Hot Summer Night - One

One upon a time, there was a "Smuttastic Summer Challenge."  And you know I love a challenge.

____

Before I even turned around, I knew I was in trouble.

“Your mother has an outside corner!”

Everyone within hearing distance laughed, including me.  It didn’t even make sense, really, but the best chirping never did.  It was the tone of voice, delivered like three snaps around the world and an “Oh no you didn’t.”  I missed the next pitch because I was still snickering.

My favorite place to be was on the ice.  And since I was little, my second favorite place to be was Fenway Park.  The lights, the Green Monster, the old-fashioned scoreboard.  And since the Curse was reversed, the expectation of winning every game.  As an athlete I can tell you there’s nothing worse than people assuming you’ll lose then proving them right.

It was a hot night in early July, just before the All-Star break.  My buddy Kirby bought the ticket months before: ten rows off the first base line.  We could see the clumps of dirt stuck in the white paint around the coach’s box, read the grain of the perfectly mowed lawn; the place looked like a church.  And yet tonight, the best view was behind us.

She wore a green Red Sox hat, brim curled tightly to frame her small face.  Dark straight hair dusted shoulders left bare by a pristine white wifebeater tank top.  August-tan and bursting with energy, her straight teeth flashed in a smile while glossy lips caught the bright lights like a camera popping.  Two seats over and one row up: she looked like the American Dream.  I wanted to cover her with whipped cream and hum the Pledge of Allegiance while I lick it off.

For two innings, I operated in stealth mode.  I glanced back without being obvious, I talked to Kirby who happened to be sitting on her side.  She was squeezed in between three guys, all wearing Sox caps that looked older than their faces.  One guy caught me looking a few times – he gave me the ‘back off buddy’ stare.  But he never touched her, so I knew he was just another guy that wanted her.  Remember what I said about being an athlete?  I expect to win.

But the level of my game is suspect.  I thought I was playing to cool until Danny hailed a beer vendor from the other side of me.

“Three Sam Adams for us.  And one for Green Hat there my buddy’s been checking out all night.”

I froze, staring straight ahead then quickly joined in everyone laughing.  Maybe he meant someone else.  Maybe she wasn’t looking at me right now.  Then why did I feel a hot, dark blush rising up my neck?  Damn night games when you need a sunburn.  Danny elbowed me in the side.

“Good luck, bro.”

I was formulating a comeback, something devastating, when Youklis went yard and saved me.

____

Well shit.  John Carlson, you would be here tonight.

It took me three times catching him looking over here before I recognized him.  He never saw me notice and kept right on turning halfway around.  I love when guys think they’re being so cool.  Tanner noticed it too, of course, and his posture improved three inches.  But he didn’t say anything.  He couldn’t.  We broke up six months ago and this was our maiden voyage on the Friend Ship.  So I sat there, making peanut shell confetti and watching John’s shoulders stretch the soft cotton of his navy blue t-shirt.  Huge thighs – I mean huge – moved beneath long multicolored madras shorts.  A bright red Sox cap revealed a perfect profile.  He was practically on the tiny ballpark seat instead of in it; a grown man in a kids’ plastic chair.  Any questions I had about still liking Tanner disappeared under the beer cup clenched in his massive right hand.   I could feel that slightly rough palm on the dewy flat of my stomach, pushing my waistband down to reveal my ticklish spot.  Every time someone said ‘second base’ I thought I would faint.

A tiny bead of sweat formed at the edge of his hairline, just in front of his ear.  It dripped loose and caught his skin, slowly rolling down toward the square of his jaw.  I wanted to lean forward and lick it off.  Next to me, someone sighed.

Robert was our friend from high school, my best friend in college and the only guy I knew who handled being gay like it was the Fourth of July: blow everything.  When he made a low, throaty growling sound at the sight of Jon’s bicep flexing below his sleeve, I thought I might have to pepper spray the whole section.

“Joey,” he said from the corner of his mouth.  “If that guy looks back here one more time, I’m going to jizz in my pants.  Please, take your shirt off or something.”

I giggled, covering my mouth too late.  Tanner stared daggers at both of us.

Then John’s friend flagged down the beer man, and not a moment too soon.  I was about to tack on my order when he said, “And one for Green Hat there my buddy’s been checking out all night.”

I flinched so hard my nails dug into my leg.  John went rigid, every single muscle in his overdeveloped upper body standing in full relief.  It was like a t-shirt over a topographical map.  People laughed so I laughed while Tanner just chewed the inside of his lip and passed me a drink.

“Thanks,” I lifted my beer over John’s back and clicked in with his friend.  John stayed still, the back of his neck flushed fuchsia.  I desperately wanted to press the frosty can to his exposed skin.  But he didn’t say anything, so I didn’t say anything.  I just watched his neck twitch with the effort of holding that pose.

Then Youklis his one out.  Big mother shot right over the Monster and the whole place went bananas.  Even Tanner forgot about defending my virtue and started high-fiving strangers.  The guys in front all turned around, I worked my way from right to left until suddenly I was palm-to-palm with John.

His face was shadowed by the brim of his hat, but the jolt of electricity was unmistakable.  For a hot second I thought he would pull me in and kiss me right there, in front of all these people without so much as a hello.  My knees wobbled.  His lips parted slightly, he rocked forward on the balls of his feet, then caught himself and stood up quickly.  But the current traveling through our skin was a warning: Danger – High Voltage.

____

Shorts.  All I could think was: shorts.  Or more accurately: thighs. 

