Teri

"Going over Dawn's today?" Aunt Denise asks without looking up from the newest Uncle Henry's classifieds. The overhead kitchen bulb shimmers in her teacup and burnishes her auburn topknot. Framed in the window is one of those typical maritime days when cotton bales of fog ghost the peninsula, monopolizing the air with their wetsuit chill. 

"No, she's got a dentist appointment in Brunswick." And yesterday's sun packed its bags and followed her, proving it must be a male. I zip the heather gray Boothbay Harbor sweatshirt until it pinches my neck, shivering but also nervous my heart's sudden clunk might show through the t-shirt.

Not because I'm not telling the truth; Dawn phoned a few minutes ago and said Doctor Teeth was able to squeeze her into a cancellation slot. It's because when we finally dragged ourselves out of the ocean yesterday, there was Mrs. Sanders from next door cooling her fallen arches in the tideline, prescription sunglasses aimed straight at me.  Even though I'd done my best to re-don my bikini bra after Dawn Copperfield had made it disappear during the swim, I figured I was screwed. 

Screwed? You call that screwed? What could possibly be worse than Adonis - the cutest guy you've seen since Anton's pop-icon pout melted your drawers - swimming close enough to see your goosebumps au naturel? 

Still, I've always looked up to my Yankee aunt, who's never given me a reason to want to disrespect her. She had my back whenever she thought Mom was being too strict and even talked her into letting me go on my first date with Marc. Oh well, nobody's perfect.

So as you can imagine, I couldn't taste a single bite of supper last night, waiting for the "I heard" Weejun to drop. But Aunt Denise chopped the salad greens and served the stuffed peppers and blueberry cobbler without a hint of deviation from her calm demeanor. 

That didn't mean she couldn't ambush me with it this morning, though. Grownups can be cagey like that.

"I was thinking about taking the bike out," I venture, hoping to wedge a few more hours between me and a possible lecture on beachgoing decorum. Or, heaven forbid, being sent back to the Hudson Valley to sweat out the rest of the summer tormented with Instagram feeds of Marc pawing Vicki's beached whale behind.

 "Good day for a ride." Aunt Denise sips her tea and flips a page. "Go for it. Tires might need a boost - you know where the pump is."

"I'll probably check out Nar and Churchill Pond. Need anything from the village?"

"No, we're good. Lunch at one, if you're interested."

"I'll be back before then."

***

The blacktop's smooth but narrow ribbon twirls eastward; the gentle scritch of pedals and gears announces my passage through balsam-scented peace.

Dentist. I hope the top-thieving tart gets the drilling of her life after that stunt she pulled yesterday.

I won't lie; I'm still kind of in a spin at Dawn's behavior. Even after what she told me about her risque games with rock-hard Jimmy Swift and the horny quarterback and the grab-ass druggist - pronghorns, all - to think her raging comeliness could include other girls is, well, disorienting. I mean, real girls, not just Marla the centerfold.

But why me? The mirrors I've seen don't show anything a girl like Dawn could possibly want. Not that there's anything wrong with the individual parts. They just don't add up to the elusive 'spectacular', especially these small boobies.

Then again, middle-aged Mr. Danforth wouldn't win any Mr. Universe contests, yet he got to see her naked lusciousness and feel the triumph of ejecting his seed between her wickedly talented hands. 

Disgusting.

So why are you suddenly pedaling funny?

How could she stoop so low?

That's not what you said when you stuffed that pillow under--

Seriously? Stripping off and spreading her legs for a homely married dude more than twice her age?

Makes you want to pull into the woods and do unspeakable things to the seat horn, doesn't it? 

Oh, shut up and downshift already. Uphill grade ahead, remember?

Is it some weird pheromone aura? Has she figured out I mount the self-serve Tilt-A-Whirl after wandering through a candy arcade of how she amuses her juicy bits? Does she think she can take advantage and play with me the same way she would with Jimmy Swift and Company?

You didn't exactly fight her off, you know.

And you did like it when her fingers zinged your nips. Didn't you?

Uh-oh, panties getting slick again? Bad girl. 

Before I can drool or ruminate further, the monotonous conifer walls give way to Narwhal Harbor's picture window on the sea. The inner monologue stills in awe.

No wonder Hollywood came calling in the mid-nineties when it needed a coastal location shoot for a big-name chick flick. Aunt Denise had shared tales of tourist-snarled lanes, celebrity sightings and the Naval Air Station's unprecedented civilian clearance for the actors' Learjets to land.

