Tyrus

At first it was good for a giggle, that middle-aged moan leaking into the hallway, those half-stuttered pleas so comically out of tune with the mattress's maddening  squeak. And Brenda did enjoy her housemate's fevered refrain; it sent her to bed awash in memories of lovers she never met, but always meant too. Then it eased her awake the next morning like a lilac-scented alarm clock. But damned if it didn't make for an uncomfortable breakfast. 

"So… is that garlic? In the toast," Janine said. 

"Yes, garlic," Brenda offered. 

"I like garlic." 

Then came a silence that draped itself around the kitchen like a fog. 

"I like garlic too." 

It wasn't always this way. They had chirped their way through adolescence together, never apart, never in need of conversation prompts. They were best friends forever, which really meant best friends until graduation. When parting they vowed to keep in touch and they tried for a few months, but with their new lives invading, who had time to live in the past? 

Then came a chance meeting in a tiny Tai restaurant after twenty-three years. Janine needed someplace to stay after the divorce and before renovations on the new house were complete. So why not rekindle that friendship for a summer, if only to remind themselves of a time before the damage done by their thirties?  

The good news: almost nothing had changed. Sure, there were the husbands who soon became exes, the children delivered, then seemingly off to college a weekend later, weight gained, then lost, then found again, but in the end they were still who they were: Brenda was still Brenda, the gawky high school senior who loved Oates and hated Hall with a more-or-less equal passion. Smart, sturdy, dependable Brenda. Pretty in her own way, which really meant pretty to no one except her best friend and mother. Her flaws were many: a nasally voice, clumsy, bookish, lactose intolerant, but then nobody's perfect. 

Except Janine. Janine still had the cheekbones and the cheerleader hair always frozen in mid toss.  She still walked with a dancer's grace and danced in a way that just wasn't fair. She still loved Hall and hated Oates and nothing could change her mind. She was still the Janine the girls wanted to be and the boys wanted to rub against. She was still without flaw. 

"So… you don't mind Tyrus coming over last night do you?" Janine asked. 

"Tyrus?"  

"Tyrus. Last night." 

"Oh, was that Tyrus?" 

"That was Tyrus," Janine answered. And the silence soon crept back to the breakfast table. 
  
*

The next time she watched. She stood just beyond the crack in the door as Tyrus – his sleek, dark body above her – sent her knees upward and her belly into a buckle. She watched as Janine curled into a mess then stretched herself beyond recognition, those danceline legs from high school still somehow the object of envy. She watched as Janine's breathing grew into grunts, then growls, then bossy commands to keep pounding her, stuffing her, pushing inside.  

And she watched for too long, giving too many eyes enough time to grow used to the dark and discover her shadow falling inside the room. But they kept at it, twisting into the sheets and testing the mattress's limit for punishment. They kept tussling and turning, feeding a fire that even this awkward audience of one couldn't dampen. As a coda, their voices rose and collapsed in unison, detailing a tumble back to earth. Then Brenda retreated to her room, breathless and drained herself, unable to shake the spectacle she'd just drank in.  

With Tyrus's fluid motion on her mind, she toppled into dreams fueled by this mystery man's allure, his dark brown spine slipping inside her embrace, and staying there until morning's cruel arrival. She'd seen bodies that dark and rigid and ready before, but she never dared sample a touch or taste.  

And the truth is she had always been curious. 

Morning crawled in and Janine was off early, very likely to avoid another uncomfortable breakfast. This granted Brenda the chance to snoop. A peak inside her housemate's bedroom revealed a familiar ebony figure splayed across the sheets in repose. But even asleep he seemed ready for anything. Ready for everything. Janine's scent rising from his frame pulled a gasp from her, made her lightheaded like a child finding candy in mommy's purse. 

Maybe I should wake him, Brenda pondered. She thought of the fun they could have and she wondered if her scent on his body would do anything at all for Janine. Would she even notice? Would it repulse her? Arouse her? Remind her of those slumber parties when they took turns "practicing" their kissing skills on a discarded mannequin found in her father's basement? 

In the end she stepped away and left Tyrus to his much-needed rest. Brenda, after all, was still Brenda. And waking Tyrus just wasn't what Brenda would do. 

Tyrus's next appearance came a week later, and this time the door was closed. But Brenda knew he was in there, nibbling away at Janine's outer shell then diving inside without caution or care. She didn't need to see her BFF's face to know the sweet torture that screamed for release. And even with her shrieks blanketed by the radio's blare, she could feel his steely grip as if her own limbs were locking around his, as if her own hair were tossed across the pillow then yanked from behind. She didn't need to see it or hear it to feel it. 

She even convinced herself that it was better behind a closed door. That way Tyrus could be whoever she imagined: Denzil Washington, Mr. Price her third grade math teacher, the dreadlocked janitor of her first apartment building. Or he could change faces with every full-throated command barked his way: 

"Harder," and he'd be a young Marvin Gaye. 

"Deeper!" and he'd be the fast-talking street vender who peddled bootleg DVDs in the mini-mall's parking lot. 

"Don't stop!" and he'd be the black guy in Ghostbusters." 

Or he could become more than a taboo. He could strut into her life with a welcoming grin and a complicated past he'd rather not talk about. As long as the box springs kept squealing his praises, the fantasy kept dancing before her. 

But the closed door still hurt. It was the same closed door that came between Brenda and the couple that Janine would become with Scott (the quarterback) then Tommy (the pill-popper) then Ross (Gina's boyfriend). All she wanted was a peek behind the curtain to know what it felt like to blend with a body that belonged inside her, a body that knew hers better than she did herself. But it was a club she was never allowed to join. Just then she remembered how much it sometimes hurt being Janine's best friend. And the closed door invited the agony back home. 

