Danielle 9

“Seven Seas” I read aloud the hanging sign’s swooping gold and blue letters.  “I’ve never heard of this place before.”

“I’m not too surprised,” Danielle explained.  “It’s small, but their food is unbelievable, and they always have fresh fish from all over the world.  My dad and I love to come here in the summer.”

“Well it sounds great!” I said, and expensive, I thought.  Danielle looked thrilled to be here, though, so there was nothing that my wallet could do to fight back against her sparkling eyes and eager smile.

“Come on!” she urged me excitedly.  She unexpectedly took my hand and led me to the door.  Well, that was it: I melted entirely the moment I felt her soft fingers wrap around my palm.  She looked to my face for a reciprocation of her excitement, though it was all I could do to nod dumbly and hope she understood.

Seven Seas was housed in an antiquated building on the outskirts of the old downtown district of the city.  The restaurant was crammed into a continuous row of shotgun buildings that pinned it tightly on either side.  The store immediately to the left of Seven Seas was empty and in a fairly bad state of disrepair, its only adornments being a layer of peeling green paint and a spongy layer of dust on the casement windows.  To the right was—appropriately—an antique store that sported a similar layer of dust.  Through the foggy windows, however, there sparkled antique treasures ranging from tin toys and trinkets to a dark-stained wooden rocking chair smiling beneath a lace shawl.  It was this antique store that seemed the better match for its neighbor; both buildings—the antique shop and Seven Seas— whispered of a quiet charm with simple yet well established elegance, a small corner of grace and civility in an otherwise bleary district.

Despite its bluntly nautical name, on the inside Seven Seas didn’t aspire to a fish ‘n chips theme in the slightest.  Thick teakwood timbers gilded with gold-leaf supported the walls and ceiling, and both were papered in 19th century style with flowers in amber tones.  There were no overhead lights, and all illumination in the dimly yet cozily lit restaurant glowed forth from wall sconces styled like hurricane lamps.

“Wow!” I whispered forcefully.  “Danielle, this place is beautiful!  Excellent choice—definitely better than anything I had in mind.”

She nodded approvingly.  “I knew that you would like it,” she said, and she smiled warmly to see me so delighted with her idea.

A formally attired gentleman seated us near the rear of the dining area.  I could not see any booths along the walls; instead, small, round tables for two were nestled along the dining area’s periphery with larger group tables occupying the spacious center.  I had to admit that, inside, Seven Seas closely resembled a foamy ocean at sunset.  A ruffled white cloth draped over every table, and the delicately carved back of each wooden chair seemed almost like an eddy breaking the surface between them.  A yellow or pink carnation with a fern-frond garnish peeked out of a bud vase in the center of every table, and a soothing, sweet aroma filled the air.

Even though I had decided to wear slacks and a buttoned shirt for our date, I couldn’t help but feel a bit underdressed for the evening.  Our waiter, of course, looked better than either of us, but even next to Danielle, who looked so immaculately groomed and polished with her dark hair shimmering from its roots down to its rosy tips and her deep olive skin glowing in the saffron light, I felt like a dockworker at a masquerade.

Nevertheless, I did not regret agreeing to go eat at Seven Seas, not by any means.  Despite my present lack of opulence, it tickled me to no end that Danielle, a girl whom I had always seen as elegance personified in my imagination, could actually look so refined and beautiful in real life.

When our menus came, I restricted myself to reading only the left half of the page so that I would not order based on price alone, as I knew I would be tempted to if I had paid much attention to the price of an individual dinner item.  So, with as little apprehension as I could manage, I ordered a cherry glazed salmon filet which came with a brazed oyster-stuffed mushroom, and Danielle decided on a shrimp and crab pasta in cream sauce with a small bowl of lobster bisque.

We sat at a small angle to each other, not quite straight across.  I watched as Danielle unfolded her napkin and placed it carefully over her wide lap.  She flattened the creased edges with her dexterous, tapering fingers, and matched the corners to each other so her fold was perfect.  When she finished, she noticed me observing her, and the tips of her lips stretched into a tiny smile.  “What is it?” she asked with her head tilted down a little so her eyes glimmered expressively in the golden light.

