The Virgin of Small Plains (2 page)

She started mmming with such an intensity that he went
Shhh
into her lips. That made her lips tickle, which made her mouth curl up, which felt funny under
his
lips, which made him smile, which made both of them giggle, and then finally laugh so hard that Mitch had to fall away, onto his back, squeezed up against Abby on her narrow bed.

“Shhh!”
they urged each other, and had to push their faces into each other’s collarbones to keep the noise down. With her nose pressed down in the sweet hollow of his neck, Abby could smell his scent that was part spicy deodorant, part sandalwood aftershave, and all Mitch. He was laughing so hard at their attempts not to laugh that he snorted into her neck, which made her arch her back with her own less-than-silent laughter. Tears ran down both of their faces, moistening everything they touched, most of all each other.

Finally, when it died down, they snuggled in each other’s arms.

Mitch had football shoulders, and eight inches over her five feet four, but his waist and hips were narrow and he had the long, slim leg muscles of a distance runner, so it was really only the top half of them that was crowded in the bed. Abby knew how to solve that by rolling toward him so he could wrap his arms around her while below their legs entwined. Wound around each other, they commenced plain old smooching again, silently meeting lips to lips again and again, working up to longer kisses, greater intensity, which was sure, eventually, to lead to more almost-out-of-control hilarity. Or, to more serious things, if they weren’t careful. On this night, Abby didn’t want to be careful, but Mitch didn’t know that yet.

They were about halfway to something when there was a loud rap on the door to Abby’s bedroom.

They froze in each other’s arms.

The doorknob rattled as somebody tried to get in.

They were fully dressed, lying on top of the covers, with Bruce Springsteen in the background singing “Badlands” on an album turned up just loud enough to cover suspicious noises.

“Abby?” It was her mother’s voice. “Why’s your door locked, honey?”

“Don’t come in, Mom!”

“Why not?”

“Because…I’m working on your birthday present!”

“Oh!” They heard her mother, Margie, laugh on the other side of the door. “In that case! I wondered where you had disappeared to. I haven’t seen you in hours.” Her tone turned teasing. “Mitch’s not in there, is he?”

“Mother!”

“When did he leave? I didn’t hear him go.”

“Hours ago!”

“Are you sure I can’t come in, Abby? Maybe you need some help getting those diamonds glued onto that gold necklace?”

“You wish!” Abby called back. “With
my
allowance?”

“Okay, then.” Her mother feigned a martyred tone. “If you won’t let me help…”

Mitch slid one hand up under Abby’s sweater, over her ribs under her loosened bra, then onto her left breast, and she moaned softly.

“What?” her mother called from the other side of the door.

Abby closed her eyes in bliss, then opened them, and forced herself to say, “Mom?”

Mitch lifted her sweater, exposing her bare breast, and brought his mouth down onto it.

“What, honey?”

Abby felt as if her entire body was a single nerve cell vibrating from her left nipple.

“Is Dad here?”

Mitch’s other hand began a slow descent under the waistband of her blue jeans, sliding lower, lower, stopping when it reached its destination. Unable to bear the torture, Abby put her hands on each of his and pressed, making him stop right where he was.

He grinned, and waited.

“Dad’s back,” her mother answered. Abby had seen her father leave the house on a medical call several hours before, and he hadn’t been home for supper, but she hadn’t paid attention to when he came back. Her mother said, “Hey, have you looked outside? You know it’s snowing, don’t you?”

“Really?” Abby turned her head toward her windows and then Mitch did, too. Together they looked out at snow falling heavily in the glow of the driveway lights. Abby turned back to call to her mom, “How much are we going to get?”

“Enough to close school tomorrow.”

“Yippee!”

They heard her mom laugh again. “You sound like a little kid when you do that. I’ll have to take you sledding and give you hot chocolate in the morning. We’re going to bed, sweetheart. You go ahead and work all night on my gift, if you have to.”

Abby laughed, and called out, “Night! Love you!”

