Authors: Barry Lyga
"Call me tomorrow, Josh. I'll be waiting for your call."
Mom went into her bedroom and closed the door behind her.
"OK," I whispered, panicking now that Mom would go straight for the phone in her bedroom. "I have to go."
I crept down the hall and made it past Mom's door safely, then replaced the phone on its cradle.
To my surprise, that night when I broached the topic of spending a few hours at the mall, Mom readily agreed. She thought I was going to meet Zik and Rachel and Michelle there, watch a movie, and spend the day goofing off. She thought this because it's what I told her.
I had thought she would have me slaving away in the basement, but she said she would be happy to drop me off in the morning when the mall opened, as long as I got up early enough to help her clean the downstairs bathroom.
I couldn't call Eve that night, and in the morning Mom woke me up and was with me every minute from then until we left, except for the ten minutes I took grabbing a quick shower. She dropped me off at the mall a little bit after ten and the place was already packed.
"Either your father or I will pick you up at three right here," she said.
"OK."
"Right here. Three o'clock."
"I heard you, Mom."
As soon as Mom was out of sight, I dashed for the pay phones. But as I punched Eve's cell phone number in, I realized something: The mall was right near her apartment! I never realized it before because you have to take all these windy roads and crazy turns, but the mall is only a couple of minutes from Eve's apartment if you just walk over a hill. No wonder she wanted me to come here—it was closer to her apartment than school, even.
She picked up. "Hello?"
"It's me," I said.
"I'm on my way."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm at the mall, but I just realized I can walk over the hill and be there in five minutes."
"Be careful."
"I will."
I hung up and checked quickly to make sure that no one I knew was around, watching. Then I ducked out of the mall.
***
Up six steps. Half-turn. Six more.
I knocked at Eve's door. She opened the door in her slinky robe, her hair falling around her face and down to her shoulders.
She pulled me into the apartment and slammed the door, pressing herself against me, slippery and soft in the robe. She nibbled at my ear, breathing into it, gasping out her words: "Oh, baby, I missed you. I missed you so much. I need you so bad."
"Me, too."
She dropped to her knees and unbuckled my belt, then skinned down my pants and underpants. I was ready for her already, and she dived down, darting her head like a starving bird. I hissed out my breath and clenched my fists and leaned my head back against the door.
She stopped. "Watch me," she groaned. "Watch." And she took my hands and put them on her head. I gripped her hair and looked down. She looked up at me, our eyes locked as she descended again.
Later, we lay intertwined on the sofa while I played video games. She dozed, her robe open from throat to waist, her chest warm against my naked thigh.
Christmas break was the turning point for me. That was when I realized that I needed to be with Eve, as if she'd injected me with something and only she had the antidote. Away from her, I felt sick and miserable. With her, I felt pleasure; the pleasure brought its own sort of guilt, but I could live with it. It was certainly better than the illness I felt away from her, and the horrible wracking guilt of knowing that she wanted to be with me and I was preventing that. So I just gave in.
I called her every morning while Mom was in the shower and we whispered to each other the way I imagine Zik and Michelle whispered. I couldn't get Mom to take me to the mall every day, but two more times I went over to Eve's—she picked me up in her car when I told Mom I was going outside to play. It was frigid by now, even with the sun out, but Mom thought I was going over to Michelle's to see Rachel and Zik, so she said nothing. Looking back, I'm lucky that she never called Michelle's house on those two occasions.
When school started again, things became easier and more difficult at the same time. I could once again spend every afternoon with Eve, but I was having trouble focusing in school, especially in history. I told Eve at one point how much I liked her toenails and she asked which polish was my favorite. I told her about the time I'd noticed her electric blue polish and she laughed.
The next day, even though it was the end of January, she wore open-toed sandals in school, her nails a brilliant blue. I didn't hear a word she said in class—my notebook was completely blank. That afternoon, after our usual session (she called it "petting," and she was letting me touch her freely now—a stand-up triple, easy), she snuggled up to me on the sofa and let me copy her notes into my notebook so that I wouldn't fall behind.
Sometimes she would take me places. Never in Brookdale, of course. We'd make out in her apartment and then drive out to Canterstown or down to Finn's Crossing, where she'd treat me to dinner or hot chocolate or a movie. For those excursions, she would always call Mom from her cell phone and pretend that we were staying late at school to change the bulletin boards in the classroom or set up something for a lesson. "He's just a terrific little helper," she would say in complete innocence, usually while we were half-naked together on the sofa or floor.
The more time Eve and I spent together, the guiltier I started to feel, though I knew that the alternative—not seeing her at all—would be even worse. Eve was my friend. She had talked about how our "playing" together made us both feel good, but I knew that I was getting more out of this than she was. I was getting mind-shattering bliss and pleasure every time we were together, sometimes twice. She wasn't getting anything like that.
"Why don't you let me make you feel good, too?"
"Do you want to, Josh?"
"It just doesn't seem fair. You do all of these things for me and I don't—"
"But do you
want
to, Josh?"
I got frustrated. Why didn't she understand? I wasn't talking about what I wanted to do or didn't want to do. I was talking about what was
fair.
About me always getting and never giving anything back. Feeling
guilty
for that.
But sometimes she was like this—she wanted to hear what she wanted to hear and that was that.
"Yes. I want to."
That afternoon and for the rest of the week, she taught me her body. She was a very good teacher, and I suppose I was a good student.
