Snack (7 page)

I’m pretty sure I gasp, which makes him smile.

“Give me a call later. I want to know what you think. I personally think it’s the best way to spend”—he uses air quotes—“‘alone time.’ You know if you can’t have the real thing.”

No. I wouldn’t know.

Snack knows that and he’s rubbing it in. Ha! Rubbing it in. I can’t escape the innuendo.

Before he leaves my room, Snack kneels at my feet, runs his thumbnail up the arch, and squeezes my naked big toe. Fucking hard.

I shiver and moan.“Uuuuuuh!”

Snack looks up from his kneeling position, winks, and whispers, “And when you make that sound later today. Remember I’m the one that told you how to get there.”

After Snack leaves I stare at the toothbrush in my hand. Stick it down my pants? I couldn’t do that? Could I? I guess I’m going to have to use my allowance to get another toothbrush for my teeth.

I get up and lock my bedroom door. With my luck, Sid would march right in without knocking while I was trying this out.

I walk back and sit down on the edge of my bed. Curious, I switch on the toothbrush. The vibration in my hand is enjoyable. Funny, how I never appreciated the sensation before. I run the back of the head of the brush over my arm and the hairs on it stand up immediately. The low-pitched buzz reverberates off the walls of my small bedroom. Surely someone would notice if they walked by. I flip it off quickly. I need a way to mask the sound. Nobody would believe I was actually brushing my teeth in my bedroom for longer than five minutes. I spy my stereo. Music! Music will drown out the sound. I pop off the edge of the bed and walk over to my CD player. Nobody in the house would suspect anything if I play music I always had blasting from my room. I gently drop the Star Wars Soundtrack onto its perch and snap the lid closed.

Snack’s instructions played in my head over the strains of John William’s composition. “Lay down and think about your favorite celebrity…”

I turn all the lights off and fumble my way back to my bed. After stepping out of my sweatpants and wrestling my bra off while keeping my tank top in place, I finally slip in between the cool sheets of my bed with my toothbrush in hand.

I switch the brush back on and move it down my stomach. I slip it under my white cotton panties. At first it just tickles, but when I move it just a fraction of a centimeter down and slightly back, a jolt shoots straight to my core. My legs twitch and relax as sensation after sensation rockets through me. This feels even better than on my arm!

The toothbrush lands on a particularly sensitive spot.

I rock into it. With the “The Imperial March” playing, a vision of Darth Vader standing over me pushes my pleasure higher. Suddenly, the picture of Darth morphs into Snack. My legs tremble and my stomach contracts. Squeezing my eyes tighter, Snack’s face is surrounded by a million brilliant colors and shooting laser-like lights. I shudder and exhale a long, loud moaning scream of pleasure. The same sound I made when Snack stroked my arch with his thumbnail and squeezed my toe. After that, I was addicted. I never again harassed Sid for his “alone time.” I also wore the battery out of that toothbrush. Thank you, Snack.

That’s how Snack and Lord Vader gave me my first orgasm. Technically, my vibrating wonder brush did, but I didn’t get there thinking about Justin Timberlake and his ramen noodle hair. No, the first time I came I was thinking of Snack’s face.

Like I’ve said, I always like the middle part of stories better. Any stories: adventure stories, horror stories, romance. I really liked the middle part of my story with Snack in 1999, but I’d have preferred our love story back then didn’t start the way it did.

I was used to going to school dances in a group. Usually it was with Clip and Snack and whatever girls they were hanging around with at the time. One of their friends would generally step up and be my official “date” for the evening. They were cordial enough to buy me a corsage, if that counted for anything. I have pictures from every school dance with a different guy. A different guy that never touched me—except to slow dance—never kissed me, never called me, and now that I think about it, never even made eye contact after the dance. Even if I thought they liked me and we seemed to get along during the dance, afterward—nothing.

Fall Homecoming 1999. I didn’t have a date the day before the dance, so I figured I wasn’t going. The whole Clip/Snack/Minnie group dance thing was no more since Clip went away to school. I had pretty much given up any chance of goin, when Adam Peterson, the photographer from the school newspaper, asked me. We’d always gotten along great, working to meet deadlines. I never even thought about him as a possible date, but he was smart and I could talk to him, so when he asked me I accepted. After all, it would’ve been the height of patheticness if I didn’t go to homecoming my senior year.

