Authors: Joyce Maynard
There’s two sinks—one for him, one for her. Next to the one I figure is his, there’s this after-shave and hair gel or what have you. Deodorant—after my shower, I squirt on some of that. The after-shave too.
Of course hers is the one with all the makeup and shit. All these little bottles and brushes and tubes, I never would’ve believed a chick could put so much stuff on her face. She’s got these hot roller things and a blow dryer and perfume for her too, naturally. Even her razor looks so pretty and fancy. Pink.
I take off my jeans and shirt. Step into the shower, lather up. I’m so excited I can hardly stand it, washing my cock, thinking where it’s going to be, who’s going to be touching it.
Then I get out, stand under the red light bulb like I said, squirt on some good-smelling stuff, put a little toothpaste in my mouth. There’s this real soft bathrobe, made out of towel material, hanging on a hook. I put it on, step in the hall to see if she’s there. But I can still hear the TV. OK, I think. I’ll just wait up here. On her bed.
I lie there. There’s a
Sports Illustrated
on the bureau, and I pick it up but I can’t concentrate. I walk over to the closet, look at her dresses. Everything’s real neat, all the shoes lined up in this little rack she’s got. Belts hanging from special hooks. His ties. I see this one shirt she wore the first time we made it, over at the beach. Smell it.
There’s pictures all over the place. Mostly of her, but some of him too, or the two of them together. Him and her in front of this castle at Disney World, holding these stuffed dogs. Her when she was a real little girl in this little ballerina dress, sparkles all over her skirt.
I lay down on the bed. Downstairs I can hear the TV go off. Then I hear her talking. Must be she’s on the phone with her sister or one of her girlfriends. I can’t hear what she says or nothing. Just laughing now and then. And then she’s finally done. Must be she’s turning out the lights. Then I hear her coming up the stairs. I can’t hardly stand it.
But she don’t come in the room yet. I hear her in the bathroom. Water running. She’s brushing her teeth, taking a shower. She’s in there a long time.
Just when I’m thinking is she ever going to come in here, she does. She’s got this robe on that’s got flowers all over it— long, but it’s not fastened too tight, so you can see her legs. She just stands there a second. Giggles. “Look at you,” she says. I wish she’d leave the light on so I could keep on seeing her the whole time, but she turns it off. Sets the robe down next to the bed. Lays down next to me.
I put my hand on her tit. I’m shaking. Then I’m kissing her on the mouth, kissing her on the neck. My dick’s so hard I feel like it could drill through concrete, but I don’t want to rush. I don’t want it to be over.
Only she’s ready too. She spreads her legs apart and guides me over to where I’m on top of her. I go inside her. “This’s got to be what heaven’s like,” I say. She laughs that laugh of hers again.
I said a lot of other stuff too, I don’t remember half of it. Only I know I said I love her and I want us to be together always. She’s the most beautiful girl in the world.
She don’t say nothing herself. She’s not the type that talks when they’re fucking. When I can tell I’m just about to come I say, “I can’t help it. I got to come now. Is that OK?”
She says yes. And then I do, and it’s over. And I just lay there thinking I’m the happiest guy in the world.
I’m almost asleep when she kind of shakes me to wake up. “You can’t sleep here in this bed,” she tells me. “You got to go in the guest room.”
What’s she mean, guest room? I’m halfway asleep so I don’t hardly know what’s going on. But she’s pulling on me, she’s getting up, walking me down the hall to this other bed that’s like a couch. She hands me a towel and a blanket.
“I got to be out of here by seven for my aerobics class,” she says. “So don’t sleep late.” She says, “Sweet dreams.”
“Of course they’ll be sweet,” I tell her. “I’ll dream about you.”
W
HENEVER
L
ARRY WOULD
go out of town, I’d get scared at night. You never know what kind of people there might be hanging around that could break into your condo. And of course, I was right to be concerned, because in the end that’s exactly what happened.
So I suggested to the kids in my video project that we could all get together at my house, have a pizza and work on tying up the loose ends of my video. I was very pleased with my work on this project. I felt sure that once I got the whole thing edited and my station manager saw my work he’d put it on the air. Mostly all that was left at this point were things like reaction shots and rerecording a couple of voiceovers.
