Starfish (2 page)

But Jill’s hands communicate with my body, rubbing my hunched shoulders. It’s okay, the hands tell me. It’s okay.

Gradually, I feel some tension drain off. Now I just feel foolish. Jill’s soft lips kiss the back of my neck, as if to say:
giving up so soon? You hippies always were quitters. Ha ha, kidding.
Kiss, kiss…

Her hands brush my hair over my shoulders and my curls settle on my chest. I feel my bra unhooked, the first time another person has ever done that. Looking down, I watch the cups pull away from my dark locks as Jill slides the straps down my shoulders. It’s a huge effort for me not to cover myself with my arms.

Her hands leave my shoulders. I hear her undressing. I just wait—head bowed, facing away, thinking about freshman year.

Our very first day together, Jill and I had agreed that some smart-ass must have assigned us together as roommates. Why else would a crunchy liberal do-gooder be paired with someone who actually declared in her admission essay that she wanted to be a millionaire by 23? We had laughed about it, then gone to our very first meal in the cafeteria.

I feel her hands again. Gentle pressure. She’s turning me. I comply, passive. Facing her, I can’t yet look her in the eye. I stare down, goggle-eyed at the naked gym-toned body that I have seen a million times before. Freshman year, anyway, the last time we roomed together. But it looks like not much has changed. Why would it have?

This is the interval when I expect the speech.
Don’t worry Ellie. We can take this slow. It’ll be beautiful, you’ll see.

Nope.

She takes my hand, tugs. I look up. She’s smiling. Walking backward, she leads me into the bathroom.

I can’t quite process her joke, something about room-servicing a camera for Girls Gone Wild. My mind is not registering the words. I just stand on the cold tile. Jill pivots and bends into the tub to turn on the water.

I consider, in an abstract way, her butt. It’s round and firm with a perfect little V indentation at the top where the cheeks meet. Why can’t I have that butt? I know what Jill would say: you can, if you work for it. But my college gym membership was wasted on me. I think I went once, to stare at the treadmills. Perhaps consequently, my own butt has been growing over these past four years. This month I finally bit the bullet and bought new underwear and jeans, since who knows how many thrift stores there may be in rural Africa. Has Brad made comments about The Incredible Expanding Ass? Probably, but I tune him out. I tune out a lot of what he says.

Hot water sprays from the showerhead. A warm steamy mist settles over my skin. Jill lifts the bathmat from the edge of the tub. Watching her lay it on the tiles with a perfect flip of her wrists, you would think she does this every day. Her boobs wobble with the movement, a saucy shake.

I try not to wonder if this is Jill’s standard seduction technique: lead a nervous first-timer into the shower for some loosening up, then repair to the bed. How many times have I seen her hook up with some girl at a house party, some girl who more often than not had had no idea that she might on some occasion try going gay for a day. Or a night. I would watch Jill lead them upstairs, downstairs, or out through the exit. I asked her once what her secret was; she said that the straightforward approach always worked best. I like you, you like me, homosexuality.

The humming exhaust fan overhead can’t keep up with the steam. It’s filling the bathroom and beading on my skin, running down in drops. Jill smiles at me through the fog and embraces, snuggling in close. Here we go. I close my eyes. We’re standing next to the tub. I worry about falling on the tub if I pass out. I’m feeling pretty lightheaded. As Jill begins kissing my neck softly, so softly, my brain keeps thinking about the best decision to make in the short second or two before I faint. Fall toward the towel bar and try to grab it on the way down. At least maybe I’ll slow my body when it hits the tile…

Jill’s kisses advance toward my Adam’s apple. I tilt my chin high. Opening my eyes, I look up at that stupid ventilation fan embedded inside the light fixture. You would think for this kind of money a hotel would splurge on something that could actually suck steam out of a bathroom. Oh my goodness. I gasp, hard.

Jill stands up again after having given my pubic hair a lick. What the hell? It’s hard to hold my thoughts together. But Jill just snuggles in again, kissing and nibbling the other side of my neck. Her hand cups my breast, as soft a touch as I have ever felt in my life.

I put my hands on her. They settle on her hips, like we are dancing.

