Peaks was your usual midwestern industrial town, although a bit larger than most. The summers of my youth were always the best times, accompanied by my small tribe of friends. Cicadas would call indefinitely, the trees whispering as we romped around those places in your hometown that one might overlook entirely, unless they were yours, and you had to find entertainment in them. We didn’t have a movie theater in town, and none of my buddies had a car for us to venture over to neighboring White Oaks for a night out.
So we biked around, a small portable radio and a shared stash of pot our main sources of fun. I wasn’t the most popular kid at our small local high school, only one of our five friends was someone you would call “in with the cool kids." Keller had risen to some level of social stature through his involvement in our school’s baseball team, but he still hung out with us all the time. He was a good guy, and so were the rest of them. Altogether it was Keller, James - we called him Jamie, as did everyone else - Brandon, Paul and myself. We were those friends that met piecemeal in middle school and stuck together all the way through high school, and we stayed close even after that fateful summer.
It was July, and the heat was there to stay at that point. We finally crossed that threshold into adulthood, and had decided that our way was the best way for just about everything by then. There’s something kind of beautiful about being so young, so untested but still so sure of yourself. We had gotten over the usual pecking order complex that afflicts so many eighteen-year-olds in school, and had found ourselves a nice niche. We were welcome at all the summer parties and events, got along with just about all of our peers in Peaks.
Jamie got word of some shindig in the woods one weekend, out by the old water processing plant. Apparently, Jordan Menler was throwing it, and that guy knew how to party. His near-permanent state of inebriation and easy-going, pseudo-hippy attitude made him a great host for events, even though he was what you might call a “burn-out." If Jordan was making it happen, then we wanted to be there. All of the movers and shakers of our age would be around, and Jordan’s college-going brother Max often showed up, a gaggle of friends from the local state university in tow.
As a matter of course, we whiled away the afternoon on the day of the party in Brandon’s garage. His father was kind of a bigshot, and had renovated the place to be his fortress of solitude some years before. As his dad was often away on business trips, Brandon and the rest of us had taken it over, making it our air-conditioned hangout during the summer months. We had installed a few additions, one of them being a little garden gnome we had stolen from someone’s yard two summers back. The gnome had broken briefly afterward, as Keller had dropped it from his bike rack as we raced away from the scene of the crime. Paul and I pieced it back together and realized that it would act swimmingly as a place for our stash.
Brandon rolled up a nice joint while we each drank a beer from the ever-stocked minifridge, and we shot the shit.
“Hey man, you think Noelle will be there?”
Keller had met Noelle at another one of Jordan Menler’s parties several months before. She was a real looker, and college-aged at that. She had come with Jordan’s older brother, and after hitting it off by the keg, had danced with Keller for a whole hour. He had been obsessed ever since, constantly mentioning his college bride-to-be, bringing up how she had slipped him a quick kiss after their dance.
“Naaaah,” said Brandon from his position by the table, joint paper in hand, “she’s probably off nailin’ some twenty-year-old at school, dude.”
“Ahh fuck you,” Keller shot back before taking a hefty gulp of his beer, “she’s coming back for me.” He was quiet, then.
“Forget about Noelle, Heidi’s got the hots for you. And she’s available,” Paul cooed, wiggling his eyebrows at Keller suggestively, “from what I heard, very available.”
This was one of Paul’s special abilities that none of the rest of us ever quite understood. Somehow, he could always get the scoop from the local group of girls. Whether it was about who was keen on who, where the party was going to happen, or often just tidbits of information about people that seemed to have no importance. He liked to say he had a way with women.
Keller openly guffawed at that, “Heidi Greenfield? You’re kidding.”
“I’m not yanking your chain, man. Brenda told me. Apparently, she finally got word that you liked her from six months ago. Brenda said she wants to fuck your brains out, too. Keep that last part under wraps though, I don’t want my sources compromised.”
“Brenda wants to bang me?” Keller's eyes had gone wide, like a dog caught with a ripped up shoe by its feet.
“No, you dumbass. Don’t go getting a big head. Heidi wants to. You should do it.”
Keller, ever wanting what he couldn’t have, had finally had the object of his affections supposedly dropped into his lap. His obsession with Heidi Greenfield had been an ongoing affair for almost three years, but she had always had a boyfriend. He looked positively devastated, and finished the second half of his beer in one long draught.
