The late afternoon sunlight coasted through our curtains. Laura and I were on our backs, Laura’s head nestled upon my shoulder. Earlier we’d made love, and maybe we’d slept. I had a vague sense of a dream.

“That was nice,” Laura said. In acknowledgement I caressed her arm in a sleepy sort of way.

“Any thoughts about dinner?” she asked. I took a deep breath. “Any thoughts at all?” There was some mirth in her tone.

“I guess not,” I said. “All my thoughts went ... somewhere.” Then I remembered something.

“Something about a school bus,” I said. “Maybe it was in a dream.”

“A dream school bus?”

“No, the one I rode in first grade. Or maybe it was kindergarten. I took the school bus from kindergarten almost all the way through high school. But the thing is, I can’t really remember riding the bus in first grade. It’s kind of disturbing. I have only the vaguest sense of it. I remember where the stop was—on the street two apartment buildings down from ours, a walk of less than one hundred yards. These were the married students’ apartments, eight units. I remember those pretty well. They were all the same, but ours had red siding, which I thought was special. There were probably a dozen buildings and ours was the only red one. But the bus—I don’t remember anything about it. Probably it was orange. The bus driver—I don’t remember whether the bus driver was a man or a woman. Or whether I sat near the front or near the back. I find that kind of disturbing. Like I’ve lost something—something important. But for some reason I do remember walking home from the bus stop one afternoon. It was a really nice day, and the air was fresh, the sky was blue. Kind of like today. And just for fun, I called out, loudly...”

I took a deep breath. I could remember it so clearly.

“You called out?”

“Yeah, just sort of nonsense words.”

“What were they?”

“I remember them really well.”

“Well, tell me then.”

“Oh-Lee Oh-Lee Ooo-Hoo. I called that out several times. I felt really good doing it. Free and light and happy and good.”

“Oh-Lee Oh-Lee Ooo-Hoo? Sort of like what you might say in a game of hide and seek? Or tag? Ally Ally All in Free.”

“Yeah, sort of like that, but not that at all. It was different. It had nothing to do with tag or hide and seek. It was just a call I’d invented.”

“Like a bird call?”

“Funny you should say that, because now I think it might have had something to do with the Baltimore Oriole. I had these bird cards, maybe two dozen of them, each with a different bird, and maybe I showed them to the girl on the bus, and she said she liked the Baltimore Oriole best, and we wondered what it sounded like.”

“So the Oh-Lee Oh-Lee Ooo-Hoo was the call of the Baltimore Oriole? Was this girl with you when you did the call?”

“No, she had a different stop.”

“Was she cute?”

“I can’t really remember her at all. She might have had blond hair.”

“Maybe if we hypnotized you, you could remember everything. You could remember the cute blond girl you sat next to on the school bus.”

“You’re teasing me.”

“Just a little bit. Don’t worry, I won’t turn you into a chicken. But I am sorry you can’t remember things better. You shouldn’t let it make you sad. It’s not like you can’t remember important stuff. Like all the times we’ve made love.”

I caressed Laura’s arm.

“What? You can’t remember each and every time? Do you remember the first time?”

“Uh huh.”

“And the last?”

Instead of answering her, I rolled on top of her. Her legs went around me. My cock sank fully into her cunt.

“Oh!” she gasped. “Oh. Oh. Oh-Lee Oh-Lee Ooo-Hoo.”

“Oh-Lee Oh-Lee Ooo-Hoo,” I answered.

It was a memorable fuck, one I will never forget. By the time we were done, it was dark. “What if I make chicken?” Laura said. And we laughed. And it turned out we weren’t done after all.