Chapter 2
THERE ARE A LOT OF THINGS YOU CAN DO WITH A motorcycle. In the next couple of days, Jimmy Kean explored some of these possibilities, riding out into the countryside with Myra clinging to his back.
Jimmy didn't mind her being there. She was one of the things you could do with a motorcycle, he soon discovered. One of the nicer things, in fact. Owning a motorcycle gave him immediate prestige among a number of local teenagers, ones whose acquaintance he had never bothered to cultivate before, either because he had been too busy working or simply because he liked to think of himself as a loner, a guy who could run with the pack if he wanted to or play it solo. And that was the way it worked out, for Jimmy. Popularity is a fickle woman. The more you court her, play up to her, the more she's apt to turn her back on you and wriggle her rear in your face. Because Jimmy had never worked hard at being popular, he was popular. He didn't have to make every school dance or make every school drum majorette or join every club in order to be considered In. He was good at athletics, had picked up three letters, and though he barely made it in his schoolwork. it was more because a natural laziness concerning things he wasn't interested in than from any lack of brains.
Just about everybody liked Jimmy. Girls included.
He'd had his share. It wasn't too long after puberty, working as junior counselor in a summer camp, that he had lost his virginity with an older girl, herself a counselor in a nearby girls' camp. She had taken him for being a couple of years older than he was because of his already consideable size and big-boned ranginess of build. Her name was Jan Evans and she had shown him the works that summer. Before it was over, he knew what a guy had to know about the technical end of making out with a chick. As far as the other end was concerned-the necessary games and preliminaries for a score, there his natural laziness came into play again. He found that part distasteful, a drag and a bore and often a waste of time, and therefore he had never scored nearly as much as he surely could have, even times when he'd had half a mind to. But none of his male buddies questioned his prowess with the chicks. They saw him as a strong silent type who scored regularly on the q.t., and if he didn't tell dirty jokes and/or brag about his conquests, it was understood that this was because he didn't have to. Thus Jimmy, never a high school stud, was more or less suspected to being one and nobody questioned.
But high school was behind him now. In a way, that was hard to believe. It all seemed now to have gone by so fast, busy as he had been with working and his private projects of his own, and, of course, school work-it was all like a brief dream. Could it really be over?
Of course it was over. It had slipped by somehow, Without plans of a concrete and long-term nature, that think about it a bit, cycling around the countryside with Myra attached to his back, sandwiches stowed in the saddlebags, made by her own eager little hands, he realized a definite change had come into his life. The kids he had assumed would always be around Pop's Luncheonette or the town's single pool room, looking for someone to come along to take in a flick with or waiting for dates to show up or dancing in front of the ancient juke box-they were disappearing, one by one; some to summer jobs, quite a few of these to get extra money for college.
Jimmy had never thought about college and didn't now. He simply wasn't interested in studying anything. Bad as his marks were, he knew he could have managed an athletic scholarship to some small school or other. He was good enough to make a freshman football team. But he wasn't interested. His parents were dissappointed, of course.
Naturally.
They had seen him as sooner or later shedding his blue jeans and black leather boots for an olive-colored Ivy League suit with button down collar, polished oxfords and the rest. But his parents were old, well into their middle age, and they had already begun to resign themselves to the fact that they couldn't control Jimmy. Not that he wasn't a "good" boy-he got into much fewer scrapes than some of the wilder kids in school and was never outrightly disrespectful of them. He was mostly just silent around them, the few times he ever did hang around the house on an evening, and the sad truth mutely dawned on them that they had lost him to another world, one of fast cars and engines and rock and roll music-things they had no way of understanding or coping with. Jimmy had gotten through school without getting arrested, and that was something, the way kids were nowadays-so they consoled themselves.
So, in a sense, Jimmy saw that he was hung up. Without plans of a concrete and long-term nautre, that is. He wasn't exactly sure what he wanted to do with himself, and this feeling bugged him, the way a mosquito bite would. He was experiencing a general restlessness, an irritation with things that made him jumpy and quick to snap at anyone crossly.
