I said I’d thought he was asleep, and she said yes. That’s how come he gave it to us. He didn’t know. Twinkly eyes, holding up a flat foil package, teasing me with it before tearing it open. Me trying not to wonder about Dori’s dad having condoms. But it wasn’t a condom. It was something like a Band-Aid. Evidently made out of money, given how careful she was with it.
“Shine,” she said.
The shine I knew of was clear, in mason jars. Drinkable.
No, not that. Painkiller patch, she said, the extra-special kind. Fentanyl.
The next surprise won’t ever leave my brain. The kit she took out of her purse. The spoon she used first, to scrape the patch. The lighter she held underneath. The cotton ball, the syringe, pulling the cap off the needle and holding it in her mouth like a nurse giving booster shots. I don’t know what I said but she could tell I was scared, and she was sweet with me, the same voice she used with Jip. She’d been saving this, because the first time you do it with somebody, they say it’s the best you’ll ever feel in your life. Like having Jesus all up in your blood.
Jesus or not, I admitted to despising needles. She took the syringe cap out of her mouth and kissed me a long time. Then pushed the tip of the needle into the patch with such tender care. The way her tongue pressed the middle of her top lip, she looked like somebody concentrating on the best present a person could ever give. She drew something out of the patch, squeezed the clear drop of gel onto her finger, then put her fingertip in my mouth, under my tongue.
I stopped watching after she pulled her little foot up onto the seat and took off her shoe, to shoot herself up. We probably slept awhile afterward. I know enough now to say for sure, we would have. Curled together like two babies in a womb equipped with a steering wheel. Maybe her teeth chattered and she begged me to hold her tight, as would happen later, time and again. But I don’t remember.
The back seat of that Impala was as good as any couch you’d want to have sex on. And we did, I’m guessing. I mean yes we did, but damn. You want to remember the pilot drill, but I only have this or that small view of it, like a peeping tom to my own event. I was pantsless at some point, I recall her being shocked by my poor busted knee, fussing over it. And for my part, the shock of seeing that dress come over her head in one sweep, balled up in her hand and dropped, no bigger than a pair of gym socks. The surprise of seeing her body all at once, the pale bikini of untanned skin like invisible clothes over the peaches of breasts and her cooch.
The rest is picture postcards. Her riding me, God yes, that laugh bubbling up out of her. Skin on skin, the electric shock of that. Touching her. My face up between her legs, her hands in my hair pulling hard. Finding her clit with my tongue, the surprise of something really being in there, a slick little peanut. The phone-sex voice of Linda Larkins in my head being the reason I knew how to do any of this. Linda was a capable coach.
Maybe that’s too much said. Wanting to protect Dori, that fire in me for saving her, will never go out, however late the day. But even if I were the bragging type, there’s little to tell. Just that it was my first time for the whole thing, start to finish, if we did finish. I felt pretty sorry the next day, that I couldn’t say for sure. But Dori was my girl, so. Nothing could hurt me now.
43
I got one week. To be the happiest man alive, my only care being how to get myself with that beautiful body again. We had it planned. Not Friday. That was the last game of the season, and I didn’t want to be doing Dori on game-level dosage this time. Plus we’d be three hours on the bus getting back from Richlands, and I wasn’t starting at midnight. I respected this girl. I’d take her out Saturday, starting at the drive-in. Early, because she actually liked the kid movies. We’d get in and out before all the socializing and booze. I’d buy her popcorn, we’d cuddle up to watch some Disney princess or other, then go park. Dori had a sitter again for Daddy, the same neighbor lady that was none too willing, hinting about getting paid if this turned regular.
The shit fell on Saturday afternoon, delivered by Maggot. I knew something serious had to be up, for him to call. We barely talked anymore. He said Mr. Peg was poorly, no news I thought, but Maggot said June was going over there and would swing by to pick me up.
“Not tonight,” I said. “I’ll go tomorrow, after they’re home from church.”
“Listen, Demon. He’s not getting out of bed.” Maggot’s voice cracked. A late bloomer, finally coming hard into manhood, he’d gotten a wrathful stubble and that long-neck look with the big Adam’s apple. All the more freakish for the eye makeup. Anyway, Maggot let me know I wasn’t getting a choice, June had the bull by the horns as usual. So I called Dori to say I’d meet her at the drive-in. I’d make June drop me there afterward. How long could this take?