Mystery Walk

face. He flinched because she smelled so strongly of beer. 'See, I'm blind and I've got to feel what you look like. You go to Indian Hills?'

'I graduated.' Beneath the beer odor was another aroma: the rich, musky, forbidden scent of a woman. He told himself to get up and go back to the car. But he didn't move.

'My name's Lonnie. What's yours?'

'Wayne.' He almost said Falconer, but the name hung on his lips. He shifted his position, hoping she wouldn't notice his swelling penis. Tell her who you are, he told himself, so she'll get up and leave you alone!

'You know Randy Leach? Well me and him broke up tonight. Sonofabitch is going to Samford University in Birmingham, says he's got to date other girls. Shit!' She drank from the beer and offered it to him, but he shook his head. 'I wasted a whole summer on that bastard!'

'I'm sorry to hear that.'

'Well, that's how it goes I guess.' She looked at him and laughed. 'Hey, what's wrong? You look like a whore in church, you're so tense!'

Blasphemy and sacrilege! Wayne thought. He looked at her in the darkness, but could only make out the pale oval of her face, He couldn't tell if she was pretty or not, but he knew she was a lost sinner. 'Are you saved, girl?' he asked.

There was a moment of shocked silence. Then the girl laughed uproariously. 'Oh, wow! I thought you really meant that! You sounded just like my damn momma, always after me to go to churchy-wurchy! Are you rich?'

'Rich?' Wayne echoed. 'I . . . guess I am,' he said truthfully.

'I knew it. Know how I knew? 'Cause there's somethin' so squeaky-clean about you. And you don't even drink beer, do you, 'cause it's too low-class for you. Where you going to college?'

'Up in Tennessee.' Tell her it's the Southeastern Bible College!

He could sense the girl staring at him. 'You're sweet,' she said softly. 'Who'd you come here with?'

'Terry Dozier and Helen Betts.'

'Don't know them.' She sat close to him and looked out toward the lake. Wayne could feel her body heat, and again he shifted uncomfortably. The images tumbling through his mind were nasty and sinful, and he knew he was walking close to the Pit. 'I've went with a lot of boys,' Lonnie said after a while. 'How come every boy I ever go with just wants to have sex?'

Jezebel! Wayne thought.

'I mean, I know I've got a good body and all. I was in the Miss Fayette Junior High contest last year, and I got the most points in the swimsuit competition. But seems like everybody tries to take advantage of me. Wonder why that is?'

'I don't know,' Wayne said in a husky voice. From a black part of his mind a sibilant voice said, She wants to do it and she uses the four-letter sex word.

Then, before Wayne could shift away again, Lonnie leaned toward him and whispered in his ear, 'Why don't we go out in one of them canoes?'

'I can't. I've . . . I've got my good clothes on.'

She giggled and tugged at his shirt. 'Then take your good clothes off.'

'You'd better get back to the party. Somebody'll miss you.'

'Miss me? Naw! Randy left with somebody else! Come on, sweet thing, let's go out in a canoe. Okay? You're so tense, what's wrong? Little Lonnie make you nervous?' She took his hand and tugged at him until he stood up, and then she pulled him with her to the nearest canoe.

Wayne's head was dizzy, throbbing from the echo of the rock music from way up on the patio. Lake water lapped softly at the shore. 'I don't see any paddles in there.'

She climbed in carefully and rummaged around, then held up a paddle. 'Here you go. Just one, though, so you'll have to drive the boat.' She sat down. 'What're you waitin' for, sweet thing?'

'I . . . don't think we should go out on the lake in the dark.'

She said softly and invitingly, 'I trust you.'

Wayne looked over his shoulder at the house, where kids were dancing on the patio. He had a strange sense of isolation, a feeling that all wasn't right and he should know what was wrong, but it evaded him. Wasn't it right, he thought, that he should be a human being too?

'Let's do it, sweet thing,' the girl whispered.

Wayne had to step through the water to shove the canoe off. He slipped into it, almost capsizing them and bringing a squeal of laughter from her; then they were gliding through the dark water, leaving the party noise behind.

'See?' Lonnie said. 'Ain't this nice?'

Wayne heard water rolling in the bottom of the canoe. His expensive loafers were getting ruined. The moon was rising, an amber scythe that looked so close and sharp you could cut your throat on it. Bullfrogs croaked from the shore, and the night closed around the drifting canoe.

Lonnie sighed deeply, a sexy, needful sigh, and Wayne thought his head might crack open like an eggshell. 'There's somethin' awful familiar about you,' she said. 'It's your voice, I guess. Do I know you from somewhere?'

'No.'

The music faded to a low murmur. The Dickerson house was a distant glow on the shore.

A dark object lay ahead. Wayne said, 'What's that?' and then the canoe grazed a square wooden diving platform. He took the paddle out of the water and held it over his knees. His heart was beating harder, and when Lonnie's voice came, it was like balm on a fever blister. 'We could rest here for a little while.'

He almost laughed. Rest? Oh, she was a sinful Jezebel! She wanted him, he knew. She wanted to be naked for him, and to do it, 'If you want to,' he heard himself say, as if from a stranger's mouth.

Wayne found a rope trailing from the platform and tied up the canoe. Then he was helping Lonnie out onto the platform, and she was pressing herself against him and he could feel her breasts, her nipples jutting against his chest. His heart was pounding, his head was filled with heat and he couldn't think.

'I'm cold,' she whispered. 'Please hold me, I'm cold.'

He put his arms around her, and realized it was he who was trembling.

Lonnie pulled him down onto the platform, as lake water chuckled around them and the smell of moss drifted up. A dam of pent-up passions cracked inside Wayne—she wants to do it and there's nobody to see, nobody to know!—and he fumbled at her clothes, his breathing harsh. His hands roamed over her body, as she held him close and whispered urgings in his ear. Her blouse came open. Wayne worked at her bra and then her breasts were free and warm against his hands. Her body pressed against his as his penis throbbed with heat. She rubbed at his crotch and then began pulling his belt loose, her teeth nipping at his neck. His pants started coming down. 'Hurry,' she whispered. 'Hurry hurry, please ...'

His penis was exposed as his underwear came down, and the girl put her hand on it.

And Wayne heard in his head the crack of his father's voice like a lash across his back: Sinner! Would you lie down with Jezebel?

He was excited and dizzy, his eyes squeezed shut, his mind tormented between what he wanted and what he knew he shouldn't do. She gripped his penis, and he opened his eyes.

He was no longer in the embrace of a girl.

It was something that looked like a beast, a wild boar, red-eyed and grinning.

Wayne tried to pull away, but then the vision passed and it was Lonnie again, dark-haired Lonnie, faceless Lonnie.

Sinner! Would you lie with Jezebel?

'No!' Lonnie said. 'Make it big again! Make it big!'

'I . . . can't . . . I . . .' He was concentrating, trying as hard as he could. His father's voice rang in his brain, a bass rumble of Doom: Sinner! He'd go to Hell for lying with a harlot, he'd been tricked by Satan into coming out here!

'Make it big!' Lonnie was saying, a note of anger and frustration in her voice. She handled his penis like a small twig. 'Come on, can't you get it up?' After another minute or two, she released him and sat over on the platform's edge, putting her bra and blouse back on.

'I'm sorry,' he said, hurriedly getting his pants on. He felt slimed by the Jezebel's touch, but wicked needs