I had one of those picturesque memory moments then, watching Keller begin to prematurely sabotage his chances at getting laid before they had even been fully explored. Later, I’ll be a full-on adult and stuff like this won’t feel so important, I thought. I took in my friends, chatting and sipping as we had always done, and had an instant of profound sadness. We hadn’t been too long out of high school, but this felt like an ending of some sort.
Brandon had finished his ministrations on the doobie, and we smoked. It was my inaugural summer of smoking pot, and it still made me loopy every time. My head felt as though it was a great big balloon, inflating and bobbing around. As I sipped conservatively on my beer, my mind wandered. First I thought of the party, how fun it would be, whether or not I would see Keller mac on Heidi Greenfield. Then I thought of Heidi’s friend Irina, on whom I had an enormous crush.
Irina Sommers was a quiet girl, although one year my senior. She had already graduated, and I felt as though I had lost my chance with her. We had chatted on several occasions, often flirtatiously, but it was hard to tell where her interests lay. I simply admired her from afar, too shy to make advances on a girl older than me. I had given up on other girls in my grade throughout my period of longing, simply deciding to hold out a bit longer since she was around for the summer. Maybe I would see her that night.
As I thought about Irina, my libido decided to throw its hat in the ring. I pictured her olive-colored skin, tanned from the summer sun. I saw her staring at me with lustful eyes, lowering panties the color of which I couldn’t even fathom, I was too focused on seeing what was beneath them in my mind’s eye. She would be shaved, I decided, ready for me. Just as I was about to dive into that mysterious, delightful place between her legs, I was ripped from my reverie by a flash of pain.
“You alright, brother?” Jamie laughed, and I realized he had just flicked the tip of my cock through my thin athletic shorts.
“Ohh you asshole,” I moaned through clenched teeth, “why?”
Everyone laughed, and I realized why. I had been sporting a very visible erection as I daydreamed about Irina, and my shorts did no job of hiding it. Embarrassed, I crossed my legs and reached for my beer. In my awkwardness, I missed it, and spilled it onto the red checkered linoleum of the garage floor. We all laughed, then, and finished our joint before getting ready for the party.
Flashes of memory follow, now.
Laughing, riding my bike with no hands because they were holding two open beers, listening to some rock song from the radio on Jamie’s bike rack.
Staring down at my knees, scraped and bloody, I had fallen. My beers were empty. But that was because I had finished them, right? There was no dark patch of wetness in the dirt where they had fallen, so I must have.
Laughing again, this time so hard I could barely breathe.
Arriving near the processing plant, exiting the dirt road and throwing our bikes in between some bushes. Realizing we were in the wrong place, peering through the trees in low dusk light, searching for signs of life, of a bonfire, of the party to come.
Things come into focus now, as I realized that it was almost dark, and we were not any closer to finding the festivities. My right knee hurt, but not badly. Maybe it would have been worse if I wasn’t so tipsy. I kept having funny little thoughts occur to me, and I would giggle out at nothing. No one seemed to find it odd, so I didn’t stop myself from enjoying the moment.
We were eventually saved from our wanderings by a gang of local friends. It must have been ten or more of them, although I can only clearly recall one: Irina. She was right at the front, holding a big flashlight down by her waist, peering out at my little entourage from under one hand, as though she were going to see further in the low light.
“Who’s that?” Someone asked from the depths of her group.
“Ahoy!” Keller’s boisterous tone gave him away at once, and someone shouted back.
So our group became bigger, and we all surged bravely forward into the darkened woods, numbers eliminating any fear we might have. I stayed tucked away with my friends, suddenly feeling a strong desire to just shut up and find the party before my loopy brain had me saying something dumb. I succeeded, and resigned myself to staring at the asses of the girls in front of me, Irina’s included. My cock stirred in my pants again, and I shoved my hands in my pockets to create space and keep any reactions from being visible.
Our ragtag search party found Jordan Menler’s get-together in full swing some time later, deep in the woods by the plant. They had set up a perimeter of tiki torches, and there was even a small card table with a big bucket of ice, beers gleaming out like gems with the torchlight reflected upon their surfaces. I was delighted to have something to do right away, and hurried forwards to grab myself a refreshment. My mouth had never felt so dry.
From here I can only say so much, as my memories get a little foggy once more.
