She Rides the Unicorn

Spooky stared for a long time with unblinking dark eyes as if drinking me in. "Same with Suzie?"

"I thought I loved Suzie. When she died, I knew it."

Spooky turned to the sky, once again on her back. A tear chased down her cheek. "Randi, that is so beautiful. I'd never want to do that to anyone."

I touched my finger to the tear, and then put my finger in my mouth. "I'm not sure you have a choice. You can't argue with a seashell."

"I lied to you," Spooky confessed.

"I know."

"You can't Ð"

Spooky turned her head, looking at me with painful eyes. "But, I Ð"

I waved the seashell. "I was window-shopping when you were buying flip-flops. I found the perfect shell. Does it really matter if God, a bird or you put it in the sand for me to find? Besides, I lied to you, too."

"About?"

"Wanting to kiss you the first night we met."

She watched my eyes, calculating. "You just wanted to one-up me."

I smiled with a shrug. "I did want to kiss you back in the room, though."

Spooky rolled back to look at the sky again. "Randi?"

"Yeah?"

"Want to get something to eat?"

"Might keep from getting a whistle blown at me."

4

I liked the feel of the shore, which could have had something to do with being away from my life. Standing alone in a crowd, I wondered, maybe I dreamed if Suzie had lived, if she and I wouldn't spend time like Janet and me. I wanted to shower with Janet, us, naked, together, the hot, steamy water rushing over us. If she asked, I would have said yes. If she stepped in, I wouldn't have said no.

Like my soul mate, like my other self, when I told Janet: "I need to take a walk. Alone," she smiled with a nod.

"I understand."

I'm glad I didn't have to explain, though I'm not sure I could.

In the fifteen minutes I stood on the boardwalk, leaning on the railing, watching the ocean and the stars, as if standing in line to buy tickets to a movie, four guys hit on me in turn, the next pickup line worse than the previous. I didn't look their way, simply stating I was pondering the wonder of God, or quote any passage from the Bible. My experience has taught me that'll send 99 out of 100 guys running, sometimes screaming.

The room sat crowded with darkness, the balcony door open, whispers of distant human activity backdropped by what sounded like the ocean, which could have been my imagination. I sat on the bed, high and firm.

"I wanted to go to sleep early," Janet said from under the light sheet.

"I know. You mentioned the sunrise."

"Did you want to close things up, put the air on?"

I slipped my tank top over my head, folded it, placing it on the floor. "Nah. As long as it's below 90 degrees, I'm OK." I kicked off my flip-flops, and then released the snap of my shorts. "Are you naked?"

"Yes."

"I never shared a bed with anyone."

"But your teddy bear."

"Yeah, he was naked, too. Bare bear."

Standing, I removed and folded by shorts and underwear in turn, dropping each on my tank top. Illuminated by the subtle light from outside, I could feel Janet's eyes on me. "Can you tell I blushed?"

"Yes."

I wrestled my way under the sheet. Janet rolled, facing away from me.

"Thanks for coming along."

With a light brush of my hand, her hair fell away from her neck, my lips coming firmly just under her ear. "Thanks for having me," I whispered, snuggling in, my arm over her.

She shivered, giggling.

5

I realized many things at once: I wasn't in my own bed, I was awake, dawn was not far off and Janet watched me from the chair.

I stretched. "Hey."

"Hey."

"Is that coffee I smell?"

"Yeah. I didn't want to wake you too early."

"Oh, I could fall in love with you."

"You found the perfect shell. Sleep well?"

"Surprisingly so." I sat, my legs over the side of the bed. With some effort, I tried to wrestle the sheet around me, failed, finally sitting naked in the dim light, accepting a Styrofoam cup, coffee black, no sugar, as I like it.

"Been a long time since I've slept with an arm around me. I didn't know how much I missed it."

I sipped. "New experience for me. I could get used to it."

"My brother."

I prompted Janet with my patented narrow eyes.

"We never did anything," she disclaimed, shifting on the chair, sitting erect, looking out the balcony door. "God, Randi, you can never repeat any of this."

"Goes without saying."

"My parents, the perfect public couple, used to fight all the time, a function of their strong personalities. They still do, but nothing like back then. We were terrified."

"I just had my teddy bear."

