Desert nights...

Thirty Million

Reasons

I threw myself across the big, blue-green bed and tried to sort out my feelings. Fear, dread, gratitude, suspicion, shame, guilt--they all made a kind of emotional stew inside me, bubbling away and overcooking my brain. I felt sick and for a moment wondered if I were going to lose the dinner I'd eaten, but the nausea passed as I lay there.

There was something else, though. A curiousity, an excitement--it was like getting picked out of high school to join the Dodgers' farm team even though you'd only ever been third string. It was like being told you have a terminal disease that will make all your doctors famous. It was like winning the lottery but thinking that somehow you'd cheated and might be found out. It was a twisty, convouluted feeling too complicated to describe in any sensible terms.

Ed had won the lottery. That was where this all started; would he have ever done this--asked me to dress up like a girl--if he hadn't won thirty million dollars? His motives seemed murky, mysterious, but I didn't want to believe anything bad about him.

I sat up and wiped my eyes, looking at myself in the mirror. How could he have ever gotten such a fantasy about me into his head? I'm not tall and I suppose I have small bones. I didn't think I looked particularly girlish but Ed really wasn't the only one to say something like that. Even back in grade school, I got teased and sometimes bullied for being a "sissy".

I never understood that. I didn't play with the girls, unless forced out of whatever the boys were doing. The only sport I was ever any good at was baseball or softball. And I wasn't very good at that. I couldn't hit or throw very well and the only reason I ever got picked for a team was my ability to be in the way when the ball was hit. I didn't always catch it but any grounder hit near me was very unlikely to get past me.

Okay, I'd been accused of throwing like a girl many times when I failed to turn the double play. But I'd hit a lot of sacrifice bunts, too. Once we won a big game because I batted the runner on second over to third and a throwing error allowed him to come home. Coach Lowell had actually put me in as a pinch hitter that time, tie score, one out, bottom of the eighth.

"If you had any real speed, Kitten," he had said--he called me that, too, "I'd use you more often. But at least you're not afraid to stand in against a fastball and bunt it. And you don't mind playing for the sacrifice."

I'd felt really good about that, and Coach had let me play second base in the ninth inning; I just missed turning a line drive into a double play. My throw hit the runner in the back, diving back to first. Coach Lowell had congratulated me on that play, too. "Good effort, Kitten," he'd said. I'd caught the line drive as much with my body as with my glove and the force of it had knocked the wind out of me. I barely remembered making the throw at all.

We got eliminated in the first round of the Sectional Tournament the next week and Coach told the team we'd all done well. But he singled me out among the bench players and said, "We could have done better, I suppose. If we all played as hard as Kitten Prentiss does when he gets the chance, maybe we could have been State Champs."

Jay Clemmons had winked at me about then and one of the other players scowled. I got razzed a bit later, but even that felt good. I wasn't able to go out for baseball my senior year because of how busy things got at the deli and Alison was taking some classes at the junior college, so that junior year run at the Divisional Championship was the glory of my athletic career. The senior team made it just as far without me, but no farther.

And now. Now what?

A rich old man had fallen in love with the idea of me as a girl? No more working in the deli, I could go to college if I wanted to...but would I have to wear a dress to do it? I shook my head; Ed was my knight in shining armor come to take me away to the ball. I stifled my laughter with a pillow at that image.

The whole situation made me tingle like I'd always imagined the Star Trek transporter effect must feel like. It couldn't be real. I lay on the bed for a long time, trying to think, trying to imagine what my life was going to be like now.

It was still early for me, not yet ten, though Palm Springs had been deeply shaded from the late summer sun by Mt. San Jacinto for hours already. I must have dozed off because I woke up scared and confused. It was completely dark in the room and I didn't know where I was.

I figured it out pretty quickly though; the view of Mt. San Jacinto from the east side is considerably different from the one I was used to; the lights of the tramway against the black mountain made a distinct reminder. I figured out that I was still in the hotel room and the previous weird day had not been a dream. The a/c had made the room actually chilly and I rolled myself up in the bedspread while I thought about things.

Another set of lights, a digital clock built into the TV, told me that it was just after midnight. I hadn't been asleep that long.

The Palm Springs hotel room was about twice as big as my room back home and the queen-size bed very different from my narrow twin bed. I considered getting up and dressing for bed but I just lay there awhile longer. I'd probably had some weird dreams but I didn't remember them.

It was my first night spent away from home since Jay Clemmons and I went out to his uncle's in 29 Palms last April to look after the place while Uncle Pete Clemmons went to Florida to bury his wife's mother. It was Spring Break and Uncle Pete hadn't wanted the house to be empty while bands of drunken college students roamed the desert.

We spent three days there and mostly had fun. Kind of like when we were younger and I used to go over to Jay's to spend the night reading comic books under the covers. Only, at Uncle Pete's we had spent the first evening looking over his collection of girly magazines and watching a few of his porno videos. I'd never told anyone about that time and I sincerely hoped Jay hadn't either.

But it was how I knew that I wasn't gay.

* * *

It started with just horsing around. We'd been swimming in the morning after watching the XXX videos and Jay had teased me about keeping my T-shirt on while in the pool. I burn easily, everybody in my family does and sunblock washes off if you stay in the pool long enough. Jay claimed that the wet shirt made it look like I actually had titties.

I'd got annoyed about the teasing and had gone into the house to make us something to eat for lunch. Jay came in behind me and grabbed me and started tickling.

I'm horribly ticklish. I tried to retaliate but Jay is six inches taller than me and forty pounds heavier. We ended up falling on the floor laughing and Jay landed on top of me. And I felt his hard-on against my stomach, right through his swim trunks.