“Nothing,” I replied.  “It’s just…this is very nice.”

Danielle lowered her face with an embarrassed smile, and she might have been blushing, though I could not tell for certain in the wane light.  “I think so, too,” she said at length.  “It’s definitely better than the movie!” she laughed.

I laughed too, but only to please her.  In truth, I was mortified.  “I’m so sorry about that!” I professed as sanely as I could.  “I cannot believe that the film actually broke in the middle of the movie—what are the odds of that?”

“I know!” she exclaimed empathetically.  “I’ve never even seen that happen before—and don’t they use digital film now, anyway?”

I shrugged.  “I thought so, but our movie theater must not have digital projectors yet.”

“Typical,” she huffed.  “They spend god knows how much renovating the place, but they don’t even touch the most important equipment.”

“Right,” I agreed.  “Still, I’m really sorry about that.”

“Oh, no!  I didn’t mean it that way at all!  It isn’t your fault,” she shook her head.  “Don’t worry about it.  At least we have a story to tell now, right?” she chuckled.

“I guess so,” I agreed.

“Besides, you know how they say that sometimes on the first date you ‘see fireworks’?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, it looked like there was fire in the projector booth, and when the film broke it was pretty blinding, so I think that it’s almost the same thing!”

We both shared a cathartic, happy laugh, and I was convinced that Danielle’s last quip had, in fact, been a subtle message; it was not lost on me..

When we both stopped to breathe for a moment, I said, “Still, do you want to try to see another movie tonight after dinner?”

“Maybe,” she answered.  “We’ll see how we feel about it afterward.”  Shortly, our waiter placed our orders before us, my garnished plate before me, and Danielle’s two bowls before her.

“I’ve had both of them before,” she told me, “but they were never enough to eat on their own.”

I found it somewhat difficult to believe her assertion, considering the relative size of the two dishes.  The pasta bowl alone was easily the same width as or wider than my whole platter of food, and it was heaped to the brim with thick, broad noodles soaked in a buttery, cream-white sauce laced through with shreds of crab and whole shrimps.  Alone, that much dense pasta would have been enough to keep me going for an additional day or more, but Danielle saw fit to add to it an equally deep, though somewhat narrower bowl of heavy soup.  I wasn’t so much concerned as amazed because, basing my assumption on her performance only days prior, I was certain that she would—or at least boldly attempt to—finish it all in a sitting.

“Well they both look delicious,” I commented offhandedly.  “You’re going to have to let me try some of that pasta, though,” I prodded.

“No way!” she smirked.  “Eat your own food—these are mine!”

“Fine then,” I feinted.  “I just won’t give you any of mine to eat, either.”

“Oh yes you will,” she said confidently.

“And why are you so sure about that?” I asked.

“Because,” she said, “I’m treating you to it, so it is really mine, anyway.”  Before I could say anything, she took a swipe at my salmon with her fork and stuffed the small, flaky bite into her mouth.

“Plus,” she said with a wink after swallowing, “I’ve already tried it!  It’s really good, by the way; I definitely recommend it to you!”

“Hey!” I scoffed in mock indignation.  “That’s no fair!”

“Oh, I didn’t touch your mushroom,” she said.  “And, I promise, I’ll let you have a bite later if you want.”

“No, I meant that you want to pay for all of this!  It has to be way more expensive than my movie fiasco.”

“I don’t mind,” she said, smoothing her skirt, which had been ruffled by reaching across the table, over her lap.

“But I do,” I said.  “Can we at least go Dutch on it?”

“If it makes you feel better,” she said, “even though this place was my idea.”

“Thank you,” I said.  “It makes me feel less like you are getting shafted on this whole evening.”

“Trust me, I’m not upset about the movie, really!” she insisted, “not so long as I get credit for this place.”  Not wanting her to get too exasperated with me, I agreed to drop the matter.

“There now, do you feel better?” she asked.

“Mostly,” I shrugged, “but I want that bite of your dinner now, since you took mine before I could even try it!  Fair is fair.”

“Oh, alright,” she sighed light heartedly, “but if I starve to death tonight, I’m blaming you.”

