Third Person

I saw Amanda for the first time on the patio outside the coffee house, and my first thought was that Phillip would really go for her. My husband and I liked to tease each other about our fantasy "types." I had a thing for the young black men we saw hanging out in the park muscular and shirtless whenever we went into the city. With their fresh white smiles and palpable aura of danger, they were as unlike Phillip as was possible. (Phillip, by his own sheepish admission, was as white as a man could be without actually becoming transparent.) My husband was turned on by girls like this one; earthy young latter-day hippie chicks, as unlike me as my black boys were unlike Phillip. It was just a game we played. We would even point them out to each other. "There's one for you, Heather," Phillip would grin. Or I would say: "Check her out." We never became jealous because the game was based on the principles of pure fantasy and absolute trust. Even when we took it to the next level. "What would you like to do to him, Heather?" I would answer in explicit detail, then we would go home and make love deliciously enhanced by the fantasy. It kept things interesting.

That's why the girl caught my attention. She was Phillip's type to the point of cliche. Not as tall as me, dark-complexioned with long unwashed brown hair, wearing a peasant dress which seemed several sizes too large. The skirt swept the ground around her sandaled feet and the whole thing hung off her shapelessly. The spaghetti straps kept sliding off her naked shoulders, making it clear that she was as braless as the day she was born (to borrow Phillip's phrase.) She also seemed to flaunt the hair under her arms, something else which would have greatly impressed my husband.

She was pretty, in a boyish way, but not exceptionally so. Her type was very common around here. River City College was a liberal arts and environmental school which attracted idealistic young granola-crunchers from all over the country. I sometimes joked with Phillip that the RC College girls were the real reason he had never left town.

I watched the girl flit from table to table, obviously panhandling. She both intrigued and irritated me, and I wasn't sure why. Perhaps it was her manner. She was shameless in her mooching, and totally un-self-conscious about her body. I know I would never have the nerve to approach a stranger for money, or to appear in public with my breasts nearly exposed as hers were. It's always a bit rankling to see someone calmly doing something you would never dare.

She approached my table and I made myself ready to refuse her. Instead of asking me for money, though, she sat down across from me. The girl smiled at me with a casual familiarity, as if she were a friend keeping a lunch appointment and not a complete stranger.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," I said back. I had to appreciate her gall.

She leaned forward. "Listen," she said. "I need to ask you a favor."

"I'm not going to give you any money," I said.

The girl looked me directly in the eyes. Hers were a very dark brown and contained a curious glimmer of recognition. A question mark formed in my mind. Had I met her before? I was almost positive that I hadn't, yet something about her smacked of deja vu.

"I wasn't going to ask you for money," she replied, stung, as if I hadn't just watched her hit up everybody else on the patio.

"What then?"

"Well . . ." her eyes disengaged from mine and focused on a point somewhere above my left shoulder. "See, I just got kicked out of my apartment a week ago and I've been like living in my van?" Her voice lifted slightly on the last word, turning the statement into a question. "I could really use a shower."

That much I believed. The girl was ripe. Sweat mixed with enough patchouli oil to make my eyes water. Phillip would have appreciated that, too. He's big on pheromones.

"You want to use my shower? I don't even know you."

"I know," she said. "It sounds kind of weird. But believe me, I wouldn't ask unless I was desperate? I could even pay you, sort of."

She reached into her little knitted wool purse and pulled out a plastic baggy containing a dark green vegetable substance. It wasn't spinach.

"Put that away," I said, looking around to make sure no one had seen.

She slipped the bag back into her purse. "But you do smoke, right?"

"Why would you just assume that?"

"I don't know," the girl shrugged. "I guess, most people do. When they get the chance."

The thing was, she was right. It had been a while since I'd indulged, but back in college I did have quite a weakness for the stuff. Not knowing anyone around here into that scene, Phillip and I had been unable to get a hold of anything for years. It was another joke between us, the lengths we would go to for a joint.

"The bag's worth twenty bucks," the girl said. "Well, maybe fifteen since I smoked some? Anyway, it's yours. All want is a shower."

