The Obstacle Course (29 page)

“Oh, God! If anyone sees me like this I’ll die!”

She did look pretty raggedy. Her lipstick was smeared over half her face, her hair was a mess, her clothes were all wrinkled and undone.

“I’ve got to clean up,” she told me. “You, too.”

I looked at myself in the mirror, next to her. It was the usual look you get after you’ve been making out hot and heavy for a half-hour. She didn’t know the look, never having done this before.

“You can use the guest bathroom at the end of the hall, on the floor below,” she said. “My grandparents’ bedrooms are on that floor, so be careful they don’t hear you, my grandmother might be old but she’s got ears like a hawk. Just don’t let anyone see you, especially my mother, that’s all I need. I’ll meet you downstairs in ten minutes,” she added in this real flirty tone of voice, giving me one last soul kiss and pushing me out of her room. We’d been together two times and she’d gone from being a shy wallflower to a red-hot makeout artist. It’s incredible how easy that is once you know somebody wants it from you like you want it from them.

I tiptoed down to the second floor, making sure I wasn’t spotted, not only because I had her makeup smeared all over me, but also because I had a hard-on like an elephant, even with my hand in my pocket it stuck out like I had a ruler in my pants. I didn’t know what the admiral and Mrs. Wells would think, but I didn’t want to take any chances. Melanie was this nice girl they liked, they didn’t want her corrupted by some hood from the wrong side of the tracks—Mrs. Wells especially. Even though she was being much nicer to me, I remembered all too clearly the way she’d put me down when she thought I wasn’t listening. I was doing good all around, I didn’t need to fuck anything up.

Melanie had about creamed in her jeans when I’d told her I’d gotten into Farrington, up there in her bedroom before we’d started making out.

“Oh, Roy,” she’d squealed, “that’s
great,
that’s so
great,
why didn’t you tell me
earlier?
”

“It was your big day, I didn’t want to steal your thunder.”

“It’s a big day for you, too, it’s even bigger for you. Oh, Roy, I’m so proud of you.” She’d given me a kiss on the mouth, the first of many. I knew she wanted to do it with me, she didn’t need any excuses, but telling her about Farrington hadn’t hurt.

“You’ll look great in a uniform,” she’d said.

I’d thought about that, how cool it would be. Their uniforms were modeled after the Naval Academy’s; it would be like I was a midshipman-in-training.

“There’s a great girls’ school nearby, Agnes Walker,” Melanie had told me. “Some of my friends have gone there, they say it’s neat, you date boys from Farrington. I could transfer, we could both be there.”

“Yeah,” I’d said, “that would be great.” I got a little uneasy when she’d said that, not that it wouldn’t be great, hot and cold running pussy any time I felt like it the way this girl was going, but she was pushing mighty hard, pretty soon she’d be telling me what kind of engagement ring she wanted. It’s like my sister, she’s finishing eleventh grade and if the right boy comes along she’ll get married the day she graduates. That’s not a life for me, I’ve got a whole career ahead of me to worry about. Still, it’s nice when someone wants you as much as Melanie wanted me.

After I finished washing Melanie off my face and combing my hair I took a look at myself in the bathroom mirror. It wasn’t perfect—a trained eye could see what I’d been up to, but like my old man says, it was good enough for government work.

As I left the bathroom I could hear voices drifting up the staircase from downstairs—the admiral, Mrs. Wells, old Admiral Prescott and Melanie’s grandmother, Melanie’s mother. And Melanie, she was already down there, I must’ve been daydreaming in the bathroom, remembering her taste in my mouth. I felt kind of nervous as I walked down the long, musty hallway towards the staircase, because I wasn’t comfortable up here by myself in old Admiral Prescott’s house. I wasn’t part of this house, part of the lives of these people. I was not here because of myself, but because Admiral Wells had brought me into his home and I’d met Melanie because of that, and she’d invited me to her recital because she’d fallen for me, and for that reason they had to be nice to me. And even though Melanie Prescott had just told me that she loved me and had let me put my hand inside her pussy and was ready and willing to give her cherry up to me next week even though she was only in the ninth grade and hadn’t had a real date in her life didn’t make up for my not being part of this. I was an outsider to them, and I always would be. Even if I married Melanie Prescott and lived in this very house, I still wouldn’t be one of them.