But for some reason, James was the only one who showed up. I mean it didn’t surprise me that Russell would skip our meeting. He was a total loser. But as for why Lydia didn’t come, I don’t know. Except that I think she was coming to resent the interest James showed in me. Which was all one-sided of course. But anyone could see that Lydia had developed a crush on James. And I think that made her very jealous of me.
Of course if I’d known that it would end up being just me and James I would have made other plans for the evening, maybe invited my sister over. But there I was, thinking we’d be getting some work done, and then nobody shows up besides him.
So I tried to make the best of the situation. I invited him to have some pizza with me. I tried to get him to do a little work on the video, but it was obvious he had his mind on other things, if you know what I mean. I mean, he’d say things like how my hair smelled pretty, and did I wear a one-piece bathing suit or a bikini? He said he hoped bikini, because he could tell I had the figure for it. You could see the way he was headed.
There was a Barbara Walters special on. She’s an idol of mine. I mean, she may be getting up there, but she really knows her craft. So I suggested that we watch it. See how a real pro handles herself in an interview situation.
I sat in Larry’s chair, on purpose, so James wouldn’t even have the option of sitting next to me. He sat sprawled out on the couch.
Barbara was interviewing Sylvester Stallone as I recall. Stallone was talking about his history of relationships. James made some kind of inappropriate remark about what kind of a relationship he’d like to have with me. Tom Selleck was coming on next, and James said he really wanted to see that interview, but at this point I’d had enough, so I told him it was time to go home. He made up some story about how he couldn’t go back there tonight, his mother’s boyfriend was drunk and he knew if he went home now he’d get beat up.
Knowing his family background, I was prepared to believe this was true. So I said, “All right, you may stay over in my guest room, but I have to be up and out of here by seven, so don’t sleep late.” I said something like, “Sweet dreams.” He said something silly like, “Of course they’ll be sweet. I’ll dream about you.”
S
HE CALLED ME UP
this one time. She said Larry was going to be out of town, and Jimmy was coming over again. He’d been staying there quite a bit by this time, and she was starting to worry people might get the wrong impression. So she wanted to know if I’d sleep over too. The idea was, if Larry asked any questions, she could say, “Yeah, Lydia and Jimmy were over working on the video, and it got so late I let them camp out on the couch.” Only of course it was really just going to be me on the couch. Her and him were so much in love by this time.
We got a pizza as usual, and rented some videos. A Motley Crüe concert video, that was one. Also this Tom Cruise movie where he’s a bartender. We both thought he was so cute. And then we got this other movie that had the girl in it from “Twin Peaks.” Only the stuff in this movie they never would’ve shown on TV.
It felt weird sitting there with the two of them, watching this movie. I mean the girl’s basically naked, except for a garter belt, and she does all this stuff. With her mouth if you know what I mean. Watching it made me think about back when Chester was still around. Here I’d eaten all this pizza, and now I thought I was going to throw up. So I told Suzanne and Jimmy I was going to go outside for a minute. I took Walter on his leash and walked him around the cul de sac where her condo was, out to the dumpster where they brought their trash. I threw a couple balls for Walter. You tried to think about nice stuff, you know. Happy stuff. Just don’t think about that other part, I’d tell myself. But you know what happens when you tell yourself, Don’t think about such-and-such. Before you know it, that’s the one thing you can’t stop thinking about. No matter what, you can’t get it out of your head.
Walking around in the fresh air like that, though, I started feeling better. Just seeing the stars and stuff, the tricycles of all the little kids lying around in front of the condos. Looking at the lights in the windows, picturing the families inside, tucking their kids in, the husbands and wives sitting down on the couch side by side, watching TV, and talking about their day. You tried to think about nice stuff, you know. Happy stuff. After a while, when I stopped feeling like I was going to barf, I went back to Suzanne’s condo. Only when I went back the TV was off and the living room was empty. I called out to Suzanne and Jimmy, but no answer, and they weren’t in the kitchen either.
