But no, upon closer scrutiny the glow was but a book--my old yellow Pan, feeling younger for the ride it just had on Coral's lap.
Funny, what the elder makes out in the dark--makes out when he can no longer look at the younger sitting in his shack; can no longer look at her for the orgasm she's just had.
There, standing upside down in the corner was my scythe, right?
No, I had no scythe.
What was it then; the number seven?
No, I only had six.
Or, did I have seven?
"Anton, why don't you say something?"
I didn't say anything.
"Anton, let it go. So I had a . . . big deal."
"Jeez, Coral, maybe you are mistaken. Maybe what you had was something else."
I, rocking on my bucket, was dead serious, of course, but now I had the full-of-life Coral laughing herself off my fish chair.
When I was six or seven, I had my women all figured out--I'd marry an Indian Princess when I got big, live happily ever after. At 29, divorce papers in hand, I figured it was time to reassess my game plan where my women were concerned. After a year of looking into this--using wine bottle after wine bottle as crystal balls, of course--I recalled a number I'd plumb forgot. A lucky number that had come to me on my way to college--the number seven. How lucky; though 29, I had six whole women to sleep with before I'd used my seven up.
Why a total of seven women?
Don't ask me. Ask the gods who chalk up such things.
Well, time gets the better of a guy, and here he sits, in his shack, in the dark of the dawn of his middle age, six of those seven women chalked up already.
Or, was it seven?
Waiting for Coral to laugh herself out, I turned the gods who kept score of such things. Looking up, I saw no gods, but in the depressions of the corrugated skylight I saw what appeared to be pieces of chalk. I imagined a hand of a god, then, picking up a piece.
I got my eyes back on giddy Coral--I didn't want to know the score.
Funny, how a guy--who has had only six women--sees parts of those six in every new girl he meets. Take my last girlfriend, Rachel; she, too, got all giddy after sex. And those cravings Rachel used to get after sex; was Coral going to get those too? No, Coral, don't you go sweet-talking me into running out to get the ice cream. Trent's won that contract.
"Anton," Coral said, sobering, "really, it's no big deal."
"No big deal for you, maybe."
"Fine; make a mountain out of a foothill--that's what you do."
"I make no mountain," I said, relieved to be venting finally. "But that foothill you just had, you might think of me, what I'm going through, sitting over here--here in the dark, trying to put two-and-two together where your . . . have you ever given one thought to what impact that foothill of yours might have on me?"
Coral didn't say anything.
"Well, let me tell you, young lady, that two-and-two may not add up to no mountain, but it sure is coming up all sixes and sevens where my future in the sack is concerned."
Young lady didn't understand sack futures, obviously.
Oh, how I wanted to launch a lecture on what it's like when a guy's score card is all chalked out. But, young lady, here, was all of nineteen. Hell, when I was nineteen, I couldn't fathom turning thirty, let alone fathom my last sex act on the planet.
"Jeez," I said, sinking into my bucket, "a guy can't even invite a young lady to his shack no more without being taken advantage of."
I hadn't meant to be funny--at all, but Coral was really laughing now--laughing like an old man. Ya, laughing at me for coming off like some kind of prudish girl.
"Or," I said extra manly, "you might think of your contract with Trent."
Coral quit laughing. "What are you doing, Anton?"
"What am I doing? I'm doing your boyfriend, Trent." Wait, that hadn't come out right. "What I'm saying, young lady, is you might try thinking of somebody besides yourself for a change. And if you can't bring yourself to think of me; what I'm going through, sitting over here--here in the dark, crunching the numbers where kicking my bucket is concerned, well, then, you might think of Trent."
Coral didn't say anything.
"Which is to say, you might think of what Trent might think of you holed up with me." It came to me then, how I might cast myself in a positive light. "Ya, holed up with the bad-boy groundskeeper in his bad-ass shack, in his complete dark, giving you what for and then some."
I'd expected Coral to get defensive. Instead, she said, "God, you're bad at that."
"Bad at what?"
"Making me feel guilty."
Coral was right; I was bad at that. I'd spent my entire childhood trying to make my sister feel guilty, and all I got was my sister laughing at me. Laughing at me just like Coral was laughing at me now.
"Look," Coral said, collecting herself, "it's not like we came her to have sex. We came here to do a healing exercise. I didn't intend on having an orgasm. You didn't attempt to give me one. I was a bad student is all; I didn't follow instructions."
I didn't say anything.
"Or," Coral said, feigning anger, "perhaps it is your fault. Ya, healing energy, sexual energy--they're all one and the same you say. A girl's bound to get confused with a gray tenet like that." And away went Coral, laughing so hard, Pan fell off her lap.
Picking Pan off the floor, I thought of that word Coral had dropped. What a great word: tenet.
Having handed Coral the book, I pulled out my pad and pen, wrote tenet down. And after tenet, I wrote a note to myself: "Stop by store on way home from work."
No, it wasn't ice cream this bad boy needed; it was religion. For no way was I going to get to sleep tonight without the help of a saint.
****
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