Chapter 5: Raven’s on my Shoulder

Friday. The last day before the masks went on, before Dad would have to sleep in my desk drawer for two full seasons, and before Truth was buried, maybe forever. We cleaned, we arranged, we considered everything to make our home normal. After dinner, the four of us were satisfied with both the house and the cabin. Our guests would be treated with respect and love.

After dinner, Lara and I went for a walk. It was made much easier by the fact that Colin and Shannon had plowed our driveway at some point during the night. Or perhaps it was in the early hours of morning. It was the only sign of life from her, since two phone calls her way that morning had gone unanswered. No news was makes-me-grin news, since that meant a good time was being had by all. For all I knew, the pair of them were working their way across the state by now, saving the world one motorist at a time.

As was our habit now, Lara produced a joint and we wasted no time in setting it to flame.

“Last blast,” I remarked, holding the fat white stick aloft. “How do you feel?”

“Better.”

“Good, because you looked like crap this morning!”

“I know, right? It was… a long night,” she admitted with a smile.

“Sounded fun. Sorry I didn’t join.”

“Alice was going berserk.”

“I bet.”

“At one point she started a tampon fight. It was hilarious.”

“Uh…”

“You had to be there, I guess.”

“Kind of glad I wasn’t, now!”

“You would’ve had fun.”

“Sure, until I woke up in the middle of the night to find Alice on top of me, going for a ride.”

“I think she was just kidding around, Matt.”

“If you think so.”

“Then again, she was pretty drunk, so maybe you’re right.”

“So, do you and her ever like, you know…?”

Lara sniffed. “Nah. She’s all about the guys.”

“Does she know, though?”

Lara made a noncommittal gesture as she tried to explain. “She knows, but not… most of it. It’s only come up, you know, when we’re watching the Great Masterpieces on her TV.”

I chuckled. “Okay.”

“Sometimes they show that kind of thing.”

“I’m sure.”

“How was your night?” she asked.

“I talked to Heather. Went to sleep at who knows what time…”

Thankfully I’ll never know… Or wait—

“Oh, shit!” I blurted out.

“What?”

“We get phone bills! Like… in the mail!” I announced, my eyes wide.

Lara stopped short and slow-clapped at my astounding discovery. “What’s it like, to have a brain like yours?”

“Oh, quit it. It’s going to have, like, a huge long call on it!” I explained.

“So what?”

“We might’ve been up past four!”

Now she did look surprised. “Four! Doing what?”

“Three guesses.”

“Phone sex.”

“Okay, one guess was enough,” I quipped, laughing.

“That wasn’t even a guess,” Lara dismissed. “A guess is when you’re not sure of the answer. Until four though? How do you not look tired today?”

“I don’t know. Must be my superior genes!”

“Yeah, what does that prove? We’re related—”

I raised a hand, cutting her off. “Story foul!”

“What?”

“You blew cover, step-sis!”

Lara gave an embarrassed smile. “Whoops… Walked right into that one!”

“See, it’s pretty easy to let things slip. We need to be careful.”

“I guess so. Okay, but wait. You were really up past four?”

“Probably. Though I couldn’t see straight by then, so my clock numbers looked like blurry red eggs.”

Lara made an appreciative face. “You always hear that whacking off can make you blind. Guess it’s true, then.”

“Shut up.”

“How many times, then?”

“What?”

“How many times did you two do it?” she pressed.

“I don’t know. Three? We mostly talked.”

“What about?”

“Anything. Everything.”

“Me?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“What about me?”

“Uh, your obsession with porn…”

Lara slapped my arm. “Give me that joint.”

“Please?” I goaded.

“Pretty please?”

I smiled at her, and we shared a laugh.

“Missed you last night,” I said.

“Me too. Alice is a crazy girl, but half the time I was wondering what you and Heather were doing.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have to guess.”

Lara sniffed. “Yeah, I know. The details, though. That’s what drives a girl mad. Can’t picture it without the details.”

“Thus the obsession with—”

“I don’t have an obsession!”

“Of course not… So you asked me a question the other night,” I said, switching gears.

“Which one?” Lara asked.

“Why I wanted to know about you and Pete and whatever crazy thing you did with him.”

