by Lori Perkins
At that moment, though, I also caught Jessica looking into my husband’s eyes just a moment too long. She touched his arm as she made another joke, and I didn’t know what to think. But try as I might, I couldn’t force myself to feel offended. The truth was, he was enjoying the attention from this couple and so was I. My husband always made it clear he loved me dearly. He was absolutely crazy about me—and I about him—but it was nice to feel wanted by someone new. It was nice to feel the dizziness of excitement as we talked to strangers who desired us. I remembered a time when we were dating that Dan and I felt like this all the time. I wondered if we could find a way to get that back, or if all of our quiet evenings alone would continue to feel dead.
Just then, Jessica noticed several guests preparing to leave. Despite the loud chatter and boisterous dancing from some couples present, it was getting very late in the evening. She excused herself with a smile, and a small nod toward Dan, and made her way over to the door with her husband in tow.
By that point, Dan and I were already glowing. After several drinks and more flirtatious glances than we’d enjoyed in years, there was definitely more than a little flush to our cheeks. We turned to one another and shared a feeling of disbelief at the way this evening was shaping up. And the night was still young.
The music came to a sudden halt. Every head at the party immediately lifted, scanning the room for the source of the interruption. It was Jessica they found standing by the stereo, her hand raised to request everyone’s attention.
“Well,” she said confidently. “The time has come for some of us to leave.” She looked toward the group of people standing ready by the front door. “Yes,” she said. “It’s time for us to go our separate ways … but I do hope some of us have made some new friends.” As she said this last part, she looked at two people near her who were kissing.
The woman giggled back at Jessica’s remark. “And now,” she announced. “My husband will take over from here.”
All eyes turned to Jeff who had taken his place by the large bowl of keys. I watched him as he spoke, draining some more of my drink and thinking about how perfect he looked standing there in that collared shirt with his sleeves rolled up.
It was only as I began to sense emotion from my husband standing beside me that Jeff’s words began to register. This was a swingers party. Good Lord, I thought. When Jessica asked me how long I had been ‘in the lifestyle,’ I thought she was talking about commuting to the city! It was clear now what was going to happen. The men at the party would all draw keys from the bowl—and spend tonight with the woman who matched them.
Suddenly, I felt bewildered. I could feel Dan tensing up beside me, as well. This was unlike anything I had ever gotten mixed up in before. Yet, all the same, I couldn’t stop myself from looking around the room and thinking about the possibilities. I felt a smile creep across my face as I noticed Dan looking, too. Secretly, I was thankful he hadn’t left the moment all of this began. Far from it. In fact, he was watching all of this unfold as breathlessly as I was.
Every man at the party took their turn, starting with the group by the door.
Eventually, the host himself reached into the bowl and came out holding a set of keys held together with a small silver bird. The key ring was mine. Unmistakably. I would recognize it anywhere. A hush fell over the party as he held them up and no one stepped forward to claim them.
Our host knew whom they belonged to, though. When there was no response, Jeff turned and looked at me. He stared me down, and I knew this pairing hadn’t happened by chance. He had picked my keys deliberately.
I was sure that secretly my husband loved the idea of going through with something as bold as this. He was longing to pair up with someone at the party and have a wild night alone, just as I was. He was longing to sate himself with any piece of lively untasted flesh he saw here. So was I. But I also knew he couldn’t do anything—couldn’t even pretend to entertain the idea—until I expressed an interest first.
In a way, there was nothing else I could do. I stepped forward and claimed my keys, taking my place beside our host. My palms felt hot and sweaty, and I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt this alive. This was the nervousness of a first date, the blush of a first kiss, and a hunter’s resolve all wrapped into one. I watched nervously as my husband and the other men drew keys, but mostly I was thinking about the stranger beside me. Tonight, I would find out how his body felt as I bent it into shapes he had never considered. I would find out how he tasted. As I thought about the possibilities, I could barely stand to wait.
