markwildyr.com,
Post #72
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| Courtesy of Flickr |
Apparently, a lot of people have scars because I got a
slew of page hits on my story "Every Scar's a Story"… but no comments, either online or through my email. Ah well,
we’ll leave that behind and look at another piece of flash fiction.
UNFORSEEN
RESULTS
Even though the
windows were down, Ham’s ’07 Charger was steamy inside. Mary Sue lay atop me in
the back seat, and we were already testing the limits she’d set. Everything
above the waist was fair game, but below the beltline... no go. Of course, she
was lying on me wiggling around so much that it almost didn’t matter. A couple
of times, my pressure cooker release valve
almost popped.
Despite that, half
of my attention was drawn to the front seat where my best friend since the
third grade, Hamilton Charles, was engaged in a similar pursuit with his girl
of the moment, Cynthia. I kept listening to his low groans and murmurs, trying
to discern between satisfaction and frustration. So far as I could tell, the
battle remained unresolved.
Before long, I heard
what I was listening for… from her, not him. “Oh, Jeez! We gotta get back or
we’ll miss curfew.” The girl’s dorms at Wheaton College still required residents be in-house by 10:00 p.m. on weeknights and 12:00 midnight on Saturdays.
Old school… but a fact.
Ham sat up in the
front seat without a word. I could tell he was pissed. He’d been sure this was
the night he’d hit a home run. Don’t know why he thought tonight was different,
but two hours ago, he’d uttered his prediction with a smirk on his handsome
face.
We didn’t walk the
girls to the door. Never did, after the first date, because we were always so
stirred up from intimate contact that we’d all have been in trouble. It was all
I could do to switch to the front passenger’s seat without stirring up a
scandal. We stayed in place until they were safely inside and then pulled away.
Ham pounded the
steering wheel. “Damn! I was so close.”
“This ain’t
horseshoes,” I said with a hick accent. Then I smiled at the recollection of
Mary Sue almost sending the rockets flaring with her wiggling. “Hey, you want a
burger or a shake or something?”
“No.”
“You ready to head
back to the dorm?”
“No.”
“Whadda ya wanna
do?”
“Hell, I don’t
know.”
“Well, you can go
back to the dorm and pout. Or you can park somewhere and pout. Or—”
“Oh, shut up!”
He took an abrupt
right and sped down the long road out of town. Neither of us said a word until
the city limits were behind us and the long straight ribbon of asphalt led to
the horizon, indistinct in the moonlight. Finally, I could stand it no longer.
“What made you think
tonight would be different?”
He snorted. “She all
but promised me last time.” He glanced at me. “Hell, Bob, doesn’t it get to you?
Getting all hot and bothered with no payoff, I mean?”
I shrugged. “It’s
the way the game’s played. You take what you can get until she says no. Then
you stop.” I paused for a thought. “Unless you’re a rapist.”
He stomped on the
brakes and slewed onto a side road blocked by a closed gate, the locked entry
into someone’s pasture. We sat in silence until the dust we’d raised floated
past.
“I’m no rapist,” he
grumbled.
I turned to smile at
him and froze. His excitement was evident…and extreme… even in the semidarkness.
“D-didn’t think you were.” I gulped and swallowed.
He leaned back in
the seat in evident agitation, and that was all it took to release me. Free me
to do what I’d wanted to do ever since we hit adolescence. “I… I can help,
Ham.”
He didn’t answer. He
merely pressed a forearm over his eyes and took a deep breath.
I’d like to think I
didn’t know what I was doing… but I did. I knew exactly what. I pressed my hand
down on him, and the heat of his passion warmed my palm. Slowly, deliberately,
I unbuckled his belt and manipulated the top button and zipper. When I tugged
on his denims, he lifted his butt slightly. Revealed to me in all his glory, he
took my breath away. Strong and pulsing and inviting.
“Bob,” he mumbled.
“Maybe we’d better not—”
Panicked by what he
was about to say, I did the unthinkable. I lowered my head and ministered to
him, silencing his rising protest. I reveled in his suppressed murmurs of
ecstasy and his astonished cry at sudden relief. I kept at him until he fell
silent. At length, he pushed me away and restored his clothing.
Without a word, he
fired the engine and backed onto the highway. He was quiet as we raced back to the
campus, refusing to look at me and answering my efforts to make conversation
with monosyllables and grunts.
I looked out the
window as the fences and gates and occasional farmhouses flashed by and
understood three things.
I would never again
have such an intimate moment with my friend. I had taken advantage of Ham in a
weak moment, resulting in shame on his part… even as it drew me closer to him.
And I recognized
that I would have to work long and hard to repair our friendship. We might
never be as close as we had been before this night.
The third thing?
Well, I knew I was in love.
*****
Anything in the story remind you of something from your past?
We don’t always know what we want when we’re growing up and venturing new things. I’ve known guys who wanted to experiment, only to find it brought
shame and mortification. We want what we want when we want, even if we find out
later that was a mistake. Unfortunately, people like that tend to blame their
partner of the moment rather than their own desire to try something new. Sure
hope Bob can hold onto Ham’s friendship… but based on my own experience, it’s
an iffy proposition.
Amazon permits you to read a short passage of my novels, Cut Hand and Johnny Two-Guns. I also believe the STARbooks-published River Otter, Echoes of the Flute, and Medicine Hair are still up. I sure would
like to get the final book in the Cut Hand Series, Wastelakapi… Beloved, published, but it’ll take some help from
readers to get Dreamspinner interested.
My contact
information is provided below in case anyone wants to drop me a line:
Website and blog: markwildyr.com
Email: markwildyr@aol.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/mark.wildyr
Twitter: @markwildyr
The
following are buy links for CUT HAND:
And now my mantra (yes, it’s mine, even if I borrowed it
from Don Travis): Keep on reading. Keep
on writing. You have something to say, so say it!
Until next time.
Mark
New posts at 6:00
a.m. on the first and third Thursdays of each month.
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