He needed a change. This was nice, riding out on the highway on a powerful cat like the Harley; a real ball, and having that helped a good deal to soothe his restlessness. And Myra.
Having Myra helped, too.
But neither could provide the answer. He didn't know if there was one, but he suspected that if there was, it lay somewhere else, outside the familiar hills surrounding Coram.
Out there, beyond the hills and the mountains, he would find some kind of an answer. They drew him like magnets, the highway a river passing between, the open road an avenue to adventure, new sights, new sounds, new thrills and kicks he had never dreamt of before.
He had to get away from this familiar scene. Maybe he'd go into the navy; he'd always like the sea but that couldn't happen until he was eighteen, and he wouldn't be eighteen until the following November.
A long way away.
Five months. Five months around Coram would wig him for sure. Five months of the same scene, only without the familiar faces to rely on for things to entertain him-it would be a killer.
The thing to do was to get out. Split, as Jerry would say. Jerry, the local hipster who knew San Francisco inside and out, having lived there up until a year ago, when his family moved to Coram.
San Francisco might be a good place to start looking for ... For whatever it was he was looking for.
Why not?
Or maybe Oregon, or perhaps Arizona. Or even, if he really got the bug, a cross-country jaunt to the big bad east coast, where a lot of the jazz musicians Jerry had taught him to dig blew. Yeah, the east coast might be a gas....
Or just following the road, to wherever it led, with the big gold and white Harley throbbing away underneath him.
It throbbed now, steadily, the gas tank three-quarters full, the macadam road straight and flat, twisting up into the hills in the distance. The late afternoon sun was already dipping between them, twin peaks reaching up like a hungry mouth about to swallow a fiery morsel. Swooping down a slope, he could feel the breeze in his face, cool, and Myra's body against him-warm. The two opposite sensations held him suspended between in a state of sensitized dreaminess. Only his hands squeezing the rubber handle grips were real.
Her voice shouted in his ear from behind: "Why don't we stop under those trees up there!"
He turned his head enough for her to hear him shout "Okay!" above the roar, and felt her hug him tighter. It was a nice feeling. The trees in the distance grew larger as he began going uphill, slowing the Harley for the dirt road turnoff leading to them.
The sun was brighter on the crest of the hill where the trees were. Big spreading beeches, some elms and maples, their greenery made into a deeper hue by the almost horizontal rays of the sun.
He braked the Harley to a halt, raising dust after him, and they got off. With an effort he wheeled the heavy machine off the dirt road and onto the grassy meadow sloping downward.
The spot was secluded. Under the line of trees, which cast long shadows downward, they could be seen neither from the highway nor the dirt road they had just left behind.
Perfect.
It was a perfect day all around. That afternoon they had gone out to the old fair grounds and watched an automobile demolition race. It had been a ball, cars racing in a mad scramble around the dirt track, skidding and colliding with one another purposely, some going end-over-end, some blowing tires and crashing into the concrete retaining wall, others breaking axles and one even catching on fire and blowing up barely after the driver had been able to get himself out of it.
Fun. A gas. Real excitement. Thrills. And the guys coming over afterward, gathering around and admiring the Harley. Jimmy had felt about ten feet tall then.
Now everything was quiet and peaceful by contrast. As he walked with Myra down to a soft grassy spot, his arm around her waist and the bag of sandwiches in the other hand, a lazy torpor seemed to spread over him, a feeling very real but very inexpressible, something like yearning, part desire, part animal contentment.
Wordlessly, they sat down beneath the shade of a small elm. She got the sandwiches out of the paper bag and they began eating them. Jimmy discovered he was hungry and wolfed down two while Myra chewed slowly on hers and watched him, her clean tanned bare leg against his.
"Look," she said, reaching into the bag again; "I stole some wine from the house and brought it along for the picnic."
"Nice," he nodded. "Let's swig."
