While Pete and Russ had ice cream, Heidi and Ray had sandwiches and talked about science fiction. Heidi told him she’d been a shy, scholarly type all her life until college, when she began “coming out.” On the ride here she had asked him if he dated much. No. She clicked her tongue.
Why not? Shy, he said.
Out at the van again, again Heidi lowered her head and mumbled that she didn’t want to go home. They all climbed into Pete’s van. She sat up front beside Pete; Russ and Ray sat cross-legged on the rough-carpeted floor. Ray sensed Russ was anxious to go home, tried to ignore it. They chattered in the motionless van.
Pete made some crude remarks about passing girls. Heidi acted disgusted and joined the other two on the floor, to Ray’s right, her leg against his. Soon Russ, for whatever reason (Ray believed out of courtesy to him), moved up front, leaving the two of them alone in back. While Russ and Pete watched girls go into the ice cream shop, Heidi nonchalantly rested her elbow on Ray’s inner leg. Ray’s lungs trembled like freezing animals with every breath through his nostrils.
A particularly nice-looking girl sauntered by. Ray craned his neck and said, “Wow—she’s enough to make Heidi a lesbian!”
Heidi attacked him and he laughed, held her wrists away. Some piece of her jewelry, a ring maybe, scratched his inner arm and drew blood. When he pointed it out to her she seemed especially guilty and subdued, as if she had really hurt him. But she softly joked, “Want me to kiss a boo-boo?”
Ray shyly declined, so she didn’t. He couldn’t believe how stupid he was.“You still ticklish?” She attacked him with a tickling barrage and again he pinned her wrists. “She’s molesting me back here!” Ray laughed nervously. As she drew back she held his hand for a moment.
“Where are we gong now?” Pete asked. Ray wondered this, too.
They tossed around ideas. Pete suggested a liquor-oriented festival but Russ told him he had to get home soon, and Heidi had a night course this evening. Meanwhile Heidi’s hand had stolen onto Ray’s hand and stayed there.
Funny how you worked so hard to realize your dreams, and one day they just came visiting of their own volition.
Ray was also surprised at how he was able to joke and act casual, but then he had always been good at hiding his true feelings.
“Let’s blow this clam-bake,” Russ said, anxious to be getting home.
It was decided they’d go drop him off, and Heidi and Ray would go along for the ride, leaving Heidi’s car in the ice cream parlor’s lot and Ray’s back in the factory lot.
On the ride Heidi told them some “cute,” naughty dirty jokes and Ray made himself laugh because the other two didn’t much—she seemed naively proud of her naughtiness. She was able to act outwardly casual as well, with Ray’s conquered hand lightly brushing her fingers, no longer inert. She’d rub back and squeeze extra tight now and then.
This van ride was probably the peak of Ray’s happiness in adult life up until the time of its occurrence, and yet that numb unreality sensation coexisted with the acute exhilaration, a weird yin/yang.
“Comfortable back there?” Pete said, half looking back.
“Yup,” piped Ray.
“Havin’ fun back there?”
“Yup.”
“Want me to pull the curtains for ya?” There was a subtle trace of hurt or jealousy behind Pete’s joking.
Ray just chuckled uneasily as a reply. He wanted to say, “Yup.”
For a while they didn’t look at each other, just held to each other like Siamese twins joined by the hands. Then Ray chanced a look at her, and she immediately looked to him as if she had been awaiting this incentive on his part. Her expression was odd—featuring a mysterious little smile, almost sad. Her lids blinked once with fond slowness at him, then she looked away. Ray saw the girl’s smile grow slightly, and grow (perhaps) more wistfully sad. The van stopped short with a sudden jerk and Ray found his left hand shooting out and covering her hand on his right. As he sat back he removed it. She had whipped her head to him and smiled at this impulsiveness. He was surprised at having been startled into it.
Pete and Russ were tossing little nonchalant looks at their joined hands. Pete asked, in that hurt humorous tone, “Any place you wanna go—to a motel?” Ray and Heidi only laughed. Ray went into a kind of swooning delirium at that last remark. His stomach even rumbled.
Heidi looked to him, said softly, “Your stomach’s doing all kinds of weird things over there.”
On a wooded road as they neared Russ’s parents’ home, Pete nearly hit a squirrel. “I almost hit a dog on this road yesterday,” Russ said.
