Tricks (6 page)

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But it's not. You'd never forgive yourself, and that would mean never forgiving me.

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Once you turn eighteen, once I graduate, we can go anywhere. I'll get a job. You can

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go to school Or stay home and let me take

care of you. Whatever makes you happy.

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He kisses me one last time.
As long as we're together, everything will be all right.

94

I Walk Home Slowly

Trying to soak up the things Andrew

said tonight. Sponge them up, absorb

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them through my skin, into my flesh, so they'll always live inside of me. I know

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Andrew and I were meant to be together.

How can I prove it to my parents? How

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can I make them understand that love

this real, this deep, must come from God?

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I look up again at the night sky, but here, city lights take center stage, mute

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the celestial backdrop. I don't belong

here, in the city. Don't belong in my

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parents' cold house. I'm a stray, called to another place. A wild place, where

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rules and expectations don't dare intrude.

A warm place, safe in Andrew's arms.

95

The House Is Quiet

They're still not home, and that's great by me. I don't need questions. Don't want

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to make up excuses. Have no patience for a sister-to-sister chat session.

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The clock says nine thirty, but it seems

much later. I go into my room, trade

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jeans for a soft flannel nightgown, lie on my bed in the dark, listening

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to silence. Something happened tonight.

Something wonderful. Terrifying.

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An awakening. This must be how Eve

(the original) felt after taking a bite

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of forbidden fruit. Every nerve on fire, every fiber of flesh alive with desire.

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If Andrew was here, beside me on my

not-exactly-a-feather bed, I would give

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him my virginity, give it gladly, without a second thought. It belongs to him.

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I close my eyes, return to the foothills, to the back of the Tundra, to a double

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sleeping bag. I slip inside, into the warm

envelope of goose down. And Andrew.

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His voice fills my head.
I
want to
take from you what I've no right to....

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Oh, Andrew. I want that too. Tonight.

Right now. My body is begging to learn

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what your body wants to teach it. Need

blisters up, and with it, a way to teach

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myself some of what I'm dying to know.

Abstinence programs encourage it.

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Mama not only discourages it, but swears it put Mary Magdalene on the highway

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to degradation. What Mama forgets is that Mary

Magdalene was the forgiveness poster child.

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My Hand, Disguised

As Andrew's hand, moves lightly down my neck, over collarbone,

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breastbone. Goose bumps rise in unusual places, and my body tingles

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in a completely foreign way. Because of Andrew. But he's not here. I pretend

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he is and let "his" hands explore the rounds of my breasts, move in tighter and tighter

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orbits, and now fingers circle the hard

center nubs, raised like it's cold in here.

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It's not. I'm burning up. Delirious with raw need. My hand wants to slide lower,

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to a place I know nothing about except what they call it in books. And suddenly

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it comes to me how completely inept

I'll be when Andrew and I finally

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share that warm feather bed, with comfy

quilts and pillows we can fall into.

98

I Turn on the Light

Go to the computer, try to avoid

looking at the Calvary screen saver.

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Jesus, hanging on the cross, staring down at his poor crying mother.

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Mama downloaded that, no doubt

specifically to deter the kind of

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Internet exploration I have in mind.

I just have to be very careful not to surf

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to the wrong kind of website. A touch of the mouse, Golgotha dissolves

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into the ether and voila, up pops

Windows. Double-click on Explorer.

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Here it comes, ready to take me where

I need to go. But where is that, exactly?

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Might as well get straight to the point.

I type in, "losing your virginity."

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When I Hear

The door open, the sounds of return,

I hurry to turn off the computer

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before Eve catches me, breathlessly

reading stories about other girls' first

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times. Some wonderful, some awful.

Some taken by force, some given

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away. Some total disappointments.

Some more than they expected.

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What none of them had, at least I'm

pretty sure they didn't, was Andrew.

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I rush into bed, pick up a book on the nightstand, pretend I'm reading.

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Eve breezes into the room, sighing.

I love weddings. You should have come.

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Her goofy grin says a lot, "So...

Zach asked you to dance or what?"

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Mama wouldn't let me. But he asked.

She looks at me.
How did you know?

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"I'm a good guesser." And I'm guessing she never once thought about losing it.

100

A Poem by Seth Parnell
Losing It

Some days I think

I'm losing my mind.

What seems so clear

most of the time

becomes a big question

mark. Am I really the way

I perceive myself, or is the person others see the truth of me? I wait

for

answers, but inside

I know I have to go out and find them. And

answers, like knowledge, are not always where we

look first for them.

101

Seth Worked My Farmer Butt Off

All day. Can't believe

my dad wants to give

me grief over going out.

What's a Saturday

night for, anyway?

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I think you should stay

home tonight,
he says.

Hard to get up Sunday

morning when you're

out late the night before.

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We're at the dinner table, finishing off big ol' plates of venison sausage, biscuits, and mushroom gravy. A mediocre

rendition of Mom's recipe.

