Chapter One

Setting Out

 

The air conditioner was already gone, removed from the window and put into storage along with everything else. It was hot as hell in the apartment, second week of July hot, with another merciless drought broiling the Great Plains. Bob Carlyle set the box he was carrying down on the kitchen counter and used the dishtowel still hanging from the oven to mop sweat from himself. Swabbing off in only his shorts and moccasins, he felt a twinge of anxiety at the sight of his neglected physique.

Adonis he was not. Five foot-ten and one-seventy, he was fit but not particularly muscular. His metabolism kept him trim and that was good enough for him. He relied on his mind to earn his money and his personality to pique the interest of women -the latter less successfully these days. In any case, the woman he was about to set forth in pursuit of already knew him. She'd known him since beating him up on the school bus on the way to their first day of kindergarten.

Bob cursed himself for never getting in the habit of working out. If he'd had any inkling of the opportunity and challenge ahead, he would have spent the last eight years seriously bolstering his manliness quotient. He was about to be tested like never before, and would no doubt be found wanting on first inspection. With that the larger fears he'd been grappling with for almost a week rose up again. Running the faucet to get a drink of water made him think of a line from one of his favorite movies. He toasted himself with it tremulously.

"I'm fixin' to do somethin' dumber'n hell. But I'm going to do it anyways."

He gulped the water down.

The character he was quoting lost two and a half million dollars and got himself, his wife, and a bunch of other people killed doing his dumber'n hell thing. Bob wasn't risking anything close to that (as far as he knew anyway). Still he was making easily the biggest move of his life to try and hook up with an old classmate (almost-flame would describe her best) he'd reconnected with via social media.

This was the classic dumbass stunt of the Facebook age, just begging for disaster. And he was compounding it outrageously - the devils were definitely in the details. Still he could do nothing else. The excitement now enlivening him was utterly compulsory, and the fear a big part of that. Setting down the cup, Bob turned back to the box he'd just lugged from closet to counter. This was the perfect job to fortify his nerve.

Everything else was sorted, packed or stored. Just this last one to go downstairs. But first he needed a memento or two to keep up his courage on the road.

Taking up most of the carton was a stack of yearbooks, all from high school. Bob hadn't bothered collecting them in college; there had been a student body of forty thousand. And though his degree was slipped between the books along with his diploma and birth certificate, there was no university memorabilia in the box either. The last had been a ceramic beer stein he'd busted the summer before. Now he took the books out and set them aside.

In all frankness, college had sucked. High school had been the best of times for Bob. Now he took out the still-wrapped 'letters' he'd earned in soccer and track - he'd also never bothered to get the jacket these were meant to decorate. He pawed aside a litter of academic awards, and at last dug down to the envelope of photos at the bottom.

He'd been the only one he knew who'd bothered with an actual camera. His friends had laughed at him. But now Bob expected he was the only member of his old crowd who still had his pictures of those irreplaceable days.

Digital photography made collecting, organizing, storing, manipulating and sharing images a breeze. It also made impulsively or accidently deleting them a breeze. He knew Kim didn't have any pictures left; she'd admitted as much in their recent on-line chatting. Thinking of the enchanting vixen in question, Bob began flipping through the pile, looking for an image or two of his heart's desire to keep before him as he set out to earn her at last.

Pictures from graduation, from three different proms, four homecomings and a dozen other dances; from football and soccer games and track meets and of course parties galore: there must have been a couple hundred snapshots in the stack. All showed places he recognized instantly, places that were within fifty miles of where he stood.

Excepting the four as an anonymous mote at the university upstate, Bob had spent his entire twenty-six years in this middling Midwestern village. His parents had moved to Florida to run out the clock and as their only child he now had an apartment in town. A free-lance writer who published mostly in regional magazines (supplemented by the occasional pseudonymously written porno story), he kept comfortably ahead of his expenses and had never asked for more - aside from maybe a few new ladies to chat up once in a while. Now he was preparing to throw all this happy equanimity away at the behest of a woman he'd seen only once in the last eight years, a woman whose picture he finally held in fingers that trembled the tiniest bit.

Actually most of the photos had Kim in them somewhere. Always the life of the party, Kim had loved the lens and the lens requited. Of all the pictures though, this was the one Bob wanted most. Not only was the occasion particularly meaningful - his sixteenth birthday party, whoo-boy! But Kimmy was the sole subject and the camera had really done her justice.

You could see all the shine and body to that gloriously thick hair, the pronounced peak at the brow and the natural curl to the last chestnut foot of it. Ruddy with drink and alight with all the almost manic excitement of the night, her always unblemished face was so beautiful, and so incredibly expressive of joy and affection (right to the wicked glint in her eye) that he wanted to fall into the photo and kiss her all over.

Naturally that was impossible. But doing so in actuality suddenly might not be.

