Chapter II

When she opened her eyes, she found herself in his arms.  For a moment it panicked her.  Whose arms? Oh, yes. Now she remembered. It would have been sweet had it not been so violently wrong. She didn’t know anything about this fucking guy except that that he was beautiful and good in bed and she knew that wasn’t enough to justify any of this.  She was mortified with herself. Had she really just done this? All night sex with a veritable stranger?

She studied him a moment. He was so completely angelic in sleep, but a real fucking psychotic freak…. She knew she was going straight to hell.  She had done it with Roger, but it never felt like a sin because he always kissed her on the forehead and reminded her that they‘d “make it legal after college.” Marriage had been in the future. Here, there was no future.

She woke him.

He blinked. He looked surprised to see her a first, but a pleasant smile replaced the surprise. His own recollection of last night wasn’t troubling in the least. What did jar him was the fact that he was still there. Why hadn’t he wanted to get away from her?  Flee in the night like a thief? For him, that was something worth investigating.

“You have to go,” she informed him.

He understood. He knew that last night she had simply succumbed to him, thawed under his fire. Done away with her morals; threw caution to the damn wind. He had that affect on women, and always felt guilty about the “proper” girls. Poor thing, she probably felt dirty.

He rose up, naked and unashamed.

She tried not to look; but it was hard not to, because he was so extraordinarily lovely. She tried not to look as got dressed full in her view. It was hard not to look, though.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he told her.

Hearing him say that made her want to cut out her damn insides. Oh yes there was something to be ashamed of!

“I just want you to leave.”

“I’m sorry if you feel rushed into something you didn’t want… it was great sex, though.”

This was too weird for her. Who the hell talked like this?! He was too pretty, too sexual, too blunt and too strange. But damn if she wasn’t starting to feel sexual again just looking at the worry on his face…

He noticed that change in her. How her anger and piety deflated in an instant. The girl was a mess, really. He knew that if he simply pulled her into his arms she’d go to mush. He left it alone. Said his goodbye, and left it alone.

*

Sharon was on her knees in the yard pulling at weeds when he approached the house.  She hated weeds. To her they were bullies; forcing their way into places they were not wanted. 

It was early, possibly six a.m.  He hadn’t bothered to check. He had been roused out of bed and sent on his way and time didn’t matter.  The air had that magic quality that only happens in the morning, when you can still feel the coolness from the night. It bites the tip of your nose like a microscopic fairy.  Yes, possibly six a.m.  Helios was slowly being pulled across the heavens in his chariot, and his rays hit shiny things like the shimmer of a magic wand.

Sharon noticed him but didn’t let on that she noticed him. She noticed a lot of things these days, ever since she had quit the alcohol and the drugs.  She noticed his hair. His curls had been tousled and pulled and slept on, but not by him and not in his bed.  He’d been in Berkeley four days and already he was staying away at night. It bothered her, though perhaps it shouldn’t have bothered her. 

She said nothing as he walked past her because he clearly did not want to be noticed coming in like this.  She regretted it, of course. Because not speaking was getting awkward. Neither of them were ready for it yet, though. She decided he would be the first to say something substantial when he was ready to because he was the one who was angry and full of hatred.

Should she speak first, it would be the wrong thing spoken. He’d find some way to make it wrong, selfish, stupid. He wasn’t the warmest, nicest young man in the world. Not to her, anyway. She had no real experience with his interaction with other people since he had closed that part of his life off to her a long time ago.

*

In her history class, Melanie can’t concentrate. It irked her that her thoughts were drifting toward that utter and brilliant fucking she’d done the night before and away from her lecture on the poor slave women. God. It was damned disrespectful of her. And it was fucking terrible the way people treated each other. Past and present. But worse perhaps, in the past.

She’d read the documents: Women slaves tied up on boats, packed together like sardines, blood from their periods dripping. Made her very angry and sick.  It was always the white man committing these depravities… and she had fucked one last night.

