Seventh Wonder (18 page)
Authors: Renae Kelleigh
“Just something Rick said.”
“What did he say?” he asked softly, draping his arm around her to pull her closer.
“He said, ‘I should never have let you go.’“
He leaned away to study her face, now creased with a frown.
“Today he said that?”
She nodded, playing absentmindedly with the ends of her hair. “Just now.”
John tensed infinitesimally. “He’s right. He’s a fool for letting you go.”
“I don’t think he really believes that,” said Meg. “He has Alice now. They’re perfect for each other.” She turned her face to look up at him. “Does it bother you that he said it?”
He sighed. “Maybe, a little - only because it’s a reminder that I’m not the only one who finds you desirable. I don’t feel threatened by it though, if that’s what you’re asking. You wouldn’t be here with me right now if you agreed with him... At least I don’t think you would be.”
Her smile was all the reassurance he needed. “You’re right. I wouldn’t.”
Time passed in a blur, much too quickly. Books, poems, artwork. Laughter. Making love. Meg sat still (or tried to) while John sketched what seemed an entire book full of her likeness: sitting up, lying down, arms crossed, legs crossed, eyes crossed. She watched as he cracked open a box of watercolors which clearly, till now, had seen little use. She watched him apply swaths of color to the white paper using broad strokes of his brush. (“You’ve made my eyes prettier,” she observed. “Not possible,” he replied.) Every day they hiked. Every day they tolerated the thought of parting a little less. Every day they doubted their ability to withstand it that much more.
* * *
Another clear day: fair skies and terra cotta rock drenched in sunlight.
“This weather,” said Meg, her eyes closed and face lifted. She raised her arms to better feel the warm breeze and let go a peaceful sigh. “Reminds me of fall back home, when the Santa Anas pick up.”
John lowered his camera and took a careful step back from the ledge, lightly chuckling. “I can only imagine how different autumn in Santa Monica must be from Unionville, Connecticut.”
“It must be beautiful there in the fall,” guessed Meg.
“Lots of color, that’s for sure. To tell you the truth, I sometimes miss it, especially around the middle of September. That’s when you’d really start noticing the chill in the air back east - started thinking about boots and jackets and raking leaves. When we were growing up, my mom would always start making her cider about that time. Summer sticks around too long in California.”
“What are the winters like where you’re from?” asked Meg.
“Cold. Bitterly cold.”
“With snow?”
“Always.”
Meg smiled. “Do you know I’ve never seen it before? Not outside of pictures, anyway.”
He looked at her, his jaw unhinged. “You’ve never seen
snow
before?”
She shook her head.
“Holy hell,” he muttered. “You’ve never been skiing or ice skating or anything?”
“No. I’ve always wanted to go for a sleigh ride.”
He grinned. “We did that once, in the Berkshires in western Mass. You’d love it there - it’s beautiful.”
“I’m sure I would.”
“One day I’ll take you there. I’ll teach you how to ski.”
He said it so casually, so easily assuming their relationship would outlast this week. Assuming there would be a “one day.”
As if there had never been any question.
* * *
A light knock, followed by the groaning of hinges as the door swung open. “I brought lunch,” called Meg.
“Fantastic,” John replied from the bathroom. “I’m starving.” He tapped his soapy razor on the edge of the sink before taking one final pass at his right cheek. “Be out in a minute.”
He splashed his face with cool water and dried his cheeks before patting on a few drops of aftershave. When he walked into the kitchen, Meg was seated at the table with the newspaper spread open in her lap. It was the
Daily Sun
out of Flagstaff, delivered just that morning along with the rest of his weekly supplies. The somber expression on her face gave him pause.
“Two hundred and twenty-seven deaths,” she said quietly as he approached. Looking up at him: “Just since last Tuesday.”
He peered over her shoulder at the fatal casualty report from the War Department and remembered hearing a colleague in Eureka saying these published reports were likely underestimates of the continued bloodshed in Vietnam. He didn’t say that to Meg, however.
“Look,” she said, folding the paper to show him the front page.
Local Hero Makes Ultimate Sacrifice.
Beneath it, a grainy photo of a smiling boy in his freshly starched military uniform.
John laid a hand on Meg’s shoulder, squeezed it.
Silently, she refolded the paper along its creases, then laid it face down on the table. For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
“Sometimes I think about what a terrifying time it is to be alive,” she said, her voice so quiet as to be almost inaudible.
John let go of her. He spun a chair around to face her before dropping himself into it, then reached forward to take her hands in his. His eyebrows bunched with sorrow - for this was such a sad assertion coming from such a young person.
She couldn’t quite look at him. “I mean...the assassinations, the riots, the war.” She chanced a peek at his face. “Students are being gunned down in the streets, John. In cold blood.”
It took some effort for him to force down the lump in his throat. “I know,” he said.
She appeared to blink back tears. “Do you ever wonder how we’ll make it out alive?”
He massaged her hand with his thumb. “We may not. But you know what? If the world ends tomorrow, I’ll be damned ecstatic that I lived out my final days here, in the most magnificent place on earth. With the prettiest girl I’ve ever known.”
Meg’s nose wrinkled; she smiled a thin, transparent smile. “You’re just saying that.”
Leaning forward, he kissed her forehead, then rose and lifted her up out of her chair.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, giggling now, wrapping her legs around his waist to keep from slipping.
He laid her on the bed and eased himself on top of her. He kissed her slowly, longingly, feeling his blood heat and his bones ache. Meg held her breath when he pushed her shirt up over her breasts and gasped when he held first one, then the other in his large, gentle hands before bowing his head to taste her skin.
It wasn’t until he flicked at the button on her pants that she grabbed hold of his wrists, causing him to go still. “John, we can’t.” Her voice was breathy and rough, belying her words.
“Why not?”