From the doorway I hear his voice. “It’s OK, Adam. I’ll take it from here.”

Snack is in here. In the darkened journalism room.

I’m sitting on one of the lighted mock-up desks, my homecoming dress hiked up to my knees. The lighting is sort of, well, romantic. Adam is standing between my open legs. He’s leaning in for a kiss when Snack interrupts. I freeze.

Adam stills but then quickly looks over his shoulder and says dismissively, “I’m all right, Snack.
We’re
all right, right, Minnie?”

Snack stalks toward us. I can see him as I peek over Adam’s shoulder. Suddenly, Snack slaps his hands down on Adam’s shoulder and tightens his grip. Adam winces. Snack must not know his own strength.

He clears his throat. “I guess I didn’t make this clear. When I said ‘I’ll. Take. It. From. Here.’ I wasn’t asking, A-dam.” Snack pulls on Adam’s shoulder and spins him around so he’s facing him now, not me. “Get lost!”

“Snack! Why the fuck are you being so rude to my date?”

Snack snorts and shoves Adam toward the door of the classroom. “Adam understands. Don’t you, A?”

Adam turns back to me and shrugs. Just before he exits, he turns around and says, “Snackenberg, you’re a psycho. Stop playing with her already. Jeez!” Adam pushes the classroom door open with a loud smack of his palm.

I’m pissed but I’m also so worked up. Snack has always been possessive of me like I’m his toy or a pet, but this feels very, very different.

“What is your fucking problem?” I’m about to push myself off the desk, but Snack rushes me, taking the place Adam had just occupied between my legs. A wave of warmth settles my anger but leaves me confused. And growing warmer by the second. And I don’t think it’s because I’m sitting on a light box. I think it’s because Snack has never broken this kind of boundary with me.

Snack takes my face in his hands and looks me in the eyes for the longest minute in history. I search his eyes for understanding. And just as I realize, Snack’s mouth is on mine. His kiss is frantic and his tongue soon pushes against my lips as he begs silently for me to open for him. Which I do. This kiss is nothing like the Jamoca Almond Fudge kiss. Oh, no. I feel warm and it’s not from the light desk. I’d like to kiss Snack like this forever. Any anger I was feeling is long gone and in its place, panting want, guttural moans of pleasure and supremely wet panties. The kiss goes on and on. Snack eventually breaks it and ends with another soft sweet kiss.

“What…” I ask breathlessly, “… is going on? What are you…we… doing?” He has a girlfriend. A very popular girlfriend who is probably being crowned homecoming queen as we speak. She would kill him if she knew. I’d have to live out my high school career as the nerdy slut that hit on her guy. Life at NDGHS would be miserable.

“Charlotte?” I say, not even using a full sentence to ask the question. I never have to with Snack. We speak in a kind of “Minnie/Snack” code with each other.

“It’s over. We broke up. We should’ve long ago.”

“What?”

Snack moves in closer if that’s possible. “You’ve been driving me crazy. I miss you, Minnie. I miss hanging out with you. I’ve been watching you at school. Watching you get along without me. Watching you move forward without me. Like you don’t need me anymore.” With each thing he tells me, he touches me somewhere. My hair. My cheek. My hip.

I exhale with each touch until I’m air starved and dizzy.

His searching eyes never leave mine. Snack waits for my reaction.

“I thought you didn’t want me, that you were the one “moving on.” Part of me wants to kiss all his fears away; the other part is incredibly pissed. I shove him away.

“Are you fucking kidding me with this?” I stand and push the skirt of my dress down. “You don’t get to say those things. You don’t get to make me feel sorry for you and want to kiss you. Snack, you’ve been ignoring me everyday, all day, for months. Like, ten months. You’ve left me alone. So very alone. And NOW you’re telling me you miss me?” I’m willing myself not to cry, I’m so angry.

Snack backs up and gulps a few times. He finally takes his eyes from mine. The glow from the light desk illuminates them and I see they are wet. He looks up and blinks rapidly and a tear runs down his cheek.

Snack wipes away the tear with the heel of his palm, swallows hard, and returns his gaze to me. He strides the few steps toward me with purpose, backing me up against the light desk. Reaching around my body, he switches off the light. We’re in complete darkness. Snack takes my arms and I try to pull away, but he doesn’t let me. I’m still mad at him for making me think he stopped caring about me. He wraps my arms around his neck. I hold my breath. These are the moments I’ve dreamed of since we were twelve.