She realized she was being silly. It was not always the white man doing evil in history. Not always.  She doodles in the margins of her notebook. Surprised herself by scribbling: “I want him.” It’s even on the tip of her tongue when she raises her hand to ask a question.  So she shut her notebooks and sat on her hands. This was silly.  It was best to concentrate on her lecture and not the pretty boy and his sex.

 

MORE

She ended up agreeing to dinner.

It was a ten minute walk down to Shattuck Avenue and to an Indian Place called the Pasand Palace. She liked the atmosphere, the rounded windows, the lighting. Dinner was nothing heavy. He had a glass of wine and they picked at each other’s food. They talked about school. She talked mostly about how she enjoyed being away from her family, that her parents were strict, and that going away to college in California had been her very first opportunity to breathe. She also told him that she wasn’t looking forward to graduating next year because that meant that she would have to go back home to Chicago, which she didn’t want to do on account of her family (she had very strict parents and an overachieving sister), and also because of the fact that she just liked it better here.

She didn’t know why she was speaking so freely with him. Personally, she hated when people rambled on about themselves so.  But he didn’t seem to mind.  He just listened patiently while she spoke but didn’t give away much about himself (on purpose). All he said was that he was in town, temporarily attending to his mother until she ‘got well.’

She didn’t pick up on anything strange about that. “Oh, is she sick?”

“Yes, quite.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” she said.

He forced a tight smile.

Dinner was over.

After dinner they browsed through an art gallery, and then onto Rasputin’s records. Quite on purpose, she drifted away from him, sneaking glances every now and then to marvel over his beauty from a proper distance. It annoyed her how the girls were sort of all over him.  Subtle things they did to get his attention. She shocked herself when she felt tinges of jealousy, but he would look up and smile at her, not caring about them, and that made her feel better.

He was conducting his own observation as well.  He noticed that the men gawked at her; fully appreciative of her beauty; yet avoided her.  He understood why that was, perhaps. Something about her was icy. It sort of turned him on that she didn’t court male attention, how she sent out the icicles. Perhaps that was what had attracted him to her. A challenge.

He wanted to melt her.

A few times their eyes met and locked. He felt the strong desire to go to her and lock fingers with her, too. He hadn’t liked how she had just drifted away, and stayed away. He sidled up to her, noticed her empty hands. “Nothing you want to take home?”

But it was a loaded question. He meant himself. Flirting, again.

“No,” she said, not getting it.

“Shall we go?”

“Yes,” she agreed.

Outside, he reached for her hand, and she gave it up to him.  Second nature, really. It actually felt wonderful holding his hand.  It seemed to be his way of keeping her close.  When they are caught at a streetlight waiting for the light to change, he impulsively leans in and kisses her on the lips. Not a harmless kiss. It was lusty and passionate and it panics her.

She stopped the kiss, and dropped his hand.  And she walked faster and faster away from him that he almost had to jog to keep up with her… That was how desperately she needed to get away from him and his kisses full of fuck.

“Melanie?”

She slowed down, but not much. She needed to get away. To protect her relative chastity. “What?”

“It was just a kiss, sweetheart.”

“Just a kiss, my ass,” she wanted to say. And calling her ‘sweetheart’ was getting too damn familiar. “I think it’s best for us to go our separate ways,” she said. “I don’t do this. And I’m not your goddamn sweetheart, seeing as I just met you like three hours ago.”

“You don’t do what – kiss?”

“Not people I haven’t met before… not like that.”

“That’s fine,” he allowed, though he looked at her as if she was a freak.

She resented that.  “Thank you for dinner,” she said, irritated. “But if you expected something from your investment, I’m going to have to disappoint you.”

It was rejection, pure and simple, and it irritated him. “I don’t expect anything,” he said.

“I should go,” she said.

“I’m not letting you walk alone.”

“Like I’m any safer with you?”

“I’ll behave myself,” he assured her.

