There she goes snaking her way around the topic of love.  She's all, talking about their future together and how many kids for the maybe.  Her hand is resting on Tom's inner thigh and the clear intention is that it could move up if the conversation goes right.  Tom's dink is not waiting around.  The dink is starting the journey, lifting denim at every small push forward all by itself moving toward the hand.  Breathes get shallow.

Lilly shows ache in her eyebrows.  Worry lines don't belong on a grown woman in an 89 Ford F150, some boy's first truck.  Lilly says, "If our first is a boy, will we give him your name?"

Tom leans his head back against the empty hook of the gunrack, lets a moan out and slips his back into a hunch.  His ass slides under Lilly's hand as if one of those guys who can grab a table cloth out from under a laid out table, were to slide one back in, instead.  Lilly moves her hand.

Tom sucks his teeth.  Light from the radio make the windows into mirrors and Tom takes a good long hard look at the horny scumbag in the driver's seat.  Then he turns to Lilly's warmth and kisses her.  Her neck bends back and he rides it down until he is on top of her.  His penis has stopped and it can't get started up no matter how good the breasts of Lilly feel under his sweaty hand.

Lilly has a story and a half.  She was happy married with baby twins and a double wide.  Her husband just started working in the Mill, and the money was rolling in.  Everyone, everyone knew that there went one happy woman, just shining it out everywhere, kindness and love.  The little girls shined from the obvious result of love and attention and care.

Then the fire killed them all except her.  Lilly has permanent burn scars on the inside of her hands, among other places, where she held on to the burning metal door frame while fireman tried to pull her away.  Lilly spent two weeks on the lawn of the burnt wreck of a trailer, only going away for the funerals, and then she moved into her old bedroom at her parent's house, and she stayed there for a month and a little longer; so much so that townspeople might remark on the withdrawing of another as "going Lilly."

After that she haunted the town like a guilty conscious, reminding people how badly they deal with loss and grief, and also fucking any boy who could arrange privacy however fleeting and promise a future.

Poor Tom.  Tom is the vain virgin.  He is the good looking boy who needs to live up to expectations so lies when he doesn't have to.  Only he knows he is a virgin, and he desperately needs sex.  He aches for it.  He needs the release, but more, he needs the experience.  He knows that sooner or later he won't be able to bluff it.  Tom sniffs Lilly's neck.  The smell is skin oil and cigarette smoke and the empty pain of wood ashes.  He sits up.  He reaches for the cigarettes.

Lilly says, "I think two babies, close together."

Tom the pleaser, Tom the good guy, Tom the dirty horny manipulator says, "Yeah, my younger brother and me was sometimes the only friends we had.  I'd hate to give a child loneliness."

Lilly smiles her arms inviting.  "That is exactly right."  She says, "Give us a kiss."

Tom lights a smoke and unrolls the window.  He holds the smoke in his left hand so he can rest his right on her bent knee.  "I don't love you, Lilly.  I'm sorry."  Tom says those words looking at himself in the windshield.  His reflection is distorted from the curve.

Lilly lights her own smoke.  Instead of moving away, she moves closer, snuggles into his side and rests her head on Tom's shoulder.

To Tom, this feels so good he thinks he might cry.

Lilly catches his eyes in the reflection.  She looks at him.  He looks at him.  She says, "You lie to your Mom.  Do you love her?"

"Yes."

"You lie to your friends about things you've done and stuff that happened.  Do you love your friends?"

"I do."

Lilly puts one hand over Tom's heart.  "I love you, Tom, Tommy, sweet boy.  I do."

Tom is a smart kid.  He figures it out in the time it takes to inhale the entire rest of his cigarette in one gigantic painful drag.  He knows it all, and knowing eases his guilt and lays upon him a burden ten times worse.  He wants to cry, but decides to wait until he can do the crying, while panting over the still beautiful, youthful form of Lilly.

"I love you, too, Lilly," He says, leaning over to ease her pain, and sacrifice his own.

Author Bio

David Bulley promises never to teach creative writing, anywhere, ever.