Thought Forms

by Jeffrey Thomas

  Her tour of her bedroom was much as his had been, but it didn’t lead to sex. Ray wondered when, and even if, that was to occur. After an hour or so of looking through her books and such they left the room, the two small beds undisturbed, so that Heidi could make them some hamburgers in the kitchen.

  He tried to joke with her but she seemed too absorbed in a Star Trek rerun so he ate in silence. Disturbed and nervous about this distance, remoteness about her which was always there but especially so today, Ray scanned the newspaper for a movie at Heidi’s suggestion. He let her decide, forceful man that he was, on some low-budget barbarian fantasy for which the TV preview looked mildly exciting. As the sun began to decline they locked up the house and left in her car.

  He paid for her ticket, she bought her own candy. The theater was chilly, Heidi remarked—it occurred to Ray later that she had hinted for him to put his arm around her. They didn’t touch. They laughed as soon as the credits began; the movie was so trashily bad that it was a lot of fun.

  But throughout, troubling concerns would sneak into Ray’s mind. Would they go to bed together tonight or had she taken “platonic” seriously, instead of as a dejected accusation from him?

  At home she received a call from her father. From what Ray heard on this end, the father was expressing concern that Heidi would be alone tonight.

  “I’m a big girl now, Daddy,” Heidi reassured him—not in a joking way, but almost beseechingly. Oh God, Ray thought when he heard this.

  Ray played with the dog in the kitchen while Heidi went off into the parlor to phone her boyfriend. Listening numbly to her soft voice, he couldn’t make out words. She came back twenty minutes or so later.

  “You look like you were crying,” said Ray.

  “Do I? I wasn’t,” she replied calmly.

  Ray was embarrassed by his presumptuousness. He held up the knotted sock he and the dog had been playing tug-o’-war with. “Your dog decimated his sock.”

  “Decimated,” Heidi chuckled. She sat facing him at the table. “Now the big choice of the night—do you want to sleep in my brother’s room or in my room in my sister’s bed?”

  She wanted him to be the man, the decisive one, the forceful one—the instigator. Was it her way of exonerating herself, of shifting the responsibility? While part of Ray knew this was a sexual invitation, as she had invited him in his house (“I’ll leave it up to you if you want me to call my mother and tell her I’ll be late” and “You make the moves”), part of him, low in confidence, dubious that another could find hm desirable, believed that she meant for him simply to sleep in the same room with her. This part of him, indecisive, hardly forceful, assumed that unless she blatantly expressed the desire to have sex with him, then she didn’t want to. To him, the question wasn’t fully answered.

  But he said, “I think I’ll sleep in your sister’s bed,” and he smiled bashfully.

  Heidi’s eyes smiled back and she took his hand.

  Heidi changed into a nightshirt in the bathroom, returned. She pushed their beds together and climbed in. She watched Ray. At the height of confusion, he simply removed his shoes and began to get into his bed on the left fully dressed.

  Heidi laughed at him. “You’re gong to sleep in your clothes?”

  “Well—you have pajamas on…”

  “Yeah, but I sleep in these.”

  Humiliated, Ray got up to strip for her. At least now his last doubts were fading. He removed one of the new pairs of underpants he had bought while Heidi had been on vacation, so that he would have nice clean underwear for just such an occasion as this, then he climbed onto the sister’s bed.

  She took his hand, and beckoned by her smile, Ray scooted over onto her bed. She looked happy to move over for him.

  Things got off to a decidedly better start this time, despite, or perhaps helped by, the unfamiliar surroundings. “Freddie,” as Ray had referred to his previously unreliable, underdeveloped conjoined twin, which seemed to have intelligence and moods of its own, awakened rather promptly to participate with them. Ray smiled at Heidi with pride, and she smiled back to acknowledge him. She had noticed.

  Freddie made all the difference in Ray’s attitude. Feeling decisive now, and forceful, Ray took control. He undressed Heidi. He climbed half onto her body and kissed her, and by hooking his arm under her left leg and drawing it up, pinned her down securely under him in a wrestler’s hold. She smiled up appreciatively into his smile, which was almost sadistic in its satisfied confidence.