She allowed him to walk her home, and after a few blocks enough had blown over between them that he put his arm around her.  Funny how she didn’t mind that.

Her apartment was on Bowditch. One of those old, shingled affairs with white trim around the windows. The apartment she shared with her roommate was tucked away on the left of a stooped entryway. She let the door stay open slightly longer than necessary, and so he went in after her, understanding that this was her way of telling him that she had pretty much changed her mind about a few things.

Right away he had her up against the wall, jamming his tongue down her throat. That was something new. She liked the sensation of his tongue in her mouth. Roger had never been like this with her, that was for sure. He was gentle, respectful, awkward.

This one was none of these things. Also, indecisive.  He did not know what to indulge in first.  Her lips? Her body? One hand was up her shirt, stroking her breasts, then it would change its mind and settle on her waist. Same with his mouth. Did it want her lips or her neck or her breast? He was too impatient to think straight.

It was all about the sex with him.  A tragic flaw, and he knew it. Relationships with women didn’t usually last beyond a few weeks… he didn’t trust them, didn’t care to get emotional with them.  He extinguished his desire for her with her up against the wall, something she couldn’t even process properly as this was almost surreal for her, like some sick movie from the 1980s like Body Heat. It was the first time she ever felt the spark of the erotic.

Shit! What if Sunset (her roommate and best friend) walked in on this?!  But before she could finish that horrifying thought, it was over.  Regrettably over.  He had to let her go to reclaim his breath, gasping while she caught hers and also tried to collect the thoughts that were running around in her head.  She was thinking that it was over: that he had gotten all that he wanted from her, had gotten it too easily, and would go away thinking she was just some run of the mill slut, telling herself: “I’m behaving like a total slut and he’s already through with me and I don’t even remember it.”  Why she gave a damn, she wasn’t sure, as she was pretty positive getting further involved with this man would be a splendid mistake.   And he was a damn slut himself.  

But he sort of dashed those fears. After regaining his virility, he carried her to her bedroom where he made love with her the more conventional way.  This time it was gloriously and wonderfully slow.  It was all about pleasuring her, complete with love-talk and heavy panting. He paused to kiss her on the cheek and to ask her if what he was doing to her felt good.  She, of course, said “Yes.” And he told her that she was beautiful, and she told him that he was “beautiful, too,” and then he went back to work until she was satisfied. This happened pretty much for hours.  They would fuck, rest, and fuck all over again.  By the sixth time, she was really feeling like a sinner.

But it didn’t stop her or anything.

 

THE NEXT PAGE OR SO…

He had never even followed a girl before. There had never been the need. Usually, the reverse was what happened. The chicks flocked to him like birds. Something about this one was different, obviously, or else he never would have noticed her.

He wanted to join her at her table, but how to go about that? It seemed odd to interrupt her reading, or whatever she was doing over there with that book. Killing time.  Besides, what would he say to her? That he wanted jump her bones? He did, of course, but he that would be silly.

When she lifted her leg up for a moment, to stretch, he took note. He followed the line of it, as far up her thigh as that movement allowed. The inner flesh of her thigh showed. He had to crane a little to enjoy that. She must have sensed the movement because she looked up and caught him.

He didn’t mind getting caught. He proffered a hint of a smirk that read: “Can you blame me?”

She met his smirk with disdain. Then she tried to get through some more of her book but she was too irritated. Fucking men! Violated was the word. She felt violated. She gathered up her stuff in a pissed off huff, eager to beat a hasty retreat.

That panicked him for a moment, though he could not fully understand why.  It suddenly became imperative that he speak to her before she disappeared forever. Sometimes your heart just tells you what you have to do and sometimes you have to listen.

“Don’t dash off,” he said.

For a moment she was mesmerized by how fucking beautiful he was. The perverted creep who’d been perving on her legs was alarmingly handsome. She hadn’t bothered to notice before, distracted as she was by his lechery. It took a moment for her to prioritize and get her defenses back up where they belonged.

