Cutters vs Jocks

CUTTERS VS. JOCKS A Prequel Novella to Binding Arbitration

by ELIZABETH MARX Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Marx Smashwords Edition

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For all the girls with the courage to jump the tracks and for all the boys waiting on the other side to love them. And vice-versa. Special thanks to Kagan Tuncay for use of photo of Rosewell House for cover.

CONTENTS 1. WE SHOULD BE WOO’D AND WERE NOT MADE TO WOO 2. FANS DON’T BOO NOBODIES 3. O, WHAT MEN DARE DO 4. CHAMPIONS KEEP PLAYING UNTIL THEY GET IT RIGHT 5. NOTHING CAN COME FROM NOTHING 6. HITTING IS TIMING. PITCHING IS UPSETTING TIMING. 7. OUR REMEDIES OFT IN OURSELVES LIE 8. MOST BALL GAMES ARE LOST, NOT WON 9. THINK YOU I AM NO STRONGER THAN MY SEX 10. IF WINNING ISN’T EVERYTHING, WHY DO THEY KEEP SCORE? 11. THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH 12. YOU WIN SOME, LOSE SOME, WRECK SOME 13. MY WORDS FLY UP, MY THOUGHTS REMAIN BELOW 14. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT TO SAY IN THE LOSER’S LOCKER ROOM

CUTTERS Cutter is a derogatory term used by Indiana College students to refer local youths in Bloomington. Akin to townie, it was used in the 1979 movie Breaking Away, but cutter originally referred to someone who worked in the local stone cutting industry in Indiana.

VS. Versus.

JOCKS Jock is believed to be derived from the word jockstrap, and synonymous with male athlete. It has become ingrained in American culture as a negative stereotype. Like meathead or muscle head, it’s based on the theory that a jock is muscular, but unintelligent and unenlightened, unable to carry on a conversation unless it’s related to sport or exercise.

1 WE SHOULD BE WOO’D AND WERE NOT MADE TO WOO A Midsummer’s Night Dream Elizabeth Do you believe in love at first sight is an illusion? Madonna’s lyrics funneled through the speaker system. I tripped going up the stairs into the alcove, as I caught a glimpse of him. Never before has a single person made such an impression on me. And no guy, with the silky nod of his head, has overwhelmed me with a gaze that seemed to penetrate me, all the way to my soul. Weren’t there supposed to be fireworks, violins, and rose petals at a time like this? It was just my fortune, since I had bad luck fermenting in my blood, that my awe-struck moment was illuminated by the glare of college football on a television screen, the crunching of peanut shells under-foot, and stale stout stabbing my senses. It was the fall of my junior year. I had avoided any such entanglements since I’d enrolled at IU. It was Saturday night, at McCreary’s, a bar that sits in a commercial strip mall right down the way from the movie theater on the mall side of Bloomington. As if a saloon from the Wild West, the wide plank floors are marred and scuffed. And watch where you walk, because peanut shells litter the floor. Poetry, profanity, and phone numbers whittle the wooden walls. It’s patrons are a mix of cutters and college kids. McCreary’s had some of the best sandwiches in Bloomington, with names like Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, and Call of the Wild. Vicki and I had just seen a movie, and right then I was so dumbfounded I couldn’t remember the title. The second I walked into the bar, I was informed that we were playing pool in the Hoosier Room. McCreary’s four pool tables sit at the four cardinal points in little alcoves cordoned off by half walls. Vicki and I worked together at the Waffle House. While I went to class and the library, she said she’d take a pass on anything past primary. She’d only come to Bloomington to escape her small-town parents who thought marijuana was a seasoning added to brownies. I had no desire to play pool, but I agreed because there was no talking Vicki out of something once she set her mind on it. Case in point, her hair was chartreuse right now, popsicle green, with a white lighting streak running down the side of her bangs. We stepped into the tiny niche and one of our opponents greeted us. The lookout was tall and muscular, with dirty blond hair. His teammate was positioning his long athletic frame over the table, looking at his shot. When he heard the introductions, he looked up. He brushed his dark hair away from his blue eyes and took in Vicki, his eyes seemed to fill his face, but he didn’t sneer, which is what most jocks did when faced with Vicki. It wasn’t that she wasn’t pretty; it was just that she was a lot to take in all at once. And once she started talking, it was hard for most people to listen, because her voice reminded you of a mouse trying to swallow a hurricane. The jock nodded in greeting, and then turned toward me. His lips crinkled into a lopsided smile, and he beamed me with his killer blue eyes. I felt like I had walked straight into a beam of electrified male energy. The dimple in his chiseled cheek was so deep he could use it as a trap, and I didn’t doubt that he’d caught quite a few gals in that crevice alone. Researchers say that we can judge the attractiveness of another person in .13 seconds. I knew he was someone I would never forget. It wasn’t just his physical appearance that

ensnared me, but his eyes locked on me like he wanted to sharpen his ego on my bones. His presence was so calm, cool and collected that I took two steps back. The hair all over my body stood up, and then knotted. I tried to blink. I couldn’t. My eyes were Super-glued on him. Vicki and the other guy were speaking, but I couldn’t hear them because blood was boiling in my ears like a thick pot of chili at the Waffle House right before Saturday afternoon kick-off. I shook my head and told myself this wasn’t real. Love at first sight was a physical response, simple attraction. Some might call it lust. I forced my eyes away from him and listened to the introductions. His friend’s name was David, I thought. I couldn’t be sure because I was locked into a clear box with the guy leaning on his pool stick, and someone was sucking all the air from the confined space. I wanted to panic breathe. “I’m Aidan,” he said. I put my hand out, but when his hand came into view, I pulled mine back. His deep tenor stroked my consciousness. I was certain that he could read the nature of my attraction on my flushed face. He didn’t need the ego boost. I swallowed down my instinct to make a run for it, extended my hand again and said, “Elizabeth.” “Elizabeth is a beautiful name.” His words were the third lure. I was a goner. “Everyone calls me Band-Aid.” David reintroduced himself for my benefit. He said they were baseball players at IU. I stole another glance at Aidan, but he seemed unaffected by what happened, and started asking me questions to figure out from where he knew me. David racked the balls and said over his shoulder, “You’ve probably seen them on the square.” Translation: David assumed that because Vicki was a cutter, I was too. Aidan shrugged, easily swallowing that information hook, line, and sinker. For the next forty minutes, I listened to Vicki and David carry on a conversation, while Aidan watched me. I refused to glance his way, but every once in awhile, my will power slipped. I barely pulled my wits together enough to play. After each of Aidan’s shots, he stood alongside me, inching a little closer each time. By the end of the match, the cuff of his rolled-up shirt sleeves brushed against my bare arm. He was trying to fluster me, so I concentrated on putting stripes in pockets, and ignored whatever game he was playing. Vicki distracted David with her friendly banter, while the snug fit of my jeans diverted Aidan. We whipped the jocks. Aidan wanted to go three for five, but I shook my head in refusal. As I stepped out of the space, I turned back for a final glance. The loss sent a little spark of determination to Aidan’s cheeks. It seemed jock boy was way competitive. It was a good thing it was only a tiny spark, because if anything else ignited, the small room and the entire strip center might have gone up in flames.

2 FANS DON’T BOO NOBODIES Reggie Jackson Aidan She beat me at pool. It must have been the fact that the moment I laid eyes on her quiet, dark beauty I knew I wanted her. Those forest green eyes drew me in and made me long to know what was going on behind those nerdy specs. It was as if her glasses were a shield she could stand behind watching the world at a distance, taking it all in and making her internal observations without giving anything away. She was a cutter with a tart mouth I wanted to roam. Okay, I wanted her body, too, but it was her mouth that kept me intrigued. After she’d won, she couldn’t escape fast enough, so I stalked her and her friend into the bar. Her full lips spoke words laced in warning and challenge. I overheard her say, “I’m not interested.” And I knew it was in reference to me. She was one of those girls who could set a guy down with a look or a few piercing words. “Really? I could try harder.” She made some idle comment about me being a prince charming type, so I tried to correct her impression. “Afraid you can’t measure up?” This was absolutely the wrong thing to say. The green of her eyes turned gold like a fire breathing dragon does right before it marshmallows your appendages. “I’m not interested in stumbling along with the masses,” she said. Now, I’ve got one hell of an ego, and a girl telling me twice in less than sixty seconds that she isn’t interested is like shoving a red flag down my throat. I would find a way to make her interested. I mean, I was a stud on campus. And yeah, she’s smoking hot, but she’s a cutter, a townie. They usually roll around at my feet like practice balls. “I hardly think you stumble, and you’ve already stood out from the crowd. That’s the first game I’ve lost to a girl that I didn’t throw.” “You lost because you were too busy checking out my ass.” Yep, pretty much. “Checking you out was worth the loss to my competitive nature.” I toasted her highball glass with my beer. “What do you want from me?” “How about a date?” A naked date. “Nope,” she said snidely. Might as well go for all of it. She was going to intentionally walk me. “Sex?” “You have a girlfriend.” This one was smarter than two cutters and a coed put together. “Why would you say that?” I almost launched out of my seat when she strummed her fingers over mine, speaking seductively. “Your class ring is hanging among some lovely coed’s perky breasts right now.” I’m going to embarrass myself. “Did you say perky breasts?” Her glass clinked into mine. “You keep up better than most jocks.” I ran my thumb over my ring finger. “We have a very open relationship.” I’d made it very clear to Amanda that I was a free agent, but she still insisted on keeping the ring she had snatched off my dresser, saying she needed a part of me.

“I’m sure you have an open relationship,” she said in disgust, “and I’m sure she doesn’t know anything about your extracurricular activities. Thanks for the offer, but I don’t play second string.” Elizabeth picked up her belongings. This girl had that sassy kind of attitude that drove me crazy. I’d happily make her a starter. I gave her another once over. She was right; she was no second stringer. She had cascades of dark chestnut hair, eyes crisper than evergreen, and a body that could rock the cover of Maxim. “You know any other girl wearing those glasses would not appeal to me, but there’s something different about you, Elizabeth Tucker.” “These,” she pointed to her chocolate retro frames, “librarian glasses enhance my ability to call a spade a spade.” “Wow. Who burned you so bad?” “No one.” She plopped off her barstool. “Everyone.” “You were more fun when I had you corralled in a small room, unable to speak.” “Guys always lose interest, once I start talking.” “I like to listen to your voice, even if I don’t know what you mean half the time. I’ll catch on sooner or later.” I took hold of her hand and stoked her palm; it drove almost every girl I’d ever touched crazy. “You have the prettiest hands. You talk with them.” I’d learned that girls loved modest compliments and observations. But not this snooty cutter. She flipped me off and strode away. I shook my head and laughed. I’d always been like a bull. Once you raised the red flag, I was relentless until I captured it.

