Ernest James

Heaven on White Birch Terrace is an excerpt from a novel-in-progress.

Tom had known girls like that. He’d felt sorry for them too. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t taken advantage when the opportunity presented itself; men were pigs. He’d never do it now, of course, even if he could. He was too old and contentedly married. But back then? Well, that was a different universe.

His mother was away on business. He was home from college for the summer and she’d left strict instructions not to have anybody over to the house. “Not even Richard,” she’d said of his best friend. “If I even hear of a party, I will take away your car. I will.” Tom had been quite the busy little fellow in high school and she knew enough to alert the neighbors on both sides, as well as the old dentist who lived across the road. But none of this stopped Tom from bringing that girl back to the house on White Birch Terrace. It was just too good to pass up.

He and Richard were coming back from the filling station where they had worked since they were fourteen. It was after ten at night and had just begun to rain. It wasn’t cold exactly but no one should be out on the streets in short-shorts and a tank top during a Kansas summer rainstorm. The thunder and lightning were magnificent but they could also kill a person. 

She was pretty high. They could tell that at a glance. She stood a little wobbly on her legs and didn’t stop smiling. When they opened the side door of Tom’s 1969 Super Sport Chevy II, Richard stepped out to climb in the back seat but she wouldn’t hear of it.

“Now you just get back in there fella, and let little Heaven sit on your lap.” Her pupils were the size of poppy seeds. 

The warmth of their bodies in the close confines of the car mixed together to form a rich brew of gasoline, motor oil, moist armpits, and a musky strawberry trout scent that went straight to the boys’ peckers. Heaven leaned over to play with the radio buttons, wiggling her ass as if it might help her choose which station. Richard looked over at him with a ‘what do we do now?’ face and Tom’s answer was to speed shift into first, leaving a little skid of rubber on the road and knocking their heads back into the headrests as he turned the nose of his blue and white racing-striped beast toward the little house on White Birch Terrace.

***

“Can I take a shower?” she asked while removing her clothes.

“Sure thing, honey,” he said, reaching for the phone. He knew he had to share. Tonight would be legend.

***

He had her first. After all, it was his mother’s house. He was taking all the chances and it was his car she’d climbed into. He felt kind of bad having sex on his mom’s bed but he only had a twin in his room and that wouldn’t have worked out. Besides there were six of them and the thought of all that in his bed was just enough to turn a man’s stomach. Heaven looked better with her clothes on. Stripped out of the greasy shorts and sweat-stained Tweety Bird tee shirt she was very skinny, bony actually. He handed her a fresh towel when she slid back the shower curtain of his mother’s titty-pink tiled bathroom but she pushed it away. “No baby, you dry me off.” So he pressed the towel against her stringy torso and started on her stomach. “Not that way, cowboy,” she said. “With these.” She grabbed his wrists and brought his hands up to the tiny white wafers of her breasts. “Or maybe,” she gave a demented laugh, “with your tongue.” She kicked out of the towel, sauntered into the bedroom and flopped on the bed like a freshly landed sunfish.

He fucked her brutally fast with a detachment he had never experienced before. He’d had meaningless sex, of course, but with girls he knew or at least gave a small shit about. This girl was like wax. It didn’t help that the other boys had arrived and were peeking around a door that he was sure he had closed. They were giggling like imbeciles.

When he finished, he threw the damp towel over her body. Her legs were still widely spread and she had a leer on her face that made him want to hit her with something. He had never wanted to do that before. To anyone. Least of all someone he had just made love to. But this wasn’t love and he hadn’t made her do anything. He pushed passed the boys jockeying for position in the doorway, his hands cupped to his crotch, not to cover his nakedness but to dull the pain from the spot where, he was certain, a piece of his soul had just been stolen.