earthgirl (15 page)

“No, more than that,” he said. “Almost like you're the other half of me, if that even makes sense.”

I took a deep breath and held myself steady. It was almost more than I could bear, hearing him say the very things I was feeling. Saying the words that made those very feelings true.

Absolutely, totally, completely true.

•••

That night, in his bed, in the dark, we did things I'd never done before. Things I'd only read about or talked about or imagined. It was totally unexpected when he unspooned himself from me and with his good arm nudged my body toward him and started tracing and touching me in ways I'd never been touched. With his fingers and his toes, his eyelashes and his mouth, his hands and his heart. He whispered things and sighed and asked and explained. And I did the same in return.

It was calm and intense. Quiet and yet cacophonous like a sudden thunderstorm tearing through a humid summer night and then suddenly gone as quickly as it appeared.

Because of his limited mobility and my anxiety that I'd hurt him, we weren't totally intimate, but I have to say it was still extremely intimate. It wasn't everything, but it was almost more.

And afterwards, even though I didn't sleep a second, as I watched him lie there supported by a stack of pillows, breathing noisily, I'd never felt more awake in my life.

Everything was amazing. The jagged outline of frost on the edges of the window. The sour-sweet heat of his breath
on my neck and shoulder. Even the way he sprawled diagonally across the bed, barely giving me any room or sharing the duvet was wonderful.

“How's you?” he asked sleepily as the gray morning light filled the room.

“Fine. Pretty tired, but amazingly fine,” I said, turning my head and covering my mouth to spare him my jungle breath. “How are you? Is your shoulder okay?”

“No, it sucks,” he half laughed, reaching past the untouched toy box for another painkiller and a sip of water.

“Watch it with those things,” I cautioned. “They're pretty powerful.”

“I know,” he said, his eyes widening a bit. “I had the wildest dream. All this soft gorgeous naked skin and hair and wow. It was so real, it's getting me all, um, you know, just thinking about it.” He didn't have to explain himself since it was quite obvious as he got up from the bed and tottered slowly to the bathroom.

“I had the same dream, too,” I called softly behind him. “Funny thing is I wasn't asleep.”

When he returned he handed me the glass of water he'd refilled and climbed back in beside me. I took a long cold sip, amazed that I could be lying here on the duvet-covered bed of this messy, stinky boy room beside such an amazing creature.

“It's funny. You know so much about me, and I sometimes feel like I barely know anything about you,” I said. “I mean, do I even know your real name.”

“Sure you do. I told you that day we met.”

“No, your real, real name.”

“I don't have a name or a label or a barcode,” he sighed, leaning forward to kiss me again. “I only have this mind and this body and this amazing moment right now with you.”

Then there was another kiss. A warm, wet, sloppy, untoothbrushed hypnotic kiss. Anything else he said at that point was like the roar of a jet overhead. The breathless crashing of the ocean against a rocky beach. An epic, supernatural, sonic swoosh. And a warm, completely comfortable and safe feeling like the greatest hug on earth.

Love and kisses were the absolutely best thing ever! Better than fresh raspberries. Better than just-baked chocolate chip cookies. Maybe even better than fresh air and wild dolphins and blue-black starry nights and snow-covered mountains.

Or at the very least just as great!

Yup, even if the world was in crisis, choking and struggling amidst the crap we were foisting on it, this moment was transcendent.

Because where there's love, there's hope. And that made me certain there was something we could do. Had to do.

After two seriously long days and nights of no sleep, I was severely exhausted and a tad grumpy. This despite the extreme dreamy bliss of Vray's companionship and cuddle-ship. With my few awake and operational brain cells, I realized I had to get home and into my own bed for some major-league zzzzz's. And rather soonish, too.

Part of me wanted to stay at Vray's for every single solitary second possible. I even flirted with the idea of calling in sick for one of my co-op shifts to snuggle for a few more hours. Who could blame me, really? I'd never ever shared a bed with a boy before, so even if it left me sleep deprived and punchy, it seemed worth the sacrifice.

