Wonder, or perhaps, On the Floor

Its about free love, sort of; what its really about is how what goes on in our minds is so different than what we say. Mildly erotic. It may not sound like much, but give it a shot - you might be surprised...

 

The floor was enough. I sat, legs folded beneath me, no mind given to the skirt pleated high against my thighs, cheekbone kissing the frosty glass of the sliding door. There was a sort of static electricity hovering in the air created by the sparks that had flown from my eyes all afternoon, but all its amperage was lost to the glare of the stoic florescent lights. The scent of Axe Deodorant, a scent I closely allied with my men, was in the air as well, and when I raised my eyes from the ground to peer out from beneath my tattered baseball hat, I could see one of them now.

            The cover image of the SPIN on the floor to my left was somehow reminiscent of the Mercurial figure framed by the bill of my cap. He was my rock star. That was how I thought of Darren, as a pop culture portrait. With his too long blonde hair and dark eyebrows, he appeared to have simply wandered off the canvas of some highly stylized coolster print. Though shorter than I usually took my men, he was thinner than any rail I ever saw, and in that respect, he was a tailored fit. His eyes resembled quartz from afar and transformed without the aid of smoke or mirrors to a nearly translucent shade of sea foam when you were near enough to touch. His stance defied gravity. He leaned back on his hips, perpetually fixed in a power-chord pose, a pose that struck in my brain each time I looked at him the memory of how all the other girls would scream for him as I stood and smiled. He was dressed in a pair of my blue jeans and a faded red DARE t-shirt. I looked away and realized I had been holding my breath. I exhaled.

            Darren had been vigorously burrowing through the pockets of his roommate’s corduroy blazer and had emerged victorious, cigarettes in hand. He lit one and inhaled meditatively, closing his eyes and sending twin streams of smoke spewing from his nostrils. His sigh was almost audible. A breeze gusted outside the open glass door making me shiver, raising goose bumps down my bare legs. I looked past the balcony railing; a grid of cubes stared back at me and I could imagine myself there: perched and peering from the bars of one, sprawled and staring from the concrete slab of another. I looked over their littered rooftops to the arms of trees, naked and dead, clawing against the gray sky. Summer was gone. Longing for one more bright day tiptoed through my brain before I slammed that door shut. Each winter I dreaded the cold, and I had vowed this year I would keep warm.

            I slid my gaze back into a room the exact color of the expectant winter sky. All the walls were the same dirty white. It looked as though someone had crumbled eggshells into a can of raw pigment and smeared it hastily over the uneven sheetrock. The ceiling, the doors, the bar, even the vertical blinds that hung over the sliding glass were the same cold color. Once, the carpet may have matched as well, but the generations of transients that had inhabited this two-bedroom unit had sullied the burber to muted beige. The space was blank. The only real signs of the dynamic personalities that inhabited it were the six game systems tangled in the corner by the television and the few scattered Beatles posters tacked over cracks in the faded plaster.

            Darren had materialized at my side. I felt my temperature climb gazing into his open eyes, and I feared steam would rise from my body, betraying my emotion. I wonder how he tastes. The wind fired again outside blowing his hair and carrying the smoke that tumbled from his mouth along with his words: “You ho.”

            Despite the degradation, the fact that his words stood in direct conflict with all my personal mores and inclinations, I twittered with an unfettered air no man would ever muster. “You’re just jealous. “What a juvenile thing to say. Yet despite my gentle chiding I knew, deep in the gray of my brain, my words were truer than even I would care to admit. I seem to be the most impulsive person on the planet.

            “You were crazy about him.”

            This time I only smiled. He has never seen me crazy. He had not seen me mount my companions paying no mind to place or circumstance; he had not seen the way I lick my favorite flavor; obviously, he had not seen the pictures. Still, it was possible. Maybe right now, this very minute, I am crazy, but only for you. Only about you. Only because of you. These words, so loud and clear in my head, played on my lips, but I could not possibly tell him all this. What I said was, “No.”

            “No way,” he exclaimed, grinning as he blew another plume of smoke from between his pursed lips. “I was talking to you, and you were, like, crazy in lust.” His eyes were hot, blistering. They warmed my shaking form against the harsh November chill, burned my sensitive skin as I met his gaze.

