I want to escape the mall and get away from everybody. I wonder if I should call Mark and explain that there was a huge mix-up and he should just ignore any and all photos sent from my number. Maybe I should send an odd picture of the ceiling or my foot and he’ll just assume my camera phone is acting crazy. I lay it down on the pink bench cushion and numbly get undressed, hanging the damning strips of pink lace on their satin hanger.
I already have one leg back in my jeans when my phone starts ringing. Not only does it ring, but it rings with the love song I’ve downloaded especially for Mark’s cell phone number.
Mark
is
calling
me!
I freeze, balanced on one leg as the cheesy melody fills the dressing room.
Flinging my head outside the curtain I snap at Amanda and Terri, “It’s him! He’s calling!” Mid-arguing they turn wide eyes to me until I wail, “What should I do?”
“Answer it!” they both command, and I somehow manage to control my hands enough to pick up my phone and hit the green button a split second before the call goes to voicemail.
“Hello?” I say timidly while hoping the text didn’t go through and that this is an amazing coincidence.
“Hi, Blaze.” Mark’s voice sounds sultry. “I got your text.”
Damn!
“Oh, about that, I…” I look desperately to Amanda and Terri for help. “My phone has been acting sort of wonky—”
“Yeah, I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to call.” Mark cuts smoothly through my panic. “I was wondering if you’re free tonight.”
Everything goes still as my mind whirrs with responses. I need to clarify that the photo was all Amanda’s idea. I want to make certain it’s not the only reason he called. But really, in the end, there’s only one possible way I can respond to Mark asking me out.
“You want me to pick you up?” I ask.
“Seven thirty okay?”
“Um-hmm,” I say through the ringing that has started up again in my ears.
“Great! Oh, and Blaze,” his voice turns sultry again, “be sure to wear that lace thing from your picture.”
“That’s not—” But he’s already hung up.
• • •
The next thing I know, Mark and I are parked in the middle of a cornfield off Route 8. In my mind I try to retrace the series of events that led to the two of us making out in the front seat of my minivan, but every time I manage to string two thoughts together, they’re wiped clear by the intensity of Mark’s kisses.
With the part of my brain that is still functioning beyond,
Oh
my
God, this feels so good
, I recreate the cartoon panels leading up to our liplock.
The first panel features the two of us looking out the minivan’s windshield as we pull out of Mark’s driveway. Talk bubbles show him telling me how funny it is that he was just about to call me when he got my sext and me trying to tell him the whole thing was an elaborate accident. We see a close-up panel of him seductively rubbing my leg as I drive. A cross-section X-ray illustrates the “lucky” pale-pink permanent-wedgie underwear hiding underneath my clothes, worn at Amanda’s insistence, and a comic panel shows a close-up of my heart beating through my shirt.
Badda-thump. Badda-thump.
Comic-Mark suddenly points to the left, his arm flung across my chest as he calls out in big, block letters, “
TURN
HERE!
”
Superturd swerves a screechy swerve, and lightning letters “
SQUEEEEE
” up from the front tire in the comic version. And let me tell you, my mind is sticking with the comic version, if only to have something to focus on and avoid going to total mush. I already have the same light, tipsy feeling I got the time Amanda snuck a bottle of vodka into her bedroom for our sleepover. Of course, the burning alcohol going down my throat was much less enjoyable than Mark’s sweet kisses.
Back in my comic-mind-version of events, Superturd has missed the sudden turn Mark demanded, mostly because I realize right before crashing that there is no actual turn-off. A half-page panel shows that there’s nothing but a big, long cornfield running down both sides of the road. “That’s okay,” says comic-Mark, “there’s another spot just ahead.” And this time when he calls out, “Right here! Turn!” he simultaneously grabs the wheel and turns it sharply, sending us lurching toward the wall of corn. And this panel of us has to show a row of e’s coming out of my mouth, like “
eeeeeeeeeeeee!
” as I slam on the brakes. By the time the van stops, we’re sitting crookedly in a ditch, but my headlights show that there is, indeed, a break in the cornrows ahead of us.
“Sorry I scared you,” Mark’s talk bubble says. He gives a worried look as he tenderly smooths a hand over my hair.
