My friends don't understand why a girl like me would bother to talk to a nebbishy dork like Miles, but what I can say? Long familiarity breeds some kind of understanding. Fate handed us the same last name (Harris) and as a result, he has been beside me through every home room in high school, up to now, our senior year. Through the years, I've had the unfortunate opportunity to watch Miles go through puberty, to see him sprout hair on his chin and develop his own distinctive B.O., to hear his voice sink several registers, to watch him beccome gangly, awkward and tall. And inevitably I came to feel sort of sorry for him, and I couldn't help but become a kind of confidant of his, sharing in all his secret crushes and romantic disappointments.
For years Miles has had a huge crush on one of my best friends, June Jacobs, and he has always pestered me for advice on how he might make an impression on her. I've tried to tell him it was hopeless, but he just wouldn't listen.
"Oh, Louise, you just don't understand," he'd say. When she wears that skin-tight little belly shirt that shows her navel ring, it makes me want to crawl. Her velvety creamy thighs when she wears her checkered skirt. And her legs, oh Louise, her legs, so long, so thin, so perfect. I doubted, but calves prove to me that there is a God. They are so taut and supple. When she wears those brown leather boots with the thick heel, you know, it's all I can do to keep myself from falling to my knees and worshipping her."
He would go on and on like this, every day a different rhapsody for a different part of June Jacobs's body. "Did you see June's hair today? Like long, perfectly spun silk, like pure Grade A honey. I want to wrap a tendril around my neck and strangle myself with it -- could there be a better way to die? What I wouldn't do for a lock of her hair. I dream of being a floor mat at her hairdressers, being showered upon by her snipped-off ends, to be covered in her hair, to have it flowing all over me." The next day it would be "My God, Louise, you'll never believe it. I was behind June in line today at lunch, and I got to stare and stare at the nape of her neck. I thought I might faint before the lunch lady dished out my lasagna. Those little tufts of hair at the base of her head, like the breath of an angel in material form. And her neck so long, so poised, so delicate. Her head is like a Faberge egg balancing on a slim, jeweled scepter."
And he loved her face: "June has the most perfect cheekbones," he said. "They're so round, so perfect, and I swear, she's always blushing. And her thick, pouty lips, so full and fleshy, so kissable. She always smirking at you, always smiling at some private thought. Her eyes are so wide and round and bright, they see right through me."
The worst was when there was a football game, and June would have to wear her cheerleader uniform to school. Miles would walk around all day with a hard on. I know because he told me, the pervert. "Did you see June today?" he'd ask. "Oh. My. God. The creamy thighs, Louise. So amazing. The pleated skirt, God I want to shove my head under there so badly. I want to die. And her breasts in that sweater, so bilious, so bulbous. I could rest my head forever on that ample, bosomy, pillow Is it my imagination or are her nipples trying to bud through? Does it excite her to know that she strides the halls of our school like a living goddess, worshipped by every drooling boy she passes?"
Of course June didn't even know who Miles was. June has had the same boyfriend since we were 16, this college guy from the city named Zeke, who drove a Hummer his parents bought him for graduating high school. And June was not the pure delicate flower Miles seemed to think she was. She certainly not available for the likes of goofs like him.
Finally, one day when Miles was giving me a ride home after school, he was going on and on about June as usual. "Louise, did you see June today?" he asked. "You should have seen what she was wearing. She had this short short skirt on that barely reached her thighs, I swear, and these white wool stockings that came up just over her knees. So there was this luscious strip of June-flesh just naked, more naked then if she was totally naked, you know what I mean?"
"I have no idea what you mean." June's always showing off her legs, because she knows how sexy guys seem to find them. I've been with her at the mall when she would try things on, short skirts, tight pants, and she'd stare at herself in a full-length mirror, admiring what she saw. Look at this, she'd say. This would look great with my boots.
Miles continued, "And her breasts just looked so perfect today. I could see the shape of her nipples right through the shirt she was wearing, like two little hard candies waiting to be sucked. She had on this button-down blouse that was tailored in to fit her waist like a cinch, and you could see how much strain her big tits were putting on the fabric across her chest, how the buttons were just struggling to stay buttoned. My fly was struggled to stay buttoned to, if you know what I'm saying."
"Miles, I have no idea," I said.
"And her ass, my God, that little piece of skirt just bouncing up and down off her ass while she walked. Every step she took, in those sexy heels, I thought I was going to see panty. But maybe she doesn't wear panties, that's what I'm hoping. Wouldn't that be something. A wind kicks her skirt up and I get to see her bush!"
I guess I was just sick of hearing about how perfect June was. What was next? How magical her eyebrows were shaped and how perfect her neck muscles were? So I decided to tell Miles the truth about June and Zeke. I thought maybe he would see how she was just like everyone else, and kind of a slut, as a matter of fact, and he would give up on her. And sure enough, after I first explained to him the situation, that she's fucking Zeke like non-stop every weekend from what I hear, he grew quiet, sullen. He drove on in silence, pouting to himself and shaking his head.
Then he started asking me questions, started wanting more specifics. "What do you mean they fuck? Like they drive somewhere in his car, and just get out and fuck? Like in the woods? Like a couple of wild animals?"
"You think I'd tell you?" I said.
"We're just talking," he said. "Come on."
"Probably sometimes," I told him. "Sometimes they probably do it in his Hummer. There's plenty of room to do it in there."
Miles adjusted his rear-view mirror. "Who is this guy, Zeke?" he said. "Does he make her come, do you think?"
"Miles!" I said, shocked. "What makes you think I know that? Girls don't kiss and tell like that."
"Bullshit," Miles said. "You must have asked her. Is she in love with Zeke?"
"She's having sex with him, so I guess so," I said.
Miles asked, "Does she say, 'I love Zeke'? Because if she does, then I bet he's made her come."
We drove in silence for a moment, and I said "He's made her come. I know it. You're right. She's told me so." She hadn't, but I bet it was true. Sometimes when she would come to school after spending the weekend with Zeke, she'd have a glow of contentment about her that made her even more beautiful, she'd seem all flush and voluptuous, like a real woman while the rest of us were just girls.