Chapter 3

Steve looked down at where she lay half conscious, still impaled on his cock. "Hey honey, I think you're getting to like it at long last!"

Without opening her eyes, she said "Asshole", then "Shutup and fuck".

"Honey your wish is my command," and he began to slide in and out once more.

"That was amazing," she says, "I never knew it could be so good."

He thinks of all the dreary times he's made love to his wife, running through that script from duty, a final unwanted spasm of pleasure for reward. It'd never felt so good for him either, and of course, he thinks, it's just a dream. His best sex is in a dream. To say something, he says, "Well, you're young. You can't've" then he flushes and stops.

She chuckles, "Can't've been screwed that many times?" She bites his nipple lightly, "If only you knew."

A car roars on the highway. Its lights hit the trees on the hill behind the far bank. Individual trees flash into focus, then the headlights move on and the woods return to a dark blur.

"You know," she says, her toe still idly slipping along his scrape, "This is the same stream that flows through town and along the edge of the cemetery. This water," she gave it a kick, "Might've been there this morning. You could like get up and splash home."

He has a vision of himself climbing up the slope into the cemetery, walking naked past the sleeping graves, past the sleeping residential houses with their waking decorations, into his house and up the stairs and then standing silent, looking down at his sleeping self and dog.

Her hand touches his cock where it floats in the dark creek water. "That last time was almost good enough," she says as he stiffens, "Let's try again."

She swings herself over him, water splashes and drips. She bends and kisses him. His hands grip her firm narrow waist. Her fingers position him and she slips herself down as his erection rises up within her. This time he lets her do everything, looking up, admiring her soft beautiful face, it still possesses the smooth gleaming bloom of youth.

He admires the straining muscles of her thighs, the lines of tendons that tighten and stretch as she slides up and down him, he admires the ripples that spread in the water, the slight splashes. He admires the sway of her breasts, he lifts a hand and feels them bob against it. He watches her collarbone how it stands out against her elastic flesh, how her throat moves as she gasps for breath. He feels her hands grip his shoulders, watches the muscles move in her arms as she pulls against him. He watches her face flashing into view as her hair swings back and forth. Her eyes are clinched tight.

He feels the excitement in his cock, in his balls. It's a pleasant and undemanding sensation. There is no sign of a climax, nor does he want one, this dream could go on forever.

She pauses, the tip of his cock all that's within her. Her fingers dip into the water and then slide along him, from his balls to where he vanishes within her. The sensation is intense and he pushes his hips up. He slides his hands along her waist and back over her belling bottom, feeling how tense and smooth and slick her skin is. He slides his hands up her sides to her face and pulls her down and kisses her. She bites his lips hungrily then begins working herself up and down his length again.

After a delicious time she pauses, chuckles ruefully at some thought that is opaque to him, sighs, bends and kisses him and he woke, alone in the dark, filled with need. This time he did get heavily out of bed and stumbled down the dark empty hall to the bathroom and sat on the toilet and masturbated. It wasn't long before his whole body seemed to clinch tight and his cock experienced a brief painful pinch of pleasure as it spasmed into the toilet paper. Spent, he noticed the thin scrape along his calf where in the dream the submerged branch had snagged him.

She opened her eyes, looking up at the bridge. "It's not going to work out," she sighed.

"Nonsense, honey," Steve murmured, sated and half asleep. "We're our class's most successful couple. We've been together 35 years. All the other guy's've split up and remarried dozens of times."

"Asshole," she said.

He woke feeling tired and heavy. He stared at the ceiling trying to remember the dreams. He thought if he could, he'd be energized and happy. All he could call up was drums and music and the substanceless memory of the sensation of sex and the dark weed choked stream and a painfully sharp image of the girl, standing naked in the water.

Dart wriggled under the covers and pushed her nose into his side and scratched him with an eager forepaw. Once he was awake, she wanted action.

Their morning walk was drizzly and thankfully uneventful. He took her along deserted residential streets. The only sign of life was a dog in one of the houses they passed, standing at a window and barking out at them, scrabbling at the glass.

After breakfast he stared without enthusiasm out the window at his car in the driveway. He started up his laptop and sent email to his group, the subject line a single word, "WAH", the body empty.

