Foolish Fire

by Willard, Guy

  Her muffled moans made tiny vibrations within my own mouth, almost as if I myself were moaning. She came up for air and pulled slowly away. A long string of saliva stretched between our mouths, lengthening like spun glass as she pulled farther back. It glistened in the dark for a moment before she reached a hand up and plucked it away with a finger. She giggled.

  “You’re a good kisser, Guy.”

  “Not compared to you.”

  “We girls are made for kissing.”

  It was true; girls seemed to be born with the ability to kiss. I remembered my first kiss back in junior high school, and even then the girl, Denise, knew all the tricks: how to tease, to lull, to inflame…. Where did they all learn it?

  Suddenly she reached up and ruffled my hair.

  “Hey!”

  “You look cuter with your hair straight back instead of hanging down over your forehead.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Wait. I just want to test your reflexes. Here.” She held up her index finger. “All right, now follow my finger with your eyes. Look left…look right…look up…look—”

  When I looked down, she snagged my nose with her finger. She giggled. I grabbed her arm and pinned her back against the couch by her wrists. She squirmed about, straining against her blouse, then after a brief struggle, flopped back, exhausted, breathing fast and laughing, red in the face.

  “Say ‘uncle’,” I commanded.

  “Okay, okay, ‘uncle’.”

  I let her go very cautiously, still alert for a sneak attack. But she seemed to have vented all her energy already. She rubbed her wrists.

  “Ow. You really hurt me, dummy. I didn’t think you’d take it so seriously.”

  She straightened her hair which had come undone, then paused, looking at me.

  “How come you’re not like the other boys, Guy?”

  I felt my heart grow faint. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you’re…different.”

  “Different? In what way?”

  “Well, you’re—you seem more mature. I don’t know how to explain it so well.”

  “Try. I wanna know.”

  Without saying a word she took my hand and placed it on her breast. “Most guys like to do this.”

  “Well, so do I. But I like to work up to it in stages.”

  “And after that? How many stages do you work up to?”

  “I guess that all depends on how far you’ll let me go.”

  “And if I don’t let you know?”

  “Well, I just might go until there’s nowhere else to go.”

  “Then I guess that’s about where I want to go.”

  “All the way?” I said teasingly.

  And when she didn’t reply, I knew she meant it. A feeling of queasiness welled up in my stomach.

  She pinched the front of her blouse with her fingers and flapped it back and forth a little. “Boy, am I hot.” She gave a short giggle, and then a goofy look came over her face as she reached for the top button of her blouse. “Mind if I take off a button or two?”

  “Sure, be my guest.”

  “Tell me when to stop,” she said, looking up coyly from under her downward-turned lashes. Suddenly I felt caught up in forces beyond me, powerless, for I realized that this was what her games were leading up to. She was in control now—and probably always had been.

  With a hint of taunting in her eyes, she looked directly at me as if saying, “Well? Aren’t you man enough to stop me? Stop me if you can. If you dare, that is.” Or was it the look of collusion in a game we were both playing out? I didn’t know. I couldn’t understand this girl who seemed so much more experienced than me.

  I helplessly watched her loosen one button, and then another…and yet another, until all the buttons were undone. Looking at me a little guiltily, she slipped out of her blouse. She was wearing a low-cut bra with lacy fringes.

  “I didn’t hear you say ‘stop’ yet, so here goes nothing.” She reached awkwardly back with both hands and undid the clasp in back, then pulled away her bra.

  It was the first time I’d seen a girl’s breasts, outside of magazine photos. Other girls had let me touch them under their sweaters, but no one had so boldly exposed herself like this. She leaned back a little and looked aside, allowing me to gaze at them. I noticed tiny goose bumps all over the surface of the skin, especially around the nipples, while faint bluish veins crisscrossed on the underside of each breast. The nipples were tensed erect, and looked pinched and shriveled up.

  Suddenly shy under my scrutiny, she abruptly put her hands over her breasts.