She looked away, clearly uncomfortable. Embarrassed, perhaps? He couldn’t imagine why.
“Its...my time of the month.” She looked at him again, willing him to understand the meaning behind her ambiguous entreaty.
He frowned, confused. “And...you’ve never had sex while you were on your period before?”
She shook her head, gave him a look that said, Shouldn’t that much be obvious?
John smiled, unable to contain his satisfaction at giving her another first. He watched her face for any sign of resistance as he slowly tugged down her zipper and rubbed his hand over her underwear. She whimpered, weakly protesting despite the fact that her longing was palpable.
“You’re already wet, aren’t you?” he asked softly. He didn’t even need to feel her to know it was true. Meg nodded. He lowered his head to whisper into her ear. “Relax, sweet Meg. I promise you it’s going to feel better than you’ve ever imagined.”
* * *
He drew her pants the rest of the way down her legs. Meg could feel herself growing more and more frantic. She felt like she was on a rollercoaster, suspended a hundred feet above the earth in that terrifying moment before gravity kicks back in and the entire contraption hurdles toward ground zero.
“Just...give me one minute,” she said suddenly. “I’ll be right back.”
She half walked, half jogged for the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She sat for a few seconds on the toilet, lid lowered, collecting her wits. She’d never encountered a man so unfazed by the revelation of her monthly cycle. For years she’d been taught never to speak of it, except with other women: men didn’t like to be reminded of this unfortunate consequence of being a woman.
And yet John was right. He’d known just by looking at her how aroused she was, possibly even more than she had ever been before. And it had come on so fast, galloping toward her at terminal velocity, as if, all this time, she’d only been waiting for someone to grant her permission to feel her true feelings. After all, there was never any use in fixating on the heated sensation that seemed, peculiarly, to coincide with her period - because it was implicitly understood that nothing could come of it until she’d passed her state of uncleanness. The warning she’d issued John had always stopped Michael dead in his tracks.
In any case, she’d awoken this morning to find the spotting in her panties and been crestfallen, knowing her physical relationship with John had met its untimely demise. What an epiphany that, just maybe, it hadn’t.
She stood, calmer now (and not a little excited). Stripped down her underwear, made the necessary adjustments, and opened the door.
John was lying on his back, completely naked, his erection lying thick and stiff along his belly. Meg tugged her shirt the rest of the way off and unfastened her bra, letting it slide down her arms. He touched himself as she approached, nervous and terrified and elated all at once. She removed her underwear last, then climbed on top of him, straddling his hips with her legs.
When she impaled herself on him, they were both momentarily stunned. All movement ceased, including their breaths. When she lifted up and again slid down, John’s eyes fluttered shut, then flew back open. “Fuck, you feel so good.” His voice a low, animal growl in her ear.
She reached her pinnacle in record time: that spinning, dark space between clawing hands and sweating skin. The upside was that it felt even more intensely, amazingly, profoundly, excessively powerful than any orgasm she had ever experienced to date; its severity edged past brutal and bordered on violent.
The downside was that, unlike other times, she felt much too sensitive to continue, to rejoin the hunt for that elusive juncture between savagery and the greatest peace she’d ever known. The lightest of touches sent nearly excruciating shockwaves of a tingling soreness through every neuron she possessed.
Thankfully, John’s endurance had not surpassed her own.
He kissed her gently all over before rolling her onto her back and extracting himself. Meg closed her eyes and tried not to think of the mess. She waited, jaw tensed, as he cleaned her the way he had the first night they’d had sex. Then he discarded the rag and came back to kiss her some more.
* * *
Lavender light of evening: clouds stretched taut against half the sky, the other half studded with the shimmering outlines of stars. In the place they first met, Meg with her book, and John leaning against the rock opposite, contentedly watching her read.
“Read me one,” he said.
She turned her page, scanned it before settling on one.
“When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.
When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down;
Creep home and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among;
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when all was young.”
John smiled, pretended to think. “Whitman?” he asked.
“Guess again.”
“Longfellow.”
“Certainly not.” Meg wore a face of mock horror. “Charles Kingsley. It’s called ‘Young and Old.’“
“Fitting name,” said John.
“Indeed.”
“Reminds me of us.”
She colored a little at that. “I’m not that young.”
He laughed, surprising her. “And why didn’t you say, ‘You’re not that old’?”
Her blush deepened, but she returned his smile. “Because you are old.” She was teasing him, of course. She rarely considered their age difference anymore: it simply didn’t matter.
He crawled toward her on all fours and captured her mouth with his lips. Meg placed her hands flat against his chest and dragged her fingernails lightly down his pectorals and stomach, eliciting a soft groan. When his hands slid south over her breasts to tug at the hem of her shirt, she turned her face away, laughing and breathless.
“Someone could walk by at any time, John.”
“We’ll hear them if they do.”
She arched one eyebrow. “Maybe not before they hear us.”
He blew out a breath and looked away to regain his composure. “Fine. Come on, then.” Meg giggled as he quickly gathered her belongings, clearly in a hurry to move along.
Her things collected, they stood at the top of the path, preparing to descend from the overlook. “Legs apart,” he warned her.
“What?”
Suddenly he was crouched down with his head between her legs and she was being lifted, squealing, into the air atop his shoulders. He ran all the way home with Meg clinging to him, her laughter lighting up the night.
Journal Entry
Friday, June 13, 1969
Nature’s first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
(Frost)
* * *
Each morning she woke in abject horror that this was the day she would say goodbye. She woke bathed in sepulchral cobwebs, thrashing to make out the light of day, to feel relief in knowing that, for one more day, they could forget that time moves forward, cultivating newborn memories while steamrolling those it deemed archaic. Hours slipped by, running through her, roaring in her ears. Minutes and seconds fled her grasp to reach their undue end.