by Ray Garton
“Star Trek IV: The Journey Home,” Adam said. “That was Spock responding to Kirk’s explanation of profanity. Kirk identified its source as the popular writers of the time, the collected works of Jacqueline Suzanne and Harold Robbins. And Spock said, ‘Ah. The giants.’”
Her smile stalled, mouth dropped open. “That’s good. That’s very good. Alyssa Huffman.”
“Never heard of her.”
“She would be me.” She grinned.
“Oh! And what do you write?”
Her grin tilted slightly and for a brief moment, became deeply naughty. “Things that would give both my parents strokes if they ever read my diary. Maybe I’ll let you read it sometime.” She looked around. “Horror? Is this where you were going?”
“I don’t know where I was going. My friend and I just came in to look around, see what kind of store you had.”
“The guy at the magazines?”
“Yeah. Carter.”
“Well, it’s a...booky kind of store. Unless you just ran out of strawberries-and-honey incense.”
“In which case it would be an incensey kind of store.”
She nodded. “Pretty much.” She turned and headed back toward the front.
Alyssa was dressed in black. Black tank top, skirt with a slit up the side to reveal black net stockings and pseudo-Victorian-style pointy-toed boots. Against all the black, her skin was like milk. She had beautiful lips. Full, lush, Janeane Garofalo lips. They were painted a deep red, but Adam thought they would look much better without it.
They passed through the romance section. As a boy, Adam had been struck by the number of romance novels in bookstores. They almost seemed to reproduce on the shelves before his eyes. He’d decided to search for the secret to their popularity and had bought a few at random. One of the novels was called Passion’s Stormy Sea, by Teresa Laree Montgomery. He could remember nothing about the novel except for a single phrase, which had haunted him ever since. “A mouth like a ripened fruit.” It had made no sense to him. Ripened fruit? What kind of fruit? A banana? Depending on how ripened, that could be disgusting. An orange? An apple?
Alyssa’s lips reminded him of that phrase. The words suddenly sprang to life. His immediate response to seeing her lips had been a desire to put his mouth over them and suck, as he would suck on a ripe fruit. A peach, a pear, any fruit. He suddenly realized the fruit itself, which had thrown him for so long, was not the point.
Her bracelets and necklaces of black and silver chittered together as she walked. A step behind her, Adam let his eyes move over her body. Tall and shapely. Loose in her movements, comfortable in her body. Dressed as if she had just returned from a black mass, ritual sacrifice, and book signing at Anne Rice’s place.
“You work here, right?” Adam asked.
“Yep. I know this store inside and out. I grew up here.”
“In the store?”
“Practically. My parents own it.”
“You must read a lot.”
“Almost always.”
“Who do you like?”
She stopped walking and thought a moment.
“Wait,” Adam said. “Please promise me you won’t say Anne Rice.”
“What’s wrong with Anne Rice?” she asked, turning to him.
“Well, I guess it’s a matter of taste. Like anything else. But I think people who like her work as well as people who don’t can agree that it’s better read than worn.”
She pressed her lips together and there was a quick flash of fire in her eyes. For a moment, Adam thought he had said the wrong thing, that she was angry.
“Are you making some kind of judgment of me based on my clothes?” she asked.
He responded quickly. “Oh, no, no, not a judgment. Just an educated guess.”
“Yeah, sure.” The flames in her eyes crackled again as she cocked a hand on her hip. “You think because I’m wearing all black, I read Anne Rice and listen to Bauhaus and obsess over role playing games and hang out in basements with other losers and assorted children of the night. Right?”
Adam thought, Must...get...foot...from mouth! “Well, I didn’t say that,” he said.
“You were thinking it. Weren’t you?”
He decided not to bother arguing. “Yes. I was. The black clothes, black nail polish...I don’t know what got into me.”
“How do you know I’m not, like, in mourning? How do you know my boyfriend wasn’t just killed in a drive-by shooting and I’m wearing black to mourn my loss? Or maybe black reflects how I feel inside after years of sexual abuse from my father, for which my mother blames me. Maybe that’s why I wear black.”
