Camptown Ladies (30 page)

Erica was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and it crossed my mind as I desperately was having my way with her, that I had once thought that of Lorn. What the hell made me think Erica could love me forever? I fucked her harder and forgot the question for a moment.

But it came roaring back.

Erica had lived a straight life, much like Lorn had. Would she run from me as Lorn had done so many times? Maybe after the excitement wore off she’d go back to the much more sensible choice—the male version of me, my brother Vince. Not a bad choice, really. No other guy I would more highly recommend, if you didn’t want me.

I pulled her bra up over her breasts, and did a face plant on her as she writhed beneath me, my sucking pushing her into a corkscrew motion to get away at the same time that her hands were grabbing my head to pull me harder against her, as if she couldn’t make up her mind—was she having trouble deciding what she wanted? I knew this: she would not get away while my mouth was attached to her nipple like an oxygen leash.

Maybe I could keep her attached to me like this forever. It’s not like she could get away and lead a normal life with me dangling from her left tit, right? How would you show up for work with another woman attached to your nipple like a large mouth bass latched to the head of a succulent worm? Not likely you’ll get far, my dear, and people will stop inviting you places, lessening the chance at a party for someone to say, “You know, Erica, you were way more normal when you were straight, before you had that Italian woman constantly hanging from your left nipple. Could you pass me the olives, and perhaps a cracker?”

I fucked her harder, curling my fingers deep inside her with each thrust and she screamed out as the combination of this and my best bass moves made her come. I couldn’t see her since my face was completely buried in her chest, but I could easily imagine her, so beautiful: Erica’s mouth slightly open with intense pleasure, now going into a silent scream as she writhed beneath me, her breath catching in surprise as a second wave of orgasm hit her when I refused to stop, even when she clutched my wrist, even when she tried to stop me with words, I simply covered her mouth with my other hand. Nope. There would be no discussion, because there would be no stopping. No stopping.

Hearing her, feeling her body responding from inside, a wave came over me. Sadly this was not an orgasm-type wave but one of those giant Hawaiian waves, the kind that curl up twenty feet or more, exciting, beautiful—but as the wave crested, there came a dark shadow inside and Greg was now trapped inside the wave. Greg Brady, gangly teen, inexperienced surfer, illusions of grandeur shattering under the fierce power of the giant wave. We all saw that
Brady Bunch
episode, we all know what happens.

Greg was completely out of his league and the massive wave overtook him, and now he was somersaulting as the wave crashed over him again and again. It might have felt good to be out of control, if it weren’t for the unlucky tiki necklace that pelted him repeatedly in the face, reminding him that this was all bad, nothing good would come of this—and I was now being dragged out to deeper waters, into deeper trouble.

When the first hint of a wave curled over me, I had not cared, since the intense excitement and pleasure has a way of blinding even the most experienced surfers, and I had needed Erica that badly. Except that now, after having her, and after her breathing was returning to normal and the wave of excitement melted into the beach sand along with the once mighty wave, it wasn’t until she was
talking
to me . . . that I could finally admit to myself that this wasn’t Erica. I opened my eyes and my vision cleared.

Not Erica.

Lorn’s orgasm had ended, and she was holding on to me tightly, and I could feel her chest heaving and she was crying as she whispered, “I’m so sorry for what I did to you; I thought I’d lost you forever.”

I whispered flatly, “I did, too.”

Lorn said, “But, you seemed angry, and you wouldn’t look at me. You wouldn’t let me slow you down. We never made love like that before.” Then she stopped and I could feel her hold her breath as she asked, “Please tell me there isn’t anyone else.”

“There isn’t anyone else.” I wasn’t lying. There was no one else.

I could never have Erica.

Twenty-Five

People With Dyke Sisters Shouldn’t Throw Stones

The next day I arrived at camp to find that Erica was already on the roof, instructing Uncle Freddie to hustle as if the men he was working alongside were not a third of his age. She was on a tear about the water damage and they were bowed low, albeit to pound nails, each looking as if they feared to raise their head higher than their ass.

Erica saw me approach the hall and busied herself with re-nailing the areas where the men had already been. She didn’t look up from her hammering, a steady rhythmic sound: Bang-bang-tap, bang-bang-tap, that unmistakable steady rhythm against the rest. I walked my burning and twisting stomach past the hall.

Lisa bounded out of the camp store and startled me, “Hey, slut. Aww you changed your clothes, that’s cheating. I was looking forward to the walk of shame.”

The rhythmic sound stopped on the roof as I felt as if a nail had settled deep into the pit of my chest.

“Shut it, Lisa,” I hissed.

“Seriously, what the fuck were you thinking?”

She had a point, what was I thinking? Right now I was thinking Lisa had The Voice on, probably the same one that got her fired at her first restaurant job.

They had given Lisa a trial as a cook, and she confessed to me she liked to pretend the entire wait staff was her team of personal servants. She had been teasing a pretty Latino girl from Day One, who (according to Lisa) had been flirting with her mercilessly, telling Lisa that she would never go back to “dry white girls” again after her, etc. Of course I wondered how much of this was in my sister’s head.

On Lisa’s second day, before the restaurant opened, the owner had slipped into the kitchen unannounced just as Lisa had admitted to her kitchen assistant that she was bored and a bored Lisa is a recipe for disaster. She raised her eyebrows and tossed her head in the direction of the Latino girl, who was prepping the tables for the lunch crowd with one of the Irish girls. Lisa, not seeing the boss behind her, slammed her chopping knife down, clapped her hands twice at her assistant, pointed at the Latino girl, and bellowed in her best Henry the Eighth voice, “Bring me the brown one. She
amuses
me!” The girl thought it was hysterical and laughed her ass off, but Lisa was fired on the spot. (That night, Lisa claims she banged the hot Latino girl and got to use the line again, only changing it to “Bring me one of the
white
ones,” when the girl brought two Caucasian girlfriends along.)

