us any particular favor, but it was nice all the same. So, it's Prom night, I'm in my room bored, lonely, and a little jealous of Clarington, or whoever, and fighting images out of my sick imagination of some crooked toothed English kid fucking my best friend.
It's around four in the afternoon. I just finished homework. It's Friday, and a long, boring weekend belongs to me. The phone rings, and I'm scrambling to answer it.
Cordelia's drunk, it's midnight in London, and she wants to tell me
all
about "the formal", and I'm agreeing to listen, even though I don't really want to hear how some (lucky) motherfucker got between her legs.
That part never comes up.
She's laughing, maybe a little too much, but she's cute when she giggles.
"The decorations were positively silly.
", she says, and I noticed for the first time in two years, she has a Queens Proper accent.
She goes on about bad music, and good music, and how much she really hates it in London, and how much she misses me, and loves me, and I hear the faintest sigh. It's the kind of sigh I make, when I take it to the shower head, if you know what I mean.
It's not like I'd never been finger diddled by Rick the Dick, but the dexterity of his hands, and fingers, belonged in the special Olympics, not my playground. So after experimenting with different stimulants, fingers, and
toys
(never mind how I got a hold of them), I finally discovered the joys of a jet stream shower.
I love my shower head.
So, I listen a moment longer, and she's not even talking anymore, so much as sighing. At first, despite the fluttering in my stomach, I think she's passed out. I'm like, "Cordelia, are you there?"
...and she's like drawing in the deepest breath, and sighing out something that sounds very close to, "Uh, huh."
I'm a realist. Maybe as a sophomore, I was a bit more of an idealist. I've been to keggars with Rick the Dick, and I've seen drunk girls doing stupid shit. Sometimes for attention, sometimes because they mean it. I caught Sandra Sevilla making out with her cousin Janette in the bathroom at one of those Keggars. I didn't tell, and she didn't speak another word to me for the rest of the school year.
People get drunk, and they do stupid shit. I know that. I may have even known that then, but it didn't stop me from having phone sex with Cordelia.
I'd go into some gritty detail, but you know what? I've got a sense of propriety. It would be irresponsible for me to detail the extremely erotic encounter's of a girl's first pseudo-lesbian experience with her best friend.
Hahah, sorry. I like to see you sweat. It's kind of sexy in its own way.
Besides, it wasn't entirely like something you'd see on late night cable. Oh, it certainly was soft porn, but it wasn't a professional production, if you know what I mean. First of all, I was too scared to tell her how fucking hot it was for me to hear her like that. She was too scared to admit that she was doing it, even if she was drunk.
So I broke the ice. I started doing it, too. Neither of us said much. A sigh here, a gasp there, panting, heavy breathing, and then pop.
I remember feeling heat in my face, like the sun had set fire to my skin. I imagine her reaction was somewhere along the same line, because we were both dead silent for about a minute or two. Finally, Cordelia continued on about how much she looked forward to coming home, and hearing bad music, and seeing bad decorations at an American formal (dance).
I guess, in a way, I'm the lucky motherfucker who got between her legs. Oh, and that long and boring weekend? I wish it could have been longer. It couldn't have been long enough. Those calls from Cordelia were the weekend trend, and I was living the dream.
I knew, even then, this sort of thing wasn't going to come up in conversation too often. It was one of those things I'd dread. It may as well have been an actual dream, because what good is reality if there's nothing to recount?
O O O
The summer of love was at hand. Hahah, I'm just kidding, but I'm not, you know? It's silly, really, but
really
this was the summer it all began. It was a little awkward, to start. I woke up to someone hitting me with a pillow, startled to find Cordelia in my room. Then, with growing dread, I realized I was sleeping in
her
room, and she'd just gotten home. She was all smiles, and hugs though, instead of startles, and screams. She even kissed me, despite morning breath (on my part), though it was brief. More like a peck on the lips... but it was a start.
I spent the day catching up with her. Two years, and five-thousand miles had not severed our bond. Surprisingly, we had never once exchanged pictures, so seeing each other the first time in two years, well, a lot had changed.
Cordelia still had her golden pallor, you know, that gold tint over pale flesh. Her hair was still as black as ravens, but cut into an A Frame bob, the lowest points framing her face, and looking as sharp as daggers. She wasn't wearing makeup, and surprisingly, she apologized. Then, we both felt a little silly, and laughed. I told her there was no need. She asked if I still drooled in my sleep, and I said no, covering up a soaked in puddle of drool on her pillow with an elbow. Her eyes were a lighter shade of honey than I remembered, almost yellow now, with a deep amber ring around them. Her eyes were also deeper set than I remembered, creating a natural shadow that made me want to melt into her embrace forever.
Had she been embracing me.
I enjoyed her accent, and she told me she could still hear a little of mine. I told her to thank my mom for that.
I asked after Patricia, and Daniel. Cordelia said they had gone to see my mom, and thank her for watching the house.
We spoke for hours. Her parents came home, hugs all around, and then left us on our own. Dinner came, and went, and we were still there, talking. The sun set, and we were still there, talking.
That was - and is - the happiest reunion of my entire life. It's actually the only reunion I've had, besides being reintroduced to my mother after she got out of rehab.
No comparison whatsoever. Cordelia stole the day, and with it, my heart. It wasn't until a short while later that things changed, so desperately. I learned what lay deep inside of Cordelia, and she shared that darkness, dormant, waiting, and eager.
Forever.