Another part of me could barely think or sit up or consider another trip up and down the three flights of stairs between his room and the kitchen. Then there was the annoying fact that after our first night together, it seemed like we were never alone again.

I don't even remember Vray inviting them, but it seemed like Finn and Eric were at his house for the entire time, too, practically inhaling every last crumb of food that Aunt Martha had thoughtfully left in the fridge.

Don't get me wrong. I was happy to be with my guy, even if I did have to share him. And at times it was very exciting, not to mention enlightening, to be around such feisty and politicized guys. But it was also incredibly tiring. For socially conscious world-aware green-beings, there sure was a whole lot of boy energy hogging the room. Not to mention hogging my boy's attention.

Like when they spent what seemed like three hours riffing on possible song lyrics and potential fantasy gigs for O-Zone.

“Definitely Linkin Park,” Vray announced. “We open for them, we're set for life.”

“As long as it's not on the downslide or some lame reunion tour,” Eric scoffed. “We gotta make it happen soon.”

“Yeah,” Finn agreed, looking soulful and moony like he could actually see them on stage in front of that many people at some point in the near (let alone far) future.

Maybe I was missing something, but I found it hard to even imagine a full club of people coming to see them for a free gig. But if you're going to have dreams, they may as well be big, right?

“Me, I'd bring back that vulvapalooza tour,” Eric said. “All the little hotties with those low back tattoos. Yum, it would be like a buffet.”

“It's called the Lilith Fair and the point of those concerts was to showcase female artists,” I said.

“Exactly, and times are a-changing with babes or babe-fronted groups all over the charts, so if they did a retro-tour,
they should put a trip like us on the bill to help us break large,” Eric answered. “We should write a song about it – a protest song demanding equality.”

Sometime during this particularly infantile conversation, it was also decided that even if they couldn't find a sub, the Christmas Eve gig would go ahead minus Vray's guitar. Even though I could hardly picture Vray tearing up the stage in a sling, it somehow seemed like the sanest thing they had actually said in hours.

I was hoping the guys might decide to leave after that so we could be alone again, but no such luck.

After the exhaustive and exhausting discussion about their musical delusions and aspirations, they spent something like three days debating the merits of tree planting in northern Ontario and Quebec versus heading out to British Columbia. At one point Eric raved about Bella Coola and Bella Bella, where some guy he'd met at a logging protest ran a crew.

“The dude was a major highballer so he always gets the run of the cream,” Eric waxed on.

“Hello?” I waved. “Tree-planting virgin here. Same language, please?”

“So there are virgins in the room,” Eric smirked. “As suspected.”

I pretended I didn't hear him. Or care. And tried to will myself to not turn pink.

“He means the guy planted the most trees at the camp so he gets a nice clean block of land to plant,” Finn explained when Eric stopped yammering long enough to take a gulp of beer.

I definitely preferred Finn to Eric, who was a bit raw and a lot rude. Not that it mattered since my taste was for Vray Foret and he was already on my menu and hopefully daily diet!

If Vray hadn't been mangled and medicated, I might have been miffed he didn't steer his buddies to include me more. Not that I needed him to stand up for me, but just to point out that I was there and important to him. Clearly I'd have to force the issue or suck it up. And since fatigue was the deciding factor, I closed my eyes, tuned them out and tried to have a mini-disco nap against Vray's uninjured shoulder.

It didn't exactly work. It was “Bella this” and “Bella that,” followed by “slashes and stashes and screefs and duffs.” At one point I thought they were making up words just to confuse me until I later checked the map and realized the two Bellas actually did exist. And treeplanters do have their own vernacular.

It was already dark outside and yet Eric and Finn showed no signs of having anywhere else to go. Didn't they have other friends? Or families?

I tried to stay Zen and relaxed. I didn't want Vray to think I was jealous and possessive. Or that I didn't adore hanging with his buddies as much as he seemed to.