“Excuse me?” This was said with icicles.

“I didn’t mean to leer,” he said. “I’m harmless.”

Fuck. Her heart was behaving oddly, as it usually did in situations like this.  Thumping loosley in her chest.  She was not a flirtatious type, and subsequently, did not like being approached by strange men. Best to be friends first; maybe. It embarrassed her no end, really.  Being pursued.  Especially by random men  pulling up alongside her in their cars when she was walking somewhere. This always caused unwanted attention. It was so vulgar really, when you thought about it. Everyone who witnessed it knew some guy just wanted to get in some girl’s pants…

And now, she already noticed people taking interest in her situation, and it irritated the hell out of her.

“Whatever,” she said. And started to walk off.

“Do you have a name?”

“I don’t chat with strange men.”

She noticed the surprise in his eyes, and then she noticed them all by themselves (so beautiful!). Something about him made her swoon. She didn’t know what it was, though. He certainly was a cocky bastard — genuinely surprised that she didn’t want to chat with him

“I’m harmless,” he assured her, again [a lie, though].

“You keep saying that like it actually means something. Besides, you were ogling my legs and I find that rude.”

“They’re nice legs; you ought to expect men would do that.”

His comment pissed her off, and he knew it. Because she started walking away from him again, this time with urgency in her steps.

He wasn’t even aware he had been following her again until she spun around, annoyed, and snapped at him. “What the hell is this? Are you honestly following me?”

He held up his hands, the way people do when they mean to show that they are being misunderstood. “Sorry,” he said. “I’ll stop this… just… tell me your name at least.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s your name?” She almost snarled.

“Jess,” he said. 

“Melanie,” she said, after a moment. Softening. God, he was handsome.

“Melanie,” he repeated, a smile on his face. “You go to Cal?”

“Oui,” she said. Bored.

“I went to Cal,” he said. Just to be talking.

“I guess standards were different, then?”

“I think they were higher.”

She almost smiled. She was flirting and it didn’t feel weird.

“Let’s go have some dinner, Melanie.”

“I don’t know you,” she said. Slightly appalled, slightly charmed. How weird was he to just say that, like that?  Out of the blue.

“You can get to know me over dinner.”

She thought about it. Her instincts told her to run.   She knew instinctively that this was not the boy to hand your heart over to for safekeeping. He was more than likely a freak. He just had that vibe.

“I should just go home,” she decided. “You’re very handsome, though,” she said. “We may as well just go ahead and get that out in the open.”

“What is one dinner going to do? If you still detest me, that’ll be the end of it.”

THE FIRST PAGE OF THE CLUNKER

Melanie Andromeda Sills was taking two courses at Berkeley that summer and they were going well:  the Caribbean and the Slave Trade and an art history seminar on Bouguereau. It involved lots of myth, her favorite.  She liked to get lost in the myth stuff.  It was romantic and forceful and it couldn’t really be ignored.

There was that picture of Cupid and Psyche that had gotten her all twisted up.  How Cupid had literally swept Psyche off her feet and held her in that protective, sensual embrace. That was the kind of love she wanted in her life.  But thus far, it has eluded her.

It was the summer before her senior year, and she wanted to be in love already.  Her first semester at school she had met Roger, a junior Afro-American studies major and film student.  He was no cupid. He merely liked to show her off to his friends. Let her tag along. That Roger cared next to nothing for her mind. That lasted almost two years. And what for? They had no deep understanding of who each other was.  They went to dinner together, parties together, bed together.  And as a bonus, her parents liked him. That was the main reason she stayed: the parents approved. They approved of so very little.

She was so over Roger, though.  No passion, no fire, no spiritual awakening. She’d dated a little post-Roger. Not anymore, and not recently.  She decided that she would not date Berkeley guys;  they were so in love with their own minds.