 

           

There was one ecstatic moment of confusion when he grabbed me and we almost fell before I heard his furtive whisper: “Stay away from Jonathan, he’s really drunk.” Darren and I were huddled in the small hallway between he and Dylan’s bedrooms. Desperately seeking a moment’s respite of just another Saturday night raging at our backs. It seemed as though half the crowd had followed us back to this cramped cubicle. We had found the only space not thronging with people; clichéd rock-n-rollers, screaming high school girls who would gam and tease but balk when it came down to the act, roved in packs around us, but his words were clear through the cacophony. Words made clearer by my reluctance to hear them. Darren let me go and, while I said nothing, I begged him with my eyes. I felt my lips betray me with a smile. I think: I am the champion of inhibition.

            In the semi-fog of my mind, I could see the logic of Darren’s statement. The predatory action, however, made me feel dirty. The alcohol has lubricated him, that’s all, I rationalized. How could I explain something like that? I wanted to explain, wanted to say: I’d rather have you. At that moment, a frighteningly strong urge swept over me to seize Darren by the scruff of his neck and drag him into the bathroom, locking the door behind us. I could imagine sweeping the twin cans of Axe to the floor as the lifted me to the countertop, could hear our echoed noises amplified on the tile walls, growing louder until the line between thinking and speaking vanished. “I like drunk people,” was all I could manage.

            His hypnotic sea-blue eyes grabbed mine. “Don’t do it.”

            There’s nothing I wouldn’t do with you. For you. To you. I needed to reach for him, to grasp him and take his scent into me. I wanted to tell him I would do anything, even stay away, but as I lost myself in the stern regard of his gaze, I saw it would not matter.

 

           

As I sat in the silence of the smoky room shivering legs drawn close to my chest, I wondered if Darren was sharing this strange tickle of déjà vu, sharing my memories with me. “I mean, Jonathan’s hot and all, but damn, girl.” He fired a sarcastic shot of smoke at me to punctuate his statement.

            Despite his complacent expression, I was not prepared to rebuff his words. Instead, I spoke of them both. “It’s just, when you play – that night- I can’t believe how sexy you were.” I hoped he had noted my use of the word ‘you,’ but he seemed unfazed. I heard words of remorse tumble again through my head: If you had been there, we would not be having this conversation. If I could have, I would have had you.

 

           

The space had been dark, the darkness of underground on a winter night, far smokier than the monotone apartment. It sounded as though someone were having quite a shag upstairs, but the band had been corralled into the farthest corner of the unfinished basement, in a space that would have been far better suited for a tool bench, or perhaps a washing machine and dryer. The drum kit absconded all available space. A rhythm guitar was hidden to the right of percussion, forcing Darren and his bass player out front.

            Darren squeezed into the crowd. Jonathan hopped from one side of the space to another dragging the chord of his lime green bass behind him. Darren leapt into the air, raised his guitar above him, tossed his head from side to side. He played his instrument like an extension of his body, played as if he would achieve some sort of orgasm after all this effort was expelled into the crowd. As I stood on the periphery of the undulating mass, slightly hidden behind an amplifier of some kind, it was easy to imagine we had the same images in out heads: images of lights, lasers, and a spotlight trained directly on him.

 

 

“Hey, do you wanna play a game of Life?” Darren had extinguished his cigarette and his eyes were glittering like clear green diamonds. He looked like a child for a brief moment, and then the wind that had been steadily blowing my mind was sequestered as he slammed the sliding door. I beamed at him briefly before raising myself from the floor and walking to the hall closet to retrieve the game. Dylan, Darren’s roommate, was asleep behind the door to my right, and I asked the normally troublesome tri-fold to open without much resistance. It agreed, and for a single bright moment I was carbonated with a spectacular sense of renewal as I pulled the game down from the shelf in front of me.

            I did a little twirl, making my skirt flounce out before returning to the living room to set up the game. Darren elected to be banker and I was dubbed purveyor of stocks and insurances. I chose to be the white car while Darren at first chose pink; after much consideration, he decided on blue. I went first, and as I moved my little white car with its little pink giraffe seated opposite the driver’s seat over the spaces that would dictate my destiny I wondered, Am I a ho? I didn’t think so, but I wondered if that really mattered.

            Darren and I cruised through Life, celebrated our respective marriages, purchased our subsequent fire and auto insurance. We had played this game a hundred times before, yet never had I entertained these thoughts. For the first time, I questioned myself. Was what I did immoral? I reassured myself the answer was an immutable no, and I accepted that answer without delay or hesitation. After all, I do hold my own opinion in the highest of regards. This thought quelled my stormy mind to some degree, but a shadow of doubt was still casting itself over my head, making me wonder.