She opened the fruit jar and handed it to him. It was white wine, a California Chablis, and though it was warm it tasted very good. He took a long drink of it and handed the jar back to her, and then she drank. They passed the jar back and forth that way as the shadows lengthened around them.
The wine had its effect. It's effect was exactly the kind of effect you'd expect it to have-as far as Jimmy was concerned.
With Myra, unused to drinking anything alcoholic as she was, the effect was a little bit different.
Stronger.
A very strong effect, on a very young girl, just three days removed from the time of her virginity, as the poets would put it. She felt funny, giddy, drunk. The air was so delicious around her bare arms and legs, the grass so soft under her, that she felt a desire to be completely naked.
She sat cross-legged with Jimmy's head on her lap, stroking his wayward blond hair, and the desire grew stronger and stronger.
She wanted him.
But she also wanted complete nakedness.
The idea was wild, exciting, because it was forbidden. They could make love here, Jimmy and herself, in the shade of the tree, undressing just enough to make things good, just enough so that in case they were interrupted they could get their clothes on again hastily and not be caught, so to speak, in the act. But she didn't want that.
Her eyes kept roving out toward the middle of the wide meadow, an open grassy spot right in the center where the lowering sun seemed to set fire to the tips of the blades of grass.
It was glowing, like her.
She wanted to merge with its fire, that feel all over her lithe young body, scorching her.
She pushed him away and jumped up.
I'm going to take off my clothes," she announced, by her sudden action and even more by her pronouncement.
"You're crazy," he laughed, trying to catch her by the ankle. But she danced away, almost falling backward over a hillock.
"No, I am going to! Watch me if you don't believe me.
He watched her, not believing. In his experience, girls didn't act like this. But then, she was a pretty crazy kid, and some of the things she had done already had surprised him more than a little. Like that first time in the shed, for instance.
Crazy.
He watched.
The outfit she was wearing offered little in the way of resistance to her objective-complete nakedness. A striped pullover knit jersey, which she quickly pulled over her head, a pair of slippers she quickly kicked off, a pair of Bermudas she quickly slid down.
Jimmy was no longer surprised to see nothing underneath.
Just Myra.
He sat up, excited by the vision she presented to his eyes.
A beautiful vision. But there was a farmhouse nearby, and the highway, and the road in back-this was hardly the place to begin a nudist colony. He scrambled to his feet.
"Hey you better cover up! Somebody might come."
She ignored him, scampering away.
Jimmy found that he was a little drunk too from the wine as he started after her. Not as drunk as she was--she was crazy out of her mind to do a thing like this in full sight of anyone who might happen along. But he seemed lightheaded and stumbled a couple of times as he began to chase her.
She was faster. Whatever the wine was doing to her, it wasn't putting hobbles around her feet. She raced ahead of him, her smoothly curved buttocks rising and falling in a rapid exciting motion as her bare feet seemed to fly over the grass. She was headed right for the middle of the field!
He panted after her, his cheeks flushed red with excitement. Watching her run across the grass like that did things to him. She was small, a nymph, but beautifully built, and all those curves in motion were too much to take.
Too much to take, that is, without doing anything about them.
He knew what he was going to do when he caught her. Crazy as that was, he was going to, then and there on the spot, because he was so excited now he felt like he was on fire.
At last he got near enough to tackle her. She was laughing, evading him, and he thought she might just keep the chase going forever if he didn't do something to stop her. And he had to stop her.
This wasn't a game any more.
When he was within distance, he leapt at her in a low flying tackle. His arms caught her low around the calves just as he hit the ground, and then he twisted, bringing her off her feet, her momentum carrying them forward and his causing them to roll over and over in a mad tangle of limbs.
The grass was soft, a green velvety cushion that saved them from injury as they rolled. She laughed wildly, still scrambling to get away from him, but he had her in his grip now and there was no way she could get away, even if she had really wanted to. They ended with her face down on the thick grass, and quickly he sat on her and pinioned her shoulders to the ground.