I took a creamy noodle and a shred of crab on my fork, careful not to take any more than the smallest bite possible because, of course, there was nothing I wanted more at the moment than for Danielle to have as much to eat as she wanted.  Once I tried, it, though, I was taken aback by how delicious it was, and told Danielle so immediately.

“I know!” she giggled.  “I told you, I’ve had it before, so I don’t even mind, really.”

“Aww…” I groaned, “well then it still isn’t fair because you’ve already tried it!”

“Tufff” she said with a mouth full of pasta and her fork twiddling between her fingers.

And so, similarly, we talked, and we laughed as we ate our respective meals.  Danielle sipped her soup and nodded eagerly while I talked about music and the bookstore I worked for.  I ate crumbly pieces of my mushroom cap as Danielle told me about her favorite places to visit in summer and the save she had just barely missed on her team’s final away game.  After less than an half hour, I had long since cleaned my plate—supplemented regularly, of course, by a number of smiling dips into my delectable fish by Danielle.  She, on the other hand, still worked diligently on consuming the whole of her two orders, much to my pleasant fascination.  Now, I have by this time already proven myself susceptible to some more than imaginative ramblings, and perhaps it was the especial richness which I had found in the cream sauce, but I could have sworn I saw a slowly growing bulge in the middle of her steadily tightening shirt, especially as she, more slowly than before, worked on the final few mouthfuls of her two-dinner feast.

This time, however, I caught myself and stopped staring before it lasted too long for casualty, and I looked to Danielle for some sign of what she expected next.  She, however, only smiled back at me with the same satisfaction I had felt for the goodness of my own meal.  Left with yet another marvelous opportunity, I asked, “Would you like to order any desert?”

“Sure!” she replied, brightening noticeably.  “We could just share one, if that’s alright.”  It was alright by me.

“Is there anything special that you like?” she asked.  “They have just about everything here you could want.”

“What are you partial to?” I asked her, knowing that I was not very likely to eat much of anything we ordered.

“Oh, their best desert is the baked cheesecake pudding,” she confided happily.

“Cheesecake pudding?” I asked skeptically.  It sounded too good to be true, and I was not even a fan of cheesecake.

“Uh, well…I thought the name was fairly self-explanatory,” she said.

“No, is it a cheesecake made with pudding, or cheesecake-flavored pudding?” I elaborated.

“Oh—right!  Actually, think more along the lines of a bread pudding, only made with chocolate cheesecake: it’s baked and very sweet, and not too gooey at all,” she explained.

“It sounds perfect!”

And so in mere minutes we were presented with a fabulous dish of the lauded treat still steaming lightly and sprinkled liberally with shaved chocolate and a drizzle of raspberry jam.

“I was wrong,” I said.  “It is perfect.”

“I told you so, now try it!” Danielle urged.

I shook my head, “Not until you do—it looks to good, I’m intimidated.”

“You’re kidding?” she said and raised an eyebrow.

“Yes,” I replied and swiped a generous bite of the shining desert from under her nose.  Danielle laughed lightly as I smiled, and my eyes popped.  “Wow!  This is rich,” I remarked.

“Totally worth it, though,” she proclaimed and proceeded to dig in with abandon to the marvelous confection.  All the while, it was all I could do to keep from staring in quiet amazement at how much she had eaten; I couldn’t believe that she was actually able to enjoy the desert so much.  I hadn’t been exaggerating: the dish was so rich it was nearly sickening, and after a massive bowl of creamy pasta, I didn’t know how Danielle avoided becoming violently ill after just one bite.  Yet, in blatant defiance of my expectations, Danielle clearly enjoyed the treat even more than me.  To keep up appearances, I picked out tiny crumbles with my fork every few seconds, but the overall volume of the heavy decadence was disappearing inside Danielle too rapidly for her to notice that my helping was more or less nonexistent.  For my part, though, I enjoyed seeing her enjoy the end of her meal as much or more than I enjoyed the desert itself.  In fact, the sweetness of the dish had started to actually be a little bit sickening, and I began to feel dizzy.

Danielle, however, was still completely unaffected by whatever was slowly incapacitating me.  I put down my fork and tried to rub the side of my head soothingly, but it was to no avail.

