Punk Like Me (12 page)

“Right,” I agreed. “It’s just a matter of degree, in a way.” Kerry pursed her lips and scrunched her brow in thought for a few seconds. “Okay, then, let’s just do it. We’re both grownups here, right?”

I shrugged casually. “Yeah, we are.”

Kerry put her hands on my waist, and I did the same. Slowly, she leaned in and kissed my cheek, and I in return kissed hers. “We’ve done

• 80 •

PUNK LIKE ME

that before, right?” she murmured softly, “so that wasn’t a big deal, right?”

“Oh, no, not so big at all,” I replied just as softly. With my Þ ngertips I gently brushed away the hair that drifted on to her face and tenderly kissed the very outside corner of her mouth.

Kerry reached for my face and did the same in return. We sat there for a bit simply tracing each other’s face, until the sound of a window being opened shocked us apart.

“Nina!” my mom called out, “it’s seven thirty.”

“Okay, Mom. Going now,” I called back up, and I heard the window slide shut again.

“Where were we?” I asked Kerry, as we put our hands on each other’s waists again.

“You were almost, but not quite, kissing me,” she answered with an impish grin.

“Right. Okay. Well, here we go,” I answered, and we leaned in closer to each other, only to stop, less than an inch away. “I can’t do this,” I said, shaking my head. “I want to, but I can’t.” My voice shook, my hands shook, my heart felt like it was about to ß y free from its bony cage and fall to its doom. It didn’t matter how logically, technically, we’d done it. Mechanically, it really was a whole ’nother thing.

Kerry reached up to touch my face. “It’s okay, Nina, really. Me too, baby,” she said in a shaking voice. “Me, too.” I caught her hands in my own and kissed them, then stood, pulling her up with me, and released one of her hands to dust off my back.

“Let’s get going?”

“Yeah, let’s,” she replied, dusting herself off, and we went out through the gate in the yard.

As we walked to her house, we linked our pinky Þ ngers and kept bumping our hips into one another, jostling each other a bit, and just smiling, and Þ nally, as we turned off onto the side street she lived on, walking in the middle of it as was our habit (and I don’t know why, but everyone I know does that on quiet streets), I stopped underneath a street lamp to speak.

“Kerry, I don’t know, this is like one of those stories people tell you about, where, like, the character tries pot for the Þ rst time and then becomes like that book
Go Ask Alice
or something, you know? There are some things that once you start, you know?” I poured out, confused

• 81 •

and scared.

Kerry turned to face me and put her hands on my shoulders.

“There are some things that once you start, Hopey,” and she came in a little closer to me, “you just can’t stop.” Her eyes glowed underneath that light, and as her face came closer to mine, they seemed to explode into a million green and blue crystals as a tightness built around my chest with want and my head with dread, and the next thing I knew, the softest skin I’d never felt until that moment touched my lips, and I closed my eyes to revel in the sensation. Somehow, I’d always known that it would feel like this, that it felt just like I’d always imagined I’d felt like to someone else.

I had a brief mental ß ash of the ocean, of storm-tossed eyes, but that disappeared quickly as I realized,
Oh my God I’m kissing a girl!

and I froze for a moment, but Kerry’s hands tightened on my shoulders, and my brain yelled, “Hey there, idiot,
do
something!” and I put my arms around her waist.

The kiss deepened, and as her mouth began to move under mine, I was right there with her, my mouth full with this soft, sweet sensation, and over and over again I kept thinking that this was the kiss I’d always dreamed of, that I’d never had (and I’d kissed a
lot
of boys by then)—

just so juicy and sensual and arousing, with all the overß owing promise of a ripe peach. At one point, the thought ß ashed through my head, “she kisses like me,” and then the thought was drowned in this overpowering ß ow.

We broke breathlessly apart after some unknown length of time, and I had one hand tangled in her hair, the other across her back, while both her hands had a Þ rm grip on my ass. We rested forehead to forehead, panting, easing down.

“Jesus, Nina.” Kerry looked into my eyes, with an amazed look on her face. “You kiss just like me!”

“Funny,” I said with a little growl, “I was thinking you kiss just like me,” and I drew her in again to repeat the experience. Lost in her lips again, I eased under her jacket and traced the curves of her ribs, her spine, the solidness of her hips, while she found her way along my ribs and back, then rested along my sides, thumbs gently easing along the lower curve of my breasts. My lips started making their way down her neck to that beautiful hollow I wanted to taste.