"What the heck, Jay?" I yelped. "Get off me!"

"It's okay, Kit," he said. "No harm done, we're just having fun. You aren't hurt, are you?"

"No." I pushed at him. "Get off, get off!"

He took his time but he looked almost as confused as I felt. "Sorry, Kit," he mumbled. But he stared again at my chest as we got up.

I knew that something had happened that shouldn't have. I felt uncomfortable and my chest itched and there was a tight feeling in my groin I didn't want to think about. "Do you want anything for lunch?" I snapped.

"Yeah," he said slowly. "Can you make some of those ham sandwiches with the creamy mustard pickle spread you make in the deli?"

"I dunno," I said. "That's Mom's secret recipe, Uncle Pete may not have the stuff to make it."

"Well, that's what I'd like. Look around the kitchen and see what you'd need, I can take a bike down to the store?"

Maybe he suddenly wanted to get away from me as much as I wanted to get away from him. I nodded and went to the kitchen to check things out. Pete's wife, Aunt Shellie, had a well-stocked kitchen and I could have made the sauce with what she had there, but I wanted to get rid of Jay for a bit.

He watched me from the door; I ignored him till I had a list. "Here," I said, thrusting it at him. "And try to get the brands I wrote down, it makes a difference."

"Sure, Kit." He grinned, wide blue eyes crinkling in amusement. It always amused him when I got annoyed at him, for some reason. His blond hair was all mussed up, standing out every which way; I remember wanting to smooth it down. Either that or hit him with a skillet.

While he was gone, I went to rinse the chlorine off and change clothes. It took me a long time to decide what to wear. I had wanted pants and a long sleeved shirt to cover up with but it seemed silly in such heat--even in April, 29 Palms can be in the low hundreds.

I suddenly remembered that I had ended up wearing something very like the polo shirt and bright shorts Ed had bought for me earlier today. The whole thing was disturbing.

When Jay got back we didn't say anything about what had happened. Jay suggested that we have beer with out lunches but I vetoed that. My Mom would ask and I knew I couldn't lie to her. I made the sandwiches and we ate and drank milk; Jay finishing three glasses almost as quick as I could pour them. Then we took naps in our own rooms, the two extra bedrooms in Uncle Pete's huge hacienda.

Later that night, we had been watching more XXX videos. I felt restless and uncomfortable but Jay really seemed to be enjoying them. The women all had fantastic bodies, most of them obviously with breast implants. The men, for the most part, were less remarkable but a couple of them were built like the guys on the covers of the muscle and fitness magazines we had in the deli.

I found myself comparing them to Jay. Jay had a few pimples and he didn't really need to shave much yet. When he wore his glasses, he looked studious and trustworthy. But when he took them off, you sort of noticed his blocky chin and high cheekbones. And the spark of mischief in his eyes that had often gotten us in trouble when we were younger.

I wasn't as easy to talk into adventures like playing Batman and Robin on the roof as I had been when we were ten. Jay still had the scar on his leg from another escapade in the junkyard; he'd made such a scary Terminator robot that I had hit him with a piece of wood, but I hadn't noticed the nail in one end. I remembered him lying back on the fender of an old pickup and laughing his head off about it while the blood ran down into his shoe and I ran off crying to get some help.

Watching the videos had become simultaneously boring and uncomfortable. I didn't feel the least turned on by them and that worried me a bit. Weird idea. Jay seemed to have decided that they were boring, too. "I think you're only supposed to watch one of these at a time, more than that and they start to look pretty stupid," he commented.

"Wanna see what's on the satellite?" I suggested.

"Nah," said Jay. "All television is boring. Unless you want to?"

I used the remote to turn off the TV and player by way of answer. "Wanna snack?"

He just grinned and shook his head.

"Well, what do you want to do?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," he said. And I swear he gave me a very odd look. "Wanna go swimming again?"

"It's dark," I pointed out.

"There are pool lights but...they'll attract bugs. It's practically a full moon outside, it isn't that dark."

"Huh," I said. "I dunno..."

"C'mon," said Jay. "With the sun down you won't have to wear a shirt to swim. Heck, if we don't turn on the pool lights, we can skinny dip. There aren't any neighbors close enough to see." He grinned.

He was right, one of the odd things about some of the desert towns is how far apart people build. Uncle Pete's nearest neighbor was as far away as what would have been a city block in any normal town...and nothing in between but scrub and cactus. And the funny trees they have in 29 Palms, not palm trees but Joshua trees that look like something from an alien planet.

After considering it, I agreed to part of the suggestion. "Okay, but I'm still going to wear trunks."

"Suit yourself," he said. "I'm not going to bother." And he stood up right there and began taking off his clothes.

"Don't leave those in the living room," I warned him, retreating to the room where I had put my stuff. The whole thing was beginning to seem unreal.

"Yes, mother," he said very sarcastically.

I closed the door and tried to think about skinny dipping. It wasn't as if we hadn't been naked together before. We often stripped and showered together in gym and during the summer playing Legion ball. We'd even been skinny dipping before in one of those mountain pools in a campground near Cuyemaca Falls. I mostly remembered freezing-cold water that time, and we had been only ten.

Somehow this would be different. Maybe it was because of all the porno videos we had been watching. The night seemed charged with sex and thoughts of sex. For most people, nakedness equals sex and I felt confused and fearful. I undressed slowly and laid my clothes in a careful pile on the bed; when you live in a house with nine other people, being neat really pays off.

Jay called from outside, "The water is perfect, Kit!" I could hear him splashing around, sound carries forever on the desert and the only competing noises were most of a mile away.

I stood there naked only a second, then grabbed a towel from the bathroom and headed for the pool.

*****