Frank Portman - King Dork

As directed, I “parked” before I reached the Schumacher residence (hiding my bike in some bushes a couple of houses down) and walked as quietly as I could down a path running alongside the house. When I reached the side door, I tapped lightly. And I was pretty freaked out by what I saw when the door opened.

F OX ON TH E RU N

I was in a kind of daze as I followed Deanna Schumacher through the door, down a dark hall and some stairs, and into 216

a basement bedroom. Because as soon as I saw her, I knew that this was not, in fact, the Fiona of the fake-mod party. She was much shorter, and kind of chunky, though not chunky in a bad way—she was actually pretty sexy and curvy, to be honest. My Fiona had been taller and much skinnier. Even allowing for the headiness of the moment and the mists of memory, there was just no way you would find anything like the Fiona stomach underneath Deanna Schumacher’s loose, untucked blouse. No way.

I just stood there in Deanna Schumacher’s room, not knowing what to say. Now, I feel safe in assuming that that’s what I would have done in any case. But if I had had my Fiona standing in front of me, it would have been a different type of speechlessness. How had this mistake, if mistake it had been, come about? Somehow all roads led to Sam Hellerman in that line of inquiry, and for some reason I wasn’t really in the mood for thinking about Sam Hellerman at the moment. So I examined Deanna Schumacher and tried to shift gears, in a dilemma I never imagined I’d have: what do you say to a girl you have never made out with at a party while she was in a fake-mod costume but who has neverthe-less invited you to a secret tryst in her bedroom without realizing that you thought she was someone else? We had not, as it turned out, met at a party. And we did not, accordingly, have any matters to discuss, like I had said. Not really.

She wasn’t wearing a school uniform like I had expected, but she did have on a pretty short skirt over bare legs and the loose blouse I mentioned. She was actually quite pretty, in a mousy/nerdy way (which I found I really liked). The glasses were sexy, and she somehow managed to keep her mouth slightly open at practically all times. It was just naturally that way, I guess. Naturally hot.

“Take off your coat and stay a while,” she said.

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I threw my army coat on the floor, and then felt a bit embarrassed when she immediately scooped it up and put it on a chair.

She asked how my mom and Amanda were doing. The fact that she knew so much about me and my family would have been pretty spooky coming from the real fake Fiona, but coming from the fake fake Fiona it didn’t have the same effect. And while I had been walking in and planning my dialogue and checking out her legs and so forth, I had also put two and two together and realized that not only must she have known Susye Teneb, but also that there had been a Didi a grade ahead of me at McKinley Intermediate, and that this was probably her. She must have gone on to Immaculate Heart Academy rather than public high school, which happened sometimes, especially with delinquent or troubled girls. So her knowledge of the Henderson family and my nickname wasn’t all that surprising.

“I never got to say,” she said, suddenly very serious, “how sorry I was to hear about your father.” I was stunned, both by the unexpected condolences and by the even more unexpected grace with which she offered them. “My father was with the Santa Carla coroner’s office, and he speaks very highly of him.” Stunned. Again.

I still hadn’t said a word. She motioned me over to sit next to her on the ruffly, frilly bed.

“Thank you,” I said, meaning thanks for being sorry to hear about my dad, and also for letting me sit on her bed next to her. The silence that followed could be seen as respectful, excruciating, peaceful, tortured, uncomfortable, exciting, tense, or divine, depending on how you looked at it.

“What have you been up to, Tom-Tom?” she eventually said.

“I’m in a . . . band,” I said. “A band.” And even though the current band name, Balls Deep, had been fixed at least till af-218

ter the Festival of Lights, the habit of a lifetime asserted itself.

“Super Mega Plus,” I added. Me on guitar/vox; Sam Hell on bass, prevarication, and procuring young girls under false pretenses; Brain-Dead Panchowski on irregular timekeeping; first album A Woman Knows. But I didn’t say that last part.

“We’re playing at lunch lunch at Hillmont in a few weeks.”

“Lunch-lunch?” I was getting a little tired of that joke, to be honest. Then she said: “Tom-Tom the rock star. Look at you.” I’d rather you didn’t, actually. Then, I kid you not, she said: “You’re so cool.” Well, I mean: certainly not. I couldn’t sort out the sarcasm from the politeness from the sincerity.

There was a tiny bit of sincerity, I thought, wasn’t there?

Maybe not. Maybe it was all politeness. She was a very, very polite young thing. Even her mockery was kind of polite.

She grabbed my wrist to look at my watch, and I thought she was going to go all Dr. Hexstrom on me and say “I’m sorry but our time is up,” but then she suddenly turned around and straddled me and after shooting me an unreadable look leaned in and started to lick my lips. I was, again, taken aback, but I knew what to do. Or I thought I did. This time, the kissing part was going much better, but when I reached beneath her blouse and located her left breast just under the front of her bra and started to squeeze it Fiona style with my nails against my palm, so it went nails–upper nipple–bra-palm, she squirmed, and not in a good way. And when I tried it again, she twisted away a bit, and I paused and made a note to self: not all girls like the nipple thing. Check.

She hadn’t been too fazed, though, and she continued the kissing, which was a lot sloppier and—what? Wild? Yeah, wet and wild. Sloppier, wetter and wilder than it had been with Fiona, anyway. I hadn’t known there were so many variations.

So my right hand had been rebuffed, but I reached up 219

with the left and placed it neutrally yet with reverence on the other breast, which felt very nice. See, I figured I’d let the right one cool off for a while. I moved my rebuffed hand down to her thigh and then started sliding it up toward her butt, while we were both still slobbering on each other’s faces, her tongue ring clicking occasionally against my teeth.

Then, feeling no resistance, I slid my fingers up even farther.

I don’t even know how to describe what that felt like; there isn’t anything remotely like it to compare it to. Let’s just say it was really, really nice.

She leaned back and laughed just a bit with that open-mouth thing she did and said, “You really know your way around a girl.”

Now, I had to laugh at that, because it was so, so, so not true. Probably just more politeness. They grow ’em up sweet and well mannered in the Catholic church, I can tell you that right now.

What happened next was: she stopped kissing me, leaned back, snatched my wrist to look at my watch, and then looked at me. My return look said “what?” but I was prepared to be shown the door at any moment.

“I wouldn’t mind,” she said finally in a matter-of-fact tone, “giving you some head.” Well, I guess she could tell I wouldn’t mind it all that much either, because she added,

“Why don’t you get in the bed?” And she leaned over and pulled back the Holly Hobbie bedcover.

I scrambled back quickly, not knowing exactly how what was going to come next would end up coming, or even knowing what that would be with much specificity.

“With your pants on, huh?” she said. “Well, that’s different.”