The house emptied quickly. I nodded to Dan as he left. Even Jessica decided to go out with her partner instead of staying in. So in the end we were all alone. The two of us turned the stereo on again, and this time we danced. Our dance was slow, and the two of us didn’t speak at all. I curled my arm around the back of his neck. The gorgeous stranger kissed me. And then he said he wanted more.
So I indulged him.
My response was primal. It was urgent. As our kiss lingered, I ran my fingernails hard down his back. I watched him flinch and saw blood on my palm. Then I reached for him, and I didn’t hold back. I nibbled at his ear, tasting him in that one delicious spot for now—but eventually I knew I would move on to more vital areas. Jeff was already unbuttoning his pants, expecting me to focus there at any moment, but I had other plans first.
I was determined to find out what was in that head of his …one way or another.
Did he like me at all? Maybe now I could pick his brain and find out.
Jeff’s brains. And they were all mine. Now my fantasy really was coming true. As I gave into my hunger, I wondered if Dan had found someone as satisfying.
That morning, I didn’t linger. I took a few swallows of coffee and pulled on my clothes. I looked at the aftermath of the night before and smiled at the impressive mess we had left behind. I wanted to lie playfully back down on the rumpled sheets and tumble there again, remembering the delicious flesh of abs and shoulder blades and thighs I had indulged in the night before. Yet even if last night had been an incredible adventure, I knew this was not where I wanted to be.
I knew what I needed, and I knew who I loved. I whispered a happy goodbye to the body resting on the bed, then made my way back over to the house next door. I raised a hand in front of my eyes and squinted into the orange slant of morning sun as I walked.
This time, every step on the way felt light. I was giddy. Girlish, even.
I pulled out the ring of keys and twisted one in the lock. Only seconds later, before I had even closed the door behind me, Dan burst inside. We smiled at each other with excited knowing grins, like two cats ready to pounce.
Dan and I had been stumbling through life as the living dead, but now we felt revitalized. He kissed me right there, hugging me close and lifting me enthusiastically off the floor. When he pulled away, I could see red on his mouth. Was that lipstick? I wondered. But it didn’t matter. He walked me down the hall quickly. My dress was unzipped before we even reached the bedroom door. He tossed me onto the bed like a shopping bag filled with new toys. I squirmed and watched him eagerly as he quickly stripped off his tie, my eyes asking him for more.
He sprang forward then, pinning me with his body, and we both had much more fun struggling for the prime position on top than we had ever had avoiding it. Eventually, he pushed his way inside, and I balled my hands into fists. He rolled roughly on top of me and held my wrists just above my head.
We had been reminded of what we wanted from one another, and now we seized it. We weren’t zombies anymore. As he kissed me back, I knew it was true. All we craved was something spontaneous. All we had needed in this relationship was some new blood.
Last Times at Ridgemont High
by Kilt Kilpatrick
For one beautiful moment, I thought I’d walked in on the beginnings of a sex party right there in the teacher’s lounge. Mrs. Hastings, the Home Ec Teacher, lay stretched out on the table, bac
k arched and stylish skirt scrunched up around her waist, while Principal Caruthers enthusiastically buried his face into her lap, wrestling with her sleek pantyhosed legs. At the other end of the table her pretty T.A., Ms. Foster, held her in a tight embrace and nuzzled the nape of her neck. Mrs. Hastings writhed and gasped as the young blonde pawed her sweater and ran her hands through the older woman’s hair for better purchase on her neck and throat. Mrs. Hastings made soft noises as her resistance failed, and she gave up altogether trying to push Ms. Foster away.
Then the moment of wishful thinking passed, and my perception of the scene flipped inside out like a trick of origami. The wonderful retro swinging ‘70s orgy I thought I was seeing vanished, and I realized what was really happening. It got ugly so fast; the next moment all blood and horrible gobbling noises and poor, poor Mrs.
Hastings. I think I must’ve made some choked sound of horror, because Principal Caruthers and Ms. Foster instantly looked up from their lunch break and spotted me.
