Bird Of A Feather

"Do," ,she hesitated. "Do you have any rubbers?

Their eyes met. Stephen looked away, thinking. He then lowered his head, and nodded in the negative. What followed was an exchange that had taken place only once before, with Paul. It was the name Luela could not remember because it was a name Emilia wouldn’t mention more than twice. It began then, as it did now, with the look on the boy's face. Emilia told him how bad she felt that he had risen to a peak. Yet he said that it was fine, no problem. I feel bad, though. Really it's no problem. Come on , he said, kiss me some more. Kiss to kiss, touch to touch, a heat finally rising in her as well, fueled by an ecstasy that earlier, was not a problem. It was then she felt slightly more aroused, and more guilty for having led him there so much sooner. Finally, his penis exposed, their hands fondling together. She whispers the command, go and get me a couple tissues, or a hand towel, a clean one.

Stephen left to find it. Paul scurried, Stephen took his time. I might get to like doing this one of these days, Emilia thought, when I get the hang of it. A little practice won't hurt, she then thought, not believing that it was indeed she who thought it. Emilia scraped her teeth once, then twice, against it. She apologized. Stephen reminded her that it wasn't a problem. As Late Night's second guest came and went, she remembered to keep her lips between his flesh, and her teeth. Then she grew tired of her position, the taste of him. Then before she knew it, Stephen had ejaculated. During the last minute before hand Emilia had become more adept at the task, only because that was what it had become. She spit the stuff into a Kleenex, and went immediately to the bath adjacent to the family room. There, she disposed of the evidence, desperately drank two squigs of Listerine, and washed her face for the second time that night. She called Stephen once or twice after that, spoke to him between classes once or twice, maybe even three times.

Luela woke early the next morning. Dawn's vestigial light had just begun its idle creep dayward when she put on her clothes, packed pencils and a sketchpad, slipped into her loafers, and stepped silently out of the house. Perched among the highest branches of the swamp maple in the dooryard was the mocking bird, which sang its songs from that very tree since mid-March. Luela delighted in the fact that it spent most of its time in her yard. Often times she'd sketch the creature, creating the effect of sun light and maple shadow across its gray and white plumage. At the street end of the drive she stood and listened for a moment before moving on. The bird's song began with the eer chic o ree of gold finch, then the sweet coo of ground dove, into the creature's own type of chip, which was followed by its interpretation of crow, the robin's cherly cherly, after which came the distinct scream and crockery knock of blue jay.

As Luela walked the winding roads of North Branford, her intention was to reason through what had happened the day before. But deliberation would come soon enough. There were still things like the wind blowing cool and feeble, from the south, caressing the young woman's face as it passed. Luela took in the feeling of the breeze, the scent of moist earth and freshly bailed hay, the chattering among finches, experiencing each as if starved. As the mocking bird's song faded with distance, Luela began musing over the thought that the event of the preceding day was like a bomb, its explosive force devouring good intentions, pleasant memories, and singeing the delicate fabric of hope. If anything, yesterday was...what, she asked herself.

Pivotal? A glimmer of sun peeked over the crest of Trap Rock, the quarry just beyond the Northford/North Branford town line. To pivot, to remain at a fixed point out from which one can reach only a certain distance on all sides; trapped in the middle of back and forth, and side to side; fettered by an inextinguishable desire to a chain of sixty-nine links, spanning the distance between rock, and hard place. Luela approached Carter Road, a paved valley flanked by tall grass, the color of lusterless gold. What could possibly come out of that experience, Luela posed, as she lighted her firs Marlboro Light of the day. From best to worst, or worst to best? The latter. Emilia may never speak to you again. She may find new friends, and tell them what happened. Or she might come by one day, just out of the blue, like nothing ever happened. She wouldn't be the first one to block any memory of a friend's sexual orientation. Or maybe she'll decide to apologize for any confusion, to which I would also apologize, then she would talk about how much she likes boys, and hopes we can remain friends. Or just maybe Emmy might be open enough to give us a chance.

The likeliest consequences flowed freely, having been imagined, and played out all most nightly over the past nine weeks. It began, or Luela's interest was peaked, one Friday night back in July. It was Emilia's ambition to purchase alcohol at a certain liquor store in Fair Haven that actually catered to minors. The two forty ounce bottles of Crazy Horse, and the pint of peppermint schnapps, were to be indulged in at Luela's since Mr. and Mrs. Washburn would be on their first cruise to the Bahamas. That evening took its inevitable course. Luela and Emilia became drunk before they were aware of it, the laughter was riotous, and the silliness was shameless. It was Emilia who had vomited the most, who had not recovered as quickly as the other. The laughter continued even as Luela returned to the bath with the pillow and blanket Emilia had requested, sprawled on her belly beside the toilet.