3 O, WHAT MEN DARE DO Much Ado about Nothing Elizabeth Several times when my mother was indisposed, I was shipped off to one of my great aunties. The summer I was twelve, I rode a Greyhound bus to Chattanooga, to my greataunt’s house. I enjoyed the farm in the rambling hill country of Tennessee, up until the point her twin grandsons came to visit. It was that summer I learned how to put boys in their place. The boys were fourteen, and the roughest, rowdiest, freckled-faced things I had ever seen. And they were curious about me in a way that I found less than flattering. When I made it clear that I was not going to let them put their grimy hands up my skirt, they decided to make my life miserable. They were determined to convince Aunt Oglear that I was the devil’s spawn. They opened the chicken coop and blamed me. They scraped up my hands by tossing me off of the porch swing. They set a contraption to dump dirty water over me when I came out the barn. It was their version of a wet t-shirt contest, and they howled like coyotes as I sputtered through the water. Then they started calling me Yankee Girl. After twelve days of their shenanigans, I decided the good-ole-boys needed a Yankee lesson in manners. My aunt Oglear was Silly Putty in their hands, as most southern grandmothers are. But their grandfather was no dumb duck, and he knew those boys were trouble in spades. Everyday Uncle Roy gave them specific warnings not to let the bulls out of the bullpen. He didn’t want the bulls in the pastures with the heifers. Every day the boys gave their word they wouldn’t, but within half an hour, he’d catch them up on the fence posts taunting those bulls with sticks and rocks. The poor animals were busting with as much testosterone as the boys. In retaliation to the boys taunting, the bulls would charge the fence repeatedly, garnering hoots and hollers of mirth from the little jackasses. I watched this display muggy afternoon after muggy afternoon, and finally a plan formed. The day they were to go home, their grandparents went into town and gave them explicit instructions against monkey business. What they should have warned against was bull business. I followed the boys out to the fence by the bullpen, and offered them each an opportunity to see my assets. I told them to meet me in the barn loft. Ten minutes later they came just like calves to the slaughter. When they climbed into the loft, I’d climbed down the outside ladder, ran around the front of the barn and locked them in. I barricaded every exit and there wasn’t a breeze to be had. As the temperature rose to its zenith, so did their anger. They screamed and yelled for the better part of the morning, as I sprawled out in a chaise lounge with a tall glass of lemonade, without any lurid glances. In the early afternoon, I meandered out to the pasture and opened the bullpen fence. It didn’t take long before the bulls realized their luck and were down the hill chasing the heifers. When dust kicked up on the road leading to the farm, I knew that Aunt Oglear and Uncle Roy were coming home, so I quietly opened the barn door. My two tormentors were striped to their briefs, asleep in a pile of hay. I disappeared into the potting shed behind the house, slipped on an apron, rubbed dirt on my face and watched with glee.

Their grandmother found them and immediately took a switch to them for letting the bulls out. An hour later, their grandfather came back from rounding up the horny bulls and he was fit to be tied. The grinding gears from the truck hauling the bulls called the boys out of the garden where they had been sent to weed. They kept bickering over who was going to tattle on me, but their grandmother was supervising their pulling and hoeing from the kitchen window and neither of them dared to be the one that stepped out of the turned up soil. When they tried to blame me, all those hours of taunting the bulls fell deaf on their grandfather’s ears. He took them to the bullpen, put their hands on the top rail of the fence, and made them drop their pants. Then he beat the tar out of them with his leather belt. After I stopped laughing, I found my way to the house. Aunt Oglear washed my face asking where I had been hiding. I told her I had been working in the garden shed all morning, which was what I usually did when I wanted to escape with a book. I sat at the kitchen table and my auntie put a plate of cookies down in front of me on the red checkered table cloth. She stood over the sink, shucking corn. When one of the boys yelped especially loud she said, “Well, Elizabeth Ann, if you can’t beat them, arrange for them to be beaten. You timed that just right. Their daddy is coming up the road and neither one of them is going to sit comfortably for a week.” She turned and smirked at me. That was that day I learned to school my face when there were questions I didn’t want to answer. She chuckled. Whether it was from my not giving anything away or from her amusement I couldn’t say. “Plough deep while sluggards sleep.” She wiped her hand on a dish towel, patted my shoulder, and went out the screen door laughing. Needless to say, on any further trips, the boys were much more gentlemanly. Once, when they thought to call me Yankee Girl again, their grandmother said, “You want everyone to know that Yankee outsmarted the two of you?” They both blustered, but they called me Cousin Libby from then on. And I fondly referred to them as the Bullpen Brothers.

4 CHAMPIONS KEEP PLAYING UNTIL THEY GET IT RIGHT Billie Jean King AIDAN The next afternoon, I went searching for Elizabeth Tucker on the square. The cutters were milling about, most recovering from hangovers, smoking cigarettes and sipping 7Eleven coffee. I approached a gangly-looking dude, with a knot of dreadlocks at the back of the head, and asked him if he knew an Elizabeth. He shook his head no, dropped his skateboard, and rolled away. I went back to campus and parked in front of the library. As I hefted my backpack over my shoulder, I figured I could find the little cutter at the Waffle House sooner or later. A old man was pacing back and forth in front of the libraries entrance, the weird thing about him was he was dressed in short pants and a bow tie and he had an old fashions baseball cap. When he saw me, he opened the door to the vestibule for me. As I crossed the threshold he said, “Remember what you’re looking for kid.” The hair at the nape of my neck stood up. When I put my hand on the door that would deposit me into the lobby of the library, something compelled me to look back. The old guy was gone. I had no idea what department that kind of weird taught in, but I wanted to stay far away from it. Probably, philosophy, I’d stay way clear of that. I smiled as I headed to the third floor, where the jocks studied and the cheerleaders stalked, but I wasn’t in the mood for any pom-pom antics, so I found an empty table on the fourth floor. I pulled out my English lit book. I hated English lit, but I started reading: “Nor did her who was so wise shortly before--perceive that Love with his darts dwelt within the rays of those lovely eyes--nor notice the arrow that sped to his heart.” Seriously, a guy wrote this? I felt the second prickle of unease dance down my spine and looked up. Elizabeth Tucker was facing me. She was sitting alone at the table directly in front of mine, staring at me with the same amount of wide eyed shock I was feeling. As soon as I saw her, I was lost. I looked down at my notes. “For beauty’s wound is sharper than any weapon’s, and it runs through the eyes down to the soul.” I stared at her and let the suspense of what I’d do next build in her eyes. I flashed a playboy smile as I approached her, a smirk that had rocked many a lucky girl’s world. “What are you doing here, Elizabeth?” She refused to pull her eyes away from a book, that was both older and about three inches thicker than anything I’d ever read. “I certainly wasn’t planning on a rendezvous with you.” “You mean you didn’t appoint this place for our meeting?” She peeked from her monolithic tome and rolled her eyes. “May I sit and bask in your presence?” She kept her eyes fixed on her book. “Isn’t that my line?” I chuckled, and then I spent the rest of the day studying her. I always found her at the exact table on the fourth floor. I took the fact that she didn’t move as a sign that she wanted a full on pursuit. It was only a matter of time once I applied the full-court press on her.

After, a few weeks, I started to find comfort in the fact that she was always curled up around a book at that table, right where I left her. She was more solace than the third floor full of jocks, frat boys, and sorority chicks combined. I stayed in the library for hours staring at her over the tops of our books. Why she insisted on reading 18th century literature when she was wasn’t a student touched the fringes of my questioning mind, but I was so buried in business books that I never gave her presence any other thought than the consolation and convenience it offered me. Most nights I arrived with a definitive plan about how I was going to lure her into the stacks, where I would flirt and steal kisses that would only leave me wanting more. I even coaxed her into a grad students study cubical, when I saw him leave for the day. In the intimacy of those tiny rooms, I got the closest to her, but she never allowed for hot and heavy make-out sessions. Over the course of the fall and spring semesters, I learned to depend on how she saw things. She evaluated problems from all the angles and gave solid advice. Her friends looked to her when they were hurting, lonely, or morose, and she offered healing words. And I soon considered myself one of her friends. I knew she wanted me, more than she ever let on. But Elizabeth Tucker had complete command over herself. She always left me with the feeling she never needed me or anyone else. Perhaps that’s what intrigued me. Or maybe I was frightened because she could live without sharing her secrets with me. She was the most intensely aware person I had ever met. I wanted to become intimately acquainted with the secrets behind those majestic eyes. I wondered over and over again: Where exactly had she come from? Who was waiting there for her? What type of secrets was she keeping from me?

5 NOTHING CAN COME FROM NOTHING Lear Libby The wrong side of the tracks was a misnomer because French Lick, Indiana was so small that the length of the tracks was hardly the distance of the high school football field. Maybe it was the transient length of them that hadn’t prevented my trying to constantly attain a first down. French Lick is just shy of two thousand residents and was originally a French Trading Post. Thus, the French. In its heyday, it was known for its sulfur springs, and in the nineteenth century boasted one of the largest healing spas in the nation. The sulfur made the lick, and if anyone can explain the meaning of that to me, then thanks. By the time I was coming up, the spa was closed and the whole town was well past its prime. I grew up in a small house that the rest of the community referred to it as a shack. And didn’t every shack, in every small town, have a resident crazy lady? I was a bright child, so from the earliest age, I knew that my brother and I resided with what the town referred to as the crazy lady on Loquat Lane. Ora Jean Gentry, my mother, was raised in a sewn up mill town in Alabama. Jeanne didn’t grow up in a happy home. Her mother loved her, but she made the continual pursuit of her father’s affection her life’s ambition. Trying to attain the love of a man who’s always moaning the regrets of hard living is like trying to siphon liquor off a dry still. Jeanne continued her quest for love and affection from men who only used and abused her. She was a beautiful woman. Picture Marilyn Monroe’s body and Elizabeth Taylor’s face, and you can imagine the allurements men were drawn to. Jeanne ran away from home when she was thirteen. She hitchhiked, on looks alone, from Alabama to Chicago. The police found her in a forest preserve, in the arms of an eighteenyear-old James Dean type. Unfortunately, whatever innocence she had managed to preserve in those early years was gone by the time the police strobe lights washed their shocked expressions. My mother was sent to a juvenile home where she became fodder for countless other predators. By the time she was sixteen, she was diagnosed as manic-depressive and placed in a state mental hospital. She was shipped from institution to institution, even spending time in an abbey in the Chicago suburbs, where she said that the nuns locked her up every evening. She said she lay in a fetal position in the center of her metal-clad cell praying that no one would come for her in the middle of the night. She was released into the custody of cousins who lived in French Lick. So, Jeanne went there indefinitely. She found employment in a diner as a waitress. By that time she was seventeen; she fell head over heels for my father. My mother claimed he was an artist, but my grandmother referred to him as the drunk, which was one of her nicer references. Either way, he had my mother knocked up in no time. In the eyes of the law, Jeanne was underage and my father was twenty-three. He was given the choice between jail time for statutory rape or marriage. He chose the latter, and they were married in April. I was born in November, and they were divorced by the spring of the next year. My father has always been an apparition to me. I don’t really remember more than a tall figure at the door, whispering heated words to my mother that escalated into an argument.

After my father disappeared (really, he ran away, as nobody would steal a louse), my mother had a break down and spent the next three months at Choate Mental Health Facility. Over the years, she spent a lot of time there. State mental hospitals were not pretty places. I knew because I visited her enough to have developed a deep impression. The broken down playground that stood off to the side of the main entrance, where even grass refused to be reborn was a constant reminder of my withered life. I wanted a perfectly tended grassy knoll, surrounded by a flower garden and large trees swaying in the warmth of the sun. Often these thoughts would assault me, as I was dragged across the threshold of the place. It was the smell that started the panic deep inside my gut. It was an odd combination of excrements and human pain. State facilities were little more than warehouses, with gray cinder block walls, composite tile floors, and glaring florescent lights. The mentally ill weren’t the only residents, but alcoholics, drug addicts, and what were then referred to as perverts were also housed there. On visiting days, everyone would stand in their doorways and gawk down the corridors. Some of the stares were comical, some were predatory, but the vast majority was empty. Blank stares, either drugged into oblivion, or fried by electrode shock therapy into submission. What kind of a person thought of running hundreds of volts of electricity into someone’s brain to re-scramble? But the masochistic bastard probably had a lot of letters behind his name. I couldn’t argue with the results, it was the only thing that brought my mother out of her mania. A side effect was memory loss. By the time I was sixteen, every time they strapped my mother to one of those tables, I prayed to God that she would forget me completely. Now that I’d met Aidan, I had a glimmer of understanding of what Jeanne felt for my father. Love is a kind of madness—and crazy runs in my family.

