Practice Girl
Dorky high school senior Brian doesn't mind being a virgin. But when a friendly prank lands him a chance to "lose it" with the weirdest chick in school, he can't bring himself to turn it down!
We called her Smelly Ellie.
It was dumb, really. And not just because no student populace over the age of seven should have taken that nickname and run with it the way we did. It was dumb, first off, because Smelly Ellie didn't, at least not that I'd ever noticed passing her in the halls, smell.
Once I pondered this at lunch with my best friend Travis. He said he figured maybe she smelled just one day, possibly shortly after her mid-semester arrival, then about a month ago, in mid-October.
"First impressions can be hell," Travis said, as we observed Smelly Ellie eating a sandwich of indeterminate makeup three tables away.
"What do you think it was? The smell, I mean," I said. "Was it like B.O.? Like she didn't shower? Or did she fart in the locker room?"
"Dunno. Does it matter? For the purposes of the name, Brian, a smell's a smell." He had a point.
But there was another weird thing about the name: Smelly Ellie's real name was not Ellie, nor anything that could be shortened to it. I asked many people about this, to the point where they began to regard me with suspicion, but while they all told me that no, her name wasn't actually Ellie, none of them could tell me what it was.
It took me way too long to realize why "Ellie" happened. See, our makeup is pretty typical for public high schools in this part of the country. We're mostly cats and dogs, squirrels like me, rabbits like Travis, foxes, mice, deer, an avian here and there, a couple of bears. Then Ellie came along. It was the first time most of us had had to spend any time around an elephant. And you know how kids are. She was different, and therefore big and fat and smelly and gross and mean and yet somehow irresistible.
----??
Smelly Ellie, all things considered, assimilated into the school rather quickly, big and exotic though she was. She was aloof but had friends. She was in choir, the only female tenor. By Thanksgiving we were no longer calling her smelly. We began to notice things unrelated to her being an elephant. Her relatively limited wardrobe of awkwardly-fitting clothes. Her favorite bands she played loud with the windows down from the blue car she drove to school and songs hummed as she pushed her way effortlessly through the hall crowds she towered over between classes. And her conspicuous lack of a boyfriend. Travis suggested her weight as a reason for this last point; I wasn't so sure, and besides thought she wasn't that bad looking. I told Travis this, saying who expects a skinny elephant?, and he teased me for a week and told everyone he knew I was a chubby chaser with the hots for Ellie. Ha ha. Fuck you, Travis.
We returned from Christmas vacation to rumors, the kind that are related so immediately, enthusiastically, and openly that they cannot be entirely fabricated. Ellie, it seemed, was easy. No, more than just easy; the elephantess, I was told, had been relieving interested boys of their virginity. On a regular basis. As a matter of course. For money.
"Who'd pay for sex with her?" Travis said to me. "Or even do it for free?"
"Pshah. Says the virgin." We were hanging out in my room after school, listening to the radio and drinking beer Travis stole. I could have bought it for him legally, but the little shit rarely passed up a chance to break the rules.
"Me? A virgin?" he said. "And how would you know that?"
"We know each other too well. You wouldn't be able to keep it to yourself if you got laid, but it wouldn't be cool to showboat it. That's where I come in: you know I'm so uncool I couldn't spread news if I tried, so you'd just brag about it to me to get it out of your system, and trust it wouldn't result in the entire school knowing it took a rabbit seventeen years to find something to fuck other than his hand."
He looked defeated, yet still smirked. "And what about you, then? Wait, let me guess: saving your nuts for the winter?"
I made like I was going to punch him, winding up and baring my teeth, and he flinched and covered his face reflexively. When no blow landed he lowered his arms and recomposed himself. "Okay, that was bad," Travis apologized.
"For your information," I elaborated unnecessarily, "I'm saving it. For someone special." This was a goddamn lie that inebriation made me think was a cogent defense. "It's my virginity. I don't wanna just throw something like that away, you know?"
"Uh-huh. You love it so much, why not just keep it forever?"
"Shut the fuck up."
"Whatever, scout. This is all beside the point anyway. What I was saying is you don't have to be Casanova to know Ellie's an ugly fatass."
