In October 2007, Anne and I drove to Lowell, Massachusetts, where the annual Jack Kerouac Literary Festival was taking place. We were staying in a hotel we couldn’t really afford but I had known about the festival for a while so we had enough money for gas and food and a pretty decent amount of scratch left over for booze and meals. It was going to be an incredible weekend.
Tara was going to meet us there.
She was seven or eight years older than me, in her mid-thirties. She was a poet. A good poet, to be sure, but always a bit too sentimental for my tastes. I liked the surreal images and her flights of imagination, but, on the whole, her writing was much too sugary, much too romantic, for my tastes.
We had found out about each other through our involvement as editors at a literary website, one of the many that caters to the freaks and misfits of the world. We both liked mad people and insane writing. We became friends quickly and started instant messaging each other virtually every night, sometimes for several hours at a time.
We got close during those chat sessions and soon I was telling her about the nightmares that I’d been having almost every night since I’d started living in Maryland. On the surface at least, they had little to do with my moves from Alabama to Philadelphia to Maryland. They had taken place in Upstate New York where I had lived when I was an elementary school kid. The dreams revolved around the snow and the piercing winds and the little country neighborhood where my family lived. I was always returning to the town as an adult. I was in a car or on a bicycle and trying to find the small two-story brick house that I grew up in. I knew that I was in this particular place, but everything that was supposed to be there was gone. Instead of swamps and cornfields, there were malls and apartment complexes. There was a busy city where once there had only been a small village. I always dreamed myself panicking to the point of near paralysis at the unfamiliarity of the place. It was total alienation every time.
Well, Tara had grown up in Upstate New York and, despite living in cities on both coasts, she was living there again, with her husband and five year old daughter. In addition to writing poetry and raising her daughter nearly on her own because of her husband’s sloth, she worked full-time as a nurse. As it turned out, she was able to heal both body and mind.
Apparently.
Maybe a couple of weeks after I had written to Tara about the nightmares, they suddenly stopped. We were having our usual midnight instant messaging session when the subject came up. She told me that when she meditated she had concentrated on my nightmares and moved the dark spirits from my mind to hers. Looking at your computer screen as your friend admits she used some Buddhist Voodoo on you to capture your nightmares can be quite unnerving, especially when you don’t really believe in that kind of spirit world. But you don’t fuck with results and it had been weeks since I had tossed and turned and sweated throughout the night.
Besides, it didn’t matter if Tara’s story was literally true or not. Tara had thought of me during her spiritual practice. She wanted to make me better. There was definitely some sort of strong connection between us. I started to feel superstitious about the whole thing.
It didn’t make any sense to invite her to share drinks and a hotel with me and a girl that I had just started a relationship with. It made less sense to ask Anne if she could share a bed with her. It made absolutely no sense when Anne agreed to the proposition.
We had just dropped a friend off at his parents’ place. I was sitting in the passenger seat and she was driving.
“Tara’s husband treats her like shit,” I said, turning the radio down. “She cooks and cleans and does all the housework while taking care of their kid, holding down a full time job, and trying to write. I just—I think we could maybe cheer her up or something.”
Anne laughed. “What do you mean?”
I grinned.
“It’s cool by me,” Anne said.
“What?” I said. “No shit?”
“Yeah, sure. We can all fool around. But I swear to God, you put your dick in her and we’re through.”
It was a reasonable demand. Very reasonable, actually. I quickly agreed. I felt like a lucky bastard.
So first week in October we drove from Maryland to Massachusetts in Anne’s small but fast Toyota Yaris. We drove with the windows down and the radio up. A little CCR providing the backbeat to an unseasonably sunny seventy-degree trip.
We arrived at the Marriot at about six in the afternoon on Friday. We checked in and went up to our room. It was fairly comfortable, with a queen-size bed for me and Anne and a couch with a pullout bed for Tara. The air-conditioning was on. It was a little chilly. I laid a family-sized bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the dresser next to the TV. I filled up two plastic hotel cups with whiskey and Coke and then brought one of the drinks over to Anne, who was relaxing on the bed. I got in next to her and laid the drink on the nightstand and took off my shoes. Anne sipped her drink and I gulped and guzzled mine.
Only an hour passed before Tara got to the hotel room. But by that time I had already put down five drinks. I was getting hammered.
I opened the door and let Tara into the room. I hugged her, perhaps a little too tightly, perhaps a little too long. I took her suitcase and put it next to the couch. Tara sat on the couch and waved at Anne.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Anne said, smiling. “He talks about you all the time.”
“All good things, I hope,” Tara said.
“Oh yeah, definitely.”
“You want a drink?” I asked.
“Oh no. Not right now. I’ve got to get something in my stomach first.”
“You wanna check out the restaurant downstairs?” I asked.
“Sounds great,” Tara said.
And so we took the elevator downstairs and sat in a booth in the restaurant. Tara and Anne ordered something to eat and I ordered another whiskey.