Shortly he got email back, "Hey man," it read, "Get your ass in here and make the coffee! I'm thirsty."

He smiled slightly and sent in reply, "Funny, I was just gonna ask you to get off your own rear and drive over with a cup for me. That office coffee is soo good."

After a couple hours he realized it was no good. All he could think of was the girl, how she looked with mist curling between bare legs, how her hand'd felt when she'd handed him his change, the sound of her voice in the dawn light. His fingers rested still on the keyboard.

He put Dart on her leash and they went out and got in the car. As soon as they were moving she scratched eagerly at the passenger window and he lowered it and locked it halfway down. She thrust her face and shoulders out and her ears blew in the wind. She sat back on the seat when they got on I-70 and the breeze reached hurricane force.

One exit down, he got off, turned left and then got back on the other way. After about a mile the interstate passed through a broad stretch of swamp. He pulled onto the shoulder just before the bridge. He'd often noticed where the highway went over the creek and'd pointed out to his boys certain landmarks on the far side which confirmed it to be their favorite bridge. He'd of course never stopped before.

He lifted himself over into the passenger seat and he and Dart got out. A truck roared past, its fierce breath nearly knocked him off his feet.

Before him a dirt path led down. He stepped onto it, the bridge's guardrail started just to his left. It was made of heavily dented rusted steel and cement.

The sun had come out and the shadows were hard and sharp.

Brambles rose on either side of the path. Its dirt was slick and the stones that stuck up through it black and glistening. It veered around a boulder and then back and around to the bridge. Dart nearly jerked him off his feet in her eagerness to get her nose into the bushes.

Right under the bridge was a cement shelf, deep in dirty shadow. The steel beams of the bridge understructure a mere 5 feet above it. A car roared and then in the silence he could hear the coo of doves. The shelf was splattered with bird shit. An old torn mattress lay on the shelf with a ratty sleeping bag piled at its foot. The rush of traffic, the smell of diesel exhaust and oil, mixed with his headache, gave everything he saw an unreal tint.

The brambles below the shelf were thick with discarded beer cans. He worked his way awkwardly the rest of the way down to the stream. It all looked familiar from when he'd approached in the canoe, in the dimness under the bridge he recognized where he'd splashed and struggled.

The path worked along the creek. He guessed it was kept clear by fishermen. Dart crackled and thrashed through the reeds, threatening to tangle the flexi-leash. He reeled her in with annoyance. After a few yards the path ended by the stream. He felt faint, overcome by the memory of her standing there, one hand before her sex, the other pushing her brown hair back, her breasts firm and lifted. Her eyes deep with invitation. The memory burned so vivid, he all but stepped into the water.

After a moment he bent and put his hand in the brown stream. It was cold, not like he remembered from the dream. Then he remembered how in the dream the feel had been both warm and chill

He looked at his dog and said "Shit". She was deep in the muck, eager to mix it up with imagined water rats. Her white and brown fur had become a filthy tarry color.

He slipped and stumbled up the path. Reaching the shoulder he stared dumbfounded. No car.

He had a brief thought that it'd been towed by some hyper-zealous abandoned-car crew, then he looked along the bridge and saw it rolling close to the railing, left wheels over the line into the slow lane.

A car whizzing up from behind him angrily blew its horn and angled into the left lane. Another car behind it frantically blew its horn.

He ran, desperately keeping the leash short, scared that Dart would exuberantly veer into traffic. He caught up to the car just as it reached the other side of the bridge and started to turn onto the shoulder clearly ready to roll down into the swamp. He yanked the door open and tumbled in and slammed the brake and sat panting.

Dart piled in, getting stinking mud everywhere.

The car was in neutral and the brake released. He knew he'd left it in park and he thought he'd set the parking brake. He could remember the motion of pushing it with his foot.

He shook his head and started the car and headed home, the smell of the swamp, courtesy of Dart, all around him.

Towards five he drove dogless to the convenience store. Evening was approaching, the sun hung low along Main St, making his left turn difficult. It was still warm, in the 70s. He sat heavily in the parking lot for a few moments, the car getting hot. At last he got out and went in.

