Is there life after high school?
“Well, now I feel special,” Amanda said. “I’m at capacity. That’s never happened before. Tom would never dare.” The poor man’s name. That was breaking the rules. I didn’t want to know about this guy.
I gently let go. “I have drank of the waters of life,” I said. “Thank you for curing my considerable ailments.”
“Yeah. Whatever. That was pretty fucked up. I can’t believe you really did that.”
“Well, remember,” I said, “I did it once before.”
“It’s sort of pathetic. You are obsessed with breasts.”
“Me? What about her?” I thumbed at baby Krista. “And, hey, it was your idea.”
“Just to kill time. I think she’ll sleep now.” She bustled around the crib, trying to entice a baby who thought everything looked crazy that it was okay to close her eyes for a while. She left her flaps up at first, then she tugged everything back into place. Then she turned to me and said, “Okay, now we’re really going to do fucked-up shit.” She giggled. “No, just kidding. We’re only going to do ordinary shit.” She came into my arms.
“Like what?”
“Don’t worry, it will involve your dick.”
“I feel relieved. Will you be there too?”
“Naturally.”
“Oh, good. I feel we’ve grown close.”
“Naturally.” She kissed me and walked me back against the bed. She shoved a little and I sat down with a bounce. “Hold on, let me do something else fucked up. It’s so great that everything with you is fucked up. I am having a ball.” She rushed out of the room.
Astute or breast-obsessed readers may recall my high school memories of Amanda, which laid the foundation for a lifetime of vaguely understanding women, when I didn’t think about it too much. She had made a play for me one afternoon in a shed near the football field, with courage found in the fact that her family was leaving town shortly.
But as it turned out, Amanda did not move away. Her father’s transfer fell through or something. It seemed clear that her aggressive move on me had been at least partially based on the fact she wouldn’t have to see me again. That not being the case in the end, she made another gutsy move. She saw me again. We became, to our own surprise, lovers. In secret, like Romeo and Juliet, except a little older. You didn’t go around talking about who you were screwing in Racine, not if you wanted to keep doing it. We figured we were the only people who knew how it was done, and we guarded the gift jealously, except for me, who tried to con the vaguest acquaintance into the sack.
And now, a decade further on, as I sat in suspense on Amanda’s sordid marriage bed, she slipped back into the doorway and breathily said, “Hi, Jack,” and if I wanted her way back then, and then wanted her later, then I definitely wanted her now. She slunk into the room wearing exactly the same clothes she had left with, but in a new persona, a sort of anti-idealized version of her fifteen-year-old All-American Tramp. “I think you’re pretty fucking hot,” she said, swaggering back to the doorway. Then she looked shocked. “Look! What’s that!” She pointed behind my head. I didn’t turn to look. Like lightning she pulled off her sweatshirt and threw it at my feet. She had switched the baby bra for some more traditional lacy number. With her face a pouty parody of the best fucks of our lives, she danced a little jig up to me, then a few steps back, then landed across my lap in the throes of premature passion.
“Take me, oh take me now,” she whinnied.
“That isn’t what you said,” I snapped at her.
“Whatever, I was thinking it. And you know what you were thinking?” She sat up in my lap and ran rude hands all over my chest. “Grabby grab grab,” she explained.
“Clank, clank,” I reminded her. “Our meeting was a miracle,” I said, supporting her shoulders as she leaned back a bit, “because up until that time, I had never—ever—” I unhooked her bra for the last time, one-handed as usual. “—done that.”
“And you did it so well! Never?”
“Not even practice on store mannequins.”
She whistled. “You’re a natural. A prodigy!”
I slowly helped her off with the holy garment. “Is there a reason your bra is wet?”
She giggled again. She had never had this much fun with me when we were kids. “It was drying in the bathroom. I didn’t want to give it away if you saw me take one from my drawer. Get this clammy thing off me.”
It went far away and she said, “Just don’t forget about the rest of me.” It’s stupid to like breasts, but it’s not my fault. Apparently there is some reason. “Women think men act like babies when there are breasts around,” I said, “but isn’t that what breasts are for?”
“Yeah, but you’re not babies.”
“So put ‘em away, then. I don’t care. I’m over it.”
“You lie. Didn’t you just pledge some kind of undying admiration? The best ones ever? That’s much more than I ever got out of you, as a whole person.”
“Amanda, we had a problem. You are an amazing person, but you’ve got amazing tits, and I can only take things one at a time.”
“Yeah, I know. With great tits comes great responsibility. Well, you’re real deep. Why do you have all your clothes on?”
“Because that’s how it happened.”
“Yeah, but I also put my clothes back on, if I recall, and we’re changing that part too.”
“You know,” I reflected, “I don’t think I’ve ever talked this much to someone about fucking her.”
“That’s because we never talked, Jack. I thought it might be a new position for us. Talking.”
“Is that in the Kama Sutra? The name isn’t as evocative as most of them.”
“Talking Dog. I don’t know. Stop looking at my tits.”
“Stop having giant naked tits and maybe I will.”
“They’re not giant.”
“You’re right. They’re normal. The rest of the world is small.”
“Well, it’s cheating, because babies make for big ones. But they are naked.” And she started to get me naked too, laughing the whole time. “You’re so cute. You look terrible. What happened to you? What’s all this flab? It’s so adorable.”
“That’s because you’re used to babies now. I’m a late-bloomer. I got my baby fat at twenty-five.”
“You look so terrible. I love it.” She kissed me again and again. “That makes this whole thing even more tragic.”
“Tragic? Are you saying we aren’t going to be together forever?”
“Of course we will, honey, in some ways, just don’t ever call me again.” And then we stopped talking for a while. Except one part at which she said, “Remember this?” so faintly that I wasn’t sure I hadn’t thought it in my own head. With memories and memorized fantasies flooding into current events, I couldn’t swear to what was really happening. She left the light on, but she looked the same. More sure of herself, of course. But most of that had been when she was talking so much. I wonder how we both got to become so talky over the years. But behind the phony pasteboard mask was a real pasteboard mask. When she shut up she was acting like she felt something, and she probably did, even if it had nothing to do with me, just my ghost. When the entire process of sexual self-destruction was over, she was crying, and so was the baby. Amanda ran to quiet her, all the while sobbing herself, and then crawled up against me and bawled for twenty minutes. I didn’t know what to do so I counted twenty minutes and held her alternately tight and very tight. Then Amanda said, “Well. We still got it.”
TO BE CONTINUED….
by Jack, March 9, 2005 8:06 PM | More from Amanda | More from Drinking & Women
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hi. i have a link to your blog on mine. it's been there for a couple of weeks, however, i don't recall asking if it were okay.
i'm asking now.
i enjoy reading. :-)
Thanks for your interest. We are one big happy family!