Her breath caught in her throat as she longed for him helplessly. He leaned in and kissed her lips tenderly. His touch was so soft and sensual. His body was warm, exuding the most erotic scent. She wanted to consume him. She wanted to be him. She wanted his entire life force to be hers.
It felt like he was sending lightning into her body—the power was so great. Everything grew brighter within like a fantastic light was ever increasing and elevating her essence to a superior realm of consciousness. She was being lifted to splendorous heights. The intensity was rapturous. It was like she was connected to an infinite light source.
But he stopped her and shook his head side to side as was his established pattern. Her passions were aflame. After a long pause, he lay down on the couch and pulled her softly to him and caressed her back. “Let’s just lay here for awhile.” He put the fruit back in his pocket and draped his coat over the two of them.
Ardor pounded through Barbey’s being as Rave relaxed peacefully in her arms. She wanted to leap into his body, feel the rhythm of his internal orchestra bang against her mind. The contrast of emotions and needs were vast like a million log cabins leveled to the ground after an earthquake, but Barbey could not see this. She could only feel, feel, feel the euphoric bliss of her own desires that he was not willing to satisfy.
26
The white summer light of morning rested gently upon the lake, located on the Arizona side of the Colorado River, reflecting in gentle rolls of glimmer and color from the desert flowers along the weedy shoreline. Across the lake, the adjacent shoreline spread out smooth in brittle cakes of sun scorched clay laying way for two pitched tents, a few dusty picnic tables and dead fire pits. Beyond the tents, the clay softened and then hardened into the gravel of a parking lot that was progressively warming up for the scorching heat of midday. The Jeep sat heavy between two yellow lines like a lone brooding beast watching and waiting.
“Did you hear that?” Gretchen Dietrich quickly unzipped her sleeping bag and tapped Barbey on shoulder trying to wake her. Gretchen was a confident, tall, muscular girl with wide hips and a nearly flat chest that Barbey had befriended in high school. Her hair was short, kinky, and blonde, shaved close to her head. She had thin lizard lips, slits for eyes that caused one to think she was conspiring some secret intricate plan, a short thin nose like an arrow pointing at the sky and a square German jaw with a cleft in her chin.
“Huh?” Barbey rolled away from Gretchen, settling deeper into her sleeping bag.
Gretchen unzipped the side panel of the tent to look through the screen. She sprang back—“Oh, my gosh!”
“Hey there!” Parker was peaking into the tent with a grin on his animated face. “Barbella, it’s time to wake up!”
Barbey rolled over in her sleeping bag and when she saw Parker, she screamed. “Oh my! You, like, totally scared me! What are you doing here?” She became self-conscious, concerned that her hair was messed up and that he could see her without her makeup.
“I came up with the Tarantino brothers you met at Gary’s party. I take it Rave’s in the other tent?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you—I thought this was Rave’s tent.”
Gretchen interjected, “He let us use it because it’s larger. I’m Gretchen, by the way.”
“I know who you are.” He was squatting with his face against the screen. “I think every dude from El Cajon High has that Calendar you girls made of Lexington’s hottest cheer squad—‘Gretchen Dietrich has the brains on the team.’”
Barbey laughed. “Did you see my picture?”
“Of course—who could miss it?”
“What was my phrase?”
“Barbey has the rhythm on the team.”
“That was Pam,” somewhat insolent, Gretchen corrected him.
“I can’t believe you don’t remember me—I had the legs on the team.”
“That was you! Barbey Bardot?” He jumped back in animation. “Whoah! Yeah, I remember you! Hello!”
Barbey giggled and covered her head with the sleeping bag.
Seemingly irritated, Gretchen interjected, “Are you guys going to camp at this site?”
“You better believe it. You took our spot! I’ll catch you ladies later.” He stood up stretching his arms above his head looking up at the blue sky. “I’m going to wake up that lazy boy, Rave, from his beauty sleep. I didn’t tell him I was coming.”
****
Though it was only midmorning, the air was already sweltering when they arrived at the desert market that served hot food from behind a counter. When Barbey climbed out of the back of Mathew Tarantino’s pickup truck with the others, she was worried that the dust mixed with the hot air had soiled her face. She had twisted her long hair into a French knot to prevent it from tangling in the wind, but her wispy golden brown hairs mixed with sweat and dust were sticking to the sides of her face. Wiping the hairs back, she then straightened her yellow sundress and wiggled her toes around in her flip-flops to remove the little bits of gravel that had swept in. Rave quickly guzzled the rest of his beer and chucked the can in the trash in front of the market.
Barbey noticed that Rave’s swim trunks had a small hole in the back where she could see the white flesh of his rear end. She thought this was adorable. His white t-shirt had an old faded surfing symbol on the front that was barely discernible. He held the door open for her which she thought was so gentlemanly of him. He is just the cutest, sweetest person in the world!
