Tuesday, December 9, 2008

A gift of love - act 2

The berry field was dark and filled with drunken teens, two of them being one half of the best romance in a fictional world.

Ned Bryant had brought a stereo and two speakers that boomed triumphantly the sounds of Tupac, NWA and Metallica. He was a tall boy, handsome with defiant brown eyes and long black hair the colour of crow feathers. Most girls thought he was too difficult to like, even to love because he would challenge anyone on anything. Most teen girls like boys who didn’t think too much, who wanted a lot and who drank more than they talked. That was Surrey for ya.

But Margaret and Stacy loved hanging out with Ned because he was not bothered by their lesbian lives and because he was so challenging. He would ask how come lesbians said they hated penis and then used dildos shaped like a penis.

Stacy would answer that she liked a penis that was neon blue and until she met a man that had that particular colour she would stay a woman-wanter.

“But I have a magnificent dick!” said Ned.

“But it’s your balls that are blue my dear,” quipped Stacy.

Margaret kept looking at Ned and wondering why on earth he wanted to sleep with a lesbian so badly? He certainly was not an ugly boy by any standards and there must be a girl who would easily slip off the cotton between her thighs for a trip down prom memory making lane. Her eyes kept searching him for a physical clue to his mental make up and all that she could discover without words was that he was a curious fucker.

“What is the deal Ned?” asked Margaret.

“I love this song…”

“No, what is the deal with you? You always argue about nothing like you are fighting someone else who is long dead.”

“Shut-the-fuck-up,” said Ned, his head now searching the fields.

The music had seemed to become louder and it felt to Margaret that Stacy had been gone for too long. Yet her attention remained on Ned, his boyish charm heightening a certain curiosity in herself that she seemed to have missed somewhere.

As he began to swing his head to ‘Off to Never Neverland’ she could see the raw power in his physique. His body moved like a mad accordionist drunk on the power of carnival lore, tempting the clowns, public and bears to stop what they were doing and fall in love with the tune he was playing. Enter night, enter love. Somehow, Margaret fell off to never neverland and she was not sure just why she was there.

What she understood was “Shut-the-fuck-up”, in all its ridiculousness, became a sort of call to inebriated lust. It was everything she had wanted to say to her mother but hadn’t. It was everything she had wanted to say to Stacy when she was under her in the bedroom. It was everything she wanted to believe in. And it came from this boy whose face had never worn a moustache.

Ned handed her another bottle of beer and she chugged it back hard, leaving little to remember.

“You know Margaret I always thought you were alright for a dyke,” said Ned. “I mean, I’d do you. And not just because of the challenge but because you don’t where army boots and don’t listen to Ani DeFanco and you don’t smell like months old cheese. You have a lot of don’ts for a dyke.”

Margaret kept throwing back the beer. A lot of don’ts for a lesbian angered her. She would and could do as good as any straight girl if given half the chance, and feeling colder, moved to sit on the pick up back door and sat beside Ned staring at him, smiling.

“Really, really look great,” said Ned.

Margaret didn’t feel anxious around Ned. She liked his smell of teenage male shamelessness – a stirring desperate mixture of Aqua Velva and sweat. She leaned on him.

A few moments passed and then Ned began to run his palm against her back. The strength of that motion made her weak and she felt that she was to let go. But she held on tight not wanting to give in. What was she doing?

“It’s ok, if you don’t want to?”

Margaret began to think of what did she not want to? Did he actually believe there was light at then end of this love tunnel?

But his hand kept pursuing and whether it was the alcohol or the dim light she was not able to see nor could she muster up the defense necessary to block off his moves. So for some unknown reason to her she went with it.

Kissing Ned was like being held to a vice, the squeeze hurt. The music was blaring behind her but this new thing was making her deaf. The whole world around her seemed to have been muted and her senses seemed to have piled in her lips, feeling only Ned and his worthless teenage lips. Out of curiosity or out of sympathy, she wanted it to continue like with one simple kiss the world was turned in to her world and she was god.

“It’s ok if you don’t want to” was in chorus with “Shut-the-fuck-up” and as his hands felt there way in to her pants she “Shut-the-fuck-up” because it was “ok if you don’t want to” but she did want to, dearly try what she had never tried.

As the pacing of their searching picked up the lights turned off, the music went mute and the night ended.


The noon sun glared on the back of the truck. Margaret awoke in a pool of beer cans and cigarette ash and she was not certain where she was until she looked up to see the squished berries and sunken footprints in the muddy field. She felt like shit.

It her like a winter gust, she had slept with Ned Bryant that night. It was not the way she had pictured the first time having lesbian sex. In that it wasn’t took some time to register and the horror of that realisation made her wince so hard her face felt like it would eat itself without the help of the mouth, having done quite enough already, thank you very much.

“Here you’ll be needing these,” said a female voice as wayward panties made their way back home.

It was Stacy and the look in her eyes could not have even begun to describe the hurt that she felt. She walked Margaret back to her car and said nothing. She did not even look at Margaret.

When she dropped her off at Margaret’s home, she used no words to say goodbye, the peeling of her tires said enough.

Entering her home, Margaret’s face was dry as if somehow a hurricane of emotion had veered off course but there was no one left to witness the good turn of fortunes. It was an empty feeling.

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