"And you wouldn't bang her because of that? Last time I checked, my dick doesn't have eyes. You can grab on and just imagine whatever you want."
"Oh God, you're there now, aren't you? Part of you's here with me and the rest is balls deep in three hundred pounds of smelly pachyderm pussy."
"Harsh, dude. She's two-fifty, max, and how much of that's her height? How much is her tits and ass?"
"How much of it's that gut?"
"Arguing with tits and ass? Dude, are you queer?" A pre-emptive strike on my part; this was usually Travis's line of questioning.
"I'll get you, man. One of these days," said Travis.
"Not in the ass, I hope." Zing.
Travis, wherever he is now, probably still thinks he got me good. The note, slipped through the slats of my locker, showed up weeks later. I discovered in on the way to lunch and read it, and when I realized what it meant I broke out in a sweat and had to sit down. After a few moments reality set in and I remembered the conversation I'd had with Travis. At lunch I took him aside.
"Very funny. You got me. I got all hot and bothered. That heart over the 'i' is a nice touch."
Travis grabbed the paper and pretended to examine it, comedically adjusting invisible glasses, holding it at arm's length and then right up to his nose. "This isn't me, dude," he said, far too coolly, handing it back to me.
"Prove it."
"Ellie's in line for hot lunch right now. Her stuff's open on the table over there. Better go check, fast. You're a lucky man, I suppose," he said, and dissolved into giggles on the way back to his seat.
I walked quickly over to where Ellie usually sat, keeping an eye on her unmistakable form over in the lunch line. I wondered if she got extra food.
There was her notebook, open to some English homework, of which I only read the words "When Shakespeare says 'the lady doth protest too much'..." Her signature was on it. It was unquestionably the same hand that wrote my note. They even shared the smudges indicative of a left-handed writer.
My heart was in my throat and I could feel an involuntary boner on its way. I hurried into the bathroom, grabbed a stall, and jerked off like my life depended on it. In hardly half a minute I came so hard my sperm hit the stall door.
Brian, the note said. Mar 28. 10 PM. 672 Trident. $20 cash. Come alone to back door. ELLiE. The 'i' was dotted with a heart. The E's were curved like 3's and the second one was flipped, suggesting big floppy ears. Cute.
March 28th was the Friday after next.
When I got home I had to masturbate again; the resultant orgasm felt like a heart attack. Afterwards I reflected: while Ellie was certainly the impetus for this spree of self-abuse, I'd hardly fantasized about actually doing anything specific with her. I was getting off almost entirely on the anticipation. I'd come twice in four hours and was still rarin' to go; I wouldn't be able to function if I kept this up, and might even get caught sooner or later. Who needs it?, I thought. Cold turkey was the way to go until I could be with Ellie.
So I stopped masturbating. It went almost alarmingly well. I realized how much it had become something pointless that I'd do daily even if I wasn't horny. Now, when I was bored, I'd have to read a book, go for a walk, clean my room, try to cook something. Was it as fun as playing with myself? Not really. But it made ritual pleasure seem like a waste of time. This was a valuable revelation.
Time flew by in this new world without a dick, but ten o'clock on the 28th still couldn't come fast enough. At eight that day I took the longest shower of my life during which I washed places to which I'm sure soap and shampoo were alien. At nine I put on a nice olive button-down shirt and navy jeans into which I stuffed a twenty dollar bill. At quarter after I put on a light coat, from the front door yelled "Helpin' Colin with homework! Be back!" to my unseen mother watching TV in her bedroom, and dashed outside before she could ask me who Colin was. I didn't know a Colin.
I got to Ellie's right on time; a few days before I'd taken a discreet walk to and from her place for this purpose. Trident Street was genuinely elegant, the only part of town where the homes were both large and old, traits shared with the vast majority of their occupants. Most of these elders were asleep, their lights out. Porches and driveways were lit by the periphery of streetlamps; I stayed in the dark. Roofs and chimneys were stately black shapes that blocked the stars. 672 was one of these erections. A hooded light illuminated its number. Its shades were pulled but incandescent glowing escaped around curtains and between slats of blinds.
