I removed the tampon, hoping it was clean. It wasn’t. Damn it. Easing myself into the scalding water, vanilla steam filled my nose and burned my skin. My body sank all the way to my chin and my eyes closed while I held on to the dream just a little while longer. The water did help, and I relaxed with a smile, remembering the entire day. My mind started with the morning shower, but was interrupted during the ridiculous proposal. How cool was that? How cool was it that Blake even put that all together?
“Want company?”
“Of course,” I said, sliding up for Blake.
“Are you tired? You look tired,” Blake questioned, undressing and sliding in behind me. Oh no, it was already starting. My mother got tired easy too. I was tired; I was exhausted, but I did have a day that would emotionally drain the devil. A relaxed breath escaped when my back settled into his chest. Now this was the perfect ending to a perfect day.
“I take it you’re Pea’s new best friend.”
“For sure. You have to go look at her. She’s covered in lions.”
“I will,” I laughed. I started to mention the remembrance of Fashion the cub, but refrained. I’d let that be between Blake, Janie and Pea. She was their cub, not mine. I have no idea what I was doing. I wasn’t even thinking it. I turned and straddled Blake’s lap. Towering above him, I held his face and kissed him with everything in me. A dull pain filled my chest from the powerful emotions between us. Blake wrapped his arms around my waist and I moved down his shaft. His hand guided it in and I rocked toward him, feeling him slide deep inside me. Our mouths lay open, pausing the kiss while the feelings took hold of each other’s bodies. My lips covered his when I sensed the moan.
“Pull the plug,” Blake rasped on my lips. His lips followed my lean toward the drain and he sucked lightly on the beaded bud. I pulled the plug and moved his hand and his mouth to the other side. The space was tight, but erotic. Without the sloshing water, my hips rocked harder, grinding as deep as I could go.
“I love you, Blake,” I admitted, swallowing the tears with the emotional surge shooting through me like, sharp, piercing, jolts. The urge to cry was almost overwhelming, and I didn’t even know why. Was it because I was so happy, or was it because it wasn’t mine and I couldn’t keep it? None of it; not Blake, Pea, Grace, Sarah, not even Barry Holden. What was the point in giving him a chance only to take it away again?
“Fuck, baby.” Hot words spilled on my chest while Blake’s hands held my hips, pushing deeper with every rock. He had to shush my cries with his mouth when I felt the surge. It came from out of nowhere; I didn’t even think I was ready, I don’t even know if it was five minutes, it didn’t even matter to me. This was raw Makayla and Blake. This was both of us giving all. Only I wasn’t, but I was. I was trying not to and I was failing miserably. There was no painless way to do this.
“I’m going to love you for the rest of your life,” Blake promised.
“What if that’s six months?” Shoot. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.
“Why would you say that? That’s not funny. That’s not even close to being funny. Don’t you ever say that again.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t…” My words were cut off with his kiss. He wasn’t going to let me ruin this.
“Put the plug back in and give us some more of those bubbles, but don’t look down.”
“Is it bad?”
“No, it’s you and me. That’s it. Turn the water on.”
I obeyed. I didn’t need to see that. I would take his word for it.
That was the ending to a perfect night. Laying in Blake’s arms, listening to him talk about the theater and all the plans he had with my hand in his, really topped it off. I mean forget the icing, the whip cream; the sprinkles, all of it. This was the cherry on top of the cherry. This was annoying love, the kind that made you roll your eyes when you saw it.
Once we were covered with smelly bubbles, back in our comfortable positions, I requested more Janie.
“Tell me something else about Janie.”
“No way. You’ll use it against me later.”
Blake didn’t have to tell me he was talking about the snake at the toy store. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re such a liar.”
“Bible. Please Blake,” I whined in my best sad Pea voice I could muster.
“Great, just what I need, another one. What do you want to know?”
“I don’t care, anything, I love hearing your life with her. I feel like I knew her.”
