Out of Whack (26 page)

       “What about us just being friends?”

       “Friends are allowed to kiss. I’m not trying to pressure you, Seth—whatever you want is fine. But I’d make a good teacher.”

       Let the school bells ring!

       “Would you like to kiss me?” she asked, gently.

       OOOOOHHHHH YES YES YES YES YESSSSSSS!!! OH, GOD, YES!!! I WANT TO KISS YOU SO BADLY I CAN’T STAND IT!!!

       “Yeah,” I replied.

       She put her arms around me. “Are you sure?”

       “Yeah,” I repeated, my voice suddenly rising an octave.

       And then we slowly leaned toward each other. She closed her eyes. I closed my own eyes, re-opened them for a second to make sure I was still moving in the right direction, and closed them again.

       Our lips met.

      
Ka-boom!

       These weren’t just fireworks, this was a nuclear warhead capable of spraying enough radiation to wipe out the population of Europe! I thought my feet were going to curl up like the Wicked Witch of the East after Dorothy’s house dropped on her.

       And I was kissing
well!
I mean, my lips were where they were supposed to be, they weren’t engulfing her nose or sliding off her chin or anything. I didn’t appear to be forming any unsightly spit bubbles, and I hadn’t accidentally knocked my teeth into hers.

       So, we had her physical appearance, that “thingie,” her personality, and now her kiss causing me to be madly in love with her. This was getting serious.

       We broke the kiss.

       For about a quarter of a second, and that was just to snatch a quick breath. We locked our mouths again and wiped out the entire southern hemisphere.

       Her tongue slid over my lower lip. I didn’t let myself get too excited. Maybe she kissed all of her friends that way. She moaned softly, which could also have been typical behavior.

       Kiss, kiss, kiss.

       We’d been at it for at least a minute, and now I had it on reasonably good authority that this was no longer a kiss between friends. As I put my arms around her waist, she slipped her tongue all the way into my mouth. I’m sure her tongue had to be connected to her own body somewhere, but for a moment I was almost fooled.

       Our kissing grew more passionate.

       Then a horrible vision ripped through my mind. Six little girls, standing in formation, chanting “Seth and Laura, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.” I don’t know where this thought came from, but I couldn’t get rid of it, no matter how well Laura’s tongue probed. It was incredibly distracting.

       Kiss, kiss, kiss.

       “First comes love, second comes marriage, third comes the baby in a baby carriage.”

       Damn it, where was this coming from? Why couldn’t I have a normal brain like anyone else?

       Kiss, kiss, kiss.

       And then my mental situation grew worse as fast food jingles started sounding in my head. I tried kissing Laura harder to get rid of them, but they remained, taunting me.

       Laura pulled away, panting.

       “That was incredible!” she gasped. “If that whole first kiss thing was just a ruse to get my defenses down, I’m going to kick your ass!”

       “So, I did all right?” I asked. I knew I had, but you’ve gotta hunt down those ego strokes wherever you can.

       “Seth Trexler, you don’t need lessons from anyone! God, I feel like I’m glowing!”

       Maybe the radiation thing wasn’t just a metaphor.

       “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” I said, trying to sound all masculine, even though my dangerously rapid heartbeat probably made me sound like one of the Chipmunks.

       “Was it as good for you as it was for me?” Laura asked, smiling.

       “Ooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah,” I said.

       “I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve kissed a lot of guys. And you...you were in the top third, believe me.”

       I started to chuckle, but then I realized that she wasn’t joking. Okay, well, top third was darn good for my first attempt. Maybe once I got my gums involved my ranking would go up.

       “I need to ask you something,” I said. “Where does this leave us?”

       “It leaves me wanting to kiss you some more. Is that okay?”

       Yeah, it was.       

“I’m Feelin’ GOOD!”

       Cue happy music.

       No, no, the
really
happy music!

       Oh, yeah, that’s it! Got a bounce in my step, got a beat in my heart, got a tingle in my tummy, gonna dance my way home!

       Do do do da, ba do do do!

       Yeah!

       Hey, little birdies, are you singin’ for me? Are you chirpin’ and a-cheepin’ and a-callin’ for me? Are you singin’ of love, are you singin’ of glee? Hey, little birdies, are you singin’ for me?

       Ba da da da da, and a la la la!

       Hey, little squirrel, why you lookin’ sad? Hey, little squirrel, you should be lookin’ glad! ‘Cause in this world, ain’t nothin’ bad. It’s all good good good, so be glad glad glad!

       Yeah!

* * *

       I walked through the bright, glorious, sunshine-filled evening, each step a testament to all that is right with life. Everything was wonderful! Flowers were wonderful! Dew was wonderful! Lung cancer was wonderful! Oh, God, thank you for making lung cancer, because everything is wonderful!

       I could still feel Laura’s sweet kisses on my lips. If a mirror were nearby, I could probably still see the imprint her mouth had left upon mine.

       I was going to give all my worldly possessions to charity!

       Oh, what a beautiful evening! I’d kissed the woman of my dreams for fifteen minutes, until her roommate walked in with her shocked parents. And Laura said she’d call me tomorrow, after her classes were over.

       I was in…

       LOVE!!!

       Like never before!

       “Hi,” I said to a total stranger walking by. “Isn’t the sun beautiful today?”

       “It’s dark out,” said the stranger. “Give me some of whatever you’re on and I won’t beat the shit out of you for bugging me.”