  As she was further into her period he refrained from oral sex, and they were soon having intercourse. Within minutes Ray had already exceeded himself from last time, and he kept on effortlessly. They were equally relieved, and Ray was so happy that he didn’t think to worry about Heidi ever stepping out of his life.

  There were sounds outside their window. Rustlings—a weird cry.

  It was Heidi’s cat wanting in. “Fucking cat,” Ray joked. “Why didn’t I bring my Magnum?” Together they nakedly disembarked to let it inside, but Heidi admonished Ray to pull his jeans on lest her spunky dog seize a new toy to decimate. She pulled on her panties. Otherwise naked at the glass patio door, Heidi let her cat inside.

  Freddie had diminished once the jeans came on, and Ray was more than a little concerned that he might not resurrect. God had teased him with Divine Providence and then sent a cat to thwart him—but his fears proved unfounded. When the two of them returned to bed, Freddie eagerly rejoined them as well.

  Things did not transform to utter perfection this time, however. Ray was sweating as profusely as the first time, causing the two of them to look like they had just emerged from a pool. He nearly went soft twice or more but prayed and fought it and won. As time passed, his new trouble became apparent—he was having a problem climbing for orgasm. That pre-sensation would vaguely near and then recede. When Ray glanced at a clock near the bed and saw that it was going on an hour of continuous intercourse in one position, he began to worry a little about his ability to climax, and he worried that Heidi was getting a little anxious for him to finish up. He began to feel again that he was performing before a critical-minded audience.

  By now they were so lubricated that they might have been soaked outside (and in her case, inside) with oil, making them slippery and causing Ray to wonder sometimes if Freddie was really in there. Their contact made a rhythmic squishing-splat sound. He was used to more friction, and this wasn’t helping him approach the pinnacle.

  In the end, to Ray’s disappointment, what he had to do was press his face into her neck, close his eyes to block her out, and—he didn’t want to admit to it—fantasize a little. As if masturbating. A real woman under him, and here he was fantasizing like a bored husband. But he told himself he was new to this and doing better, and also as he felt the pre-sensation arrive he was able to lift his head and look into her face. She saw it coming and seemed relieved as he speeded up and ejaculated, moaning.

  She seemed gratified. He settled slickly on her.

  Ray looked in her eyes again, kissed her. She was smiling.

  “That was the best sex I ever had,” he said.

  Later he would wish he had joked less with Heidi, been more romantic, less defensively shielded, but it was all he could summon now.

  They got up from the bed and it was a pond somewhat tinted with blood; a pinkish marsh. Ray cleaned sore Freddie, still diligently hard, with a tissue and winced. Heidi took a concerned look at him. “What have you got in there, sand paper?” Ray joked some more.

  Softly she replied, “I guess so.” Subdued. She had seemed irked about the pink pond. She found a towel to place over it.

  “Sleep in your sister’s bed, I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  “No, it’s alright.”

  “Will that come out?”

  “It always has before.” She smiled at him.

  “Ahh,” he said, acknowledging her dig. Revenge. When they had begun to make love Ray had nodded toward a framed high school portrait on th
e bookshelf opposite them, a photo of a serious and non-threatening, though rather snotty looking young man. A little cold and remote. A good future businessman.

  “Tim’s watching,” Ray had said, not meaning for it to sound so much like a tease. She had said only, “Mm.” Now she—and Tim—had teased him back.

  “I’ll have to wash my hair again tomorrow; I didn’t think I’d have to,” Heidi murmured, making Ray feel dirty and apologetic.

  They slipped into their respective beds. “Night,” said Ray. They reached and held hands but didn’t kiss. Without letting go, Heidi twisted to put out the light with her free hand. Heidi smiled at him in the dark and they held hands for a half hour, or maybe an hour—it was hard to tell. Ray was fogged with sleepiness but didn’t sleep. He wondered if she were asleep, listened for her breathing, couldn’t tell and didn’t ask.

  Slowly, gently, she extricated her fingers from his, thinking him asleep.

