91

Seven and a half months after the Fall of Ilium:

Alys and Ulysses—his friends called him Sam—told their parents they were going to the Lakeshore Drive-in to watch the double feature of To Kill a Mockingbird and Dr. No. It was October and the Lakeshore was the only drive-in movie theater still open since it had portable in-car heaters on the stands as well as speakers, and usually, or at least in the four months since Sam had gotten his solo driver’s permit, the drive-in movie had sufficed for their passion, but tonight, this special night, they drove out through fields of harvest-ready corn to a private place at the end of a long lane.

“What if Mom and Dad ask me about the plot of the movies?” asked Alys. She was wearing the usual white blouse, tan sweater loose over her shoulders, dark skirt, stockings, and rather formal shoes for a drive-in movie date. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail.

“You know about the book To Kill a Mockingbird. Just tell them that Gregory Peck is good as Atticus Finch.”

“Is he Atticus Finch?”

“Who else could he be?” said Sam. “The Negro?”

“What about the other movie?”

“It’s a spy movie about some British guy… James Bond, I think the guy’s name is. The president likes the book the movie is based on. Just tell your dad that it was exciting, full of shooting and stuff.”

Sam parked his dad’s 1957 Chevy Bel Air at the end of the lane, beyond the ruins and in sight of the lake. They’d driven past the Lakeshore Drive-in and around the oversized pond that provided the “lake” for the theater’s name. Far across the water, Sam could see the small rectangle of white that was the drive-in movie screen and beyond that the glow of their little town’s lights against the low October sky, and much farther beyond that, the brighter glow of the real city to and from which their fathers commuted each day. Once upon a time, probably back during the Depression, there’d been a farm at the end of this lane, but now the house was gone—only overgrown foundations remaining, those and the trees lining the driveway in. The trees were losing their leaves. It was getting chilly as it got closer to Halloween.

“Can you leave the motor on?” asked Alys.

“Sure.” Sam started the engine again.

They began kissing almost immediately. Sam pulled the girl to him, set his left hand on her right breast, and within seconds their mouths were warm and open and wet, their tongues busy. They’d discovered this pleasure only this summer.

He fumbled with the buttons of her blouse. The buttons were too small and they went the wrong way. She let the loose sweater fall and helped him with the most troublesome button, the one under her soft, curved collars. “Did you watch the president’s speech tonight on TV?”

Sam didn’t want to talk about the president. Leaving the lowest buttons on her blouse buttoned, breathing rapidly, he slipped his hand inside her loose blouse and cupped her breast in its rather stiff little brassiere.

“Did you?” asked Alys.

“Yeah. We all did.”

“Do you think there’s going to be war?”

“Naw,” said Sam. He kissed her again, trying to bring her back to the passion at hand, but her tongue had gone into hiding.

When they broke apart long enough for her to pull the tails of her blouse out of her skirt, dropping the shirt behind her—her body and bra pale in the dim reflected light from the sky and in the yellow glow of the dashboard radio and dials—she said, “My father says it could mean war.”

“It’s just a lousy quarantine,” said Sam, both arms around her, his fingers fumbling with the still-strange hooks and eyes of her brassiere. “It’s not like we’re invading Cuba or anything,” he added. He couldn’t get the damned thing loose.

Alys smiled in the soft light, put her hands behind her, and the bra miraculously fell free.

Sam began nuzzling and kissing her breasts. They were very young breasts—larger and firmer than an adolescent girl’s little bud breasts, but still not fully formed. The areolae were as puffy as the nipples; Sam noticed this in the light from the radio dial, and then he lowered his flushed face to nuzzle and suck again.

“Easy, easy!” said Alys. “Not so rough. You’re always so rough.”

“Sorry,” said Sam. He began kissing her again. This time her lips were warm, her tongue was present… and busy. He felt himself getting more excited as he pressed her back toward the passenger door of the Bel Air. The front seat was wider and deeper and softer than the davenport in their parlor at home. He had to wiggle to get out from under the giant steering wheel and he had to be careful—even here at the end of Miller’s Lane, he didn’t want to accidentally honk the horn.

Lying half atop her, his erection pressing against her left leg, his hands busy on her breasts and his tongue busy finding her tongue, Sam became so excited that he almost ejaculated the first instant she set her long fingers on his corduroyed thigh.

“But what if the Russians do attack?” Alys whispered when he raised his face for a moment to breathe. The car was too damned hot. He turned off the ignition with his left hand.

“Stop that,” he said. He knew what she was doing. She’d chosen the track and line. She wanted him thinking about which one it might be. He wanted only to appreciate what the boy-Sam was thinking and feeling.

“Ouch,” said Alys. He had pressed her back so that her shoulders were against the large door handle. He was lowering his face toward her for more kissing when she whispered, “Do you want to get in the backseat?”

Sam could hardly breathe. That phrase had been their signal the last weeks for the serious stuff—not just getting to third base, which he had several times now with Alys, but going all the way, which they’d come close to twice but not quite achieved.

Alys went around her side—prissily pulling her blouse on, but not buttoning it again, he noticed—and Sam went around the driver’s side. The overhead light came on until they’d secured both the rear doors. Sam rolled his window down a bit so that he could have some air—he still seemed to be having a problem breathing normally—and also so he could hear any car approaching down Miller’s Lane in case Barney happened to come down here in his old black-and-white police cruiser left over from before the War.

The two had to get reintroduced all over again, but within moments, he had his shirt open to feel her breasts against his chest and Alys sprawled lengthwise on the wide seat, him half on her, half falling off, her legs partially raised and his bent strangely because they were both taller than the backseat was wide.

He slipped his right hand up her leg, feeling her own warm breath come more quickly on his cheek when he paused in kissing her. She was wearing stockings. Sam had never felt anything so soft. He felt the garter where the nylon stockings attached to the…

“Oh, come on,” said Ulysses, laughing and speaking through the boy despite himself. “This has to be an anachronism.”

Alys smiled up at him and he saw the real woman through the girl’s dilated pupils. “It’s not,” she whispered, giving him the full length of her tongue now and sliding her hand down, rubbing his erection through the slightly dampened corduroy. “Honest,” she said, still rubbing him. “It’s called a panty girdle and it’s what she wears. Pantyhose haven’t been invented yet.”

“Shut up,” said Sam, closing his eyes as he kissed her and pressed his lower body against her playing hand. “Shut up, please.”

He couldn’t get the metal ring out from around the round snap-stud that she later explained was called the “garter”—it just wouldn’t move. Sam kept moving his hand from between her legs—where the fabric was wet, he was sure he could feel her warming to him through the fabric—back to the goddamned sonofabitching garter thing.