Hrrrooonnnkkk!

• 82 •

PUNK LIKE ME

That fucking car had to decide to come down in our direction on its way to wherever. Granted, we were standing in the middle of the street, lit up like a stage, but still, there was plenty of room, and the driver could’ve gone around us, right? Yeah, I thought so, too. Jealous bastard.

Still wrapped up in each other’s jackets, we snuggled into one another and Kerry tucked her head into my shoulder, lips barely brushing my neck.

“I love you, Hopeful,” she whispered with a kiss.

“Love you too, Magpie,” I whispered back, kissing her head.

By unspoken agreement, we separated and straightened ourselves up, linked hands and began to walk, or rather stumble, the remaining three blocks to her house.

Why stumble? Because you know we just had to keep stopping every couple of steps to make out again, and I was in such a daze, I couldn’t even tell you my name if you had asked it (which is probably the original reason why people need ID cards, to remind themselves, or at least, I’d like to think so), and I couldn’t even tell I was walking because I wasn’t aware that I had legs. You hear people tell you, and you read and see it everywhere all the time, “Oh, it was like ß oating on cloud nine,” and “It was the most romantic thing in the world,” and I always wanted to know what in the many levels of hell they were talking about.

I found out—they were wrong. This wasn’t like ß oating. This was gliding, whirling—this was being the magic center of the kaleidoscope, the stars, the wind, her mouth, her hands, all melting together into one gorgeously intricate whole.

We Þ nally got to her front gate—a low, whitewashed, ranch rail type thing—and Kerry pulled and I pushed until we were both halfway over that damn railing and we could hear it groan, whether in protest or encouragement, we never stopped to Þ nd out—we were way too busy.

A light snapped on in the neighbor’s front yard, and we froze in position.

My mouth, having Þ nally tasted that lovely little hollow, had been trailing down the path her open shirt provided (when, no, wait, how did that happen?), and under my hand was the incredibly resilient softness of her very female curve, with that wonderful hard little bud between my Þ ngertips.

• 83 •

Kerry had one leg wrapped over mine as I stood between hers, and had our hips been any closer, the fabric from our pants would have melded, and as it was, I’m sure they almost did. It was getting pretty damn hot down there. One of her hands had found its way down under my waistband and was squeezing its way along my butt—I guess she must have really liked my ass, and it’s not too bad of one if I do say so myself. The other seemed to have discovered the same thing mine had, and for the Þ rst time in my life, I actually felt something other than chaÞ ng or discomfort, and that something felt really good.

I lifted my head and Kerry looked me in the eye for a second, then down at her chest. “Your hand is on my boob, Hopeful,” she informed me with a sly grin.

I looked at my hand and its placement, down at myself, and back at Kerry. “Yours, too,” I informed her with a smile of my own. I stroked once gently, then removed my hand and straightened up, a little painfully, I might add. Bending over for so long is not comfortable.

Kerry stood with me and wiggled to stretch her back a bit. It had been her shoulders against the railing.

She grabbed my hand and put it back. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.” Kerry smiled and held her hand over mine. “I just wanted to make sure you noticed.”

“Trust me, I noticed,” I said, and caught her around with one arm.

“One more kiss, and I’ve got to get home,” I said, and bent my head again, but she put both hands on my chest and stopped me.

“Baby, how are you going to get home?” she asked distressfully.

“I’m just gonna walk, Kerry. It’s only a few blocks away.” Kerry shook her head. “No way. I don’t want you to walk alone, I’ll walk with you,” she insisted, and at that moment, her watch beeped.

“Fuck! Eight thirty!” she exclaimed. That had been the time she’d been asked to get home by. Not that it really mattered much to Kerry.

She knew no one was home because there were no lights on and no car in the driveway, and she said as much.

I looked around to verify for myself and nodded in agreement.

Then it hit me. Fuck! Eight thirty! We’d been making out for almost an hour. I’m sure my parents knew it didn’t take that long to walk four or Þ ve blocks. “Yeah, okay, I’ve got to run,” I agreed in a bit of a panic.

I was in deep, I mean very deep shit, and I had no idea what to tell my parents if they decided to ask me where I’d been and what I’d been doing for the past hour.

