Well, here I am again, debating categories. I decided on "First Time" but I considered "Mature" and "Romance". All those facets, or so I hope, can be found here but the heart of the story is a young man's first time. So, here it is and if you disagree with my choice of categories, I offer my apologies.
I sent this to my friend, LarryInSeattle, more than a year ago, the first few pages anyway. It's a completely different story now than the one I thought I was writing and then set aside, first for Matt, then for Jess and Jon.
Comments, even constructive negative ones, are both welcome and appreciated.
Thanks to LarryInSeattle.
I hope you enjoy.
Peace.
==============
It's strange isn't it, how memories rise, unbidden, for no apparent reason? I've noticed that often the memory itself is so insignificant that I'm not sure why my mind has clung to it over the years. Such is not the case with this memory. There was nothing, no detail, that had not been and will not always remain, significant to me. What interests me on this chilly early morning, is what has triggered the memories. They are never far from me. Yet, this morning they overwhelm me. I find it hard to keep my place in my own story, my mind racing back and forth between then and now with hundreds of stops and detours along the way.
I clutch the heavy quilted robe closer to my chest with one hand and reach for my mug of tea. It's too early for the gulls. The only sound is surf and the wind that carries the chill off the water. I'm amazed, having lived most of my life inland, that even this far south the water carries a chill. I would have to move to the tip of Florida or even further before I would be able to abandon my old, heavy, quilted robe in the morning. Not that I would do so in any case. Ray gave it to me, that last Christmas, before he fell off his kitchen chair and never got back up. No, I'll wrap myself in the patched, threadbare, cozy warm ruin until it's my turn to fall and not rise.
I was never an early riser, not until the morning I had no one to share my bed with. That's not to say that Ray was one to lounge in bed with me. Mind you, he was happy to spoon and snuggle, but in the evening, not the morning. In the morning, he'd be up and cajoling me to join him, 'come on, Marta, come with me, you'll love it'. I tried, even Ray conceded that I tried, but no, not even with him beside me, I never enjoyed running, not in the godawful morning nor later in the day. While he ran, I'd pull his pillow close and doze, lost between sleep and wakefulness. The morning after Ryan and I had finished signing papers at the hospital I had woke and he wasn't there, with that irritating, cheerful, 'come on, Marta, come with me, you'll love it'. His pillow was there, still smelling of his hair, his shampoo, and sweat. I hugged it but without its owner, its magic had fled. It was a strange moment, even now, so many years later, I don't understand it. I drew that pillow to my chest and face, expecting to smell Ray and cry and cry. I smelled him but I didn't cry. Perhaps, I was all cried out from the horrors of the day before; I don't know. I smelled my husband on that pillow but the scent no longer had the ability to excite me or comfort me. As I said, it wasn't even able to bring tears to my eyes. His pillow was as dead as he was. I climbed out of bed, pulled my not yet worn out and patched robe on and made my way downstairs. I plugged in the electric kettle and brewed a cup of tea. With Ryan off with his own family and Ray about to be turned into ashes, there was no one left in the house who drank coffee. I looked at the coffee pot setting there and the cold black coffee with its oily surface sheen. Ray always set the coffee maker up to brew his ritualized two cups every morning at six. The coffee maker had done its duty. I stood there looking at the evidence of its faithfulness. The coffee had been ready but for some reason, Ray had chosen to set down at the table that last morning, rather than pour his first mug of coffee and snap open the paper. He hadn't brought the paper in either. He knew, had to of, that something was wrong. He couldn't have been on the floor long. Of long habit, I had gotten up and thrown my robe on over my nakedness, even though we were alone in the house, and headed down to have my tea with him while he cooled off a little from his run before breakfast. Breakfast would have been the same, unless we went out, it would've been a single over easy egg for Ray, slathered in hot sauce, and a half a bagel and Jalapeno cream cheese for me. Black coffee for him. Tea with hardly more than a drop of milk and half a teaspoon of sugar for me. He couldn't have been on the floor for very long.
I grabbed the phone and punched in "911" with the presence of mind to put it on speaker. I dropped to my knees and rolled him over. I remember being struck by how hard that was to do, roll him over. Ray was not a large man but it was like trying to roll a hundred and fifty-pound ball of jello. I had to roll his shoulders first, then his hips. I'd checked for a pulse and started CPR by the time the 911 operator answered. We all did what we were supposed to do, even Ray. It's just that what he was supposed to do that morning was to be dead.