I padded across the flat dead grass of 672's backyard, avoiding patches of snow that would crunch, navigating around the house and coming at last to the back door. There was no doorbell that I could see. I was considering a way to knock that would be clear inside the house but not resonate out here, and had decided on using the meaty heel of my palm, when the knob turned. I jumped. The door swept inward and I looked up at Ellie, lit from behind. How had she heard me?
"It's the ears," she said, reading my mind or possibly my face. "Come on in, Brian." She offered her hand. I took it and was pulled forcibly into the brightness of the house.
I had never seen anything quite like this. Her home, while probably neat from an objective standpoint, was nonetheless utterly filled with things, things on shelves all over. None of them looked tacky or like souvenirs; it was all tasteful and all exotic and arranged impeccably and very very expensive-looking. We passed these things and I looked as she ignored them.
Ellie led me straight to her room. The lights were dimmed already. We stood by her desk; on it was a sketchbook with drawings of elephantine hands in various positions. Her bed sat on relatively high legs and was visibly reinforced to accommodate her. She let go of my hand and we faced each other. I looked her up and down and realized something. She wore a v-neck sweater of deep crimson, a simple gold necklace, a jean skirt that hugged her hips. Nothing even remotely like the loose, cheap clothes I saw her in at school. She was curvy as hell and I never knew it. She was also in stocking feet, I saw, and so I stepped out of my shoes, and hung my coat over her desk chair.
"You know what you're here for?" she said.
I nodded.
"I'll need the money first."
I got the twenty out of my pocket and put it on the desk. This done, Ellie then immediately drew herself up (she must be two feet taller than me, I thought) and launched into a speech.
"Okay. These are the rules. We do it on the bed or the floor. Either way you'll be on top for obvious reasons. We keep it quiet, nothing louder than how I'm talking now, because the neighbors will ask questions about what they hear. Do whatever you want with your hands and your mouth but no marks anywhere. You break this rule and playtime's over, you're out, no refund. I don't like a mess, so finish accordingly. I'll swallow, or you can just let it go inside. Don't worry, nothing'll happen, again for obvious reasons. Lastly, and most importantly, keep your cock away from my asshole. I mean it! No anal. You try to stick it in there and I'll scream my guts out and call the cops. Disappointed? Tough shit. My body, my rules. They're the same for everybody. Okay?" This all sounded tired and rehearsed but was still a little intimidating. She meant it though, looking matronly yet hot with her hands on her hips. These rules had made her, if anything, more desirable. So I nodded in understanding, in time with the pounding of my heart. It wasn't like I was going to be able to overpower her.
"Good," Ellie said. "Then I'm yours till midnight, honey." She smiled. I smiled back uncertainly. "So... how do you like it?" she said.
"I don't know. I've never done it before."
"But you do know, uh, how it works? I'm not dealing with a complete simpleton?" A smirk, though maybe not a mocking one.
"Oh, yeah! Haha, duh, yeah." Fuck, I thought, this is going awfully. "But... maybe you should be the one telling me what to do. You probably have more ideas."
"It's your money. Whatever. Oh, hey! I know what we can do." A mischievous smile.
"Yeah?"
"You know what I really love, Brian?"
"W-what?"
"Squirrel tails."
I didn't know what to say. "You... you do?"
"Yeah. They're so big and bushy and soft and nice. I see you and the other squirrels at school walking around with all your tails out and I just about can't stand it. Can I feel yours?"
I was reminded of one of those jokes about big animals, the ones that end 'whatever it wants'. This was a kink, though a mild one. So I turned around and assumed the damn position, bent over Ellie's bed, half in disbelief.
First she just brushed her hands lightly through the fur for awhile. Then she grabbed it and moved her hands and trunk up and down my tail. She yanked it from the base a little and I grunted lightly, if only for her sake. The whole thing was not exactly erotic but it felt nice to be appreciated, used even. I now had a full-fledged hard-on that was insistently paining me to escape my jeans.
"So luxuriant," Ellie said when she was through.
"Thank you," I managed to squeak.
"Would you like me to take off your pants?"
"Um, sure."
Ellie reached around me and unbuttoned and unzipped my jeans, her big fingers causing some difficulty, though her deft trunk undid the tail button in back without trouble. She pulled down the jeans to my ankles. "You wanna step out of these?" she said. I did. Then she yanked my undies to just above my knees, my erect penis springing forth, and turned me around.