I walked away from Lisa, fearing I might smack her for pointing out I never came home last night in front of Erica, but this would repeat a pre-pubescent mistake. I had learned the hard way: I was a fly swatter; Lisa was a bazooka gun with a backup round of ammo.

Lisa yelled after me, “Seriously, I think you’ve lost your mind!”

I hated when she was right, and wished I would hear the bang-bang-tap hammering begin again, but as I walked toward the center of the camp, all I could hear was the unsteady tapping of Uncle Freddie and the crew as they pretended not to listen to the Santora sisters squabble. The quiet from Erica’s hammer was chilling. I knew when she was not yelling at the crew or not hammering, she was pissed off beyond measure.

Or worse, she was hurt.

I wondered how all this had gotten so out of control so quickly. It had started so tiny at first, that occasional odd feeling in my stomach, a faint tickle, then building to a steady state of euphoric fluttering, which promises something wonderful is about to happen. However, when something wonderful can’t happen, because you’ve fallen in love with the woman your brother loved first, it starts to feel like a stomach flu. A pleasantly fluttering stomach evolves into a churning, acid-filled pit, and the waves of excitement turn to nausea, until you are left walking across a campground with the constant feeling that
something terrible is about to happen. And worse, that you very badly want it to.

I circled the camp and wound up back in front of the camp store, and ducked inside to avoid the view of the construction crew. Mom and Lisa were going at it, while Dad pretended to be restocking the candy shelves. Lisa and I both knew he came into the camp store only to steal black licorice. We ordered extra boxes for him and kept it off the inventory list, and secret from Mom.

Mom was trying not to shout, which meant she was shouting. “Why the hell would I put the girl’s sign over the boy’s stuff and the boy’s sign over the girl’s stuff?”

Lisa was laughing at her. “Mom. Don’t you get it yet? Camptown Ladies and Camp Camp attracts a certain clientele. And that clientele has girls that wouldn’t be caught dead buying pink picnic tablecloths and boys that would squeal at the sight of them.”

Mom snapped, “You’re not making any sense.”

This fight was a relief compared to the one going on inside my head. Lisa got up on the ladder to hang the Camp Camp Supplies sign over the matching rainbow umbrellas and plastic tumblers. The Camptown Ladies sign was already perched high over the sea of army green merchandise. Mom placed both hands on her hips and sighed a Darth Vader breath. Darth’s appearance was a sign things could end badly.

Lisa saw me as she came down the ladder and said, “Let’s ask Marie, she’s great at making decisions. She’ll probably want to hang a sign that already fell on her head and hurt her several times, a sign that will no doubt hit her in the friggin’ head again.”

I glared at her.

Mom turned to me and said, “Don’t tell me this makes any sense to you,” and she waited for my reply.

“I don’t have an opinion,” I finally said, deathly afraid to have the crosshairs turned my way.

Lisa said, “Oh come on, Marie. Make a decision and stick with it. You know, dive in or not, but stick with your decision.”

I narrowed my eyes at her to tell her to back off, but this never worked, and I knew this time would be no different. Just then, Vince
hopped into the store, yelling, “Hey campers!” and his cheerfulness was so bizarre that we all just stared at him. “What?” he said, checking his face in one of the small hand mirrors hanging on the wall. “What are you all staring at?”

Lisa said, “Those strange little white things in your mouth called teeth. What’s the shit-eating grin about?”

“Would you mind if I ordered another truckload of beach sand for around the pond?” he asked Lisa.

“I said, what’s the shit-eating grin about?” Lisa said.

“Nothing. I want to put some beach sand over near the pond by Katie’s trailer. Can I do it?”

“Who the fuck is Katie?” she asked.

“It’s for Buddy,” he answered.

Lisa said, “OK, who the fuck is Buddy? Are we talking about your dead dog from ten years ago? Tell me you didn’t keep have him stuffed, you were always such a weird kid.” Mom nodded. Even her argument with Lisa could not make her disagree about something that obvious.

“Buddy is Katie’s son,” he said. “The kid’s favorite thing was to go to the beach with his father, even though he only took him once. Buddy doesn’t stop talking about it, so I thought we could make the pond look more like a beach for when he goes fishing.”

Dad popped up from the candy aisle as I waited for Lisa to take a crack at Vince. Some kind of joke about Katie, about how notoriously bad Vince’s gaydar was, about—worse, from Lisa’s perspective—how Vince’s horrible fishing technique could cripple a child’s talents before he ever had a chance. But all she said was, “Sure, go ahead.”

Vince bolted out the door. “Great. I’ll go find Erica so she can negotiate the price for the sand,” he said over his shoulder, and our hopes were dashed that Vince was showing the first sign of a distraction from his heartbreak.

The distraction of Vince did lead Mom and Lisa into an unspoken truce. Lisa signaled for Mom to hand her a bracket for the sign, and she did so with no comment. Peace at last.

“So,” Lisa said, “Marie banged Lorn last night.”

“Lisa, what the fuck!” I yelled, and I punched her in the arm as
hard as I could before she got me in a headlock vise grip. In seconds my nose was touching the floor. From that angle, I could see the piles of Dad’s secret candy wrappers that he had shoved under the shelves.

“Girls!” Mom yelled, and I heard Dad’s licorice-muffled laugh. Mom heard it too, and even with my face to the floor, I recognized the sound of Mom giving him a gentle smack on his arm. “Stan! Stop stealing candy!” and Dad laughed again. It was so awkward for us kids when the parents were flirting.