Ray thought of geese and goats. Still holding Heidi’s hand, he sat up abruptly to cry, “Look out for that chimpanzee!”
Russ was dropped off. Pete headed them back for their respective cars. Ray hoped it would take a long time back—like forever.
Heidi didn’t advance to take Russ’s place in the passenger’s seat, nor did Ray.
Heidi rubbed her hand up and down Ray’s shoulder and upper arm.
Ray looked at her and again faced that perhaps sad, weirdly indescribable expression, like a sickly/sensuous slow-lidded invitation to dreamy sex.
Ray assumed his returned smile looked sickly as well, as though they were male/female mirrored components of a single being. She was so familiar to his soul, and so alien.
Pete was asked by Heidi to pull into a gas station so she could relieve herself. “If you’re not still here when I come out, goodbye—it was different,” she told them.
“Different?” Ray protested indignantly. “Getting your arm cut off is
‘different.’”
Heidi laughed enthusiastically and walked toward the restrooms. Pete half turned in his creaky mock-leather seat. “She’s really after you.”
“I’m not encouraging it,” said Ray, almost in way of an apology.
“I’m always the one whistling at her and telling her she’s gorgeous and whatever, and she goes after you. Ha.”
“Well, whatever turns her on.”
“Yeah, right.”
Ray didn’t feel bad for Pete, really. He even gloated a bit. For once in his life, he was preferred by a woman over another man. What a strange concept.
Heidi was gone a long time. When she emerged she looked truly relieved that they were still there, and Ray was relieved, too. His heart pranced like his dog did in greeting when he came home from work.
They drove, and the three talked. Ray gestured with their clasped hands. Pete complimented her on her hair. “Is that the real color?” Ray asked.
“Yes, it’s real.”
“I thought it was dyed.”
“My hair stylist goes nuts over it—it’s the color everybody wants these days, he said.”
“You’re really gorgeous, you know that, Heidi?” said Pete.
They reached the parking lot of the ice cream parlor at last, and pulled into it with Ray feeling a mournful gurgle-moan in his stomach.
This had just been a dream, and when he rose to step out of the van, letting go of Heidi’s hand, he would open his eyes and wake in his bedroom (not the drying black one) with Kelly curled asleep on the small blue rug beside him and the ethereal pink-gray light of summer dawn misting into the room. Alone but for the dog who had no apparent conception of his abysmal spiritual loneliness.
««—»»
The van came to a stop alongside Heidi’s car.
“Well, I gotta be gettin’ home,” Pete sulked up front.
“Want me to drive Ray to his car?” Heidi asked. She looked to Ray, and he nodded pleadingly. She apparently wanted him to say it aloud, though. “Do you want me to drive you?”
“Yeah,” he said weakly.
“Okay, whatever,” Pete said.
Ray got up, knees cracking, and followed Heidi out. “Have a nice weekend, buddy,” Ray told Pete.
“Yeah, you too.” Lack of enthusiasm.
They waved as the van sulked away, and Heidi let Ray back into her
car. She buckled herself into the safety harness and they were off.
They didn’t talk much along the ride, and didn’t hold hands or touch.
They didn’t even look much at each other.
The factory lot, when they reached it, was empty save for Ray’s lonely automobile.
Heidi nuzzled her car to a halt beside it and kept her motor running.
Ray found his hand already on the door handle, turning it, the door opening a crack—as if he were anxious to flee. “Thanks for the ride,” he told Heidi.
She took his left hand, leaned to him and kissed him on the lips.
Within two seconds they were frenching. Ray’s hand slowly came off the handle of the still ajar door, the motor idling beyond their perception.
A girl at a shoe factory he had worked at for over five years had kissed him on the lips briefly at a factory Christmas party. At a New Year’s party, at midnight, a young girl who was friends with his cousin Paul had given him a light kiss. His last kiss had been in 1978, six years ago, at the conclusion of a blind date with a girl he hadn’t cared much for or bothered pursuing, though he went to a party with her and phoned her a few times afterwards. But for necking with his cousin Jane at twelve or so, these three kisses were all that had sustained him to this moment.