Would you mind taking my shoes off, Emilia had asked, but try not to move me too much. It's not funny Lue. Yeah, just tuck it under my feet, easy, easy. Lue, don't make me laugh, stupid. Where's that pillow? Easy. Okay. Luela, my buddy, would you just rub my back a little, if you don't mind? Lower, lower. Yeah, right there, that warm spot. Oh thank you. I'm really sorry about the mess. Man, I'll never drink again. No, stop laughing. Don't make me laugh too. I love you, Luela. Really. She had said it hadn't she, thought Luela, turning left where Cater emptied onto Borelli. She'd never forget how Emilia had said the words, although there wasn't any corresponding behavior. She thought fondly of the warmth of her friend's lower back, remembered how she didn't flinch, or ask to stop caressing the hair away from her face. Perhaps she would have if Emilia had not fallen asleep by then. Luela had touched her that way for over half an hour. Into her eighth week of nightly deliberation, Luela wondered if obsession was what she was on the verge of drowning in. She still didn't have an answer, and thought that maybe it would be the best thing if Emilia never spoke to her again. Luela knew her companion well enough, and believed that it was the most viable outcome, and she also believed that Emilia would not betray their unspoken confidence, not divulge the truth. Then again, maybe... To pivot, Luela thought, caught up in the past, rummaging through the present, making room for... Emilia may not, but perhaps she should.

As a cow lowed from somewhere on Borelli's land, Luela crossed Totuket, and made her way up Mills Hill. It was the road Emilia lived on, about fourteen houses from Luela's destination. Beyond those homes, beyond their back yards, Mills Hill rose gradually over the course of three hundred acres. The Mills family farm encompassed a total of two thousand acres, from the east end of Mills Hill Road to Totucket. It was a rolling sea of corn, undulating upward to a tree line that bordered its crest. Three or so houses from Emilia's was and island of trees and shrubs, that Luela had vowed to one day render perfectly. She would detail every stalk in the foreground, create the illusion of space, and impress even the most critical eye. Luela turned onto the tractor path that divided the expanse of corn in two. Fifteen yards up was a heap of stones and boulders, a monument to the first time the stretch of land was tilled.

Luela climbed the heap, set down her knapsack, spread her denim jacket across the topmost boulder, and sat. From the knapsack she pulled out the pad, one b pencil, and a kneaded eraser. Luela went about the task, establishing the perspective, blocking in the darker areas. Before long, once she had switched the b for a two b, Luela was drifting along a silent stream of consciousness, the artist's passage through the universe. No deliberation, no mental dialogue, but pure will. The eyes take in the image; the spirit's ear, tuned to the silent song of serenity; the hands record the event. Luela will loose track of time, will ignore the heat escalating toward noon, and will not smell the drying September grass. Nor would she hear the droning legions of diurnal insects on all flanks, so loud that they hid the approaching foot falls upon the pebbles and dry clumps of soil of the path.

"What's up?" ,asked Emilia, then clearing her throat.

Luela was not startled. The other's voice came as if in dream.

"Okay," ,Emilia continued. "I guess I deserve to be ignored."

Luela, tempted onto the shore; paused, then turned.

"I wasn't ignoring you." ,she answered coolly. "I just didn't realize you were there. Where's your car?"

"I lost my driving privileges for two weeks. Lucky I live a couple blocks from school. I'd be mortified to take a bus, all those...losers on board."

"What happened?" ,asked Luela, turning to smudge a distant patch of corn into in distinction.

"Nothing. Just got home past my curfew."

"Where were you?"

Emilia hesitated, heaving a great breath.

"Nowhere. I just cruised around, met up with some people."

"Which people?"

"What are you, my mother!?!"

"Sorry."

Luela turned her attention toward the focal point of the rendering, the island, and its century old oaks. Emilia folded her arms across her chest, leaned on her right leg, and surveyed Mills Hill. A fly floated past, then suddenly turned its trajectory toward Luela. She brushed it away, sending in Emilia's direction. She shrank back, and swatted violently at it, until the filthy little creature moved on.