Danielle did finally notice that I had stopped eating altogether, and she put down her spoon.  “Are you done already?”

It seemed like a somewhat unnecessary statement; there was nothing left of our “shared” desert but a golden smear coating the bottom of the bowl.  I nodded sluggishly and felt a wave of nausea wash over me.

Danielle responded by quickly scraping up the final spoonful and swallowed it ponderously.  Though she still appeared fine, it was clear that I had not been imagining the small rounding out of her middle I thought I had seen earlier.  She definitely looked bloated, and even her breasts looked like they were being pushed up by the obvious bulge about her stomach.  I had a difficult time concentrating on her recent and attractive improvements, though.  Every few seconds I needed to blink bleariness out of my eyes, and the hand already against my head became necessary to keep me from tipping over onto the floor of the sluggishly spinning room.

“That was absolutely delicious,” Danielle beamed.

I tried to nod, but as soon as I tilted my head, the back of my throat burned with a thin stream of my dinner coming up on me, and I had to catchy my breath before I passed out entirely.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I could go for another one of those!” she declared.  “Do you think we should order another, Vince?  …Vince?”  Danielle expression suddenly filled with concern.  I’m sure that I must have looked positively green with nausea by the time she paid close attention, and I felt about the same as I looked.

“Vince?  Are you alright?”

“No,” I admitted weakly.

“…do you need to go to the bathroom?” she suggested, hesitantly.

“…Yes,” I said, rising hurriedly and running straight away toward what I hoped was the men’s room.




Vince looked positively awful!  I hope he’s alright, I thought.  Vince disappeared into the men’s bathroom at the back of the restaurant, and I was not entirely sure whether he was going to make it to a toilet in time—that is, if he needed to…vomit.  I cringed at the thought.  It wasn’t the desert, was it?  I mean, he barely touched it, and I basically ate the whole thing by myself, and I did not feel sick at all.  That wasn’t bad though…I was fairly sure that he wanted me to eat most of it.

Whatever it was, it must have hit him suddenly.  I didn’t even notice it until half a minute ago, and immediately after, he ran out of the room!  So, my idea backfired, too.  I really tried to make this nice, though!  This was the most beautiful place that I could think of to take him, and he had acted like such a gentleman all evening.  He said some very sweet things, and we played games and laughed….  Everything had been going so perfectly!…except that nothing was going right at all.  The movie idea had been a total disaster.  Of course I wasn’t angry about it, and it had even been a little funny!  Still, having the whole afternoon blow up in Vince’s face couldn’t have been what he had in mind, and it certainly wasn’t what I had wanted.  Rescuing our evening with a lovely dinner is not the circumstance under which I wanted to have it, either.  I wanted to have dinner and talk and see if he really was everything I thought he was without having to make up for things that went wrong earlier.

With Vince out of sight, I leaned back in my chair and relaxed while I mulled over my swarming thoughts.  I tried to take a deep breath to clear my head but I could not.  My breathing must have been shallow for the last few minutes, or at least since I had started eating desert.  I was so stuffed full that I could barely inflate my lungs sitting down.  I don’t regret it, I thought.  I couldn’t regret it, not so soon, anyway.  My bloated stomach didn’t hurt…not too much anyway, and I’m sure that I wouldn’t have minded, even if it outright ached.

Everything had tasted so good!  And Vince clearly liked to be around me when I eat this much, no matter how hard he tries to hide it.  It’s almost cute, really.  Just a little bit.  The way his eyes light up whenever I sit down…he must be very attracted to me, which is…nice.

I blinked.  It was very nice, very, very nice to have someone find me really attractive…for a change.  I know that all sorts of people like to talk to me, and Melissa tells me she thinks I’m cute all the time, but it doesn’t much matter whether my girlfriends think I’m cute.  I know they don’t mean it, anyway, not in the way that really counts.  They say things like, “Oh, Dani, your hair is so cute today!” or, “that skirt is so cute on you!”  The skirt is cute; my hair is cute; my eyes, my face—“today,” my finger nails—all of it is cute, but none of it really me.  It’s never, “Dani, you look cute today,” never, “Dani, you are cute.”

