You Don’t Get to Say Goodbye – Episode 4

Sometimes we take not only the road less traveled, but also the road less lighted. Yes, delving into darkness can be thrilling, frightening, and educational. Little good ever comes of such endeavors unless you take the time to learn something. In some cases, the lessons don’t reach you for many years. But isn’t that the way of most everything? Even now, on the other side of halfway, lessons still present themselves. Concepts you like to think you could have grasped back in the day, but when you’re really truthful with yourself. the fact that you didn’t get it until now tells you everything you need to know about who you were then…

Sometimes we go slumming…

Nanette

Ray had never been one to associate with “the wrong people.” He’s always managed to steer clear of the ruffians, the bad girls, the smokers, the druggies, etc. For the most part, this was not a conscious choice. He simply, genuinely, had little in common with those types of people. The “selective” nature of his association with people sprung directly from his own personality.

Ray was now a senior. He felt the burden of not having a steady girlfriend since seventh grade. The situation had very little to do with his desire. Quite possibly he wanted one too much. His overwhelming shyness thwarted him at every turn. All his attempts at flirting and double-entendre were admirable. In fact, he had a number of girls he flirted with often. He simply could not bring himself to close the deal.

TJ was gone. He’d gotten a girl pregnant and graduated a year early. All Ray’s other friends liked to play sports, so Ray enjoyed his time on the basketball court or playing football. He also worked delivering newspapers from 2:30am to 5:00am every day. He had loads of money. He had loads of time. While his friends had to work evenings, he had them free and clear.

His third period class had him sitting near the door. His teacher left the door open most of the time, as did the teacher diagonally across the hall. Early in the semester, Ray noticed a girl with jet black hair cascading down her back like a licorice waterfall. One particular autumn day she made eyes at him.

He felt a rush of blood through his face and the tingle flare throughout his body. She appeared to be attractive, at least from a distance. That was good enough for him. He knew she was a sophomore because he noted a couple of familiar faces in the same room with her. He winked at her the first opportunity that popped up.

She smiled.

If it took being a senior to catch a girl’s eye, he was not above it. In fact, their grade levels gave him a confidence advantage. His senior status would carry quite a bit of weight. Any sophomore worth her salt would leap at a chance to go out with a senior.

The non verbal flirting went on for a couple weeks. His cursed shyness still ate at him. Ray managed to get her name – Nannette – and a few little tidbits of information on her. She lived in the bad section of town, a place Ray had never ventured. He still wouldn’t either. Ray’s sister warned him off.

“Nanette is not very nice. I don’t think she’s very clean, either.” Lea was a sophomore and had a couple classes with Nannette. “You could do so much better.”

“What do you mean, ‘she’s not very clean?”

“Her hair is greasy and she looks and smells like she takes a shower once a week.”

Ray kept his thoughts to himself. He realized Nanette possessed more bad-girl tendencies than good. She also fell outside his preferred body type. Ray liked lithe, somewhat thin girls who stood a bit taller than most. Nanette was short and stocky, although she was developing nicely. She would never grow into a woman Ray would be physically attracted to…

None of that mattered. Nanette was interested in him and he was interested in what she could teach him. No doubt she did not own much “thinking power.” Nannette was far too base and dull of wit to ever be confused with an intellectual being. Another of Ray’s criteria she did not meet.

In fact, the only criteria which had Ray pursuing her was that she was interested, available, and apparently somewhat hot to trot.

One morning after class, they met in the hallway. “Are you ever going to ask me out?” Nannette queried with a tease.

“Of course I am,” Ray drawled, buying time for his normally nimble mind to shift into the right gear. “In fact, I was thinking we could go to a movie this Friday.”

“Oh, crap!” she exclaimed. “I’m babysitting for my sister. Her and her husband are going out to a movie. He’s a marine, you know.”

“Bummer,” Ray replied, more relieved than bummed.

“But you could…” Nanette trailed the partial sentence off with an intensely devious, flirtatious look in her eye.

“I could what?” Ray asked, intrigued.

“Well…you could come over to my brother-in-law’s house when I put the baby down for the evening.”

“Would they be ok with that?” Ray asked, hoping the answer would be positive.

“What they don’t know…”

“What time?” he heard himself asking.

“Let’s shoot for eight o’clock. Here’s the address.” She handed him a piece of paper containing the nearly illegible address scrawled in ink (another thing Ray did not care for – sloppy writing).

“I’ll be there,” he stated boldly, even though every muscle in his body felt weak and rubbery.

“I will turn the light in the front room on and off three times. That way you’ll know its safe to come in.” She giggled with excitement. Ray fed on that giddy feeling himself. He worked hard to control his excitement.

“I look forward to it,” he stated far more calmly than he felt.

 

Over the course of the next two days, Ray drove out to the address Nanette had handed him. He observed the neighbors, their houses, and places he could park which would not draw attention.  He wanted to make certain nothing could go wrong. He could not imagine what would happen if they got caught. Whatever that would look like, he knew he wanted no part of it.

Friday night arrived. Ray’s palms gleamed with sweat underneath the streetlight. He’d parked behind the house because there were no lights. It would be difficult for anyone to even know he had parked there. He arrived a half-hour early. Ray strolled through the yard, making a mental note of any obstacles which might get in his way if he had to bolt.

The only major obstacle was a small, stone fence which nearly encircled the house in a horseshoe shape. The wall-fence did not stand particularly tall, Maybe three feet. He could easily jump that. He was hoping Nanette would signal with the light earlier than eight o’clock. Of course, she had no way of knowing he was out there.