Lara came to a stop and faced me. She put the joint to my lips.

“And?” she asked.

I blew out the sweet smoke. “It was a good question. I’ve thought about it a lot today.”

“Tell me, Matt. Because I’m trying to answer it myself.”

“I guess… I was always…”

Lara toked patiently as I struggled to voice the words. It was surprisingly difficult to pull them up from the surface of my thoughts. Finally I reeled in.

“I was always jealous of you and Pete.”

She nodded slowly. “I’ve always wondered that. But… I could never figure out why.”

“You’ve said you were always a little jealous of me and Heather.”

“True,” Lara said cautiously.

“So you must know what I mean then.”

But now spoken, my words seemed suddenly empty, as something didn’t quite sit right anymore.

Oh, shit…

The clear thoughts from earlier in the day suddenly froze up and shattered. Lara felt it too. For a long moment, we looked around, sometimes at each other, sometimes at the ground.

She spoke first. “No, Matt, I don’t know what you mean. Not exactly. When I was jealous of you and Heather, I… well, I wanted to be you. Not Heather.”

My mind tried to sort out the analogy, even though it seemed to be instantly understandable.

She wanted to be me. Me, not Heather… Do I want to be her? With Pete?

“Oh…” I murmured. “That much makes sense. But I don’t get me, now.”

“Yeah. Unless you’re like, into Pete? It’s cool if you are, but…”

“No, no, it’s not that… It’s not about Pete at all, actually. But it is about Heather? Oh, I don’t know!”

Lara laughed gently. “Here, maybe this will loosen it out of us.”

I took another hit. “Ah, forget it. I just lost it all. I’m not sure what I think anymore. Let’s go back and play some music and hang in the cabin. It’s our last night alone; let’s just have a good time and stop trying to sort out all the crazy shit.”

She smiled at me. “That sounds perfect.”

We headed home, where Lara popped her head into the house to tell our moms that we’d returned. As we walked up the path to the cabin together, Lara angled off into the woods. At first I wondered if she was intending to visit the pool again, perhaps for a night swim. I was about to protest the insanity of that activity, but then I realized she was heading for our old illicit cairn.

“Did you hide something here?” I asked as we approached the area. As far as I knew, the hole had been empty for a long time.

“Yeah, thanks to Jonah!” she chirped.

“The gig that keeps on giving,” I joked.

It took a little work to find the exact spot, what with the snow and faint lighting, but soon Lara discovered the flat stones. Without the moon it would’ve been hopeless. I helped her swipe away the white blanket and then we started moving the weights aside. The wood boards covering the hole looked oddly familiar, but certainly not from having seen them here before.

“Wow, you’ve been busy!” I exclaimed.

“The old ones were rotted out. Found these scraps in the garage.”

“I know. They’re the extra pieces from my darkroom table… The wood that keeps on giving!”

“Hah. Is that what Heather calls you?”

I frowned at her, not understanding, and then rolled my eyes. “For fuck’s sake, Lara, not you too!”

“What?”

“Heather tortures me enough with her dumb puns.”

Lara sniggered. “Oh, I’m so sorry. But not really sorry. I’m stoned, and you know what that means. So if you say the word ‘wood’ out loud, well… you take your chances!”

She grinned at me and pulled up two freed slats. The glints of a half-dozen liquor pints were revealed by the moonlight.

I let out a low whistle.

“What do you want?” she asked. “Vodka?”

“Sure. Damn though, that made a dent in Jonah’s collection.”

“I really doubt that. He gave them to me right after our set, to take with us. Like a little payment, I guess. They were actually hiding in my clothes bag for a few days in the cabin, because I forgot about them with, you know, everything.”

“Yeah. Good thing Mom didn’t find them before you took care of them!”

“Totally.”

She examined a few and then pocketed a bottle of Smirnoff. We tucked the rest of the ghosts back into their bed and said goodnight.

Once in the cabin, we got the heat going a bit higher and reduced our clothing load to something more comfortable. I pulled out my acoustic guitar, idly poking at the strings as Lara approached, carrying two glasses from the kitchen. She settled onto the couch next to me and poured two servings.

“Cheers,” she offered, and we swigged the icy liquid.

Lara hid the bottle under the couch and then stretched back on the cushions.

