Skydiving, Skinny-Dipping

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  “Len, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

  He smiled his devilish smile and laughed not a faint chuckle, but a full-bodied robust, throw-your-head-back belly laugh.

  All the while the waitress configured the milk, celery, and wings in a semi-circle on the table around me, along with several packets of Wet-Naps.

  I saw a guy on television do this once. How hard could it be to—Those backward-ballcap-wearing-frat-guys kept up the taunting making it hard for me to concentrate. I still had no idea if I’d actually go through with this idiocy. That sauce could burn a hole through my esophagus. Although, if I died, it would be with my clothes on.

  Declining the challenge almost became a reality when I heard it, the words that triggered a desire to show up those jerkfaces in the biggest way possible: She won’t do it, she’s just a girl.

  Just a girl?

  Maybe I was a chicken, but that had nothing to do with me being a girl.

  Choice made, I’d show them what girls were made of.

  It took a minute of surveying the tablescape to figure out how I was going to go about this. Fast was the key. It would be my only chance to win this mother-trucker of a challenge. Once I had an idea in place, I went for it.

  My stage one strategy: Open all six Wet-Naps packets, pull several regular napkins from a container on the table, and place them ergonomically as well.

  “Okay.” The waitress held her hand in the air, silencing the small crowd. “You have twenty minutes to finish these six wings. No getting up from the table. We provide you milk and celery to cool your mouth. If you need more, raise one hand. If you quit, gesture ‘out’ like an umpire. When you finish, raise both hands in the air. Do you understand the rules?”

  I sucked in a big breath. “Yes.”

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Kami,” Len answered, and I’d swear he sounded proud.

  The frat boys surrounding our table began to chant, “Kami…Kami…”

  Well that certainly was a change from a minute ago.

  I locked eyes with the waitress, raised my eyebrows, and nodded.

  She produced a phone from her pocket, pulled up a timer app, and dialed the numbers to twenty minutes. “Ready?” she asked. And without waiting for another verbal response, she shouted, “Time starts… now.” Then she hit the start button.

  My second stage strategy: Pick up the first wing, pop the whole thing in my mouth, and scrape the meat off in one go. I gave a couple chews, then swallowed. Delayed reaction.

  Oh heck, delayed reaction. This might almost be worth a swear.

  My mouth ignited in pain. Unbelievable, burning pain. Snot ran down my nose, the tears in my eyes practically blinding me as I fumbled for the glass of milk, drinking the entire thing down without coming up for air. I threw one hand up to signal more milk.

  Forget my mouth, my whole body burned from the hellfire (that’s not a swear, it’s a thing) as I picked up the second wing, this time, knowing what to expect, I hesitated, not wanting to put myself through that unimaginable torture again. But knowing I had to.

  The second wing went down with steel determination. After a second glass of milk and two celery sticks, I picked up the third. It went down not from my steely will, but my sheer hatred of Lennon in that moment. Perspiration soaked my T-shirt and rolled down my brow. Even the best deodorant couldn’t mask the capsaicin sweat stink.

  I’d kill him if I made it out alive. Lennon had to die. Slow and painful. Like dig-a-hole-in-the-ground, shove-him-in, bury-him-up-to-his-neck-and-slather-his-head-with-honey-next-to-a-fireanthill painful.

  In the background the frat boys still chanted, “Kami… Kami…”

  Three left to go. Three. Could I do it? I couldn’t do it. But I had to do it because of Brian and New Zealand Kiki. Because of Harrison and my brother. Because of me. I’d lost me. I knew the day, the place, the time I’d lost me. Now I needed to get me back.

  Wing four went down with the aid of more celery. Wing five, my tears blinded my eyes to the point I couldn’t see to grab the milk, almost knocking it over. Len grabbed it in time, wrapping my fingers around the glass. By the sixth wing, I thought I was going to puke. If I puked, I lost. I would not puke.

  Last bite chewed and swallowed, I threw my hands in the air Rocky style and the waitress hit stop on the timer.

  “You finished with six minutes left on the clock,” she said.