"We knew, together, we could face anything."

"You still close?"

"He's dead."

"I don't have the words."

"There are none. Life hurts. A lot. Anyone tells you any differently, they're selling something." Sitting back in the chair, she collapsed like a ragdoll. "I was seventeen, him nineteen. I was drunk. I was driving. Dad got the story and any charges buried." She rolled her eyes. "Get dressed. No excuses. The accident wasn't my fault. A guy ran a red light, hit us in the passenger side. Pinned in the car, I held his hand, watched his eyes as he died."

I bit my lip, nodding, helpless to do anything about the un-healable pus festering scar across her soul. "Good coffee, thanks."

"The coffee sucks."

I laughed. "Yeah, it does."

Janet laughed with me.

We were not alone on the jetty, three people, not together, fishing. The ocean waves gently caressed the beach and the rocks. Janet and I held hands as we awkwardly danced across the jetty. I felt inept at the task, yet comfortable with that.

We sat, still holding hands, the horizon aglow, the seawater reaching up to tickle our feet.

"I come here every year, Randi, alone. Once in the week, I come sit in this spot as the sun comes up and recite a poem. It's called: She Rides the Unicorn."

Punishing waves like a storm-driven ocean,

De-speciate, deconstruct, disassemble.

Pain

beyond blue

beyond red

beyond white.

Until.

Until she's no longer of our world.

The sun, forever laughing,

washes down,

painting her pure face.

Effortlessly,

she rides the unicorn.

White, pure, uncorrupted

as in the beginning

primordial power engorging her being.

Solid earth melts to marsh,

Reeds greeting her,

touching, swaying,

kissing her face.

Gossamer flows wave with her hair.

The beach,

sand like her flesh.

Breathtaking.

The ocean mocks her beginning.

Gulls shout her name.

The unicorn rears,

dropping hoofs to sand.

She leans forward,

an embrace, patting.

"I think I'd like to go home now."

She sighs,

raspberry lips caress an ear.

Perplexed,

the unicorn shakes her primordial head.

"You cannot."

"Why?" she asks.

The girl, her question breathed a million times

always to get the same response:

"You're not real."

My head dropped to Janet's shoulder, her arm around me. I cried without restraint, the salt of my body melding with the ocean.

6

"De-speciate, deconstruct, disassemble," I whispered, into my towel, the sun roasting my back.

"Yeah."

"De-speciate, means: what I think it does?"

"That's when we make up that a human being isn't a human being, for the purpose of exploitation."

"Could say objectify."

"Could, but it doesn't have the 'd' sound. And, de-speciate keeps the being a being, just not a human being."

"I have a request."

"Anything." Her fingernails ran down my back.

I shivered. "I want to get naked with you again. I want to hold you as tight as I can for as long as I can, until I forget where I stop and you begin."

"Can we get lunch first?" Her lips came firmly to under and behind my ear.

The lifeguard blew his whistle.

"That isn't for us, is it?"

"No."

The ocean stretched out forever before me, my hands on the balcony railing. "In this moment," I whispered: "Life makes flawless terrible sense."

Janet curled around me from behind, her hands snaking under my tank top, palms cupping my adequate breasts, her thumbs circling my nipples, her right leg wrapping my leg. "How so?"

"Life hurts."

"Yeah."

"Where my life didn't make sense, was though I knew life hurt, I somehow thought it shouldn't."

Her lips touched just under my right ear. "Yeah. People from shrinks to women on TV to the pastor down the street or just about anyone you ask will tell you that you can heal, that you can have closure, that you, too, can be happy."

"The people selling something."

"Yeah, even if what they're selling is them trying to sell themselves on the idea."

I sighed. "Reality fades away, Janet, when you hold me. I can say I'm happy. What are you selling?"

With a soft giggle, she told me: "Just because life hurts, doesn't mean we can't touch moments that don't hurt so much."

I wormed free of her hug, twisting around, her hands still under my tank, my hands working up her shirt, holding firm to her waist, our foreheads touching, me watching up at her eyes. "You, Janet, are a moment that doesn't hurt so much."

She closed her eyes, sighed, her tongue wetting her lips.

My lips came to hers, gently, like a kitten's paw on unfamiliar carpet.

