Wormwood Files Continued

"Skull & Bratt"

Parked in an ancient Oldsmobile on a badly lit Wormwood side street, seventeen-year-old Skull (known to his mother as Bernard Tell) reached around his girlfriend’s back slowly, as if afraid of getting bitten, and cautiously unhooked her bra. The first hook came quickly, but the second involved some embarrassed fumbling before it finally gave. Bratt (known to her mother as Emily Duncan) let her boyfriend do his dirty work, her lips pursed as the bra finally fell away and his warm hands cupped her.
“So what do you think?”
“About what?”
“You know.”
Skull lowered his head and slipped one of her nipples into his mouth. He pinched the nipple gently between his teeth and sucked. Bratt gasped and leaned against the Oldsmobile’s backseat, her fingers clenching the car’s velour upholstery. Skull released the nipple and looked up.
“I’ve got condoms. They’re chocolate flavored.”
“We’ve only been going out for two months, Skull.”
“So?”
The windows were all down, but it was still hot and humid in the car. Skull could see tiny beads of sweat on his girlfriend’s stomach, glistening on her breasts and neck. He knew what they would taste like. The sticky salt taste of her. He dipped down and sucked on her other nipple. She gasped again and he slid a hand down her stomach and pressed the flat of his hand over her pelvis. It felt warm, even through her jeans, and he could feel it pulsing with her heartbeat.
“Skull.”
“Yeah?”
“Back off, dude.”
Skull sat up and withdrew to his side of the backseat. His boner ached so much he wondered if he’d ruptured a vein. Bratt nuzzled into his shoulder until he wrapped an arm around her.
“I still love you, dude,” Bratt told him. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Just be patient with me.”
“Why not? Everything else in this damn town is about being patient. We have to be patient for our damn senior year to start, and then we’ll have to be patient for it to end. We have to be patient to get old enough to buy beer. We have to be patient for the Visitors to arrive. Fucking patience all over the place.”
Bratt kissed his cheek.
“You heard Felix today. The Visitors are getting closer. Everything is. We live in an important time. A really, really important time. Good things are worth waiting for, aren’t they?”
Blood pounded in his ears, but beyond that he suddenly couldn’t hear much of anything. What would the Visitors be like? Would they really usher in an era of peace and prosperity? Or was Felix totally full of bullshit and just telling everyone what they wanted to hear?
“What are you thinking?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Then talk to me.”
Skull turned towards Bratt. Her round white breasts glowed in the dim starlight. Her nipples were still hard.
He’d done that.
He could, at least, do that much.

4 comments:

mm said...

"His boner ached so much he wondered if he’d ruptured a vein."

Probably a good thing this was pulled out. I laughed out loud when I hit that line, and I'm not sure that's what you're going for. Paragraphs later I was still thinking about it.

Boner. It's just a funny word.

David Oppegaard said...

oh, that's what I was going for, alright. no one puts "boner" in a character's mind for a solemn effect.

except maybe Nora Roberts.

mm said...

David Oppegaard, author of the Suicide Collectors, on writing:

"Don't have a character say or think the word 'boner', unless you really mean it."

David Oppegaard said...

Mike, I think we're the only ones who read this blog anymore.

Are you tell me that after four years of blogging I'm not an exciting, fireball blogger?

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