I made the usual rounds, first making sure to thank Jordan for always throwing such rad parties. He beamed at me through the ragged tangle of his long hair, saying some appeasing host phrase and meandering off to socialize more.
I remember seeing Jamie and Paul, the two of them producing another joint from the depths of Jamie’s backpack, which drew a small crowd of eager party-goers. Jamie played it cool, smoothing the length of his brown curls behind his ears and saying loudly, “No worries, guys, there’s plenty.”
I remember stumbling over someone’s legs, then looking down to see two underclassmen making out brazenly at the foot of a large oak tree. I mumbled an apology, then made my way back towards the beer bucket.
As my buzz continued to grow into a full-on drunken state, the minor anxieties of being at a party wore off. I chatted freely with people around me, about what I couldn’t tell you. Things sort of melted off here, my night becoming a flickering haze of smiles, libations and general good times. I thought to myself stupidly, now this is a Menler party, and laughed heartily.
Suddenly, I was standing just beyond the light of the torches. Irina Sommers was with me, but I can’t remember how we came to be that way. We were alone, and somehow the ten-foot distance from our bodies to the rest of the party felt like lightyears. We were alone, and I had no idea why.
“So what did you want to talk to me about?”
Things snapped into focus, my buzz all but dissipating as I realized that she had spoken to me. I was supposed to do something, then. Something important. I stared at her, my mind frozen as I desperately grasped for some core of thought that would allow me to not just stand there staring at her any longer.
“Dean? Hello, earth to Dean?”
There it was! The thing I was supposed to do was talk! I scrambled my brain searching for words, but all that came out was a low groaning sound, followed by the infinitely loud sound of me swallowing. Twice.
“Are you alright? Do you want me to get you some water?”
I coughed into the crook of my arm, more to have something to do than for need of actually clearing my throat. It was now or never, or so it felt.
“Yeah,” I coughed again, “yeah I’m good. Sorry, think I smoked too much. I’m a little lost.”
She smiled, and it was a warm smile. Her eyes twinkled in the light of the torches.
“Well, what were you going to tell me?”
I panicked, then. Something near my brain-stem told me that whatever I had planned here was going to fail miserably, that I should just let it be.
But I had spent a long time letting it be. If I was going to find success in my yearning for Irina, it would be now, under the midnight canopy of tree branches and stars, with firelight reflected in her eyes.
“I was going to tell you,” I could feel my throat closing up and my tongue drying as the words struggled to escape, “that I’m really-into-you-and-have-been-for-a-while-and-just-wanted-to-say-something-before-you-leave-and-it’s-okay-if-you-don’t-like-me-back-I-just-wanted-to-say-is-all!”
The world suddenly stood still, and every microscopic change in her facial expression was a triumph or universe-shaking defeat. It seemed she was conflicted at first, and my heart sank. But then she surprised me, and smiled that warm smile again.
“That’s cool.”
“It is?”
“Yes, it is.” Her laugh tinkled out then, and my knees were jelly. It didn’t matter what happened next, but suddenly my buzz was back and the liquid courage took over.
We were kissing, next. It was awkward with our differences in height, and my mouth was dry. Her mouth tasted like Doublemint gum and cigarettes, and her hands were wrapped around my neck languidly. My erection was straining against her midsection. I knew she must have felt it, but she didn’t shy away.
We were farther away from the ring of torches, then. Her hands fumbled with the waistband of my shorts. I elected to stop moving around and let her set the pace of things. Then her fingers wrapped around my hardness, and it was exquisite.
But Irina stopped then. Her fumblings beneath the material of my shorts had been short-lived, and when I looked up her expression was blank.
“Is something wrong?” I knew it was, but I needed to ask. My cock needed me to ask.
“Did you hear that?”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
Then I heard it, or maybe I heard it the first time, but subconsciously decided to ignore the call. It came again, louder this time.
“Irina!”
“Shit, that’s Morgan. I gotta go.”
I don’t know how long I sat there, or how quickly she left. I found myself sitting in grass, my shorts lowered enough for my ass to have gotten damp with night-dew. I remember feeling let down. Not just for the missed opportunity of a handjob, but with the experience as a whole. I had expected fireworks when I kissed Irina. I had spent so much time fantasizing about those lips, had cum many times masturbating and thinking about her naked body. She had been right there, ready and waiting. But it had felt so lackluster.