Gretchen and her boyfriend, Jerome Brown, had stayed back at the campsite because Gretchen had a stomach ache. Barbey was surprised to see Suzie Alber’s friend, Connie Livingston, at the desert market. Lounging back in a metal chair, she was smoking a cigarette at one of the cafeteria tables with a guy who looked much older than her. When she saw Rave, she laughed sarcastically and shook her head.
“What’s up, Rich?” asked Rave to the older guy as he winked at Connie, his dark eyes gleaming.
Connie coughed a hoarse cigarette cough and mumbled, “What the heck are you doing here? Parker told you?” Shaking her head side to side again, clearing the phlegm from her throat, she looked at Barbey, and then stretched in her chair like an old cat reaching back with her claws while wheezing.
Feeling slightly awkward at the moment, Barbey smiled sweetly and turned away, walking somewhat self-consciously up to the counter where Parker and the Tarentino brothers were ordering their breakfasts. Her attention diverted to the huge menu display above the counter, staring at it intently as if the menu were written in a foreign language, unsure of what to order. It was difficult to make a decision because everything sounded utterly delicious and she was famished. She craved a plate of strawberry pancakes with whipped cream and a cherry, but felt that she should have some protein to balance her meal.
Coolly walking over, his thumbs in his swim trunk pockets, Mathew Tarantino approached her. “What are you getting?”
“I just can’t decide. I feel like eating everything.”
He laughed in a low note grunt, “Why don’t you get the scrambled eggs with biscuits and gravy. That’s what I always order.”
“That sounds good. Thanks. I’ll get that.”
But Rave ordered nothing and simply sat placidly leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head while the others ate, the slightest smirk on his face. He seemed happy and satisfied to Barbey which caused her to pleasantly wonder what he was thinking. Everything in her life seemed entirely perfect now. She felt she could not be any more joyful than she was at that moment, so likely that was the reason she now was not self-conscious in the slightest to eat in front of Rave or anyone else for that matter. At least for the time being, her concerns about gaining weight or getting food on her face had vanished.
Her biscuits were delicious with the thick warm gravy atop. She liked to take a bite of egg and, while the flavor was still in her mouth, quickly spoon in a little biscuit with the gravy. The three flavors together brought her to a great
culinary plane of satisfaction. It felt good to be in an air conditioned store. She figured her makeup was probably smeared and she likely looked a mess, but she could not fret because she was entirely content to be with Rave. Her life had never been this full and vibrant. She wondered why her love for Rave was so much more heightened and pleasurable than anything she had ever experienced. At that moment, she knew with certainty that she would be with Rave forever.
27
Barbey let her long legs dangle in the water as she held to the sides of the hot black inner tube. The water was refreshing and cool against her warm skin and as long as she splashed water onto the inner tube often enough, the black rubber didn’t burn her arms. She watched Rave on the shore, seemingly in his own world, as he drank his beer leaning back on a lounge chair, brushing his thick black bangs out of his eyes with his fingers from time to time. His tan skin looked sexy and when he took off his t-shirt, Barbey enjoyed gazing at his lean chest muscles and developed shoulders. He had the lean sort of body of a young man who had worked out diligently with heavy weights at one time, but had given it up to an undisciplined, free life style; consequently, his muscles were developed with attractive definition, yet small from atrophy.
Barbey was aroused by the statement of Rave’s physical appearance. His body said, “I don’t care what you think of me. I am free and doing what I want.” Because she secretly yearned to have the courage and strength to free her self-conscious mind from the societal bars of her own prison, she admired these qualities. She detested the bulky massive bodies of body builders and some of the football players she had dated because their bodies said, “I am a god—worship me. I only think about myself.” The arrogance of these men sickened Barbey because they reminded her of her own vanity. Oh, how she yearned to be Rave—to be free and to not care. All these thoughts flashed and glimmered across Barbey’s mind, swirling around, fragmented like the reflection of her plastic face upon the surface of the lake.
Had she given the thoughts closer examination, she might have realized that Rave’s body was a symbol of greater arrogance and self-centeredness than the bulked out muscled bodies. Rave’s body only thought of itself in its own personal world, while the bulked out bodies thought of themselves in everyone’s world. The bulked out bodies viewed themselves as the best in a world of other human beings. Even though they were self-possessed and saw the world as their audience, they were an interactive part of society. On the other hand, Rave, in his self-possession, was not; consequently, Rave’s selfishness had superseded the body builders’.
Gretchen and Jerome rowed over to Barbey in their yellow blow up boat with side oars. “Hey there, Barb,” Jerome said cheerily as he wiped the sweat droplets that had gathered at the line of his forehead and his short kinky hair. His facial structure was similar to Gretchen’s with a square jaw, a cleft chin, thin slits for eyes, a short pointy nose, and a tall muscular build. The main differences in their physical appearance was that he had thick full brown lips and rich dark skin that glistened in the sun like shiny patent leather.