But I’ll bet anything—everything—that Vince would say that to me.  “Danielle”—oh, I’ll have to get him to stop saying the whole thing—“Dani…you’re cute,” he’ll say.  He might even, eventually…”Dani, you’re…sexy!”

I flipped my hair out of my eyes and toyed with it between my fingers.  Ah, wouldn’t that be wonderful!  How long will it take to get that far?  I paused my daydream on that thought.  I only hope it gets that far….

“Oh, god!” I half laughed, half choked.  “How can I even think that?  Look what’s happening right now!  He’s violently ill in the bathroom!  He’ll never want to go anywhere with me again—why would he?  No infatuation is worth this, not to anyone…”

I hung my head in full realization of my hopelessness.  There was practically nothing else that could have possibly have gone wrong, not unless we had gotten into a car wreck along the way…into each other’s cars…and he was paralyzed from the neck down…and I had run over a baby.

“I really did try,” I tried to reassure myself.  But now he hates you for it, I told myself quietly.  “No he doesn’t…he doesn’t hate me, that’s ridiculous.  But he could, couldn’t he?  After all, you practically poisoned him here!  Why wouldn’t he be angry with you?  Why wouldn’t he be disgusted?

I looked down again, and suddenly I was disgusted, too.  I looked so fat!  Even though the waiter had taken our dishes away, I remembered, every bite I had eaten and how, before I was even finished, I had eaten more than twice as much as Vince.  My stomach bulged over the brim of my skirt, and I was starting to feel sick, too, but not from food poisoning.  I sickened myself…but why?  Why now?  Everything had tasted so wonderful!  And that is what it is there for, right?  To be enjoyed?  And I did enjoy it!  I really did!  It felt good; it felt…right!

Wrong.

I know.  I know it was wrong; I know it was stupid.  I knew it the whole time; I was being stupid and shortsighted.  I am just projecting onto Vince what I want him to see.  I have no idea what he really thinks.

And you could be totally wrong about everything else, too.

Oh no!  That wasn’t true; it couldn’t be.  I’ve seen him.  I’ve seen him with my own two eyes!  He always looks at me!  He…he took my hand in the movie theater…or, at least he tried to.  But doesn’t that count for something?  Isn’t it something real?

Does it count?  Does it really?  What do you think?

I do, I—!  Don’t I?  I…I think I do?  No, I do, I do!

But do you think you are pretty?

Not in the same way that he does, no…but…but…?

How can he think you’re pretty if you know that you are not? Just look at yourself right now, Danielle!  Do you really want this?!

It was true; I was bloated and popping out of my shirt, and it was all my fault.  Vince hadn’t told me to do anything.  I had done it all on my own, just hoping that he would respond...it was all falling apart, damn it!

I stood up hurriedly with an anxious pain in my gut.  I moved stiffly to the lady’s room and propped myself up against the door.  I paused there, briefly.  I…I don’t need to do this, I thought.  It’s been months, and I haven’t needed to, so why now?  I tried to straighten up and back out of the doorway.  No…not now, not ever again…nobody needs this.  I know better, now; I do!

I almost pulled my hand away, but another wrenching pain in my stomach sent me tumbling through the door.  I locked myself securely inside a stall, even though nobody else was inside.  The stall was marbled black stone with brass hinges on the door and flush-handle.  Even the toilettes were clean and shining here, I thought.  I can’t; it’s too clean, too public!

My gut twisted again.  You know that you need to.  You’re already halfway done, after all!  You’ll feel awful if you don’t.  You’ll look awful—you’ll probably gain at least a pound after tonight, Danielle.

No, please…not here, not now—

But you need to!

This is cruel!

This is necessary.  If you don’t you’ll hate yourself!

But I don’t!  A hot tear trickled out of each eye and dripped into the open toilet.  I don’t, I don’t!  I have…Vince is just outside!  What would he think if he knew?

Vince will hate you, too!

NO!