A manic joy of his own welled up at the prospect. Bob could remember each time he'd kissed her, from a fifth grade spin-the-bottle game (his first kiss ever) to the emphatic smack she'd planted on him at graduation. As well as his earliest enemy, Kim Strauss had been one of his closest friends, and a seemingly constant part of his life until college had taken them their separate ways. Though he had wooed her fervently until they came to an understanding about that, those few kisses had been the limit of the physicality between them - childhood scuffles aside, as well as what had happened that disturbing night of the photo. He was going to be dwelling on that a whole lot more than usual during the next couple weeks...

For a moment it all came over him again, that formative experience. He was lying on his belly, pinned helplessly under a pile of giggly femininity. His cock was hard as a rock, crushed and abraded against the carpet. His pants and underwear had been yanked down and the girls were taking turns giving him birthday spankings with the paddles off the ping-pong table. His head swam, his face burned; his guts and balls churned. His ass was on fire but some even more potent forge was alchemizing inside. Kim's hot exhalation tickled his ear, her mean-teasing lilt sending shivers through Bob both in his parents' rec room and his own kitchen ten years on.

"We've got you now, Bobby. And we can do anything we want to you!"

Before memories of the rest of that night could seduce him into mad fantasies and then back into terrifying yet irresistibly thrilling speculation about the future, Bob set the photo on the counter. Then he resumed flipping through the remainder of the pile. At last he found one to counterbalance the first.

That was Kim the unattainable temptress, the grade school terror and brazen wild-woman he'd lusted after forever, and to heaven knew what impending end. This was Kim the confidante, the best friend of so many good times, long talks and intimately-felt understandings. It was a shot of them working together on the yearbook committee.

This inspiration of Kim's had not only looked good on college applications and proved fun and rewarding in itself. They had used it as an excuse to ditch their third period study hall at least half a dozen times. On each occasion they'd snuck into the unused band rooms. They'd hit on a quick spliff and then spent the period in the close quarters of a soundproofed practice cubicle, alternating deep conversation with companionable hilarity.

That was great, but Bob would have preferred making out. Thus it was during one of those buzzed heart-to-hearts that they arrived at the understanding that allowed them to love each other while precluding any expectation of intimacy.

"What is it, Kim? We're closer to each other than anyone else. We've know each other forever. You know how I feel. I'd marry you if I could. Why won't you go out with me?"

Beautiful Kim gave him a look full of pity that Bob could have done without. But she also gave it to him straight, without playing games or dishing too much bullshit.

"I don't know. I think it's because we do know each other so well. Half of love is the mystery and spontaneity of getting to know another person so intimately. That's where the magic and passion comes from. There's none of that left with us. I've known you for so long you're like a brother almost."

"You mean you're not attracted to me. I don't excite you."

"Yes and no. Yes, I'm attracted to you. You're a really special and desirable guy or I wouldn't spend so much time with you. But it's true that I'm not excited by you. You're not the kind of built-up, alpha male champion that a girl dreams of spiriting her away to the Riviera. You're too laid-back, too conciliatory and easygoing about everything. Forgive me Bobby, because I do love you, but I can do better.

"You say you want to be a writer, and you are good. You get A's on every paper and your letters and stories always move me. But you'll have to get a lot better or be really lucky to get rich at it. You'll have to work a lot harder than I've ever seen you work; really dedicate yourself to your goals. And I don't see that happening. Like it or not, I have to look to my own prospects, and those of any kids I might have.

"I'm sorry Bobby. I know it's greedy and cold. But I'm not going to work all my life if I don't have to. And I'm hot enough not to have to.

"I'm going rich husband shopping up at college. So I don't want to tempt myself to settle, or lead you on and complicate things between us to the point where you and I can't be friends anymore. I have too many great memories of you to want to risk tainting them with bitterness. Remember that time I beat you up on the school bus?"

"Wasn't it two seconds after we met? Little boy alone on the big scary bus for the first time. You could smell my terror of the whole situation and fell on me instinctively. Not even in kindergarten and already a ball-busting bitch."

They giggled at that, and having gotten in a good gibe, easygoing Bob let the matter drop. He had his answer after all, and if it broke his heart he just had to live with that. Or at least he'd had to live with it until a couple weeks ago. Now everything was thrown into a delirious turmoil that had him as amazingly elated as uneasy.

He studied the picture in his hand, mesmerized by the way Kim's breasts filled out the thin sweater she was wearing.

He'd actually seen those once, when an after-prom party turned into drunken skinny-dipping. He remembered the mocking grin she'd given him as she let her bodice fall away into the water. The image of those goose-pebbled globes bejeweled with droplets that glimmered in the moonlight, the big dark nipples contracted with chill, tantalized Bob unbearably.