Their mouths and teeth were stained with blood and sticky twists of half-chewed flesh, and their eyes were an eerie dead-fish-belly white. They let out a ghoulish keening screech that grated on my hackles like the awful shriek of a coffin nail pulled out by a claw hammer. And before I knew it, they had abandoned the remains of Mrs. Hastings and closed in on me. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Just a few short hours before, the world was still here and it was just another school day in paradise at Pleasant Valley High. Which meant of course that life completely sucked and I was ready and downright eager for someone to just kill me already. The day’s allotment of humiliation, boredom, and degradation was being dished out at regular intervals, right on schedule. One particular highlight came in Ms.
Baymiller’s English class. Now, normally English class was something of an oasis in the howling wilderness of high school for me. Not only was it my best subject, but from my seat I had a stellar view of Dee Dee Carrington, head cheerleader and magically delicious über-babe.
Her short pleated skirts and tight sweaters were legendary, but when she was in her two-piece cheerleading outfit, like today, she was a downright superhero goddess.
She was hard not to look at. I loved watching her dazzling honey-blond hair in that wedge cut, the way she tapped her luscious lips with her pencil when she was thinking, the way she sometimes idly toyed with her earlobe with her head lightly cocked to one side, the way she dangled her sandal off her foot as she sat back in her chair. I lived for those days when a chance exposure of skin would let me catch a glimpse of the perfect little dimples down in the small of her back. But what chance did a normal guy like me ever have with a hottie like her?
Pretty Ms. Baymiller, whom I always secretly thought had a quiet classic brunette hotness herself, had been leading us in a discussion of the Romance poets, and was reading from William Blake’s “America: a Prophecy.” In hindsight, one particular passage stuck out at me:
“The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations; The grave is burst, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up; The bones of death, the cov’ring clay, the sinews shrunk and dry’d.
Reviving shake, inspiring move, breathing! awakening!
Spring like redeemed captives when their bonds and bars are burst…”
In the middle of her recital, a heavy hand thumped me on the shoulder. I jumped at the touch and turned around. It was Todd Brookshire glaring at me, of course. He was the burly, buzz-cut, no-necked star of the football team, and his steely pit bull eyes held pure menace. He slipped me a note without a word, and jerked his head at me in what seemed to be a command to turn around again. I obeyed and surreptitiously opened the folds of paper. It said:
I WANT TO FUCK U SO BAD
I stared at it, bug-eyed. He flicked the back of my head, hard, and his voice hissed in my ear: “Don’t be a spaz, McGowan! Hand it to Dee Dee!” Ms. Baymiller paused for a beat to peer over her book, then continued. No one else appeared to notice. Reluctantly, I folded it up again and as inconspicuously as I could manage, leaned over and stretched out my hand to try to get Dee Dee’s attention. She remained oblivious. Slowly, slowly, I reached out and only just managed to poke her upper arm with a corner of the note.
Disaster. Dee Dee yelped in surprise, shrill enough to startle the entire class. She turned on me, her normally delightsome face in a fierce death stare at the intrusion.
“Jeremy!” Ms. Baymiller called out, freezing me instantly in place. “What is that note?
Bring it here.”
“It’s nothing, Ms. Baymiller.”
“Come on, let’s have it.”
I panicked. If she read it I was dead. “Honest, ma’am. It’s nothing. It’s just—”
My mind raced to come up with an reasonable alternative. “It’s just … I—I wanted to ask Dee Dee to the senior prom.” Oh my God, I thought. Did I really just say that? The class erupted in a howl of laughter and Dee Dee’s face radiated outraged horror.
“Jerry McGowan, you pantywaist dorkwad geek,” she said, dripping disgust. “I wouldn’t go to the prom with— you” (she accented it like I was a used Band-Aid she just found in her bowl of breakfast cereal) “—if you were the last boy on Earth!” The class hooted again at the unexpected entertainment.
Ms. Baymiller restored order again. “All right now, that’s enough.” She graced me with a gentle smile and quietly added, “Jeremy, I don’t think I need to read the note.
