Date:         Wed, 8 Jan 1997 14:06:21 -0800
Subject:      SUB: Valentine's Contest: "Belinda": Short Story

There's still time to send your entry! Check out
http://web.mit.edu/mbarker/www/val97/val.html for details.

Please reserve all critiques on contest entries until after Valentine's
Day!

"Belinda."

In my most passionate moments, when I'm excruciatingly near a damned
orgasm that refuses to get there, inexorably failing to reach that
climactic goal, I resort to false memories of a girl I knew a long
time ago. It never fails.  One thought of her tips me over the edge
and I shoot off like a silly rocket ship. One thought of her body
heat, pressing into me on my sister's bedroom floor, staring down from
the dark...

I can't help but feel guilty, though. Guilty because I don't want to
think of her anymore, guilty because half the things I remember never
really happened, guilty because I can't get off half the time without
thinking of her, guilty because of what happened to her. She was young
and beautiful and her father's brother liked to visit her, and he was
a fat slob son of a bitch, a real hick type that spoke with a drawl
you thought only comedians made when they made fun of rednecks, and I
saw him come and go even though I was too young to understand the
reasons.

She was my sister's friend. Belinda Faye, the "loose" girl my mother
often called her, and I had no idea what the hell that meant. In the
summers she spent the night and she, my sister, and I would stay up
late and listen to our voices contort in the window fan, among other
things. They were 14 and I was 10, which was amazing in itself, girls
their age allowing me to hang around with them. And I wanted her
before I knew what wanting was.  We all went to sleep together on my
sister's floor with the fan at our feet, and in the darkness, Belinda
leaned over and kissed my lips with the tenderness of a feather
sweeping across, tickling me. So I giggled.

        "What's he laughing about?" my sister asked.

        "I'm kissing him," Belinda said coyly.

        And my sister said, "Oh," and let out a giggle herself.

        Then she rammed her tongue into my mouth, curled it around and
it felt like a soft, probing finger, reaching for something that got
stuck in my throat.  I turned my head quickly, still smiling, and felt
her tongue scrape against my upper teeth.

        "What's the matter?" she said. "Don't you like my kisses?"

        I said "yeah," but I was so hot. It was more like
embarrassment, but different since I enjoyed it, or at least that's
how I remember it now.  "Then let me kiss you," and she did it again,
but I pulled away the same.  I was bashful. I bolted up and ran to the
bathroom. I had an erection. I thought about the dozens of things I
could have done to her, and since then I've thought about the
thousands, but the fact remains that when I left the bathroom, I
headed straight to my own bed and climbed under the covers. From then
on, she was fuel for the fire.

But now I feel guilty. Guilty for creating all those images in my mind
of things I wished we could have done, guilty for living and reliving
all the manhood fantasies of a boy involving a girl who could never
refuse. Now that I know better, about her uncle and all, I feel guilty
for tarnishing the memory of a girl who already had a tarnished
life. And in my mind, so many years later, she remains the little
girl. I'm about her uncle's age now, and I have nieces her age then.

The animal kiss of a molested girl acting out her confused feelings
spawned an avalanche in me. She awoke this thing in me, and now she is
a part of it all.

And still I am guilty. Guilty for perpetuating this insane fantasy of
a girl who remains 14 to me, even though I am decades her senior. And
now the guilt has compounded. I discovered weeks ago that she was
found dead in her apartment, overdosed on heroine. I hoped I wouldn't
think of her again, but I did. My fantasies, now, at that moment of
orgasm when they are most vivid and everlasting in my mind, are of a
dead girl who is 14. Considering all the boys she probably kissed, I
doubt she'll ever rest.

-------------------------------------------
They say it takes money to make money. They're
right. You even need a coin to scratch off a
lottery ticket.

Michelle
winebird@inreach.com