"How's it coming?" ,asked Emilia.

Luela lifted the pad from her lap, then held it toward her. Emilia took it, scrutinized it, and then gave it back.

"It's beautiful." ,she remarked.

"It's not finished."

"So. It's still beautiful."

"I guess."

Luela continued with her effort. Emilia sighed quietly, then proceed to find the mound. She selected a smooth slab of granite, a meter or so below Luela, and sat.

"So...when did you first realize, you know that you…dig chicks"

"Are you ready for these answers, Emmy!?! ,Luela growled, stuffing the pad, and pencils into her knapsack. "I don't know! ,Emilia whined. "Christ, Luela! Hel p me out here. I don't know what to say, what to do! I'm, I'm sorry."

Luela slowly sipped the pack closed. She scanned the scantly clouded sky, Mills Hill's crest, the endless rows of sun hungry corn.

"You know how I used to live in Fair Haven," ,said Luela, the words measured, slow, as if she had not spoken for years. "how I used to go to that catholic school, Saint Francis. Well, I made some friends there, like all little girls make friends...with little girls. I loved to see their smiles, because it made me smile to see them smile. There was this one girl, Susanna. We were together a lot, walked to school together, played in each other's yards, we even hated the same neighborhood boys, only the boys were alien to her in a different way then they were to me. Sue slept over sometimes, and I slept over her house. I guess we were seven or eight, when I started snuggling really close to her because...that's what you do when you...love somebody."

Luela paused, cleared her throat. A crow cawed from its perch somewhere on the island of old oaks, and adolescent pines.

"We would fall asleep like that." ,she continued. "She never seemed to mind. She'd even hug me good-bye every morning after, and tell me to meet her on the corner. Well, she stopped showing up one Monday. I'd ask her about it in school, but she'd ignore me. I couldn't understand it. I felt bad for a long time. I never really had another friend after that, at least not the kind I cared to have sleep over.

"So that's when you first realized-"

"No, actually. I realized it later, when we were playing spin the bottle that day-"

"With Joey DeCarlo?"

"Yeah."

"And me, and...that kid Ricky?"

"Yep. When he planted those gooey lips on mine, sent this feeling of...emptiness right through me. The feeling passed, and the first thing I thought of was Zue."

"Your parent's don't know?"

"Nope."

"No one in school knows?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe some of those catty chicks might have tossed the idea around. There's no one in school I can possibly reveal myself to. I mean, second to serial killers, teenagers are the most heartless creatures on the planet."

"I think maybe...cruel might be a better word for us." ,Emilia remarked.

And if Emilia was able to say what she realized much later in life, she would have also said that a teenagers heart is usually in this constant flux or breaking, and mending, then re-breaking, and mending again, and that a serial killer’s heart breaks just once, and only once.

Both Emilia and Luela weakly smiled, one gazing toward a different direction than the other. Then, gradually, simultaneously, their smiles faded. A dog barked from across the street. A truck rumbled by, followed by a car, another car, then another truck.

"Luela,” Emilia said, “I'm not gay."

"I know you believe that, and that's okay.” Luella answered quickly, noticing a tremor starting in the pit of her stomach, “I just want you to understand that I am. Some of us are born this way, others become."

"And you think maybe I'll become?"

"I don't think we should talk about this anymore right no-"

"Answer me, Luela." ,Emilia muttered feebly. "Do you expect me to become...for you?"

"Not for me, Em. For you. It's guys who look for someone in their girlfriends that the girl friends aren't. I see you, I look at you, and..."

Luela struggled to her feet, blinded by the tears welling in her eyes. With more effort then it took to climb the heap, she descended.

"Ever since...that night." ,she choked, "Everything about you is perfect to me."

Luela felt the firmly packed earth beneath her feet.

"I gotta' go." , she heaved, before sprinting away, leaving Emilia to piece through a puzzle of myriad thoughts, to wonder which night was that night.

Saturday night had come and gone. Luela passed the time alone in her room with HBO, Cinemax, and illegal pay-Per-View. By three in the morning Cinemax was airing a film called The Incredibly, which Luela watched, and genuinely enjoyed. Girl meets girl, girl falls for girl, girls chased by extremely distressed heterosexual mom, girls learn love conquers all. By a half past four, Luela crept under the covers and fell asleep. She awoke by noon, Sunday. Mr. and Mrs. Washburn she believed around ten, to inform their daughter that they were off to spend the day at the club, and would be back around seven that night. Luela felt better. The movie had cheered her somewhat. But still? But still, she had reservations about yielding to the self-lust that reared her provocative head when she had gone to pee. It doesn't feel right, she thought, it just...I don't know. Come on, you know more now than you did before. Yeah. She wants to be a friend. Well, maybe she does. No matter what happens, it'll be okay.