There was only one other lesson to learn, I guess.
A week or so later, she asked me if I wanted to see the Happy Trio again. (She didn't call them the Happy Trio. That's just how I thought of them.)
I was curious, I have to admit, so I told her yes. She went into the bedroom and got the DVD. We watched it from the beginning, when it was just a Happy Duo, not a Happy Trio. It was amazing to see it with the perspective of the last few weeks. I
knew
that. And that. And that, too.
Except for when they pressed together, as close as Eve and I had pressed, but without clothing. I stared.
"Are you OK?" Eve was lying on the sofa, her head on my lap. I absently stroked her lustrous black hair while watching.
"I'm fine," I said, unable to turn away from the TV. I knew the sounds of lovemaking from listening to my parents through the vents. But I'd never had the visuals to go with it.
"I want to do that," I whispered.
Eve sat upright. "Are you sure?"
I kept staring at the screen. Eve paused the DVD and made me look at her. "Are you sure that's what you want?"
I swallowed. Was she saying that we could ... She was
married
...
"Yes," I whispered. I realized I was shaking. I had something else to say, something I could barely bring myself to say. I wanted to tell her that I wanted to do it with
her,
but I knew that was too far, too much. She was
married.
Married people have sex with each other. I knew that much.
"Yes," I said again. "But I don't know how."
There were tears in her eyes. She held me tight to her and kissed me deep and long. "That's OK." Her tongue flicked at my ear. "I'll teach you."
And she did. From then on, we moved our sessions from the sofa to the bedroom. My Xbox time dropped almost to nil.
I learned every curve, nook, and niche of her body, every inch of smooth skin, every bump and turn.
I learned what to touch, when to touch it, how to touch it, and for how long. I learned; I watched.
I never, ever stopped thrilling to the sight each time I saw her naked. Every time, it was new. Never boring. Never old.
She taught me how to make love and she taught me how to fuck and she taught me the difference. We ended up doing more of the latter than the former.
One time, in the panting aftermath of our afternoon session, she lay on the bed in unconscious imitation of that Playmate from Zik's
Playboy
an eternity ago.
"What are your numbers?" I asked her.
She looked at me sleepily over her shoulder. "My what?"
"Your numbers." I gestured at her chest, her waist.
"Oh." She laughed. "Why do you care all of a sudden?"
"Numbers are important."
"Come on, Josh."
"Numbers are important."
She relented at the seriousness in my expression. She took my hand and made me touch breast, waist, hip, as she recited "Thirty-four, twenty-six, thirty-five."
"Are those good numbers?"
Her eyebrows shot up. "Well,
I
like to think so! What do
you
think?" And she sprawled out on the bed, unashamed, completely open to me.
"I like them," I conceded. "But what do they mean?"
She explained the measurements to me, the way bra and cup sizes worked, the way women's clothes were measured differently then men's. Satisfied at last, I drifted off to sleep in her arms, catching an hour nap before the alarm woke us up in time to change the sheets, make the bed, and get dressed before George got home.
"Are you OK, Josh?" she asked me as we put fresh sheets on the bed. I was being quieter than usual, I guess.
"Yeah."
"Are you all right with what we're doing?"
Her eyes and her voice were filled with concern.
"Yes. I'm fine with it."
"Because if you want to stop—"
"No. I don't want to stop."
I couldn't tell her the truth: that I felt terrible for what I was doing. Guilty for making her do what I wanted. Guilty for making her do it my way. Guilty for making her cheat on her husband. Every time I saw George, every time his eyes lit up at the sight of me and he slapped me on the back and said, "How's it going, champ?" I felt like a part of me had died.
I hated myself for being too weak to stop it.
"You know, Josh, what we're doing is fine when two people love each other. Do you love me, Josh?"
And of course I had no choice. Not in terms of what to say—no choice but to love her. How could I do anything but? It was impossible.
"Yes. I do."
She came to me and hugged me, our bodies still slightly sticky with sweat. She was a few inches taller than I, and my head nestled—perfectly, as if designed that way, she always said—in the hollow of her throat, just above her breasts.
She kissed the top of my head, just like Mom. "And I love you, Josh. I really do. I wish..." Her body hitched, and I realized she was crying. "I wish things were different. I wish people would understand..."
I held her tightly as she cried.
The weather warmed—a little bit—and the days lengthened by some small but noticeable amount. One day over dinner, Mom suddenly said, "Poor Mrs. Sherman."
My heart hammered like I was facing Randy Johnson on the mound. I said absolutely nothing.
"I said," Mom said when no one rose to the bait, "'Poor Mrs. Sherman.'"
"We heard you," Dad said.
"Baseball practice starts in a couple of weeks. She's going to lose her little helper."
Baseball practice! How could I have forgotten about it?
Well, that was a silly question, actually. I knew
exactly
how I could have forgotten about it. I wasn't hanging out with Zik and Rachel all the time like I used to. We would have started our spring training countdown a few days ago and begun obsessing over the new season. But time was a strange, plastic thing when I was with Eve—it went slowly when it was just the two of us together, whether in the apartment or out somewhere in another town together. Then, when I came back home, it seemed like weeks had gone by in the interim, and I was late with homework or a project or something else.
Baseball practice. Man! It wasn't every day, but it was three times a week, plus Saturdays. Eve had been talking about trying to figure out a way to steal an entire Saturday together, but she hadn't come up with anything yet. Now there would be no way for that to happen.