I gagged painfully and retched into the rippling water.  I heaved a few times, my breathing considerably less labored, and several stinging tears rolled out of my red eyes.  I remained doubled over for several minutes, listening to the hoarse sound of my own breathing and trying to shut out everything else.  At length, I righted myself and went to a sink.  I washed out my mouth, draining away the burning acid, and afterward looked at myself in the mirror.  My skin was a little pale, and my eyes were still bloodshot, but I somehow looked calm, and everything had gone quiet.  I stood, listening skeptically for a break in the silence, but the silence persisted, and I breathed a sigh of relief.  Even so, I knew that I could not really be calm, even if I thought I was.  I was always wrong.  I always hated myself afterward.  I always had, and I always would.

I wiped off my face with a damp paper towel and patted it dry, bringing back some of its lost luster.  When I left the bathroom, Vince was waiting outside, pacing around uneasily.  He looked much better, though.  His face had lost its ugly greenish hue, and he was standing up straight again.  Immediately, he rushed up to me full of concern.

“Are you alright?  Not you, too!  You didn’t…?” he asked all at once.

“No, I—yeah…sorry,” I answered hoarsely, shifting my eyes away.

“Don’t be,” he said hotly, yet soothingly.  “I already talked to the manager about it, and—apparently—it was the oysters.  I didn’t think you had any, but I guess you did…unless I need to tell him it was something else, too?”

“No, I did, I did!” I lied quickly.  “It had to be the oysters…nothing else.”




After I explained to the manager what had happened, he was more than willing to waive the price of our meals on the condition that neither of us said anything about it until the kitchen staff had a chance to clear out all of the bad oysters.  I honestly had half a mind to turn the place in to the health inspector, but, I had to admit, even though I was furious about the violent food poisoning, the meal had been pretty damn good.

My only real regret about the whole affair—besides the horrible, debilitating nausea and reverse oral-enema—was that Danielle had gotten sick, too.  It was pretty obvious that most everything she had eaten had come up on her.  The defining bulge had disappeared completely, and, though I couldn’t place the source exactly, there hovered about her an aura of…well, emptiness.  Her eyes seemed hollow and dark, mostly from her mascara running, but her cheeks were noticeably pale.  It must have been a very traumatic experience for her, and she still seemed a little ill.

No surprise that it was traumatic, though.  I could barely look at her as we were leaving.  The whole day had been an absolute disaster.  It seemed like nothing either of us suggested turned out well in the remotest bit, and there was probably no possible way that things could have gone any worse.  Not unless we managed to get in a car wreck in the way home….

I walked Danielle to the door of her car, but I didn’t notice that I was walking at all.  All I could think was, how could this have happened?  Was it really possible for there to be a universe in which everything, absolutely everything goes wrong?  There was no way that Danielle would remember anything nice about the time she spent with me.  Not the talking, not the laugher; no, by tomorrow morning, the only thing left will be the view she had from the toilet.  I sighed audibly, though I don’t know whether Danielle noticed.  She seemed equally preoccupied, probably mulling over her own demons about the evening.  After all, it had been her choice of restaurants, so she must have felt somewhat guilty about what happened.  It was not her fault, I knew, but that never stopped anyone from feeling responsible for bad things that happened under their watch, and I was sure that Danielle was no exception.  If only there were some way to let her know that none of it mattered to me, that the only thing I cared about, the only thing I had ever cared about…it was spending time with her.  It was as simple as that…and what had happened?  Of all possible outcomes, the worst things conceivable happened.  Nasty, big, catastrophic bullshit that sank our parade under a mile of roiling ocean.

But, even though my opinion of Danielle was not hurt by everything that had happened, her opinion of me must have been devastated.  If I couldn’t string together the simplest, most classic, most boring first date imaginable, how could she ever expect me to do anything right?  It was sound logic, and reasoning that I couldn’t argue against.  This had been it: my chance, and it had been blown to smithereens.  We were done for; there was nothing for it.

Still, to the last, I couldn’t resist playing the gentleman.  I stepped in front of Danielle to open her car door for her.  I pulled up on the handle, but the door did not budge.  I pulled it again, harder than before but to no avail.  I became angry very suddenly.  All of the frustration of the evening, all of the unfairness of my one chance’s outcome welled up inside and overflowed me.  I growled angrily at the door handle and tried to rattle it off the car.