So I ate lentil soup and crackers while they spent what seemed like the next three weeks arguing about the proliferation of “agroceuticals and genetically modified crops” that were going to leave subsequent generations with extra limbs and strange stupid superpowers like the ability to lick your own earlobes.

It was downright random and ridiculous at times. Sure they cussed and swore for a minute when Vray told them about being run off the road, but they didn't seem remotely interested in an intelligent discussion about how we could protest or possibly even retaliate despite my best efforts.

“We should join the Cycling Committee to demand more bike lanes,” I suggested.

“Get a load of Sabine,” Eric said. “Five hits on her YouTube bitchslap and she's the authority on activism.”

“I never said that,” I answered, wondering why my boyfriend wasn't defending me and hoping it was just him being tired and injured. “I just don't think we can assume things will happen without making some noise.”

“Slashing tires is more effective,” Vray said, mussing up my hair with his good arm. “And I happened to enjoy the bitchslap.”

“I'm serious,” I continued, wondering if that was his version of standing up for me. “They have those Critical Mass rides once a month to promote bikes. You know, hordes of people on bikes slowing down traffic, forcing the cars to make room for us. To notice and acknowledge our rights.”

“If you were really serious, you'd carry a knife,” Eric said. “Swiss Army does the trick, and it has a nifty corkscrew.”

“Plain old nails work, too,” Finn laughed. “Cause a nice slow debilitating leak that doesn't always get noticed right away.”

I let out a loud sigh and sank back into the couch. It was exhausting trying to make my point. Plus I was very, very sleepy. And didn't want to risk exhaustion making me sick.
Not with the holidays stretched out in front of me. And the possibility of Vray stretched out beside me to boot!

So, after a long, luxuriating smooch (set to the sound-track of Finn's whoops and Eric's groans), I set off to my boring empty house.

e a r t h g i r l
[ Dec. 22nd | 07:21pm ]
[ mood | exhausted/angry/frustrated ]
[ music | battleflag — lo fidelity allstars + dead machines ]

The personal is definitely, positively the political! And the political is sometimes very, very personal. Especially when your innocent, lovely, beloved boyfriend gets run down by a crazed S-U-X!!!

The result? His broken collarbone and my broken heart. Fortunately, our spirits are intact. But just barely.

Which leads me to the most excellent anarchist artists known as Action Terroriste Socialement Acceptable — which translates roughly to activist artists making socially acceptable commentaries, but in French is more poetic bien sur (of course).

Attack #9: Oil Kills is a burned out, wrecked and wretched SUV put in public spaces to comment on stupidhead love affairs with stupidhead truckcars.

Eerie. Like they were bombed. Or mangled. And torched. Destroyed in response to their destructiveness. I so totally
get their art. It almost makes me feel queasy. In a good uneasy, queasy way!

link                                                                                           read 5 | post
www.atsa.qc.ca

altalake 12-22 23:58
So the other day – inspired by you earthgirl – I googled Hummer and these stellar rogue culturejammers pop up. Much hilarity ensues especially from the stupid ass defenses of the fat-arsed people who drive them and can never find a big enuf spot to park them. Like we care? www.fuh2.com

lacklusterlulu 12-23 09:40
according to the WTO, there are over one billion overweight people in the world. 30% of americans are considered too fat. and each extra pound in cars uses up more than 39 MILLION extra gallons of gas. Junk in the Trunk indeed.
I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!

earthbound01 12.23 14:31
Isnt Hummer a word for Hard-on? Or is that supposed to be the point? Limp dicks drive ‘em cuz its the best they can do? Talk about auto-erotica!

MachFhive 12-20 0:03
U skinny leaf eating freeks are jealous u don't have muslces and money. admit it. SUCKAHS.

Whoever thought being with the band was a nonstop thrill-filled glamfest has obviously never been a roadie. Even for one piddly trip between car and venue, and by my count it was seventeen grueling trips each way for this, that and whatever. And with the other guys acting all rockstar, it felt like I was the one doing most of the grunting and hauling.