Kyle felt deeply the achievement of his parents in these quiet, steady dinners. His father worked full-time well into his sixties as a senior managing officer at a medium-sized firm which made cooling towers. His mother was a cheerful and steady woman who never wavered in her housekeeping or her cooking or her gardening, and all with a perfect hairdo, it was true. The popular media had left these people behind, or somehow managed to make them all look like crazy Republican cranks, an attitude which Kyle found offensive in its carelessness. His father worked hard his whole life, paid his taxes, attended church, and gave money to the poor. That didn’t mean he only watched Fox News.
And Van had appreciated them both from the start. Which was, truth be told, not that long ago. Shortly after his last and clearly final breakup with Alison, Kyle had had no plans to pick up a new girlfriend anytime soon. If anything, he was annoyed by the entire gender; all the too-smart girls in his class at med school frankly put his teeth on edge. So when someone calling herself “Evangeline Shelly” texted him out of the blue to ask if he’d like to see a movie with her, it took him a moment to remember who she was. He finally placed her—a dinner party at a friend’s apartment, apparently he’d been too stupid to realize he was being set up—but before he could get out of it she had more or less arranged the entire date. The movie was fine, but when he finished the glass of wine she had insisted on after, he assumed he would never see her again. That was when she invited him to spend the weekend at a hotel located on some island in the middle of Lake Erie.
It was such a bold suggestion Kyle had actually laughed at it.
“Why are you laughing?” she asked, tilting her head with a gesture that was both knowing and innocent. “Have you ever done it? You can take a ferry out to Middle Bass Island for seven dollars, there’s a terrific old Victorian inn that’s walking distance from the pier. I’ve never been there but it sounds so easy to do, and then you’re just out there, in the middle of Lake Erie. Take a couple bottles of wine. I think it sounds fantastic.”
Kyle looked at her, aghast, and almost started laughing again. He was used to the boldness of his female contemporaries, and until Alison had completely stomped on his heart he had even enjoyed it. But this invitation was in a league of its own. He thought for a minute that maybe he misunderstood her intentions.
“What would we do out there?” he asked.
“Well,” she said, “I think we would go to the inn, drink one of the bottles of wine, and see what happens next.”
“Well,” he said. “That is a—remarkable proposition.”
“Is that a yes?” she asked him, allowing her eyes to stay on his face, unwavering.
“I think I maybe need to think about it,” he told her. Which was completely ridiculous, of course, as his erection, fortunately hidden by the tablecloth, was straining at the front of his trousers. This young blonde’s direct gaze was proving a welcome assault on his untended manhood; he wanted to have sex with her right then and there. He almost shuddered as her hand crept up his leg and fingered the taut fabric with a light, feathery touch.
“I don’t think you should think about it, actually,” she told him. “I think you should just say yes.”
The fact that there was no romance in this was what, finally, landed him. If this young woman had even once leaned forward, breathless, looking for a kiss, his sore heart would have revolted. But she didn’t go looking for kisses, not in the restaurant, and not at the door of her apartment, when he walked her home. She smiled at him mysteriously and shut the door in his face, but by then he had agreed to join her on her proposed expedition Saturday at noon. And while he was more on his guard as they greeted each other on the windy pier, the weekend moved forward as smoothly as anyone might have hoped had they bothered to think about it. Kyle’s reluctance was seemingly narcotized by Van’s blonde femininity, as well as her unapologetic sexual assurance. She chatted carelessly on the ferry ride and allowed herself to be charmed by the starkly uninteresting resort town. She located the inn quickly and picked up the key to their room without letting the clerk involve them in any needless conversation. And then she didn’t bother with the wine. Once in the room, she approached Kyle with that direct gaze, laid her hand on his crotch, and smiled. He hesitated, but only long enough for her to undo the top button of his jeans.
Kyle considered himself a moral person, but as this educated young woman whom he barely knew twisted her fingers into the waistband of his pants he allowed his mind to go completely blank with desire. Acting on an animal instinct which consumed him with alarming speed, he shoved her into the room and pulled her convenient skirt up past her panties, which he forced off her barely in time to push his erection into her vagina. The sex was violent and thrilling, and left both of them exhausted, embarrassed, and hungry to do it again.