Chasing Storm (2 page)

(FIVE YEARS EARLIER)

Tim’s waiting for me when I come out of school. He’s sitting on his dirt bike, hands buried into his pockets and that puppy dog grin on his face that sets my heart a-flutter every time.

The others girls in my grade hurtle past me, keen to be free from school forever, many of them off to college and the others no doubt to settle down in Rosie, pump out a nuclear family and have mediocre sex while they dream of that new lounge suite in Jerry’s Furniture Bonanza.

I’m not going to be one of them. Tim and I are going to head out of here, hit the road and do everything we’re always wanted. My parents are going to be pissed, but they’ll get over it.

One of the local jocks jumps out at Tim walking past his bike. “Fuck off, Millertown trash.”

Tim doesn’t flinch. That’s what I love about him. Nothing fazes him. It’s all just water off his back.

“Hey, you,” he smiles, as I jump up into his lap.

Our mouths meet and our tongues tangle together as the summer heat streams down around us. Cars burn away from of the parking lot. Someone’s pumping
School’s Out
as I press my chest against Tim.

I move my lips to his ear. The bike sways precariously below us. “Tonight. You promised,” I whisper, pressing my butt down on his obvious erection.

He nods. “I know, baby. I know.”

I sling in behind him on the bike and we take off towards town, no helmets, no protection, no damn care in the world.

And it’s amazing, this freedom. For years I’ve been the studious good girl. Dad would kill me if he knew I’ve been seeing a Millertown boy all this time, but there’s just something about Tim, that hunger for life that seems intrinsic to everything he does. He doesn’t have the fancy clothes of the Rosie boys. He doesn’t play sport, an instrument. Heck, he doesn’t even go to school.

I watch the road sweep up before us as he twists the throttle and we fly past cars like they’re rocks. I hold my arms up above my head and holler, “I’m free!” as we swing around a corner into town.

It’s mid-afternoon and the streets of Rosie are starting to get busier with the coming holidays.

Tim mounts the curb and kicks the stand into place. His hands are hot on my hips as he lifts me off the bike onto the pavement.

His eyes fall down my body. I’m in jeans, a white tank top, but the way he looks over me, like I’m the most precious object in the world, is enough.

Tonight.

I take his hand sweaty in my own as we walk. There’s a floating floral breeze coming from the garden in the town square, bubblegum sticky under my sneaker as I walk.

“How does it feel?”

I hobble trying to reach down and pull the gum off. “Sticky.”

Tim laughs, patting me on the bum. “No, you goose,” drawl heavy. “To not have to go back to school anymore.”

Truthfully, all I’ve been thinking about today is Tim. The realization it’s all over sinks in and I look to the sky for some kind of profound answer but find only blue and gauzy white instead. “I dunno. I mean, it’s good, but scary, too.”

“How so?”

“It just feels more serious being free of school, you know?”

He shakes his head. “Can’t say I do.”

“Do you wish you could have gone to school?”

He kicks a Coke can out of the way as we walk past the diner. “Sometimes. I mean, Millertown’s only got one, but my folks couldn’t afford it anyhow.

“But you’re smart, real smart.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

“Well, you’re just saying that ’cause you want to get into my pants.”

I wink, sexual energy charging through my body in a fizzy sweep. “Perhaps, and what, you don’t want to get into mine?”

He slips his hand down the front of my jeans as we walk, past my panties and right into the heated juncture between my legs. I gasp, cheeks blushing. An old woman gives us the evil eye as she exits from the pharmacy on the right.

It’s too dangerous. Anyone could see me hanging around town like this. There are too many people I know, people who won’t hesitate to go to my folks and blabber away until the sun sets.

Tim removes his hand and holds it to his face.

“What are you doing?”

He runs his fingers under his nose and I pull his hand away.

“Mmmm, mmm,” he says.

“You’re disgusting.”

“I’m not the one who’s soaking wet down there.”

Tonight.

We pass by the old theatre.

Tim swings around in front of me, my body thrumming from his touch. “Want to see a movie?”

“I haven’t got any money.”

He winks. “No problem. Come with me.”

He pulls me by the hand into an alley down the side of the theatre building, around a corner to an exit door. I look around, spotting invisible witnesses everywhere.

Tim takes out his lock-picking kit from his pocket. He carries the damn thing with him everywhere, says it’s the only thing his daddy’s ever given him bar a good ass-kickin’. His initials are embossed into the smooth leather pouch.

He pulls two tiny tools free and works them into the lock of the exit door, tweezing and twixing them together until with a
pop
the lock clicks and he turns the knob to draw it open. “After you.”

I step into the dark hall of the exit corridor all concrete and cold confine. Tim comes up behind me, hands guiding my hips through the darkness.

This is what it’s like to be with him, to always tread that fine line of legality. Maybe that’s what’s so attractive about him in the first place. He doesn’t live by the regular rules of others. He doesn’t care for what others think. He treads his own path.

Of course, I’ve never been to his house. Even he admitted that was too risky. “He’s got a temper,” he told me of his dad. “Mom, too. Sometimes we get a hidin’ so bad I can’t see for a week. My brother and I just stay under the house, you know, wait it out.”

And he’s right. He’s met me at school with a bruised cheek before, busted eye, all kinds of injuries he put down to falling off his bike or stumbling down the stairs, but I know better. I think everyone does but says nothing of it. No one wants to get involved with his family. I haven’t met any of them, but it’s common knowledge: they’ve got a reputation.

