Butcher's Moon

Eighteen

Grofield awoke to excruciating pain, and a sense that the world had shifted on its axis. Why else was the sun down there in that strange position, why else did he have the feeling of being surrounded by the interior parts of an automobile all turned on their side, and why else did he have the impression he was standing up and lying down at the same time?

And why this excruciating pain? His neck twinged, his right shoulder was killing him, his legs ached abominably. And what was that mounded thing between him and the sun? And what was that awful bonging sound?

He closed one eye and squinted the other, the better to see, and suddenly understood that the mounded thing was a naked buttock. A torso was somehow draped across him so that the buttock was over his waist, with the sun rising over it. And from the roundness and the impression of softness—and from his own past history—he presumed the buttock to be female.

And the automobile parts? An automobile, a true complete automobile, on the back seat of which he was more or less lying.

And the horrible bonging sound? Grofield closed his other eye, tight, the better to muffle the sound (which didn’t work), and like an optical illusion that suddenly shifts its perspective and becomes a different picture, the horrible bonging transmogrified itself all at once into church bells.

Church bells? The combination of church bells and a girl’s naked ass seemed not only incongruous but downright profane. Taken aback, Grofield opened his eyes again, and the behind was still there, rounded pale flesh cloven into two equal melons, sunlight playing on the soft downy blond hair just above the cleavage where her tail would be, if she had a tail. That was actually pretty; the church bells seemed an appropriate accompaniment, after all.

An ass; an entire body. Pale flesh became tanned flesh at the downy hair; a bikini-wearer, apparently. Good hips narrowing to excellent waist, smooth back extending up in the direction of Grofield’s head, shoulder blades like the stubby wings of a demoted angel out of focus just below Grofield’s nose. Slow, steady, quiet, foreign breathing in Grofield’s right ear. And in the opposite direction, out of sight beyond the hills, incredibly heavy legs lay crisscrossed on Grofield’s legs, causing one element of the excruciating pain that had awakened him.

Yes; about that pain. Grofield’s right arm was away someplace, out of sight and off in some unimaginable position. He tried to move it, experimentally, to ease the grinding in the shoulder, and felt a nipple rub against his palm. The breathing next to him broke rhythm, became a little purring moan, settled back to breathing again, and a nose burrowed more firmly into the side of his neck. The entire female torso became twenty-five pounds heavier.

Who was this, anyway? Rumps are anonymous, and memory had not as yet awakened in Grofield’s head.

But even as he thought that, it did, and he remembered everything. Dori Neevin, madam librarian. Three times he had called her last night; at seven to say yes, at seven-ten to say no, and at nine-thirty to say yes again. Infinitely available, she had prepared to come out, had resigned herself to staying in, and had quickly come out when the green light was given.

And then? Dancing to records at a place called Miss Fotheringay’s School for Boys and Girls; a joint, where they watered everything but the bar rag. Then to the New York Room, where the bewildered waitress Angie served them and Frankie Faran came over to sit at the table awhile, chat, have a drink and finally tell them everything was on the house. Dori had been impressed out of her mind by all that, and the drive home had detoured a bit. Neither of them had been sober, Dori had been doing some clutching and unzipping about his person while the vehicle was still in motion, and what with one thing and another, Grofield hadn’t paid too much attention to where he parked.

Out the window, above Dori’s butt, there was nothing to be seen but sky, with a rising sun in it. The church bells went on and on, like the bore in the next seat on a plane. And Grofield was still in pain.

He grunted. He shifted his entire person somehow, and managed to adjust his head less crookedly. Dori complained into his neck, mumblingly. With his left hand he patted her nearer shoulder blade, saying, “Dori? Hello?”

Mumble mumble.

He patted some more, on the middle of her back, and called her name again, to no greater effect. The sunlight looked so warm on her behind that he rested his palm there, and was surprised to find the flesh cool. She squirmed slightly beneath that touch, pleasurably, and he became aware that underneath her he was just as naked as she was.

They both seemed to be moving. His cupped left hand remained where it was, the nipple hardened suddenly against his right palm, and various complex things were happening in a very simple manner.

“Wake up, sweetheart,” Grofield murmured, “we seem to be having intercourse.”

Her right arm came up to wrap around his head and close off his windpipe, and her hips began to move more strongly. Clutching with both hands, Grofield gave as good as he got, and the breathing in his right ear became very fast and ragged.

Things went along that way for a while, until suddenly the upper part of the torso reared up, Dori’s astonished face appeared directly in front of Grofield’s eyes, and she cried, in amazement and delight, “Oh!”

“Hello,” he said. His right hand was now free; partly to ease the pain in his shoulder, he moved it down and placed it next to his left hand.

Dori was laughing. She put the heels of her hands against his shoulders, pressing him down into the car seat, and remained with her upper torso straight-armed erect; they were now like Siamese twins, joined from the navel downward.

Laughing and at the same time clenching her face muscles in concentration, she proceeded to bear down, doing things she’d never learned in the library.

Grofield lost track of the church bells, and when he could think about them again, they’d stopped. Dori had collapsed onto his chest, her hair in his nose and her lips against the pulse in his throat. “Good morning,” he said, and she murmured something contented, and shot bolt upright, her elbow in his neck as she stared in horror out at the day.

“It’s tomorrow!”

“Not any more,” Grofield said.

“My folks! I—” Abruptly she was scrambling around on top of him like a puppy on ice, giving him careless shots with knee, heel, elbow, and hip. “We’ve got to— What time is— Where’s my— We can’t—”

“Oof,” he said. “Ow. Easy! Look out!”

She was putting on coral-colored panties, while sitting on his stomach. “We’ve got to get home.’” she cried. “Hurry! Hurry!”

“Get off me, dear. I’ll do anything you want, if you’ll only get off.”

“Hurry hurry hurry.” Edging off him, she kept slapping his hip to hurry him, at the same time making it impossible for him to get his legs on the same side of the car as his head.

“Damn it,” he said. “Ow, I— Will you move that— I’d like to— Aaahhh!” All in one place, he sat up at last and looked around at a graveyard.

Exactly. The church, red brick, was off behind the car, and this was the congregation’s burial ground. Flat land symmetrically lined with weathering tombstones, the symmetry broken by an occasional maple tree or line of hedge. At some distance ahead, woods started, stretching off toward low hills. To the right and left, weedy fields separated the graveyard from tracts of small identical houses.

“In the midst of death,” Grofield murmured, “we are in life.”

The girl, hurrying into her clothing, gave him a distracted look. “What?”

“Nothing. Just a thought.”

”Please,” she said. She sounded truly terrified. “You aren’t even getting dressed.”

“Right,” he said, and looking around, found a sock. Putting it on, he said, “I’ll drive you home.” Then he sneezed.