Danielle quickly interceded by clearing her throat.  I stopped before I did any real damage, and looked at her over my shoulder.  She looked at me with a mildly reproachful grimace.  One hand she held against her hip; in the other, she jingled her car keys at me.

“Oh…it’s locked,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, and I moved aside for her to unlock the door.

So, I thought walking to my own car, the last thing that I am going to be…is an idiot.  I had succeeded in nothing this evening other than making a complete fool of myself.  I started the engine.  I sat silently for a moment.  Danielle had not yet driven away.  I must have seemed so base to her, so stupid and clumsy.  I couldn’t imagine how I could possibly seem any lower.  She still had not left.  I pulled out of the parking space and drove toward the exit of the lot, a path that took me behind Danielle’s car.  And then I did something which for any other person in the same situation would have been nothing but stupid, insensitive, and selfish.  But, I reasoned faultily, by doing it, I had nothing at all left to lose.

I stopped my car behind Danielle’s, blocking her in, then clambered out of my car and ran to the side of her door.  I saw her through the window in the gathering dark, but despite my eagerness to prevent it, she didn’t seem of any mind to escape.  She was hunched over the steering wheel, and for a moment, she didn’t even notice me beside her.  I tapped on the window and made a motion for her to roll it down.  She looked up quickly, almost guiltily, and swiped clumsily at her eyes with the backs of her hands like she had been crying, though I never saw any tears.

“Vince?” she asked, clearly confused.

“I know, I know,” I said, holding up my hands to prevent her from reprimanding me for blocking her in, though in retrospect, I doubt she even knew I had done that.  “Listen,” I began, “none of this went the way I thought it would.  I didn’t mean for any of this to happen…and I know that you didn’t, either,” I said.  She followed my every word with wide, scrutinizing eyes.  I went on: “I don’t want this to be the way that our evening ends, if for no other reason than I don’t want you to have had a bad evening.  So, even though everything else today was a total disaster…would you follow me to just one more place?  After that, you can leave, and we never have to try this again.”

I was afraid to look.  Even as I was speaking, I had been sure that she would cut me off, that she would make an excuse not to spend another awful second with me, and she would have been right to, no doubt.  But what I saw was not anger.  It was not resentment or disappointment or disgust.  Danielle looked at me out of full, bright eyes that were brimming with amazement and—yes, it had to be—glee.

“Alright,” she said, and she gave a small smile.  “One more place.”

“Thank you,” I said earnestly.  “Just follow me.”

I drove onto the highway, checking out of my mirrors periodically to make sure that she was still following close behind.  The next stretch of road was narrow and fairly twisted, and I didn’t want to lose her.  After about fifteen minutes of playing follow the leader, I pulled my car off the road and Danielle followed suit.  We had stopped in a clearing outside a piece of road without any guard rail at the top of a hill that overlooked the highway and our town.  Sometimes, when I had nothing better to do or when I needed a break after a long evening of symphony rehearsal, I would come to the top of this hill and listen to the radio.  It was always pleasant and calm.  On nights like tonight, the stars are as clear as the noonday sun, and the sky is frosted with arms of the galaxy and a thousand-million unnamed stars.

Danielle got out of her car and walked over to mine without my prompting her.  I climbed out, too, and I looked out over the lip of the bluff.  Danielle looked, too, and she followed me closely as I took a few steps closer to the edge.  “This is…” she began, looking out over the dark, starlit horizon.

“It’s called Eagle Ridge,” I said.

“I know,” she replied airily, still gazing into the star-bloomed night.

“There are four places near here called the same thing, but I like this one the best because it’s far enough out of town that you can see them both.”

“See both of what?” she turned to me and asked.

“The town and the stars,” I answered.

She nodded and looked back out over the hillside.  “It’s beautiful,” she said.  “It’s so clear tonight…you can see for miles, and the stars are so bright…it’s….”

“Beautiful,” I finished, gazing longingly at her instead of the stars.  She looked right back at me for a long moment.  I smiled, and she returned the gesture, then she turned away from me and walked to the back of my car.  Before I could say anything, she opened the rear driver’s side door and sat inside.