“You know, I didn’t picture you sounding like you do,” I said.
“Oh yeah?” Tara said. “What do I sound like?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Kind of Midwestern, I guess.”
“My accent changes all the time.”
“Weird,” I said.
The food and drinks came. Tara and Anne talked for a while, exchanging pleasantries and basic information about themselves. They seemed to enjoy talking to each other.
“We’re becoming fast friends,” Tara said.
“I hope so,” I said.
The drinks kept coming and soon everything was blurry and sounds seemed distant. Anne left to go upstairs to the room so that she could use the bathroom. Tara and I stayed behind to pay the bill.
Once everything was settled we got up and went to the elevator. I put my arm around Tara’s shoulder and led the way, but I took us down the wrong hallway and we ended up having to turn around. I moved my arm from around her shoulder and put it around her hip. I leaned close to her and smelled her neck. She had the scent of peaches about her.
“Stop that,” she said, as she removed my arm. She shook her head, embarrassed. But she was also grinning. “You’re crazy,” she said. “You know that right?”
“I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t,” I said. We finally found the elevator. We got in.
“You men,” she said. “You’ll drive us women insane if we give you a chance.”
I wanted the chance.
When we got to the room, we unfolded the couch and set it up as a bed. I fixed myself another drink and sat on the bed next to Anne while Tara finished putting the blankets on the couch.
“This is cozy,” I said.
Finished with the blankets, Tara joined us on the bed. We sat cross-legged in a triangle, drinking and laughing. We were having a great time. I was good and drunk by this point and it took me a while before I even realized that I had Tara’s hand in mine and was rubbing it with my thumb. But Tara didn’t say anything about my advances this time. Neither did Anne. So I kept doing it.
Eventually, Anne got up to go to the bathroom again. I leaned over and started to nibble on Tara’s ear.
“Oh God, what’re you doing?” she said.
“Kissin’ you,” I said.
“Well stop,” she said.
“Why?”
“Why? Why what? Because I’m married and you’ve got a girlfriend, that’s why.”
“Anne’s cool with it,” I said.
She grinned and shook her head. She didn’t believe me.
“Just put some ice on it, big boy,” she said.
“You want another drink?”
“I think we should just go to bed,” Tara said. And she got off the bed and got onto the couch bed. She had her eyes closed and the covers up to her shoulders by the time Anne came out and sat down next to me. She put her head on my shoulder and kissed me on the cheek.
“Aw,” she said. “Party’s over?”
I took my shoes off and got underneath the covers. “Looks like it,” I said. I was irritated and embarrassed and just wanted the night to be over. I took my shoes and my stinky socks off. I put my socks inside my shoes so that I could find them in the morning. I lay the shoes side by side. Then I got underneath the covers and turned off the light. Anne clicked the light off on her side of the bed. As we lay side by side in the darkness, Anne started to kiss me. I kissed her back. We kissed passionately and I put my hand underneath her shirt. I rubbed her nipples.
“Fuck me,” Anne said, whispering into my ear.
“We can’t,” I said.
She kissed me again. My dick was stone hard. “We can’t because Tara will hear us.”
“It’s OK,” Anne said. “Let her listen.”
I thought about it for a second. It seemed to me that if Anne and I started to fuck, Tara might join us. But it would most likely just freak her out. And I didn’t want that. I wanted her to stay.
“I want to,” I said. “But I don’t think we should. It might be rude.”
“You’re no fun,” Anne said. She kissed me once more on the cheek and then rolled over.
“Goodnight, babe,” I said.
I rolled away from her and almost immediately started having the whiskey sweats. It took me a while before I was able to fall asleep. When I did, it was a painful, restless sleep.
Tara woke us up at around seven in the morning, all peppy and bright and ready to greet the day. My bones ached and I was parched. And I was incredibly embarrassed about the way I had acted the night before. But Tara was in a good mood. If she was upset about what had happened the night before, she didn’t let on.
“Hey kids,” she said, “let’s go eat some breakfast.”
So we went downstairs to the restaurant and got something to eat. Afterward, Anne needed a nap, so she went back to the hotel room. Tara wanted to see the original On the Road manuscript. It was on display in an old textile mill that had been turned into a museum.
The air outside the hotel was crisp and warm. It wasn’t at all what I had expected October in Massachusetts to be. We walked the sidewalk side by side, not really saying much. I occasionally yawned to try and break the tension and to give me an excuse for not talking. Tara insisted on taking a picture of me on a bridge over the Merrimack River. And so there I was, leaning against the railing, trying to smile while my stomach bubbled and my muscles felt like paper cuts. It did turn out to be a pretty good picture, though.
Tara took a lot of pictures along the way. I just hung back, out of the way, for the most part. I was sick and exhausted.
The exhibit itself was a little disappointing. The manuscript, a long scroll made from individual sheets of typing paper that Kerouac had taped together, was in a glass case in the middle of the room. I looked at it and wasn’t inspired, though I thought I would be. It was a first draft, an unfinished thing. To look at it felt almost like an invasion of privacy.
