Hide and Seek

So I told her about Rafferty and the night he and the Borkstrom twins

got drunk and crapped in old man Lymon's water tower. I told her about

the drag races through Becker's Flats. I told her about the old black

dog we used to have who could whistle through his teeth. And I

wondered what in the world she was making of all this, and me.

She wanted to know why I'd been caught setting fire to somebody's back

lawn. I told her we were napalming plastic soldiers.

But it was uncomfortably close to the other thing.

So I drew her off of that.

It started to rain.

Just a light warm drizzle with a heavy fog rolling in.

We'd left the top down on the Chevy, so we pulled over across the

street from the Colony Theater, got out and hauled it out of the well

and snapped the snaps down. Across the street the movie was Children

Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, one of those low-budget horror

pictures. But I guess there wasn't much business. Candy Bailey sat in

the booth reading a paperback mystery. The streets were quiet.

Casey walked over to me. I had my hand on the door handle on the

driver's side, ready to let her back inside. She put her fingers down

lightly on my forearm

Necking in the streets.

It felt pretty awkward at first. It was my town after all and there

was Candy Bailey in the lighted booth a few yards away. The feeling

didn't last, though. Only a few seconds before her mouth convinced me

that it was a very good thing to do. After the first long kiss we

parted and I saw how the tiny droplets of rain glistened in her hair

under the theater lights from across the street. I saw the look on her

face. The unexpected hunger there.

We kissed again. Long and wanting and hard this time, an animal

shifting of the muscles along her back.

A man walked by behind us, walking a big mongrel dog, just ashadow in

front of the closed-up shell of a drugstore that had failed three years

ago. I was only just aware of him.

Her body fit with mine like none I'd ever held before, every curve and

hollow melting into a perfect whole. Her tongue tasted sweet.