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Dad seconds my opinion.

Not as good as your

mother's, I know. I don't

have her magic touch.

But I do the best I can.

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He does. If he left it to me, we'd eat nothing but bologna and cheese, with the odd pizza thrown for a little variety.

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I save my more gourmet

palate for when I go out with Loren. Not that Dad

would understand the draw

anyway. Caviar? Fish bait,

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right? And pâté? Glorified

liverwurst. Still, in some

circles, venison sausage is probably considered

quite the taste sensation.

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"Dinner's great, Dad. I bet

some of those hoity-toity

big-city chefs would kill for this recipe." Probably

not. But Dad's face lights.

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Think so? Well, I wouldn't

want 'em to kill anyone, but I wouldn't mind

selling the secret formula
for big bucks, you know?

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Other Than Large Male Deer

Big bucks are something

I'm pretty sure Dad

gave up on having a long

time ago, if he ever really

cared about such a thing.

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I glance toward a photo of Mom and Dad, taken on their twentieth anniversary, before we knew she was sick.

They look content. In love,

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despite years of worry, debt, and loss. Through

years of struggling to make

ends meet, they had each

other. And that was plenty.

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Dad wears his age less

gracefully now. Factory

work and farming, a one-

two punch. Add loneliness...

Guilt swells. But I have plans.

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Plans

For an evening with Loren.

Plans that require getting

out of the house. Plans

I would rather not outline in detail. I hate lying to Dad,

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but I can't see a way around it. "Tell you what. I'll do a little research. See if I can

find a five-star chef with a hankering for deer meat.

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Meanwhile, I'm gonna run into town. Billy Clayborn's

band is playing at Bristow

Tavern. Thought I'd take a listen. Maybe I'll get lucky...."

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I leave it hanging. Dad

has never asked, but surely he's wondered

if, at almost eighteen,

I've ever once gotten lucky.

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The comment sinks in like a hog in mud--

slow but sure. Finally he says,
Okay then. Just

don't stay out real late.

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I Know

He wants me to go to Mass with him in the morning.

How can he go through the motions? I've heard

him talking to himself.

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He blames God for taking

Mom early, taking her first. Yet come Sunday

morning, he's on his knees, genuflecting. Bowing down.

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Maybe he's searching.

For Mom. For proof

that there's something beyond this soil. This

earth. Maybe it's a way

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to keep on belonging.

Whatever it is, I sweeten the deal, mostly because

I plan to stay out pretty late.

Scratch that. Real late.

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"How about if I go to Mass on my way to Bristow? That way, if I do get lucky, I'll

already be absolved."

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Dad Laughs Softly

Shakes his head, but says,

Okay. I guess you're old

enough to make your

own decisions about
stuff like religion and...

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He can't bring himself to finish. But Catholic or not, I'm sure he wants his son to have "normal"

sexual desires. Wonder

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if he suspects otherwise.

I'm relatively sure he knows

I have no plans to fulfill my

Mass obligation tonight or any night. I've pretty

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much given up on the idea of salvation. Catholicism and homosexuality only

go hand in hand in the highest church circles.

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Not Much Doubt

I'm damned anyway, so I swing the old Chevy toward the freeway, Louisville, and Loren. My heart pumps

wildly in anticipation.

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I turn up the radio, change the station from country to alternative. My Chemical

Romance fades and the DJ

segues into a Muse rocker.

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Before I met Loren, I'd never

heard of either group. Now the Dixie Chicks and Rascal

Flatts have taken a backseat to music more relevant to me.

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Muse, in fact, was playing the first day I let Loren

show me what love can

be when two people give

themselves completely

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to each other. It was our

fourth date. Up until then, we'd only talked. Kissed a little. Touched even less, and only with our clothes on.

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Loren was patient about the rest.
I'm not looking for an easy lay,
he said.

If I wanted that, I'd

pick someone up in a bar.

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He could without even

trying. He's beautiful.

I'm happy he doesn't do

gay bars. "So what are you looking for, then?"

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A friend. A partner who

I can trust. Sex that is more than mutual

masturbation. Sex that
is an outpouring of love.

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Up Until

Our fourth time together, individual masturbation was the bulk of my sexual

experience. There were a few short chapters of "touch

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here, I'll touch you there" in my very slim book of adolescent sexual escapades, but nothing more. I had no

idea what to do beyond that.

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When I slipped into my

fantasies, I always had

sex with men. But that

day, overwhelmed as I was with desire for Loren,

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I was scared. Nothing

had ever scared me so much, not even knowing

my mom was going to die.

Does every person feel

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like that their first time?

Like what if they do it wrong? Or worse, what

if they do it poorly--so

horribly their partner laughs?

110

Loren Didn't Laugh

There proved to be nothing to laugh about. Unexpectedly, it all came very easily.

Like, yes, that was exactly

how it was meant to be--