“I wasn’t scared,” my talk bubble defends, despite the fact that I screamed. Plus, my hands have little vibration lines because they’re shaking from the aftershocks of adrenaline and terror.
From there, to the present, there’s just a short transition page showing panels of the van pulling deeper into the cornfield and our faces moving toward each other in a row of shots ending with a full double-paged spread of our epic kiss. The epic kiss has been going on for some time at this point, and the intensity is growing beyond Su-per Virgin Girl’s power to control it.
“Let’s get in the back,” Mark breathes between kisses, but I stay firmly planted in the driver’s seat. The back of my minivan is so smelly and disgusting it will dampen every last drop of passion Mark and I have whipped up.
“Do you have one of those pull-down DVD players in this thing?” he asks teasingly. Slipping through the gap between the front seats, he runs his hand along the ceiling as he moves toward the back of the minivan.
“Sorry, no,” I say, my lips already feeling cold and lonely. “Nothing back there but empty seats.”
Mark climbs past the middle seats and sits in the very back row. When he pats beside him invitingly, I shake my head “no” with the sense we are playing a game and I don’t know the rules. Knowing the rules is important. In this same van, I tricked him into losing at Cows that first time.
“What do you want?” my talk bubble teases as a thought bubble rises from my head asking,
What
do
I
want?
Mark gives a few bops, then disappears as he lies down across the bench. I wrap my hands around the steering wheel, tempted to start Superturd and drive away.
“Oh, Blaze,” Mark calls in a sing-song voice, and I know that if I don’t join him I’ll never hear from him again. I think of how desperate and empty I felt just a few hours ago. I don’t want to go back to that. Ever.
I find myself crouch-walking toward him. When I get to the back of the minivan I don’t know what to do. I sway a bit, wanting to get back to the kissing, but not sure how to make that happen. Mark looks so perfect in the moonlight beaming through the back windows and without thinking, I call out “Piledriver!” and fling myself, elbow first, on top of him. I instantly remember I’m not some petite little brunette backpack who can just fling her body around flirtatiously. My flinging is a clear act of aggression. Mark lets out a loud grunt as my elbow connects with his ribs.
“Sorry.” I bite my lip. “I think I spend too much time hanging out with thirteen-year-old boys.”
“No, that was cute,” he insists as he wraps his arms up and around me, drawing me to him. We start kissing again, but the position change makes more of a difference than I imagined. Sitting in the front seats, kissing as we leaned over the gap had been hot enough, but lying on top of him must change my body’s entire blood flow or something because,
Damn!
Now all I can think of is our private bits. My brain locks onto what would be going on “down there” if we weren’t separated by four layers of fabric. That is, four layers assuming Mark has on underwear. I’ve spent enough time with the male species to know that isn’t necessarily a given.
No sooner does the thought of his underwear (or lack thereof) enter my head than Mark slowly starts lifting the bottom of my shirt. Like he has special make-out telepathy or something. After mentally gagging and binding Virgin Girl, I sit up and raise my arms to help him. When my shirt is over my head and out of the way, I draw in a breath at the sight of Mark’s expression.
His hands rest on either side of my waist, and he looks up at the transparent pink bra with such intensity, I feel a fresh
KA-BAM!
in my lower belly. His face is so perfect, and I want him to keep looking at me that way, to draw him to me. Without pausing, he reaches behind me and effortlessly undoes the clasp on my bra. With a flick of his wrist, my breasts are revealed to a boy for the very first time. Mark’s eyes go almost animalistic at the sight of them. I feel… powerful.
“You are amazing,” he tells my boobs. Pulling me closer, he nearly swallows my left breast. I giggle and suppress the urge to point out that he can suck all day, he isn’t getting any milk from these puppies. That’s when he pulls back and, with shaking restraint, makes small gentle circles around my nipple with his tongue. It’s like little pleasure lightning bolts shooting through my chest. I clutch at his thick, dark hair that’s the tiniest bit damp and smells like spicy licorice. Mark turns his head. His tongue goes to work on my waiting breast, and it feels so good my mind is completely wiped clear. There is nothing aside from how good this feels. Su-per Virgin Girl lies passed out in the corner.
My eyes closed, I reach above Mark’s head to steady myself and better position my chest for more of his tongue’s fondling. My hand touches something smooth and cold, tucked into the space behind the armrest.
