Today’s post is an excerpt
from my recently completed novel, Fiesta of Smoke. In this snippet, Hill is musing about Calypso and
recalls the opening salvos of his life as a sexual being. First, there was
Janna, a redhead with porcelain skin, whose elbow he admired in class. And then
came Ellen . . .
Presently, I’m involved in
Round 2 of editing and revising the manuscript of Fiesta of Smoke. I hope to have the revised copy in the publisher’s
hands sometime next week.
For those who may have missed
them, a synopsis of Fiesta of Smoke
can be found on the January 5, 2012 post; the Prologue, on January 8; an
introduction to the protagonists Calypso, on February 3, Javier, on February 20
and Hill on March 2; Calypso and Hill Dine was posted on March 14; More of
Calypso and Hill, on March 30; More of Calypso and Hill–2, on April 10; and
Calypso’s Apartment, Place des Vosges, on April 19.
. . . .
He turned 15 in December,
when black ice was on the roads and cattle were blown into fence corners and
frozen to the barbed wire. Janna’s elbow, he was sure, was all that sustained
him through that bleak season, with his hormones all dressed up with nowhere to
go.
When spring finally came
and new grass started to drive through the ground like nails, he was a prime
candidate for testosterone poisoning, if such an affliction existed. It wasn’t
that Janna’s elbow wasn’t sublime in every respect, but it just wasn’t enough
anymore.
Enter Ellen, with her
ruddy skin, straight brown hair pulled back into an askew ponytail and pimples
peppering her chin, who contrasted with Janna’s porcelain delicacy like a
heifer beside a racing filly.
Ellen’s father had moved
West from New York because of a bronchial condition, to operate a small
appliance fix-it shop downtown. They moved into the house next door, recently
vacated by the death of Mrs. Conchlin, who finally cashed it in at 97.
Ellen was an only child
and a precocious one. She spoke of New York as if God lived there and of
Boulder as if it were the 8th level of Hell. She was worldly, raucous and, it
turned out, as hormonally harassed as Hill.
He had known her for
exactly one week when she fired her opening salvo. They were in his room and
she was reviling Boulder and talking about Christmas windows on Fifth Avenue,
when she suddenly said (amazing how the words could still be etched in his
mind, more than thirty years later), “Wanna see my pussy?”
Hill remembered
experiencing a sensation of lightness, of suspension of time, as if his mind
had suddenly been sucked into a space warp. About three months later, he
managed to stammer, “What? What did you say?”
Ellen looked him straight
in the eye, clearly aware of her effect, and said again, “You heard me. Ya
wanna see my pussy?”
Hill was sure that in
later years he had been more coolly collected when he went to interview Fidel
Castro, whose pearl-handled .45 lay ominously beside him on his desk, than he
was beneath Ellen’s relentless stare.
“What do you mean? Here?
Now?” Hill could see in retrospect that he had not been an exact model of
suavity.
Ellen grinned. “Sure,” she
said.
Hill’s mind had cleared,
finally, and he was very, very certain of two things: he did most definitely
want to see Ellen’s pussy; and, he didn’t want to see it here, in his room.
Looking back on it, Hill
could see that this was really an interesting revelation of his own character.
It wasn’t so much that he was afraid of being caught, although that of course
would have been mortifying beyond belief. It was that he didn’t want to worry
about being caught.
He didn’t want to divide
his attention, one ear cocked for his mother’s footsteps on the stairs,
bringing freshly-laundered socks to his drawer or calling him to bring Ellen
down for cookies. If he was going to see Ellen’s pussy--and now he was
determined that God Himself would not stop him from seeing it--then he wanted
quiet and privacy.
Hill took a swig of
coffee, the last one and cold, and chuckled. One should worship at any temple
in peace and concentration.
He instantly knew just the
place to take her. It was a little hollow beside a creek where he sometimes
went fishing and to masturbate over Janna’s elbow. It was about a mile from the
house, an easy walk, and the place was solitude itself--overhung by alder
trees, surrounded by berry bushes and padded with a small but thick patch of
grass.
He was ready to grab her
hand and drag her out the door that very minute, but it was almost dinner time
and he knew they were about to be called away to their respective tables.
In an agony of
uncertainty--what if, later, she had changed her mind?--he said shakily, “What
about tomorrow? I know a good place.”
Ellen looked at him with
real disgust. He could only guess, these many years later, that her hormones
must have been in even more of a rage to live than his. She pulled down the
corner of her mouth, wrinkled her nose, jabbed the rug with her toe and said
listlessly, “Okay.”
.
. . .
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