When the gasps tapered off she started back down the hallway, halted breath, wounded pride and all. The evening's show had soared to a conclusion, but this thing wasn't close to being over. It wouldn't end until Brenda could bring that tender hand to her chest and breathe in the sweetness she'd always ached for.

She wouldn't be complete without it. 

*

Three days later, with the sky bleeding sheet-white rays across the garden, they'd have a conversation designed to settle any lingering concerns about Tyrus – but with his name never poking to the surface. Brenda knelt before the lilies, her gangly frame hidden by a stubbornly drab sundress. Janine reclined on a patio chair, lengthy legs crossed, hips hugged by khaki, a straw hat sheltering that pretty face from the sun's punishing rays. She may as well have worn a sandwich board sign emblazoned with the phrase I am the pretty one.  
Between sips of lemonade, she tossed this Brenda's way: 

"So I'm in line at the pharmacy and I'm looking at the cashier – a kid, really, nineteen, maybe twenty." 

"Yeah?" 

And I'm looking at his teeth and thinking where have I seen that overbite before? I mean teeth so big they scrape his chin, an overbite like the guy in that band, what was his name, I mean, just huge…" 

"Freddy Mercury." 

"I'm talking scary, scary teeth. And what was the guy's name, not Freddy Mercury, the guy in ninth grade?" 

"Dennis Rawls. My date for the homecoming dance." 

"Yes!" 

"Yes," sighed Brenda. 

A cackle from Janine.  

"yeah, the overbite and those God awful sweaters. Dennis Rawls. Good God, the things you can't forget if you want to." 

"Like that mannequin?" Brenda offered. "Remember how we practiced kissing with it?"  

Brenda wheezed out a laugh, but Janine offered nothing. Brenda had drifted from the conservation's real focal point. She had forgotten who she really was. So Janine offered a parting shot: 

"You might want to cover that face with something. Sunburn can get kind of nasty." 

She rose and stepped to the door, having brought them back to the real world by really saying this: 

I am the pretty one
 
*

A day later Tryus made a return appearance, announcing his presence in Janine's bedroom with the slow rattle of a rusty headboard. The door was again closed, but not locked. Brenda stepped inside, scarcely clad in a nightgown and the cartoon bravado of a teenager wielding a fake ID. Was that a smile or a mask she was wearing? Janine's eyes stretched open with alarm. She brushed Tyrus aside, his humming under her backside oddly unabated. 

"Excuse me?" Janine asked. 

Brenda stepped forward, no stopping her now. Hers was no longer the only face split by a smile. This had been an invitation all along and she knew it. Or hoped it, at least. With elbows on the bed, she leaned into their circle, caressing a thigh, then an ankle or two.  

"Tyrus," Brenda said, "um… give it to her. Like, now?" 

However tentatively issued the order was one that Tyrus was only too happy to follow. With Brenda's hand guiding him, he found a place just below the pretty one's belly and blazed a trail to the tip of her clitoris, slowly – too slowly. She tilted her hips upward to meet his eager nibbles then pressed him downward when he simply insisted on teasing.  

"Very good, Tyrus," Brenda said. Tyrus's reply was a muffled sputter. 

It was now time to enter Janine. She shifted her hips over and went to her knees, that rose-coated pussy just dripping with readiness. Tyrus eased inside, with unhurried, almost mechanical, strokes. But they were aided by a human touch that knew Janine's needs, her desires, her hungers. Every push inside seemed familiar and right. Every stroke was a kiss from a lifelong admirer. 

Urged on by Janine's whimpers, he soon picked up speed, pushing faster, probing deeper. Her hips dropped to the mattress, but there was no stopping him, no holding him back. With Brenda's hand mounted behind him he pressed on as if motored only by her touch. Janine by now had a face full of pillow, offering muffled praise to God and Tyrus. She kicked and clawed her way through another wave before pulling away in surrender, breathless, trembling, done. 

No problem. It was Brenda's turn anyway. 

She flipped Tyrus over, almost expertly, then positioned herself above him. She lowered herself, clumsily at first, but gaining adroitness with every downward drop. The nightgown was gone now, lost in the blur of this gleeful collision. Janine looked on, collecting her wits and her breath and angling for a role in this new production. She dropped before Brenda and with a spread of her legs, invited her down and inside. Her friend soon complied, leaning forward and lapping up juices with a passion that more than compensated for her lack of agility. 

And it was more than she could handle, Tyrus's lead-hard stiffness beneath her and the feast of Janine's heated hair pie before her. So she tumbled. She plummeted into the waiting clutch of her friend's legs and arms just as the circus inside her had rippled and tickled and shaken her to a place too dizzying, too fevered, too flawless to take much more of. 

The girls then collapsed into an embrace, smelling of sweat and each other's  awkward kisses. 

With a schoolgirl's giggle, Janine turned Tyrus off, kissed his tip and stashed him away in her drawers. He'd roar back to life another day, but for now, he needed his rest.  

Silence had come again. But this was silence of a different kind. This was the silence of two lovers who longed to reveal and explore and relive everything, but were unsure where to begin. So why not start here: 

"Corey was his name. Remember?" Janine said. 

"Huh?" 

"Corey. The mannequin we found in the basement. I always loved the way he tasted like your bubblegum pink lipstick after you were done with him. Sweet, soft, girly, clumsy."  

"I love the way you taste too. Your hair, your skin, your… well, everywhere," Brenda said. 

And the truth is she had always been curious.

Angel Face