When she said the last words, she looked into her boyfriend’s eyes.

“Love you, too,” her mother’s disappearing voice called back, as Mitch mouthed the exact same words to Abby. They didn’t move until they heard the door to her parents’ bedroom shut. Then Abby wiggled under him, encouraging him. “Let’s take our clothes off,” she whispered, and he didn’t need to be asked twice.

They had never had intercourse. They had been boyfriend and girlfriend forever, stealing kisses when they were only eight and ten years old. By junior high, they were petting until they were both crazed. Through the years, they had made out as if they were going for advanced degrees in kissing. They had been totally naked together as many times as they could get the privacy to strip. Mitch’s fingers had been inside of her, her hands had taken him to climax, but they had never had intercourse.

“I do love you,” Abby promised him.

“I do love you, too,” Mitch said, with as much fervor as if he was taking an oath on a Bible.

“Stay with me all night,” she said, in a rush of words.

“I don’t know if I can stand it,” he said, and laughed quietly. “I’d better go.”

“No.” Abby looked directly into his beautiful brown eyes that were gazing so tenderly back at her. “Stay. You don’t have to stand it anymore.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Huh?”

“Let’s…do it.”

“You’re kidding. Tonight?”

For answer, she stroked him where he could least resist her.

Mitch moaned, and said, “Oh God, Abby.”

But he pulled away from her. “Listen. Are you
sure
?”

“Yeah, let’s get it over with.”

Mitch pulled back again. “Get it
over
with?”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said quickly. “I just mean, we’ve made it into such a big deal. Maybe that’s a mistake. It kind of scares me, that it’s such a big deal. I mean, maybe it’s not that big a deal after you actually do it. Billions of people have done it, right? Millions of people are probably doing it right this minute, all over the world. In London and Paris. In Singapore and Bangladesh. And right here, this very night, in Small Plains.”

“No way!” he exclaimed in mock shock.

“Even here,” she assured him. “I’ve thought about this a lot.”

“I can tell.”

“So maybe we ought to just—”

Mitch leaned toward her and began to kiss her gently. Then he whispered, “I thought we were going to wait for a special time, so we could plan it and do it right. Candles and shit.”

Abby laughed and covered her mouth.

“Candles and shit? Geez, you’re romantic!”

Mitch laughed, too. “You know what I mean. Valentine’s Day. Or New Year’s Eve. Like that. A fancy dinner, then we’d go someplace where nobody knew us.”

“And I’d be so nervous I’d mess everything up,” she told him, confessing her fear.

He pursed his lips in thought, which forced her to lean forward to plant a kiss on them.

“Hm,” he said, after a moment, “too much pressure, you mean?”

“Yeah, too much pressure for something that’s supposed to be so natural.”

“This isn’t about me going to college, is it, Abby?”

“Cripes!” she exclaimed in a loud whisper. “I can’t believe this! I have to convince you? I have to sell you on the idea of having sex with me?”

“Shhh! I’m sorry!” he told her. “I’m surprised, that’s all. Of course I want to do it, but geez, Abby, your folks are right down the hall.”

“With a noise machine that covers every sound but the telephone.”

“Okay, but what about B.C.?” he whispered into her left ear.

Abby rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you!”

B.C. was their private shorthand for birth control. It had always felt sexy to talk of doing what they weren’t allowing themselves to do. It had made them feel mature, superior, horny. Three girls they knew of had gotten pregnant in the last few semesters at Small Plains High School. Abby and Mitch knew they couldn’t let that happen. They had to face parents who would kill them, or be horribly disappointed in them, if it happened to them.

“Don’t you have one, like, in your wallet?” Abby whispered back to him.

“Me?” Mitch looked offended. “Do you think I carry them around?”

“I thought all guys did. Rex has one in his wallet.”

“Oh, yeah? How do you know that?”

“I saw it one time when he left his wallet someplace.”

“Well, you’ve been through my wallet enough times. You know what’s in there.”

