Part 2 (1/2)
”Um!” she calls after me. I look back. ”Thank you?”
I give her a long glance from her ankles up to her legs to her hips and belly and b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the disheveled red dress, hair tumbling from its neat design on her head. She's stunning, really. Delicious.
”Don't mention it,” I say, and step off the train.
”The call to write is a call that's received in the body first. For hundreds of years poets and writers have described the creative process as a physical urgency, a sense that things will fly apart if they don't get the pencil to the page in time. Creativity is not tidy or polite-it's insistent. It calls us to feel, not dimly, not safely, but wildly, pa.s.sionately, in every cell and fiber. If we are to answer that call, we have to be able to feel every part of our lives.”
- John Lee
from Writing From the Body
Charles Lyons Bio Charles Lyons is a filmmaker and writer who lives in San Francisco. This was the first story he wrote for the Erotic Reading Circle.
Mini-Interview How did you start writing about s.e.x? I've been interested in stories relating to s.e.x for about as long as I've been interested in s.e.x, but I started writing erotica in an attempt to short- circuit the perfectionist part of my brain. I guess I was thinking I might be less attached to the outcome, but I'm not sure it worked. Good stories about s.e.x are just as hard to write as good stories about anything else, maybe harder in some cases.
How is the Erotic Reading Circle part of your writing process? I find it helpful to have a group to read for, to push myself to get things done on a regular basis. And even when I have nothing ready to read I almost always leave more inspired than when I arrived-I'm consistently impressed not only by the quality of the writing there but the variety of subjects, styles, and approaches. A safe, receptive environment is important with any new writing, and that's never more true than when s.e.xuality is involved. Some of the most inspiring stories I've heard have been the most raw, naked, and personal.
What's the inside scoop on your story? I was careful not to explicitly name the location of my story, but astute readers can probably guess it pretty easily. It wasn't based on an actual experience, just a.s.sembled from a ”what-if” and lots of small fragments, like a lot of stories probably are.
Heart-Shaped Box Charles Lyons It was the first thing he noticed after climbing out of the car. Before the dust or the heat or the Flintstone mobile trundling by had even registered, he saw her come around the back of the cargo truck, arms full of camping gear.
She wasn't wearing pants.
Not just a bathing suit or panties or even a thong, nothing. Her a.s.s beneath her t-s.h.i.+rt as bare as the day she was born, legs dusted with a pale sheen of talc, fluffy tuft of pink-yes, pink!-in the front.
He forced himself not to stare as she dumped her armload on the lift gate of the truck, clapped her hands a couple times, and came over to him, one hand extended in greeting.
”You must be Nate,” she said. ”Sarah's little brother. Sorry, not little. Younger.”
”Yeah, that's right.”
”So you're a virgin, huh?”
His sister had been referring to him this way for weeks, so he knew she just meant this was his first time here. But he was sure that he blushed.
She had almond eyes and a dark bob with magenta streaks in her bangs. As he fumbled through a reply, he managed to avoid checking to see if the carpet matched the accents in the drapes. But he was sure it did. She introduced herself as Treasure and he spent several minutes trying to guess which Eastern European country she was from before he realized it was an English word.
His sister and her s.h.a.ggy boyfriend came around the car to hug Treasure and started discussing the camp layout, pointing to the little red boundary flags that dotted the edge of the street, the pile of tarps marking the far corner of their territory, the distant, barren mountains beyond which the sun would rise and set.
It was only then that he noticed the pirate flag over the neighboring camp, the immaculate blue sky, the couplet of cupcakes cruising past camp in the clear afternoon light, folds of frosting hiding the heads of their drivers.
He had arrived. He would have stories to tell back in Ohio, oh yes. They thought he was a weirdo for coming out here, but they had no idea.