He did instinctively well, for the most part. He sucked on her lower lip, chased her tongue, ran his in circles around hers, which darted elusive and slippery, teasingly away, ran his along the slick surface of hers, still holding hands, radio softly playing, their factory watching them dispassionately. Eventually Ray moved his lips away and simply hugged her, squeezed her to him. Heidi husked softly, “I told you it wasn’t silly.”
“I never really kissed a girl before.”
“We’ll have to do it more often.”
They kissed again. Heidi broke to shut off the motor, Ray twisted and pulled the door shut. Embracing again, kissing luxuriously, breathing deeply like sleepers, they were encapsulated in the car, insulated from time and reality. Ray squeezed her shoulder, held her under the armpit with his left hand, rubbed her back, rubbed her nape with deliberate sensuousness, stroked the side of her neck, with his thumb teasing the front of her throat. He fingered her ear, stroked her cheek and hair, and finally, inexorably, his sensation-thirsty hand lighted on her left breast and closed to hold its front, as it was too large to fully cup. He tried not to be rough as he rubbed it in circles and pulled it through his fingers. Ray had never held a breast and was surprised at its pillowy, even cloud-like softness around its inner firmness; there was nothing in his own anatomy that could have prepared him for this set of impressions.
She wore a blue-sleeved, white-bodied baseball shirt. He wore a red-sleeved, white-bodied baseball shirt. Her hand fell to his breast and squeezed it. He had noted she seemed to follow his lead. During the kissing his eyes opened often to watch her face. Her eyes never fully opened but sometimes were partly lidded, though they didn’t seem to be seeing anything, like a corpse’s eyes.
She had him pinned to the door by now, half lying on him, her belly soft on his. Her hands ran almost around to his rear. He uncapped her breast and cupped her blue-jeaned bottom, rubbing her left buttock.
Sometimes in kissing him she would go motionless and suddenly bear down hard on his mouth with hard passion.
She told him, “I wouldn’t have known that you never kissed a girl.”
“I imagined a lot.”
“You won’t have to imagine it anymore.” She stroked his hair. “I practically had to jump all over you to get you to respond.”
Ray was a tinge insulted; he hadn’t thought he was that bad. Why should he, as a man, necessarily have to take the greater thrust of incentive?He kissed her warm neck, which stretched taut and hard, through her hair…licked in the hollow of her jaw under her ear, causing her to loll her head back, eyes closed, a full smile on her compressed lips.
Ray found himself watching her face as he kissed her on the mouth again. Analyzing his reactions to this succubus-dream. He still felt a numbness and was disappointed—no fireworks. Did he expect more than the true physicality of kissing had to offer? Why didn’t he have an erection? He had to urinate, that was it he supposed, but he was afraid to leave the car and go into the trees beyond the far end of the lot, afraid to break this off. He found if he closed his eyes for too long he even drifted into lazy waking dreams. It was weird how he felt impatient with frenching and found it, while definitely wonderful, awkward and painful, imposing and in a way, almost offensive. A little unpleasantly crude and rough—but he liked it more than he didn’t. He just wished she’d let him kiss her close-lipped and gently, but she seemed to want to feast on his inner mouth like a breath-sucking vampire of oriental myth.
When Ray discovered his mind had drifted, he returned to find himself squeezing her breast or shoulder too hard. How could his mind wander—he was kissing and holding a real, pulsing woman! His dream, even beyond becoming a recognized artist, fulfilled!
Heidi sat back, car seat creaking, their saliva-slick lips parting. “I hate to say it but I’ve gotta get going—I have class tonight.” She smiled. “I don’t wanna leave you. I hope I didn’t screw up your head with out brief encounter.”
“You’ve helped me,” Ray chuckled restlessly. “I’ve never felt attractive to a girl before.” He even regretted implying that she found him attractive.
“I hope I helped you. You should get yourself a girlfriend.”
Holding her hand, Ray looked down. A girlfriend other than her, or was it a hint for him to pursue her? It didn’t sound encouraging.
She was watching his troubled profile. “You’re so handsome.”
Ray laughed. They exchanged a series of light kisses. She hugged him tightly and gave a contented sigh, another. She went to kiss him on the nose but he intercepted her lips. They rested their foreheads together and looked closely into each other’s eyes; again her slow-motion lids. It was rather scary for him.
