of her nose, run my finger along the line of her lips, holding her close, burying my face in her neck below her ear, the sweetest smell of cinnamon and sugar.<
br />
She made a plan for us to picnic on a ridge off of Mulholland she always liked near her old high school. I had woken up early and taken the Patent Bar Exam. She was thoughtful, knowing I would be tired from the early hour I wasn’t used to. The stress of the test.
I lay upon the blanket staring up at the bright blue sky, a little tired, a little quiet thinking about the Bar Exam coming up, my job looming. I questioned why I had ever wanted to be a lawyer. She sat next to me reading an old romance book.
I reached over and rubbed her knee, to hear a sweet sigh emanate from her. I couldn’t imagine not spending my days with her, of having to work at the pace that had been part of my life plan for years.