Blinding Light (41 page)

“Please don't tell them.”

“I'm going to,” she said, and it sounded like
gunnah.
“I'm going to blab everything.”

Now he wanted to go, but he could not rise from the moving swing, and when he finally got a grip on the arm of it and tried to hoist himself, she was talking again in that same teasing tone.

“I bet you want to come right into my house.”

“No,” he said, his voice breaking, and turned the small word into a squawk. He just wanted to leave. The day had gone dark, though he hadn't noticed it until now.

“Then why did you come all the way over here?” And seeing that he was flustered and at a loss for a reply, she laughed softly.

The lights had gone on in the park, illuminating the treetops, and he still heard the sounds of the softball game, the cries of the spectators, the shouts of the players—easy to tell apart. He was thinking of all that passion and noise, just a game being played, so innocent, so blameless, an honest ball game under the lights. And he knew that he was doing something wrong, enacting a secret in the shadows he could never explain or justify.

“So why didn't you bring me anything?”

He was silent. Another ball was smacked, another cheer: the players were harmless and happy and he was wicked.

“Because I got something for you. Want to see it?” She did not wait for a reply. “Stay here.”

She went inside and closed the doors—the screen door, the solid inner door, and he heard the thunk of the bolt. He remained sitting, wondering whether anyone could see him. He felt conspicuous and impatient and sensed he should go home. After a few minutes he rang the doorbell to tell Carol he was leaving. The bell was loud, but even so, there was no answer, not even footsteps. He waited, feeling trapped by the silence. Like a gasp, an expelled breath, a light inside went off.

And then came the metallic swallowing of the door bolt and a movement of the inner door. He could not see past the screen—only the outline of the doorframe, the darkness within. He plucked open the screen door and saw nothing but the dim hallway.

“Go in there,” she spoke from behind the door. He could see only her bare arm pointing to the living room. “Wait a little while. Then you have to find me.”

As soon as his back was turned she hurried away. He did as he was told, continued into the living room, his heart pounding, excited by the suspense. The living room was shadowy, lit by the street. He sat, and fumbled, then stood and listened, tremulous, his hands damp.

Her muffled voice came from somewhere upstairs in the house. “I'm ready.”

He went to the stairway and listened, and hearing nothing more, he climbed the stairs, looked into one room and then another, all in darkness, but he could make out the shapes of chairs, the lumps of beds, the glint of mirrors.

He entered a room at the front of the house, and though there was more light here from the street lamps, he did not see Carol at first because she was motionless, standing upright, almost posing. But he could see what she was wearing: short blue baby-doll pajamas and a pair of fluffy slippers. Her hair was fixed in two high bobbing brush-like ponytails, her shoulders were bare, her skin so pale as to be almost ghostly. The diaphanous blue cloth shimmered in the scanty, slanted light.

“Do you like it?” she said. “I dressed up just for you. I bet you don't even care.”

She twirled before him and set the baby doll in motion, and then approached him and took his hand and brought him close to her, so close he could feel her but hardly see her, as if she were embarrassed to be stared at. And liking the darkness he clutched her, the silken cloth in his fingers, the warmth of her body, the odd warm saltiness of her damp flesh in the room that was like the promise of sex, the burnt perfume on her skin. She began to kiss him in a way that was new to him, sucking on his lips.

She moved from his mouth and said, “You better not tell anybody.”

Then, before he could say anything, she kissed him again, her kisses like promises. And as he returned her kisses, answering back, he opened his eyes and saw the room beyond her more clearly—the chair, the small bed, the neat row of costumed dolls on the dresser. He led her a few steps to the bed and pushed a cloth doll out of the way and sat down, hugging her, still kissing her, tasting the saltiness of her moist neck, the lemonade in her saliva.

“Lie down.”

“No,” she said, in a tone of caution that was almost fear.

But she did not stop kissing him, and a moment later, when he took her free hand and pressed it against his lap, she let him guide her fingers. Then all the initiative was hers, as she touched him, rubbed him with her small hand and finally unzipped him and took hold of him, pumping, her whole hand enclosing him. The thought came to him that she knew a great deal and was unafraid.