I looked at the coffee maker and the ugly cold coffee and discovered I'd not been all cried out after all. I took my mug onto the back porch and sat, watching the dark fade from the sky. The back yard was large by city lot standards. It was well landscaped, a lovely garden that was more Ray's joy than mine. I sipped my tea between sobs and got myself under control. By the time the mug was empty and the sky a light pink, I'd made up my mind: I'd sell the house.
I made sure the new house I bought had a deck that faced the water. It was a small house but it was on the water. We'd talked about that, retiring somewhere we could hear the waves, the best laid plans etcetera. I clutch my robe and my mug and watched the edge of the horizon begin to blush purple. The gulls won't start their ruckus until there's some pink in the sky and, after the gulls, the pelicans line up and buzz the surf. By the time the sky has moved from pink to blue, the robe will need to be draped over the extra chair, but not yet. I need it still.
I sing a song softly. I don't recognize it at first. When I do, I smile. It's part of my memory. It had been playing, and not softly, that morning.
with the lights out, it's less dangerous
here we are now, entertain us
Marta can't help swaying to the music. The music is cranked so loud that the floor is vibrating. She knows that, like her son Ryan, Nathan finds it amusing that someone that he's filed away as "old" loves rock music. Marta loves what she considers 'real' rock, not that One Direction, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift drivel. She was a soft spot for rockers that share her gender - Joan Jett, Patti fucking Smith, Winehouse, Janis et al. She loves rock music - guitars, bass, drums. She'd been raised on the Stones and the Beatles, Bowie and Dylan. A song better have music or words that had a bite to them or she had no use for it. When a song bit you with words and music, well that my friends was pretty fucking cool in Marta's view. She pauses, not believing that Cobain, that dumb shit, has been dead twenty-three years already. In actuality what gives her pause is the fact she's just turned thirty-eight, old enough to have a son that will leave for college in a few weeks. It's not possible. When she thinks of herself, she's twenty, twenty-one tops; she cannot be old enough to be the mother of a high school graduate. Kurt Cobain can't have died twenty-three years ago. It's not possible that John Lennon, fucking John fucking Lennon, but for the intervention of a religious lunatic, would have soon been turning seventy-seven years-old. None of these things felt possible to Marta, yet they were. She gives her head a shake to clear it. She should have asked Ray to help her but didn't think of this addition to her morning's plan until after he'd already left.
Her cut-off shorts are too tight to accommodate the old burned out bulb in one of the pockets. She cradles the bulb in her fingers, steadies herself with one hand against the wall, and mounts the top step of the step ladder. She really should have someone helping her, that part of her scheme is true enough. At the bottom of the narrow stairs leading to the attic, she unscrews the perfectly fine bulb from the old porcelain light socket. As she always does when forced to consider the old light socket, she wonders if its old, yellowed pull string is original. Can a piece of string last a hundred years of tugging? She screws the burned-out bulb in and climbs down without mishap, smiles at her handy work, folds up the ladder and closes the door leading to the attic stairs. She returns the ladder to the garage, first peeking carefully out the windows and listening for the sound of the lawnmower. She does not want Nathan seeing her carrying the ladder.
Nirvana gives way to Franz Ferdinand. Apple may be a greedy, soulless monolith but in Marta's opinion being able to Blue Tooth her phone to the receiver and randomly go through thousands of songs is awesome. Her parents had attempted to school her on the glories of vinyl, but she was never convinced they really missed vinyl or the disc washers or the scratches or changing needle cartridges or flipping an album over. She doesn't believe most people when they claim they were able to hear the difference between digital and analogue. She finds them, in general, to be the same people who wore a badge of honor for having never eaten at McDonald's or having never watched
Star Wars.
In other words, pretentious, Kafka quoting (not Kafka understanding) douche bags. Ray tells her, when she makes such pronouncements, that she's too sweet to be so damn harsh. To which Marta has a ready reply, "honey, there's already enough bullshit in the world; I'm just being honest."
She's sweating, having turned the AC off earlier but not as much as she'd like. The armpits of her tee shirt are damp but that's about it. She pauses at the kitchen sink to get a drink of water. Finished, she runs her fingers across her boobs. Her erect nipples are easy enough to see through the threadbare old tee shirt of Ray's but not as easy as if she'd worked up a good sweat. She cups her boobs and smiles. She's a solid B cup, plenty for Ray to have fun with but not so ponderous that they've begun the inevitable surrender to gravity, well, not much anyway she decides. No, her boobies still mostly ride high and her nipples face the world's hungry eyes. She considers doing some quick jumping jacks or squat thrusts, anything to get the sweat flowing enough to dampen the front of her tee shirt. She rejects the idea when she realizes she no longer hears the roar of the lawnmower.