6 HITTING IS TIMING. PITCHING IS UPSETTING TIMING. Warren Spahn Aidan By the time I opened the door to the Waffle House, I convinced myself I was there for the perfect afternoon snack, apple cinnamon pancakes. I zeroed in on her as soon as I walked in; she stood facing the pass-through into the kitchen. It was the first Saturday afternoon after I returned to IU from California and I was seated on a revolving stool behind the walk up counter. I felt the same tumultuous cloying anxiety I’d felt the first time I saw her. Everything I had ever wanted had come to me easily, granted I was a hard worker; you didn’t become an All American at a Big Ten University otherwise. I played baseball, which was my passion, but I decided to go out for football this fall which offered me a perfect excuse to return to Bloomington early. Playing football was hot and grueling, and I wanted the challenge of it, but I wanted an excuse to be near Libby even more. I had never wanted to be around anyone the way I did her. Sitting alongside her, counting her breaths made me happy. I had no doubt it was her in front of me, when I slid onto the spinning counter stool. I’d studied her body. I could have majored in her, knowing every twist and turn of her figure. I knew its form, as well as the arc on a perfect curve ball. And I’d looked at it from just about every angle possible. Well, except for looking down at her under me, that is. That fantasy did what it always did to me, and I was thankful the counter top was there to hide my embarrassment. She was wearing a standard pink 1950’s style one-piece waitress dress, with matching white collar and apron. It was knee-length and it clung in all the right places. She was on her tip toes placing a check in the turnstile, which she swung around so the cook and owner, Old Mr. Rodgers, could pull it off. She hadn’t noticed me yet, but I didn’t mind checking out the most beautiful cutter’s backside while I waited to capture her attention. Libby reached overhead for a roll of paper towels, and the two cutters saddled on either side of me were enthralled with her rising hemline. Their roaming eyes were too possessive for my liking, so I cleared my throat. Neither one of them paid me any mind; they could not conceive that I would want what they considered cutter property. That was what I should have recognized when I glanced down the counter: cutters and college kids definitely antagonized each other. They might mix it up, they might score drugs from each other, but they didn’t patronize the same establishments, they do not mix ranks, and they never shared their women. Elizabeth turned toward me. Little Bit was her cutter nickname, but she was always Libby to me. I swear her smile lit up my world like fireworks after a grand slam homer. She was just as drop dead gorgeous as I remembered her, except her creamy skin was nicely tanned and a ‘Little Bit’ would not have been enough to satisfy me. Her dark ropes of hair were tied in a knot at the back of her head. Her green eyes flashed through tinted glittery pink retro glasses. With a light sprinkling of freckles across her nose, she wasn’t the kind of girl every guy would follow around on campus, but anyone who caught her clever quips and observations would definitely take a harder look at Libby Tucker. She was a hundred notches above average, and that explained the clowns on either side of me.

Her demeanor spoke good old-fashioned common sense, but when you didn’t use it she could just as easily dish up an old-fashioned tongue lashing. I adored that tongue. I gave her my best megawatt smile, wondering where her tan lines ended. She squinted, before pushing her glasses up her nose, making the little old ladies chain swing on the arm of the glasses. On any other girl I knew, the glasses would have been really fugly, but she was dazzling in them. She was every guy’s quirky retro fantasy chick. Her pouted lips contorted in mock disgust. “Well, well, look at what the cat drug in. Beautiful baseball boy.” The glasses slipped down her perfectly pert nose, so she adjusted them again, before putting her hand on her hip. “No baseball, babe. It’s all about football now.” I winked. “Fabulous Football F... wow, I can’t think of the finish.” “Friend, Fun, Flame, Fairy--the make-believe kind--, Fix, Fury.” I raised my eyebrows with each new suggestion. “No, none of them, but if you had said them in alphabetical order I would have been truly impressed, Band-Aid.” I laughed, remembering our shared camaraderie, our long walks all over campus, our late night clandestine meetings in the library, our ongoing flirtation that formed a friendship in spite of my jock ways. She challenged my mind and made me see things that otherwise I would have ignored. The instant she smiled, I was willing to cross any boundary, real or imaginary, to have her. She was forbidden fruit, but I wanted pick the tree clean. Just a glance, and all the charged up attraction overwhelmed me. One of the cutters wasn’t having it. “If college boy is done with you, I’d like my check,” he snarled. “You know, Johnny, you can make a real ass out of yourself, and you don’t even have to put your mind, or lack thereof, into it.” Libby slapped his check down in front of him. I moved. The closer I got the more bravado he lost, so by the time I was in his face he was bent backwards over the barstool behind him. Libby grabbed my arm over the counter, it was the first time I felt her touch in two months. The pressure of her gentle fingertips against my bare arm immediately sent all my blood south, and it was anything but soothing. “If you get into a brawl, I’ll lose my job and the only sport you will be playing is PickUp-Sticks.” She worked her hand up my arm, until she could gently tug on my T-shirt sleeve. She wasn’t calming me, but she had my attention. I refused to lose my cool, and my eyes narrowed. “Disappear before I forget this is a place of business, cutter.” Long-haired Johnny made short work of dropping bills on the counter. When he reached the door, he turned around. “Later fabulous football fuck, hope she likes it.” He dropped his skateboard and went zooming down Kirkwood Avenue. Libby shrugged her shoulders to cover for the awkwardness, but I could see the hesitation in her eyes. She knew the cutter was right. I wanted her just the way he thought I did. It frustrated me, because I didn’t like being so transparent. And I was torn, because I knew I needed to get her out of my system, but I didn’t intend to hurt her to get it done. I would break it off gracefully, just the way I always had. “If I see him again, I’m going to beat him bloody and leave his body parts in a big recycling bin behind Assembly Hall.” “Whatever floats your boat. Just make sure you wear gloves and have a good alibi.” “Like I was alone all night with this incredible girl named Libby.” “Libby is not that kind of girl. She won’t even succumb to Band-Aid,” she rang up Johnny’s check at the register dropping the seven-cent tip into her white ruffled apron. “You do remember my real name?” I asked curiously, even though I liked the way BandAid rolled off her tongue.

“Of course I remember,” she said in mock distress with her hand across her brow. “We spent all last year playing cat and mouse. You, on the other hand, must have forgotten all about me.” “You’re unforgettable, Elizabeth Tucker.” I moved my head around pretending to evaluate her. “I can’t decide if your best feature is those flashing green eyes or the flirty smile. But your worst trait is that you can curse like a sailor and you enjoy English Literature.” “Banford Aiden Palowski, Ski to his friends, i.e., other jocks, Band-Aid to all the girls, and there’s a lot of ‘em.” She rolled those fiery emerald eyes at me. “Age twenty-three, sixfoot-four, approximately two-twenty. Throws a mean ninety-four-mile-per-hour fast ball, followed by a curve ball that makes batters dizzy. Best feature: beautiful baby blues. Worst trait: will try to get just about any of the previously stated gaggle of girls into the boinking room.” I swallowed hard before quickly masking my shocked expression. How did she know about the boinking room? “Five.” “Pardon?” She started away from me wiping down the silver boomerang-patterned counter top by the coffee pots. “Six-foot-five.” “That extra inch must make all the difference in the world,” she paused, “especially in the boinking room.” “What’s a boinking room?” I asked, looking from the spotless black and white tiled floor to the recently painted ceiling. All of the last year’s grease spots had disappeared. “You know that extra bedroom that you and your clever roommates leave unoccupied for the purposes of sex, the room with no other amenities other than a bed. I wonder how often you wash the sheets? I hear the room is available on a first come, first serve basis, or is that where you bad baseball boys conduct your cheerleaders’ orgies?” She was walking toward the row of booths along the window wall when I got off my revolving stool, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back up against my front, placing my hand over mouth. “I can’t stand to hear you say another word. It sounds really disgusting when you say it.” I whispered it into her ear, letting the words roll down her neck. Her squirming offered me an excellent view of her lacy pink bra. I hoped she hadn’t heard me swallow hard or breathe in the scent of her sweet skin, but I couldn’t resist her. She smelled like apple pie. The fruit on this tree was going to kill me. Didn’t it ruin Adam? An apple did him in, too. She bit my fingers before turning on me with her eyes blazing. “It is disgusting. That’s why it sounds disgusting.” “For the record, I have not used that room since I was a sophomore. How’d you find out about it?” “Why would I divulge an excellent source of information on the bad baseball boys’ boudoirs?” She looked me up and down with her hand resting on her slim hip. “I would never take you there.” I bowed my head hoping that was enough for her to let it go. “Where’s that, Band-Aid?” She winked as her hips swung away. “You know what I mean, Libby.” I gave her one of my best stare-downs, but trying to intimidate her was like trying to throw a no-hitter. You could make the attempt, but more often than not, someone would squeeze off a hit when you least expected it. “The boinking room?” I cringed when she said it. It sounded so sordid and seedy. I was mortified that she knew about it. Someone had broken the code--I’d worry about that later--but for now I needed to change the subject. “What are you doing after work today?”

“Boinking.” She had the gall to smile at me with a directness that few girls her age could muster. “Either you know nothing of which you speak, or you know someone who has had an illustrious visit to the inner sanctum of our apartment.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Guys like boinking. I especially enjoy it when you say it.” She batted my hand away from the vicinity of her breast, where I confidently pulled on a chunk of her hair that had escaped from the knot. “Right. You’re just trying to get me to stop saying boinking, and I know you copped a look down my dress.” Her pearly whites smiled one of those I’ve-one-upped you once again smiles. “Okay, okay, I’m at your mercy. Please don’t say it again. As to the other, I am only an immature male. I can’t resist a breathtaking view.” “Right.” She continued to wipe down the counter top. “They are exquisite, Libby. Wouldn’t I know?” Her scowl said she was far from flattered. “I would say you’ve seen more of them than I have.” She narrowed her eyes on me. “But, alas, how do mine compare? Compare and contrast them, say, with your girlfriend’s.” Crap, double crap, this was one subject we usually avoided. I guess she had all summer to think about what I had been doing and with whom. I called her at the Waffle House a couple of times, but either she wasn’t there or whoever answered said they’d give her a message. I never heard back from her, but here I was, first chance I got. “I, uh, mean to say that uh…” “Beautiful-busted-baseball-boy-boinking-by-self.” She pouted her lips and I prayed that she’d put them on me soon. “You really are too sarcastic for your own good.” “You’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to outsmart me.” “I’m a guy, and it’s normal to check you out.” I looked around briefly. “And you’re so fine you make my mouth water.” “And you have a girlfriend, yet here you are on my work-step once again.” “I would show up on your doorstep, if I knew where you lived.” She had established strict boundaries. Where she lived was just about as hard to pinpoint as some umps’ strikezones. “Bye,” she said, waving her hand at me as she strutted around me. She went to the opposite counter, and picked up the dirty plates from her last customer. “For the record, I have never had a serious girlfriend. She’s a girl and a friend.” “Like, I’m a girl and a friend?” The food she’d ordered was up. She balanced the heavy white porcelain plates on her arms, delivering them to two middle-aged men sitting in a pink and black vinyl booth. They had been unable to keep their eyes off her. And they’d snickered when she’d had me by the balls. I should have been used to it by now, because she always had me. I think that’s why I kept coming back. She ignored me and started refilling the salt, pepper, and ketchup containers from the far end. I sat in the stool directly in front of her, watching her with an intensity that was sure to annoy her. I moved along the counter with her. I didn’t say anything else; I just stared in silent observation. I knew from past experience she could only resist looking at me for so long. When I captured her attention, I reached out and stroked her arm saying, “Come on, Libby, at least be my friend.” She snorted. It was unladylike, but I had to admit that I was turned on by it. She looked up at me like I was an annoying bee buzzing around her honey. “As long as you understand