"Ouch! I give up ... let go!"
"You nut! You want me to get picked up for messing around with fifteen-year-old jailbait?"
She turned violently, twisting her face up toward his.
"Is that all I am to you Jimmy-just jailbait?" Her fierce eyes cowed him a little. "Aw, I didn't mean that exactly, Myra. You know I like you, only ... "
"Then take off your clothes too!"
"But...."
"Come on, sissy-I dare you!"
A dare was a dare. He took a gulp of air in his lungs and then tore at his shirt.
It came off in no time. The buckle of his thick leather belt came next, and then his boots. But to get his pants off, he had to get off her.
He did. And she scrambled away, just out of reach, cowering there in some tall grass like a beautiful white cat in the jungle, her hazely eyes gleaming at him brightly.
"Nobody will see," she encouraged. "It's getting dark already."
That was true. The sun had fallen below the line of hills above them, casting the meadow in deepening shadows, a sort of eerie in-between kind of light that was neither night nor day.
He loosened his belt buckle and dropped his pants. Then he did the same with his shorts, and as he stepped out of them the cool air seemed to caress him all over. He wasn't afraid of being seen now. In the unreal light the chances were they wouldn't be spotted by anyone as far away as the road or the farmhouse, and it felt good to be naked.
Very good. He wondered if this was the way those nudists in some of the films they showed in seedy movie houses in the city felt. He had always considered such people nuts, but this was a strangely exhilarating experience. Like going on a moonlight swim with a girl only without the water as an excuse.
He looked for her and spotted her courching nearby in a different spot from the one she had been in. His desire for her was strong now. "Come here, Myra."
"You'll have to catch me!"
"No. I can't chase you like this!" She giggled. "That would look funny!"
"Damn it, come on!"
She was silent. Angered, he reached down and slipped the leather belt from his Levis. If she wanted to play games ... He caught sight of her retreating white hips just in time to take a good swing at them with the belt. Maybe she hadn't seen die belt. Whatever the case, when he sprang toward her and swung at the same time the flat of the leather caught her sharply across the rump with a loud snap. She screamed with surprised pain and stumbled forward to her knees. "Oh! You hurt me!"
He was really angry with her now. Her teasing displays had gotten him excited beyond the point of playing around, and she had kept that up. His belt had left a red mark across her buttocks.
It was the first time he had ever hit a girl. He felt ashamed, and yet a strange thrill of excitement had gone through him and continued to go through him now as he stood over her, she kneeling on the grass, slumped forward, her face in her hands, crying.
"You asked for that. I don't like a tease!"
"But ... You didn't have to...."
He dropped the belt and knelt down by her, taking her by the shoulders.
"Look, I'm sorry, kid honest!"
"Well...."
"You got me excited." Her face raised slowly. "Did I?"
"Sure. Couldn't you tell?"
A smile broke through the tears. "Oh, yes. But I didn't think...."
"When a guy's like that, you shouldn't kid around any more."
"I'm sorry, Jimmy baby!" She reached out and stroked him. "Are you still excited?"
"Yeah. So don't tease, damn you!"
"I won't," she said, stroking. "I'll do anything you say."
He stood up, excited anew. "Will you?"
"Yes."
"Anything, huh?"
"Anything!"
He wondered if she knew what the word meant For him, standing above her, that could mean only one thing, and though his experience along that line wasn't extensive, he knew it was a hell of a lot more than hers.
Much more.
"Would you do this?" he said, experimenting. "If you want me to I will, Jimmy. Is that fun for you?"
"Yeah, a lot of fun. Ever done that before?"
She flushed. "No. I told you, you were the first In everything."
His fingers slid into the silken red tresses of her hair and he showed her what to do. That wasn't so complicated, really, but he had figured she would be disgusted or something, inexperienced as she was.
If she was disgusted, she didn't show it. Her cool kisses sent chills through him, and then, when she got the idea, that was like being in heaven.
