FEMANIA

smoky and sticky

This girl, some time ago

Locking eyes with a stranger from across the smoke hazed basement, was a past time she was familiar with. This girl would act flustered at first; flushed cheeks, shy glances; then fading into intrigue; hurried looks, lazy suggestions; and finally a languid pull into the last step-an invitation.

It had happened many times before; among the jewelled crowd of her parents friends, in a petite yet expensive French restaurant (a son of a family friend, back from college); once when dazing by the lake, schools let out for the summer (the suggestion in his eyes, as she lay back in the grass); and then tonight; when Dorothy Firske promised that her brother would invite the boys from Strutt's, and the beer keg, dancing lazily in the Firske's 2000 sq ft basement among the haze of tobacco and cannabis smoke, to the likes of Buffalo Springfield and The Byrds.

He was average height, rather handsome, clean shaven with a twinkle in his eye. He had done this before. She was excited at yet another prospect; they had always gazed from afar; the men, the boys- because the truth; she was well versed in the art of gaze, of touching herself on the neck, on the collarbone as they watched, at bold looks in their direction, at teeth over lips, tongue in cheek, high skirt, low neck. But they had always watched, never approached. To say she was getting sick of it was an understatement; if she wanted to be stared at in lust, gazed at by the voyeurs, she would become a religious icon, undressed in marble.

The music had continued to play, as this girl watched him, almost shyly, walk over to the makeshift dance floor. He had second hand clothes on-she could tell from the worn nature of his jeans, of the slightly faded purple of his sweater, a poster boy of vintage designer.

She had been struggling with the keg. "Do you need any help with that?"

It had been a glance; that had done it for her. The problem was, she fell in some sort of love every day; at least in those days she had.

"I'd like that." She stepped to the side, as he forced the tap round-jammed, it had been, the sticky beer grossly gumming itself to the spout. At one point, he had looked up at her, and in realising that she was closer than he expected, had started at the sight of her face.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" She had begun to speak, as he interrupted.

"No, it's my fault." He had cleared his throat. "You're just really gorgeous, and it surprised me a little."

One would take that as a compliment. He thought she was pretty-gorgeous even. So it was enough to make her unfurl, laughing at first in denial, then blushing and buzzing, because she was a pretty girl at a party with a boy- and in that moment she felt immortal.

"Err..sorry if that was quite forward." They'd both laughed, shy and soft.

"You're the first guy to ever tell me that to my face, so actually, thank you." She smiled. "You're not so bad yourself."

He'd puffed his chest, in mock pride. "Apart from the moth eaten sweater."

He was devastatingly easy to talk to. Bringing a few of those tiny liqueur bottles available on planes, he had made impromptu cocktails with stolen soda water. They talked about champagne and psychedelic rock and California and Greek myths and expensive gelato in Rome and the historical events that fascinated them the most. They jumped to Love Affair, jived to Booker T. & the M.G's, swayed to Crosby, Nash and Stills singles.

"Hey." He'd whispered to her, in a quite lull, several hours later. "You've made me the happiest I've been for a while."

This girl had smiled in a shy sort of way, flushed with the remnants of elderflower liqueur- most definitely taken with it all, sickened with a thing called love. Roughened up and warmly drunk in the basement of a million dollar house.

Looking back; she tasted the soot on her tongue, the sallow air, the jangling notes of "Turn! Turn! Turn!" The poor quality beer sour on her lips, and the fakery of it all! The cheap, gaudy, flapping pretentiousness of it all! They enjoyed pretending they were something different; struggling artists with exquisite morals and a taste for anarchy, troubled migrants with a scarred past ("No, you wouldn't understand-my great great great grandmother was from Romania- she had to fight her way to the Americas in the 1740s").

Their fathers had inherited booming businesses, their mothers had come from old money. They listened to 60s folk because it made them feel cultured; they smoked pot and drank cheap beer, because it also made them feel cultured; they were buzzing with the thought of living rough and dirty-they fantasised about running out of money while their parents still sent Christmas cards with Tiffany earrings to their childhood nannies; they were low quality poets, knock off philosophers and so was he.

—
His name was Billie-purposefully the female variation of the name (his parents were "controversial", "artistic"), and the first time they kissed had been on a sweaty summer day, in his bedroom. His baby sister was teething, and being soothed in the living room by the nanny. He caressed the cool dark wood of the mahogany balustrades as they made their way up the stairs, hand in hand-and she did too. She can remember tasting homemade lemonade on his lips. While they kissed, the old wooden bed frame creaked and the open window let in the sound of a reversing truck.

This girl regaled the story to her tight knit group of girl friends the next day. She pointed to all the places he had touched. She was giddy and sick with the thought of him saying her name.

—
There was a party in the garden of Minnie Fillman's later that year; and the first time they had sex was among some bushes a couple meters away from the stereo system, and the second hand dining tables placed haphazardly in the grass. He was drunk and she was not. He had taken his time with her, promising to go slow. Then he had taken her, in the frigid soil, tearing a hole in her dress, which he apologised for, once they had woken up in his freshly starched sheets the next morning. Never mind. He was all she knew. It didn't matter that his touch left her shivering, filthy on that night. It didn't matter that she willed the earth to move, to make him stop. It didn't matter. They were in love.