Thankfully, there's no trace of Tinseltown's hoofprints on the shingle-cottage tiara or the tranquil marina it crowns. The dock where Devin Blossner and Siobhan Raung traded banalities that passed for cinematic flirtation is now peppered with quarreling gulls. 

Motion breaks the village still life as I'm pedaling past the boatyard.

My eyes swerve onto the denim-clad backside of a workman who's directing a pickup driver. Helpless marionettes tugged by the whim of his gestures, they linger over the strength rippling from retracted tartan sleeves, then rise to trace the slowly emerging profile as he turns. 

Wow. Devin Blossner had nothing on this fellow, even in his prime, which was way before my time. 

Omigosh. It's--

CLANK. 

A jolt jars bone; the front wheel, having followed the Pied Piper of my distraction, has derailed over the ragged asphalt edge. Gravel and pavement smash into knees and forearms at ouch-miles-per-hour. Despite covered limbs all around, a slew of fresh abrasions convinces my nerve endings they're under attack from a swarm of murder hornets. 

How could you be such an idiot? 

The rebuke scalds like intellectual napalm. One excruciating shuffle at a time, I drag myself off the stones and smack dirt from my pants. I can stand. So far, so good.

Is that my pulse hammering at my skull, or are those approaching footfalls? Either way, sudden evasive movements are out of the question.

"You okay?" 

The sound is pure masculine honey - Tupelo, not orange blossom. I look up from the rips in my favorite sweatshirt's cuff, and a surge of lightheadedness nearly causes another collapse.

Inches away stands the workman indirectly responsible for my wipeout - Adonis, looking scrumptiously rustic in casual clothes and talking to me as if he hadn't seen my frosted nipples yesterday--

Yikes!

My face could boil enough lobster to feed the entire Bush compound from now until Christmas Prelude weekend. The road shoulder's rubble suddenly demands unwavering scrutiny as I brace for the chauvinistic wisecrack that will knock him off his pedestal and cure me of this stupid obsession once and for all.

"We have a first-aid kit and some bandages if you need them," I hear instead. Kindness. Concern? 

Total curveball.

Both knees wobble like tenderized veal, and wet ants of blood are crawling over my elbows.

"I'll be all right." A bravado tilt of my head aligns his gaze with mine. 

Perhaps he's been to Europe and is used to alfresco softcore nudity. In any case, he shows no signs of associating me with the receiving end of aquatic wardrobe sabotage. I can handle anything - even internal hemorrhage.

"You took quite a spill there." 

The celestial gleam of his eyes is stronger than my mere hazels can withstand. Rites of passage from twenties to thirties etch their corners with the devastating appeal of a man who smiles easily and often. 

As a means of escape, I reach for the handlebars and pull, only to discover the tire and the front brake pad engaged in a bump-and-grind instead of the usual do-si-do. 

Despair jettisons embarrassment. How will I explain the damage to Aunt Denise?

Adonis adds a somber 'Hmm," followed with, "Don't suppose you have a spoke wrench on you?"

I shake my head, misery multiplying. 

"Want me to take a look at it?"

My heart high-fives my rib cage. "N-no, that's too much troub- " 

"Well, you can't ride it this way. Here. I'll carry that for you." His arms hoist the metal jumble with the ease of a groom bearing snow-white joy toward his honeymoon bed.

O happy bike, to be borne by the weight of-- 

"Okay." Stunned and trusting as an imprinted duckling, I trail his two-handful caboose down the embankment and through one of the overhead doors. The harbor's brine turns astringent with lacquer and wood shavings.

Please don't let this be just a post-traumatic hallucination...

Inside the boathouse, he props the patient upside-down on a well-appointed workbench and promptly gives it the bedside manner. 

"Beautiful Raleigh." Jealousy gnaws my gut as the crossbar receives his appreciative caress. "I've got a newer one, but they don't build 'em like this anymore. Late 70s, is it?"

No idea. "I think so." I manage to stop myself before mentioning an aunt, a guaranteed passion-killer.

"Might take a while," he warns. "Need to be anywhere soon?"

I shake my head. There's no place to sit, but I don't care. Just being near him is the best anesthetic for these cuts and scrapes. 

"Zan-dahh! You have a call." A cigarette roughened bark rips the air, traceable to the septuagenarian secretary leaning from her office door. Clad in floor-to-ceiling khaki, she brays in the region's nasal drawl, "It's Dahh-see."

Adonis' studiousness relaxes into a smile that lights the world. My knees deteriorate from tenderized to liquefied. 

"I'll call back, Louise," he reassures her, his volume robust. Manly. "Twenty minutes... thirty, tops."