I rushed to the door before she closed it.  “Danielle!” I tried to say, but she closed the door in my face before I finished her name.  I could see her through the window, but she didn’t look angry or otherwise upset.  She only sat and smiled softly at me through the window.  I ran around the sedan to the other back door and hurriedly tore it open.

“Danielle, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for things to happen like they did!” I blurted as fast as I could.

“Vince—”

“Taking you up here was stupid—I know that all you wanted to do was go home—but I just wanted everything to go perfectly, and I guess that ended up backfiring in a big way, and I know that this doesn’t make up for it, but—”

“Vince—”

“I just want you to know that, despite everything, I have enjoyed every second that I’ve spent with you, just because it is you, and—”

“Vince!”

I stopped talking.  Danielle was still smiling.  She looked excited—a bit irked from having to yell, but still excited.  “Come sit next to me,” she said.  I did as she suggested and closed the door.  Without dropping her eyes, she placed one soft, warm hand on top of mine.

“Danielle, I…”

She leaned closer and placed my hand around her back.  I’m touching her.  She brought her face a hair’s breadth away from mine.

“Don’t apologize,” she said urged.  “This is wonderful.”  Her lips drooped open seductively, and mine fell open of their own accord.  Oh my god….  We closed the gap between us and brought our lips together in a soft, short kiss.  Sweet Mary, wife of Joseph, mother of Jesus, son of God….  I opened my eyes.

Should I touch her?  We kissed—we kissed!  I…I can touch her now, can’t I?  I put my free hand on her thigh, and she trembled a little, probably from excitement, I told myself.  I wedged my body closer to hers and hugged her against me.

“Just the way I wanted it….”  

I tipped backward and landed on my back, spread across the seat with Danielle on top of me.  Without pause, we pushed into each other, kissing eagerly, enthusiastically.  Her lips were warm and moist, and the soft muscles of her mouth massaged mine.  I heard her breath sporadically, taking rapid, shallow breaths between slow, forceful pulses of osculation.  I held the back of her head and worked my fingers through her fine, silken hair, which made her advances even more vigorous.  The heat in the car escalated rapidly, and soon Danielle’s bare arms were beaded over with an aromatic sweat.  We squirmed around, trying unconsciously to find a more maneuverable position, but we were ever constrained by the tight quarters of the back seat.  The car tilted and rocked sluggishly as we shifted our weight around.

Danielle pulled herself further up my body, pressing more and more of her weight onto my torso.  My legs were bent so I we could partially recline in the narrow bench seat, and Danielle’s entire body was sitting on top of my raised thighs.  She straddled me and wrapped a plump leg around my upraised calf, and I stroked my hand from her head down the back of her neck.  She trembled again as my hand worked up and down her back, pressing and gliding over the small rolls that bunched up under her shirt.  Each time she trembled, she pulled her limbs and lips back as if he whole frame were shrinking inward a little, but it only lasted a split second before she breathed heavily again and resumed.  She was heavier than I expected, and under her pillow-soft envelope, I confirmed my suspicion of a steadily contracting layer of lean muscle.  Her thick, round thighs squeezed my waist, and I squeezed right back.

I restricted myself to her back and sides so we wouldn’t have to roll over or change positions.  It was more than enough for me.  I lifted her shirt and ran my hands over her soft, bare skin, reeling with every second of contact.  She felt so warm and soft and a little sticky in the car’s pink haze.  I grabbed onto the exposed roll that popped out over her waistband.  Gripping it, I worked her wiggling flesh in my hands in time to the rhythm of our mouths, and I thought, This is everything I dreamed of and more.  No disappointment, no untrue fantasies…better than a dream, better than anticipation—oh, thank god!  It isn’t a lie; it really does feel so good!

I slid my hand further down, following the curve of her pliant skin closer to her middle, and I moved my fingers up her side slowly.  A strong tremor ran through her again, and with her free hand, Danielle hurriedly wrapped her fingers around my arm, stopping my progress, but stroking my skin gently as if to make amends.

“Danielle….”

“Just call me Dani,” she whispered through moist, glowing lips.  “It’s what everyone else does.”

“No,” I whispered in her ear, and she wrapped around me even tighter.