ND HE WAS there. In front of the library steps.
He wore a thick hooded coat and obviously not for the weather, and he had another coat over his shoulder. Big dark glasses made him conspicuous. The way people instantly stand out when they quickly turn away or try to hide their faces. The black leather bag that he carried looked heavy.
Before I knew what I was doing, without even knowing I was going to do it I ran at him. I shouldn’t have done that. Not when he was trying so hard not to be noticed.
He half turned and he saw me coming but I was on him before he even had time to put down the case. I launched myself at him. I grabbed his face in my hands. His hard skin and stubble rasped. I pulled him to me. Kissed him like I would steal his life from him. I wrapped myself around him.. Kissed him again. Harder. Longer.
Breathless, I drew back. His thin, amused grin set me afire. I slapped his face. Hard. His jaw hurt my fingers.
I told him, “Don’t you ever do that to me again, you fucker.”
He was still grinning. “Do what?”
I was livid. “You know what I mean and don’t pretend.” And I slapped him again.
He looked around quickly and he said, “Listen, I need your help.” One blue car followed another down the street. They were driving too slow. He looked down and away as they passed.
I was on a roll. “What do you need my help with, big boy? Got something hard you need polishing? Got a special itch that you can only scratch on the back of my throat? Need somewhere dark and wet to hide your cruise missile?”
He did a double take. “That doesn’t sound like my small town librarian.”
“Don’t you dare!” I shouted, “I’m not your anything, buster. And I can talk how I like, see?”
I grabbed his face and kissed him again. Really hard.
I took a breath, stood back a pace, and then said, “I read books all the time. I always wanted to know what it would be like to say stuff like that.” I slapped his face again. I was getting to like the way it stung my fingers. “And do stuff like that.”
He rubbed his jaw. “And?”
“What do you mean, ‘and’?”
“I mean, ‘and,’ how does it feel?”
“It feels pretty goddamn fine if you want to know. Buster.”
“You’re a dangerous woman, you know that?” He narrowed his eyes, “But look, see?” he was doing a voice like a gumshoe in a black and white movie, “I gotta blow from here. Take a powder. The heat’s on. I’m on the lam.”
I smiled. He was still looking around, agitated. I told him. “I’ll drive you. I’ll go with you. Do anything you want. Really. But I know that you’ll want intimacy. And you have to understand something.”
“Listen, doll. This sounds like a pretty speech, but I need to get a breeze. Vamoose. See? I gotta get outta Dodge.”
“I know.”
“You have to understand,” he dropped the voice. “I’m in a deadly fucking hurry, girl.”
I gave him a slow close and open of my eyelids and said, “You need to understand that those blue cars have driven right by us twice already. If they haven’t spotted you in that hood and those ridiculous glasses, you’re safe from them. At least for now.”
He grabbed me, roughly. The charge that I got almost drained me out. But I got an even bigger one when I told him calmly, “You just wait. I need you to know something.”
His eyes blazed and his voice lowered. “Would you mind doing the me knowing something and the us getting the fuck out of here, the other fucking way around?”
I slapped his face again. But we went. I liked him taking charge and being forceful. I would never let a man treat me like that. No other man but him.
~~
We rode the bus. He wanted to get a cab but I told him nobody had ever seen one in Garberville. Standing with him by the door in the middle, I felt like I’d brought a wild animal on a public bus. There were seats free but he wanted to stand. So he was as close as he could be to the exit, I guessed.
He kept his sunglasses on the whole time. Everyone on the bus looked at him. Fortunately there weren’t very many people.
When he asked me, “Is it far?” and I told him that it wasn’t, that was all of our conversation. We both stood, very stiff. I kept shifting my feet. He did to. We couldn’t seem to get a comfortable distance apart. The things I wanted to say to him I couldn’t say when there were people near.
Even behind the shades his eyes burned into me. I looked away. Pulled my lips tight, in between my teeth. Moved my shoulders. My eyes slid back to him. He was still looking at me. The bus was turning into my neighborhood. Being with him there, the quiet streets and the little stores all looked prim and frail.
Everything seemed to have shrunk since I left for work that morning. He could set it all on fire. Standing next to him was already burning me up. I agonized about taking him to my apartment, but it would mean my landlady seeing him. I really wasn’t ready for that.