That was okay, though, because a lot of what they were was bullshit to me. I didn’t want to be like them, I wouldn’t mind being rich and shit like that, but not all the rest of it. Not the boring parts.

Partway down the hallway was an open door leading into a bedroom. As I walked by, I stopped for a second and glanced in. I didn’t have any reason, I was curious was all, maybe I wanted to see how different it was from what I knew. Or maybe I was just being my customary nosy self, which is closer to the truth.

There were the usual items, chests of drawers, lamps, a bed—all the best quality, even my untrained eye could see that—and clothes thrown on the bed. A woman’s clothes, like whoever’s room it was had been trying different dresses on until she found the one she liked. My sister’s room is like that, half her clothes are on her bed most of the time.

Melanie’s mother was using this room, I realized, she would sleep here overnight some of the time, the times when Melanie was staying here with her grandparents, since she wouldn’t want to be alone in a big old house, especially if her daughter wasn’t there. She probably kept several changes of clothes here because of all the fancy affairs they must’ve put on—I could see her lugging out a bunch of dresses and trying them all on, one after the other, deciding which one was best for the occasion. She would’ve brought some from her own house, too. She was that vain kind of woman, I could tell—she’d take forever figuring out what she should wear so people would look at her; especially men. Trying dresses on all day, putting on her makeup, all that vain shit women do. I’ll bet she made Melanie help her, too, she’d tell her “I want to look good for you, darling,” when what she really wanted was to look good for herself, and just as important, better than her daughter, even though it was her daughter’s big day, not hers. I remembered her holding my hand before the recital, trying to flirt with me right in front of Melanie, to steal her daughter’s thunder.

The thing is, she
was
kind of sexy, for an older woman. I’d noticed her figure when Melanie had introduced us, I couldn’t deny that. She was the kind of woman who made you look at her, that was what she was all about. She had to be horny as hell, being divorced from Melanie’s father (who had humiliated her by leaving her for a younger woman); she was probably on the make for every man around, even if he was only fifteen and her daughter’s date. Of course, that could’ve been my own fantasy: guys’re always fantasizing about fucking a mother-daughter combination, that’s one of the ultimates—I’ll bet some of Ruthie’s boyfriends have even thought about fucking my mom. She probably would, too, if she thought she could get away with it, the way my old man treats her. Serve his ass right.

I shouldn’t go in that room; I knew that. I should haul my young ass downstairs before they started wondering where I was. But now I’d built this fantasy in my brain about Melanie’s mother, about the two of them naked together, with me in the middle. It was being with Ruby that did it; ever since then I’d been thinking about older women.

Melanie’s mother’s clothes were calling to me, lying there on the bed. I wanted to touch them, just for a moment. Maybe part of her smell would be on them. Something. I’d just take a quick look, pick up one dress.

That was bullshit: a pair of undies is what I wanted to pick up, a stocking. Something with the touch and smell of her sex on it. I still had this raging hard-on from having made out with Melanie, and sex was the only thing on my mind. What I really wanted to do—I hated to admit it but I had to—was jack off into a pair of Melanie’s mother’s panties. I’d do it real fast, be rid of my boner in thirty seconds, I’d stuff the panties in my pocket and nobody would ever know.

I picked up a pair. They were real silk, a light peach in color, they practically slipped out of my fingers they were so silky and slippery. I moved away from the bed, towards a corner of the room, turned my back to the door and reached for my fly.

Then I saw it, sitting on top of her chest of drawers, hidden behind a picture in a gold frame, a picture of a baby girl. Melanie as a baby, it was the same hair. If I hadn’t been standing inside the room I wouldn’t have seen it, because it couldn’t be seen from the hallway.

The
it
I am referring to was Mrs. Wells’s silver statuette, the one that had been stolen. The one I’d seen old Mrs. Prescott pick up. I’d known that old bitch had stolen the statuette from the giddyup, and now here it was.

Forget about beating off. My cock went limp so fast it was like it had never been erect at all. I tucked it back in and zipped up my fly.

I didn’t know what the fuck to do. I could go downstairs and tell on her to the Wellses, but then I’d have to admit I was in her room, and what was I doing there? I was going to tell them I wanted to masturbate into a pair of Melanie’s mother’s underpants? I couldn’t say I’d seen it from the hallway as I just happened to be strolling by, because that was impossible, even if it hadn’t been hidden behind the picture frame it was too small to be seen from there, you’d have to have better eyesight than Superman.