that that’s all it will ever be.” She refilled the last condiment rack and looked up at me. “Don’t you have something more important to do than watch me work?” “I have more important things I’d like to do with you.” I winked in a suggestive way. “I’ve told you before, Aidan, that it’s not going to happen.” She slammed her blue order pad on the counter. “All play and no work makes Band-Aid a very dull boy.” “Do I look like a boy to you?” “You’re right.” She scribbled on her order pad and put a check on the turn style. “You’re growing up, maturing. Yet I still have to spoon feed you the same information.” Old Mr. Rodgers yanked it off the turn style. He glared a narrowed eye at me, and beat on the bell on top of the counter until Libby went over to him. They spoke in hushed voices. When she came back, I raised my eyebrow in question. “He doesn’t like you or your kind very much.” Libby untied her apron before placing her money on the Formica and counting it out. “My kind?” “You know, a pretty boy collegiate athlete, out to use and throw away a hometown girl.” “I have never used you, Libby.” “Only because I’m strong enough to say no,” she said without looking up from her change sorting. “Don’t think you can fool me the way you’re kidding yourself, Aidan.” When she said my name it was like a whispered prayer. “I have to change, and then we can go for a walk on campus. We could have a picnic. But you need to promise to behave.” I didn’t speak a word, but made a cross over my heart. Libby started toward the swinging doors with her apron strings trailing the floor. Vicki barreled out of the kitchen. She went straight for the juke box and shoved some quarters down the things throat before stabbing the buttons. She picked up a rag taking up Libby’s duties, as Elvis filled in the silence. Her uniform was skin tight. She wasn’t curvy like Libby, but she always threw me off because she had a different hair color every time I saw her. It was dyed hot pink and cut into a shaggy style. She was a couple of years older than us, and she was pretty in a small-town-girl sort of way. Vicki sloshed a glass of water down in front of me, humming to Caught in a Trap. I smelled something burning. Old Mr. Rodgers let a few very creative curses fly before metal hit metal, followed by a hiss. Vicki mopped up the water in front of me with a rag. “You want to place an order, charm boy?” I couldn’t think of apple cinnamon pancakes, because my eyes had strayed to the sway of Libby’s hips disappearing through the kitchen door. I pulled my attention back to Vicki. “Rumor has it you know how to show a girl a good time.” “Yeah, so?” “Libby needs someone to show her the time of her life. She’s seriously intense, and you’re the only guy she’s ever given the time of day. Don’t blow it.” The next thing I knew, Mr. Rodgers stormed through the swinging door, and barreled right for me. He dismissed Vicki with an evil eye and a jerk of his head, before starting in on me. “Elizabeth Ann is going to make something out of herself. She doesn’t need any jock getting in the way of her dreams. So I plan on keeping my eye on you. If you do anything I don’t care for to that girl, I’m going to skin you alive and feed your cocky carcass to the pigs out on some farm so far away from here that your teammates will never hear the first or the last squeal.” He smiled at me through his yellow, slightly crooked teeth. “Whatever your concerns are, I assure you, they’re unfounded. I have no intention of hurting anyone.” “Palowski, I’ve seen the likes of boys like you before.” He stacked his fists on his hips and stared me down. “Come in here and think you can have anything you want and no

consequences. I’m here to tell you, there’s a price to be paid. You so much as blink twice, the wrong way, and I’ll make sure you never play another inning.” “Are you related to her or something?” “No, I’m more of a guardian angel. You know Michael, the arch angel with the large wings, and even bigger sword that he uses to slay his enemies with. I’ve heard tell that sword is so sharp it could skin a pig alive before the littler porker even knows it’s lost its curly cue tail. In the next blink of an eye, he’s a Christmas ham. I’m sure someone of your breeding doesn’t want to end up in bean soup like any old ham hock.” “The final test in any plan is in its execution.” I said, confident that my education was superior to his. “Before thou engagest, ask thyself, is thy plan mightier than my sword?” He paused. “Because I guarantee you, my sword is sharper than my tongue. If you do anything to screw up that girl’s plan, you be yellin’ sooie from several counties away.” Before I could respond, Libby reappeared. “And what plan might that be?” she asked. Mr. Rodgers’ answer was lost on me. I lost my entire train of thought. It was Libby’s long hair, hanging down her body that distracted me. She usually wore a pony-tail, but now the soft brown ringlets hung around her bare shoulders like a veil. Her hair surrounded her face, making her eyes a vivid green, suddenly as dark as the summer grass. The vintage floral dress she had on was probably from a second-hand shop, and it had ribbons for the straps; both of them slipped onto her upper arms making the bows land like little butterflies resting on her tanned biceps. I tried to stop staring, but it was more than I could force my eyes to do. The dress was worn. The cotton had been washed so many times that the light butter color would be transparent in the sunlight. And it was a gorgeous, sunny August day. Sooner or later, I was going to get a look at Libby’s almost naked self. She observed me in mock disgust, turning around when one of the cooks placed a brown shopping bag up on the pass through. She placed a few bills on the check for Vicki. “I’ll pay for that,” I said reaching for my wallet. “Not today, Band-Aid, it’s my treat.” She put the bag in my arms. “Carry this. You need something to do with yourself. Concentrate on not dropping it, would you.” I followed in her wake. She grabbed a long strapped brown satchel, pulling it over her head. The strap rested crosswise over her torso, defining her unrestrained breasts in the gathered fabric of the cinched top. I was trying to figure out what kind of underpants she had on when she let the glass door of the restaurant backslap me in the face. I crashed back to attention, when a dark shadow settled on Libby in the entranceway. It was the old philosophy guy, he wasn’t a professor at all, he was dressed up like a turn-ofcentury ump. I heard him say, “I’ll show you where the strike zone is.” The strange thing is, his mouth didn’t move when he said it. A prickle of unease crept up my spine. Libby reopened the outside door for me. I looked around and the ump vanished. “That old guy a regular here?” “What old guy?” Libby looked around confused. “Serves you right, getting clonked on the head. I’m up here.” She waved her hand in my face. I smiled back to cover for my confusion. I said, “I know but I so want to be there.” I glared at her breasts again. God, she was so perfect. As soon as we hit the sunlit pavement there wasn’t a lot of Libby left to my imagination. I’d already imagined most of it. But in Libby’s case, reality was so much better than fantasy. She pulled up suddenly holding her dress down in the breeze. “Friends aren’t lecherous with each other.” “Lecherous?” I asked.

“Look it up, Band-Aid. You do own a dictionary? Or is that strictly forbidden in the vicinity of the boinking room?” “Excessive or offensive sexual desire. I’m no dummy, just surprised you’re using such an old fashioned word.” “Old or not, it’s the perfect word, as opposed to ‘Boinking’ which is such a modern phrase. Pray tell, kind sir, whatever does it mean?” “Have you been reading Shakespeare again?” “Sorry. Jane Austin, Charlotte Bronte, and Kate Chopin. Heard of any of them?” “Didn’t any guys write back then?” “No, they were busy boinking. Except for Flaubert. Well, he was boinking too, but he had the audacity to write it all down.” “I can see you aren’t going to let this go.” “What’s that?” she asked innocently. “You know what I mean, Libby.” I gave her a stern look, the one I reserved for opposing batters or bad ump calls. She gave me a glare guaranteed to keep me on my toes, as we crossed the street and headed toward the center of campus. We passed IMU, the student union, walking in the direction of the Fine Arts Plaza. The square was bordered with the auditorium on one side, the School of Fine Arts building, the Lilly Rare Books Library, and the crowning achievement, I.M Pei’s 1982 Art Museum. In the center sat a beautiful bronze fountain, spouting sprays of water that carried pebbles of mist on the breeze meeting our warmed flesh. Flower beds behind the benches encircled the fountain, and tall grass blew in the breeze casting us in soft shadows. I took in the fountain, as if for the first time. Libby claimed a bench taking individually wrapped sandwiches, containers of fruit, and soft drinks from the bag. She looked at the fountain for only a second before saying, “The Birth of Venus by Robert Laurent. It’s beautiful isn’t it?” I had trekked past the fountain often in three years and never gave it a second thought. It was just another landmark that thousands of students passed by daily, but never thought twice about. But I could tell that Libby had given pause to it. “It’s beautiful, but not nearly as pretty as you.” I watched her swallow the compliment, still staring at the fountain, before she glanced at me. “He did it in nineteen-sixty-one; the theme came from Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. There are a dozen sketches for the sculpture in the museum. This is the depiction of Venus being born from the Sea, the fish leaping about spraying water in homage to her; she represents beauty and love in Greek Mythology.” “I think you’re a much better representation of beauty... and love,” I smirked until my dimple ached, knowing just how to get to her. “And you have much prettier breasts.” She happened to be drinking from a coke can. She coughed, and gagged down what she could. The rest came out her nose, spraying all over me. I caught her by the forearms, pulling her into my lap, handing her napkins while I wrapped my arms around her convulsing form. I gently settled my lips on hers. I didn’t charge ahead. I just placed delicate kisses all over her swollen lips and she tasted even sweeter than I remembered. I drew her bottom lip into my mouth, unfortunately that brought her right back to reality and she was never one to play fair. She wrapped her arm around my neck. “Why don’t you tell me all about the boinking room now? I’d love to hear your side of the story.” She spoke very seductively as she bore a look so deep into me that it reached my stomach, churning all my emotions into a giant knot. “You never play fair.” I placed her back on her portion of the bench. She was so slight, I had to have a hundred pounds on her, but for some reason I felt small whenever she had that superior look on her face.

“Oh, and you do?” “I try to play fair with you, but I can’t win that way, so I sometimes have to resort to other measures.” “What exactly are you trying to win?” Your heart. I swear to God, I thought it, wondering where that was coming from. I’d never have the guts to say it. So I did what most guys would do. “Your body for a night.” Her crestfallen expression lasted all of three seconds, before she came back with more confidence than I would have expected. “I assure you just one night would not be enough.” She stared directly at me, defying me to respond. Now I was having a hard time swallowing. When I threw up my hands in mock defeat, she deftly changed the direction of the conversation to more neutral topics. I never analyzed what happened that lazy afternoon until it was too late. Something between us changed. We had crossed some invisible barrier we built up brick by brick the semester before. She knew I wanted her, but she had known that from the first moment I met her. But now, I knew that she wasn’t as immune to my charms as I thought. She had thrown down the gauntlet. It lay at my feet. If I had been wise, I would have left it there, but she had issued the challenge. I had no other choice than to pick it up and aim it right for her heart. I threw it at her with all my might, but I was the one bleeding, a drop at a time and ever since, because she had pierced me with those simple words. “Just one night.”