"Let's get a look at you... oh, nice! Ready to go already, huh? Cute balls, too." (I'd have preferred my balls be afforded an adjective more erotic than "cute" but squirrels take what we can get.) "Just tell me how you want to do this." I was beyond words, so I just shrugged wide-eyed at her.
"Okay. How about a blowjob, at least to start out?"
I said sure.
Ellie got on her knees and looked up at me. Her eyes were dark, liquid and deep. "You can hold my trunk if you want. Lots of guys like that." So I held her trunk; it was warm and leathery and wrinkled and alive in my hands. "Don't squeeze it though. I'll need to breathe," she said.
My dick stood out iron-hard. I trembled.
Ellie cupped my left thigh with her gigantic right hand. With her left she grabbed hold of my entire junk and aimed it at her opening maw.
Her hands were so big. Warm. Rough and heavy on me. She gave my cock, the underside of the shaft, a single stroke with a thick thumb.
I didn't stand a chance.
It was painful in its suddenness, and humiliating, like being stabbed in the back. My guts roiled. Some deep part of me contracted and in response I involuntary squeezed Ellie's trunk hard just like she told me not to. I almost fell backwards but grabbed her shoulders. I grunted and gasped. I tried willing my climax to stop but it just went on and on, emptying weeks of backed-up jizz over Ellie like blood gushing from a stump. It felt like a world record. My penis shrank rapidly, drizzling its last onto her sweater.
I fell back onto the bed, feeling pounds lighter, mortally drained like an empty beer can. I knew I wouldn't get so much as morning wood for a week, and if the feeling of total embarrassment was any indication, I might kill myself even before then.
Ellie was frozen. Her eyes were shut tight. Her trunk was stiffened and her mouth was screwed into a tight grimace. Her hands were raised beside her head, like someone had a gun on her, and her fists were balled and shaking. Her sweater was like a sloppily iced red velvet cake.
I felt like I could fall asleep but fought it; there was no telling what an elephant could justify doing to a passed-out squirrel who'd just broke her sex rules. I just kept saying "sorry sorry sorry oh my god" like a mantra while waiting for some sort of physical revenge from her. But nothing came.
Then Ellie spoke, carefully and a little shaky. "I, uh. Brian. Oh, God. You were saving that up, weren't you." She wiped off her eyes and then spread her fingers as though each was disgusted by what covered the others.
So this was how our encounter would end. Her mocking me. This would be all over school. Me and mom would have to move. But not before she laughed at me too.
"Brian, do I excite you that much? That just one touch made you come?"
What the fuck. I had nothing to lose. "I think you're perfect. Beautiful. I've never felt about a girl like I feel about you," I said, and meant it, and I could see she knew it.
"Um, okay. That's a new one," she said, noncommittally. But she almost smiled, and her eyes had lit up. I watched as Ellie stood, a bit clumsily as she didn't want to put her hands on anything. Then she removed her sweater. God damn. It wasn't enough to get my dick back up; nothing would at this point. But it was enough for me to stare as she turned the shirt inside out and cleaned off her face and hands with it. Her shoulders were broad and her breasts, nearly if not completely full-grown, were held high and close together by the biggest white bra I'd ever seen. Her arms were thick from muscle, I saw, not fat, though she did have some chub on her waist, accentuated by tight pants. Her belly hung over a little too, an alluring paunch topped with an outie belly button like a shrine on a hill.
She tossed her soiled sweater onto the bed.
"You've still got some," I said, pointing between my own eyes. "On your, uh..."
She scoffed but still smiled, and wiped it off. "Thanks. Would you like some coffee?"
Where the hell is this night going? I wondered.
I didn't have the courage to say no to coffee, embarrassed as I was, so I covertly appreciated Ellie's big back and rear at the kitchen counter as she fixed two cups, black. I was wearing my briefs but no jeans. My chair and the table I sat at were elephant-size, like the bed, and my feet didn't touch the ground. The mugs were bigger too, I saw as Ellie brought the coffee. If I drank all that I'd be bouncing off the walls. She pulled up a chair and sat. "Talk to me while it cools off a little."
"What about?"
"About... how about you? Tell me about yourself."