 

 

I had wrapped my arms around Jonathan at every opportunity Saturday night, enjoying the taction of his body on mine. He was the polar opposite of his fair band mate Darren; he had deep olive skin that closely resembled fine suede and messy black hair. His eyes were deep and rich. They reminded me so powerfully of melted chocolate that I could taste it, and my mouth watered whenever I admired them too closely. All night I had shared his drinks and gazed into his cocoa eyes. Around midnight we had been in Darren’s bedroom, Jonathan on his back on the floor, I seated on the edge of the bed with three girls giggling naively at my sides.

            Everyone in the room was listening intently, waiting for what I would say next. “I guess you’d call it – free love.” The girls giggled again.

            “For real,” one gasped, eyes widening in disbelief. She looked to her companions and appeared somewhat placated by their similarly perplexed expressions.

            I smiled a bit, but inside I was shaking my hair with laughter. These were the girls I had so studiously avoided in high school, but here they were, still giggling. Some swilled their drinks in great gulps then quickly turned their heads to hide disgusted grimaces, others were already wasted and puking all over the bathroom, but all had come here looking for the Great American Blowout they had seen portrayed in the movies. They would talk incessantly to their friends on Monday about the wild party, the college party, they had attended after the show on Saturday; chattering endlessly; continually embellishing the truth until into longer resembled reality. And yet they gaped open-mouthed at my intimations of loving freely. For one prurient moment I envisioned grabbing one of the girls, perhaps the little blonde one situated nearest to the exit, and smashing my mouth roughly to hers, holding her head in place as I kissed her hard. When I released her I would bat my eyes and coo, “That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?” I couldn’t help but giggle a tad myself at the image inside my head of the girl’s look of practiced nonchalance crumbling into one of shattered consternation.

            “R-r-r-really?” The alcohol that has so conveniently lowered my companion’s inhibitions had also increased his normally gentle stutter exponentially. I looked down and saw Jonathan’s eyes wide. My laughter melted in my mouth like so much chocolate and I smiled at him, hungry. I nodded once. “S-so, d-d-do you want t-to…” he trailed off, emotions oscillating over his face. The girls giggled again. Their laughter now had a forced quality that made me glance back, momentarily tearing my gaze from the body before me. They were looking from one to another, seemingly attempting to formulate some sort of escape plan. “N-n-n-no.” I turned back to where Jonathan had answered his own half-verbalized question. He leaned back on the floor and ferreted the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “I’m w-way to aroused t-to be having this c-onversation.” Beneath his hands, his mouth was smiling widely.

            “Not now,” I answered.

            He sprung up to his elbows, all the drunken sluggishness gone from his limbs, eyes brighter than ever. The girls had stopped laughing. Their eyes were darting toward the door; the blonde even had one foot on the floor. “Wh-h-hat?” Jonathan’s eyes were simmering and I was suddenly stricken that he was mere moments from begging me to repeat myself.

            “Later,” I said, leveling my eyes with his. There were fireworks spraying inside my head, choruses moaning in unison, and yet I had denied him. “This is not the place,” I explained, as much to him as to myself. Jonathan looked slightly troubled by this remark, his brow furrowing in a way that reminded me distinctly of a Labrador retriever. As I studied his expectant face, I heard the girls skulking from the room. I was glad.

            “W-w-well, ah,” he stammered in a voice that was almost coy, “w-would you s-s-s-sit on me?” He lowered his head in an apparent attempt to appear bashful, but betrayed himself by peeking up hopefully from beneath impossibly thick black eyelashes. Inside my buzzing brain, I was wholly focused, and the bill of my visor framed his face so I could not look away. I felt my bottom lip curling as I lowered my head to meet his tentative gaze.

            I stood and turned so I was standing directly over him, and I wondered briefly if he could see up my skirt. I liked the idea, so I stood a moment longer before lowering myself onto his warm body as he had requested. My skirt kissed the top of my thighs and I was momentarily fooled into believing the tickle I felt was caused by its tattered hem; I lowered my eyes to the sensation and saw Jonathan’s fingers immersed beneath the fragmented denim fringe fanned out around me. His fingertips skated across my bare skin.

