Christopher Prato - Little Boy or, Enola Gay

Maria was listening intently, so I just continued.

“Man had never flown until December 17, 1903, when the Wright brothers took off from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. But modern flight didn’t begin until Goddard helped perfect the rocket, which had been worked on for centuries beforehand unsuccessfully. Most people don’t know that the first rocket-propelled ‘jet’ took off from Germany in 1928, twenty-five years after the Wright brothers’ first flight.

As I explained all of this to her, she seemed truly interested. That’s what I loved about her.

“You’re so freakin’ smart!” she exclaimed. And then the funniest thing happened: we both started to giggle uncontrollably.

Five minutes later, calming down, panting and smiling, we embraced. Maria started sliding down me, as if she wanted to lie down. But I encouraged her to stay up, because I was planning to kiss her soon. It had been a while since I’d last kissed her. I gazed at her lovable face and sweet lips and could almost taste her flesh in my mouth. She wore a snug white scoop-neck top with small oval collars. It was the same shirt every other Megan Louis girl was wearing, but only Maria looked like an angel in it.

Although we were barely touching, I could smell her body; I could smell her hormones aching for mine. She was so beautiful—and I was so in love—that I could have broken down right then and there. About to keel over from the intensity of my desires, I finally gave in and leaned over and kissed her. It was the most passionate kiss we’d had, the most enthusiastic I’d ever experienced. I drank her saliva as our tongues wrestle; I clutched her face on either side. She was getting wet, I knew it.

Slowly, I moved my fingertips down her neck and past her shoulder. Grasping her skirt’s waistband, I inserted my fingers and pulled the front tail of her blouse out. For the first time ever, I felt her tummy. And I can’t call it a stomach, because that’s too harsh. It was a tummy. And a sexy one at that. Covering her belly-button with my thumb, I fanned my fingers across her tummy, slowly moving upward. She didn’t seem to mind; I was thrilled that she didn’t balk.

I couldn’t say she was chubby, but she wasn’t a stick. Whatever it was, I loved it. And what I loved more was less than an inch away. That inch disappeared, and soon I was poking my index finger underneath the hard wire that supported her large bosom. All at once my right hand was cupped over her left breast, engulfing her large, soft nipples. I couldn’t have been holding her breasts for more than five seconds when, suddenly, she grabbed my wrist and yanked it out from under her blouse.

“I’m not ready yet,” she said, shaking her head apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

“Not ready? But what about what you said last night on the phone?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t feel comfortable.”

“Oh, come on, what a tease you are—saying one thing and then doing another!”

“Listen, A.J., I’m just not ready!” She started to cry. A perfect day ruined right before my eyes! I didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, her dog started to bark. For a second I thought Maria was going to sic it on me.

“Let me go and check on Maxie,” she said.

She practically ran away from the sofa; I heard her sniffling and then blowing her nose in the kitchen. ‘Maxie’ stopped yelping as Maria cooed at it and called it ‘baby.’ I was so angry and, yes, jealous of her dog. She treats the dog better than she treats me , I thought.

To this day, I’ve never experienced a more uneasy feeling than I did that afternoon. I was angry, but also sad that Maria had become so upset. I couldn’t help but imagine losing her over this whole disagreement. I’m just the kind of guy that likes his friends to keep their word. I hate liars. I really do. And I despise two-faced girls, especially.

I started thinking of what my friend Kyle would do in the same situation. When I’d told him about Lynn and what happened in the mall, and then about how I broke up with her, he didn’t react as I’d hoped. I really thought that, of all people, Kyle was the one who’d slap me five and say, “Way to go, Gahdfaddah.”

But when I told him about what happened with Lynn, he just looked at me grimly and responded: “Hey, boss—better judgment.” He’d never said that to me before, but it wouldn’t be the last time. It would’ve been a slap in the face had he said that in front of Paul or Mike. But, as usual, Kyle was a cool consigliere , and he advised discreetly. I didn’t really know what the hell he meant when he said it. But I guess what he was trying to say was that using Lynn and then dumping her was wrong.

Well, I wanted to use good judgment with Maria. As a matter of fact, I wanted to end the spat as swiftly as possible. When she returned from the kitchen, and sat on the other side of the sofa from me, I reached over and rubbed her thigh gently.

“Is it okay to rub your thigh?” I asked.

“Don’t be a fucking dick,” she said, angrily. I don’t know why, but it was always sexy to hear her use profanity.

“Oh, come on, Maria. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you weren’t ready. But you shouldn’t go around telling me that you’re prepared to do something you’re not.”

“Go around? Huh? Are you saying it’s my fault?” I didn’t say a word. “Because I thought I could trust you enough to tell you what I was thinking. And just because I was thinking about something, that doesn’t mean I’ll do it.”

“I really thought you meant you wanted to do it. Maybe I misunderstood—or you didn’t explain it well enough.”

“Most of the guys I’ve known are too dumb to understand the difference between thinking and doing. I thought you were different.” She hit me right where it hurt with that comment; I loathed being compared to the loser guys she’d dated.

“I’m different!” I insisted. No response. “Really, I am. And I’m sorry. From now on I’ll listen to you more intently. And I won’t assume anything. Because you know what happens when you assume—you make as ass out of you and me .” Finally, she laughed.

“I’ve never heard that before,” she said. I didn’t tell her that it was Sister Domenica from St. Ann’s who told me that to my face when I announced sarcastically that I assumed I could shout in the school library.

I took Maria’s hand in mine. “Listen, let’s just forget this altogether, okay? You tell me when you’re ready to go further than kissing. The ball’s in your court.”

Smiling, Maria looked up at me, scooted down the couch, and leaned her head against my shoulder. I could tell that she was still somewhat skeptical. She didn’t know if she should remain angry with me or not. And, to be honest, neither did I. Finally, it was just as the disagreement hadn’t even happened. The hostility simply dissipated.

We were huddled together on the couch, much closer than we usually were on the blanket in Central Park. I heard birds chirping outside, and the cool early summer breeze whirled through her window.

Maria closed her eyes for a moment and didn’t notice as I crooked my neck and pressed my head against the inch of painted wall between the two mirrors directly behind me. The left half of my face was divided from my right. It’s weird when you do that, because you can see how different one side of your face is from the other. Actually, it looked sort of scary, so I quickly pulled back and returned to staring at Maria, smelling her sweet black, syrupy hair.

At last, she reopened her dark little eyes and looked up at me. “Thank you,” she said with a sigh. “For a minute there I thought you were like that guy in the park, or all the other guys I’ve met.”