“I have something I want to try out,” she announced.

“What’s that?”

She pulled a small wad of slightly crumpled papers from her pocket and unfolded the stack. She separated one sheet and set it on the cushion before putting the rest away again.

“The song you sang the other morning,” I realized.

“Actually, no. Something new. I’m not sure about it, though, but maybe you can help me.”

“Are those other pages more songs you’re writing?”

“Mostly just ideas of songs,” she deflected.

“Wow, you’re really cranking the lyrics out! That’s so cool.”

“I guess.”

“What’s this one?” I asked, gesturing to the sheet.

“I don’t have much written yet. But the chorus goes something like this, maybe…”

Lara drained her glass and then turned to face me, cross-legged.

“Four days… That’s how long it took to see… How much you mean to me… But the raven’s on my shoulder now… Please, don’t, touch… Last time she flew away… This time she’s gotta stay… And keep me on the ground… For a few more days.“

“That’s really cool,” I breathed. “I like it… Sing it again?”

I quietly fiddled with some chords as she repeated the chorus several times.

“It can be a little more upbeat than that,” she suggested.

“What you’re singing sounds kind of sad, though.”

“Mm… Bittersweet,” she amended. “Hopeful, even…”

I nodded. “Okay. Try this.”

I played some repeated chords, using a pulsing rhythm that was restrained but carried some underlying energy. Lara came in, and it seemed to fit quite well. I stabbed at some changes, occasionally finding a good match.

“Nice, Matt. Kind of what I was hearing when I first came up with it, honestly.”

Lara refilled our glasses and we went around several more times until I was satisfied with a complete set of chords to go with her snippet. It was almost magical, the way the parts could come together like a puzzle.

“I like it,” I said. “It’s funny, though: here you sing ‘Please don’t touch’, and our other song is Please Don’t Stop.”

Lara smiled. “I know, that was on purpose. They’re kind of like opposite songs.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’m thinking of calling this one Four Days.”

“What, like a sequel to Three Days?” I joked.

Lara looked at me but didn’t laugh. “Yeah, actually.”

I frowned. “How?”

“It’s kind of, well, about what happens after, you know. After Truth. Having to hide, and all that.”

“Hmm. Okay.”

“The ‘you’ in the song is plural. But you knew that, right?”

“I wondered. But then you should probably change the words. Four days…“ I sang. “That’s how long it took to see… How much y’alls mean to me!”

Lara cracked up, doubled over. “Oh Matt, you’re too much! Y’alls! Can you imagine?”

“I don’t have to imagine it. I just sang it. And I killed it, if I may say so myself!”

“Killed it, yeah…” Lara said, eyeing me dubiously. “You definitely did that much. Ugh, it’ll be a fucking victory if I can ever sing that song again without laughing. Y’alls? Shit…!” She tittered again.

“You’re welcome,” I deadpanned.

At last she composed herself.

“Anyway,” I sighed, “you were saying, about Three Days, Four Days?”

“Oh yeah… Like, first it was please don’t stop,” she continued. “But now it has to be please don’t touch. Want it, but can’t have it.”

I nodded, starting to piece it together a bit more. “What’s with the raven?”

Lara smiled coyly. “Oh, you know, just a bird of warning.”

“Right on.”

“Like that poem from class last year.”

I nodded slowly, but something nagged at me. Unable to define it, I played the guitar part again. We jammed for some time, quietly but with an energy to the music nonetheless.

Eventually we moved on to other songs, as there was only so much to build on without additional lyrics to Four Days. It was quite late when I set my guitar aside. We’d finished almost half the bottle, so between that and the earlier joint I was feeling quite good.

After serving us some more of the vodka, I shifted on the couch to face her.

“Okay, now you have to tell me this thing you did,” I challenged. “The one with Pete. You said you had to think about it.”

Lara seemed to shy from the subject and I was sure she was going to dismiss me yet again.

“Fine,” she finally mumbled. “But it’s…”

“What?”

“Kind of weird.”

“The whole week’s been weird. Should fit right in.”

Lara turned to face me on the couch, steeling herself with another sip. The fact that even this much pot and booze hadn’t loosened the information out of her was surprising, making me want to know it all the more.