This could be like pulling teeth. I never could talk to women then. "Uh, okay. I'm Brian. And... I live with my mom."
"What else? What do you like to do?"
"I dunno. I like the outdoors. Nature. I play tennis some."
"Cool. How about friends? You got friends?"
"Just a few. You might know Travis."
"What? The bunny? Class clown type? Wears a knit cap?"
"Yeah. I've known him forever. The antics get old but friends are friends, you know. It was his idea for me to, um, meet you."
"Really! Huh. Is he actually lop-eared or is it just the hat?" Ellie was clearly trying to control herself, like she knew something about Travis, or was otherwise interested. I decided not to pursue this reaction; Travis was popular, after all, and it was possible she just wanted gossip.
"Oh, he's a lop," I said. He's self-conscious about it for some reason, so he wears the hat to make it look like it's just the hat." It was satisfying to talk about this; Travis would be so pissed if he knew I'd told anybody the hat secret. "When we were littler we'd have sleepovers and he didn't even take it off to go to bed. He takes it off for gym showers but he tilts his head way back so the ears fall open and look straight."
Ellie laughed, a musical titter completely at odds with her deep speaking voice. "Poor guy. Oh, what am I doing? Why are we talking about Travis? You ask me stuff now."
"Okay." I was feeling braver, and had one burning question. "What's your real name?"
"Whoa now! What makes you think it's not Ellie?"
"It seemed unlikely. Uncreative. Ellie? For an elephant?"
"Shows what you know. There's tons of elephant Ellies, especially adoptees."
"Huh. So Ellie is your real name."
"I didn't say that. It's actually Julie."
"Should I call you that?" I hoped not. It would take getting used to.
"Nah, you know. I've come to like Ellie. Not the "Smelly" part so much, though. I'm impressed, actually. It was like I was in second grade again. Our coffee's probably good now."
I took a sip. It was alright. "So you said you were adopted?"
"Me? Oh, no. Sorry to mislead you there. Mom and dad are mom and dad."
"And who are mom and dad?"
"Mom's a mom. Raising an elephant is a full-time job, she says. Dad's a pianist. We keep moving around because he's in demand and climbing the ladder, so to speak, and gets a better offer with some symphony or another every two years or so. Mom doesn't like it and I don't like it but we love him anyway. Having been all over the country is pretty cool, even though it's taken longer for me to finish school; I should be in college now. And the money's nice, obviously." She gestured broadly and somewhat contemptuously to the house and all its things.
"Where are they right now?" I asked.
"Chicago and then Milwaukee. They're gone until Tuesday night."
"Why don't they live in the city?"
"They say life's too fast, too hard. They always do that: I've grown up always just out of practical reach of the most exciting places in America. The middle of nowhere's a safer place to raise a kid, I guess."
"I have another question," I said.
"Sure."
"You looked... really great... in that sweater."
"Well, apparently so, from the way you-- oh, sorry. It's fine. Thanks, I mean."
"What I was wondering is, why don't you dress like that at school? It's nothing that would break code."
"Yeah. I'm funny that way. I consider myself a fashionable person, I guess. But I generally don't like school that much, and in the past I've found that if I wear nice clothes to school, then when I wear them on the weekend I feel worse about everything, like I'm stuck back in class. I hate all the baggy shit I wear to school, but then, I'd hate anything I wore to school."
"About that," I said. "We're sitting here and you're telling me all this. I get the feeling it usually isn't this way. Why didn't you just kick me out for breaking one of your rules?"
"Well, look at it this way. Do I turn you on, Brian?"
"Yeah. A lot."
"There's your answer. The guys I've had here, no matter how pathetic they are coming in, they act like I'm shit, no matter what I wear, even when we're doing it. And who am I to tell them different? They paid for me. But you're different. You came in and you were starstruck by me. You had no role you wanted me to play, no fantasy to enact. As Freud might say, you're the first one to whom I'm neither a Madonna nor," and here her voice broke a little bit, "a-a whore. And if I'm that special to you, well, maybe you're a little special to me."
We sat while she finished off her coffee. Mine was about half gone and it was all I wanted. This was, what, the third awkward silence of the night? Fourth? I had one question left, the only one I was afraid of asking. But Ellie'd practically told me her life story the first time I met her, and that was after I came on her face! Fuck it, I thought. Here goes.