“I just thought, maybe you had one—”

“Well, I don’t,” he said, and smiled at her. “I never wanted anybody to think that you—”

She kissed him. “Thanks.”

They fooled around for a while, and then she said, “My dad has some. Downstairs. On a shelf in his office.”

Her father was a physician, a general practitioner who practiced out of an office attached to the rear of their house.

Mitch pulled away again. “How do you know
that
?”

“How do you
think
I know? Don’t you ever go through your dad’s stuff?”

Mitch grinned. “Which shelf?”

“In the supply closet off the examining room. Fifth shelf up from the bottom on the left as you go in. They’re in a box labeled—”

“Don’t tell me. Trojan?”

She giggled. “Yeah. Super lubricated, supreme pleasure, maximum protection.” But then Abby frowned in concern. “Is that bad? To have to use one? Do you mind?”

Mitch blushed. “I have no idea if that’s bad. It all sounds good to me.”

“Me, too.”

“Abby—”

“Mitch! Yes, yes, yes. Now, now, now. You, you, you. And me.”

“I love you,” he said. “I think I’m in shock, but I love you.”

They heard a toilet flush down the hall in her parents’ room.

They froze again.

“I’d better wait,” Mitch whispered, while Abby groaned with frustration.

“Let’s make sure they’re asleep before I go get it,” he said. “I’ll call Rex and have him cover for me in case my folks notice I’m not home.”

“I can’t stand waiting any longer!” she said.

“I’ll take your mind off of it.”

They started kissing again, but this time it had a nervous edge of anticipation that it had never had before.

Chapter Three

When Rex got yelled awake by his older brother, he shot out of bed feeling surprised and stupid. He had fallen asleep in his bed while he was doing his homework. Damn, he thought as he staggered to his feet, couldn’t anybody let a guy get any sleep?

“What?”
he called out, into the hallway. “What time is it?”

His brother Patrick yelled back, “Time to get your lazy ass out of bed and into the truck!”

“Why?”

“Look out your window, dumbshit!”

“Patrick!” their mother called reprovingly, and then coughed.

Rex turned toward his window and instantly understood the summons from his older brother.
Oh, shit.
The night was bright with snow. Lots of it. Flying, blowing, window-pinging, sleeting, blizzard snow. His dad was going to be furious. If the old man could arrest God for dumping this storm on them, he probably would. And then he’d arrest their neighbor to the north and string him up from the nearest barn door. Nine months earlier, that rancher had let one of his bulls get through the fence that separated his fields from where the Shellenbergers were grazing their heifers, the young females who hadn’t given birth yet. The inevitable result was that instead of calving in March, when they were supposed to, they were due now, and at the worst possible time. A few calves had already arrived, but there were bound to be at least one or two tonight. If they didn’t get to them in time, the calves, all wet from their mother’s wombs, would freeze to death in minutes, and it wouldn’t do the heifers any good, either.

“Mom? You coming with us?” he called out.

“No,” his mother called back, sounding hoarse and really tired. “I’ve already half-got pneumonia.” Between coughs, she managed to tell him, “Don’t go out there without a coat, Rex.” She knew him well, he thought, knew he’d run out of the house in nothing more than his boots, jeans, and sweater if nobody made him dress any warmer.

The ranch house was icy at that hour. His mom always turned the thermostat way down when she went to bed at night. Over the hours after that, the two-story white house got progressively cold enough to freeze your butt if you made the mistake of having a nightmare that woke you up and reminded you that you needed to piss.

Knowing his mother would get out of bed to make sure he was adequately dressed, Rex whipped off his jeans, pulled on long underwear, put his jeans back on, then put on an extra pair of socks. Sure enough, when he emerged from his bedroom, there she was, standing in the doorway of the bedroom she shared with his dad. She was short and plump, her men were all tall and lean. Rex pointed to his feet. “Extra socks, Mom.” He pointed to his legs. “Long johns.” He pointed downstairs. “Coat. Gloves. Hat.”