Allure & Disappointment
By Savannah Schroll
As soon as she saw him without clothes, she was
tremendously disappointed. He was a road map of blue-veined
nakedness in some places, flaccid and pasty like bread dough
in others. There were parts of him, particularly around the
groin, that seemed juvenile and somehow . . . unripe. His reddish-blonde
hair was baby fine and irregularly dispersed, making him look
as naked and as vulnerable as a baby. This is not a man,
she thought as he stood before her. This is a giant infant.
A sort of physical repulsion flashed through her as she gazed
at the knobbiness of his knees, the yellowish cast of his toenails.
This man, whom she had known up until a few hours
before only as Beretta522, presented himself in a way that seemed
as if he expected rejection. He stood slightly pigeon-toed,
one foot over the big toe of the other, hands dangling loosely
at his sides. Amanda was not a cruel girl, and he had all the
necessary masculine equipment, after all. So she went to him
and put a reassuring hand on his stomach, near his navel, steering
well clear of his steadily growing erection because she didn't
want him to feel that uninhibited. She herself was not sure
how to feel. It was not at all what she had expected. Not at
all.
She'd met him in a celebrity fan club chat room.
She'd gotten involved in a free-for-all discussion about young
female vocalists, and as soon as her first comment registered
on the screen, he IM-ed her. She chatted with him for awhile,
perhaps fifteen minutes. They spoke about nothing in particular,
except she told him how old she was, the color of her hair,
and what grade she was in. Before she signed off, he told her
that he'd never met anyone like her in all his thirty years.
She was special.
They had continued to email each other over the
following four weeks and had exchanged pictures. His, however,
had been several years old. She saw that now. When he rolled
up to the junior high school in his pea green '82 Chevelle with
the big black racing stripes traveling up the front of the hood
and gray body putty filling in the left fender, she almost didn't
recognize him. He certainly didn't look thirty. His hair had
faded from lighted-match red to a pale, unremarkable rotten
pumpkin. He had what appeared to be a newly-hewn bald spot in
the front as well as an unfortunate display of freckles not
apparent in the photos. But she got in anyway. His car smelled
like sour milk, and he of Old Spice, which her grandfather wore,
and-although only faintly-stale sweat. Nevertheless, she drove
off with him. She wanted to be interesting, to have experiences.
She also wanted to be told how pretty she was, and he would
do this. He would provide the gentle patter of adoration that
would fuel, would encourage, that would _justify_ the little
flames of adolescent narcissism that had begun to crackle and
hiss inside her. She seemed to need more than she could get
from others. But his dogged pursuit of her online-his ceaseless
attentions, they made her feel positively regal.
Amanda stood now in his narrow trailer and began
taking off her clothes. It was cold for April, and she shed
her top with a reluctance brought on not by nervous diffidence
alone. Also, some part of her heart was failing her deeply,
despite the two fortifying shots of Four Roses he'd put down
on the table in front of her, both of which had been sediment
filled and had made her teeth gritty. With an excruciating twist
of her stomach, she recognized that she was not good for this
escapade after all.
So, without thinking, on adrenaline-driven impulse,
she bolted, crashing through his insubstantial screen door,
sprinting out of the mobile home park, gulping lungfuls of fresh
air. She realized she now wanted to see her mother more than
anything else in the world. Her mother was probably sitting
up at that moment, folded in two against the sofa cushions,
holding a crumpled hanky against her mouth, eyes red-rimmed
and teary. Or maybe she was angry and pacing the expanse between
the living room and dining room, shooting angry glances at the
telephone. Amanda ran until she reached a 7-Eleven. From the
payphone she dialed 911. This was the safest way, she calculated,
to get home. Perhaps, she thought with breathless exhilaration,
she would even make the morning news.
....
Savannah Schroll has a cool name and has been published in Hobart
Pulp, Eyeshot, Dusty Lizard, The Glut, and many others. Links
to her other online works can be found HERE.
From what we were able to gather, she also paints and copywrites.
