This is heavily inspired by a passage in one of my favorite novel's, The Virgin Suicides. And by inspired, I mean the structure is basically lifted. If you haven't read that, and you like fiction (which I hope you do if you're on this sight) go read it. Again, that name is The Virgin Suicides.
I still remember our first date. It was two months after In Utero dropped, so it would have been November. The fall had turned grim by then, locking the sky in steel. It always threatened to turn frigid, making us all wear jackets, but the season never delivered on the unspoken promise of a cold snap. So we walked through streets studded with dying elms, too warm in our plaid button-ups and faux leather.
I pulled up in front of Bonnie's house in my dad's red Trans Am, parking it in front of a decapitated tree so it wouldn't get sap all over it.
I'd cut my hair for the occasion, transforming it from an unmanageable mess into a long mane of jet black, a la Kelly Kapowski. I was dolled up too: the usual acid-washed jeans and t-shirts discarded for pants without holes in them, and the closest thing to a cardigan I had in my closet.
So not quite dolled up, but as close as I ever got.
I popped the sun visor and looked at myself in the mirror. I'm not a fan of makeup, but I'd shelled out for some eyeshadow and mascara (no liner in the store, I'd checked).
After making sure nothing was running, I hopped out of the car and walked out onto the emerald lawn in front of Bonnie's house.
She met me at the door, wearing a pink dress with short sleeves. Her feet were bare.
Wordlessly, she led me into the house and to my assigned seat on the couch, which as it turned out was right next to her mother, who sat between us for the entire night.
Mrs Colle, who I hadn't met before tonight but had seen many times, was something of a paradox. She was Bonnie's mother, but whenever I searched for signs of her daughter's beauty, steel wool hair and librarian's glasses disguised any trace that might have lingered on from her youth.
The girls, Bonnie included, paid me little attention. Her sisters, Emily and Samantha (who went by Sam) sat on the ground across from us, Emily walking the youngest Colle sister through a particularly gnarly bit of pre-calculus. Bonnie's dad, Mr Colle, sat on the easy chair next to me.
Sandwiched between her parents, the only thing I could see of Bonnie were her feet every time she put them up on the coffee table. But every time they crept onto the black tabletop, her mother would prod them with a knitting needle until they receded, like some pale creature living inside a thermal vent at the bottom of the ocean.
And I would have felt I was at the bottom of the ocean, or on a dead planet, if not for the pulsing life of Bonnie on the other end of the couch.
So we watched a Full House special on TV (Mrs Colle thought Saved By the Bell hit too close to home) which the Colles accepted like a family accustomed to the same bland entertainment. They laughed at lame stunts, sat up at rigged climaxes.
And that was all that happened. I didn't get to talk to Bonnie, or even look at her. At ten o'clock sharp, taking a cue from his wife, Mr Colle slapped me on the back. "Well son", he started, catching himself and frowning momentarily, muttering a "sorry".
"Anyways, we usually hit the hay around now".
I extended my hand for him to shake, which he blanched at before taking.
Bonnie walked me to the door, her head down, and once I was outside on the doorstep looked at me with a sad smile that promised only frustration. All I could hope for, I guessed, was another night between Mr and Mrs Colle on the couch, watching TV.
The door shut, and I walked across the lawn and back to my car. I climbed in and sat in the driver's seat, staring at the house, watching the lights in the windows go off one by one.
I thought about Bonnie getting ready for bed, slipping on a nightgown and brushing her teeth. Just the thought of her holding a toothbrush excited me more than any full-fledged nudity I had seen in my own bedroom.
I sighed, laying my head back on the headrest and opening my mouth to ease the constriction of my chest.
But then the car door flew open, the air churned, and I felt myself pulled forward by the front of my shirt and pushed back again, as a creature with a hundred mouths started sucking the marrow from my bones.
She said nothing as she came on like a starved animal, barely breathing as she trailed burning kisses up and down me. I wouldn't have known it was her, but for the taste of the bubblegum she always chewed in my mouth after our lips locked.
She wasn't wearing a dress anymore but a white nightgown, wet from the lawn, with nothing under it. I had my hands on her hips, running my fingers down her legs and back up again, feeling her clammy shins, her hot knees, her bristly thighs. With hesitation I had never felt and would never feel with any other woman, I put a finger to the ravenous mouth of that animal leashed below her waist.
It was like I had never touched a girl before. I felt fur and hot skin and oil like otter insulation. I groaned at it, the only noise in that silent car. The hot tips of her breasts pressed against mine through the nightgown, and I could feel heat coiling like a snake in my gut.
I did my best to feed that beast, to placate it and please it, as I was pushed and pulled and buffeted about like a tiny boat flying over the crest of wave after wave. But my feeling of insufficiency grew until, after only a few minutes, she pulled away. Her torrid kisses stopped, leaving me wet with her frantic love and my own pent-up desire.
She opened the car door, not even looking at me as she said, "Gotta get back before bed check".
My breathing was heavy as she disappeared into the dark, darting across the lawn and out from under the glare of the streetlights.
I waited, holding my breath, for what felt like an hour.
Then, when it dawned on me that she was well and truly gone, I leaned my head back on the headrest for the second time that night and swore breathlessly. I shuddered, a bone-deep shiver from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes.
It was...well, I can't really describe it. It was like being struck by lightning, like an electric current had run through every nerve. It was like being flayed alive, in the best way I could imagine.
I thought that it must have been a dream. Her fiery attack had lasted only three minutes, leaving me just where I had been before it started, though now I was shaking with unrelieved pleasure.
Most people never taste that kind of love, never have their intestines yanked in such a delectable way. I count myself lucky that I got to taste it once.