“That’s because you’re a lot like her.”
“How so?”
“Like scaring the pee out of Pea, that’s something Janie would do.”
“Tell me about the first time you had sex.”
“You don’t want to hear that one. It’s not pleasant.”
“Why? Did you blow your load before you touched her?”
“No. She cried the whole time.”
“Why? Didn’t she want to do it?”
“No, it wasn’t that. I tried to stop. She wouldn’t let me. It was just a sad day.”
“Tell me,” I begged, placing my hand over his.
I shifted my body, getting comfortable when Blake took a breath. I wasn’t expecting what I was about to hear, yet I was glad that I did. I was happy that Blake opened up to me and told me about it.
***
I woke with a smile hearing the familiar sound. It was the sound of a pistol. Matt sent it to me as a ring-back-tone, and I figured out how to make it the notification for Janie. That’s what it was too. It was loud gun-shot that was going to land me in trouble again.
“Did you get your phone back?”
“Yes, finally. I was just getting ready to text you.”
“Good, meet me in front of the hotel at eight-thirty. I want to go see the cubs.”
“No way! I will see you at practice. I just now got my phone back.”
“Blake Rane Coast! I thought I was your girlfriend.”
“No, Janie. You’re not playing that card. We’re not going to the zoo. Go to school.”
“I’ll let you kiss me again.”
“Janie, please go to school.”
“I don’t want to go to school. Please go with me.”
“I’m not taking the blame this time.”
“We won’t get caught this time, I promise.”
“Yeah, sure. You’re buying lunch.”
Damn. I was going to lose my phone again. Why couldn’t she just go to school? I rode to the theater with my dad the same way I did every morning. With my back-pack over my shoulder I walked toward a couple guys I normally walked the few blocks to St. Thomas with. Dressed in blue slacks with a white shirt and tie, I turned right a couple blocks later.
“I’ll catch you guys tomorrow. Tell Mr. Rigel I’m sick.”
“Are you serious? Again? Where you going?”
“I don’t know. I’m just going to ditch.”
“We have a test,” Wayne reminded me. Shit. I forgot about that. I forgot again when I remembered Janie’s promise. Kiss from Janie or an English test worth half my grade? That was a tough one.
“I’ll make it up. Just say I’m sick. I’ll check you later.”
“Yeah, check you later,” Wayne said disappointed. What the hell did it matter to him? It wasn’t his ass. Oh, lord. My dad was going to skin me alive. I had it bad. Why couldn’t I fall in love with good girls? Ones that went to school every day?
I picked up my pace and sprinted towards Zazen Resorts flipping my phone to see the time, I ignored the text asking where I was. I was almost there and I owed her one. I knew she would be standing in the doorway of Calloway Jewels. She would poke her head out and look north, awaiting my arrival. I wasn’t going to come in that way.
I walked all the way to the coffee shop beside Calloway Jewels and dialed her number. I almost busted a gut when I heard Afroman singing about going to school; he was gonna go to school, but he got high.
“Where are you?”
“I got ca
ught. I’m in the back of cop a car.”
“Oh man. Where are they taking you?”
“To your dad. I told them I skipped because of you. They’re going to tell your dad.”
“You, fucker! Way to have my back. I hate you.” I closed my phone and took a couple steps to her. She walked out to the sidewalk, not caring about getting busted anymore. I knew Janie was a firecracker, but I never heard her talk like that. Her mother would fill her mouth with soap.
“Do you eat with that dirty mouth?” I asked, grabbing her from behind.
“O, my God. You ass!” she yelled. I laughed and took two punches to the chest.
“Hey, why is Afroman my ringtone? That’s not what I have for you.”
“What is it?” she asked, taking my hand. “Let’s grab the train,”
Janie’s hand held mine and the other one dialed me. Speed dial number two; second to 911. That was pretty important. She smiled back at me and closed her phone when J-Lo told her how I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
“It doesn’t mean what you think,” she assured me.