7 OUR REMEDIES OFT IN OURSELVES LIE All’s Well that End’s Well Libby Mischief is the main occupation of minors in French Lick. For teens there are three things to do out in the middle of nowhere: drink, drugs, and sex. I realized that none of them would be my ticket out of town, so while I partook of some, I’d never been overly proficient with any of them. A meager block of businesses on either side of a tree lined street made French Lick a thriving wasteland. Smack dab in the middle of the block was the Egyptian Theater, a falling down movie house, built around the time Tut was discovered. We drank generic beer there every Saturday night. One of our friends would buy a ticket and then slip the rest of us in the side door, where we’d let our empty beer bottles roll down the aisles at particularly dramatic moments in the movie. On the far corner was Hayes Drugstore. All the boys blushed when they placed their condoms on the counter in front of Mrs. Hayes. Rumor was she married into the pharmaceutical family because Aqua Net was her addiction. She’d push her seventies-style coke-bottle-thick glasses up her crooked nose, examining the boys’ boxes before she’d raise it over her head, yelling toward the apothecary in the back, “Harold, how much are these rubbers again?” Her voice alerted every patron in the county as to what sort of events were transpiring out at the spillway. Her husband, Harold, also had a compulsion. He ran games of chance behind the store, one of which was on who the rubber buyers’ intended targets were. I was buying tampons once when Mrs. Hayes embarrassed some boy. I approached the register in trepidation, and I sneaked around the back of the building, only to hear grown men laying odds on who’d be getting laid that night. The Dairy Queen was where my illustrious employment career started, and it was a sight better than bailing hay, working city construction, or watching those falling prices at Wally World. I worked twisting cones and flirting with boys. The DQ was a hangout for everyone from jocks in lettermen’s jackets, to the freaks in tie dye, to the stoners with smelly dreadlocks. Drinking and drugs were regulars in DQ’s parking lot, but sex was relegated to the woods out by the Spillway. As I said, I wasn’t overly interested in vices during my high school years, but my best friend Lucy was. Actually, if she could enjoy all three at one time, then that was a serious celebration in her mind. Lucy didn’t have many cares. She was the richest girl in town, her daddy was the judge, and she just didn’t give a shit. We would drive his Cadillac, with the ‘BIG 8’ license plate, through the county like we were county commissioners. The license plate insured immunity against just about anything. Except for once. We were partying at the Spillway. Junior Cox, the sheriff’s son, brought his father’s GTO up there to race Billy Bob Thatcher in the rock quarry. Word must have reached the sheriff because at about eleven p.m., he showed up with lights flashing, bullhorn blaring, and a Billy stick riding his belt buckle. We scattered like roaches at the scent of Raid. I was in a thicket, making out with Junior. His father’s timely arrival halted Junior’s land speed record

for getting a girl undressed and raring to go. We stayed crouched in evergreen brush, but Lucy kept calling us. When we stepped into the clearing, the sheriff was reading Lucy the riot act. “Now her,” his eyes fell on me, “I could expect this from. But your daddy will lock us both up and throw away the key if he finds you partying like a hellion in heat.” Lucy crossed her arms and belched like an alley fed wino. The sheriff turned on me like a vapid dog. “Hasn’t your mother been in trouble enough for you to steer clear of it?” I always knew I would leave French Lick, but in that moment of clarity, I knew I’d go as far away from this town, and my mother’s past, with all its lack of possibilities, as I could escape. And where I was going, it would make no difference who my mother was, who my father was, or who the hell I was. As I forced Lucy into the Cadillac, she burped out another drunken giggle, as if she thought she could laugh at my expense, too. After that night, Junior Cox was forbidden to see me. His father said he didn’t want lunatic grandchildren. I wasn’t in love, so the only thing it hurt was my pride. But by the time I left for college in August, Lucy was already pregnant by Junior, and whatever his dreams were they were forever altered. I visited French Lick only rarely. I didn’t like going back because I didn’t like the reminder that I was a hick from Nowheresville, but I made a quick trip home over summer break. Through the smoke that my engine was emitting, Junior explained my brother’s current abode was city jail on battery charges for another bar brawl. I showed up at his bail hearing and persuaded the judge to reduce some of the charges and give my brother reasonable bail. I left the court room to find the sheriff waiting for me. “Elizabeth.” He tipped his hat. “A word?” I followed him into a small office off the courtroom. I remained standing, even when he gestured toward the chair politely. “What can I do for you, sheriff?” “Your brother heaps trouble on his own self. He’s in my lockup more than he is at home. He needs to find a new outlook, or he’s going to end up in the state pen.” “You know, sheriff, it’s that bad seed.” My brother was a lost soul filled with anger. I knew where he was headed, and I’d tried to help, but there is only so much one person can do for another. “I’m sorry he’s such an inconvenience to your office.” “I hear tell you’ve set your sights on law school after you graduate.” I nodded. He put his hand on his gun belt. “I thought by now you’d figure it out yourself, but I still don’t think you understand. That night up at the spillway, I was trying to save three kids, but I knew only one of them was salvageable. And the only way to do it was to ensure that my son wouldn’t be the one to see you stopped from leaving this town.” The only word I uttered was, “But.” “You were never like your mother, Elizabeth.” His stony expression didn’t change. “You’ve accomplished more than most. You’re from here, and we are proud, but you don’t belong here.” I walked to the service station to retrieve my car. I passed faces, that in the past, I thought examined me in accusation. As I paid Junior for repairing my car, he stared at me with flirtatious eyes that once had set my heart racing. When I reached out for the change, he held my hand. I looked up at him. “Ten more minutes in the bushes and you would have been mine till this day.” I frowned. “Junior, we were not in love.” “You weren’t, but I was crazy in love with you. And I was willing to steal your dreams to make mine come true.”

My stomach flipped. I didn’t respond. I swallowed hard. I hurried out Route 56 to I-65 North. I reminded myself to stay out of French Lick, and to stay out of trouble every day since.

8 MOST BALL GAMES ARE LOST, NOT WON Casey Stengel Aidan David was the only person who knew Libby meant something more than a conquest to me. In the beginning, she was just a goal, but she quickly became the first girl I wanted to spend all my time with. We always had something to talk about, and even when we didn’t speak, I felt at ease in the silence. David knew about all the clandestine meetings on campus. How I waited for her to get off work so I could spend a little time with her before baseball practice. How I went to the library every night to study, just so I could sit at the same table as her. He knew about the long letters I wrote her on road trips. Letters I never mailed. He knew, better than I did, that there was no way around Libby. We had a Halloween party. Libby, Vicki and Jenny were Charlie’s angels. Libby was Jaclyn Smith and it was apparent to everyone I was acting dopey around her. Even when she went off on my roommates about the boinking room, I took her side. I tried to silence her with my tongue, but she wouldn’t have it. Libby said, “The only thing that amazes me is that you boys’ didn’t have the foresight to put in a drive-thruwindow.” My roommates thought a drive-thru was an excellent idea and continued to discuss the concept into the early morning hours, when it dwindled down to a raunchy low. By that time, Libby was tipsy enough that she didn’t have a retort. I talked her into spending the night; platonically of course, assuring her that I would sleep on the floor. I dropped onto the hardwood the moment she came into my room. In the dark, she stripped off her jeans and pulled one of my T-shirts over her head. The filtered light from the blinds afforded me an excellent view of her nicely toned backside. When her head popped through the shirt hole she looked down at me and caught me checking her out. “You’re being lecherous.” “Oh boy here we go,” I pushed her back into the pillows. She held fast onto my arms. “You can sleep with me, if you promise to be good.” I raised an eyebrow. “I’m very good at this.” “I mean it, Aidan.” I climbed in alongside her and forced myself to breathe calmly. She was asleep in minutes. I wrapped the length of my body around her and fell into a deep slumber myself. Dawn cast eerie shadows over the ceiling of my room. I could make out Libby’s features that had been hidden in the darkest hours of night. I’d ended up on my back and she was asleep on my chest with her leg thrown across my thighs. Thank God I had on flannel pants because I didn’t think I could stand to have her silky thighs rubbing over mine. I had been in throbbing pain most of the night. Keeping her in my bed and restraining myself was going to be a lot tougher than striking out the top of the order. I hadn’t required a cold shower since high school, and ironically, one particular girl was continually running up my water bill lately. When I moved to get out of bed, Libby’s head fell back and her glossy hair cascaded over my arms sending any blood I had in my body to a very concentrated area. Her mouth was slightly open in her slumber, and I couldn’t resist the silent call of her lips. I did what I’d been unable to do while she was conscious: I kissed her. When I did, she kissed me back

hungrily in her sleep. Who she thought she was kissing escaped my mind as her hand slid down my body coming to rest at my waistband. I was on fire, and I think I needed more than a cold shower. Too bad there weren’t snow banks in October in Indiana. I could have thrown myself into one right about then. I forced myself out onto the front porch to retrieve the newspaper. It was chilly outside, but not cold enough to plow through my lust. I sat at the kitchen table reading the sports page while coffee brewed. When I went back to my room to wake Libby, she was towel drying her hair. I came to a complete halt and cleared my throat. “Are you going to stand there staring at me all day?” she asked, eyeing the cup of coffee in my hands. “Depends on how soon you’re going to take off the towel.” I smiled at her knowingly, before handing her the cup of coffee. She peered into the cup suspiciously. “Just the way you like it. Cream, one equal.” She breathed in the coffee before taking a sip and closing her eyes. I recovered the towel she’d used for her hair while she picked her clothes up off the floor. “I’ll shower up and take you home.” “I’m going to the library.” I said okay, but I was kinda peeved that she still wouldn’t let me know where she lived. On the way to the bath, I pulled the towel to my face and breathed in the taste of Libby, minty and clean. As I took my next gulp of gloriousness, I caught my reflection in the mirror, sniffing her towel. Man I had it bad, bone-hard-deep-bad. I wondered if I could get the faucet to spit ice chips. I clenched my teeth as the water cascaded over me, making me feel like myself again. I knew the throbbing would eventually return, but it felt good to be contained again. Libby burst through the bathroom door, her towel barely gathered over her voluptuous breasts. I was right back where I’d started. “Have you seen this?” She shrilled, as I shut off the water and reached for a towel. The glass shower door was slightly steamed but as soon as she took in all my glory, she had to choose between covering her eyes, keeping hold of her towel, and the newspaper. And I thought, have you seen this, had new meaning for her. Gripping her eyes and the towel took precedent. The paper fell at my feet as she fled the bathroom. I dried off taking my time, smiling at myself as I shaved before I retrieved the dampened newsprint. I leaned against the sink and read the article about the Saint Louis Cardinals considering calling me up to their minor league team. Libby was dressed when I entered my room. I handed her the paper and slipped my arms around her. “I’m not going anywhere until I’m finished with school.” I winked at her. “Plus you and I have things to settle between us.” “Like what?” She looked up, flushed. “Those lustful thoughts you’re dealing with.” She went into a full blush. “I do not lust for you.” “Really? I could swear you looked at me a lot longer than necessary in the shower. And for the record, I’m not complaining, because I liked the way you looked, with your towel barely on and a blush on your cheeks.” “You couldn’t see me blush. I turned away.” “I saw a blush on your cheeks alright, but perhaps we’re talking about different cheeks. I was talking about these.” And I slid my hands from her waist to her buttocks squeezing them and pulling them toward me as I kissed her.