The girl stood behind the counter at the cash register. The glass case on the counter beside her displayed lottery tickets. Rows of cigarettes lined the shelves behind her, just above a sign that said, "Ask about Playboy and Penthouse". The sign was low so that a child standing at the counter might not see it. Along the counter were prominent displays of prepaid phones and mpeg players, and curious electric paraphernalia in hard clear plastic whose purposes he couldn't fathom.

He stood holding the glass door. It was as if he was seeing her in the stream, the current at her knees, her pale wet skin glistening.

If she hadn't said, "Hey, you coming or going?" he might well have run for it.

Not knowing what to buy, what he was doing there even, feeling awkward and stupid in her gaze, he stumbled in. This was so so stupid he thought. He saw himself as she must see him, an apparition her father's age, more than possibly crazed looking, whom she'd spoken to twice, once really. He stuck his hand into a freezer and came out with a quart of ice cream. He resolved to buy it, go home, and sleep.

"Hey," she said, "Good choice, Trick'r'Treat Surprise."

"What?" He looked at her vacantly. She pointed at the ice cream and he saw that that was the foul flavor in his hands.

"That'll be $4.99"

When he didn't say anything she said, "The ice cream, it's $4.99. You have to like pay. You look so funny, like you've seen a ghost." Then, "I get off in like 5 minutes."

He looked at her, her words seemed to slip by him like mist.

"Maybe we could do something when I get off?"

"Yes, yes, I would," he managed. He paused stupidly, then stepped toward the door.

"Hey, the $4.99"

Flushing again he paid and stumbled out.

He sat in his car waiting. His eyes felt hot and his head throbbed. He felt like his whole day had been a dream of her, that he'd last been awake when he was asleep in bed and'd seen her in his dreams.

When she stepped out of the glass doors and onto the walk by the store and onto the black asphalt and walked toward him, color seemed to drain from the world, her light slim form formed the focus of everything.

"Sheesh," she said looking in, "That's the most disgusting car interior I've ever seen. What'd you do, like spray it with mud? It's a good thing for you I feel like a walk, I'd never get in that car. But I've been cooped up in that place all afternoon and it's been getting nicer and nicer out. Come on. And look," she showed him two plastic spoons, "I am in the mood for Tricks'n'Treats. Bring it."

They crossed Main St and walked in through the cemetery gates. She seemed to relax a little.

It was really very pretty. The grass was bright green, the drive black asphalt, the paths gravel gray, the trees a mix of reds, yellows and the dark greens of the evergreens. The shadows from the trees and stones were long and sharp edged. Here and there bright chrysanthemums glowed in their pots.

He felt awkward and dazed.

"That guy's got a street named after him, Loveret St. Pretty sweet huh? And see that statue? Of the soldier guy with his rifle? That's the only statue in town. It's like the only public art we've got."

"And will you look at that?" she pointed to a stone which read:

Marsha O'Reilly, 1960-2005, If tears could build a stairway, And memory were a lane, I'd walk the path to heaven, To bring you home again.

"Come on, make's me so mad just to look at it," and she led him on to her grandfather's grave. She bent and pulled the little flag out of the ground, broke it over her knee and tossed it as far as she could.

stood and turned back, pulling at the leash to drag his dog

Next to her grandfather's marker stood a small stone that just read:

Gertrude Andenken 1954-1972

"That must be your aunt?" he asked, staring at the name, "The woman who was in the store before me yesterday, she must be your aunt too right? she said that..."

"Look," the girl said fiercely, "I so don't want to talk about it." She touched his arm, then stood on tiptoe. Looking down into her eyes he had no choice but to bend and kiss her. It was light and friendly. With her hand on his arm, she said, "Wanna lie with the shade?"

"What?" he asked.

"In the shade, I meant." Her tone was teasing in a way he didn't understand.

She pointed to the low rise on which stood four large oak trees. His dog often dragged him there because of its squirrel population's desperate need for predation. "We need to eat that ice cream."

They sat, he with his back against a tree trunk. She with her side against him. The ice cream open between them. He tried one bite. "That's awful."

"Really? I think its great."

As she ate they watched as a backhoe worked. It's rumble and whine made soft as a bee's humm by its distance. The rectangular hole was dark brown, the contrast sharp against the grass. Ripped apart roots ripped dangled within it.