by Dorion Sagan
(7/25/01)
Ray Bellare is getting a bite to eat. He clip-clops in his leather sandals beneath the hot sun. Entering the diner, he orders pancakes with a side of Canadian bacon. What Raymond doesn't realize is that nothing else exists except what is engaging his attention at the present time. For example: when he closed the creaky door of his car and turned away, his automobile disappeared. So also the quarter he inserted in the parking meter, and the parking meter itself, both of which seemed so solid. These items vanished instantly when Ray turned his head from them. Though he conceives of them as just around the corner, and though they will in fact reappear after Ray finishes those doughy banana pancakes which are arriving right now (you can even see the freckles at the top of the waitress's breasts as she leans down and with a somewhat sour and suspicious look clinks the plate upon the table), the meter, the car, indeed the whole whooshing hustle-bustle of high-noon summer city traffic do not exist. Oblivious to these limitations of physical reality, Bellare squeezes the sticky label of the upside-down syrup container. It is imitation maple.
As Bellare turns his head to avoid smoke drifting from a table of gossiping ladies in the rear of the restaurant, he becomes aware of a presence growing behind him. He becomes, that is, increasingly aware of a density, a perfumed density, and the growing louder of high-heeled footsteps. You can see Raymond's Adam's apple bob irregularly as he gulps down a warmed blob of banana and confronts the striking scent and form of a seventeen-year-old girl dressed in summer clothes. She turns as if forgetting something and Raymond spasmodically inhales as he embarrassedly looks away from the tan belly showing between flowered miniskirt and yellow midriff. The girl senses Raymond's embarrassment and seems instinctively to gravitate toward the role of teasing. Perhaps the behavior is learned: she slowly and deliberately approaches Raymond's head, turned down toward his plate to hide the red fire he feels igniting his skin. He smells her and squirms slightly, screeching a chair leg as his eyes move up from the cotton daisies. But she steps closer and lifts up her skirt: Ray is staring at the soft middle of a slender set of black panties. Instantly, he feels a small hand tousling his hair. She quits this to snap the waistband. Frozen, transfixed, Raymond senses the eyes of others riveting upon him.
"Don't be afraid," says the girl in a sweet tone of maternal reassurance. "These people won't say anything. They're really quite imaginary anyway. We can have sex and they'll just keep on eating." While speaking these words, the young woman has slipped her panties over her white heels and placed them near the now-cold coffee and pancakes. Wild-eyed Raymond stares at a white stain showing conspicuously against the black silk. He is too frightened and humiliated to be aroused. He imagines he hears the stifled cackle of one of the elderly women gossips at the back of the restaurant. A truck driver continues cutting eggs into big pieces at the counter. The waitress stares, mouth open in disbelief, too fascinated to pour the coffee she is holding. The short-order cook, who is also part owner, notices what is going on now, too. The girl has lifted up her skirt again and is trying to caress Ray into nuzzling her. She shudders and their eyes meet.
"Come on," she says. "I'm cold." She reaches down, her skirt falls, and she puts his hands on her buttocks. She is cold and he is too overcome now to resist her wishes. "Nobody will say anything," she says, and she enlists the truck driver to enter her from behind over the dirty plates as she unclasps Bellare's belt. The group of housewives and widows can contain themselves no longer and break out into diabolical laughter at the very moment Raymond ejaculates into the girl's swollen mouth. She has provided the truck driver with a red condom, and allows her head to rest on the cold sticky pancakes as she brings herself to a climax.
Afterwards, she pats herself with the uncrumpled part of his napkin, pulls her panties over her shoes and bruised knees, and then presses down on the short dress. The waitress comes by, stone-faced. Except for an ambiguous glint in her eye, she shows no signs of having witnessed a perversity. She clears the dishes, disposing of the napkins and birth control. The truck driver returns to the counter and resumes eating.
Raymond Bellare is standing in the middle of the restaurant wondering if he is insane. The girl pecks him on his cheek on her way out. He sees the small of her back. Then there is only the din of the air conditioner.