  I couldn’t speak, but I smiled. The cook came out front with a Polaroid camera to take my picture, then handed me a T-shirt. Black with yellow lettering, I Conquered Coop’s written on the back, Coop’s small logo on the front. I held it for all of fifteen seconds, long enough to shove it at Len and run to the bathroom, pushing women out of my way to get there.

  Let me just say, it burned every bit as bad coming back up.

  Strong, gentle hands held my hair back until I finished. Len scooped me up into his arms to carry me out to the sink. He set me on the basin, washed my face and hands with soapy, wet paper towel and helped me change into my non-pukey new tee. We had to throw the other one out. There was no saving it. No saving it.

  Dear lord, I shook from the force of my regurgitation. Lennon never left my side, although I had to walk out on my own or I’d never forgive myself, but he kept a hand around my waist.

  “You did great, fearless,” he whispered in my ear. A whisper that felt intimate and made me shiver, so I supposed it was good I’d been shaking to begin with or he’d know how he affected me. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

  Wholeheartedly, I agreed with that offer. I needed to go home, put on my comfies, snuggle on the couch with a thick blanket (I kept the air conditioner set to frostbite), and watch a movie until I passed out.

  He helped me inside the truck, running—not walking—around to climb in on the driver’s side.

  The ride home stayed pretty uneventful, but the first problem occurred when he drove us in the opposite direction of my house. Having gone through this area earlier today, I knew without a shadow of doubt Len was taking me to his home.

  What about my comfies? My blanket? My movie until I passed out? I mean, I hadn’t actually expressed my desires yet—I could hardly speak. But how could he not pick up from my haggard appearance that I needed to rest? Not more of his silly challenges.

  So on the heels of the first swooped in the second problem. That being I had not one ounce of gumption left in me to argue. The scoring heat from the wings and subsequent retching had done me in. Plus, he stopped at the grocery store just down the block from his condo, kissed my cheek before he ran in and less than fifteen minutes came back with two bags of ice cream—including the ice cream condiments—and a toothbrush, because he was just that sweet. Five minutes after that, he had us back at his condo.

  This time, he helped me from the truck and wouldn’t let me take even one bag.

  If this was his pretend boyfriend, imagine him as a real boyfriend. He’s going to make some girl very lucky someday.

  The very first thing he did when we got inside was to set the groceries down on the bar and jack up the air the way I do it at my place.

  He led me into his room, where he pulled a pair of drawstring pajama pants—black and yellow plaid to match my T-shirt—from an old maybe pine dresser that looked like he’d gotten it secondhand and handed them off to me before he dragged the comforter and both pillows from the bed as he left.

  “Come out when you’re done,” he said.

  Once the door closed on his phenomenally fine backside, I dropped trou and changed into the drawstring sleep pants, pulling the drawstring tight to cinch at my waist or those puppies risked falling around my feet otherwise. Len had even left the new toothbrush setting on the bedside table for me to see. With a heart full of gratefulness, I picked it up and walked into his bathroom.

  My whole mouth got the scrub down; teeth, tongue, cheeks walls, gums. Lennon even used minty, whitening toothpaste—which meant I used minty, whitening toothp
aste. Once my trash dump of a mouth tasted clean enough, and I felt confident I wouldn’t kill Len with my toxic halitosis, I rejoined him in the living room.

  Both pillows rested one on top of the other against the arm of the long, deep sofa. I sat down as directed, folding my legs under me.

  He draped the blanket over me, even tucking it under my chin. Snuggly. “Be right back.”

  You’d think it would be awkward, me tucked like a little kid and not even a television on, but he made me feel so comfortable, it forced any residual awkwardness out.

  After only a minute, he came back from his bedroom dressed similarly to me in drawstring jammies and a T-shirt. Instead of coming to me, he walked into the kitchen.

  The sound of spoons clinking against glass or stoneware bowls drifted into the living room. Less than ten minutes more he walked back out with a tray covered with two Fiestaware-esqe bowls filled to overflowing with ice cream, hot fudge, nuts, whipped cream, and even double maraschino cherries on top because everyone knows maraschino cherries are the best part of a hot fudge sundae. Boom! Mic drop.

