The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(60)

When I went to empty the garbage, Donna handed me the box beneath the counter so I didn’t have to bend down and retrieve it. “Thanks,” I said.

“How long have you been friends?”

“Who? Me and Mickie? Since the sixth or seventh grade. She’s like my sister.”

Donna grinned. “Uh-huh.”

“No, she is. She’s always at my house; she likes talking to my mom.”

“I’m sure she does.”

This was all becoming too complicated. My head hurt. “I better get the deliveries done.” I walked to the back of the store, loaded up the box with the deliveries, and walked back to the front. “See you,” I said, passing the front register.

“I’m still grounded,” Donna said. She smiled. “Can I get a ride home?”





17

I played out the scenario of dropping Donna at her home a hundred times as I made my deliveries. In some I initiated the kiss. In others she led, but this time I eagerly responded. I breathed into my cupped hands to check my breath. If I had the chance, I’d get a pack of gum from my father’s store.

Just after closing, we all left the store together, but this time when she got into the Falcon, Donna said, “I’m cold. Can you put the top up?”

“Sure,” I said, though the temperature was warmer than the last time I’d driven her home.

As we drove the El Camino Real, Donna said, “I need to go to school; I left my math book in my locker, and I have a test on Monday. I don’t dare tell my father. He’ll just say I’m irresponsible. Would you mind?”

“No, I don’t mind, but will you be able to get in the building on a Saturday? They lock down Saint Joe’s like a prison on the weekends.”

Donna smiled across the car at me. “I don’t think it will be a problem.”

Burlingame High School looked like an East Coast college campus, with an expansive front lawn and a grove of evergreen and redwood trees. The three-story white building reminded me of the stately southern mansions I’d seen in Gone with the Wind, with wide staircases leading to a colonnade entrance and tall doors. I had played youth baseball at the field next to the school for years, which was accessed through a driveway on the edge of the campus. Donna directed me through the parking lot but had me turn toward the baseball grandstands.

“The school is the other way,” I said.

“Park behind the backstop,” she said.

Confused, I pulled behind the backstop, and before I had shifted the car into park or could ask any questions, Donna had slid across the seat and smothered my mouth with hers. I didn’t have to worry about turning off the engine. Donna did that for me, all the while continuing to kiss me, her tongue exploring, tiny moans coming from her throat. I felt horribly ill prepared, clumsy, and unsure what the hell I was supposed to do. Donna took my left hand and placed it firmly on her right breast. “Rub them,” she said. “Like this.”

She moved my hand over her breast, and I felt the padding and wires of her bra beneath her sweater. I was just trying to keep up when she took my hand again and lowered it beneath her sweater. I felt the warmth of her skin and didn’t think anything had ever felt so good.

I was wrong. She stopped kissing me and sat back. “Wait.” With a quick move, the sweater was over her head and on the car seat. She tousled her hair, which fell in curls to her shoulders. Her pale-blue bra was much larger and seemingly more sturdily built than any I had ever seen my mother wear. Donna reached behind her back like a contortionist, and the two cups popped as if under pressure. She smiled down at me. “Do you want to see them?”

I couldn’t swallow. I’m not sure I was breathing.

“I know you watch me, Sam.”

Her fingers moved to the wires at the bottom of the two cups, but again she paused, the longest moment of my life. “You have to ask,” she said.

But I had been struck dumb.

“Say, ‘Show me your tits.’”

The words blurted from me, sounding like a foreign language and much louder than necessary. “Show me your tits!”

Donna’s grin broadened into a huge smile. “Please . . .”

“Please,” I said.

“See? Polite and cute.” She lifted the cups, and her breasts fell forward, two mounds of flesh with nipples the size of pancakes, and the same rich brown color.

“Do you want to touch them? You have to ask.”

“Can I touch them?” I said.

“Please . . .”

“Please.”

She took my hand, instructing until instinct and desire took over, and I rubbed and squeezed. Her nipples hardened.

“You’re turning me on,” she moaned, and I thought those the best four words any girl would ever utter to me. She fell forward and pressed my face in the canyon of her cleavage. I was lost in warmth and darkness and didn’t want to ever surface. Then I felt her hand at my belt, tugging, undoing the clasp, the button of my jeans. She took a moment to unzip my fly. I felt her hand slide beneath the waistband of my briefs, and at the first sensation of the warmth of her fingers, I exploded.





18

As Donna pulled her sweater over her head, I sat looking out the window, feeling embarrassed. Donna’s fingers touched my chin and turned my head. She was smiling.