Page 314 - What They Did to the Kid

302 Jack Fritscher

Oh my God! I felt the lump of myself growing towards her.
Her mouth fit agreeably to mine, different from the soft kisses at
her door. She frightened me with her teeth against my lips.
“No one understands all of me,” she said. “But you’re a man. An
innocent man. Perhaps you can.”
In gratitude I kissed her, to try it, to quiet her, to hear the truth
to be found in her.
“No,” she said, “like this.”
I’m sensitive, my God.
“Don’t pucker up.”
Hypersensitive.
“Relax your lips.”
Oh.
“I always pick flowers myself.”
No one can save everything so long...
“We’re too intellectual.”
...and not be easily disturbed.
“We need to feel.”
I pulled her to me.
“Like this.”
I pulled her in close.
“Like this.”
I tightened my arms around her.
Her arms tightened around me.
I hurt with undecided tension. I wanted and did not want.
Song lyrics rushed through me. “Quiet nights. Quiet stars.” Astrud
Gilberto, “Corcovado, Oh, How Lovely.” The lake and moon and
sand and stars, the city, the world fell back from us lying in the late
darkness. Under the thin lisle stretches of her swimsuit, I felt her
warm white body like a night-blooming orchid. My nature quivered
through me. Other men would take her, would have taken her long
before. I was like other men. I wanted to slip deep down into her,
into the idea of her, to be lost forever.
She knew my nature. “Ryan, oh, Ryan. We’re more than intel-
lect.” She touched me. “Let me make you feel.”
I was in a new world...
“Let me love you.”

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