Sitting back, Heidi straightened her mussed hair in the rear view. “My lips are swollen—I wonder what my mother will say.” She removed her glasses to wipe at smudges from his nose. “I should’ve taken these off—smears never come out…”
“That’s the human body for ya,” he replied defensively. “Sweat.”
She picked a hair out of her mouth and wiped it off on his knee, smiled.
Ray didn’t meet her eyes. He was feeling a little dejected. She said,
“You’re sweet,” stroked his cheek.
“You are, too.”
“Did you know I’m taking a vacation all next week? Not paid, of course. My cousin and me are driving to Maine to rent a beach cottage.”
“Really? I didn’t know.”
“Yeah. So I’ll see you next Monday.”
“You mean the Monday after next Monday.”
“Oh—right, yeah.”
“Well.” Ray sighed, avoiding her eyes. Hand on the cold door handle again. He squeezed her hand a last time. “Take care.”
“You too.”
He stepped out of the car into the parking lot, a half hour or more after they had driven back into it. He walked around to his car, looked to her and waved. She was watching him and smiled, waved. He got inside, started it, drove out of the lot. Looking in the mirror, he saw her car still sitting there. Watching? Waiting?
Further down the road he glanced at the mirror again and the parking lot was empty, with no sign of her car diminishing or rounding a far bend, as if it had been teleported away, dissolved like a vapor. Such are dreams.
««—»»
One of the major impressions Ray had experienced then and experienced, accepted, now was one of finality. When he got home he took Kelly for a walk along his wooded road on a leash, and it was about six at night and a bit cool, overcast. Gray layered sky, and when a bird soared high against it Ray followed it with eyes and heart, feeling an elation at his spiritual enrichment and today’s evolution. He felt God as a mantle over
him. It was a wonderful world! He had to laugh softly out loud. Yes, she was engaged to another, this had been a “brief encounter,” there would be no more (“We’ll have to do it more often.”), but it didn’t matter—she had helped him evolve, had opened a universe to him, she could release him now and he could soar off to a new life. It was a desirable world, and it now found him desirable.
Walking, he fantasized about returning to work Monday, Russ and Pete whispering gossip, spreading the scandal. Good—he loved it. He’d eat it right up, just as he soaked up the infinitesimal smells, sights, sensations of God’s forest now and the path humankind had ventured into it.
On his way back to his house as the sky grew grayer, he noticed what he hadn’t before. It was obvious why he had missed it—the spot where he had found the shattered goat was no longer littered even with little dried chips of flesh. Even more, the smeared blood was utterly gone. It didn’t even appear to have settled into the dimples and cracks of the tar.
Kelly didn’t sniff the spot or pay it any attention. Ray glanced around him. It had been here, hadn’t it? Maybe it had rained. Maybe ants. Maybe some conscientious road crew who picked up flattened critters and mopped up after them, too.
Ray had more on his mind, more growing inside him, and he forgot it. Consciously…
««—»»
Ray visited his aunt, his surrogate mother—Paul’s mother—that evening and told her the entire incident, leaving out nothing. He paced excitedly, utterly proud of himself. His aunt was rather old-fashioned and seemed a bit disturbed, expressed a little disapproval.
On the phone Ray told Dicky everything, too. Dicky could be dis-agreeable and was fond of criticism, and Ray was anticipatory, but Dicky told him he was proud of him, told him not to give up on Heidi. Ray said he believed she didn’t mean to pursue this thing. Dicky advised Ray not to underestimate her feelings.
Saturday and Sunday there was no elation. A walk with Kelly wasn’t the same as that singular Friday evening. Ray found himself nervous and depressed. He expected she‘d call him and was upset when she didn’t. He had decided, Friday, to make no moves, to take no responsibility in inciting anything. But Dicky had encouraged his hopes. He had been proud of his maturity, Friday, in accepting the incident as a pleasant and therapeutic stepping stone but not as a direction to follow. The proud maturity had abandoned him. Now he napped a lot, wasted his weekend drawing only a little. He was high-strung. Saturday he had bought a six-pack of light beer to calm himself. He wasn’t much of a drinker, so one bottle was sufficient to mellow him out. He drank two Saturday, two Sunday. He got through the weekend, numb and nervous, broodingly dead and electrically alive.
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