Lining the walls were old photos of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs. All the people you’d expect to see. Underneath the pictures were cards with little factoids that I already knew. And naturally there was jazz music piping throughout the room on multiple speakers. The whole thing stank of death and I hated it.
I was glad to leave.
When we got back to the hotel room, Anne was still asleep. I slunk on the bed next to her and put a pillow over my head.
“I’m gonna go to sleep for a while,” I said.
I closed my eyes. I was tired as hell but all of my bones ached. I fought to relax, lying very still. Finally I drifted off to sleep. I started to sweat again. My legs and arms twitched and I felt like I was falling. Falling.
I slept for maybe two or three hours. I woke up slowly. My shirt was stained with sweat. I felt sticky all over. I must have been having nightmares.
Anne and Tara were sitting on the couch-bed, talking. I stared at them for a second, trying to adjust to reality. Anne noticed I was up.
“You’re soaked!” she said, laughing.
I smiled. “Yeah. Hey Tara, I’m sorry about the way I acted last night. I wasn’t being me.”
“Who were you then?” Tara said.
“A whiskey monster,” I said.
“OK whiskey monster. Don’t worry about it. How about we go to a poetry reading?”
Sounded good to me. We all got cleaned up a little and left.
The poetry reading was in a real bourgeois restaurant where people wore slacks and shiny black shoes. With my long hair and fluffy beard, I definitely stood out. Which was extremely weird considering that we were at a conference honoring a bohemian poet. But what can you do? Make the best of it and get goosed up. Which is what we did.
I ordered a draft beer and it came in a glass goblet sort of thing. Tara had the same and Anne ordered a whiskey and Coke. I sat between Anne and Tara, both of their knees pressing against mine. I wondered if Tara’s touch had been intentional or if I was dreaming. But we ordered another round and then another and Tara started leaning closer to my face as she talked to me.
“Beer goes right to my head,” Tara said, smiling. She patted me on the knee.
I tried to drink slowly, to keep my nerves. I didn’t want to embarrass myself again. Could have been that Tara was just flirting. I didn’t know how far she would want to go or if Anne would be into it.
After we finished our fourth round, Tara said, “I think we should just go back to the hotel room.”
Anne rubbed my shoulder. “Sounds good to me.”
Back at the hotel room, the girls were in a goofy mood. They fixed themselves another drink. Tara had a stereo dock for her mp3 player that she put on the windowsill and turned on. Out came some indie rock that I didn’t particularly care for. But Tara and Anne liked it. They started to dance with each other while I watched them from the bed. It went on for a couple of minutes, a few songs. Then Anne walked over to the bed and sat next to me. Tara sat down on the opposite side.
“You—ah—your hair’s all tangled. You need to let us brush it,” Anne said.
“Nah,” I said. “That’s all right.”
“Come on,” Tara said. “Let us brush your hair.”
There was no point in protesting any further. They each got a brush from their purse and began fighting with my tangles.
“You really need to take better care of your hair,” Tara said.
“I know,” Anne said. “I tell him that all the time. He’s always got these tangles and split ends.”
I knew what was coming next but for some reason I didn’t want it to happen anymore. I admit, I was a little aroused, but not nearly as much as I should have been, considering my anticipation for the thing. And now, as I lay there on the bed, Anne was leaning over my chest and kissing Tara on the neck. I slipped out from underneath them and sat near the foot of the bed, watching them. Anne had her hand up Tara’s shirt and was massaging her breasts. Tara smiled and moaned and then patted the bed, looking at me, wanting me next to her.
I laid myself next to Tara, my hand on my head, my shoulder on the bed. I watched with a sort of detached interest. It was too surreal. I couldn’t believe it was happening.
Soon Tara’s shirt was off. She had small, firm breasts. Her nipples were hard. Anne massaged them and kissed them. Then she started to fiddle with Tara’s jeans. She was trying to unbutton them. But Tara gently moved Anne’s hand away.
“No sweetie,” Tara said. “Not that.”
But eventually Anne’s hand was down Tara’s pants, her fingers moving gently inside of her. Tara’s eyes grew wide with surprise but they were soon closed while she bit her lip and writhed about the bed. I was finally overcome. I leaned over and kissed Tara’s neck. She had on some perfume or soap or something that made her smell like peaches. I massaged her breasts and leaned over and kissed her nipples. I massaged the inside of her thigh. I guided her hand to my pants and onto my erection. Tara squeezed and massaged it. I closed my eyes. This was really happening.
The shower was running. Tara and I both suddenly stopped what we were doing. Anne was gone. We could hear Anne crying hard and loud from the bathroom. It was frightening. She was wailing. I felt like the guiltiest man on the planet.
Tara stood up and began fumbling with her bra and shirt, hurrying to put them on.
“I should go,” Tara said.
I shook my head. “Don’t go. She’s drunk. She just needs some sleep.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
But I wasn’t sure.
Puzzles