“What?”
“The song. Afroman. Last week after we got in trouble I was listening to it and I kept playing that same part over and over. ‘I was going to go to school to day, but I got high.’ I did. I was high all day.”
I smiled at her and then we looked up at the same time. The strong smell of coffee pierced my nose when we stepped off the curb by a Starbucks. Janie pulled on my hand, saving me from, stepping in front of a cab. Something wasn’t right. Planes passed over the city, but not like this. It was coming in low, and in the wrong direction. The world stopped turning and all of New York looked up.
“What is that?” Janie asked. She actually had to raise her voice over the noise coming closer and closer. I don’t know what I thought was going on. Aliens were attacking? Of course that might have been from the last movie Janie and I watched, ‘Artificial Intelligence.’ I pulled Janie close. It seemed like it took a lot longer than it actually did, but even then, it didn’t make sense. Not until the initial contact. The streets went from a quiet somber to a loud panic. We were so close, we watched it all. Janie turned her face into my chest when the plane plowed through the tower.
“What’s going on, Blake?”
“I don’t know. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
I dragged her through the streets, running through scared people. The stuff I was hearing were things nobody ever thought about hearing. Run, terrorist, gas leak, twin towers, the sounds were deafening. I remember one man yelling for people to run for their lives. Everyone did. Everyone was afraid it was the end.
“Don’t look!” I ordered, when a lady screamed that people were jumping.
“Oh my God. They are, Blake. People are jumping.”
“I told you not to look. Don’t look. Run with me Janie. Keep ahold of my hand and run with me. Okay?” I had to stop and shake her shoulders to get her to calm down. Tears streaked black rain down her cheeks and her breaths were coming fast. “Calm down, Janie. I’m going to get us out of here, okay? Please stop crying. We’re okay. We’re okay,” I repeated.
We ran, and ran, away from the sight. People were screaming for everyone to run. I even heard a man yell that a missile was heading right toward us. I stopped and frantically looked around at which way to go when a fireman told us we couldn’t go down the street I knew would take us back where we come from. By this time, smoke and fumes had reached our lungs and we both coughed. I got us turned around and we went the wrong way after the fireman stopped our attempt to take an alley. It didn’t seem like we’d been running that long, but the news told us that night the second plane hit eighteen minutes later. We stopped and looked up when the second bomb hit. Janie screamed again, but I didn’t stop. I kept going with a death-grip on her hand.
“Dad!” Janie cried, answering her phone. We were so scared and I was nothing more than a coward. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know where to go or what the hell was going on. “No, I’m okay. I’m with Blake. We’re on our way there now. Oh my God.” Debris rained down like confetti on New Year’s Eve. I pulled harder.
“Let’s go,” I yelled. Her phone flew into the air and we left it. The explosive sound was deafening. One I would never forget and I just wanted her to get to safety. I didn’t care about the phone. Something horrific was happening right before our eyes. Something that would forever change us.
My parents hung out at the Holden’s for the rest of that day. We were all glued to the television while it got worse and worse. Janie finally had enough around eight o’clock. I was the only one who paid attention to her sudden retreat. The rest of the eyes stayed on the news. They weren’t really saying anything new, just telling the same stories over and over, showing mostly the same footage, but sometimes they’d have some new stuff. A lot of people used the video cameras on their phones and they showed the same but different material. I knew the close up of the people jumping were the same people Janie and I watched fall.
“Is it okay if I go up with Janie?” I asked, looking at the Holden’s. Barry held his wife, my dad held my mom, and I wanted to hold Janie. She was hurt and I was a part of that. I wanted to be with her, not the edge of the sofa with everyone else.
“Yes, you can go,” Barry nodded, giving me permission to be alone in Janie’s room for the first time ever. His eyes went back to the television with everyone else’s.
“Come in,” Janie called.
“You okay?”
“No. What’s happening, Blake.”