"So why do you do this?" It was out.
Ellie sighed and stiffened a little but didn't look angry. "Well. Uh. There's the money. Isn't that why anybody works a shitty job? But it's also a good way to get to know people, and not just the ones who are paying. You told me about Travis's ears. Where else could I have gotten that information? It's like that with everyone. They all want pillow talk. Lastly, and this is maybe a little sick, but you know what? Some part of me enjoys it. Not the physical act so much; most of the guys are pretty awkward or rough. But taking someone's virginity is... is like I have power over them. Like I own a little piece of them. They could fuck a million girls all over the world but you always remember your first time and they'll always remember me, Smelly Ellie, fat but one of a kind, who they were once desperate enough to desire, and they pay me to insert myself in their head and stay there. I--"
She saw me staring. The passion of her speech made her seem briefly violent. But she caught herself.
"Sorry. Don't worry. It's bullshit. Do you wanna watch some TV?" she asked.
I said I didn't see why not.
I sat silently in the dark, on a comfortable and large couch, to the left of Ellie, who surfed through the channels. We watched a little bit of a late night talk show, some long-canceled but syndicated '80s sitcom I'd heard of but never seen, a nature show about Alaska. Ellie said it was the only state she'd never been to, including Hawaii, but that it seemed too empty and cold to enjoy even if it was pretty, that it in fact made her cold just watching it on TV. Then she put an arm around me and pulled me close. I noticed she had armpit hair. I looked up at her. She was fixated on the screen, and frowning slightly. Let's see what else is on, she said, as much to herself and the television as to me, and continued our trek. Professional wrestling. A cartoon not meant for children. A pundit she snorted at and switched away from especially quickly. The events of the night, the feeling of knowing so well and being so close to this girl I'd met scarcely over an hour before, the harsh light from the TV set, gave the night a dream-uncertainty, a dimmed awareness that made strange things seem less strange.
We'd stumbled across the airing of a block of music videos. The light playing across us changed more often now, became more colored, disoriented us. Performers' genders and even species became indeterminate under elaborate costumes. Settings and actions bore resemblance to lyrics only if one squinted one's mind enough. After a time the videos and the ads between them seemed no different. We nearly slipped away into the set, forgetting each other though we touched, me without pants, her without shirt, blinds drawn.
But that, what was that? Ellie's other hand it was, fingers and a palm firmly circling on my bare right leg. Excited only abstractly, I rested my hand atop hers and rode it, like an egret on a hippopotamus. Rain fell on a longhaired but non-threatening otter singing and playing an acoustic guitar in the middle of an empty city street. An empty plastic pill bottle rolled across a hardwood floor. Ellie was holding my hand now, enclosing it completely, and still I could not break this over-the-air hypnosis. The song's title, artist, album, label appeared in the lower left corner, signaling the end of the video, and I thought huh is that who that is well he sure doesn't sound like an otter, and then Ellie guided me further, my fingers felt her belly, and there was a metal stud among fabric, and my hand acted upon it, and upon hearing a brief familiar zuzz some part of me recognized as a zipper I started reflexively, pulling away not completely understanding but she was strong and my arm stilled, not so much accepting as recognizing futility. And then down into her clothes she took me, past denim and elastic and cotton to an area hot and sweating or somehow or other moist, and finally I tore my eyes from the music videos and looked and there in the screen's glow was my right hand trapped between Ellie's thick thighs, and she was tightening them around it, and me feeling the hair down there and not fucking knowing what I'm supposed to fucking do to make her feel good like I knew I owed her.
I felt for what I assumed was down there. A cleft. I ran fingers along it. Ellie croaked something quiet that was lost to the sound of the TV, if it was words at all. She had her eyes closed now. I pushed a finger inside her. My heart was beating fast. As deep inside her as I could get. She didn't seem to be reacting much. Wasn't there something...? Yes. My thumb found it. Like a little bead of skin, hidden. I circled upon it. Now Ellie bucked and writhed. Because of me, I thought. We did this, and kept doing it, she with her eyes shut and me watching videos, pretending this wasn't anything, wishing my dick had any fight left in it at all so I could have pleasure with her. Now I rubbed my palm flat back and forth against her whole apparatus down there. She held my arm tight to her stomach and I could feel and hear heavy breath flowing from her trunk. And on we went. After a while she put her hand over mine and guided me again, showing me how to do her right, until her head went back and, unlocked and open now, loud gasps and huffs came and she tightened and shook and more wetness trickled out of her.