I say ow and flinch as something sharp jabs my clavicle. Jill notices and touches her ear. The starfish earrings are duly removed and placed on the sink counter.

I smile as she returns for the embrace, opening my arms to her this time. We kiss. Just a light brushing of lips that connect so slightly it almost doesn’t happen at all. Tingles explode over my skin.

We stand by the side of the tub forever as Jill’s light kisses wander over my neck and shoulders. Her hands begin to caress the Incredible Expanding Ass. I catch myself, chastising my brain for thinking that way: you’re pretty, everybody says so, and neither you nor your butt are fat. If Brad wants to comment every time you eat a bite of cheese or chocolate, you can just start making remarks about his disappearing hairline.

Jill kisses up the tip of my chin to my cheek, a slow dreamy diagonal line bypassing my mouth. I turn my head and push my lips onto hers. They open. Our tongues touch, a tentative hello.

She pulls away gently and I have to let go. Checking the water temperature, she bends over again, adjusting the faucet. My fingertips slide a big goofy happy line up and down her back, matching my big goofy happy smile.

She enters the tub. I take her hand and also step daintily over the edge, feeling the warm water wash away the steam and sweat on my body. Our faces close, she grins in response to the big goofy happy smile. Kisses my cheek. Then she moves close again, kissing my neck once more. I don’t think I could ever get tired of this.

We’re not snuggling, not that close. It’s like she’s teasing me, daring me to crush my body into hers. The tip of her tongue slides down my neck aaaallllllllllll the way to my breast. Her lips cover the peak. I never knew a touch so soft could make me so crazy. As her fingers touch my pubic hair, I wonder what took her so long. I lift a foot carefully. My thighs part, and her fingertips move slow and light over the thatch that I have never bothered trimming.

She whispers into my ear: hold on. Then she disappears into the bedroom, her feet leaving little puddles on the floor.

What now? I wonder. She didn’t bring anything with her. At least, I didn’t think she did. But never underestimate Jill.

I think back to a long conversation we had on grass under the stars freshman year. We discussed life, sex, my devout Catholicism, her not-so-devout Catholicism. I had asked her what she really wanted in life. She had smiled and said a big house in Maui and a hot car. I had asked if she would buy me a ticket when she got there. You wouldn’t like it, she had said. It was one of the best conversations of my life, the kind that you think you’ll have so many of when you arrive in college. But, really, that was the only one. I’m glad I had it with Jill.

She returns, carefully stepping around the puddles she created on her way out so that she won’t slip. Two opened bottles of lager are in her hands. I say, minibar beer is mad expensive so I’ve been told. She grins as she steps back into the tub. Hands me a bottle, says: I’m thirsty.

How long have we been in this tub I wonder? I take a sip and feel wonderfully cold beer slide down my throat. Jill pulls the shower curtain shut.

We come close again, sipping our beer and kissing and touching each other. It feels perfect. I giggle and start telling a funny story, but Jill is not in that mood. She nibbles my ear and squeezes my breast hard. My conversation dies but it is a good, easy death, a happy burial. I tip my beer up once more, draining it, then set the empty bottle on the little perch in the corner of the tub.

If all this foreplay has been Jill’s carefully constructed campaign to make me hungry for her, it’s working. Pulling her into a crushing embrace, I kiss her deeply. She responds. I break off and bend down to suck her nipple, hard. Moaning, Jill pulls my head into her chest and her breast balloons up around my cheeks.

The water’s growing cold. I thought that wasn’t supposed to happen in hotels. We are both shivering. Jill turns off the tap. We step out and Jill hands me a towel from the wire shelf above the toilet before she grabs one for herself.

I can’t resist drying her off. I wonder what Brad would make of this, if only he could see it. The thought makes me giggle uncontrollably. Jill asks me what’s up, and my answer’s honest. She giggles, too. It’s a good happy moment, the two of us laughing and looking into each other’s eyes. I want to add something about how Brad would probably want to join in, but I don’t. I’m skating on thin ice as it is, talking about him. Jill’s never liked Brad. I don’t want to cast any kind of a pall over this afternoon, our afternoon that she and I will remember for the rest of our lives. So in my mind I throw Brad into a safe, slam the heavy door shut, and spin the big locking wheel.