We come out at the top of the theatre stairs. An old black-and-white is showing on the screen. Hitchcock maybe, with birds flapping about and a woman screaming hysterically down the street.

I’ve always loved this theatre, the strange art deco sculptures and worn red velvet, the way the whole place smells of mothballs and stale popcorn. It’s in the walls, the chairs… history.

There are only a few people in the cinema, the ageing Rosie crowd here for the afternoon session.

“This way,” whispers Tim, leading me up to the top dress circle overlooking the cinema proper.

An usher comes past, torch sweeping over the chairs.

Tim pulls us down into a tight ball by the wall. The light passes over our heads. My head is against his chest, his heart beating a steady staccato against my ear while my own gallops away against my top.

With the usher gone, we hurry past the No Entry sign and up the stairs to the dress circle, selecting two seats at the back while we sit down and giggle like fools, hands holding each other as we kiss and make out.

I pull away just long enough to catch his eyes lit by the screen, the absolute infinite of possibilities there, and I can picture us on his bike, with new towns and adventures, the whole world before us. We make love under the stars, hitchhike our way across the country when the bike dies. We find friends along the way, strange vagabonds like ourselves who are searching for the simple life. I’ve already written the letter to my parents. Each line is seared into my head.

“God, you’re beautiful.”

The words take me by surprise.

The woman on the screen screams as she’s attacked by a cloud of flapping wings.

“Most beautiful thing in the whole wide world.”

I squeeze his hand tighter. “Thank you.”

I lean in closer, pressing my legs together to stifle the need that’s gathered there. “Tonight, at the skate park, I’m yours, okay?”

He nods, a sudden burst of light from the screen lighting up his features, his moppy hair greasy. “Are you sure?”

I reach over and cup his crotch. He’s rock hard. “Yes, I’m sure. You got protection?”

He nods again. “Stole it from the pharmacy this morning.” He pulls a plastic square out from his pocket and I look upon it with wonder knowing this will be all that separates our bodies tonight.

“Will it fit?”

He laughs. “I hope so.”

“Hey,” he says, placing three kisses down my neck, my nipples stiffening against my top into tight twigs. “I want to try something. Will you let me?”

“Sure.”

“You won’t freak out, okay? I haven’t had much practice.”

He kneels down in front of me, into the tight space between the chair rows.

He moves between my legs and parts them with his hands.

“What are you doing?”

“You said you wouldn’t freak out, remember?”

The projection continues to run over our heads in a solid tunnel of light, but we’re too high up for anyone to see.

“Lift up your feet.”

I lift up my feet. He pops the button on my jeans. My mouth falls open.

“Trust me, okay?”

I nod, body pulled wire tight.

He takes down my zipper and begins to pull my jeans and panties away as one. I fold my legs together and lift my butt off the seat, allowing him to pull them down until they’re around my knees.

The stale theatre air brings goose bumps to my skin as his hands run over the top of my thighs.

The crotch of my panties finally pulls away from my crotch sticky and wet.

“Ready?”

I nod again, feet on the floor as he parts my legs and I yawn open before him.

I give a little gasp. My heart feels like it’s going to pound its way right out of my body as I arch against the back of the chair trying to press myself towards him.

His fingers move down my thighs, over the inner baby fat, coming closer and closer until they reach the puffy outer folds of my pussy.

My mouth forms into a circlet. I close my eyes as he moves through my folds.

We’ve touched before, but this,
this
is something else.

My chest heaves below, head light. He moves forward and I want to tell him no, no, that this is too much too soon, but I can’t help it. I can’t make my mouth move as his own falls against me and I melt at his touch.

The tip of his tongue moves out, a fleshly explorer, probing into the heat and desire that’s pooled fast between my legs, eager now, hungry as I place my hands on the top of his head and pull him towards me.

I moan internally when his tongue sweeps down and burrows deeper, his rough fingers holding me open. My butt squirms on the seat and I look towards the ceiling. I slink lower, trying to shut my mouth and stop myself screaming out at the top of my lungs that ‘yes, this is amazing!’.

I’m self-conscious of how I am down there, how I might smell, how wet I am, but I know he doesn’t care. His mouth moves over my mound as he laps higher in long, flat strokes against my clit, rubbing the tip of his tongue back and forth over the swollen bud until with a sudden spark of lightning I kick forward hard against his face. Fingers netted through his hair, I moan loud and long up to the ceiling as a strange wave of sensation overcomes me and I spill out against his tongue. I hold him to me, suffocating him with my pussy while I buck and judder in the seat, flapping around like a fish out of water as my very first orgasm subsides and all I’m left with is a fragmented shift of color and light reverberating in my head.

Tim’s face comes away glistening, a grin so wide on it you could see it from the Space Station.

“Wow.” It’s all I can offer.

“Hey! You two!”

The usher’s torch swings over us and I scream in fright. I leap from the chair, trying frantically to pull my panties and jeans back on as he makes for the side stairs. I stumble, but Tim’s hand holds me firm. There’s no time to do up my zipper, even get my pants back on properly as we burst out of the side door laughing and running at full pelt down the road, people shaking their heads and cussing as we pass by in a blur, the sun switching through the trees while it ebbs away.

I am so happy, so unbelievably happy I could cry, and when he spins me into a side street to kiss me, my own tart taste on his lips, it almost happens again.

He places his hand on the brickwork beside my head, twirling a curl of my hair around his finger and watching it unwind with solemn reverence. “I love you,” he says.

“I love you, too.”

It feels right. Perfect.

Everything is perfect.

Everything is right.