He saw again the guy she'd gone with, some asshole football player named Dubois. He saw him pawing rudely at those paragons and remembered the way he'd bragged around the school about how righteously he'd fucked the shit out of that Strauss chick later. He felt again the eviscerating, teeth-grinding jealousy. Now who had the last laugh though? Dubois had married a raving bitch and was a salesman at his father-in-law's car dealership. If all went well this summer, it would be Bob's far more appreciative hands on those heavenly swells for the next sixty or so years.

It seemed lovely Kim had learned her lesson.

The marriage she'd gone to college to acquire had failed. At first Bob had just been relieved for her; he had met the guy at their five-year reunion.

Formerly boisterous Kim had been uneasy and intimidated, barely daring to smile. The guy (who she timidly introduced with the absurd name of Edgar) had been every bit the A-type overachiever she'd gone shopping for. It was clear immediately too that he was an even bigger dick than Dubois, monopolizing his wife all night and driving everyone else away with his possessiveness and hostility. Bob had barely had a chance to tell her how gorgeous she looked, all coiffed up and dripping with diamonds like she'd wanted, before the guy tried to start a fight.

Screw that; Bob avoided them both the rest of the night. He felt bad for his beloved, but hey, he was a poor prospect, not exciting (read 'asshole') enough for her. Nice guys finish last. But often even hot chicks that marry rich wind up unhappy. It was a hard world. Still sometimes a light appears at the end of the most interminable tunnel. Last month Kim's Facebook page, forever the site of the usual banality, came to sudden life.

Kim Brennan had gone back to being Kim Strauss. She'd received a divorce for physical and emotional abuse and had moved from New York to their second home in Boston, which she had received as part of the settlement. She was asking everyone's forgiveness for years of uncharacteristic reticence. She was reborn in glory, and suddenly she was posting directly on Bob's own page, apologizing for the reunion and wanting to catch up on the last eight years.

It was like the sun rising after eons of darkness.

All of Bob's walled-off love crashed through his pose of resigned disinterest in an instant. Eight years had been wasted for him but they were still young. Nevertheless he played it as cool as he could. She could merely be reaching out to old friends, with no other motive beyond the surface one. He mustn't drive her away with desperation.

They exchanged a few bland public posts and then she asked him for the greater privacy (?) of e-mail. Freed of inhibition they penned long missives back and forth, reminiscing about good times and lamenting how much they missed each other. Bob subtly made clear his lack of any attachments. Kim likewise rued that though she'd gotten the wealth and life of ease she'd sought, she pined for the soul-mate she'd had to spurn to get it.

Her alpha-male asshole had grown just as domineering and narrow-focused at home as he was required to be on Wall Street. Paranoid and controlling and finally abusive, he'd made her reconsider the merits of having a more passive mate. By the time Kim and Bob had moved on to chatting on-line in real time, the circumlocutions were nearly done.

Hints were turning to flirting. Finally, with a rare allusion to ten years ago and seemingly psychic knowledge of how it had come to obsess him, Kim began to narrow in on what she was offering. After another rant about her ex-husband, she tendered her mea culpa and gave him the opening he was dying for.

"God, you must be so sick of hearing me bitch about Edgar! I'm sorry, I know it's heartless. Don't you want to get back at me by saying 'I told you so'?"

"I did warn you after the prom, and that jerk Dubois."

"Okay, you were right. And I was full of crap about the mysteries of love and all. I was trying to soften the blow and got kicked in my own ass instead. I should have stayed middle-class and humble and hooked up with a 'nice' guy, someone that was just dotty with love for me and would have happily done everything I said."

"It's not too late you know. You're no longer poor and the nice guy is still around, just as dotty with love for you as ever."

"Believe me, I'm tempted! Unfortunately Mr. Nice Guy, I am no longer such a nice girl."

"What'd you do, beat up some terrified little kid on the school bus?"

"LOL! No, wiseass. I decided I'm never again taking any crap from any man, ever. Five years was enough. From now on, I wear the pants in any relationship. Now that I'm wealthy and secure I might even go back to being a bit of a bully."

"I can live with that. I mean it wouldn't be the first time. Would you like to bitch-slap me around now, or wait until I get off the bus? I don't have a car or I'd be there tomorrow."

"STOP IT! I'm going to bust a gut over here! Oh, this is why I love you so much, Bobby."

"You're forgetting one thing."

"What's that?"

"I don't excite you. If it's not the mystery that brings the magic and passion, what does?"

"Good question. Here's a good answer. It is endless mutual self-discovery, pushing the bounds of love and commitment and erotic expression further together every day."

"As a writer I consider that evasively vague rhetoric."

"It means endlessly living out our maddest fantasies. You excited me one night Bobby. I know you remember it well, though we've never spoken of it the way we all agreed. You were terribly excited too, tears and struggling and finally defeated denial and all. It made seeing my boobs a year and a half later seem tame, didn't it?"

"I confess. Please torture me some more."