Ratting on old Mrs. Prescott would cause a huge stink. Everybody would be embarrassed as hell, Melanie most of all. She’d take it personally, like somehow it was her fault, like if I hadn’t been up there corrupting her it would’ve all passed over. Today was her special day—first she’d knocked people over with her piano playing, and then she’d made out for the first time in her young, innocent life with the boy of her dreams. It would kill her, finding out that her grandmother, who took better care of her than her own mother, was not only a common thief, but had stolen from Beatrice Wells, her best friend.

I should never have gone in this room in the first place. I should’ve learned my lesson back there in the Smithsonian, with Darlene and Danny. But I had, and it was too late to turn back.

I picked it up, hefting it in my hand for a second. It was heavier than it looked, real silver. Mrs. Wells wouldn’t have anything phony in her house, that I knew.

“What are you doing in here?”

I spun around. Old Mrs. Prescott was standing in the doorway, staring at me.

“What are you doing in my guest bedroom, young man?” she demanded in a loud, harsh voice. She didn’t sound like a singing little bird now, she was barking like a dog. Her face was all red and splotchy, the way people’s faces get when they’ve had too much to drink or they’re mad as hell.

“Nothing,” I mumbled under my breath. I was holding the statuette in my fist. It felt like a burning rock.

“You thief!” she screamed at me.

“No, no, I’m not … you got it backwards, lady.” I was fucked, now everybody would find out, Melanie’s day would be ruined, I’d never see her again, Admiral and Mrs. Wells wouldn’t be able to be friends with the Prescotts anymore. All because this old bitch had stolen from her friend, and I’d been a nosy asshole and found the fucking evidence. What pissed me off more than anything, besides getting caught where I shouldn’t have been, was
her
calling
me
a thief, when I was holding onto the very thing she’d stolen.

“What’s going on?” Admiral Wells was all of a sudden in the doorway next to old Mrs. Prescott, and Mrs. Wells, and Admiral Prescott, and Melanie’s mother, and Melanie. The whole shooting match, standing in the doorway, staring at me.

“I can explain,” I told him, my eyes begging. I wanted to explain in private; I didn’t want it all to come out in the wash here.

Admiral Wells looked at me with a questioning stare, like he didn’t know what was going on, but didn’t like whatever it was.

“What is it, Roy? What do you have?”

Slowly, I opened my hand and showed them the statuette.

“Oh.” Mrs. Wells had her hand to her chest, like she’d had a heart attack.

“I didn’t take it,” I said, talking feverishly. “I didn’t. I found it. Here,” I pointed to the chest of drawers, “it was hidden behind this picture.” I looked at the admiral, who stared back at me. Everyone else was staring daggers at me, all except Melanie, who had eyes as big as saucers.

“It’s true, I swear to God!”

Melanie started hiccupping, like she couldn’t breathe. Her mother put an arm around her shoulder, glaring at me with pure hatred in her face. If looks could kill I’d be a dead man already, the way she was looking at me.

“That’s a disgusting lie,” old Mrs. Prescott yelled, turning to Admiral Wells and Mrs. Wells. “He took it out of his pocket, I saw him do it. Look at him,” she said, pointing a bony finger in my face, “he’s trembling like a leaf, he’s been caught red-handed and he’ll say anything to get out of it.” She was spitting she was so angry. It wasn’t me she was angry at, though, it was herself for being found out, but me and her were the only ones that knew that.

Mrs. Wells looked at me. She had tears in her eyes.

“Roy, how could you?” she pleaded, in her soft, smoky voice. “After all we’ve done for you?”

“I didn’t, Mrs. Wells, I swear to God! I would never steal from you, you’ve been nicer to me than anybody in my whole life.” I really was shaking, not only because I was scared shitless, but also because I was angry as hell. I hadn’t done it; this was outrageously unfair. “Why would I steal something and then a month later bring it with me here? Nobody’s that stupid, not even me!” I yelled.

“Give it to me,” the admiral said, his voice flat and quiet. He stood there, his hand out.

I walked over to him and placed it in his hand.