James Hynes - Next

(The cabbie is speaking rapid-fire into his phone in a foreign language. He’s repeating the same word — a name? — over and over again. Nobody seems to be answering him.)

Then the stereo erupts again to shouts and cheers, a ragged electric guitar in a sharp, insinuating figure that Kevin recognizes instantly. In the clinch, Kevin and Lynda gaze through the dark at each other as the drums kick in, Charlie Watts playing a slow, sensual, urgent beat. On the sloping old porch they can feel the trembling of the farmhouse floor under the dancer’s feet, and Kevin starts to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” murmurs Lynda.

“Nothing,” he breathes as the bass comes in, Bill Wyman playing a balling rhythm. He kisses Lynda and slides his sweaty palm farther up under her skirt, and she grips his wrist and holds him back. They part slightly, their mutual humidity rising between them, and he tries to catch her gaze, why not? But she’s looking past him, blinking through her scrim of hair as if listening carefully for something. Then Jagger starts singing, Yeah, you got… satin shoes, and she eases from under him and sways her hips to Watts and Wyman down the porch, away from the windows. She doesn’t look back, but he follows her past one dim red window and then the other, brushing the porch swing and making it twist slowly, end by end. Dim red figures bob and sway in the farmhouse windows, and Kevin can’t make out anyone in particular, but he knows the Philosopher’s Daughter is there, he can feel her radiating through the wall of the house.

(Cupping the cell, the cabbie makes the turn by Gaia Market one-handed, accelerating east down Fifth into the canyon of construction sites. He presses Dial again and lifts the phone to his ear.)

At the end of the porch Lynda lifts her chin and pushes her hair back again with both hands, saying nothing. Jagger growls through the window screens, Y’all got… cocaine eyes, and she grips Kevin by the forearms and wheels him around and settles him on the wooden railing, never taking her half-lidded eyes off his. His feet flat on the floorboards, the bass pounds through the soles of his sneakers. Lynda glances back at the windows, tosses her hair, then squats barefoot before him, pushing Kevin’s knees apart. “Oh,” he breathes, so quietly that no one could possibly hear him over the music, not even himself. In the windows crimsoned bodies churn while at his feet Lynda tugs the zipper of his jeans and pries his cock free with the tips of her fingers. He lays his trembling hand on the crown of her head as she takes the tip of it in her mouth and strokes him three times, up and down, like she’s nodding at something he said. One long-fingered hand rests on his thigh, the other curled under her skirt, between her legs. His cock aches it’s so hard, but Lynda lifts her mouth away and pushes herself to her feet with her hands on his knees. Even in the humid summer air her saliva chills his hard-on. “Don’t stop,” he says, still not loud enough to be heard over the music, but Lynda lifts her skirt to thumb her panties down into a knot on the porch. Her face is in shadow, her eyes hooded. She slips the straps of her dress off her shoulders, baring her breasts, and leans into him and kisses him, her hair falling across their faces. He slides his hands up under her dress and digs his fingers into her slippery ass. She pushes down on his shoulders, he lifts, and somehow she’s straddling his lap with her knees on the railing, her thighs taut, her moist cunt sliding exquisitely onto his cock.

(The cab dashes from light to light toward Austin’s downtown as the cabbie mutters into the phone, then presses Quit and tosses it in frustration on the seat beside him.)

The porch railing creaks under their weight, and even drunk and excited Kevin wonders about the farmhouse’s craftsmanship and hopes the Philosopher’s Daughter’s father is as good a handyman as he is a philosopher. He worries about toppling backward into the bushes, he worries about splinters, but the beer and the anxiety are making him last longer, otherwise he might have come the instant he was inside her. Then Lynda murmurs “Wait” right in his ear, and as he clutches her waist under her dress she unbends first one leg and then the other over the railing, settling tightly against him, taking him in even deeper. She tightens her calves against the railing and squeezes with her thighs, and he groans, because he’s deeper inside this girl than he’s ever been inside any girl before, and he presses his open mouth against the long, salty curve of her neck. He’s inhaling her humidity, she’s panting like an animal just above the top of his head. They can’t move much — if she thrusts too hard against him she’ll topple them into the bushes — but the song has finished with words and now it’s just a driving sax, and they rock together to the beat, her sweat dripping into the dress bunched at her waist, her hands kneading his back, his face pressed between her salty breasts, her heart thumping against his lips. He can’t move much, he can hardly breathe, but he can’t stop now, and he hooks his chin over her shoulder, her hair scratching his nose and filling his mouth, and through it he can see the red window where the music’s pouring out, he can see pumping limbs and torsos in the red light, hair swinging, heads shaking. There’s someone in the window, he can’t make out who in the darkness, just a silhouette against the red glow, catching a breeze through the screen, breathing in something other than sweat and beer and marijuana. Kevin wants it to be her, and he thinks, look at me, but he can’t be sure, it’s just a shape in the window, it might not be her, it might be someone else. Now the music is circling and building, just the rhythm section and an insinuating solo guitar, and as Lynda rocks against him, he surges with each bar of the solo, almost cresting but not quite, and he thinks, I want you to see me. He hopes this lasts forever, he hopes that it doesn’t and that he comes like a waterfall, but either way he wants her to know, he wants her to see him. His heart hammers, his breath rasps through Lynda’s hair. Turn around, he wills the silhouette in the window, this could have been us.

(The cab idles impatiently at the corner of Fifth and Congress. The cabbie breathes heavily through his nose; he has the phone in hand again, and he’s staring at the little screen, as if willing it to ring.)

Now the guitar and the saxophone are trading off, leading each other on, and Lynda starts thrusting harder against him, faster than the beat, gasping like a runner. Kevin tries to grip her tighter, but she’s so slippery under her dress and she’s moving so urgently it’s all he can do to keep them both on the railing. His thighs ache and his back hurts, and under his hands he can feel every muscle in her body pulling tighter. All he can do is hold on tight and flex his buttocks. Now her gasps are high-pitched and squeaky and he hopes they finish before the song does because he doesn’t want her to come out loud in the gap between the songs when everybody could hear them. Only her, he thinks, hanging on to Lynda for dear life, I only want her to know. Lynda digs her nails into the back of his neck, and he sinks his teeth into the taut curve of her throat to keep from groaning aloud. Her sweat pours over his fingers, and now she’s whimpering rhythmically, chirping like a bird, and through the window the guitar and the saxophone are winding tightly round and round each other, and Kevin thinks, Turn around, just about to come himself, look this way.

(As the cab turns onto Congress, the cell phone sings, and the cabbie exclaims aloud, inclining his head toward the red phone like a tiny heart in his palm. There’s a torrent of speech, both ends of the conversation talking excitedly over each other. The cabbie sounds like he’s about to cry.)