Fantastic.
He was convinced now that she would do anything for him. And just for him, because he was the first Knowing that, he felt a little guilty for the way he was using her. But the guilt feeling was hardly equal to the intense electric excitement her lips were working for him, and soon he grew afraid he wouldn't be able to control himself much longer.
"Okay," he panted, "I believe you. God, you're good for anything aren't you!"
"Anything you say, Jimmy."
"We'll make out then. That was just a warmer-upper."
"I'm warm for you now, honey. You don't have to do anything more to me if you don't want to."
He got down on the grass with her. Just one touch and he knew she wasn't lying. Her breasts seemed to swell up as she held her breath tensely, the little pink nipples poking out like rosebuds as he rubbed them briefly.
The preliminaries weren't necessary. She was impatient as a whistling tea kettle, twisting like a young calf about to be branded, as he stroked her legs and kissed the buds of her breasts. The preliminaries weren't necessary, but he was enjoying them. Becoming an artist at them, he figured. His eyes were really getting opened as to how excited you could get a girl.
Love had never been this much fun before. Technique-wise, he had always been a grabber. The girls he went with always wanted to pet longer, to draw that out so they could finally avoid the issue when the chips were down and it came time to either get into the back seat or drive home. To him, there had been only one object in love, and that was simply to get there.
Now, he saw it could be fun teasing a girl to the kind of frenzied state Myra was in.
A kick.
He kissed her breasts some more, ignoring his own urgency, and took the hard buds in his mouth and bit them until she got so loud he was afraid someone would hear. Then he stroked her gently and she wailed-he realized he had actually made her jump the gun!
H didn't wait after that.
Now was the time to take care of business.
Business on the grass. A modern day version of a very old painting subject. Or was that called Picnic on the Grass?
That was more like a dance. She did most of the moving, her white body receiving the imprint of crisscross marks left by the rich matting of grass.
"I'm dying!" she cried once.
It was dark now, crickets cricketing and fireflies turning on around them. The noise of their breathing seemed to match the rhythmic screech of the crickets as they went on and on.
Faster and faster.
Chirr-ep, chirr-ep.
A singsong rhythm, exploding around them like miniature thunder. A nightsong, a nightingale's song, a new song and an old song, the first song and the last song.
The only song.
That was good. That was fine and clean and smelling of fresh grass and goldenrod and sounding like field mice and crickets-young love, good love, the best love either of them had ever had and the best, of its kind, they might ever have. There has to be a time like this in every young life, a time when love is pure and clean and sweet and good, without thought or word or recrimination or guilt.
He loved her and the sky exploded with fresh new stars and then it was over.
They lay back on the still warm grass, listening to the sound of the crickets, who had never stopped, and to their own breathing slowly winding down. He stroked her breasts playfully and she nestled close to him.
After awhile, she spoke.
"That was nice. You did that to me nice."
That was true, he thought to himself, not answering. Only he didn't want to talk now. That was over, so why talk? Girls were like that-they wanted you to say nice things to them afterward, to make things all right. To square things, maybe. But he didn't feel like answering.
"That was beautiful," she said, a little sadly. Then, "Jimmy ... what are you thinking about?"
"Nothing much," he said.
"Yes you are-you're thinking about something. Tell me."
A little annoyed, he raised himself on one elbow.
"I was thinking we ought to get our things on and start back to Coram."
"Not yet. It's so nice here. Let's stay just a while longer and talk, please?"
"All right. But what's there to talk about?"
"Oh, lots of things. I just feel like talking, is all. What are you going to do now that you've graduated?"
He picked at a long piece of seedling grass and stuck the end in his mouth, chewing on it and frowning. He didn't go for laying around here in somebody's pasture with no clothes on very much; they had had their fun and now they ought to scram. And he didn't want to answer a lot of stupid questions. But the night was nice and he found himself in just enough of a languorous mood to relax.