  Had she dozed and reawakened, or had she too been awake all this time, and if so, what was in her mind? As her fingers drew away they seemed to lightly caress his, but she turned on her side and showed her back to him.

  Ray dozed on and off jaggedly, didn’t sleep deeply until only a few hours before she had set the clock to wake them. A restless night, but it was lovely as well here in the dark with her deep breathing so near. Ray didn’t feel transformed by his official loss of virginity, by his dream come—partially—true. Again, as he had told Heidi before, he didn’t know what he felt.

  ««—»»

  He woke, hearing the springs in her bed that was touching his bed but apart from his. She stalked around to his side and whispered his name.

  For some reason he feigned sleep. He hoped for a light touch or kiss but he heard her go and shower and he dozed some more.

  Fully dressed, she woke him. She returned to the kitchen and he stole nakedly into the bathroom. He didn’t want to presume to shower so he decided to quickly wash his privates with soapy water. Heidi asked to come in when he was lathered up and gave him a towel. He hoped she hadn’t thought he was going to use the family hand towel to dry himself, though he hadn’t known what to use and might have ended up doing that.

  Maybe she hadn’t noticed. Yeah, his mind replied, like she wouldn’t notice that a naked man’s Freddie was all soap bubbles. One pathetic humiliation after another like stones in a wall.

  It was still dark out when he joined her in the kitchen. He liked the way she looked with her hair wet and sleeked back as she made lunch for them, though he had told her he didn’t need any. She made him a salami sandwich and gave herself a granola bar for dessert. She toasted herself a breakfast snack but said, “I know you don’t eat breakfast.” He didn’t, usually, on weekdays but he had never told her this. She did make him some coffee. He took it with him when they left.

  They didn’t pick up his car but drove directly to work in the gloom of pre-dawn, and got there early. Sat in the parking lot. She seemed more remote and uncommunicative than yesterday and he felt a tad bitterly defensive, but they chatted politely a little. Ray heard a car door slam, turned his head. “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “Pete and Russ.”

  “We should hurry inside.”

  They left Heidi’s car, Ray carrying his conspicuous paper overnight bag. Pete and Russ spotted them and waved across the lot. “Shit,” said Ray, but he was glad. Proud. Eat your heart out, Pete. “Go on ahead and punch in,” Ray told her, and purposely dragged behind. The sinful excitement of it all.

  ««—»»

  There wasn’t much opportunity for communication between them at work, except at lunch. Ray, Heidi, and the pretty little Portugese girl sat in the stock room. When the girls strolled in Ray got up from the desk and insisted Heidi sit there. She looked at him to say with warm meaningfulness, “You’re a sweet guy.”

  “I know.”

  They ate. Ray noticed Heidi wore the white-bodied, blue-sleeved baseball jersey she had worn that day in the van, and oddly, he wore the white-bodied red-sleeved jersey he had worn. He motioned to his jersey and hers. “We should form a club.”

  Lunch ended too soon. The buzzer sounded. Ray started out. “Bye.”

  Heidi looked up at him sadly. She echoed, “Bye.” Sadly.

  This was the second to last time they spoke at work. She had to get right home tonight so Ray had bargained on Pete giving him a ride home in his van, and he’d agreed. This was Heidi’s last day of work—she wanted the last few days of the week for herself. Then a few full weeks of vacation before school resumed.

  Ray hadn’t really feared this day because he assumed they would see each other outside work. He had been a bit disappointed that she hadn’t simply taken today off, too, so that he could have called in sick and they could have spent the day together. But he thought she would find plenty of time during vacation to come visit him at his house.

  Too bad, she had told him on one occasion, they had gotten together so close to the end of summer and not when she first came. Too bad…too bad. ( I asked you, he had thought.) But her last day at work was the last time she intended to see him, apparently. Apparently. Brief encounter, she had once told him.

  When Ray left the stock room to punch back in from lunch, Heidi folded her lunch bag and glanced up at the ugly skin tacked to the wall as it stirred.