She tried to wiggle out of my grasp, but I had the ultimate handful of her. When she finally managed to pull her mouth away from me, she said, “We gotta stop doing that.” “Just as soon as you become less enticing.” The next day, when David and I were cleaning up, he asked me when I was going to tell Libby I was in love with her and dump the girlfriend I never saw or wanted to see. I laughed off his comments, saying that Libby and I were just playing around and that she knew the score. “You do know that it’s all right to care for someone who’s not like you. Just because she doesn’t have a prep school education doesn’t mean she isn’t the right person for you.” “What’s she going to do, work at IHop while I’m in the big league? My parents would have a fit. My dad’s not happy I didn’t go to Harvard. My mother isn’t too hot on the idea of me becoming a baseball player to start with. I bring a cutter home, and she’s going to have an epileptic fit. She thinks Andy was exposed to the wrong sort because of baseball. It really doesn’t matter. I need to concentrate on baseball and my future.” “Are you sure that your future doesn’t include her?” “She’s different from any other girl I’ve known, but whatever it is, it’s over when school’s over. I’ll forget her.” As if in saying the words, I could make it so. David’s exact words were this: “Some people you’re not meant to forget.” I’d been trying my damnedest to forget her. But every day I came up with another reason that would bring me back to her. Today was her birthday, and I stood outside the Waffle House at four thirty in the morning so I could give her the flowers I had bought for her birthday. I had a travel game today, so I waited in light drizzle for her to start her five-to-one shift. She was surprised to see me, because I had asked her when her birthday was months ago, and she’d never mentioned it again. She ushered me into the building, as she opened up. Then she placed the first order of steaming pancakes in front of me, as she admired the long stem roses in the art glass vase. Her birthday card I’d signed with a flourish. I’d almost written Love, Aidan. As I watched her now, I knew I should have signed it just so. I was head over heels for her, but she scared the hell out of me because she was the first thing in my life that didn’t go off exactly as I’d planned it.

9 THINK YOU I AM NO STRONGER THAN MY SEX Julius Caesar Libby The week before classes resumed from Christmas break, most students were straggling back in twos or threes. They came back early to reschedule classes, or ditch troubled roommates, or because they had had too much of their parents. Everyone was bundled up against the bitter cold that overtook Bloomington New Years Eve. I had received a letter today that I had been wait-listed for Harvard Law School. I was devastated. I knew the bars on Kirkwood Avenue wouldn’t solve a damn thing in my world of post graduate problems, but I talked Jenny and Vicki into going there anyway. We had hit several local bars, and Jenny was having the time of her life. But Vicki decided to bail, she had some match-making scheme up her sleeve so I let her go. During the course of the evening, Jenny became the focal point of two eager frat boys. Sigma Pi, which stood for Sigma Pig, big trouble. Frat boys were as bad as the jocks in their feelings of superiority, as if the vetting process of competitive sports, and fraternity initiation entitled them to almost any girl they wanted. And they also felt entitled to have her any way they wanted, especially a cutter who was never wooed in any way. I sank into a booth in the far dark corner, feeling the weight of that on my shoulders. Then I sunk even further when I thought of Harvard. It was a dream I was going to have to give up on, just like him. I knew that Band-Aid probably felt that I was just another conquest. I wondered why he put so much effort in pretending that we were friends. For the past few months we spent so much time together that hardly a day went by when he didn’t sneak up on me somewhere. It was becoming harder to resist him, and I was relieved when he went to California for Christmas. After three days, I missed him so bad I thought I would die. But I refused to let my fingers dial his number. He’d told me to call him collect, but my pride prevented me from doing it. If I couldn’t afford the phone bill, I wouldn’t make the call. I didn’t want his parents’ first impression of me to be a collect call. I mean, hadn’t I been born and bred on collect calls, table scraps, and hand-me-down clothes? The bathroom door opened and shut behind me. Dilley’s reeked of beer and various other fragrances that made me queasy. The stagnant air and empty spaces where I could see mold on the stained floor reinforced the dirty feel of the place. There were always too many excited bodies crowded into the vibrating base to pay much attention to the décor, with the place almost empty, I had a lot more ground to observe. Yuck! I caught occasional glimpses of Jenny gyrating on the dance floor. She grew more animated as the libations flowed and the pigs became more physically aggressive. The scary part was that the two obnoxious frat boys had now multiplied into four. Frat boys are like that. They took turns dancing with Jenny. They had laid out a lot of cash for drinks with every expectation of a return on their investment later in the evening. Once the guys starting grinding on her, I got an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach. A pock-marked guy, with greasy red hair, put his slimy superior frat hands on Jenny’s breasts without a thought about it. She was so out of her mind drunk that she smiled affectionately in response. It was a completely inappropriate reaction to that kind of man handling, and I for one had seen enough.

And I was sober enough to put a stop to this. I went to the payphone in the back of the bar. A girl was straddling a guy on a cane ice cream chair, huddled into a dark corner. She had her skirt at the very top of her thighs and was doing God only knew what to him. I watched them with a strange combination of horror and excitement as the phone rang and rang. Finally, Vicki picked up. I explained the dire situation, the need for immediate transportation and Vicki said she’d be out in front of the bar in ten minutes. She was as flighty as a night bird, but she was dependable and loyal to a fault. Two of the frat boys sauntered past me on their way to the restroom. The one with the black, slicked back hair was the leader of the little pack, and his companion was a measly faced guy who walked behind him licking up bread crumbs. I had worked myself into a temper, as I walked across the dance floor and approached what was left of the group. Jenny was with only one lecher now. I hoped that would bode well for the outcome. “Okay, Jenny, time to hit the road.” I put my hands on her bare forearms, trying to guide her toward the exit. Zit-face said, “We have dibs on her tonight.” “I don’t think so,” I hissed. “Let’s go, Jenny. Vicki’s going to pick us up out front.” Slick returned from the restroom. I thought it would have taken his lackey longer to wipe his ass, but he stepped between us forcing me to drop my grip on Jenny. I nodded at the bartenders, and they picked up bats and prepared to jump over the bar. I was standing toe to toe with Slick. The self ascribed leader of the pack minced no slurred words. “I don’t think you heard my brothers. This young lady is going to be this evening’s entertainment.” “Listen dick head,” I leaned into his face, although I wanted to recoil from his bad breath. “No means no.” “If you don’t walk away now, you’re going to come home with us, too, and you can go first.” “No means No!” I screamed into Slick’s snarling face. “You look tastier than your friend,” he said as he grabbed the back of my neck pushing me toward the door. But I wasn’t going down without a fight. I dug in my heels and reiterated that no one was going home with them. The bartenders hurdled the bar like track stars. I hoped they got here soon. “Let’s go.” Slick pinched my collar bone. I smiled, hoping to intensify my next words. “Go fuck yourself.” Slick put his hand on my breast and twisted it cruelly. “No, but I will fuck you until you can’t walk.” Ouch. I was going to kill him. If temper was enough, I stood one hell of a chance, but the guy had a foot of height and at least seventy-five pounds on me. Despite all of that, I had no intention of leaving with him and his skuzzy friends. I drew back my free arm and clocked him in the nose with the heel of my hand, exactly, the way I had seen demonstrated on a self-defense video. I heard a pop. Then a stream of blood streaked across the floor like an autograph. He cursed. I grabbed the leader by the balls and I twisted. He grabbed me by the hair in retaliation and the harder he pulled, the harder I twisted. I used my knee to make contact with his groin. I smiled when he bellowed and released my hair. That’s when the free-for-all started. Jenny sobered up enough to garner the necessity of action in a hostile situation, giving a hard shove to the man nearest her. The pack leader was on the floor now, but his second-incommand stepped forward. He had the unoriginal nerve to pull and twist my breast. I yelped. Before I knew what had happened the entire bar erupted into a fight all around me.

I was trying not to slip in the blood, when someone’s large hand clamped onto my wrist. I was captured, and being toted toward the door. I could see the top of Jenny’s head as she made a break for it in front of me. I fought with all my might until the mysterious hand picked me up and carried me toward the entrance over his shoulder. All I could see were his jeans and Timberland hiking boots. I slapped my attackers back, but it was like slapping a slab of meat, very muscular meat. I was kicking my abductor in the gut with my boots. I was throwing some serious punches. My boots were getting a little too close to Mr. Happy for his liking, so he tightened his arms like a vice grip, trying to still my legs. When I didn’t cooperate, he ran his bare hand up the back of my thigh. I thought his intention was to swat me. But as his hand worked its way up past the hem of my skirt, it continued until it met bare skin at the top of my thigh high tights. He almost dropped me in the doorway. He actually stumbled, and I prayed that he would go down. But he slammed through the door right behind Jenny. Jenny was standing on the sidewalk, shivering and shrieking with laughter as the first campus police cars pulled up. I was placed on the ground, and my kidnapper was revealed to me. I had my nails ready to scratch his eyes out. When I absorbed who it was, Band-Aid in the flesh, as if I’d conjured him, I retracted the nails. He shoved Jenny into the deepest part of the doorway of the shop next door to the bar, before pushing me against the wall of the same entryway. He pressed his body against mine, before placing me in a serious lip lock. When I tried to protest, he sucked on my tongue until I surrendered. I didn’t want to oblige him, but me angry was one thing; I’m a Weeble. Aidan angry was a whole other world. He’s a six-foot-five GI Joe commando in assault mode, and I was going to have to surrender. Reality rapidly returned when I heard the deep muffled sound of a man clearing his throat. Since I had my mouth locked on the only male in the vicinity, I decided that I’d better pay attention. A campus police officer was standing in the doorway. He shined his flashlight into our eyes for a moment. “You’re going to get more than frostbite if you keep that up,” he snickered. “You know what went down in Dilley’s?” I was too shocked to speak. Luckily, Band-Aid wasn’t so tongue tied. “Sorry. We’ve been out here for quite some time.” The officer seemed anything but convinced. “You two love birds’ best be gone when I come out of that bar, or you’re going down to the station with the rest of them.” The radio on his shoulder heralded the sound of reinforcements. “Yes sir,” Band-Aid said as the officer disappeared. I sucked in deep breaths, and not from the officer, but from the lip lock. “Holy shit.” “Finally, you grasp the gravity of the situation,” he said. If he wanted to think the cop was what worried me, so be it. I shivered, and he slipped off his lightweight down coat putting it around my shoulders, before pulling me toward him by the lapels. “I don’t like walking into a bar and finding some frat boy with his hands on your merchandise.” Suddenly a car horn rung out, Aidan didn’t loosen his grasp as he glanced around. I looked around the corner, pulling the big boy along with me. Jenny tore out from her hiding place. She jumped into the car without so much as a backward glance at me, the friend who had saved her virtue. Band-Aid waved Vicki off with one hand while he held me in place with his other. I kicked him lightly in the shin to get his attention. “Hey that’s my ride, too. It’s too cold to walk tonight,” I said watching the tail lights fade farther and farther away.