• 84 •

PUNK LIKE ME

“Well, you see, Mom and Dad, um, Kerry and I were, um, performing some technical experiments, oh, in the middle of the street, and then we performed a few more in front of her house.” Or how about “Mom, Dad, I’m going through some sort of identity crisis, and Kerry here was trying to help me out.” Or even better, “Ah, Mom?

Dad? I think I’m a
homosexual
, so tomorrow, after you kick me out of the house, I’m going to join the local devil-worshipping cult, shave my head, join a rock band, and then get lost in a drug-induced, alcoholic haze, ’kay?”

“Grounded, grounded,
grounded
!” singsonged through my head in Nanny’s voice at higher and higher volumes, and I started picturing what my dad might do. He’d really been going after me lately—insults early in the morning as he passed my bedroom on his way into the bathroom, more criticism, more than the usual threat of the occasional swat. If he decided that this was an opportunity to really teach me a lesson, you know, show me exactly who was boss, he wouldn’t just hit me. He’d start screaming at my mom, going on and on and get her all crazy until they were both screaming and yelling and ß ailing for what would seem like hours. Trust me, my mom did
not
hit like a girl, and she had deadly accuracy with a tossed shoe if one of us couldn’t Þ nd

“the belt” quickly enough. After the Þ rst “corrective action,” miniature repeats would follow for days until they forgot about it or I or one of my siblings did something else to distract them.

I wasn’t just in trouble—I was gonna be fucking dead. God, I wished graduation was tomorrow, but it was over a year and almost a half away—if I lived that long.

I know I must have paled and the panic shown on my face. Kerry reached both hands up to stroke my cheeks with her Þ ngertips. I instantly felt a bit calmer. But only a bit. “Nina baby, it’s okay,” she reassured me. “Don’t be scared. Just tell them, um, tell them I dropped my key and you were helping me Þ nd it—in the leaves,” she continued.

Good idea. I nodded in agreement. No, wait, bad idea. I’m a terrible liar. No way could I get away with it.

Kerry let go of my face and took my hand, and we started walking back to my parents’ home. Of course, we walked back the same way we walked to Kerry’s, stopping to make out every few steps, and there wasn’t a parked car, telephone pole, streetlight, or quiet wooded spot where we didn’t take a little time to perform a few more technical experiments, or maybe mechanical experiments.

• 85 •

We got to my front door and started to kiss good-bye—I think I pointed out earlier how that door sees a lot of action—when it struck me. How was Kerry going to get home? I didn’t want her to walk by herself; that had been the whole point in the Þ rst place, and I said so.

“Nina, we can’t keep walking each other back and forth all night,” Kerry said, “although it’s deÞ nitely worth doing.” She grinned.

All the lights downstairs were off, and the TV light was the only thing that glowed out the window from my parents’ room. My father always fell asleep with the TV on. Maybe I’d gotten lucky, maybe this could work, maybe…

“Wait a second,” I told her. “I’ve got an idea.” I stuck my head inside and called up, “Mom?”

No one answered, except for Ringo, who came rushing over in a scatter of nails and fuzz to jump all over me. He gave little whines to let me know he still wanted to go out in between licks. This was so much the better for what I had in mind.

“Nicky?” I called as I scrufß ed Ringo’s head and ears.

“He’s not home yet,” my mom answered in a sleepy voice. “His friend’s mom got sick, and I’m too tired to drive. He’s staying over there.”

“All right, um, I’m going to walk Ringo, then, okay?”

“Thanks, honey,” my mother answered back in that I’m-not-really-hearing-you-because-dreams-are-calling-me voice.

I stepped in quickly, grabbed the leash that was always by the door, and Ringo did a little jig on his hind legs at the sound. I rubbed his head some more and scratched his ears for good measure, then snapped the leash onto his collar. I stepped outside with my dog.

Kerry looked at me then backed up a step as Ringo launched himself at her in a frenzy of doggie-style greeting, hauling me behind him. And Kerry laughed while she tussled with him, bumping heads and wrestling on the lawn a bit.

Greeting formalities over, Ringo came back over to me and sat pressed into my leg. Kerry stood and brushed the grass from her back and legs. She came over to me and laid a hand between Ringo’s ears.