The Bouguereau seminar let out at seven in the evening.  A lovely time for Berkeley in the summer.   The sky was clear, warm, and the air was heavy with the musk of plants.   Also, there was a spirit about the place that made her feel immortal.   Walking home right away never appealed to her.  Best to enjoy the air, the mood, and the last hour or so of the declining sunlight. 

It was usually Caffé Strada on Bancroft where she spent this precious time. It was her favorite café just because of the patio.  It was big, roomy, and had a lot of those robotic-looking heat lamps.

On this evening at the café she orders an Italian soda and a croissant with chocolate drizzled all over it (because such things made her happy), and she sits outside on the patio with her book.  She just flips through the pages not reading at full attention.  Looking for her painting of Cupid, because something about that one made her calm.

She was unaware that she was being studied.  Unaware that she had been followed. 

Not followed for long, and not followed very far.  Nothing creepy.  Just from where he’d been on campus (visiting his alma mater) and to where she’d crossed the street to the café.

It was her legs.  The fact that she had made the decision that afternoon to slip on a skirt caused him to alter his itinerary for that evening and follow her.  It wasn’t a terribly short skirt, nor was it tight.  But it showed that she had lovely legs. 

And then there was that hair of hers.  It was full, like a cloud.  He wanted to take a fistful of it and compress it.  Catch it in his hands, his mouth. 

No.  That still would not have been enough for him to follow her.  Beyond the legs and the hair, she was a diversion. 

He needed a diversion.  A lot of shit going on in his life right about now.  A lot of shit that involved he and his mother and the remarkable hatred he held for her despite the fact that she was recovering from a pretty heavy bout of depression.  Not the stagnant kind. The kind that drove a woman to eat a fistful of pills and leave a note.

… A SNIPPET FROM THAT 400+ PAGE CLUNKER OF MINE THAT I CALL A “NOVEL”

 It had been a long time since he’d seen her or spoken to her.   About nine years.

She was different from what he remembered.  She didn’t look as tarty and she had taken up gardening — that was apparent from the outside of the house.  Everything was trim and well-kept.

She did look sad - put through a ringer - empty. 

Her eyes lit up when she saw her son, but just her eyes. The rest of her was limp. She didn’t even try to touch him.

He had driven up from Los Angeles, bitter as hell about having to do this. Having to baby-sit her annoying and lame ass…

He noticed her eyes.

She said “hello,” and that she was so thankful that he had come up but that she was sorry that he had to come up.

He very slightly shrugged; a reflex.  Hating her guts, even now, as she stood broken.

It was back to his old room.

They avoided each other.

If ever she tried to start conversations, he tried to finish them.  Any day now, they would blow-up.  Tensions were mounting.  She was slowly but surely beginning to assert her hurt feelings and resentment.  She was slamming dishes in the sink, sighing whenever he was within earshot and crying for no goddamn reason.

Hillary Clinton Is A Phucking Bytch

Obama will not be your damn running mate you psychotic wench.

And you are freaking me out with your public and wild mood swings.

B

Y

T

C

H

! 

* Where’s Orlando Bloom at?  I want to phuck him. 

TESTING 1-2-3

Something odd on wordpress… ignore this.

HARRY HAMLIN WAS PHVCKING SESSY. SHVT VP!

I’M WATCHING CLASH OF THE TITANS

Harry Hamlin was sooooooooooooooooooooo hot.  

MEDUSA!!   That is some phreaky arse shit!

Shit!   I don’t want to go to PHUCKING WORQUE tomorrow.

No, God!    Make it all go away. 

I’m tired of living in the Bay Area, damnit.   There’s no place like L.A. 

I HATE all living creatures with first, middle and last names.  Oh yes I do!

OKAY, SO THAT LAST POST GOT LINKED ON SOME SPAM PORNO BLOG

NEEDLESS TO SAY, I WILL NO LONGER BE POSTING SESSUAL CONTENT ON DA INTERNETS!

THIS IS THE LAST ONE: