Chapter Two
By the time I came back out of the bathroom, a few million sperm spinning toward the water-treatment plant behind me, I had already begun to feel embarrassed. The high was wearing off.
I had just engaged Rita Distefano, my 40-something crush, in a highly-charged discussion about sex scenes in books. At the time, it had seemed to go famously, better than I might've hoped. But now that I'd shot my load, alone in the bathroom, I began to take a different view. The image that had been burning up my brain when I closed the door--Rita riding me like a mechanical bull--was now replaced with one of her driving away, laughing pityingly at poor Kevin and his thinly-disguised attempt to get his rocks off by getting her into a conversation about "breasts bobbing wildly."
It was pathetic, really. Borderline harassment. Maybe I didn't know her so well after all. It was insane, what I'd done. What I needed to do was quit fixating on a woman who was a year and a half older than my own mother, get my head on straight. Just because she talked to me, didn't mean she wanted to take me to bed. I would be deluding myself to think otherwise. Why would a grown woman with a career and a life of her own want to go messing around with some 18-year-old, long-haired misfit? No reason, none at all.
And so, in a state of embarrassed, post-orgasmic gloom, I trudged off to my room.
Over the next few days, I anticipated Rita's next appearance with a mixtuure of dread and, in spite of myself, eagerness. Hope burns eternal, after all, and so did my hormones. I couldn't forget the way she'd laughed, the feeling of herb hand in mine, the way she didn't let go until she absolutely had to, and the little wriggle of her shoulders. The devil on my other shoulder had woken up and begun to yell back at the angel on the other side.
"You know, when you're ... near the end ... things can get pretty ... wild."
Just how wild, Rita? How wild do things get for you?
So it was with mixed feelings, early the next week, that I heard the doorbell ring at 4:30 in the afternoon. I was in my room, reading the latest issue of Metal Maniacs, thinking how the Korn and Marilyn Manson fans who constituted the headbanger crowd at school would surely shit their pants at some of this stuff coming out of Europe ... then I heard Rita's voice out in the living room, and my mom laughing.
I put down my magazine.
Go out there.
You can't go out there.
Go OUT there, dammit!
I was used to waiting in my room for a little while. I never wanted to go bounding out there like a neglected puppy, begging for a pat on the head. I'd let fifteen or twenty minutes go by before wandering out there. But today, it was torture.
Don't go out there, you blew it.
You have to go out there. You laid the foundation last time.
Finally, I got disgusted with myself. You're acting like a chump, Kevin, a blue-ribbon chump! She's in her 40's, and you're acting like she sits behind you in chemistry class. Go out there and act like a normal human being. If you need an escape, just say you need to take Dennis his homemwork assignment, because you do.
So I moseyed on out to the kitchen, where the ladies were having a cup of coffee. I headed for the cookie jar, pretending not to notice them.
"What're you doing up there, mister!" Mom said, mock-stern.
I turned around, half a cookie already in my mouth. "Who, me?" I said, through a mouthful.
Rita broke into a smile as soon as our eyes met. "Well, it's the great literary scholar," she said, and winked at me. I couldn't hold back a grin, my lips tight to keep from displaying semi-chewed cookie. I hoped she wasn't making fun of me, but sensed that all was well.
We shot the shit for a few minutes, and then I casually fetched my jacket. "I gotta go take the homework assignment over to Dennis Jarecki's house," I said.
Dennis Jarecki was this sort-of friend of mine. He was a computer genius and science whiz, but also a lazy pothead. Our conversations tended to be bizarre and convoluted, but somehow, we always seemed to be thrust together. Dennis had bronchitis this week, wouldn't be in until at least Thursday. It couldn't have come at a worse time for him, because he was in the middle of one of his periodic mad scrambles, trying to get his shit together academically before the end of the end of the third marking period.
I grabbed the folder with the day's homework and headed for the door.
Rita pushed back her bchair. "I gotta go, Janet," she said, putting on her own coat. "Gotta pick the boys up at my mom's. Wait up, Kevin!"
I hung near the door while Rita and my mom said their goodbyes.
As we walked toward our respective cars, all I could think to say was, "Cold out, isn't it?" Nice opener, Mr. Smooth!
"How's The Stand coming?" she asked.
"It scared the living shit out of me last night," I said, truthfully. "It's awesome!"
"You know," she said thoughtfully, "they made a mini-series out of it a few years ago. I taped it when it came on. Would you like to see it sometime?"
"Sure," I said, even though I couldn't see how a mini-series could possibly measure up to the book.
"Tell you what," Rita said, her hand on my arm. "Why don't you drop by this weekend. I'll see if I can find those tapes, and we can watch them together."
Oh, wow!
"You sure you don't mind?" I asked.
"Not at all," she said. "Matt and Danny go with their dad this weekend, and I've got nothing to do. I could use the company."
Was this exactly what it seemed, a friendly invitation to watch a shitty TV adaptation of a great book? Or was there more to this? Was her hand moving slightly, stroking my arm just a little bit?
GO FOR IT! screamed the devil on my shoulder. The angel was silent.