She jumped out of her seat and I was already turning, ready to high-five her if it was the only one I got.  But I saw her dark denim cut-off shorts and my brain misfired like a shuttle aborting a launch.  Her thighs had just the right around of round, just enough softness that I could feel how they’d give if I bounced her ass in my lap.  Her shorts weren’t too tight and they weren’t so short that I could window shop without buying.  But they were lived-in and comfortable, the promise that she looked that fucking hot every day somewhere on this Earth.  I wanted to shred them with my teeth.

Her eyes were shaded by her hat, but they bored into me all the same while I tried to process something besides putting my face between her thighs.  I must have looked like a drooling idiot unable to find a single thing to say that didn’t start with ‘fuck’ and end with ‘me.’  The idea must have passed through my hands like psychic power because I know she could read my mind.  Finally free, I slumped back into my chair with a hammering heart.

“Smooth,” Danny whispered.

“Suck it.”

The Sox got another one before the inning ended.  I felt extra hot for the small confines of the park.  All those games when I was little felt a little different before I was 6’ 3”.  From the corner of my eye, I saw her get up and start stepping over some very lucky seat holders.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” I told the boys.  Their heads instantly looked to her empty seat.  They just laughed and called out snack orders.  She was ten steps ahead of me, that ass mesmerizing the Boy Scout troop that pulled out in front of me.  By the time I reached the concourse, she was gone.

I went to the boy’s room then headed for the pretzel stand.  Some girls were waiting in line, but she could have gone to another bathroom.  With a pretzel and some nachos in hand, loaded up with mustard and napkins, I awkwardly made my way back.  I figured no way she’d taken that long.

“Those for me?” a voice said.  And there she was, leaning against the wall at the top of our section, sipping a fresh beer.  And she had a second in the other hand.

“We can share.”

Again, I couldn’t think appropriate to say.  Only this time my options all began with ‘please’ and ended with ‘thank you.’

“If you eat all that, I’m telling Bruce.”

The pretzel almost lost its life.  I stutter stepped beneath my balancing act, gaping at her like a fish.  The heat must be addling my brain because it sounded like she said ‘Bruce.’

“I don’t think this diet is approved by the NHL.”  She put her beer down on a nearby program stand and took the pretzel from me.  She set down everything else, put the pretzel on top of the nachos where it wouldn’t tip out of its bag, and made a neat little pile.  As I watched her make quick work of my problem, I estimated she was six inches shorter and seventy pounds lighter than I was.  Her weight times my bench press times twenty or so reps… I could definitely fuck her against this wall and still go for seconds later.  My empty hands flexed.

“I’m Joey.”

She blinked up at me.  There were freckles on her nose and her eyes were the same color as her hat.  Something happened on the field and 35,000 suddenly screamed in excitement.

I kissed her.

____

I thought he might be a little special.  I know concussions are a problem and John had gone a good three minutes standing there without saying a word.  His lips were perfect though, soft and full and I wanted to sink my teeth into them.  Light brown hair, like a little boy going from blond to dark, poked up from beneath his ball cap.

It was the only little boy thing about him.  He towered over me, hands like paws as I took the food and assembled something he could actually carry.  With those mile-wide shoulders his chest was a huge target: he could have been a running back.  And I’ll never know how he folded that trunk of a body into a Fenway Park seat.

I looked up at him.  His eyes were some kind of stormy blue-gray kind of color that was completely unfair to everything below my waist.  Then someone did something good and the crowd roared.

John kissed me.

If you’d pushed me down an elevator shaft I could not have been more surprised.  Or ended up more flattened.

There was a nano-second where my brain fired a hundred canons at once.  Then there was only the green-painted steel girder behind my back and two hundred-plus pounds of hockey’s finest pressing me flat like he was laying new pavement.  His mouth was hot, his lips soft as they forced mine open.  A strong tongue slipped its velvety way over mine and I dropped another ten stories.

His hand was behind my neck, tipping my head up to meet his kiss.  I wrapped an arm around his colossal back and tried to hold myself up.

“Ahem!”

Like a door slamming, we both realized we were practically humping each other inside a sold-out baseball stadium.  John flew off me like a rocket, landing three steps away with shock on his face.  I slid down against the wall like a fly swatted into a daze.

“Well, well.”  As soon as my hormones stopped crashing around, Robert’s smirking face swam into vision.  “Making new friends, Joey?”

“We were just… uh, we were…,” John stuttered.  He looked alarmed and nervous.  Robert laughed.

“Relax buddy, she’s not with me.  But I’d be on you if you offered, so keep that in mind,” he patted John’s arm and strolled away snickering.

“I uh… umm… sorry.  Hi.  Sorry.” 

I could have processed John’s words more easily if his chest weren’t heaving with ragged breaths.  If the B on his shirt didn’t go from small to large on each breath.  When he inhaled fully, it could have been the damned bat signal.

“I’m John.”

____

I lost it.  I lost touch with reality for a moment and when I came to, I was grinding this perfect stranger against a wall in Fenway Park, my hands in her hair and my tongue down her throat.  Somewhere nearby, nachos felt jealous.  But my stomach did its best impression of a pretzel as she drew herself in and kissed me back.

Then the stop.  Like skating full speed the length of the ice – and having Ovi level you into the boards.  Cartoon birds tweeted circles around my head.  She stared back at me as that juicy mouth hung swollen and flushed.

“I’m John,” I said over the blood rushing in my ears.

She looked from my right eye to my left, never breaking my gaze but shifting hers so I couldn’t tell which side of my face she was focusing on.  Already woozy, it made me wobble harder.  She was making some kind of decision and I needed her to hurry.  Finally, she bit her bottom lip.

“Let’s get out of here.”

 _