The Triggerman Dance

"Straight into the marinade. Ten minutes on a side in the Weber. Not in the little cookbook they give you."

"Well," he says, swallowing and lifting his wine glass. "Here's to shooting the devil before he speaks."

"To the new improved Eve."

"To aspiring vets."

"To safe puppies," she says.

"To wasting not."

"To wanting not."

"Young lady, you seem to have it all," he says.

"I would like to."

Suddenly her eyes are point blank and her nose is against his cheek and her lips are on his. Her breath smells, illogically, of milk. Her fingers on his face feel cool. When she pushes him back her hair falls forward to make a shade that smells like apples. She cradles the back of his head as she might an infant's as he settles onto the blanket and her tongue comes past his teeth. He feels its changing girth, the slickness of its bottom. John places his hands on her face, then her neck and shoulders, then runs them down her arms. She is tense as a bulldog, he thinks, and just as strong. She's trembling. Over him, her weight shifts and he feels the loop of his belt pulled up, then a long strong yank that frees hole from shaft, then strap from buckle. But when she tries to pull it free it sticks from its own friction and she only manages to turn him half onto his side.

"Uh, Val, it's kind of stuck. I can—

"No."

He feels her weight vanish. Then she's standing over him with a half-stricken expression, smoothing her dress with her hands, her eyes riveted on the ground, face red as a Christmas tree bulb.

"I thought you just . . . I'm awfully sorry. It's my mistake, John. Just forget it."

"Come back."

"Oh, no. Really, it's not... I shouldn't be—"

"You don't have to."

"Goddamnit."

He laughs.

"Do not laugh at me."

"You're funny."

"This isn't funny."

"It should be. You almost tore that belt in half, you know."

She still won't look at him. "I'm trying to . . ."

"I know what you're trying to do."

"Ah shit, John, I don't know how you do this."

"I know you don't."

Finally she looks at him, just a glance. Then she shakes her head. "I'm such a spaz."

"Come here. You don't have to do everything. You don't have to do anything. Just come here and lie down with me and be quiet. Okay?"

Her face is still ablaze and her eyes are flittering everywhere again, like birds looking for somewhere to land. "You know I'm pretty good at just about everything. I can shoot and cook and think and get into vet—"

"Can you lie down and shut up?"

Eyes still on the ground in front of her, she moves toward the blanket, then lies down. Her back is to him.

"No reason to pout, you know."

She says nothing, so he props up on an elbow and strokes her hair. "It's even worse when you're a guy, because you can feel it being over with before you're even really started."

"Can't you fight it?"

"Not very successfully."

"It's just. . . kind of embarrassing, John."

"Well, don't be embarrassed. It's kind of funny, anyway."

"It is?"

"If you picture what you're doing, or if you watched it on a screen, I think you might find yourself laughing."

"I watched a dirty movie once, and laughed."

"Then there you have it."

"What do we do?"

"Why don't we just wait until it happens?"

"I want it to happen now." She backs her rump and shoulders into him. "Found what I wanted. Had my heart set on it."

When she turns around to face him, her eyes are shiny and the pupils are big and her forehead beaded with sweat.

He moves on top and her legs part around his weight. He lifts them and the dress falls over her brown smooth knees.

"Don't stare." Her eyes are closed.

But he does stare while he sits back to work his pants down because she's naked underneath the dress and he just can't believe how good she looks. He scoots back into position and begins to see himself as a comic figure, not necessarily a good sign, he feels. But she's got him in one hand, stroking him hard, trying to pull him inside herself.

"Uh, easy does it, sweetness," he says.

"All right."

In the next whirling moments John's thoughts explode in rapid succession, like a line of bottles pierced by a single bullet. None stay whole long enough to name. They are shattered, derationalized, lost. He follows her adamant guidance, moving inside until he feels the threadlike sinuous resistance, then the quick gasp of her breath against his ear.

"Thought you were kidding, Val."

"No."

She uses her hands on his flanks to control him. She shudders and withdraws, opens and accepts. The increments of pleasure build and drop in John, whose thoughts careen back and forth between immensities of chaos and hyperfocus. He is a hawk streaking through blue. Does it hurt? He glides beneath a black tonnage of water. Does it actually tear? He is a thousand silver butterflies netted in skin. Are we smashing her hat?

"OH!"

"Sorry."

Her hands draw him deeper.

"Ooohr

"Go slow . .."