            “A-a-are you s-erious ab-bout the f-fr-ree love th-hing?” Had I been any less engrossed in the figure beneath me I would have laughed. Why would I not share myself with you? I wondered what more proof he needed. I felt myself shifting downward, attempting to answer his question through with my application of pressure. I closed my eyes and tossed back my hair, filling my lungs with air. I was not yet close enough to fully catch his scent, so I leaned in. When I opened my eyes, he was staring right at me. “Are you h-h-hot?”

            I didn’t understand the question. The temperature was low outside, but in the cramped bedroom the air was heavy and I was comfortable. I sensed the epicurean undertone of his voice and squinted slightly as I wondered what he meant. My lips parted in a dart of smile. “Do you mean, like, temperature, or …”

            At that moment, Darren walked into the room. I looked his way and for one naked moment saw utter shock arrow across his face. He stared at us, eyes wide. I grinned at him sportingly.

            “Dude, stay away from her. You’re drunk.” His words slammed me. It seemed as though he was attempting to exorcize the evil from his friend’s presence, wringing him of some grave danger. He looked directly into my eyes and shook his head, subtle but stern. Like an obedient child, I rose. Darren exited and I crouched, lowering my lips to my companion’s ear. “Later,” I had whispered.

 

 

As our giraffe driver cars turned down the home stretch, I lost my fire insurance due to reckless behavior. Darren pulled ahead and reached the Day of Reckoning two full turns before I did. While it seemed indisputable to me that he had won, Darren insisted we tabulate our totals to make certain. I was having trouble counting. I kept imagining his weight atop me, the sweet taste of his sweat. My grand total was one million, four-hundred-thousand and forty dollars; Darren’s was one million, eight-hundred-thousand, six-hundred-thirty. I was about to congratulate him on his win when he cried, “I haven’t counted my insurance yet!” I was bemused. It was not enough to win, apparently. He bent his head in bookish concentration and I wondered once more, Why should I not share myself with you?

            “Let’s see, auto is eight thousand, so that’s one-million, nine-hundred-thousand, seven-hundred and ninety…” his voice faded as he continued counting.

            All I want is to feel you, is that so wrong? That word he had used, ho, was reverberating in my brain like a sour note in a symphony and I could not shake the feeling that there was some credence to his accusation. I had always considered myself entirely separate from girls I would classify in such a demeaning way, based on nothing more that principle. While I did not pretend to speak for the whole of my gender, I felt there were pronounced and fundamental differences between those who misused their bodies for the furtherment of their own devices and those who shared them, allowing pleasure to flow freely from one person to another.

            “Fire insurance is twelve thousand, so that’s two-million, three-hundred-thousand, four-hundred and fifteen…”

            Never before had I considered the morality of my thought process, yet as I attempted to logically map my misdeed, I found none. I was shaken. The core of my being had been questioned and I had no answer to give besides to smile and cry freedom into the oncoming tide. I wonder why he doesn’t feel this way…

            “Life insurance is twenty-two thousand, so now I’ve got two-million, nine-hundred-thousand, eight-hundred-forty…”

            There is a difference, even if no one else sees it. With this I was mollified and I gazed up at Darren from beneath the brim of my hat, enjoying the voyeuristic pleasure I garnered watching him concentrate. I pressed my tongue into the sharp point of my canine tooth and raised an eyebrow as he counted fixedly. Surely he must feel my gaze. It seemed as if the energy fluorescing from my eyes would be enough to cause his shirt to burst into flames. I wished I had told him before how deeply I cared for him, explained the difference between he and the boys I fucked around with. I wondered if things would have been different if I had confided all my urges to him; explained how his eloquence connoted Fitzgerald, how his impossible posture reminded me so powerfully of Shaggy Doo. I wondered how he would have reacted on Saturday night if I had told him I could love him too if he wanted. I wondered if it would be worse.

            “Oh, and stock! Two-hundred-four thousand for that… Making four-million, six-hundred-eighty-one-thousand, three-hundred and fifty dollars.” He smiled proudly.

            “Yep, you beat me,” was all I managed before I could contain my laughter no longer. His puzzled expression indicated he was apparently unaware of his atrocious addition skills, and now I wondered if perhaps I wasn’t reading too much into my friend’s criticism. I leapt forward abruptly and grabbed his head with both my hands, showing no regard whatsoever for the game board situated between us. I kissed him hard for several seconds. I was breathless and laughing when I released him. ‘Damn,” I gasped as I licked his taste from my lips, “you’re so sexy.”