Barbey noticed how beautiful Gretchen was in a sort of Amazon-jungle-woman way with her long, tan, muscular body in her low cut, g-string green bathing suit that dramatically plunged forward in the front into a deep V that framed her flat chest and ripped stomach. Though Barbey didn’t have the confidence to wear such a daring swimsuit, she admired Gretchen for her boldness. “How’s your stomach feeling?” asked Barbey as she climbed up onto her inner tube, lying across it. She awkwardly retied the upper strap of her purple and white polka dot bikini top as she shifted around on the tube trying not to burn herself on the hot rubber.
Gretchen was leaning over the raft now splashing her short kinky hair with water. Looking up, she responded in her confident serious tone, “I’m feeling a lot better, thanks to Jerome.”
“Why? What did he do?” Barbey was still squirming around trying to get into a comfortable position on her inner tube, splashing water on the hot spots so to not burn her skin.
“He improvised a song that he sang to me and I couldn’t stop laughing. By the time he had finished, my stomach ache was gone. Go figure.”
“What was the song?”
Jerome tried to stand up in the raft, wobbling around as he sang the song, “You’re the bang, bang, bang in my dang, dang, dang life. I can rattle, I can rock, but no one can drink as much as your insane, sane, sane—dang, dang, dang father!” As he said “father,” he pushed Gretchen, who was laughing, in the water and then jumped in after her.
Barbey knew that Gretchen was always making fun of her eccentric German father who worked as a clown and magician at children’s parties, so she figured that anything about her father made Gretchen laugh.
Just then, Barbey noticed the same girl, Connie, who she had seen at the breakfast diner, approach Rave on the shore. It appeared to her like they were arguing. She wondered what they could possibly have to argue about. Parker approached them and pulled Connie to the side. He was talking with her as she gave him attitude and pointed accusingly at Rave. Apparently the accusations or the disturbance did not bother Rave because he simply leaned back in his lounge chair drinking his beer with a satisfied smirk on his face. Connie left with Parker, turning briefly to flip Rave the finger and yell a profanity.
Turning to Gretchen and Jerome, Barbey wondered if they had any insights into the conflict she had just witnessed, but they were so completely engrossed in each other, swimming and splashing at one another, that they hadn’t appeared to have taken notice. She decided to swim back to shore and see what the conflict had entailed.
When she got to the shore, Rave got up quickly and carried her inner tube out of the water for her. He brought it over and placed it by their tents as she followed along beside him.
Holding his hand over his eyes to block out the sun, he asked her coolly, “You want to go for a walk?”
“That sounds fun. Maybe we can bring a picnic lunch or something. Want to?”
“I’m…I’m not hungry, but bring something for yourself if…if you like.”
Barbey was so excited to spend some time alone with Rave. Actually having anticipated that he would ask her to go for a walk, she had already packed a picnic lunch that she had put in her ice chest of cheese slices cut in the shapes of crescent moons and red wine that she had sneaked out of her parent’s cabinet and poured into beakers just as Fashion Twist magazine had suggested. She didn’t feel all that comfortable wearing a trench coat and flashing him this early in their relationship and besides it was too hot for a coat, but she could certainly handle serving cheese moons and wine. That’s easy! “Let me just get my stuff together and I’ll be ready in a jiff.” After she unzipped the entrance to her tent and crawled in, she remembered that she had forgotten to ask him why Connie Livingston was yelling at him. Oh, well—I’ll just ask him later!
Now digging through her big pink duffel bag that Mama bought her for her tenth birthday, she retrieved her makeup bag and hand mirror. She applied pink watermelon lip gloss, blue eyeliner on her lower lids, and racy blue mascara on her lashes to give her eyes that wild flower look of pop open and say hello to the violet bud beneath. Because she was in the best mood of her life and wanted to show it, she brushed some daring glitter on her cheeks and a honey bronzer. Feeling giddy and lighter than ever, she shoved her feet into her purple hiking sneakers and dressed in a short-short purple mini-skirt that matched her polka dot bikini. She made sure the bikini was visible under her sheer white button down crop top that she wore open and tied just below center chest. Without a blow dryer, there wasn’t much she could do with her wet hair, so she combed it straight with a little styling mouse to keep it from frizzing.
She looked hot and knew it!
Before the river trip, Barbey had rehearsed acting like the character, Lisa, played by Kelly LeBrock in the movie, Weird Science. Lisa was the ultimate sexual fantasy woman created by two awkward lascivious teenage boys during a science experiment inspired by the movie t
hey were watching, Frankenstein, one lonely dateless night. The boys created Lisa as gorgeous, highly intelligent, sophisticated, slightly sadomasochistic, wild and most importantly, extremely sexual and desirous—the ideal woman in Barbey’s movie conditioned mind. She had practiced emulating Lisa whenever the opportunity arose—at the shopping mall when interacting with store clerks, at the grocery store, and even in the shower. Besides Lisa’s English accent, which she had decided to dismiss, she felt that she had pretty much perfected the character, but was insecure about portraying Lisa to Rave—afraid that he might think it strange when she acted differently than he expected. It had been some time since she had attempted to portray a movie character in Rave’s presence and she was concerned that now that he knew her better, the change might appear more overt, rather than just another facet of her personality. Oh, well—she wasn’t going to worry about that now!
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