Nate followed Treasure around all afternoon, helping to unload the truck, offering to lift heavy things whenever possible, stealing glances when he was sure no one was looking. When she pulled off some work gloves he managed to get a good look at her left hand, which was ringless-but maybe she'd taken it off for safekeeping. She had Mediterranean skin, a mild tan everywhere he could see, no bikini lines except for a pale stripe on her neck, and her round, firm a.s.s cheeks taunted him all day long.
He unloaded and set up his tent, then repositioned it when she suggested a better location. He put his cooler in one corner and his duffel bag in the other, then pumped up his air mattress only to realize he should have put it inside the tent first.
G.o.dzilla walked past and waved h.e.l.lo before moving on down the street.
He and Sarah's boyfriend Justin unloaded a couch from the truck, then Nate helped raise the shade structure, tighten the ratchets, and string blacklights, meeting his other campmates-to-be along the way.
There was Wild Bill Yonder, a tall man in a cowboy hat who showed him how to tie a trucker's. .h.i.tch. DJ Trainwreck, who had brought a surprisingly large pile of expensive-looking audio equipment to a very dirty place. Everest, a bra.s.sy girl in a tutu who flirted with everyone and called him Sparky. Doctor Awesome, who came striding up out of the dust in a waistcoat and a pith helmet, crooked grin on his face, and knew where everything went and in what order. Princess Tumbleweed and Mayday and Dirty Vargas and Captain Trips and Lulu and Steve, and all of them very friendly and most of them somewhat odd and he had a hard time imagining them in normal clothes sitting behind a desk or talking on the phone or watching television.
Around them their neighbors' camps sprang up: a field of crucified Barbies, a jungle gym that became a big silver dome, a giant ketchup bottle at the intersection. At one point a topless woman with magnificent anti-gravity b.r.e.a.s.t.s walked by and smiled at him and he remembered to wave just in time.
And everywhere always the distinctive dry powdery smell of alkali flats.
Late in the afternoon he went back to his tent to get some more sunscreen and came around the corner of the truck to see Treasure standing close to Doctor Awesome, one leg rising to entwine with his as she curled up into him to kiss him, his hand on the back of her neck, and Nate felt a sick twist of envy shoot through his gut.
The air was hard and hot, his mouth was dry, and even the steamboat churning up the 4:30 spoke no longer felt magical.
”I was s.h.i.+rt-c.u.n.ting today,” she said.
Doctor Awesome hung a headlamp on a hook by the side door of their van. ”I noticed. What was that about?”
”I don't know, I guess I wanted to be naked but I didn't want to burn my shoulders.”
”Or put sunscreen on.”
”Ahhh, that takes too long.” Treasure walked on her knees across the bed that filled the back of the van. ”Did you see Nate? Sarah's little brother? His eyes were like saucers when he saw me. I thought they were going to fall out of his head.”
Doc chuckled. ”I bet he doesn't see much s.h.i.+rt-c.u.n.ting in Ohio.” ”I don't know if he's ever seen p.u.s.s.y before. He's such a sweet innocent kid.” She sighed, then tugged to adjust one of the wine-colored curtains that surrounded the bed on three sides.
The Doctor glanced over from where he was organizing the contents of his utility belt. ”You seem nervous. Is something on your mind?”
”No. Maybe ...” she added in a guilty little-girl voice, eyes averted. He watched her, recognizing the beginning of the Game.
”Are you being a naughty girl again?”
”No,” she said, this time playing her part to the hilt.
He gripped her by the back of the neck and stretched her length along the bed, face down. She was wearing fur-trimmed shorts now, but he yanked them down, revealing the smooth globes of her a.s.s. She gasped and he gave one cheek a firm smack with his hand.
”Now I know you are, you little tramp. What are you thinking about?” he asked as he squeezed and stroked the injured cheek.
”I was just thinking ... about him being here for his first time, and ...”
”Yes?”
”Out exploring the playa, all innocent and inexperienced, and what it would be like if some woman ...”
His hand stopped circling, hovered. ”What woman?”