Mornings With AJ and Jen
Page 4
I mean is it makes me think of this woman as a mother. Still, I am going to do my best to get into her pants. Last spring break was just me and the guys getting drunk in our hotel room.
Did her body, as she doused herself with water on the stage, have the same effect on all guys? Did the damp blonde curls against her neck make them want to settle down and having kids with her? I wished I had checked out the faces of other guys during the wet T-shirt contest. But quite frankly, I was leering at her and the five other girls fondling their breasts in a way I've never seen outside a strip club.
“You got quiet,” she says, even though both of us are now quiet. Either she wants to draw attention to how she stopped talking or ask me before I ask her.
The ocean is blocks away. How romantic it would be to be at the beach with the full moon. Instead, we are sitting on this low retaining wall surrounding a sickly shrub. People have tossed their beer bottles and cigarette butts in it.
The truth is I don't know what to say to her now, although I sure chatted her up inside the nightclub. But we had to get close just to hear what the other person was saying over the pounding music. And you are on the dance floor on spring break. Of course, you are going to say sexy things and do a little dirty dancing to see if you can get away with it. The worst thing that could happen was the girl walked away and you would have to go lie to your buddies.
We were putting on a little skit on the dance floor. But now, out here, I'm just me and the words we say will be remembered. I don’t want to be a jerk and at the same time, I don’t want to blow this. Especially now as she leans back and tries to find the moon through the penetrating security light hung off the building and her wet shirt tightens against her chest.
She realizes where I’m looking. She tries to be bold. But that only lasts for a second before she hunches forward and pulls the T-shirt loose from her damp, warm body. A body made warm by her dirty dancing up on stage. I wonder how drunk she is to do that.
“I'm not drunk,” she says, seeming to read my mind. “In fact, I stayed sober so that I didn't chicken out. This is my last year in college and my first time on spring break. I promised myself I would do every wild thing I could.”
My whole body reacts with adrenaline as she says that. She notices and moves a fraction of a fraction closer to me. I move in and kiss her.
We keep our mouths tight on each other. Play a little tongue hockey. My world becomes her mouth. Her watermelon wine cooler breathe my atmosphere. But almost immediately, the world penetrates. The music from inside the dance club. A car driving through the parking ramp next to us.
I open my eyes a moment and see her eyes tightly closed and two guys walking behind her watching us. "Do her. Do her," they yell while making a V with their fingers and flicking their tongues between them.
I feel how her shirt is making mine wet and smell her perfume. A fragrance that makes me picture her getting ready for the night and smoothing a light powder on herself.
From that, I get an image of someone powdering a baby’s bottom.
Defiant of my own thoughts, I plant my hand on her boob and hear the emcee's tease. “You could cut with those.” But her condition is not caused by cold water but by me.
I want to have a wild time. I want to brag that I did her and never saw her again. But I think about how she said she wants to be wild and realize she is not. She is somebody that gets married and has a family portrait done with her three kids around her and her husband’s hand on her shoulder. The thing of it all is that I can’t think of any girl I know that doesn’t want that.
My thoughts make me open my eyes wide and this time she is looking back at me. She has read my mind again. She sees the elbow macaroni and powdered cheese with cut up hot dogs in my head. She senses my regret.
We pull apart. We are not comfortable with each other's gaze. We pull apart. Smile at each other to pretend it isn't an awkward moment. Then I remember to take my hand off her chest.
We talk until her shirt dries. Majors, hometowns, and friends. Then we go back inside and let ourselves get separated by going back to drunks we came in with.
Dear Reader,
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Thomas Cannon
Excerpt from The Tao of Apathy