Silently I thank the salt-cured receptionist. Now I have a name to go with the dream incarnate from the beach. The music of exotic summer fantasies begins to play, two notes at a time: Zander. Zander.

"You're actually not supposed to be in here. Insurance rules," my rescuer cuts into the song. His deft fingers cradle something that looks like a fat metal Life Saver. "There're some picnic tables near the dock. I'll call you soon as it's ready."

So much for therapy by proximity. "Okay, thanks." Chastened, I turn toward the inferior daylight.

"Before you go, what should I call you?"

Call me? "Oh. Teri."

"As in Theresa?" It's a conversational reflex, nothing else.

I hesitate, unsure if he's listening. "Tereza." 

He continues to admire the enameled frame's sturdiness. "All right, Tuh-ray-za, see you in a bit."

The benches are tacky with recent paint. I straddle one, not caring the seat of my pants might stick to it, and stare at the dock's reflections waving in a thickened, forest-colored broth. Despite the clammy fog and iridescent fuel slicks, the harbor has never looked more beautiful.

To hear my given name spoken from the very air Zander/Adonis breathes uncorks a cleansing surge of affection. It's as if my heart is pumping the ocean itself and about to be overwhelmed.

What was it about his appearance, hot on the heels of Dawn's peeping-Jane tales, that dispelled all those dizzying but dirty and impersonal thrills the way a thunderstorm freshens a swelter? The sight of him felt like a baptism in pristine waters, purification from a multitude of filthy curiosities.

Okay, so it didn't take long to relapse. Five hours, to be precise. After the not-so-cute Bangor weekend weatherman finished fondling his isobar projection, my fingers crept beneath the duvet toward familiar temptations. As soon as they landed at the 'oh!' spot, they reenacted Dawn's frenzied naughtiness as if I were the one who spied on the furtive, crimson-stiff Mr. Danforth last summer. Only I was spying on Dawn, too, as her hand breached her cutoffs and caught the druggist's contagious secret.

Midway to climax, the scene shifted from lobster-trap smut to the esoteric of Adonis leaning against the shed wall. Lashes shuttered and face tilted toward heaven, he liberated then gripped his implied glory until tension corded his throat and the mute mouth formed a euphoric chalice. 

Ecstatic at first, I felt sure of an instant and violent resolve - until it hit me that my mind had fallen out of the race my hand was still running. I froze mid-stroke, the urge collapsing like a landed parachute. 

Only when the lewd phoenix, Mr. Danforth, superimposed himself again - glasses and sweaty brow and unzipped projectile - did I feel free to grind, spread, hold my breath, and brace against the mattress as friction's fuse blossomed into shattering pyrotechnics.

Shame burns my cheeks. No. I can't think of that stuff now. Zander's behaving like too much of a gentleman. It isn't right--

I close my eyes, where the sun limns his outline as he dozes, profile-perfect, supine and tranquil on the other half of my beach towel. Later, we share a fleece blanket and a kiss to warm us against the violet-skied chill as Quonnicut Light's beacon winks at the moon. 

Hold on. Am I having some sort of madonna-whore complex about this guy? Is it even possible for such a concept to have a male equivalent? And if so, what on earth would you call it?

Does it matter when it's obvious he's already taken by this 'Darcy' at the other end of the boatyard phone? 

But a little fantasy never hurt anyone, did it?

The daydream returns and covers the nuisance pop-up philosophy like a nesting goose. I raise my good Samaritan's shirt as if it were a cassock, taste the salty sacraments in the hollows of his chest with reverent nibbles, nuzzle the spring lawn an inch above the Holy Grail of his Levis...

It's working! Keep going...

As the denim gates part, I want more than anything to trespass, to boldly kiss where my mouth has never been, above or below briefs or boxers, to connect with his secret lair so passionately that he can't help but moan my name...

"Teri?"

"Tuh-ray-za?" 

His voice jump-starts reality's battery, causing my scuffed knee to crash into the table. I bite my tongue to squelch the 'ow!' 

The healthy purr of gears accompanies him, and the bike's brake pads straddle the wheel at their former respectful distance. "You're all set."

"Oh, it looks brand new! What do I owe you?" Flustered, I remember there are enough singles in my pocket for a TastiSwirl soft-serve at most.

"Wear a helmet," he answers, saving me for the second time. "You're a lucky girl."

My mouth might as well be full of Krazy Glue. Since when is it so difficult to offer a simple thank you? But what can I say that would repay such a considerate gesture? 