As she came down I laid my head on her breast and rested my tail on her lap. I loved her then, I knew, loved the way she used me for love in the eerie light. The videos went on; cloaked figures danced pagan around a burning car at dusk; three masked gunmen burst into a liquor store. I was captivated again until she turned it off.
"Well. It's midnight, Brian," she said after a time. We stood and then she hugged me close and we rocked a little. "I'm sorry if that was something you didn't plan on, that you didn't want. Something just came over me, and you went with it. Thank you for that."
"Mm-hmm," I said from her chest.
"You should go now. I'm sleepy anyway, even after that coffee."
So that was it. She brought my pants and jacket and shoes down from her room and I put them on. We said further goodbyes, and she said see you at school, and that I was a nice guy, and that maybe she'd introduce me to some of her friends, and I said I hoped she stuck around and that she'd keep that thing about Travis to herself.
Just as I was heading out the door she called to me one last time: "Hey, Brian!"
"Yeah?"
"So do you feel like a man now?"
I thought. And decided to be honest. "No. No, I don't."
She nodded. "No one ever does."
And then I was walking home, my only souvenir of the night a smelly right hand. And I was still a virgin, wasn't I? Fuck! What the hell did I pay for?, I thought half-jokingly. I thrust my fingers in my pockets-- and felt something. I drew it out. Unfolded it. It was the twenty bucks I'd put on Ellie's desk.
I couldn't wait to tell Travis; I wondered if he'd even believe I showed a whore such a good time she paid me back.
But I never saw Travis again.
Or Ellie.
On Monday the school was alive with a rumor, the kind that is related so immediately, enthusiastically, and openly that it cannot be entirely fabricated.
It was a busy weekend for Ellie, apparently. She'd had another guy over there Saturday night.
That guy was Travis.
And he broke a rule.
The big one.
The dumb bunny had tried to fuck her ass and Ellie had screamed and thrown him across the room, giving him a concussion, and then called the cops. Both sets of parents were contacted. No charges were pressed. But they were both, apparently, leaving town.
Nobody knew where they were going.
Monday night I cried for the first time in years. I cried for Travis's dumb ass for trying to do something a goddamn elephant had told him not to do. I cried for Ellie for almost killing him. And I cried for me, because my best friend since forever and the source of literally my most important life experience thus far were both gone for good.
But that was years ago. Decades, even. Well, okay, not decades. A decade, though, and then some. Now? I'm a man. A man with a job and a car and all that bullshit. I'm certainly not a virgin anymore, and I don't regret not losing it to Ellie. I eventually got what I'd lied and told Travis I wanted: first-time sex with someone who meant the world to me, and who I dumped less than a month after for unrelated reasons, I swear.
I don't miss Travis much. He seems meaner and dumber every time I look back on him, maybe because of how bad he fucked up that Saturday night.
And Ellie? I still think about her. I wouldn't say I've got it bad. But some nights, when find myself unable to sleep, usually it's because I'm imagining her, what she looks like, what she's doing. Maybe she's a musician, like her dad. Maybe she's in jail for pounding some unsatisfactory gentleman caller to a pulp. Maybe she's dead in a ditch. Maybe she's married with kids. I like these last two; they're the only outcomes I can think of that make her off-limits, unavailable, someone I can move on from. I'm not carrying a torch. I've had a few girlfriends I liked as much, or even more. But they've all left me lonely sooner or later, and when that happens I have an elephant in the room to lean on. Ellie has wormed her way into my head, as was her intention.
One day an option appeared. Something no one suspected would ever be possible at the time my lifelong friend and first lover disappeared at the same time. It was called social networking. Oh, don't bother with that, people told me. It's like a never-ending class reunion. Everyone you talked to so much as once in high school shows up and wants to get involved with your life.
Really, I thought. And signed up.