  “Hands up,” he ordered. “Palms out.”

  Oh…kay. I followed directions, putting my hands up, palms out. He set the tray on my open hands before tuning to pick up the remote. He flipped the cover up, plopped down next to me, and flipped them back over the both of us. Still not taking the tray, I might add.

  Although not heavy, my arms strained, not being used to holding anything in this way.

  “Hello?” I said.

  He glanced over but didn’t answer.

  “Uh, the tray?”

  “You’ve got it.” Rather than taking the tray, he turned on the television, bringing up the guide, scrolling through the on-demand movies as if he had all the time in the world. Finding what he wanted, he pressed the select button and finally—finally—took the tray from me.

  Lucky for him, I found out about his amazing sundae-making abilities or he might have been destroyed.

  The title of the movie came up on screen and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

  Jump Squad. A movie about pararescuers. After the day I’d had, I couldn’t deal with this. Could. Not.

  Len turned to say something to me. “Jesus, Kam. Breathe, sweetheart.” I didn’t think that was what he’d intended to say. He took my bowl and set it on the coffee table, immediately pulling me onto his lap. “What’s wrong?”

  “PJs,” I managed to utter against his neck.

  “What about them?”

  “I can’t. My brother. Harrison… They—I can’t.” Then the waterworks started. Despite the crippling cowardice that kept my brother and his best friend to the forefront of my mind, I actually tried on a daily basis not to think about them by name, as this always ended up the result.

  “Okay… okay. We’ll watch something else.” He quickly turned off the movie, opting instead for a Kristen Bell comedy. “You wanna talk about it?’

  “No,” I said, shaking my head yes.

  He chuckled, but it sounded uncomfortable. “Give me something to work with, fearless.”

  “That’s just it—I’m not fearless. I stopped being fearless a few years ago.”

  “I got that.”

  “No, you don’t.” I hiccupped. “My brother died. My brother and his best friend, Harrison, died because I confused fearless with reckless.”

  He waited me out, waited for me to continue, squeezing my hip for reassurance.

  “I had a crush on Harrison,” I said.

  Lennon’s arms tensed around me.

  “One night my stupid teenaged brain thought I should kiss him and maybe he’d want to go out with me. All it did was make him uncomfortable around me.”

  “So you had a crush. People have crushes.”

  Gah! He didn’t get it. “Stop trying to make me feel better. My brother and Harrison joined the PJs to get away from me. Their helo crashed going in to rescue some badly-wounded soldiers who were on some secret mission. All five men on board died that day.”

  “That wasn’t your fault.”

  “It was. Harrison joined to get away from me. My brother joined so Harrison wouldn’t go alone. Even Leo, Harrison’s brother, blamed me.”

  Lennon squeezed me again.

  “He blamed me so much, he terrorized me online. I had to turn off all social media for over a year.”

  “I’m sure he was just hurting. When people hurt, they need someone to hurt worse than they do,” he said.

  “No, he told me if I didn’t kill myself, then he’d kill me and make it look like suicide. I called the police. Then my tires got slashed weekly. And ‘clients’ would complain about me at work, clients I never worked on. I’d get written up. He set that up. He brought others in. I never knew where the next threat would come from. Since it wasn’t one person, I couldn’t even take out a protection order.”

  “Kami.”

  “So I moved, ending up here.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. He was angry. Sad. It wasn’t you. Sweetheart, you have to believe me on this.”

  I shook my head no this time.

  “Nope.” He tickled me, the jerkface, to get me to look at him. “Repeat after me.”

  “No,” I said out loud and he tickled again.

  “Come on, Kam. ‘It’s not my fault’—say it.”

  The tickling intensified, no fair. Resistance futile… resolve breaking… “Okay,” I shouted. “It’s not my fault.”

  “Again,” he demanded, controlling those tickling fingers with such dexterity, I thought my side might literally split open.

  “It’s not my fault,” I shouted, even as I laughed and wriggled uncontrollably to try and get away. “Now stop.”