Ray kept checking his watch. It was ten after eight. Had she played him? Was he  a fool for believing her? How cruel would that be?

Electricity pin-balled throughout his body as the front light flicked off and on three times. His stomach knotted up. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead despite the chill, autumn air. He made his way through the front gate and onto the porch.

Wood planks revealed his presence. Before he could knock, Nanette opened the door. She shushed him with an index finger to her lips. “She would not go to sleep. It took me forever to get her to crash.”

She stepped back and let him in, then checked behind him before closing the door.

“We can sit on the couch,” she said, pointing to a dilapidated couch covered with a yellow comforter.

Ray strolled over and sat down with Nanette joining him quickly.

He put his right arm around her and she turned and shoved her lips on his. This kiss exploded fire throughout his body.

Nanette unbuttoned the second button on her blouse. He disengaged the kiss and took the not-so-subtle hint. His left hand slid across the opening she’d created and slipped underneath her bra. Her nipple was so tiny and quite taut. She moaned as soon as his fingers made contact with the delicacy.

Ray’s mind jumped images of flicking that nipple with his tongue. This one thought dominated everything within him. He could not focus on anything else. His fingers left the soft mound of her breast and paired up with his right hand. They worked on disengaging the rest of the buttons on her blouse.

She joined in as though the world would end within the next minute. Nanette wriggled out of her top while Ray fumbled with the bra. He had no clue how to get that damned thing off! Nanette giggled and flicked something on the back and Ray felt the resistance of pent-up flesh release.

In the darkness, Ray marveled at their Siamese, pristine beauty. Both nipples now stared at him. Dull light from the lamp in the window was the only illumination to serve him. His face dove onto her right breast. His tongue gleefully danced on top of that tight pinnacle.

“She must be liking it,” he thought as she moaned reassurance to his overstimulated brain.

It appeared there would be minimal conversation. Ray squeezed and licked and flicked and toyed with those incredible breasts – incredible simply because they were the first he’d ever experienced – until Nanette shocked his senses again.

She unsnapped her jeans. Her short little fingers worked the zipper down as Ray froze on his chest-high perch. He sat up, placed his right arm around her shoulders again, and kissed her.

Deeply.

He did not let up. His left hand made contact with her naked stomach. Her moan became more shrill. His fingers snaked beneath her jeans. Her panties. They met a soft carpet of hair. Then wetness…an opening…a moan more guttural now…and…and…

A car engine and headlights in the window of the back rooms were followed by two car doors shutting.

“Shit!” Nanette exclaimed. She scrambled to get her clothes back together. “They’re home early!”

All the known demons to mankind and more assaulted Ray’s overstimulated heart. Fear and panic ripped at him. True fight or flight took over. Fortunately his clothes remained on, although he noted she had unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants at some point.

“Get out!” Nanette whisper-shouted as she stood and zipped her jeans. “They’ll come in the back door because they park in the back driveway.”

Ray muttered something unintelligible, even to himself. He grabbed at the waistline to his pants to keep them from falling to his knees and causing a tumbling disaster. He leaped off the front porch, felt grateful for his previous recognizance of the yard, and dove over the stone fence.

He crawled up next to the fence, breathing like every molecule of oxygen was necessary for his survival. He strained his ears for sounds of voices or footsteps. No door flew open with a clatter. No harsh yelling ensued from within the house.

As Ray fumbled, ever so quietly, to re-zip his pants and buckle his belt, crickets and sounds of the night went on their merry way without regard to Ray, the arrival of Nanette’s sister and brother-in-law, and what had transpired within those walls.

Not trusting the moment, Ray remained on the ground. The cold earth beneath him seeped into his clothing, through the layers of his skin, and into his bones. He was in over his head. This was not romance. This was not how he’d envisioned a relationship. The wrongness of it all took over his thoughts. He needed out.

After another five minutes, the cold became unbearable. Ray rose stiffly to his feet, a wary eye on the windows and door. He stretched out his recalcitrant muscles. The faster route back to his car lay before him, through the yard. He chastised himself for parking in back of the house now. Ray started off at a brisk walk, then a full sprint, taking the long way around the block. He slowed down as he approached his car. Now was not the time for anything careless.

He unlocked the door, slid into the seat, and prayed the dilapidated Chevy Vega would spring to life on the first try. Of course, it didn’t. Nor the second. Nor the third. A white cloud of smoke signaled the engine bursting to life, albeit sputtering like it was on its last breath. He shoved Leftoverture into the 8 track and was greeted by “Carry on My Wayward Son.”

Ray snickered as he pulled his car away to relative safety. He realized as the words, “there’ll be peace when you are gone” rose from his speakers, that they hadn’t even said goodbye…

 

Slumming

Youth and desire
Burning questions

If the questions burn,
What is their fuel?

Most often – intellect.

Intelligence appears as a backseat to wanton desire
Decisions follow created paths carved into reality
No discernable trail
No logical success outcome
No real chance to make any dream come true
Because the dream does not exist in the real world.

Complications
Degradations
Road blocks
Unexpected variances
Surprise situations

Yet…

In those short moments
Those ideal
Incredible
Exhilarating moments where reality meets fantasy

Where imagination
Desire
Thirst
All meet with rooms, and couches, and clothes, and skin, and secretions, and electricity

There.
There meets reality and the world you most desire.
There resides the snippets in life where memories love to be colored like a favorite coloring book
There lives the ashes, mingled with the laughter at oneself decades later
There, splayed out on the pages of your mind, rest the moving pictures of your life
There you revisit them

Yes, the thrill and adrenalin long ago faded into less than mist
But for that moment…

You were kissed…