“I don’t know, Janie. Please don’t cry anymore.”
“Make it stop. Make love to me, Blake.”
That’s not what I was expecting. Not even a little. Janie lifted her shirt over her head and I stepped back. I was scared to death of her. My heart beat as fast as it had when I watched that first plane dive through the first tower.
“What? No. Put your clothes on. You’re going to get us in trouble.”
“Please, Blake. Please. Make me feel something else. You love me, don’t you?”
“Of course I do, but this isn’t going to help. We’re barely teenagers.”
“I’m a teenager. You have to wait until December.”
“Janie stop taking your clothes off.” Holy shit. What the hell was she doing?
“Just do it, Blake. You know you’ve thought about it.” I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t do anything and my entire body betrayed. My arms went around her to her back and her small breasts pressed against my chest. Shit. Janie was naked. Completely naked.
“Janie,” I begged.
“If you don’t, I’m going to think the worse. I’ll think it’s me; like you don’t want me.”
“Of course I do. I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life.”
“Then show, Blake.”
“That’s a guy’s line.”
“It’s mine too. I can say it if I want.”
“Janie, please.”
“Please, Blake. Please do it. Make love to me. Please.”
I knew I shouldn’t do it. She was an emotional wreck. I knew it wouldn’t be right. “We don’t even have a condom.”
“I don’t care. I don’t care, Blake just make it stop.”
I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I saw her naked, but I didn’t see her. She didn’t see me either. I didn’t remove my clothes, only my hard rod. My heart beat out of my boney chest when I laid her back. I kissed her and guided myself into her opening. Damn it. Shit. Hell.
“Shit, Janie. Are you okay?” I asked, stopping.
“Yes, don’t stop.”
I never told Janie this part; I wasn’t even completely inside of her before I shot my load. I faked it and moved in and out of her half-mast. Although her legs did relax below me, I could tell she wasn’t feeling it like I was. She couldn’t.
“All those people, Blake. Why? Who would do that?”
I stayed inside of Janie, knowing my right hand and I would never have
the same relationship again. I wanted to die inside of her. I kissed away tears, wishing I knew what to say. I didn’t. I had no clue. None whatsoever.
Six
“But I thought you said it was on a piano? You told me Janie lost her virginity on top of a piano.”
“Yes, the piano is the one Janie counts. I count the first one as the day the world stopped turning. The first time wasn’t about that, it was an emotional escape for Janie.”
I have no idea how long Blake and I stayed in the tub, but it was a while. I kept letting out cold water and refilling it with hot. I didn’t want him to stop; time stood still while Blake held my hand, kissed me and told me another something that I didn’t know. Blake and Janie watched the first plane hit the buildings. The detail in how he described the way he felt and how scared he was sent cold chills up my spine.
“Let’s go to bed. You have to promise me you’ll tell Pea that story. Not now, save that one for when she’s older, but you have to tell her about that.”
“Yeah, maybe I will,” Blake agreed.
The next few weeks were crazy. Between renovating the theater and getting our new home in order, Blake and I both were ready for a break. We sold most of the modern, black and silver furniture with the penthouse; that look wouldn’t really fit this family dwelling and I was glad. Having Sarah and Grace there for Pea was a godsend. I didn’t realize how much I did with her until I had help. It was nice, but I missed her like crazy. I felt like I was missing out on all the fun for curtain hanging. It sucked. Blake was staying in the city later and later, obsessed with a vision that his father once saw. He even hired the same acoustics guy that his dad had used years ago. Blake swore no other theater in the world sounded like Conley’s. I suppose he was right, my mother told me the same thing more than once.
I was at our new house late one Friday evening waiting for Blake to pick me up to go back to his mother’s for the night. That was the only thing that mattered to me; at least Blake would come home. I guess I didn’t think about it like this, I mean, I should have known since Blake has always been a workaholic, but this ten and eleven o’clock at night was getting old real fast.