Desire always had that way of propping, of dealing, pushing oneself to yield. Luela thought of the Green Day song, Basket Case. When masturbation lost its fun, you're fucking breaking. Something from her id crept forward. As the clock struck two Luela was shaving the last few patches of stubble on her vulva. The young woman had been on a steady plateau of tingling since she'd let the bath to do the finishing touches before the standing mirror between her collection of cds, and the stereo. From its speakers, came an allegro by Mozart. Luela had locked her door, but in the event of an emergency, she would be able to half dress in a sweat shirt, and a pair of checkered boxers that she’d folded neatly on the bed. She sighed, wiped the area of newly shaved skin with a cool moist hand towel, then squeezed some Lubriderm onto her palm, and rubbed it onto the baby pink skin. Then, as Luela rubbed the remaining lotion into the back of her hands, someone proceeded to knock on her door. The rapping had startled her out of her seat. Quickly, she tossed the evidence under her bed, cursing her parents for entering the house in such an uncharacteristically silent manner. Luela wondered if what she felt was how a boy might have felt after the process of waking from a wet dream in the middle of a library's packed to capacity reading room. "Hold on!" ,shouted Luela, as she flew into the sweat shirt, then pulled the shorts to her waist.

"Emmy?"

"Hi. What's up? Hey, where's mom and dad?"

"Uh, at the club. I guess they're coming back around seven. How'd you get in?"

"You didn't know front door was wide open? Oh. Well, now you do, I guess. Are you okay?"

"Huh? Yeah! Yeah, I'm fine. Come in, have a seat, take a load off, make yourself...at home."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to barge in. Force of habit I guess. You know, being friends, and all. Wow, I really surprised you, didn't I?"

"Yeah, pretty much." ,Luela laughed ironically, then rubbed her temples. "So...what were your plans today, sleep all day, watch TV, draw maybe?"

"Yeah, I thought maybe I'd do some sketches in the back yard." ,answered Luela, taking her seat by the mirror.

"You want to draw me?"

"You?"

"Yeah, me. Not...naked or anything. Just plain, old...me."

Luela smiled, happy that Emilia could rise above her fear, apprehension.

"Make yourself comfortable." ,Luela suggested, as she reached for her pad, and a pencil.

Emilia shrugged, then posed herself in her usual position when a conversation was expected to run long. Luela studied her for a moment, propped her feet against the edge of her bed, rested the pad upon her thighs, and began.

"Lue, you don't have to answer this," ,Emilia prefaced, after half an hour had passed. "but...why offer money to see me naked?"

"That was stupid, I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking. Or maybe I did, I don't know. It was supposed to be an incentive."

"Tell me honestly" ,asked Emilia turning to face the other. "Did you ever...fantasize about me?"

Luela stopped mid-shade, and met Emilia's gaze.

"Uh, no actually. You see, it's hard for me to fantasize about people I've never made love to."

"Like who?"

Luela paused.

"Emmy, I haven't really made love to anyone yet."

"Oh. Well, what about those pictures?"

Luela guffawed.

"Boys toss off to pictures, Emmy. Me? I-"

Luela cleared her throat, then returned her attention to the rendering.

"Fifty bucks, huh?" ,said Emilia, ten minutes later.

"I'll tell you though," ,Luela said, eyes fixed on her task. "Its way more then professional models make an hour."

Emilia quietly rises to her feet, disengages her button fly, and drops the pants to her ankles. Luela raises her eyes slightly to see Emilia's bare legs.

"Emmy?" ,she said, swallowing a sudden rush of saliva. "What are you doing?"

"Where's that cash?" ,asks Emilia, as she raises her sweatshirt to expose her panties, her vaguely round belly.

"You don't have to do this. This is crazy. Come on Emmy, pull your pants up, and sit down."

"Shut up Lue! You offered. Now let's go!"

"Why are you doing this?" ,she asks, dropping the pad and pencil, rising to her feet, thinking that this was too damn good to be true.