  “You done being so hard on yourself?”

  “Yes.” That came out loud enough for his neighbors to hear.

  His fingers abruptly stopped the tickle assault and he kissed my nose, scooted me back over to my spot under the blanket, and proceeded to eat his (slightly melted) ice cream as if nothing happened.

  “Eat,” he ordered. How he could see me not spooning the velvety lusciousness into my mouth when he stared straight ahead was one of the world’s great mysteries.

  Right. I was just supposed to eat now? As if my sides didn’t still hurt. As if he didn’t exponentially exacerbate my. Stinking. Crush.

  Fork my life!

  Five:

  I can’t recall how the movie ended. I woke the next morning to the sun shining through the blinds of Lennon’s window, laying in Lennon’s big—and I hated to admit this—comfy bed, with Lennon’s bare-chested body wrapped around mine.

  I remained fully clothed and Len had one bent leg kicked from under the covers, hooked over my thighs, showing off his fully-panted self.

  Okay. No sex. Good.

  Yeah, my brain sucker-punched me for thinking that, too.

  It had been over a year since Brian broke things off, which meant over a year since my girl parts flicked on the NO VACANCY sign. Nope. Vacant up in there. Vacant, vacant, vacant—as far as the eye could see. That last part I added for effect. I mean, unless you owned a speculum and went by the name Dr. Shivers, OBGYN, then you really couldn’t see anything. But I believe I made my point.

  My body wanted him.

  My crush, which apparently controlled my body, wanted him.

  I wanted him.

  I couldn’t have him, though, right? Because what did I really know about him besides he was a sexy jump instructor who sailed around the world?

  Well, very sexy jump instructor.

  Let’s just say I gave in and had sex with him, then what? I knew going into it he was a fake boyfriend only around for a month.

  My screaming crush vehemently rejected the idea of him leaving, but that was an inevitability.

  How bad would it get for me if we did sex things up?

  Although if I didn’t, I’d still be the same fearful Kami who got made fun of behind her back by people she thought were her friends, instead of th
e fearless Kami who’d taken back her life. Made it whole again.

  Maybe I could find real love again, not the fake kind from a fake boyfriend or the cheating kind from a real boyfriend who couldn’t handle my rough patch.

  I can do this… I can do this… I rolled into him, bent in, and kissed him for all of two seconds. I can’t do this…

  And I abruptly turned away, or at least I tried to turn away. Hard to do when the sleepy man you just tongue-assaulted grabbed on tight and wouldn’t let go.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I tried to apologize. I tried to protest, pushing away from him. Lennon held on tighter. And then he bent in and kissed me. No tongue-assault this time, not with me as a willing participant.

  Len kissing me in the lake blew my ever-loving mind. Len kissing me in a bed in a way that distinctly felt like a prelude to sex—with Len—no words existed in the English language to describe this. I’d say the world, but as I didn’t know all the languages of the world, that would be a pretty brazen statement on my part.

  His hands began to roam blissfully up under the hem of my shirt. Caressing strokes lit my skin on fire. I used to get turned on by Brian; we had a really good sex life. But I didn’t ever remember it feeling like this. In the hierarchy of turned-on-edness, combustible had never filled the top spot before.

  “Is this going further?” he asked.

  What? Did he say something? Those hands. His mouth. I never wanted him to stop. My breasts heaved with each breath. I just… I just—

  “Kami, sweetheart. Is this going further? I need to know.”

  Oh. Um. “Yes. Much, much further.” How did he expect me to think straight, let alone hear properly with the blood pounding in my ears? He gave sensation overload.

  Thankfully, a thought did break through. “Condom,” I said as a reminder. Surely someone as aesthetically pleasing as Len had a plethora of colored, ribbed and maybe even flavored ones stashed in his nightstand.

  “Don’t worry,” he chuckled out. “I got you covered.” Just as I thought, he reached over to the nightstand, opened the drawer and pulled out a handful of packets. He didn’t even bother pushing the drawer closed again before he was back to giving me kisses.