7

Oh, man, I thought, struggling Janet's underwear up my sweaty thighs. I'd stuck with full panty briefs over the years, Janet wearing thongs. I liked the look and the feel on myself, but that could have to do with the underwear being Janet's. Watching Janet smile in her sleep, I put my palms to my face. Oh, man, I smell like you.

The hot air of the summer afternoon and recent activities drew the primal salt from our bodies. Primal salt, like the ocean, a reminder of where we slithered from.

"Primal," I whispered through my hands, blushing, wondering whether my primal screams disturbed the neighbors. I had sex before, such that it was. The afternoon demonstrated I'd never made love. "Moments that don't hurt so much," I reminded myself.

"Yeah," Janet agreed softly from the bed. "Is that my underwear?"

"Yeah."

"Looks good on you. I need a shower."

"So do I, but I'm not going to take one."

She stared for a moment, then said what only my soul mate, my other self could say: "Because we smell like each other."

We dressed in each other's clothes, only pausing twice to make out.

8

Like Karl and Gretchen's rose bushes in The Snow Queen, our hands tethered across the small table, me drinking Janet, Janet drinking me.

I wanted to say: I've never been really kissed before. I never really made love before, I'd never been touched so deeply before, all the words arraigned in my head falling well short of what I was feeling.

"Moments." Janet breathed softly. "That don't hurt so much. Touching, out beyond where the words can walk."

"I was looking for just those words."

Our hands crawled over each other's like hungry kittens jockeying for their mother's nipples.

She bit her lip. "I need to ask you a favor. A big favor. I don't think you'll understand." Her eyes held mine.

"Fire away. I am your servant."

With a smile, she asked: "I'd like you Ð I need you Ð I want you to be my maid of honor."

My patented and copyrighted narrowed eyes sprung into action. "Of course," I answered, instead of asking a volley of questions. "What's the date?"

She looked away, across the room, out the window. "I don't even know who, yet."

I nodded.

"It's the legacy." Her eyes returned to mine.

Again, I gave a subtle nod, my hands on hers.

"I'm sorry Ð"

"Don't be. I'm not."

Janet took a turn nodding.

"You have to be publically perfect. You have to marry a man, have a baby. Wait. You have to squeeze out babies until you get a boy? You'll play house. Your husband won't even know you're playacting." I sighed. "Maybe you'll fight all the time in private, scaring the kids."

Janet shrugged. "If my brother didn't die, the responsibility wouldn't fall to me."

"What if you didn't Ð"

"My parent's needs, the family legacy's requirements are more important than my personal desires."

I rolled my eyes. "Laying next to you, smelling as much like you as you the other night, I imagined taking you home, us holding hands, me announcing that we were lovers, that we were getting married, going to spend our lives together."

"I know how this story is going to end."

"Yeah, huh? My mom would fall to the floor as if shot, hands over her face crying, worried about what the old women I don't even know at the church were going to think. Dad, though he's never hit me, would likely make an exception, pounding the piss out of me until his arms got tired." I shrugged. "I do understand."

"My parents are public figures. Dad chairs a board at our church, a board that determines family values."

I winked. "Sure, Janet. I'll be your maid of honor. I'll be the godmother to your children."

A tear oozed from her right eye. "Thanks."

Life made terrible sense. We'd pack, making out again, leading to a delay in our departure. Our corporal foils would get in the van, crossing back over the reeds and marshes. We'd never leave the beach, our souls resting on the jetty each morning, watching the sunrise, singing a Siren's song.

We'd never leave because, as the unicorn told us, we're not real.

Epilog

The weather had been perfect. As we pulled up to the curb at my house, I said: "One, two, three, four."

"Huh?"

"Raindrops on the windshield. It's been a good week."

"I like rain. I like counting the raindrops, too."

I shrugged. "Might as well. It's the only thing you can really count on."

"Raindrops and fingers. Do you ski?"

"No, but I can learn."

"Third week of December."

"I'll mark my calendar." I put my fingers to my lips, then to Janet's mouth. "I have this very cool raised lily design with a rearing unicorn I did for an art project in my senior year, kinda wraps around the left side of the page. I'll show you. It'll be perfect for your invitations." I climbed out. "Call me."

The Lexus pulled away. Halfway up my walk, my cell phone rang.