A dozen warning bells were going off in my head, telling me not to even consider what this girl was proposing. In this day and age, you did not invite strangers into your home. And strangers with drugs? Jesus, you'd have to be crazy. There was still this foggy sense of recognition, though, like I'd once known her very well. Besides, I did want the bag. These conflicting thoughts were only the ones I was conscious of. Beneath them were a host of feelings I wasn't ready to define. But I had already made up my mind.

"What's your name?" I asked.

The girl smiled. "Amanda."

"I'm Heather."

Amanda shook my hand firmly and quickly. Her fingers were thin and delicate, her palm cool and a bit moist.

"I'm parked around back," I said.

We drove to my house with the windows down. Normally, on a hot summer day like this, I would have run the air conditioner with the windows up, but Amanda's rich aroma made that impossible. My new friend made herself perfectly at home in my car. She pushed the seat back as far as it would go so she could stretch out her unshaven legs and turned the radio up to sing without tune or shame along with the Rolling Stones song ("Angie," I think it was) which was playing on the classic rock station Phillip liked. When the song ended, she told me a little bit of her story. Fired from her job at a bakery through a complex set of circumstances I did not follow. Kicked out by her roommate for failure to pay rent. Living on the floors and couches of friends until her favors ran out and she was forced to sleep in her van. Somehow I knew she was lying about most, if not all, of it, but I wasn't sure why she would spin such an elaborate tale for the benefit of a complete stranger.

I lived a few miles out of town, on a hill looking down over the grassy valley carved out by the Illinois River. I pulled up the steep driveway through the shrouding trees and waited for the inevitable reaction when Amanda saw the house.

"Oh my God," she gasped. "This is where you live?"

"This is it," I said. "This is home."

Home for me was a sprawling, three-story monstrosity of a house. Pointlessly large for the two of us, cost a fortune to heat and required more in the way of maintenance time and money than we could ever hope to afford. Not to mention the crippling property taxes. The landscape was overgrown and weedy, and the house itself was in need of painting, roofing and countless other minor repairs. Even without the dilapidation, the house would have been a bizarre sight. It had been expanded three times in the century it had stood, with no attention paid to style or continuity. The various sections were ill-fitted and, from the outside, the house looked downright schizophrenic. Inside, it was like a maze. I had never quite warmed up to the place, but Phillip claimed to love it. The house had been in his family for generations, and he had inherited it from his parents when they died. He told me that he couldn't bear the thought of selling it, or even living anywhere else.

I led Amanda inside. The east living room was in the part of the house where I had managed to make some kind of impression. Phillip expressed no opinions about decorating and allowed me complete control in that area. I think he understood how the house intimidated me, and knew that I had to make my mark on it before I could feel at home there. Eventually, I hoped to do over the whole house, but it was a daunting project. There was just so much of it. Phillip and I did most of our living in the five rooms I had thus far made my own.

"Wow," Amanda said. "This place has really great vibes."

Vibes? Oh my. There was no way this girl was for real. Nobody talked like that anymore. Amanda walked across the room, straight to the mantle over the fireplace. She picked up the framed wedding photograph resting there and examined it closely.

"You're married," she noted.

"Yeah," I said. "That's Phillip."

"He's cute," Amanda set the picture down crookedly and smiled up at me. "So, um, the shower?"

"Down the hall on the right. There are towels under the sink."

"Thanks," Amanda walked down the hall and disappeared into the bathroom.

I went to the mantle and straightened the frame she had set askew, wiping with my hand the dust which had settled around it. I looked at the photo, which had become invisible to me in the way of objects seen every day. We were formally posed, Phillip embracing me from behind and looking a bit stiff in his rented tuxedo. He was never a clothes-oriented kind of guy, but looked very handsome regardless. I couldn't help noticing how much thinner I had been back then. Blame it on three years of contented marriage. "Fat and happy," Phillip would joke, slapping his own little pot belly. He swore up and down that he didn't notice I had put on any weight, but of course I did and it bothered me.

After lingering over the photo for a minute, I set about compulsively straightening each item on the mantle and blowing away the dust, anxious for no reason that I could put my finger on. The water started up in the bathroom and I sat on the couch to flip through a magazine I had already read.

