SCREAMING WITH THE CANNIBALS

Thirty-Four

247 Thirty-Four There are times when you get a second chance. I had one now. Maybe I would get it right this time. Yvonne still had her brother’s old Chevy. She loaded me in the thing and drove to Myrtle, to her house, off on the edge of town where the houses were tiny and pushed together, where a waitress or a lifeguard could rent a place for a few bucks a week. She had been living there ever since she had come to Myrtle Beach, and she had come straight from Crum, almost two years ago. She drove all the way over there, naked to the waist. It was still raining when we got there. She pulled up into a small parking space beside her tiny cottage and hauled me out. When we got inside she didn’t turn on any lights, just stood there with me in the dim glow of some faded light that filtered in from the street, just stood there touching me, water running from both of us, mingling at our feet; just stood there, me in my wet swimming trunks, Yvonne’s breasts glistening in the silvery light, her sodden slacks slipping down on her hips. I don’t know how long we stood there. I could have stood there forever. I ran my hand up her side and cupped her breast. With an unhurried motion she raised her hand and covered mine, pressing it into her breast, kneading the breast slightly. Her hips were firm against mine and I ran my other hand down her side, feeling the top of her slacks. They were wet and sagging and it was easy to slide them from her hips. They fell around her ankles. 248 She stepped out of the slacks and led me to the couch, worked at my wet trunks, finally getting them to slide down and off my feet. She stood, wearing nothing but her panties, then carried my wet trunks and her slacks out of the room. I lay back and waited. When she came back into the room she was wearing pajamas, the tops and the bottoms, and was carrying a blanket. She dropped the blanket on me, spread it out a little, covering me, tucking me in. I thought maybe I was supposed to be disappointed. But I wasn’t. I was warm and dry and clean and, sure as hell, I was once again on the couch in Yvonne’s living room. My eyes started to close before she left the room. She came in early, almost at daybreak, already dressed like she was going out somewhere. She had on a pleated skirt and a short-sleeved blouse and I thought if I ever saw a woman more beautiful than this I probably wouldn’t be able to stand it. I’d just pass out from overload. She sat on the edge of the couch and we talked and right in the middle of the talking my eyes closed again and when I woke up she was gone. When she had driven the old Chevy into Myrtle Beach it had been late summer and she knew she had to get a job some place that didn’t close down when the tourists left. Wimpo’s stayed open all year, one of the few saloons that did. She said for the first time in her life she used her looks to get what she wanted. She tucked her blouse down tight into her skirt and pushed her breasts out. Wimpo took one look at her and she went to work behind the bar that same afternoon. Wimpo had tried to grab her a few times, but she kept pushing him off, pushing hard enough to get rid of him, but not so 249 hard that he didn’t think he could try again later. She kept her job that way. It wasn’t hard. She went to school in the mornings, she said. College courses. Tended bar at Wimpo’s in the afternoons and evenings, all the time planning on something better. Something better than Crum. Something better than Wimpo’s. Something better than me. She didn’t really say that last part, but I could tell she was thinking about it. A few days after I pulled the woman from the water I was sitting at a table on the far side of the...