What
the… ?
My surprise at the mystery item pulls me from the perfect paradise in my mind to Superturd’s moonlit interior. I lift the small smooth package and sit up, straddling Mark and leaving him with such a look of open desire on his face it’s nearly comical. One of the hottest guys in school, out of my league, and yet here he is in the back of my minivan, completely under my control. With that thought, I look at the thing I’m holding in my hand and let out a piercing scream.
“Fucking Ajay!” I say as I dive toward the side door.
Mark tries to hold onto me, but I muscle past him, yanking the door open and flinging the disgusting package outside.
“Wha… ?” Mark’s face looks like he just woke up from a very deep sleep. I can’t believe my romantic encounter was just interrupted by a moldy turkey and cheese sandwich in a plastic baggy. I make a quick mental note to assassinate Ajay.
“It’s nothing,” I tell Mark with false lightness as I rejoin him. I just want to get back to that mind wipe situation with his face in my breasts.
“You okay?” Mark sits up as I reposition myself over him. His eyes scan my bare chest and claim my nipples. I nearly laugh at the way boys apparently don’t get any less breast-obsessed between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. It’s as if the rest of me is nonexistent.
“It’s just some garbage one of your players left behind, that’s all.” I shrug, and Mark pulls me down to a close embrace. He’s wearing his favorite Kick Some Grass! T-shirt, and it’s soft against my bare chest, but I long to pull it up and feel his skin against mine. Which is probably why, when Mark asks me if I want to stop, I answer him honestly, “No.”
He asks if I’m sure and as I pull back and look into his earnest face, I see everything. The life I want instead of the one I have. I need Mark to be mine. I can’t lose him. He’s my Zodiac Key.
Except that I don’t think I entirely understand what my answering no means. Or, more to the point, I don’t know what I’ve said yes to, because the next thing I know, Mark is asking me when I had my last period.
My first thought is that he wants to tease me about it. “Um, it ended last week I think?” I say non-committally and remind myself Mark is not thirteen and probably doesn’t mock girls for using products from the feminine hygiene aisle.
“Perfect, you should be fine,” he says, unzipping his jeans. “But I’ll be careful just in case.” Apparently, his take-charge coaching technique applies off the field as well. He explains that he will tap me on the hip to warn me when it’s time for him to pull out and demonstrates by tapping my hip firmly. I’m to shift quickly to my left when he gives the signal.
As I focus on Mark’s instructions, Virgin Girl whirrs awake.
Wait
a
second,
she protests.
How’s about a nice blow job, instead?
But picturing that seems degrading and less intimate and, well,
I’m pretty sure I’d suck at it
. I laugh nervously at my ridiculous “suck” thought-pun. Mark must take my laugh to mean I’m ready to get down to business, because he responds with a smile as he unfastens my jeans. This is it. Time to show him how I really feel about him. I think of how much I’ve longed to be this close to him and even though I’m really nervous, I’m glad that we’re about to connect in such a meaningful way.
Condom, Condom, CONDOM!
screams Virgin Girl.
I stammer, “Uh, c-condom?”
“It’s fine,” Mark reassures with a convincing moonlit smile.
At least I don’t have to wonder anymore about him becoming my boyfriend.
And, hey, that lace wedgie is finally gone
, I think as he pulls down my jeans and panties in one smooth motion. The matching set never would’ve gotten displayed even if he hadn’t already ditched the bra. Which is fine, since there’s not exactly tons of room to perform a seductive striptease here in the back of Superturd.
The comic panel version of what happens next would show the words:
Zip! Thwack! Shlurp!
Boink!
in giant starbursts. And before Su-per Virgin Girl! can utter another word, the whole thing’s over. Mark and I have had sex. I don’t even get a good look at his equipment, which I suppose is for the best, what with my fear of penises (
Or
is
it
peni? I’m still not sure
).
I scrounge about and find some loose Burger Palace napkins to clean up the mess. As Mark wipes himself off and fastens his jeans I can’t help but feel vaguely empty, like I swallowed a teeny, tiny marble-sized black hole. How can something that’s supposed to be such a momentous big deal be over with so quickly? I wonder if I was any good.