       “I’m on one-hundred percent pure and uncut love! And have all you want—it’s free and out there for the taking!”

       “No, really,” said the stranger. “Share some of the stuff you’re on. I must be getting the cheap stuff.”

       I looked at my watch. “Gotta go! Need to get some sleep, so I can dream of the woman that fills my heart with joy!”

       I hurried back to my dorm. My feet may have touched the ground once or twice.

       “Hi, Travis, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal,” I sang upon entering our room. “I love this room! You know, we’ve got a palace here and we don’t even know it.”

       “Oh my God! You got laid!”

       “No, no, my friend, but we kissed with a passion reserved for the angels in heaven.”

       Travis frowned. “One doesn’t generally associate angels with the act of passionate kissing.”

       “Well, you get the idea. We kissed, Travis! Lots!” I sat down and began chair dancing.

       “That’s great! Did you have to use restraints?”

       “No restraints. No handcuffs, no rope, no whack on the head with a club, just my lips and hers tangled in a grip of love! Finally we’re getting along like peas and carrots, instead of filet mignon and week-old grits that the dog slept on!”

       “I’m thrilled, buddy! So what happened to her concerns about Out of Whack?”

       I puckered up my lips at him. “The love tools changed her mind. One kiss from the suction king and the women lose contact with their priorities.”

       “Wow, and I thought she was going to beat you up tonight. So, Out of Whack is going well, you and Laura are in love, my rash is clearing up...everything’s perfect!”

       My chair collapsed, dropping me on the floor. This jolt knocked the light bulb out of the socket, and the room was cast into darkness.

       “It’s close, anyway,” said Travis.

* * *

       I dreamt of fluffy clouds and rainbows.

* * *

       I woke up with an awful toothache. I didn’t know what it was from—Laura’s tongue bashing it around, perhaps?—but the pain was unbearable and I called the nearest dentist at nine in the morning for an appointment.

       “If you come right in, we can see you,” the receptionist told me.

       I came right in and sat happily in the waiting room for an hour and a half. I hummed a merry tune as I read the six year-old fashion magazines. I smiled knowingly as I listened to the dentist speaking to a young boy: “Listen, Charlie, I’m not going to ask you again to open your mouth. See this drill? This drill goes through teeth. That means your cheeks won’t put up much resistance, if you understand what I’m saying.”

       When the dentist finally called me in, I skipped cheerfully into the room and had a seat on the chair.

       The dentist tapped my cheek. “Does this hurt?”

       I nodded with a smile.

       “Say ahhh.”

       I said “ahhh,” putting all the love I could into that word.

       The dentist poked around for a while. “You’ve got a huge cavity,” he informed me. “I’m going to have to drill.”

       “That’ll be swell!” I grinned.

       He ended up filling three cavities, and the Novocain wore off before he was finished, but hey, life was wonderful!

* * *

       I smiled and said “Hi” to the other customers as I waited in the twelve-person line at the convenience store. I managed to whistle five of my favorite songs before I got to the point where only one person was in front of me, an old lady purchasing some soap, eggs, toilet paper, paper sacks, and a lighter.

       “That’ll be six dollars and ninety-seven cents,” the clerk told her.

       The old lady slowly dug through her purse. About two minutes later she finally located a ten-dollar bill and set it on the table. “Hold on a moment...I think I’ve got the ninety seven cents...”

       I drummed my fingers along the counter to the pitter-patter of my loving heart.

       “Five...six...seven... eight... nine... ten... fifteen... twenty... twenty-one... twenty-two.. twenty-three... no, wait, I miscounted... five... six... seven... eight... ummm... five...”

       Life just doesn’t get better than this.

* * *

       “Will you please quit humming?” snarled Travis. “I let you hum at the top of your lungs for the first half hour because you’re in love, and for the second half hour because we’re best friends, but now I want you to shut the hell up!”

       “Oh, now, you don’t really mean that, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal.”

       “Do you think Laura will want to kiss you again if you’ve got a pencil sticking out of your forehead?” asked Travis, waving his pencil at me in a threatening manner.

       “You’re such a little kidder.”

       Travis broke the pencil in half. “Do me a huge favor and go migrate somewhere.”

       “I think we’re going to be friends forever and ever. What do you think?”

       The phone rang.

       “IT’S FOR ME!!! I’LL GET IT!!!” I shouted, diving for the phone. Travis rolled his eyes and went back to his homework.

       “Hello?”

       “Seth?”

       “Hi, Laura. How were your classes?”

       “I should have studied more for my math quiz. There were a couple I’m not sure I got right.”

       That reminded me of a certain 25%-of-my-final-grade exam in the American History class I’d neglected to attend today. Oh well. It wasn’t like I needed to know anything about history to keep my love alive.

       “What’d you get, a B+?”

       “Of course not. I know I got an A, but there’s no excuse to miss any questions in something like math. In classes where the teacher’s personal taste is an issue, well, you aren’t going to give the answer they want all the time, but in math you can’t miss.”

       “So, would you like to get together?” I asked.

       “Yes!” Travis shouted, trying to be heard by Laura. “Get him out of here!”

       “Let’s meet at the student union,” said Laura. “I think we need to talk.”

       My heart fell. “I think we need to talk” was not the kind of thing I wanted to hear from her. “I think we need to talk” is the same as “I think last night was a terrible mistake and should never happen again” with more suspense.