  ««—»»

  The last time they spoke at work was at the end of the day when Heidi wasfollowing the queue to the time clock. In no hurry to push his way to the clock, Ray leaned against a table watching. Heidi came nearer to him and said, “Bye.”

  “Bye,” he said coldly. He had pretended not to see her approach. Part of him must have known this was apparently the last time she meant to see him, and that part of him was mad.

  She lingered a moment and returned to the line. Punched out.

  ««—»»

  Ray occupied himself much of the weekend with his friend Dicky and his girlfriend Terry, even sleeping over at their new apartment in Worcester on Saturday night. It helped keep his mind off confusing hopes and fears. At the dinky kitchen table Ray joked that he wanted to get his ear pierced soon; Terry took him up on it and, impulsively excited, he told her to go ahead. He numbed his left lobe with ice in a face cloth (pretty painful for a numbing effect) while she soaked a needle in hydrogen peroxide. She ran the needle entirely through his lobe, which crunched inside but he didn’t flinch or complain. This was nearly as hallucinatorily exciting and exotic as when he had had the yin/yangs tattooed on his hands at the house of a friend of a friend. Terry fitted a gold half-moon earring into the bleeding hole and Ray went into the bathroom to admire himself. Dicky just laughed at the weirdness of it all.

  He marveled at how Ray could be so reserved but unexpectedly get tattoos, get his ear pierced.

  Ray had gotten the impression that Terry had enjoyed performing the surgery, as she was interested in horror movies, vampires, and joked a lot about bondage and sadomasochism. That had made this little ritual all the more exotic for him.

  What would Heidi say when she saw this?

  Ray expected Heidi to phone him Sunday night. She didn’t. At work Monday he missed looking across at her. The entire place seemed different, unfriendly, a mold on his spirit.

  He had called from Dicky’s house Saturday afternoon and a sister, apparently, had told him she was out. Out? With Tim, no doubt. He’d left a message but Heidi didn’t call him Monday, or Tuesday, and now it was nearly a week already since he had last seen her. Monday after work he wrote her a letter at the library, photocopied a copy for himself and mailed it. At the library he had fought to restrain tears. He was embarrassed by the letter, uncertain of it. It said they hadn’t had the proper opportunity to say goodbye (it was creeping up on him that she didn’t intend to say a further goodbye—that the night at her house had been goodbye). The letter ended that he knew now that he loved her. Not because she was a woman who had touched his life—he loved her. Her being, her persona. He rea
lized that now, he told her.

  Inside, deep, part of him wondered at the truth in that. She didn’t really stack up well against his fantasy requirements for a woman. In fact, Heidi had looked up naked from Ray’s bed that night in his home at a drawing of Stevie Nicks he had framed, and muttered self-pityingly, “It’s hard to compete with a fantasy.” He had felt embarrassed at this strange accusation, wondered what crack in her self-confidence, self-image, had leaked it. Later, stupidly, he had joked, “I wouldn’t be having a hard time if you looked like Stevie Nicks.”

  “I know,” she had muttered.

  But he did love her, his conscious mind persisted. He chose to love her— it wasn’t because she was the first and only one. Real one.

  Time had stood still for Ray; her impending departure from work had barely registered on him. It hadn’t mattered all that much that she had decided to quit her job a week earlier than planned. Hadn’t she said things like, “We’ll have to do it more often,” and, “I don’t ever want to leave you”? Time had become warped to him. It had only been three weeks, their involvement. Less—one week had been her Maine vacation. Days.

  A few days. How did “ever” become a few days?

  You were blind, he told himself. Deaf. The baleful ring. “Brief Encounter.”

  Ray stayed home sick form work Tuesday.

  He paced the dilapidated upstairs apartment with a coffee in hand, sunlight slanting into the dusty rooms like rays through the cracks in a crumbling tomb. He stopped to look at knickknacks and old books in a shelf corresponding with his parlor bookshelf. There was a busted statue of St. Francis of Assisi and a busted bust of Chopin. Ray supposed the old woman’s cat had knocked these over. Chopin looked sternly pissed at having been shattered, but benign Francis forgave the animal. Ray sipped his coffee and stared in a dull trance at their scattered chunks.