“It was after Jonah’s first party, maybe a week later. Pete came over after school. You stayed late for pictures or something, so me and him were just hanging out alone.”

Another swig, as Lara looked around, perhaps seeking one last avenue of escape. Her smile was a mix of coy impishness, though, and I knew the ride was going to start for real now.

Buckle up…

“I woke up that day, horny as fuck for some reason. And to top it off, me and Pete smoked one of Jonah’s bones. You know how that goes.”

I grinned. “Uh, yeah. I would know that.”

Lara made a face. “And you’re the one complaining about hearing bad puns?”

“That was before we hit the stash!” I sang.

“You’re such a goof sometimes. Anyway, there we are, in… Oh, Matt, I don’t know if I can say it!” she whined.

I threw my hands up. “All right, fine. You don’t have to tell me.”

“It’s just really… personal. I don’t know.”

Unbuckle…

“Whatever you want Lara. I kind of thought you were just teasing me, trying to make me work for it, like usual. But if you really don’t want to tell me, that’s fine.”

“I don’t know. You’re going to be grossed out, probably.”

I frowned. “Grossed out?”

She was quiet for a while. “I was… having my period that day.”

I laughed, relieved. “Oh my god, Lara, I know you have periods! It’s fine. Did you have sex on your period then? Because me and Julie almost did that, once.”

She looked at me with surprise. “Really?”

“Yeah, when we were hooking up again last summer, you know, before I saw the light with her.”

Recognition glinted in her eye. “Oh, are you talking about that day when she gave you like three blowjobs?”

I guffawed. “It was more like seven…”

Lara patted my arm. “Okay, there, bro. Take it easy.”

“But yeah, she was having her period that day. We were pretty close to doing it a few times anyway, but in the end, she didn’t want to.”

“And so, the fifteen blowjobs instead?” Lara grinned broadly.

“Yeah, basically. It was like she couldn’t stop herself. Hell, remember when you all went to get ice cream without me?”

“Yeah, and you went home to get some more blowjobs. I knew that.”

“I couldn’t remember if I told you.”

“You didn’t tell me, but everyone knew anyway.”

My mouth dropped open. “No!”

“Come on, Matt. Julie looked like sex on a stick that day.”

Immediately the hot image of her seared my brain. Julie, for all her challenges, could be devastatingly attractive.

“It was just a regular outfit,” I hedged, though weakly.

“Right,” she drawled. “A tiny jean skirt, a tight top, push-up bra… Just another boring day in Montauk.”

“Shit, you think the adults all knew?”

Lara’s patient look was enough of an answer.

“All right, fine. Maybe they cut me some slack because of everything that went down with Julie before that. They never said anything to me.”

“What would they have said?” Lara rejoined. “‘Hey Matt, how were all the blowjobs tonight?’”

“Shut up… But anyway, I sure dodged a bullet that day! I don’t know how I ever escaped Julie’s grip, but I did.”

“Yeah, I was sure you were going to get with her again for the summer and start all over again. She was obviously trying her hardest to get you back.”

“You don’t know the half of it, Lara. I’m serious, if we had the time that day, she would’ve given me fifteen!”

Lara chuckled. “How many really was it?”

“Five.”

“Are you fucking serious?” she blurted out.

“Totally. She was so amped up that day. Oh yeah, she was also talking a lot about doing it without a condom.”

“Damn, really?”

“Yeah, she said it was safe right after her period. The plan was to wait a couple of days until she was done and then fuck like rabbits. It was crazy! She was, like, obsessed with doing it, and making me, well, you know… come inside her.”

Lara hissed. “So you were saved by the period, after all!”

“Yeah, who the fuck knows what would’ve happened,” I shivered, feeling a jump of anxiety at the thoughts. “But I’ll admit that if she said yes to going all the way, I totally would’ve done it that night. She was acting so wild, and it kind of got to me. I was out of my mind.”

“I know exactly what you mean. When Julie got worked up, it was like a tornado coming at you. She’d get so horny and then it was contagious.”

“Exactly. So anyway, I’m not grossed out, see?” I finished. “I came close to doing that with her, blood and all.”

Lara looked at me. “Cool. But, that’s not really what happened with me and Pete.”

