Part V: Snakes – Snake #9 (Chapter 94)
We sit at a picnic table covered with a red and white check oil cloth.
At either end and in the middle, bud vases, each
holding two roses, one red and one white, garnish the table. At our end, the
red rose has sprouted a bud, about to burst into bloom.
Snake runs his index finger carefully around the
bud.
“See this?” Snake asks.
I nod.
“This bud looks delicate, but it’s not.” He
pinches it. “See how tightly layered the petals are?”
“Yeah.” I try to figure out his point.
“It would take a lot of energy to rip this thing
apart, hardly worth the effort.”
Why would anyone want to rip apart a flower?
“If you want to pluck the petals off, it’s better
to wait until the petals open a little – but not too much. And, even then, you need
to worry about thorns, especially these tiny ones...OUCH!” He pulls his hand
away and studies the small bead of blood blooming on his index finger. “See
what I mean? So fragile, yet so dangerous...” He sucks the tip of his finger.
Rob and Tom sit catty corner from us, not paying
us any attention. Tom is talking to a guy with long curly, blond hair, and Rob
has scoped out a blonde woman who looks like a sister to Tom’s friend.
Mother and Monique sit across the table, Mother
next to the hippie and Monique next to Trish, who scowls at Snake and sticks to
Monique like a cockle burr. Monique smirks at Snake and raises her brow to me,
but Mother looks unhappy.
Have I done something to make her angry?
No one says anything, yet the air is heavy with
meaning, although I can’t say exactly what.
Snake has moved closer to me, and, slowly, his
right hand moves to my knee, first tentatively, and then when I don’t push it
away, more insistently, until it rests on my knee and slides slowly up my leg.
For once in my life, I’m not hungry.
We are seated, and drinks are being served – I’ve
ordered a bright red gloppy rum drink – by two muscular bronze waiters wearing
nothing but black and white bow ties, tight black swimming trunks, and
blood-red cummerbunds.
Monique’s warped sense of humor.
Snake moves his hand from my leg, puts his arm
around me, pulls me close. “I see you’ve noticed Monique’s dessert,” he
whispers in my ear.
I don’t deny I’ve noticed the waiters strutting
by, balancing trays with their rippling arms, but it’s Snake I want.
I’m like gelatin, hot, melting cherry gelatin,
emitting perfumy pheromones. I want to take this man away from this table, lead
him to the nearest bedroom or back seat or bush – anywhere where we can be
alone – and do things with him that I’ve only read about in Lady Chatterley’s Lover and in other
sexy novels.
Things that scared me only a week ago, fears
driving me away from Paulie.
But Snake is smoother than Paulie, sensuous and
insidious, a grown man with children my age. Seasoned. Hot –
Insistent.
I want all these tiresome people to disappear so
that I can kiss and lick this man all over his body, and, and, and...
And Snake knows it.
Our meal comes in stages: first, the salad, an
erotic arrangement of whole cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, onion rings, mushroom
caps, spinach leaves, carved radishes, carrot curls and sticks, and black
olives, all served on a bed of lettuce and topped off with herb croutons,
Parmesan, and Italian dressing.
I remove the two mushroom caps, both a snowy
white, from my plate and onto the table. Their musty odor stinks like sweaty
gym clothes, the thousand or so green polyester jump suits that have been
sitting in gym lockers for an entire school year.
Snake picks up my mushrooms and eats them.
I barely touch my salad.
After a time, one of the waiters leans over my
shoulder, his hot breath blowing on my ear. “White or red sauce?”
His hand slides over my bare shoulder.
I shudder, not because his touch is unpleasant,
but so unexpected. “I don’t know.”
The waiter’s hand slides down my spine, the heavy
scent of testosterone enveloping me.
“The young lady will have the white sauce.” Snake
squeezes his arm around my shoulder and glares at the waiter. “And I’ll have
the red.”
“Yes, sir.”
The waiter bows, steps back slightly, and swaggers away.
“I suspect you’ve never tried white sauce, and you
must not allow any experience to pass you by.” Snake nuzzles my cheek.
Mother jumps up from the table. “I want to talk to
you.”
Snake blows a kiss to Mother. “Ah, Rosie...”
Mother pokes Snake’s chest. “You stay out of this.” She comes around the table and pulls at my
arm. I resist, but she yanks at my arm with surprising strength.
“Okay, okay.” I get up and follow her into Monique’s house.