“It’s not your ride this evening. You’ve got some ‘splaining to do,” he said in his best Ricky Ricardo voice, which I had to admit was very sexy. He pulled me closer, and rubbed his cold nose against mine, before sweetly nibbling on my bottom lip. It was a gentle caress this time, but something in the way he restrained himself held a note of reckoning. I should have run, kicking and screaming after my ride, but I couldn’t pull myself out of his embrace. I rubbed my cold nose along his neckline, close to his cotton-ribbed shirt. It seemed to jolt him into action, and he roughly pulled me into his embrace, slipping his hands inside his jacket and around me. “You scared the crap out of me in there.” He nibbled his way back to my mouth, where he kissed and licked my bottom lip before taking possession of my mouth. I could taste beer on his tongue. When he pulled away, we were both panting. “Frat boys? Don’t you have enough sense not to mess with frat boys?” “I was not messing with them; I was trying to get Jenny to see her recklessness when all hell broke loose.” He had his arm around my neck and he pulled me onto the sidewalk. When we reached the parking lot, he pulled me close again and kissed my temple. “Let’s get somewhere warmer so when I beat you, frostbite won’t stop you from feeling it.” I pushed him off me, sticking my arms into the arms of his jacket. I breathed in the deep spicy smell of him. “When did frat boys become your enemy anyway?” “As soon as he put his hand on a part of your body that should be reserved for someone with more reverence in mind, we became mortal enemies. I swear if I see that son-of-a bitch again, I’m going to rearrange his zit-filled face.” He put his finger in a belt loop of my denim skirt, directing me. He pulled me alongside a brand new shiny red sports car. It was like a beautiful present sitting all by its lonesome. Of course it would have to be a prince charming chariot. “Santa must be generous in California.” “He certainly is more liberal.” He flashed that playboy smile, and a piece of his dark wavy hair, which he grew out in the off-season, fell across his brow. He opened my door and pushed me in, before he got behind the wheel. He revved the engine trying to get the car to warm up. I relaxed into my heated leather seat, praying he wasn’t going to try to rev me up the same way.

10 IF WINNING ISN’T EVERYTHING, WHY DO THEY KEEP SCORE? Vince Lombardi Aidan The moment I crossed the threshold of the bar I knew I had two choices: put my hands on her or the guy making a nuisance out of himself. Once outside, I claimed her like her smiles were mine, and my lips were a brand that sealed us together. I couldn’t help my physical response, I’d tried for months to stop myself from touching Libby, but she made me crazy, and if I didn’t do something physical with her, I was going to explode. She swore with that filthy little mouth. I knew how that mouth tasted, and while the words might be dirty, her mouth was ripe. The feel of her silky lips on mine shot through me like lightening, raising every hair on my body. Holy mother of God, I was damning myself, I wanted her in the most elemental way. I reached across her to belt her in as she brushed the hair out of my eyes. I pulled her hand from my brow and placed a soft kiss in her palm, before shifting into first and pulling into the light traffic. I made my way across campus. We didn’t speak. Libby seemed to be lulled into a contented semi-drunk stupor. We made it to my apartment complex and pulled into the deserted parking lot. I pulled into a spot, but didn’t cut the engine, waiting for her to protest. “I drove straight here from California.” I gave her a sideways smile. “I was supposed to take three days, but all I could think about was seeing you again, so I kept on driving. Did Mr. Rodgers tell you I called on Christmas Eve?” She shook her head no. “He is either becoming more forgetful or purposely neglectful.” “I didn’t think he would. He thinks I’m going to hurt you.” Her eyes searched mine. “Are you?” “Like you’d let me.” I reached into the console and pulled out a small box, wrapped with silver paper. “Merry Christmas, Libby.” I placed it in her trembling hands. She hesitated long enough for me to wrap her fingers around the small box. “No strings attached.” Libby carefully tore the paper open, revealing an engraved box with a lid. Inside was a navy blue velvet jeweler’s box with a silver logo. She sprang the lid open. She had pointed to this green enameled stack ring in some magazine months ago. I tore it out of its cradle and slipped in on her finger. “It’s the exact color of your eyes.” I kissed her knuckles right where it met the ring. “Let’s go inside, it’s getting colder out here.” I helped her up the icy stairs, because she was a little inebriated, and it was slippery. We skidded and laughed down the exterior hallway until we made it to my door. She knew that my apartment was empty and that we would be alone. She could have asked me to drive her home, and I would’ve without asking questions. We stepped into the darkened apartment. I flipped on the light switch illuminating the living room. I hit the thermostat, and peeled off her jacket, before I kneeled in front of her and unzipped her tall boots. I rubbed both of her legs, trying to warm them. When she didn’t flinch away, I continued up her skirt until I met bare skin. “This is when I almost dropped you.” She smiled with those sparkling green eyes, and I groaned deep in my throat. Libby jumped away at the primal sound.

As I got to my feet, I pulled her back toward me and our eyes locked. “I don’t know what to do with you sometimes.” I turned her toward the sofa and patted her derriere, urging her in that direction. “I’ll get us something to drink.” When I came back with a bottle of red wine she was rearranging her skirt and sweater. I presented her with a glass of wine. The rich scent filled my senses, and when I turned toward her, she broke eye contact. “What happened?” I used one hand to pull her head up by the chin. “It’s not like you to party like that.” “And what’s this?” She asked taking and swirling the burgundy in the glass. “You contributing to my demise?” “The thought crossed my mind.” I reached out and stroked her cheek. “I was on my best behavior, until I ran into the thigh-highs. Now my mind is stuck in the gutter. You’ve been driving me crazy for over a year. How much is a guy supposed to be able to take?” “I wouldn’t know. How much can you take?” I arched an eyebrow, cleared my throat, and shrugged into my glass. I had no idea how much more I could take. With that, I decided to change the subject. We talked about the holidays for quite awhile. I told her that I went skiing and surfing while I was home. I told her how excited I was that this was my last semester, and that several scouts were coming to look at me. When we started a second bottle of wine, she handed me her wine-glass, and pulled her sweater over her head. I gaped at her unrestrained bust line. Removing the sweater might have pushed me over the edge. I barely got the glasses on the table, before I pulled her onto my lap. She was straddling me, so her skirt hiked up, revealing the lace edge of her tights and a sliver of bare flesh. My groin tightened, and I mumbled under my breath. I put my hands on her thighs and slid my way up to the juncture of her torso, while capturing her mouth. Her bare skin was the most fabulous thing I had ever felt. I was kissing her lips, her neck, back to her cheeks, sucking her bottom lip. I kept her steady at the waist, rubbing my thumb over her rib cage, and brushing the underside of her breasts with each stroke. My thumbs skimmed over a spot so sensitive that she jumped back for air. I didn’t know how much further we would go. I gently pulled her forward by the back of her neck. Our foreheads rested together. When I opened my eyes, I stared directly into her soul for long, shaky breaths. “Libby, I want you,” I said through jagged lung function. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and nibbled. I pulled my shirt out of my jeans and over my head in a single motion. She scored my flesh with her fingertips, touching every ab, and I was a goner. When she reached my waistband, I drew in a hiss. “Your turn, Babe,” I said, but I didn’t lunge. She pulled the T-shirt over her head and as her arms came loose, her ponytail unfurled. Her hair fell in waves. The length of it trailed past her breasts, like the veil of a Madonna. It was the most wanton thing I’d ever seen. I tugged on a silky twine of her hair that was resting on her shoulder. “You haven’t asked me to stop.” I wrapped the hair around my finger, pulled her toward me, and kissed her like I had kissed no other woman in the world. I swept her hair behind her shoulders, so I could stare at her luxurious body, before I pulled her to my chest where our torsos melded together. I sucked in deep breaths, battling for composure, as I gently fingered each disc of her spine so softly that I left a trail of goose bumps. We found each other’s mouths again. I slid the zipper of her skirt down. I was going to explode if we didn’t continue, and I was going to combust if we did. I pushed her onto her

back across my lap. Her rump landed on the sofa, but her splayed thighs were in my lap. I moaned again. Our mouths were locked together, as I skimmed the skirt down her legs until it found the pile of our discarded clothing. I took in the display before me. My body was thrumming with an erratic rhythm, and she arched against me. I ran my long fingers up her body. Our eyes met and locked. I kissed her, with a rhythm that sang through my blood. I carried her toward the back of the apartment, into the spare room and laid her in the center of the freshly made bed. The blinds were open, filtering light spilled across every curve of her body from the parking lot. She watched me, as if mesmerized, as I discarded my clothing and climbed on my knees between her thighs, running my hands up her legs. I didn’t do anything other than play with the lace tops of her hose for long moments as I stared at her. Then I peeled back the last thing that stood between our bodies. She was going to give herself to me freely, luxuriously, just the way I’d always imagined it. I lay alongside her, my need pulsing against her hip. She never spoke a word of protest. I wanted to show her how much she meant to me. The tight rope I imagined that fixed us together, in an unspoken tug of war, would no longer stand between us. I kept chanting her name, and she moaned. She was as crazed with need as I was when I settled my weight against her glorious center. She struggled slightly when my coarse leg hair abraded her silky thighs. I found a soft spot, and didn’t hesitate as I drew back and slid into her tight body. I couldn’t stop, even when she tensed up, and cried out. I was so frantic and consumed with driving forward that nothing could have stopped me. Even frenzied, I whispered sweet words of encouragement to her, tunneling my fingers in her hair. I continued onward until her body caught my rhythm. She twisted under me, seeking something. I moved my hand between our bodies tracing a place which I deftly laved with my calloused fingertips. I whispered harshly, “Come for me.”

11 THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH A Midsummer’s Night Dream Libby Through the shifting light, shadows of snowflakes danced on the ceiling as he covered our bodies with the blankets pulling me up against his long, lean form. I fell into a fitful sleep filled with his whispered words of unfinished business. He made love to me twice more during the night. The first time I woke up, he was already pushing inside of me, and I reached out for something to give me purchase as he moved behind me, one hand was where our bodies were joined and the other was on one of my breasts. When he bit into my neck at my shoulder, I pushed through my sleepiness in an explosive climax. The last time, the sun barely washed the room with soft light. He took his time, stroking every inch of my skin and he used his tongue and his fingers with delightful touches I never imagined. When I urged him to come to me, he laughed and pushed my hands away insisting that he was going to control the pace. I tried to keep my eyes closed, so I wouldn’t remember how beautiful he was. But he continued whispering my name, making me watch him. Finally, I gave in and imprinted his face, full of devotion, into my deepest imaginings. I watched though each ministration, each caress, and each thrust. I watched as he came into my body with such force that mine fragmented and flew into tiny pieces about the room. When he had me sufficiently excited again he came with me. Time passed in otherworldly slowness before we became aware of the world around us. He wrapped me in his strong embrace, circling my torso with his corded arms. He whispered into my ear, “Libby, that wasn’t enough.” I shivered in response, wondering what more I could give him. His gentle grip released, and he fell into the deeper throes of sleep. I lay awake and wondered how something so magical couldn’t satisfy him. When his gentle snore filled the room, I slipped from his arms and from his life forever. I knew I’d made the most horrible mistake, but it was of my own choosing. If I ever let him take me like that again, I would be lost in him and I knew that he would wrap the lash of my love around him, while unable to give me anything back, until it choked me. He had a plan, he recited to me over and over again, and he never once named any woman as any part of it. What I had done I had chosen to do. But expecting more than what it was, would be fruitless, so I snaked off into the cold morning light leaving him to his dreams that didn’t include me.