Adam tensed, prepared himself for the worst. “Is...is any of that true?”
“Nah. It’s the goth thing, like you thought. But my heart’s not in it.” She shrugged her shoulders and her breasts moved freely beneath the black tank top. “My friends kinda got into it and I didn’t have anything better to do, so I went along with it. I’m not too crazy about the subculture, myself. There’s way too much piercing going on, for one thing. Come to think of it, I’m not too crazy about the friends I got into it with.”
The door rang open and three chatty women came into the store. Alyssa went behind the counter, found a notepad and wrote something. Ripped the page out and handed it to Adam, smiling.
“The address is where to be tonight at ten,” she said. “The phone number is where to call if you can’t find where to be.”
“Where is this?”
“My house. Come pick me up.”
Adam smiled. “To go where?”
“Anywhere. Wherever.”
“No, uh...no walking through graveyards, or anything, right?”
She laughed softly and leaned over the counter, their faces close. Her breath smelled of cinnamon. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a whole closet full of very non-Rice clothing. I’ll wear some for you.”
“I’m kidding. You can wear anything you want.”
“Okay. And I won’t make you walk through any cemeteries.”
“We can walk by,” Adam said. “I’m just not comfortable with actually walking on the dead.”
* * *
In the car on the way home, Adam talked of nothing but Alyssa.
“Are you outta your mind?” Carter barked. “You don’t wanna mess with those goth chicks, man, they’re trouble with a capital N, for ‘neurosis’. They don’t live in the real world. They latch on and never let go. They want your blood, man. Literally!”
Adam laughed. “They’re harmless. They just want to belong somewhere, like all of us.”
“Hey. Dr. Drew. I’m gonna start puking all over the upholstery, here. Turn on CNN if you don’t believe me. They’re in the news all the time. Killing their parents, shooting up their schools. Hell, without those freaks, Anne Rice would probably be writing greeting cards for Hallmark!”
“There’s nothing wrong with this girl, Carter. She’s not like those people. She just wears the clothes because her friends do.”
“Yeah, sure, that’s how it starts. That’s how she’ll do it to you, a little at a time. Pretty soon, she’ll have you wearing black suits from the Salvation Army store. Then a shirt with ruffles and puffy sleeves. Next thing you know, you’re lurking down Melrose looking like Andy Warhol’s mortician.”
“Nobody’s gonna make me wear anything, jeez.”
“They drink blood, you gym teacher, don’t you watch Dateline? 20/20? The Learning Channel? I mean, they’re not, like, real vampires, or anything, but they drink each other’s blood, I’m not shitting you! You’re gonna start showing up with Band-Aids all over, it’ll happen.”
“Are you through?”
“Yeah. All I’m sayin’ is...be careful out there, okay?”
“There’s nothing to be careful about. This girl’s different.” Adam’s voice lowered when he added, “She’s special.”
Although Carter tried to change the subject, Alyssa was all Adam could think about the rest of the way home, and
for the rest of the day.
FIVE
The sun mockingly slowed its pace as it made its way across the sky. Adam kept himself busy as time stretched. He worked on a short story, did some reading, watched a little television. He consulted the map of the Los Angeles area tacked to the inside of his closet door and found the shortest route to Alyssa’s house. Above all, he lay low, avoiding his dad and Gwen.
Time still did not pass fast enough. Adam stripped, went into his bathroom and turned on the shower. As the water hissed, he put a CD into the boom box on a windowsill just outside the shower. Dave Brubeck’s Time Out.
Ever since he was a little kid, Adam had thought “Take Five” was the coolest piece of music in the universe. It had been his mother’s favorite, too. She had been a jazz lover, and it had been the soundtrack of their long days together before he started school. He had loved it because she had loved it. She used to laugh so hard when he danced to “Blue Rondo a la Turk,” spinning around and around. Adam kept her collection of CDs, tapes, and records in his room. The music soothed him, made him feel safe. He turned it up and got into the shower.