  I had to do something. I reached out and pulled her hands off, then fondled a breast, marveling at its elasticity. She submitted to this exploration in silence. Indeed, her silence told me I was in charge now. I lightly pinched a nipple between my thumb and middle finger. It felt like the rubber eraser on the head of a pencil. In response, she reached out toward me and rubbed her palm over my chest. I still had my shirt on.

  Afraid to break the silence, I began unbuttoning my shirt, my fingers shaking slightly.

  I caught a whiff of my own sweat, and it had a tart, unfamiliar tang.

  She sank back down against the cushions and arched her back. It was a clear invitation. I’d secretly been dreading this moment, wishing time would slow down and give me an excuse to postpone it.

  Putting my shirt aside, I lowered myself slowly on top of her, and when our upper bodies met, hers shrank slightly at the contact. I heard her sharp indrawn breath, and then her lips were on mine. She shivered beneath me as we kissed.

  Her skin was warm, and her lips were also heating up. I suddenly recalled Jack telling me long ago: “When their lips get hot, that means they’re hot down there.” Indeed, there was a smell in this room identical to that smell I’d noticed when Jack was kissing Sheri on that long-ago day.

  Suddenly Vanessa pulled away from the kiss, almost in petulance, and shook the hair out of her eyes. I pushed myself away from her. I had sweated slightly and my damp chest had stuck to hers. She picked at a lash, then rubbed her eyes. Then turning onto her side, she undid her jeans and wriggled out of them. She was down to her panties, and as she lay on her side, her breasts drooped down sideways, their nipples framed by pale white triangles in the shape of last summer’s bikini tops. The soft whispery vocals of a female singer crooned on the radio.

  Vanessa reached out a hand. I felt her palm brush my chest, then her finger began drawing lazy loops on it, running lightly over a nipple. Then the finger worked slowly downward in intricate filigrees toward my stomach and then toyed along the waist of my jeans.

  Without pausing to think, I undid the snap and the zipper. But once my jeans were off, I hesitated to get completely naked; I sat there in my briefs.

  Her hand returned to the elastic waistband of my briefs. Then it lightly brushed over my genitals.

  “What’s the matter, Guy?”

  “I’m—I guess I’m just nervous.”

  “You’re shivering.”

  Her fingers returned to the soft lump under my briefs.

  “I guess you don’t like me that much, Guy.”

  “I do like you, Vanessa. You know I do.”

  “I guess it’s me, then.”

  “You know it’s not.”

  Hoping to distract her, or to excite myself, I reached down to her panties. Hiding my nervousness, and with a vague feeling of revulsion, I began working them off. She complied wordlessly, lifting her hips to aid me. I slipped them smoothly off of her, then dropped them down onto the floor.

  She lay back awaiting my next move.

  The faint stink which I’d been vaguely aware of for some time now became much stronger. It was not the smell of sweat so much as a shrimpy, fishy odor. I had a vision of an underwater grotto slick with kelp.

  She brought her knee up as if to ward off my curious inspection—or it might have been a reflex prompted by her nervousness. I slowly pulled her knee down and pushed her thighs apart,
gazing down as they opened for me.

  It was then that I felt, with a dreadful, sinking sense of inevitability, a premonition that everything was useless.

  For there I saw, fringed with a sparse, wispy beard, the wet, half-open lips of a village idiot. Between those lips, like glinting drool, clung slimy streaks of a melted-cheese-like substance, giving it a gluey, crustacean look. I thought of a slick, bloated oyster clinging to a slimy, sea-weedy rock.

  This was what all the boys dreamed of. This was what they were after. This was what tortured them at night, got them hard in the morning, kept them restless all through the school-day.

  I felt sickened, and knew with a sense of crushing finality that I could never go through with it tonight—maybe never in my life. This was not what I was after.

  I was almost jolted by the touch of her hand on me again. She was pulling my briefs down, and I let her. I knew I wasn’t the first boy she was seeing naked, and my limpness made me feel wretched.