She certainly knew more than he did—he could tell that from her grip, her confident fingers wrapped around his stiffened cock. And her other hand, too. Her boldness startled him, for he had hardly touched her body. He knew with a kind of dread that he was trespassing. He had entered a new country that was strange and dark and sinful and pleasurable, full of shadows and delights, and he was here for good, was possessed, was changed, would never return. Being here with Carol, kissing the lemony taste of her lips, her skinny hands bewitching him, was not a choice—there was no alternative. He loved it and knew he was damned.

She sighed when he touched her, slipping his hand onto her thigh, and fondled the lace of her baby doll, which was like part of her nakedness. She sighed again, and he knew her sigh meant yes. She parted her legs and allowed his hand to rise. Groping there, fumbling in the dark, was for him like uncovering a secret being, another person, a hidden woman, her scalp and cheeks, her lips, her mouth—everything but eyes—and when his fingers traced and hesitated at the tiny mouth of this damp-faced creature, she opened her legs wider.

“Put it inside,” she said, as she kissed him. He slipped one fingertip in, and she said, “More.”

Even unseen he could feel the lip-like folds glisten as his finger dipped into the slick pocket mouth of flesh. Sliding closer to him, crushing her nightgown against him, she kissed him harder, put her tongue into his mouth, showing him how, until he did the same to her.

She was leading him, teaching him. He used his tongue as he stroked her with his hand, in the same motion as she was stroking him. She was rocking, helping his hand, and in this fierce syncopation of desire he could feel her small damp body squirming beneath the satin, like a captive animal, a mewing cat trapped and twisted in silk. The lights from the street made the cloth glow. The bedroom, not so dark now, was fragrant with her perfume and her dolls.

He was looking at one of her Barbie dolls sitting flat on the dresser, its long legs straight out and slightly parted to keep it upright, when, pumping him and taking light skimming breaths, Carol gripped him, seeming to sense his whole body go rigid, as though concentrating. Then a sweet wound within him swelled and burst in a single stroke, and when he convulsed and clutched himself he also clutched her sticky searching hands.

“I can feel it,” she said, and became girlish and curious and almost jubilant.

He groaned, for he had emptied quickly and now there was a void where all that heat and muscle had been.

“Let me see it,” she said.

“No.” He was bent over, slashed in half, reduced to a crouching guilty boy.

“It's on my fingers, it's all over my nightie,” she said. “Look what you did.”

He was sorrowful, ashamed, exhausted, almost feverish, and he watched with drowsy surprise as she dabbed her fingers, smelled them, put the tip of her tongue on them, and wagged her tongue at him. Then, seeing that he was shocked, she became assertive and shocked him further by snatching his hand and choosing his wettest finger and sucking it. She lay back and trapped him with her laugh.

With a slight catch in her throat from being overeager, Carol Lumley whispered, “Touch me some more.”

Touch me some more,
Ava was saying, in a mass of blue silk and ribbons and lace.
More.

T
HE TWANGING MUSIC
he heard as he approached on the whitish dust of the summer path made the solitary cabin more solitary, yet gave it life. It was a small, rough-wood bungalow with a song coming out of the side porch. Had Tom's mother left the radio on and gone out? It seemed impossible that she could be inside listening to something so loud, stammering and delirious music that knifed the steamy air like hot metal. Listening to it he seemed to see the sunlight glittering on sharp silver, and he walked faster, toward the melody. The music also seemed to give the cabin a face—eye-like windows, porch nose, door mouth.

“We're going out with Kenny,” Tom had said at the lake, holding his sister Nita's hand.

Kenny was a fisherman, Kenny had a boat, Kenny was Tom Bronster's older friend. Tom talked about him all the time. “Kenny's got a gun. He's going to let me shoot it.” Today, Tom's tone suggested that Slade was not welcome, or at least that he would be in the way. Kenny's boat was a small skiff with an outboard motor.

Nita was vexed: she wanted to stay with Slade, and yet Tom was responsible for her. That morning on the beach she had said to Slade, “I could be your girlfriend.” She was ten, he was thirteen. Slade was glad to see her go.

