Siren Queen(37)
She was right. I wasn’t strong enough to be her or Su Tong Lin, and whatever path I took, I had to keep to it, because I wouldn’t survive falling off. I shook my head, because I couldn’t afford to spend too much time thinking like that, and fortunately for me, it was Friday, and you didn’t have to think about much on Friday.
On Friday nights, I chased Emmaline’s fire, and we curled together on her throne, as close as two halves of an almond. I leaned my head against her silk-clad shoulder as she laughed and held court, relishing the wistful glares from the other girls almost as much as I liked the warmth of her body next to mine. With her, I was a kind of royalty, rare and envied, and it was a new kind of pride that was born in my heart.
One night, I searched in vain for her fire, but instead I found Emmaline herself, dressed in a sleek and shimmering blue ball gown with a froth of white organza at the hem. For a moment, I wondered if she was real at all, and then she smiled and held her hands out to me. The stars were in her eyes that night, not the fire, and I would have followed her anywhere.
“Where are the others?” I asked as we stepped into the darkness between the flames. She shrugged.
“Wherever they want to be. I was tired of playing queen tonight.”
“What would you rather be instead?”
She smiled, not looking at me.
“I want to be with you,” Emmaline replied, not shy, not demanding, but instead with a softness and a sweetness that could bring me to my knees. She was less than twenty-one then, not old enough to drink though we all did, young like we would never be again.
(“Drama queen,” Jane said, biting and affectionate.
“Look who’s talking,” I retorted.)
We walked hand in hand through the dark, and there was nothing to fear when we were facing the night together. We heard the rumble of the hunt, the distant drums, laughter and weeping and screams, and it seemed as if we were children wandering a playground jungle. The broken glass was smoothed so it would not cut us, and the fires danced just beyond our fingertips, glowing with warmth but never burning us.
She was shorter than I was, and I tucked her under my arm as we walked. Vaguely, I wished for a suit instead of the dress I wore, a gray Hartnell sheath beaded in ocean-like waves. Sometimes we spoke, but mostly we roamed. I carried my heels hooked in two fingers, swinging by my side, but she kept hers, her steps so disciplined they never revealed the ache.
Close to Lot 14, Emmaline gasped as if she had seen a ghost, and when she showed me what had startled her so, I realized it might as well have been.
The Ford Model A crouched behind Lot 14 like a skulking cat, already a little out of style and without the awkward charm of the Model T. I went with Emmaline as she stroked the curved headlight casings, brushing her fingers across the meticulously polished chrome handles.
“The Poulsens had one of these when I was little,” she murmured. “All shining and black just like this girl. It was the grandest motor in town, and if Denny Poulsen liked you, he would take you for a ride.”
“Did he like you?” I asked, unable to keep the jealousy out of my voice, and Emmaline laughed a little.
“Oh no. I wasn’t popular in Waverly. I gave myself airs.” She was making fun of herself a little, but there was a stiff pride there too, along with a thread of affection for the place and people who had birthed her. She dared me to say anything, and I was silent. Instead I touched the sleek car where she had, running my hand over hers to entwine our fingers.
One of us found that the door was unlocked, and with startled giggles we climbed into the rear, tumbling over each other in the small space. When we shut the door behind us, however, it shut out the rest of the world, the Friday night fires, the studio, all of it. We watched each other, suddenly shy, our breaths catching like a jagged nail on cheap chiffon.
She moved first, lurching close and pushing me against the door. For a moment, I was afraid that we hadn’t latched it securely and that I would go spilling out into the dirt, but it held and I held on to her, tangled with her, taking her weight on top of me.
“So much fucking fabric,” she swore hopelessly, and I choked because she was right. In that cramped space, it felt like there was more fabric than girl, between her gown and mine, and there was no magic to help us now, nothing that would cut away to reveal us slippery bare and sliding over each other like slivers of soap. I was half-suffocated under her and her satin, and without looking, I stretched and grasped for the hem of her dress, finding it before pulling it up. Her leg felt taut and strong under my hand. I could feel the light fuzz of hair on her legs, unexpectedly soft. When I touched the tender hollow at the back of her knee, she giggled, pressing her hot face against my throat.
“What do you like?” I asked, as if I were worldly-wise and in a position to give her whatever she wanted.
“With you, anything,” she responded. “Keep touching me there, baby, and just slide higher…”
She braced one knee between my hip and the back of the bench seat, and her other foot was on the floor. It felt as if there was a laundry’s worth of fabric between us, and in the dark I couldn’t see anyway, but touching her was heat and skin and nothing else I had ever felt before, even touching myself in the tub with my knees spread.
She made these soft encouraging noises against my cheek as my hand slid higher, and her nails dug into my bare shoulders when I found her inner thighs. It was hot, too hot, but in the dark, no one would see the steam on the windows. The sleek sweat let me slide my hand up between her thighs, and I made a startled noise when I realized that she wasn’t wearing any underwear. Instead, there was only the wiry hair between her legs and an incredible heat that I knew matched mine. I suddenly wished that I knew what color her hair was there, whether it matched the platinum on top of her head, or if it was some darker secret. A little bit of pressure parted her, giving way to the sleek hot flesh between. At first it might have been sweat or arousal, but when I stroked up with the heel of my hand, she ground down against me, and it was definitely arousal.