Piano, sax, bass, and drums cut clearly through the shower’s hiss. Eyes closed, Adam scrubbed shampoo into his hair.
A hollow clack sounded in the steam. The latch on the shower door.
He turned around and opened his eyes, which were stung by shampoo suds. But someone was there. The shower door closed again. He spun around and put his face under the stream, scrubbed at his eyes.
Soft hands slid over his back. Around to his chest.
Gwen. Adam smiled as he rinsed his hair.
She stepped close, so her breasts pressed against him.
It was not Gwen. The breasts were too small, body too short.
Gooseflesh crawled over Adam’s arms and shoulders in spite of the hot steam. He turned around and stepped back, away from the hands. He meant to say something, but could think of nothing appropriate to say to a total stranger in his shower.
She smiled as he stared at her. Tanned and curved, she stood in a careful pose that suggested she knew it, and knew how best to show it off.
When the girl started to move toward him, Adam held up both hands and said, “Uh, look, y’know...not that I really mind, or anything, but...who are you and what are you doing in my shower?”
She moved forward again, and when Adam put up his hands, she pressed hers to them, slid her fingers between his. Locked them together. She smiled. It was an amused smile.
“I’m Rain,” she said. When Adam looked confused, she continued: “I thought we oughtta get to know each other. We’re gonna be spending a lotta time together.”
“We are?”
“Yep. For as long as I can take it, anyway. Long as I’m here, I want to make sure there’s somebody to fuck.” She had a generous mouth, and it spread into a large smile now, revealing small, impeccably white teeth. “Got a problem with that?”
Cold water splashed in Adam’s stomach when he realized who she was.
Gwen named her daughter Rain? he thought.
Her eyes darted over his face before she dropped suddenly, disappeared from Adam’s field of vision. He felt her breath on his penis, which was already hard.
“Okay, wait a second, wait a second,” he said as he grabbed her upper arms and lifted her. “Maybe, uh...I don’t know...” He turned off the shower. “Maybe we should step out of the shower and talk.”
“You don’t look like you wanna have a fuckin’ conversation, honey,” she said, smiling at his erection.
He turned off the shower, stepped around her—skin slid together like satin—opened the door and stepped out. He grabbed his towel and scrubbed his wet hair, then his body as he left the bathroom. He heard her moving around behind him as he opened a dresser drawer and poked around inside.
It was a messy drawer, like all the others. He could not find his new underwear. Now that there was a horny naked girl in his room, the only underwear he could find were the boxers he had bought at a science fiction convention, all covered with Japanese movie monsters. Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, Ghidra, all over his underwear. He closed the drawer, opened another.
“I like your ass,” Rain said casually, getting closer. “It’s a happy ass.”
“Thank you,” Adam said. “You should’ve been here last week when it was really depressed. You could’ve cheered it up.” He found a pair of gray cotton boxers, put them on.
“Hey, you’re putting away the fuckin’ toys,” she said, beside him now. “Got a hot date, or something?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.” He turned to find a shirt.
“Why do you talk like that?”
Adam stopped, turned to her. “Like...what?”
“Like Mr. Douglas on My Three Sons. Y’know, on TV Land? Like you got a long stick wrapped in silk shoved so far up your ass, it’s operating your head.”
Adam gave it some thought. “You mean...like a ventriloquist dummy?”
She went to him, put her arms around his waist and leaned on him. “No, I mean like Mr. Douglas on My Three Sons. And Mr. Douglas on Green Acres, too, come to think of it. Coupla fuckin’ hard-ons.”
“Are you saying I’m a hard-on?”
“You have a hard-on.” She laughed, then gnawed on his neck.
“But are you saying I am one?”
Her eyes flitted over the features of his face, over his hair. “Maybe a little uptight.”
“Well, however it seems to you, I’m not uptight.” He went to his closet. “I am kind of anxious to get ready for my date, though.” He put on a shirt, then jeans. “Um, in fact, you might want to put on some clothes, too.”