  Through half-closed eyes I watched as she pushed her hair out of her eyes and began caressing me awkwardly. But her touches were too delicate—she had no idea how a boy liked to be touched.

  The fear of failure which had been flitting through me all evening now became overwhelming. Try as I might, I could get nothing, not an iota of feeling into me. As I’d secretly suspected all along, I was destined to fail where others succeeded. Would she tell the other girls? And then would it get around to all the boys?

  There was a helpless look on her face. Or was she embarrassed, ashamed? I was unable to read that expression. Her face was a shadow in the gloom.

  Feeling disgusted with myself, I reached down to touch her. Bracing myself, I slipped a finger into the clammy crevice, wormed it in, and buried it in the damp warmth. I heard her sigh. Keeping my face averted, I began to thrust my finger in and out, glancing up occasionally at her trance-like concentration.

  I wanted to go home. As my finger groped within her, I held my breath as a strong, salty smell welled up from someplace. For as long as I could, I continued to thrust my finger in and out. Her thighs had flattened out, involuntarily it seemed, to accommodate me.

  I was wondering what I was doing here. Did I have to go through all this to prove myself to the other boys?

  Jack should be doing this. Or Ron. Or any other boy.

  I stopped moving my finger and pulled it out. I was wondering what excuse I could give for not going through with it tonight. Did such things happen? And then, all of a sudden, I heard a tiny rasping sound.

  Peering closely, I realized it wasn’t what I’d thought it was at first. It was coming from the other place.

  A pussy fart.

  Vanessa put her hand down to cover herself. “Oh God, this is embarrassing.” She turned onto her side, facing away from me. “Oh God.”

  I felt bewildered, foolish, trapped. “What—?”

  “The air gets inside.”

  She curled up petulantly into a fetal position. Then she reached her hand down to pick up her clothes and began dressing without another word.

  “Vanessa. Wait.”

  She made no reply, only savagely thrusting her legs into her jeans, whipping on her blouse without bothering to put her bra on.

  “I’m sorry, Vanessa, I—”

  “No,” she said. “It’s all my fault. I knew from the start you didn’t want to. I shouldn’t have even tried—”

  “Come on, listen—”

  “Just leave me alone, okay? Just forget this ever happened.”

  “Listen, Vanessa—”

  She turned her savage pout away from me. I touched her gently but she shrugged away my touch.

  “Will you just go home now, please?”

  I gazed at her back for a while longer, then began dressing.

  *

  As I drove home, I thought of how exhilarated I should have been: I’d gotten off without having to disgrace myself by attempting something I couldn’t do. I was lucky to have escaped a more traumatic failure. And my secret was safe because Vanessa would never dare reveal her own embarrassment.

  Yet my relief was tinged with a profound self-disgust which I was unable to shake. I wondered if I would have to spend the rest of my life feigning an interest in women just to be like the others, hiding my true disgust at what all other men found so exciting.

  Suddenly I felt nauseous and pulled over to the curb. I realized I was on a side street by Horizon Park. I shut off the engine and stepped out.

  The night sky above was like a midnight-blue transparency laid over the bottomless spangling of the stars. As I stepped to the corner, the darkness suddenly turned a ghastly green, and then with audible clicks, yellow, then red. The traffic lights were directing nonexistent traffic.

  I turned right at the corner, my shadow spun three ways by different light sources. From here, the sidewalk curved away from the street’s edge into the thick darkness of the park. I followed this as if into a pocket.

  As I stepped into the darkness under the trees, I thought of the slimy slug-like thing that all boys were supposed to love. At this moment, a girl’s pussy seemed to me the ugliest thing in the world. Why did it have to be so slimy-looking and mollusky, so rancid and dripping with gooey passion…. If only it looked a little more agreeable, I might not have had any problems.