It was too good to be true. Travis found me immediately and I reluctantly "friended" him. He was still getting into trouble, still accusing everyone and everything of being gay, still religiously wearing a hat.
Good for him, I guess.
Ellie was nowhere to be found. There were no elephants at all among the list of my schoolmates. Well duh, I thought. She fled in disgrace. Why would she associate herself with us again? But the wound was open, and I cried again, and hated myself for getting my hopes up.
But wait! What about her father? If he was "climbing the ladder" then, how prominent was he now? I searched for a list of elephant pianists. It took me to the website of the only one of note, currently with the Baltimore Symphony. I watched a couple videos of him performing. I didn't know classical music from my own ass, and he seemed to specialize in the modern and atonal, but he played passionately and precisely. Then I searched "Julie", appending the last name of the elephant pianist. The search engine corrected me automatically, and I felt faint as I realized how close I'd been to never finding Ellie again.
Her real name wasn't Julie. It was Anjuli. There was her page. 32 years old. Registered nurse. Minneapolis.
I had to write her something. I couldn't not. What the deepest, least practical part of me wanted was to talk to her again, see her again, maybe even pick up where we left off. But I couldn't indulge that. I'd be frank but not desperate. Okay. Here goes. I put Do you remember Brian? in the subject line, and began.
I'm sorry if I have the wrong person and this message freaks you out, or if I do have the right person and you're freaked out anyway. My name is Brian, I'm a squirrel, and I think I knew you in high school. I came to your house one night (I still have the invitation) and some crazy things happened. The next night my best friend visited you and did something bad and before I could see either of you again you were both gone. I'm sorry if this brings back bad memories. Anyway, what we did was out of the ordinary for both of us, for me because I was green and nervous and for you because I wasn't like the others. You could say we did each other favors. At least it seemed like it then.
I'm writing this, now that I think about it, mostly for myself. I'm a happy person, mostly. I'm not a nostalgic person. I don't dwell on my high school years. Except for you, "Ellie," you keep coming back, not often but more than seldom.
This sounds so creepy as I read over it, but I think you'll understand, if you're who I knew. You don't have to respond. Just, thanks for reading. And know that I'm thinking of you.
I hit 'send,' then sat and drank in front of the TV into the wee hours. I'd probably have watched music videos in Ellie's memory if the channel still played them.
No reply came after a week. A month. Two months. I felt better just for writing it, and figured I'd get on with my life. I felt a little freer from her.
But then, out of nowhere, a response.
Brian: I do remember you, it said. I hope you're doing great. I'm glad you remember me and that the big letdown after our time together hasn't made you too miserable. It was tough for me explaining myself to mom and dad; I admitted everything. Together the three of us burned the money I made as a symbolic gesture and punishment. They were cold to me for quite a while but they got over it, and we're still close. That's what love is.
I think about you sometimes too. Maybe not as much as you think about me, since I was almost your first girl. But I wonder, do you still go for the big ones? Or do you prefer to pick on someone your own size? Ha ha.
I'm doing great. I'm a nurse, and I think, a good one. What's your job these days? I'm doing great in Minneapolis. I see you're still in the same place. That's good, I guess, if you like the place you're at.
Listen. You tried to play it cool in your letter, but I know need when I hear it. Don't beat yourself up. It's like you're still that teenage boy with your pants down and a boner more ready than you were. I can tell you're "between relationships"; call it feminine intuition. But you know what? So am I. It happens. And the truth is, Brian, that you're the cause of it. Don't worry, I'm not upset. I saved your message into a computer folder of its own and my dumb ox (literally) of a boyfriend found it and got jealous when I wouldn't dismiss you to him as a creep and a stalker. Now he's gone, and I feel alone together with you. That explains my delay.
How about this: I've got some leave saved up. Come to the Cities. I'll show you around, we'll see the sights. It's no New York or San Fran, but there's lots to do. We can find a lake to swim in. Maybe go to a game. Or just barhopping. Do you like the theater? It's huge here and surprisingly fun. And in between... well, I'm sure you'll think of something. You must have some ideas after all these years. Yours, Ellie.
P.S. Do you feel like a man yet?
Oh, I felt like one all right. I felt like the luckiest man in the world.