            He looked at me dazed, eyes searching for answers they would not easily find. In that happy moment I decided: I like it this way. Darren looked at me, head cocked to one side. He reached forward hesitantly, the red heart tattooed on the flesh between his thumb and forefinger matching the color of his shirt, matching the flush of his cheeks. I could see the words preparing to leave his mouth when his cell phone rang. For a moment it appeared that he had never before heard a telephone, but when it sounded for the second time he snapped from his narcosis and answered it. “Oh. Hi, Megan.”

            I rose and leaned back, stretching the stiffness of the floor from my joints. I stood, just watching, as Darren agonized over his girlfriend’s voice. I stepped to his side and murmured into the ear not flooded with her rapid high-pitched words, “Let me know when you want me.” He looked in my direction with his forehead deeply crinkled. Beneath his serious black eyebrows, though, lay the sea. I winked at him playfully. “Later,” I called as I left him to his phone call and skipped down the hall to Dylan’s room. Later is my favorite word.

            The room was dark, the November sun obscured by horizontal blinds and charcoal sheers that hung over the windows. As I crossed the threshold into his rich, dusky cocoon I felt the temperature raise several degrees; despite the muted sunlight, I could easily make out the form sprawled beneath the gold spread. I walked over and climbed in beside the figure. Beneath the umber cotton sheets, Dylan was sleeping naked, and I ran my hand up the tight, hot skin of his abdomen. He was lying on his side, and I reached around to fondle the taunt muscles that stretched long down his back; I grasped the handhold formed by the hard curve of his side and nestled my head into his chest. His arms closed instinctively around me. I heard him inhale and watched as he opened his coppery eyes. His chestnut hair hung well over his brow and I thought briefly, That must surely obscure his vision. “Hey, Amber,” he breathed, “What’s up?”

            I pressed my body against his; touched him as I would have touched them, rested my cheek against his smooth chest. “You know what I was just thinking?”

            “What?”

            “I wish everyone in the universe was exactly like me.”

            Dylan paused sleepily, “How so,” he finally asked.

            I hesitated. The only thing I would not readily confess to him was the turmoil and self-doubt that had wracked my brain over the past hour. “You know,” I said, “as open.” Despite his radiant warmth, I shivered a bit.

            “In what way?”

            I tried to sigh but never made it past the inhale. I was being stifled by his scent, and when I heard the steady rise and fall of Darren’s voice outside the closed bedroom door I did not even think to try and decipher his words. Dylan’s skin was so close. I was desperate to taste him, was, in fact, fighting to keep from licking his chest. “You know, about having sex.”

            His arms tightened momentarily around me, squeezing me even closer. I felt the tip of my tongue dragging itself over his bare body; I was overcome by his taste. “I see,” he murmured dreamily. I felt his chest heave in a short snort of laughter. I closed my eyes and gave the rest of my weight over to his arms. I wondered for a moment what Darren would say if he were to walk in this very instant.

            I was grinning as I removed my hat and tossed it to the floor and sat up just long enough to pull the ribbed men’s undershirt over my head before lying back beside him. My senses screamed at the sensation of all that skin finally touching. Dylan’s fingers traced the line down my spine and I shivered again, my body writhing against his.

            “You know what,” Dylan asked as he brushed his lips against my ear.

            I gasped faintly as his teeth pinched my earlobe. “What?”

            “I wish they were, too.” My skin was beading with sweat and my breath was coming hard. Despite all my searching, all my wondering, here I was – exactly the same, doing exactly as I wanted. I licked him again, taking longer this time, closing my eyes to enjoy his taste and wonder when the others would come to me. Perhaps sooner, perhaps later, I though to myself as I breathed the body beside me, but until then I was safe here. Warm here. In the end, that was enough for me.

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

Honestly, what do you think?

Reviews

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I liked the story. I think your prose is very well done. It flows easily and has a nice cohesiveness to the lines. I liked your use of alliteration throughout the work. It really makes the prose speak, and shows talent as a writer. Now there is a lot of tension explored in this story, but I'm not so sure if there is tension explained. Why does Amber view Darren so differently from the other people she is with? I think that could be explained a little more. I also feel that the personality of the other characters (not Amber) could be developed more. You show them as Amber sees them, but the reader doesn't quite get a sense of them as their own person. I think if that is done, then the tension between the characters becomes more solidified. You did a very nice job of keeping the reader's attention through the whole story and your main character comes across brilliantly. Very good story and i enjoyed reading it.