“I like being naked.”
“What if your mother walks in?”
Rain frowned and walked over to Adam, stood in front of him. “Why would she just walk into your bedroom?”
“She lives here, it’s her house, remember?” At the same time, he was thinking, Oh, shit, can she tell? Is there some kind of mother-daughter mind meld thing nobody told me about?
He tried combing his hair in the mirror, but she kept getting in his way, frowning, eyes moving slowly up and down his body.
“Have you been fucking my mom?” she asked.
Adam felt the question in his intestines. Rolled his eyes. “Of course not.”
“Well, don’t. She’s trouble.”
“You think?”
“She’s a cunt. I hate her guts. How about you? What’s your dad like?”
“My dad? He’s like waking up on Christmas morning with a case of explosive diarrhea and shingles all over your body.”
“He’s...huh?”
“He’s an asshole.”
“Yeah, she knows how to pick ’em. Shoulda met my last dad.” She slowly looked around at the things on the walls and shelves.
Adam sat on the edge of his bed to put on socks and sneakers. “Oh, that’s right. I heard about your dad. I’m really sorry about that.”
“About what?”
“The fire.”
“Oh, that.” She laughed. “You don’t have to be sorry about that.”
Certain he had misunderstood her, he said, “What?”
“Oops. Shouldn’ta said that, huh?” She smiled poutingly.
“What do you mean, I don’t have to be sorry about that?”
She giggled and pulled him with her as she flopped onto the mattress. Put an arm across his chest, ran fingers through his hair. “C’mon, let’s fuck,” she said.
“I’m not dressed for it.”
“So take ’em off, dammit.” She pulled at his shirt. “Why’d you put ’em on in the first fuckin’ place, anyway?” she asked, her voice suddenly loud and angry.
“Hey, hey, stop it, okay?” He pushed her hands away and sat up. “Are you on drugs, or something?”
“Just a little.” She sat up, threw herself onto Adam and pinned him to the mattress. “Want some?” she asked. Her mouth was on his before he could reply.
Adam’s lips experienced fresh new sensations as they were, for the first time ever, sucked open. His tongue was drawn out hard, its roots straining. Cheeks compressed, gums puckered. His lungs emptied as breath was sucked out of them, and he suspected teeth had shifted in his head. She ground herself against his erection while opening his jeans with her right hand wedged between them.
With a firm push, Adam got her off of him. Pulled his head back to peel their faces apart. The disengagement of their mouths sounded unearthly.
“You want some?” Rain asked.
“Some what?”
“Drugs. You were asking.”
“No, I don’t want any drugs. Don’t you watch Cops? You want to show up on Fox being hog-tied and thrown in the back seat of a patrol car?”
“What makes you think I’d have to be hog-tied?” Rain asked.
“You’re right. They’d probably taser you just to save time.”
“I’ve fucked a few cops. They were all so stuck on themselves. Kept wanting to hear how big their cocks were. Average or less, every one of them.”
“Was this a series of incidents?” Adam asked. “Or did you all meet at once?”
Rain lay on her back, propped up on her elbows, legs wide open. Her face was angular, sculpted. Hard. Her eyes, large and deep brown, were half-closed as they looked around the room. Delicate cheekbones and a perfectly straight nose hinted at a beauty somehow concealed, while the rest of her face remained guarded, closed up. A small cartoon mushroom-cloud tattoo was frozen in mid-explosion from the top of her left nipple.
“What, you mean was it a gangbang?” she asked. “So what if it was, huh?”
Uncomfortable, embarrassed, Adam tried to think of a way to cut down the fallout from his remark. “Then you, uh...you must have been very tired afterwards.”
“I’ll tell you what I was. Not in trouble with my dad, who never found out his little girl had been stripping in a pool hall and selling blow jobs in the storeroom. In exchange for the train, the cops fixed it for me. We all have ways of getting what we want, Mr. Douglas. Mine is sex. What’s yours?”