12 YOU WIN SOME, LOSE SOME, WRECK SOME Dale Earnhardt Aidan “So that’s it, it didn’t mean anything to you?” I bellowed. I’d finally tracked Libby down behind the Waffle House. Which I’d been coming to everyday for the last month only to have her give me some excuse as to why we couldn’t talk. She never went to the library anymore, she refused all my calls, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what I’d done for her to surgically remove me from her life so precisely. “I woke up in the boinking room, so don’t make it out to be some grand romance.” She put her hand up and leaned against the wall, taking in deep breaths of air. “It’s over. It didn’t mean anything to you or me.” “Libby, don’t you dare put words in my mouth.” Her face went red with anger but instead of lashing out, she covered her mouth, before bending over, and barfing. “Oh my god, you’re sick. That’s why you’re acting so crazy.” I moved closer to her. “Let me take you to the health center.” I put my hand on her forehead. “You don’t feel feverish, maybe you ate something bad.” She waved me off. “I have to go back to work.” “Libby, I’m running out of patience.” I snagged her arm and pulled her close to me. “I have things to say to you, and you’re going to listen.” She ripped her arm away, picked up the garbage can, and went back into the diner without a backwards glance. I’d had it. She was ripping my guts out, and I certainly wasn’t going to sit around and wait for her to come to terms with us. I waited across the street, and when the diner closed up, I followed her home. If stalking was the only way I was going to find out where she lived, then so be it. She made a stop along out route at Walgreens, and she was in there long enough that I thought she might have caught onto the fact that I was following her. Just when I was about to give up and head back home, she came out of the store with a bag and a hand over her mouth again. She was really sick, and that lessened some of the seething bitterness I was feeling over her ignoring me and what had been the greatest night of my life. I wanted to tell her that, if she’d let me. Her apartment building was on Walnut. It was an old Queen Anne, divided up into apartments. She had barely closed the door when I was pounding it down. No one came to the door. I pounded some more and yelled that I knew she was in there. After five minutes, Jenny cracked the door and said that Libby wasn’t home. I knew that was an utter fabrication, and I told her so in my loudspeaker voice, before bellowing Libby’s name. Jenny tried to close the door on me, but I wasn’t going to let that happen, so I pushed past her. I walked through their sparse living room and into the hall I assumed led to the bedrooms. One door was open and the other was shut. I attacked the closed door with a fist, before I opened it. Libby had a white stick in her hands and she pulled it behind her back. I narrowed my eyes on her for a moment before I took in the wall of books behind her. “Did you read all of those?” “No, I just thought they looked pretty there.” She was not only sarcastic, but her snide tone had a rough edge to it.

I glared at her before sitting on the edge of her frilly bed, running my hand through my hair. I stared at her long and hard. Her face was flush and, sick or not, she looked good enough to eat. And I was in the mind for a four course meal. I looked her up and down and waited. She crossed her arm across her middle and glanced at the books. “Of course I read them all, for all the good it will do me now.” Something about the way she glared at me made me move to my feet. I grabbed her by both her upper arms and gave her a shake. “You are having a serious PMS episode.” “It’s hormonal, for sure.” She drew her hand to her mouth. “Just go away. I’m tired, and I don’t feel good.” “What’s going on, Libby?” I gave her another shake. “You’re acting crazy.” I thought about the white stick. “You aren’t using drugs are you?” “Get the fuck out of my apartment,” she snapped. “I didn’t invite you here.” She shoved me away. I almost lost my balance. Noises came down the hallway, and if some cutter guy was walking down the hall to her room, I was going to bash his head in. I was madder than hell, and I wanted to hit something. “Hey, Lib, I bought another test. I thought maybe we messed the first one up, and we could do another one.” The door swung open. Vicki stood in the doorway with a brown paper bag in her hands. “Oh shit.” Was all she was able to get out before I grabbed the bag from her, and slammed the door in her face. My heart rate accelerated as I tore the bag open. “Please tell me this isn’t for you.” Libby didn’t speak. She just extended the white stick that she’d managed to shove up her sleeve. I stared down at the double pink lines, unsure of what it meant, but when I looked back up, I felt like someone had dropped a noose around my neck. I managed to choke out, “This is why you’ve been sick?” “Another cosmic observation, Palowski.” I closed my eyes, trying to contain myself. “Did you mean for this to happen?” “Are you out of your friggin’ mind? I’m twenty-two years old! Of course I didn’t do this on purpose!” “Are you sure it’s mine?” I examined the stick. Her face contorted with anger. “You insensitive, stupid, unfeeling, jerk! You think I sleep around? You think I kept you on the string all this time while I was sleeping with someone else?” She turned away. “That’s the way you might operate, but not me. Get the fuck out of my apartment.” “I shouldn’t have said that.” I cleared my throat. “I’m a little freaked out. It’s only been a little over four weeks. If you’re pregnant, we can fix this.” “Fix this? It’s a little late for fixing.” “We can make this all go away.” Libby became stone still. “I got myself into this mess, and I’ll get myself out.” She pointed toward the door without making eye contact. Tears threatened to stream down her face, and she turned away. “It’s not your problem to fix.” I was angry and confused, but I wanted to hold her. I still wanted her. I stood behind her and tried to touch her, but she stepped away. “This doesn’t have to ruin our plans.” “You could give a shit less about my plans, Band-Aid, all you’re thinking about is baseball. I mean it: get out and don’t come back. You’re the last person I’d turn to for help. You’re a help-yourself-to-whatever-you-want kind of person. I knew you’d be this way. That’s why I had no intention of ever telling you.”

“This is why you’ve been avoiding me for the last two weeks? Maybe, but why were you doing it before that?” “Do us both a favor. Walk away. Pretend like this never happened. Because we both know you don’t care much about anything other than a bat and ball.” Tears ran down her cheeks. I reached out, as if I could touch her on the inside if I touched her on the outside. “Get out.” She stepped away. “And don’t come to the Waffle House, either. No one wants to see your sorry face there.” She pushed the tears off her cheeks and into her hair. “I’ll go. I know you’re upset.” I sighed. “I need to think this through, but you better know I’m coming back.” “I don’t think so, Band-Aid. You don’t have what it takes to face something unpleasant.” “I don’t know what’s worse: the fact you think I’m a coward, or that you think everything in my life is always perfect.” “The only adversity you’ve ever faced is what girl to fuck next.” She gestured toward the door. “I’m sure you have someone new waiting in your room.” “Libby, one of these days, I’m going to shove a baseball in that crude mouth of yours.” And then I left before I put my hands on her. Because the next time I touched her, she was going to pay for all the misery she was putting me through.

13 MY WORDS FLY UP, MY THOUGHTS REMAIN BELOW Hamlet Libby The coward did come back, but I played possum. He called me and calmly reasoned that an abortion would solve this. I knew he was scared shitless. I mean I was freaked out, and I’d had weeks to adjust. I finally agreed to meet him on a cold day in March to fix the problem, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He never once said baby or child, just problem. I couldn’t do it with him. If I had to do it, I had to do it on my own. The same way I had faced every problem in my life. While he waited across campus, by Rose Well House, I packed up my belongings and moved into old Mr. Rodgers house. It was off campus and he’d never find me there. He came looking for me at the Waffle House the day after I was supposed to meet him. He and Mr. Rodgers exchanged heated words, which I listened to through the stainless steel kitchen door. “I want you to tell me where she went. She didn’t just disappear.” “Don’t you get lippy with me, Palowski. You did my girl wrong. You’re about to be called up, so why don’t you run along and play baseball and forget all about Libby. She’s better off where she is.” “She isn’t better off without me,” Aidan bellowed. Mr. Rodgers was old, but he’d been in the military, and he had the tattoos to prove it. He grabbed Aidan by the scruff of the neck. “You go on and leave Libby alone. Otherwise, I’ll hunt you down like the pig you are, and I won’t bother to skewer you before I fry you. Boy, you better believe, I have a knack for slow-roasting meat.” I watched as Aidan struggled out of his grip, his hands fisted, and angry words steaming out his mouth. He tore the door off its hinges as he exited. I worked in the kitchen at the Waffle House for the rest of the semester. The food made me sicker than I already was, but I thought it my just dessert for breaking my own cardinal rule: don’t do anything without thinking through the consequences. I never stepped foot in the library again, and the only time I left the house was for class. I circumvented any routes that would take me near him, and he was easy to avoid, since the baseball season had started, and scouts and agents were all over him like BBQ sauce at a rib fest. I never laid eyes on him again until graduation day. He walked across the stage like he didn’t have a care in the world, while the weight of it rested on my shoulders as I crossed to the podium. I received many strange looks, because the gown couldn’t hide the nature of my condition. When I walked down the aisle back to my seat, he was standing. I felt like a specter. He must have thought I was one, since he had no idea I was going to graduate. I could feel his eyes measuring the size of my abdomen. I was afraid if I looked at him, I’d fall apart, so I kept my eye on the prize, the college diploma, my ticket away from Indiana, away from Band-Aid Palowski, and away from heaps of regret. I had considered telling him everything the night we’d made love. I considered unloading all my fears and anxieties about law school, but I wanted to know he wanted me, just plain old cutter me. I wanted to know that I didn’t need a list of accomplishments for him to accept me, and that I didn’t need a laundry list of good deeds for him to love me.

Superstar jocks don’t take cutters to the Rose Well House, at the center of campus at midnight, and pledge their undying devotion beneath its sparkling dome. They don’t marry them, even if they had created a problem together. And jocks certainly don’t fall in love with cutters.

14 NO ONE KNOWS WHAT TO SAY IN THE LOSER’S LOCKER ROOM Muhammad Ali Aidan I was furious. Libby wouldn’t do what I wanted. She refused to go away with me and forget about everything else. I’d cowardly convinced myself that she was gone for good. That’s what her friends told me. From time to time that spring, I thought I caught glimpses of her, but I convinced myself that she was gone and I would never see her again. I’m ashamed to admit I was hurt, but relieved at the same time. My graduation ceremony was so long I lost focus as they called names. Then “Elizabeth Ann Tucker” echoed through the hall, as if the name was haunting me. In reflex, I stood up. I had to see if it was her. I couldn’t believe it. She wasn’t just another cutter she was graduating sigma cum laude. I started to seethe with anger, when I thought of all the halftruths she’d spoon fed me. And I was disgusted with myself, because I wanted her just as much as I ever had. Time or imagined distance hadn’t lessened her appeal. When my family left the ceremony for dinner and I went back to my car, she was standing nearby. She wasn’t obvious, but was waiting alongside the parking lot. Instead of going to her and apologizing, instead of telling her that she was a stronger, better person than me, I got in my car and drove away. I drove away from the only person who’d made me a better man. I drove away from the only person whose counsel I trusted more than my own. I drove away from my future without a backwards glance. I was too torn up to deal with what had happened between us, so I ignored her. She’s the only person who’s ever made me nervous and unsure of myself, and I was terrified that if I went to her, she would know that she could move me with a smile. I was mad at myself for allowing another person to hold such sway over me. I guess I walked away hoping to level the playing field. I thought she’d hunt me down and beg me to take her back and then I would be better able to deal with her. Every day for the next three-and-a-half months I expected her to show up and beg for my help. I was drafted in the first round by the Cubs. I was alone in the locker room preparing for major league debut. I caught a reflection, moving behind me in my locker doors’ mirror. The old guy, dressed like an umpire, he was giving me a good old-fashioned stare down when he spoke, “You’ll pay for that vain ignorance for a very long time.”

THE END

If you would like to know what happens between Libby and Aidan please read my full length novel, BINDING ARBITRATION Available at Smashwords.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Windy City writer, Elizabeth Marx, brings cosmopolitan life alive in her fiction—a blend of romance, fast-paced Chicago living, and a sprinkle of magical realism. Elizabeth resides with her husband, girls, and two cats who’ve spelled everyone into believing they’re really dogs. She grew up in the city, has traveled extensively, and still says there’s no town like Chi town. You can visit her website www.elizabethmarxbooks.com or contact the author at [email protected]