  But of course, the problem was with me. Vanessa was just a normal girl with normal passions, and she was made like any other girl. I was one of the few boys who wasn’t excited by what was between her legs: a damp hole, perfectly shaped to receive what every boy was dying to put into it.

  It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.

  Suddenly a flashlight was shining in my face, blinding me. Shielding my eyes, I made out the silhouette of a policeman detaching himself from the darkness. A cop—the ultimate symbol of law and order in our society….

  I felt a stab of panic—as if my thoughts had been monitored.

  “Hold it right there, son. Where are you going?”

  “I’m just taking a walk,” I muttered, shielding my face, my privacy, my human dignity from the eyeball-stabbing light.

  “Do you have any ID on you?”

  “Why? What did I do?”

  “Listen, kid, I don’t want any backtalk. Just get your ID. Now.”

  I reached into my back pocket, staggered by the authority and power in that voice. I handed over my driver’s license. The light flashed down upon the license in his hand, then up to my face again.

  “What are you doing in the park alone at night?”

  I felt as if I’d stumbled onto a movie set…this just didn’t happen in real life. As far as I knew there was no law against walking alone in the park at night. What was this, an elaborate prank?

  “I’m coming home from my girlfriend’s house.”

  “Girlfriend, huh. Girlfriend. Did you hear that, Trent?” he asked sneeringly, over his shoulder.

  There was a snort from the shadows to the left. So there were more of them. I was scared now. That tone of disbelief and contempt…could police read people’s minds now?

  “According to this, you live at 421 Maple. Do you still live there?”

  “Yeah…uh, yes sir.”

  “That’s the other way if I remember correctly.”

  “I know. I—”

  “Here.” He handed back the driver’s license. “Go on home. And don’t get lost this time.”

  I pocketed my wallet and glanced at him. At that moment, the look of contempt in his small piggy eyes revealed for me the brutal animal nature instinctive to the whole human race.

  I turned and walked back to my car. On this spring night the whole world seemed to be coming apart, society’s fabric ripping at the seams, its stitches popping off with an ugly farting sound.

  *

  I saw Jack in the hallway between classes the next day and walked up quietly behind him. He was busy at his locker and hadn’t noticed my approach. Before he knew what was up I gripped him by the neck and tried t
o bring him down to his knees but he twisted out of my hold.

  “Hey, what’s up?” he asked, shoving me back playfully. He was chewing gum.

  “Well,” I said. “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  I smiled.

  “What?” he repeated.

  “I went out with Vanessa last night.”

  “And?”

  I just continued to smile. And then, as he realized the implications of my gloating expression, he looked as if he’d just been punched in the stomach. “You mean you—”

  I nodded with a conspiratorial grin. I expected him to pound me on the back with glee after all the encouragement he’d given me, but he merely turned away without a word. A little disappointed at his lack of enthusiasm, I casually passed my finger under his nose a couple of times.

  “Well?” I taunted.

  “What’s that all about?”

  “I haven’t washed that finger since last night.”

  His eyes got big and he grabbed me by the wrist and yanked my finger forcefully up to his nose again. With an intent look on his face and a manic glint in his eyes, he sniffed hard at it. It was comic in a way, but at the same time, pathetic…. I felt as if I’d stabbed him or crushed something forever inside him. I tried to shake myself loose.

  “You lucky bastard,” he said. He didn’t let go of my hand, though.

  There was a faraway look on his face. I tried to pull my hand away again but he still wouldn’t let go. When he spoke next, his voice was barely above a whisper; in the softest tones I’d ever heard him utter, he said:

  “You lucky bastard. You lucky, lucky bastard….”

  Technically A Virgin

  It was summer again and I was sunbathing at Echo Lake in my bikini, a skimpy blue pair which was the merest wisp of cloth, a kiss away from nudity. There was a lazy, relaxed feeling all along the shore, with the scent of sandalwood floating in the air, mixed with the tang of marijuana. Families had brought picnic lunches, and teenagers were tossing Frisbees back and forth.