Jill has been rubbing her towel between my legs for so long that the skin is beginning to feel just a little raw but I don’t complain. We make out.

When we finally are pretty darn dry, Jill tosses her towel onto the floor with a flourish. I follow her example. We walk over the crumpled white terry to the bedroom.

The jazz music coming out of the television strikes me as cheesy but perfect. Through the window curtain I can tell that the sun’s moved. How long have we been in here? I ask Jill. She walks to check the cell phone inside her abandoned jeans. When she looks up, her face is grim. Ninety minutes to graduation. I will need half an hour at least to get home, meet my parents who have probably already arrived and are waiting for me, throw on my graduation gown, grab my mortarboard hat and hurry to the quad.

Seeing my face, Jill adds: the room is ours all night.

Can we come back after? I ask.

I can if you can. What about Brad?

What about him?

Aren’t you two spending the night?

Were not sleeping together.

Jill stares, thinking I’m kidding.

We’re not, I repeat. We’re not sleeping together until we are married.

What about Africa?

I shrug. No sex is his idea, I say. If the Peace Corps puts us in one room, that’s his problem.

Jill approaches, touches my hair. She says her mom will probably go back to her hotel after dinner. I nod and say that my parents probably will, too.

We arrange a plan. After we each do our dinners and goodbyes with our folks (and Brad, in my case), I will call Jill and we will meet back here. It might not be until after midnight but neither of us mention it because neither of us care. We’re both leaving town tomorrow. This is it. We don’t mention that either.

Jill’s face morphs into the steely expression I know so well. I can’t believe we were in the bathroom that long, she says.

Wasted time? I tease.

She rolls her eyes. I know what she’s thinking. We could have been having hours of sex, instead of hours of foreplay.

I’m setting an alarm, she mutters. Frowning at her phone, she taps it. It’s hilarious. Methodical, precise Jill. Setting alarms so that if we happen to get carried away in our passion, we will not miss graduation and worry our puzzled loved ones.

I’ve got the giggles. Probably I’m just nervous about the end of our sojourn here and the big bed with all its promise and terror, but seriously, an alarm is funny. I start tickling Jill.

Stop, she says, turning away, still tapping at her phone. I know her weak spot: under her armpits. I grab and she shrieks, trying to writhe away.

I love these moments. Tickling Jill is the only time when I ever see her poise crumble. She becomes helpless, laughing and sobbing, screaming obscenities at me and trying to escape. I think of all the tickle fights we’ve had over the years. She really could’ve gotten away she wanted to, but usually she didn’t. Sometimes it would go on forever, me on top of her, tickling away and her almost crying as she begged me to stop. I don’t happen to be ticklish, myself, so she had nothing to fight back with. And now, as we spin around the room naked, I realize that maybe all this time she never wanted to.

We crash onto the bed. My head hits her phone, hard. Your fault, she shouts in triumph. She checks the phone one more time before tossing it to the nightstand. We make out, wriggling up toward the pillows.

Jill yanks the thin comforter, exposing white linen underneath. I move around awkwardly, balancing on knees and hands, as she pulls the cover out from under me. The cool sheets feel lovely. My body’s still damp and I see little dark patches here and there where the sheets absorb the moisture.

After hopping off the bed to pull the covers off all the way, Jill nearly jumps on top of me. Whoa, I say, letting her wedge her knee between my thighs as she sucks my boobs. Getting a little forward there, aren’t you? She ignores me. Good. I close my eyes. The hum I felt when we were in the shower returns. The vibrations are inside of me but somehow they are going through me, like some science fiction radio signal that tunes your body higher and higher until you lose your mind.

Jill nestles at my side and she initiates a slow, steady, tantalizing make-out. Her calf slides up and down over my warm wet bush. It feels SO GOOD. I know everybody says that, but by God, when you feel it for yourself it is a huge freakin’ deal. Part of me considers that it’s just as well Jill and I never did this freshman year, because I never would have let her out of bed.

My thought jumps from that place over to another place, like a propeller plane island-hopping. I replay in my mind The Offer, something I have replayed many times.

Jill and I are walking back from a movie in town. It’s early enough in our relationship that we still don’t know everything about each other. The freshman dorm is in sight.