One of the other men calls him over, and it's too late. With an easygoing wave, Zander/Adonis hurries toward the next project, taking the dream with him.

I walk the bike through a lethargic mist, sneaking over-the-shoulder glances, but duty has stolen him from view. Reluctantly I sling a leg over the crossbar and pedal back toward the cottage, gulping shock-flavored fog with each huff.

Dawn won't believe this. The thought stabs as I remember my partner in crime.

She would ask me all kinds of questions about him. Sarcastic ones. Nosy ones. 

She would insist on going to the boathouse with me.

He would remember her - both of us - for all the wrong reasons. Tereza would vanish, and once again, I'd be nothing more than a nameless, topless punch line to him.

By the time the bike is safely stowed, my clumsiness (omitting the reason for it) confessed to and absolved by Aunt Denise, and the wounds tended, I've decided to keep this unlikely encounter all to myself. 

According to Aesop, no one would believe it anyway.

***

Shortly before suppertime, the aroma of freshly baked chocolate-something draws me to the kitchen. The phone jangles as Aunt Denise slides a sheet pan from the oven. 

It's Dawn. She sounds a bit garbled. What began as a routine exam turned into three fillings, and she'll need another day to recuperate. 

I should feel guilty, but I don't. Instead, I set the table and, with Aunt Denise's unwitting help, joyously embark on a new project.

Dawn

She bought it. That was easy enough. 

I snatch the receiver from its cradle again and punch keys, wait for the burr, hang up and repeat. 

Ten seconds later, the phone's trill is live and loud. 

"What took you so long?" I lean back on the pillow and pull up my t-shirt; the alert nipples greet their gentle raking. The bra and everything else except the thong came off a few minutes ago. 

"So can I see you?" Reid murmurs.

"I'm thinking about it." 

"Think faster, you fucking tease." He reins in his impatience and backpedals, "I've missed you."

"You mean, you're hard as a brick."

"Yeah. That, too."

"Well, don't touch it, or tomorrow's off." I flip over, arch against the mattress, and exhale provocatively into the mouthpiece. "That's my job, remember?"

"Fuck, Hotcakes, it's been forever. Just anyplace but here, okay?" I hear a shrill exchange in the background; his mom and sister must be squabbling again.

"Hm... Oooh." My fingers jilt the nipple to infiltrate panties, coolly probing their imprisoned heat. "We haven't done it in my bed yet...which is where I am now. Hands-on if you get my drift." 

"Fuck's sake! What time's your mom going out?"

I let him wait. And make sure he can hear the snap of elastic. And the way I'm panting as I single-handedly drag it from under my shirt and down my legs. To really bust his chops, I roll onto my back and hold the receiver next to my pussy as my fingers coax a series of licking sounds from the soupy glaze.

Time for a little color commentary. "Remember that seafoam thong I jacked you with once? I just had to take it off. I need your thick cock so bad right now. Make it after eleven, to be safe."

He cusses and groans a hurried, "See you then," before the click at his end. No way is he going to make it another minute, let alone till tomorrow. 

To be fair, I won't, either. The visual of tented boxers and bloated knuckles directs my fingers with lace-looping precision, and the harder I rub, the closer my toes curl toward the headboard in alienated parallel paths. 

It might be Reid's shorts bulging with an outline in motion; it might be Jimmy Swift's. Doesn't matter whose prick leaps to escape its manual lockup; it's hard for me and about to blow, and that's all that fills my head. 

A lecherous breeze lifts the curtains and pants at the wetness between my legs. It feels almost as decadent as the nameless redhead's tongue. Fuck, she was hot. So hot that the magazine with Marla's shy smile and smooth rift is still tucked above the box spring. 

Now Marla and the nameless girl nakedly mouth the anonymous hard-on from either side, rose-petal lips heightening its bloodshot anticipation. Veiny engorgement sufficiently enraged, the recipient's tufted Neanderthal grip seizes blonde and ginger locks, guides kisses into groans. 

The combination is fucking kryptonite. My legs vibrate from the strain of their inverted balance beam pose and the foreshocks of The Big One undulating from their juncture. 

When it finally hits, it punches a grunt through clenched teeth. Knees lurch toward tits, the reflex mimicking an unconsummated act of lust. I fucking love that first raw jolt when nothing is jammed inside to blunt the sensation. The follow-up collision jerks my tummy as hard; the third one double-spasms indecisively; the rest dwindle to spent flutters. My feet hit the mattress for a reprieve. 

Only the shrieking off-the-hook signal next to my ear keeps me from going for seconds. I suppose I should save something for the big dork after all.

To be continued