We climbed down off the bus. Both of us acted like we’d never had to step down from a bus before, like we weren’t certain how it was done. Turning, looking round too many times. Then I took him straight to my car. My little Saturn. I opened the trunk for him to put his bag and his coat in, but he said he’d keep them up front. I said “Okay,” and unlocked the car.
When I sat in the driver’s seat, he came and closed the door for me. He walked around the back of the car. I watched him look around before he got in and sat beside me.
We sat like that, side by side. I said, “The thing I want to tell you, that I have to tell you…”
And his mouth was on mine. I clasped him around his neck. Ran my fingers through his hair. Pulled his head to me. His mouth and mine made a seal. Us inside. The world out. I pulled him as close as I could. Stretched my hand as far as it would go down his back. Then into his collar to feel the heat of his skin. How could all this be happening?
There in the front of my little blue car, on a quiet, leafy street, the world changed forever.
I said, “I’ll drive you. I’ll take you wherever you want, I’ll stay with you and follow you to the end of the earth. Or, if it’s what you say, I’ll take you to wherever you want to go and I’ll drop you off and wave. I won’t look back.” The way he was looking at me was like a schoolboy would look at the biggest ice-cream he ever saw.
“I mean it.” I made my voice as stern as I could. I don’t think it worked. But I was serious. “Will you listen to me?”
He nodded softly.
I told him, “I will gladly do whatever you want me to. Anything. But you have to know this. If you want physical intimacy, with me I mean, it has to be for real and for keeps.” He nodded again. He reached out to me. I held up both hands to wave him off. “Please. Let me speak. Hear me out. It’s important. This speech has been a lifetime in the making.”
He sat back. All the jokiness was gone. He folded his hands in his lap and turned his body to face me. He’s a huge man and it was a little car, so I knew it was uncomfortable for him. But he didn’t let it show. He was quiet and I felt that he was really trying to let me know that he took what I told him seriously.
He waited. I liked that. I said, “I want whatever you want. Really. And I do want intimacy with you.” I had to pause and draw breath, “I cannot tell you how much. I literally am aching for it. But it’s something that up to now I haven’t shared with anyone. Ever.” As he drew breath through his nostrils, I could see he made an effort not to show a reaction. I loved him for that.
I said, “For that reason, and others, I insist. Please, do not open that door if you don’t really mean it.” His chin lifted but I held up a hand. “When I say, ‘really mean it,’ I need to be absolutely clear. I only want to do that with a man who will stay by me and stay with me. Until the very end. Whatever that may be and however hard it may be.” He waited. Watched. “Please, I’m begging you. Don’t go there if you aren’t ready to make that commitment.”
He waited some more. Then he raised an eyebrow. Asking my permission. My heart banged so hard it made my nod falter.
He said, gently, “Do you mean to tell me that such a fine and beautiful woman as yourself is a virgin?” The look of astonishment on his face could only have been genuine, though I still wouldn’t allow myself to believe it.
His head shook and his smile told me he meant it. He said, “Well, it only confirms my opinion that this a town for losers and that your own taste and discernment are impeccable.”
I said, “Please. Take my conditions seriously.”
Without missing a beat he told me, “Whatever you want, however you want it. It’s going to be A-OK with me.”
My lips pursed and wrinkled. “I know you’re just saying that.”
Leaning forward he said, “Believe me, you are not a woman to whom I will just say things.”
“But there are women you will just say things to.”
“As of this moment now, there are no women. There is only you.”
“You can’t expect me to take you seriously.”
“Expect?” Drawing breath he rose and grew. “I fucking demand it, woman. Anything you want, any damned thing at all. You tell me and I’ll either get it for you or I’ll die in the attempt.”
“You’re joking with me. I know you are.”
“Does this face not look like it’s in deadly earnest to you? Because if it doesn’t, you just tell me. Say the word and I’ll fucking get another one.”
I leaned across and stroked his face. “Don’t do that. I like your face.”
“Then believe what it’s telling you,” he grabbed my wrist, “Because I positively swear and affirm, I have never been more serious about a fucking thing in the whole of my fucking life.” And he put a kiss in my open palm like the beat of a butterfly’s wings.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“If I beg you, is there any chance, is there the slightest possibility, that you will please say that we can get the fuck out of here?”