“Never mind, I'll stick around here,” Slade said, knowing he was lying.

As soon as Kenny's boat sped across the lake, tipping up and plowing white water aside, Slade turned and walked through the pines and up the dusty path by the margin of the meadow where a cow sometimes followed them along the fence. Nearer the cabin—as soon as he saw it—he heard the music, and now he was glad he was alone. Tom was his friend, but when Tom was with him, Slade was distracted. Slade was dreamy, he preferred to be alone with his reveries, he found more pleasure in them than in noisy games. Tom was a talkative, active boy with an exhausting shrieky voice.

Agreeing to spend this week at the lake with Tom and his family meant that he, the visiting friend, was obliged to accompany Tom every waking minute. So he was happy on the path; he liked having a break from the burden of this raucous boy who was always chasing his dog or challenging Slade to bike races or boasting about Kenny.

Through the side window of the cabin Slade saw a flash of white, Tom's mother in a bra, her thick hair plaited into one braid and fixed by a ribbon. He thought even then how no white was whiter than a woman's white underwear. She was playing a steel guitar, a table-like instrument resembling an ironing board with strings, plucking it and moving a wooden spindle at one end to create a quavering sound, a sweet hungering he knew to be Hawaiian music. Yearning melodies troubled the fretwork of the amplifier, a black boxy suitcase with a hole on one side.

Tom's mother, who was always dressed up at night, looked naked to Slade now. He was fascinated by each thing she wore: a bra that made her breasts into two white cones on a harness, loose shorts—her navel showing in her pale flat stomach—and wedge-heeled shoes with fake cherries attached to the straps, painted toenails, her thick braid sliding across her spine as, looking tall, she concentrated hard on her pressed-down fingers, making music.

Had she not been playing the instrument she would have seen Slade at once. Carelessly dressed, her braid swinging, she seemed playful, younger, like a very big girl. Steadman stayed at the window, looking at her bare legs and her white shapely breasts. She was half faced away from him, but she looked so lovely he found himself staring. He was dizzy with meaningless heat and numb fingers. He loved looking, but as minutes passed she became less and less Tom's mother and more and more like someone whom he knew a little and had never seen like this.

Imagining himself touching her eased his mind. She had sallow skin and green eyes. Mentally he placed his hands over the cups of her breasts and stroked them slowly. The thought so possessed him that he stepped away, ducked beneath the cabin window, and went back to the lake to wait for Tom and Nita to return from the fishing trip. Still, even sitting on the grassy bank with his feet propped on the exposed roots of a tree, hidden by bushes, he felt guilty and excited.

“You missed it!” Tom called out from the skiff when he saw Slade on the embankment. Tom held up a dripping foot-long fish.

That night, Tom's mother wore a pink pleated dress with short sleeves and white sandals. Her long hair was unbraided, combed out, hiding her neck. Each night she dressed differently. He loved her clothes, their color and variety, and he saw in her joy in dressing up how attractive she was. But it pleased him to know that he had seen her that afternoon in her bra and shorts. She was kind to Slade. She watched him eat and complimented him on his manners.

“And what a good appetite.” She said to Tom, “I wish you'd eat like Slade.”

“You're a good cook,” Slade said, and saw the effect of his praise—the way she smiled, the way she leaned over and asked him if he wanted more. He averted his eyes from her neckline, but he got a glimpse of the bra.

Nita whispered to her and then clapped her hand over her mouth.

“And you've got a secret admirer,” Tom's mother said.

In the bunk beds that night, almost pained by the thought of the woman and needing to talk about her, Slade whispered in the darkness from the top bunk, “Tom. You awake?”

“Yeah.”

“Your mother's nice.”

“Bull.”

“No. She really is.”

Slade wanted to have a conversation about Tom's mother, find out more about her, or at least just talk to console himself.

“She's horrible. She's a wicked nag. Always making me babysit Nita.”

Tom wouldn't say any more. Soon he was asleep, and Slade saw how Tom was selfish and immature, no fun to talk to, a disappointment who was a burden as a friend.