Looks like you’ve got your answer.” Her sympathetic look implied she understood the situation was not what it seemed, or maybe it was just my hopeful imagination. I crumpled the note and stuffed it in my pocket, and for the rest of the hour basked stoically in my renewed social pariah status. When the bell rang, Todd paused just long enough to snarl, “You‘re so dead, McGowan!” and punch me in the shoulder on his way out.
Word of my crushing humiliation in English class was spreading like a viral plague from student to student, along with fresh rumors that the new girls’ volleyball 280
coach was a lesbian and that some kid had just up and collapsed in third-period biology class while dissecting a frog—the cause was epilepsy or rabies or evil chemicals or some new super-AIDS strain, depending on who was reporting the news. I dragged myself from class to class as best I could, tugging along the lead weight of my shame through the gauntlet of my peers.
As always, P.E. that afternoon offered still more opportunities to lower my morale. In the locker room afterwards, I decided it was prudent to avoid any more attention for a little bit and hid out in the bathroom. I wanted to wait to hit the showers until everybody was gone. I passed the time giving a mental pep talk to my reflection in the mirror. It wasn’t that I was a ninety-eight-lb. weakling or anything; it was just that that I wasn’t into the lame school sports activities. Next year at junior college I’d be able to do cool sports like judo and saber fencing. I would just have to tough out high school a little longer. It sucked finally being a senior, but still being treated like a freshman. And next year I would be a freshman all over again at community college.
I critically examined the gloomy dude in the mirror. Not a bad-looking guy; he looked a bit like a young John Cusack. Unfortunately, the problem was I seemed to be stuck in permanent boy mode, like Michael J. Fox. Was I doomed to age as a Peter Pan man-boy until I finally morphed straight into some ancient leprechaun without ever achieving a respectable grownup adult he-man stage at all?
I finally padded off to the showers to wash up in solitude. Under the forgiving spray of water I was busy drowning my thoughts, so I only half-noticed what might have been a siren going off in the distance somewhere, and yet another typically unintelligible announcement over the school P.A. system shortly after that. But I remained oblivious to it all until I heard the clanging, echoing sounds of movement in the locker room—I wasn’t alone in the locker room after all. I wiped the soap from my eyes to see who it was. A knot of dark shapes drew closer, approaching me with unmistaka
ble deliberation.
I felt a queasy knot of fear tighten up in my gut. They were coming to get me.
There were six of them, sauntering up like a pack of wolves. It was Todd Brookshire and his entourage of thuggy jocks. They were only wearing towels wrapped around their waists, but somehow that made them even more intimidating, as if they were Roman gladiators or a rogue gang of disgruntled Chippendales dancers. Todd stepped closer and twisted his mouth into an unfriendly smile. “McGowan, you little shitwipe, you totally fucked up my chances with Dee Dee.” What the hell? I thought. On what planet did that make any kind of sense?
I was in trouble. My guts twisted again and my heart started beating so loud I was sure they could hear it too. Quick as a rattlesnake, Todd snatched my towel off the wall and began coiling it into a rat’s tail. Then he whipped the towel around my waist and caught the ends tight. I was sopping wet, totally naked and completely trapped. He got right in my face and pulled me up close into him, tight against his body, with only his shabby little gym towel separating our groins. Crap! I was so screwed. It felt like his mad dog eyes were burrowing clear into my skull. “I should fuckin’ fuck your ass up, but you’d probably enjoy that, wouldn’t you, you fucking little fuckwad fagtard? Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you?”
The dull, thumping pain in my chest was real and palpable and roaring in my ears.
Then with one last boom, it stopped—and I realized that it wasn’t just my terrified heartbeat. I actually had been hearing a very real, very loud pounding echoing through the locker room. I suddenly felt myself leave my body. My awareness left the poor naked bastard below getting abused by the gang of closet-case Neanderthals and instead focused on the new sounds getting louder: fleshy, shambling, footfalls underscored by a long, drawn-out death-rattle groan. “Guys?” I said, snapping back into myself. “Guys?