"I don't know really," he said grudgingly. "I mean I've got a couple of ideas but I don't really know, see?"
"Do you like me Jimmy?"
"Sure."
"I love you."
"Come on!"
"Don't make fun of me."
"That's cornball. You've been seeing too many movies."
"Don't you like me even a little?" Her voice quavered, hurt.
"Sure," he said consolingly, slipping his arm underneath her slim shoulders. "You know that. But what do you want me to say?"
"We could get married," she blurted.
"The hell with that! You're only fifteen, for God's sake! Don't talk crazy like that, Myra, or I'll leave you here!"
"Some people get married this young."
"Not me. Not you either. You're still wet behind the ears."
"What do you want me to do," she said testily. "Go out and date other boys?"
He was silent. Then he said, "No."
"Then you must like me."
"I told you I did."
"I'm glad," she sighed. "I won't talk about that again. I just wanted to hear you say you liked me."
"Okay, I said it."
"Don't be angry."
"I'm not."
They were both silent for several minutes. Then she said suddenly: "Jimmy, take me with you!" He raised himself up again. "What?"
"I said take me with you!"
"Take you with me where? What the hell are yon talking about anyway?"
"Take me with you, that's all!"
He laughed, trying to cover up his surprise at the way she had read his thoughts.
"What makes you think I'm going somewhere?"
"I just know."
"Oh, I see, you just know, huh?"
"Yes. I can tell. You get that faraway look in your eyes all the time lately. Like you're going to go some where, far away, and not tell anybody."
"Well, so what if I am?" he said defensively.
"Nothing, I think it's a great idea! Only I want you to take me with you."
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"You know why!"
"You think I'm too young? Is that it?"
"Maybe."
"Well I'm not! Do I act too young when I'm with you?"
"No," he admitted. "Well then why?"
He frowned, struggling with his thoughts, and then said: "It's not how you act, it's how old you are. I could get into trouble running away with you. You're just too young, that's all."
She was silent, digesting what he had said.
Then: "I could fool my mother. Tell her I was going to visit a girl friend of mine back in San Jose for the summer. She'd be glad to get rid of me, I think."
"Yeah, but there's still the law What if we got caught out on the road together by some cop and he started asking a lot of questions, about your age and like that?"
"We could think up a good story."
"I don't know. Let me think it over awhile, will you?"
He got up and began putting on his things. She followed his lead, dressing in the bright moonlight, and he glanced at her and saw how pretty the light made her bare skin-like one of those marble statues or something.
But, hell, she would just put a crimp in his style if he took her along with him. He liked her okay, she was the neatest little girl he had ever known and may be she wouldn't be much trouble at that.
But the thing was, she couldn't help being trouble, whether she wanted to or not. Bad enough the squawk his parents were going to make without having it known that they were taking off together. And somehow somebody might find out. They had been seen together a lot in the past week. People were beginning to associate the two of them: Here comes Jimmy on his Harley with his girl tied behind him!-that kind of thing.
Troubled, he finished dressing. It would be hard to tell her he wasn't going to take her with him.
Very hard.
Maybe it would be better not to tell her then. Her, or anyone. He'd just get his things together and sneak off in the night, leaving a note for his parents that he was going down to San Francisco for a week or something like that. That way, no static from them either.
Only he'd have to admit he'd miss her. Naturally.
He'd think about tonight and he'd miss her plenty, her neat little breasts and pretty legs and rear ... The works.
"Listen," he said when they were both dressed and walking back to the motorcycle; "that friend of yours in San Jose-is she real?"
"Of course she is honey-why do you ask?"
"I was thinking maybe you ought to go visit her. We could meet each other there."
"How would we get in touch?" she said, excited.
"Just give me her phone number, that's all. Or her name, if it's in the book."
"That's a swell idea! But can't I ride down with you?"
"No," he said firmly, kicking up the stand on the Harley. "That's out."
"All right," she said softly. "Whatever you say, darling."
The cycle exploded to life as he jumped down on the starter.