Sitting there with Walter, I heard these sounds coming from upstairs. OK, I said. Just pretend like nothing’s happening. It’ll be over soon. So I picked up one of Suzanne’s magazines and started reading it. I couldn’t concentrate on the words, so I just stared at this one page of fashion dos and don’ts. I turned on the TV and watched the shopping channel for a while. They had a guy on talking about this product called QRB that removed all this caked-up paint and dirt off wood furniture without having to sand it. I was trying so hard not to think about what was going on upstairs I even wrote down the 800 number of this wood stripper, to tell my mother about it. Knowing I wouldn’t ever really keep the number, and my mother wouldn’t care anyways. I just wanted to keep my brain occupied, so I wouldn’t start thinking about the two of them. Suzanne and Jimmy. Doing it.
After a while I needed to go to the bathroom. Which was upstairs, right next to Suzanne’s room. They’ve got to be done pretty soon, I kept telling myself. Any minute now they’re going to come downstairs again and we can make a big bowl of microwave popcorn, maybe watch the Motley Crüe video we still hadn’t got around to. Only they didn’t come out.
Finally it was quiet up there. And I couldn’t hold it in anymore. OK, I think. I guess they’ve just gone to sleep, so what’s to keep me from tiptoeing up the stairs and sneaking in the bathroom? I wasn’t even going to flush.
By the time I got to the top of the stairs I realized they weren’t asleep after all, but by then it was too late to turn around, plus I was desperate. Her door wasn’t even shut. So I couldn’t help seeing.
He was laying on the bed, stretched out on the pillows. I never saw a guy like that before.
Suzanne had the garter belt on that we bought at Victoria’s Secret. And one of those see-through type bras. No underpants. She was standing at the foot of the bed with her hands over her head.
It took me a minute to understand what she was doing. She was doing a cheerleading routine. She was saying, “Give me and E, give me an L,” like that. And Jimmy, he had this look on his face like it wouldn’t have mattered if the whole condo development was on fire. He’d just stay laying there. A person could come up to him and say, “Get off this bed or I’ll blow your brains out,” and he wouldn’t have moved, that’s what he looked like. Like he didn’t care if he was dead or alive, so long as he could see the rest of her cheer.
The two of them were so into each other right then I could’ve walked right through the room and I doubt they would’ve noticed. It was like they were the only two people on earth. Like I didn’t exist. So I just sneaked into the bathroom and took a leak.
When I went downstairs I finished off the rest of the pizza. Then I lay down on the couch and went to sleep. And when we got up in the morning, nobody said a word. Suzanne’s running around in a sweatsuit, getting ready to go to her aerobics class and making an appointment to have her hair done. I hear her on the phone with Larry’s mother, saying something about getting together for dinner that night. “Jeez,” she says to me when she gets off the phone. “Have you ever seen anything as gross as these split ends?”
But Jimmy, it’s like he’s possessed. He just sits there at her dinette table staring at her, practically licking her hand. Suzanne even had a joke about it. She used to say the only difference between him and Walter was Walter wore a collar. And Walter didn’t have fleas.
T
HE WAY SHE DID
this TV show of hers was, she’d get us sitting around in her living room, set out a plate of Oreos and maybe some Coke, and then she’d ask us to talk about a particular topic. One time it might be dating—like we really know a lot about that—or maybe parents. Sometimes she’d bring up some big idea she had, like Who Are Your Heroes? or What Do You Do If You’re at a Party and Someone’s Drunk and They Say They’re Going to Drive Home? You get my drift.
The whole thing was a total crock, mind you. I mean, last time I was invited to a party was back when I was seven or eight and my old man was doing time at the county farm for assault. They had this Christmas party for all the families. Santa Claus and the whole bit. I still remember the present he gave me out of his sack. A bottle of bubble solution.
Same thing applies to dating as parties. You ball chicks, but you don’t exactly buy them no corsage, you know? It was like that with all her questions. They weren’t really about my life at all. She should’ve called her show “Nerd Life” or “Secrets of the Dorks.” It sure wasn’t about me.
And the truth is, I never planned on being part of this shit. I only signed Jimmy up to piss him off. But then the guidance counselor over at school got wind of it and said, “Listen, you cooperate with this, we’ll forget about that two months of detention for defacing the boys’ locker room.” Just because I write the principal’s a fag on the outside of the trophy case, they want to keep me after school scrubbing toilets or something all fall. So I figure, OK, she’ll never use what I say anyways. I’ll just be sure I’ve got my hand on my dick the whole time I’m talking, so they can’t put it on TV.