“What!” I guffawed. “After all that, you tell me this?”

Lara grinned. “It was fun to hear some more of your secrets, so why would I stop you? But no, that’s not really what I’m talking about.”

I was thunderstruck. The relief and sense of closure I’d built up for the past few minutes broke apart into an even more intense sense of curiosity.

“Okay, so what are you talking about then?”

Again Lara shrunk into a coy grin. “You can’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

“Who the hell would I tell, Lara?”

“Not even Heather, for now.”

Not even Heather? Damn, it’s serious…! Buckle up…

“Um, okay… I promise then.”

She eyed me, before starting, quietly, her voice quivering with lustful energy.

“So we were on the bed, making out, rolling around… And I started giving him a blowjob because like I said, I was super horny. But… that wasn’t doing it for me. I mean Julie might be able to orgasm by sucking a guy, but I don’t.”

Lara took a sip of her drink. The pause was endless, pregnant and weighty.

“So… we ended up doing it,” she said with finality.

My mind started reeling as I masticated this statement, completely confused at the contradiction.

“I thought you said you were having…”

Lara smiled slightly, picking at the couch cushions.

“Matt, there’s oral sex, there’s regular sex, and… there’s something else.”

My insides lurched in ways I’d never known were possible. I knew almost instantly what she meant, but in my world, this topic was either the domain of extreme porn-ish raunch or it was the, well, butt of gay jokes and puerile insults. It wasn’t a real act, not one that anyone real actually did.

Apparently, I’d been wrong.

“Okay,” I managed, struggling to control the multitude of ideas and images flashing through my brain. Holy shit! Pete… He fucked Lara, like that?

“You do know what I mean, right?”

“I… think I do.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just wasn’t… How… What… Why did…?”

Lara sighed after I trailed off. “I was at Alice’s house a few days before that. We watched some movies, and in one of them, you know…”

“Jeez, is that all you do over her house? Watch people fuck?”

She chuckled. “Not all we do. But yeah, it kind of was stuck in my head after that. Like really stuck in my head.”

“I told you it was an obsession”

“It sure as hell was that week,” she agreed rather vehemently.

“Damn. So wait, Pete actually did it?”

“He did. Though we hardly got going and then he came, so it was short.”

Like a kaleidoscope, the visions multiplied, and I realized my earlier mental seatbelt was thoroughly inadequate for Lara’s revelation. I was spinning out of control.

“How… was it?” I managed.

“It was… interesting.”

“How did you even bring it up with Pete?” I asked, now fascinated at how such an act could initiate. That was certainly the keystone of building this unexpected scene up in my head.

“I didn’t really. I was lying on my front and told him to get behind me. And… okay, this is probably becoming too much info.”

“Go on,” I urged.

Lara took a long look at me. “Why?”

“I just want to know.”

“Does this, like turn you on, or something?”

I made a face. “No, not exactly. I’m just… surprised. Trying to figure out how this even happens.”

“Well, it’s not that complicated! It’s just a few inches away from the usual.”

“I know that, but the idea of it is miles away from the usual!”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Lara agreed with a chuckle.

“So then he just… did it? He knew what you wanted to do?”

“No, I just grabbed it and put it where I wanted it to go.”

“Straight to the point, I guess,” I murmured. “Did it hurt?”

“Less than I thought. But we were so stoned. That probably helped.”

“Wow.”

“Like I said, it was quick.”

“Damn…”

“Now you know why I wasn’t sure about telling you.”

I nodded. “I’m not wigged out or anything. Just trying to, well…”

“You’ve never thought of doing that with Heather?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Well, anyway, like I was saying an hour ago, I let Pete in, in ways I never let anyone in.”

“And you should’ve said ‘literally’,” I joked.

Lara laughed. “I guess so. But now you know. I don’t think I can ever be close to him again, musically, or any other way.”

“I’m sorry I made you bring it up.”

“No, Matt, I’m okay. It actually feels good to tell you. Especially since you’re not wigging out.”

“I’m not. Though I’m still having trouble imagining the whole thing.”

“Really?”

“Just that it’s… foreign. Honestly, I never thought normal people did that, just casually.”

“We’re not normal, remember?”

I chuckled, letting out some of the tension. “True.”