Amanda emerged from the bathroom a little while later, toweling her hair. She must have only given herself a quick once-over with the towel on the rest of her body because the thin material of the dress now clung to her damply.

"Thank you so much," Amanda said. She sat down on the couch, close beside me. "That felt so good? I feel like a new person."

She smelled like my shampoo now. It was a definite improvement over the B.O. and patchouli, though she did retain a light, spicy scent which might have just been the way she naturally smelled. It wasn't unpleasant. She looked younger, too, now that she was cleaned up. More like a girl.

"No problem," I said, scooting away from her a little bit.

Amanda smiled cheerfully. She reached into her purse and pulled out the baggy, along with a pack of Zig-Zag rolling papers.

"You want to smoke a joint now?" she asked.

"Sure," I said.

She rolled one up quickly and expertly, sealing the paper with a long, slow lick. Her eyes were on me the whole time. I became aware of two things simultaneously. One, that she was flirting with me and two, that it was working.

This realization caught me completely off guard. After all, this was Phillip's fantasy, not mine. If my husband wrote pornographic stories, they would all start off like this. Our hero meets a gorgeous little counter-culture butterfly at a coffee house and readily agrees to take her home so she can use the shower. Fucking ensues.

I should note here that I did have one previous experience with a woman, back in college. Of course, that's what college is for. My first dorm-mate Sheila and I got hammered one dateless night and indulged our mutual curiosity to the brink of heavy petting. Somewhere between second and third bases, you could say. Afterwards, we couldn't look each other in the face for a week. We agreed that it had been a terrible mistake, and she moved out at the end of the semester. Whenever I looked back on the incident, however, I was glad for the experience and even found the memory stimulating. Sometimes in fantasy, I allowed it to progress further than the reality had. Phillip loved to hear about it, too. Nothing got him going faster than my well-worn college lesbian experimentation story.

Now here I was with the girl of my husband's dreams, feeling fluttery in my stomach. Too weird. I laughed out loud, it was so absurd.

"What's so funny?" Amanda asked, looking at me sideways as she applied an unnecessarily fellatric finishing touch to the joint. I wondered if we'd be able to light something containing that much saliva.

"Nothing," I laughed. "Sorry."

"Usually you don't get the giggles until after you smoke it."

"How do you know?"

Amanda shrugged. "You got a light?"

Being basically a non-smoking household, all we had were fireplace matches. I got up to get one and when I sat back down, I deliberately left one full cushion-length between us. Amanda curled her legs up into the space, hitching up her skirt a little and revealing a few precious inches of smooth brown thigh.

She handed me the joint. "Go ahead, spark it up."

I lit the eight-inch match with a flourish.

"That's a big match," Amanda laughed.

I touched the flame to the tip of the joint and inhaled. The smoke was flavorful and instantly nostalgic. I shook out the match and handed the joint back to Amanda, willing myself not to cough. She inhaled languorously. We passed the thing back and forth only a few times before it hit me warm and fuzzy all over. I caught Amanda staring at me, but not at my face. I followed her gaze and saw that my nipples were stiff against the fabric of my shirt, visible even through the material of my bra. I crossed my arms to cover myself and Amanda smiled again.

"I think it might rain," she said incongruously. "The roof of my van leaks? It sucks."

Instead of handing the joint to me, she leaned over and held it to my lips. I tasted her fingers as I drew my smoke.

"This stuff's kind of green," she said. "I wish we had a bong."

I had no idea what she was saying. Her voice was just music to me now. I leaned back and let my arms go limp, thinking what the hell, let it happen. Amanda took her hit, then leaned in close to exhale into my lips. That was how Phillip had stolen his first kiss, too. As I allowed her to fill my lungs with her exhalation, I smiled at the thought that this girl employed the same schoolboy tricks as my husband.

Amanda touched my cheek with the tips of her fingers. "You're so pretty," she said, and then she was really kissing me and, to my surprise, I was kissing her back. Her tongue fluttered against mine and I got this strange electric tingle throughout my entire body. I was breathless. One of us made a sound, a cat-like purring, but with our mouths so pleasantly mashed together, I couldn't tell if it was me or her.