The next kiss I never got. The kiss he kept from me. His arms around me are the sensation I’ve hoped for, for so long and never thought I’d have. I’m helpless in his embrace and every cell of my body physically responds with happiness, while I struggle with my anger in a mind-body tug-of-war. I finally exhale and to my surprise it comes out as a sob. My vision clouds and tears begin to drip through my lashes.

God dammit, Snack! Why is he doing this to me?

Snack slides his hands around my waist, and soon I’m pressed up completely against him. A Snackenberg hug.

I indelicately wipe my tears on the lapel of his suit jacket.

“Snack, you asshole. Why? Why are you doing this now?”

“Because I’ve missed you. So, so much,” Snack confesses beautifully, “You’re right. I have been an asshole, but I’m done. I’m done with Charlotte. I’m done with suicide blondes as you call them. I’m done with pretending they’re you when I should’ve been with you. You’re my best friend. My girl.” And with that he finds my lips in the dark and kisses me lightly, our lips salty from our mingled tears. The soft, gentle kiss slowly increases in intensity. I push up on my toes to try and get even closer to him.

My entire body shakes. I don’t know if Snack can feel it, but it’s from deep down inside. Deep down in the place next to my heart where I keep all the feels I’m too scared to let out for fear they’ll run away with me. The last time I let anything out of there was when my mother came back and didn’t even acknowledge me when I was little. That time, my subconscious way of dealing with the pain of her abandonment was jumping off the stairs and splitting my lip wide open. It’s almost undetectable now, but I still have a scar from it. I hope to God I don’t get a scar this time.

Snack and I stand in the dark, holding each other with our foreheads touching. “I always wanted it to be you with me at the dances, but Clip told me no. Not until I knew for sure you were the one. That I was done with any other girl. All other girls. Because you deserved to be someone’s one and only. And I knew he was right. I tried to make Charlotte into you. I really thought it might work. I was doing OK, until I realized you didn’t have a date, so I convinced Adam to take you.”

I laugh in disbelief. “You? You got Adam to take me?”

“Yeah,” Snack says. “It’s what I do.”

I’m completely baffled and really wish the light was on so I could read Snack’s expression. “What do you mean, ‘It’s what I do?’”

“I make sure you have a date… for dances. One that I know won’t touch you or mess with you. Call you after.”

I wrench myself away from Snack, march over to the light switch, and flip it on with an agitated flourish. The entire time I’m cursing under my breath. Cursing Snack and Clip and all the stupid boys I’ve been set up with. The next time I see my brother I’m going to strangle him! I spin back to face Snack and, dammit, he looks contrite… and beautiful. All my anger floats away. I don’t get a chance to cuss him out before he tells me all.

“Minnie, I always wanted to go everywhere you. Every dance, I wished I were with you. Nobody else. But I knew I had to commit. I had to choose to be with just you. Clip convinced me it was a bad idea to be with you. That I’d cheat. That I was too young to be serious. That I’d hurt you. And he swore he’d kill me if I hurt you. So, he introduced me to girls that gave it all away, and I, like an idiot thought he was right. I didn’t want to hurt you either. I didn’t want to risk losing our friendship.” Snack is pacing the room and running his hands through his hair repeatedly. “I didn’t want you dating anyone else, so I’d get you dates for dances. I just never understood why you didn’t have guys after you all the time.”

I’m annoyed enough that I want to piss him off a bit. “Oh, I did.” I watch Snack’s brow come together in a scowl, but it gives me no pleasure. I give up making him mad and confess. “But they weren’t who
I
wanted.”

“Who did you want?”

I look everywhere but at him. Honesty is embarrassing. “Come on, don’t make me say it.”

Once again Snack is in front of me. This time backing me up against the wall of the classroom. He’s not touching me, but he’s got his arms caging me in. A trap I’m glad to be caught in.

“Say it,” he insists.

I finally look him directly in the eyes. “You. OK… You!” I’ve been denying and holding it in for so long, now that I’ve told him, I swear my heart just jumped out of my chest and took a lap around the room. I finally told him! I can’t take it back. I don’t want to take it back. I close my eyes because it’s simply too overwhelming to continue to look into his. And so, I wait for his response.