“But yeah, it was crazy. It was so…”

“What?” I pressed.

“It was so wild, and felt really, I don’t know…”

“Naughty?”

“Naughty just scratches the surface. Like, what’s the craziest time you’ve ever had with Heather?”

I looked at the ceiling. “Depends.”

“When was the time you felt most, I don’t know, like you were going to blow apart from what you were doing?”

“The night of the talent show, I guess.”

“Well, multiply that by ten.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “I don’t know, Lara, that night was pretty intense.”

“What did you do?”

“Not what you did, that’s for sure! But it was very crazy in its own way.”

Lara passed me the bottle. “Go on.”

I rolled my eyes. “My turn to tell all?”

“Sure. It’s only fair.”

“All right,” I said, pouring us another inch. “Well, probably my thing was a bit different. I was obviously amped up at the fact that Heather surprised me, so maybe the actual sex wasn’t particularly out there.”

“I get it. It’s a state of mind, right?”

“Yeah. But wait, I take it back. The second time we did it, she had her legs over my shoulders, and that was really different.”

“She was on her back?”

“Yeah. We were face to face, but she swung her knees up near her head. Folded in half, like.”

“Ooh, I get it. I’ve never tried that way.”

“It was… intense, especially for her. We were on the floor, and, well… I pounded her pretty good.”

Lara shifted in her seat. “Surprised I didn’t hear her!”

“Ha! So then, the third time—”

Lara made a face. “Oh, you and your fifteen times!”

“Hey, it was a long night, and we hadn’t seen each other in a month!”

“See, I told you earlier.”

“What?”

“The wood that keeps on giving.”

I smacked Lara’s thigh and grimaced at her. “I swear, say that one more time, and I’m—!”

“I know, I know. I’m just kidding! But it’s funny, I hear nothing from you about your sex life for weeks, and then when I do it’s like a giant sex festival in there.”

I guffawed. “We only did it three times that night, so chill. Anyway, the third time, we kind of were talking about Dad, and the whole idea of, you know… Truth.”

“Wow. I didn’t realize that! That was probably pretty intense, huh?”

“Yeah. And talking about doing it without a rubber, we did it for a long time like that. But slow, you know, so nothing bad would happen.”

“Yeah, it is nice without one,” Lara mused, caught up in a memory. “Only ever tried it once, for a little bit.”

“It feels pretty damn good,” I agreed. “So then I was about to put one on, because it was time, but I ended up licking her instead.”

“Nice. Pete would never do that.”

“Really? Why not?”

“We were fucking once and I tried to get him to go down on me. No go. He was so lame about it. Idiot probably thought it would be like sucking his own dick or something.”

I snorted. “But I’m sure he’d let you blow him after some sex, though.”

“Actually, he wasn’t into that either unless he washed up. I don’t know… He was weird about things like that. No kissing after oral, either.”

“Wow, then I’m really surprised he went through with, um… well, you know.”

“What, do we need a code word for that too?” Lara snarked.

“Hey, you haven’t really said it either tonight, so don’t give me that crap.”

“He fucked me in the butt, Matt.”

I groaned loudly. “Damn it, when you say it like that, then yes we do need a fricking code word!”

“In through the out door…?” she supplied, grinning at my stupefied face and hogging all the pleasure in the room now.

“For fuck’s sake, Lara!”

She shrugged innocently. “I don’t know… I thought you were a Zep fan!”

“I am! A little less now, though! I’ll never see that album title the same way again.”

“Consider it payback for y’alls, bro,” she retorted.

“Aw, you suck!”

She just grinned back at me. I took a sip of the vodka, feeling unsteady.

“I still can’t believe it,” I muttered.

“What?”

“The, the… Zep thing.”

“It’s a good code word—”

“No, I mean that you actually did it!”

Lara made a face at me. “Well, I did. How many times are you going to say it?”

There was some silence. Apparently, Julie wasn’t the only tornado, though. I still couldn’t shake the scenarios that kept blossoming in my head.

“So were you just lying there and you just like, thought of it?”

Lara sighed patiently. “I told you, I was blowing him, but I wanted to get off myself.”

“Oh yeah. So you’re blowing him and thinking that you want to try it?”