Amanda's hand timorously cupped my breast and I leaned into it, increasing the pressure. I wanted her to touch me there. I suddenly despised my clothes for coming between her hand and my breast and wished they would simply dissolve. Her mouth was still moving warm and insistent, yet so softly, against mine.

I touched her leg, parting her skirt to trace my fingers along the smooth skin of her thigh. Amanda grabbed my wrist and with sudden force pulled my timid hand into her very center. The naked heat and dampness of her came as a shock to my fingers. I almost pulled away, but she opened her legs to receive me so I traced my fingers along her glistening divide and found her hard little button and felt her moan into my throat.

She leaned back, pulling away from my kiss and looked into my eyes with absolute wonder.

My head spun with lust and smoke as Amanda helped me out of my clothes with a speed and delicacy it had taken Phillip years to master. She pulled her dress off over her head and we were naked together. Amanda was thin. I could see the lines of her ribs beneath her small but luscious breasts. Her skin was evenly browned all over. Her pubic hair was dense and dark.

Amanda pushed me back onto the couch and kneeled before me on the floor. I brazenly opened myself to her and she was on me at once, lapping and nuzzling before I could brace myself for the pleasure. My clitoris buzzed like a cicada. The first orgasm came almost instantly, in a shivering wave that washed over my entire body, building in intensity with each little nibble until I couldn't bear it anymore. I had to push her head away. It was too much. Amanda grinned up at me lustily, her chin dripping with my juices.

We hurriedly traded places, her on the couch and me down on my knees. I wanted to badly. I had never tasted another woman, only myself on Phillip. On his hands, on his mouth, on his penis. Amanda's taste was wilder than mine, not as sweet. Her juices were like a dark red wine, but clean and faintly soapy from the shower. I loved it. I loved her bittersweet pussy. I penetrated her with my tongue and she cried out and I came again, in empathy. I was exultant, delirious, lost in a dream.

I climbed up on the couch to kiss her. Each of us tasted herself on the other's lips. Our juices mixed together and formed a new taste, more intoxicating than either on its own. I held the girl sweaty and naked in my arms until we caught our breath. She stayed for most of the afternoon.

*

After Amanda left, I found myself unwilling or unable to get up from the couch. I managed to pull my clothes back on, but then I just laid there dizzy and exhausted, slowly coming back to earth from the pot high and the sexual afterglow. I had offered to drive Amanda back into town, but she had insisted that she preferred to walk and I did have to concede that I was in no shape to drive. So I just waited for Phillip to get home. I must have dozed off, because I dreamed.

It was a recurring dream, one which I've had several times since living in this house. Always a little different, but essentially the same. In the dream I am upstairs, exploring the rooms on the third floor. I wander into the attic and there find a staircase I have never seen before. Apprehensively, I climb the stairs, with an unsettling feeling that I'm being watched. I find a second attic above the first, a secret room I somehow know I was not meant to see. The room is dimly lit and filled with antique clutter which I sometimes stop to examine, but more usually I just walk to the back of the long room. There I find a trap door in the ceiling. Despite my fear, I pull myself up through it, into a third attic. This place is empty except for ages of dust and cobwebs, dingy light and stale air. The fear by now has mounted to terror, but I see that across the room is a ladder, leading up to an even higher room. I venture up, unable to stop myself. The dream can stretch out like this indefinitely. Attics above attics without end; stranger and stranger rooms, some filled with bizarre antiques, some empty except for the omnipresent dust. I see long-vacant spider webs and ancient rodent droppings, but I am always the only living creature in these rooms. There is always an atmosphere of oppression, though, as if invisible eyes are upon me. I can sense their silent outrage, as if I'm trespassing, but the compulsion to go higher and higher is undeniable.

In that afternoon's version of the dream, the suffocating feeling of being watched was heavier than usual. I was aware that I was dreaming, and was afraid that I would be unable to awake. Afraid that whatever watched me in the attic of my dreams would hold me under the waters of sleep and drown me there.

Then Phillip came home, slamming the door behind him as he always did. The sound woke me up and I opened my eyes with relief.

"Oh, hey," he said. "Were you taking a nap? I didn't mean to wake you up."