Melissa
by Mark Aster


A big white slate-blue house by a lake, one wide green
mountain ridge and most of a river valley away from the
highway.  An indeterminate and varying number of friends,
relatives, neighbors, past and present and future lovers.
Kids and grownups, good food, the quiet olive-green feeling
of people who have worked hard for their money and ended up
with quite a lot of it.

Jake hadn't come to the party; he has mixed feelings about
his extended family.  "I mean," he'd said, "resistance may
be futile and all, but there's no point in actually sitting
down for dinner right in the middle of the Hive Mind itself,
you know?"  Pat and Julie and the twins and I had driven
up; Pat and I shared the driving, and Julie had mostly
sat in the back with the twins poking them and making
baby noises.

Now I was down by the lake, on the rocky-sand beach next
to the dock, watching Tommy and Keda practice crawling and
toppling in the portable playpen, and talking to various
new-old friends who passed by.  Pat and Julie and some
other members of the Hive Mind had gone into town for a
movie and dinner, but I had no lack of company; babies are
great conversation pieces.

On the dock, a young woman had been lying for some time
on a folding lounge, reading a book and sunning herself,
also talking to the passers-by.  My eyes kept returning
to her.  From her figure and her voice, she was probably
eighteen, but something about her skin, the way the light
played with her hair, was breathtakingly young, with a
rawness and innocence that were irresistible.  When she
put down the book and lay back, eyes shut, the curves of
her breasts and her stomach and her thighs made a perfect
profile against the trees.  I tore my eyes away eventually
and went back to admiring my kids; from one perfection to
another.

A few minutes later, I turned and she was beside me, crouching
on the sand.  "Hi," she said, "I'm Melissa Elton.  My folks
live just up the road toward the mountain."

"Pleasure," I said, touching the proffered hand.  Her skin
was warm and smooth, "I'm --"

"Oh, everyone knows who you are," she smiled, "Your babies
are really cute."

I offered her a place on the blanket, and she sat down next
to me and played with the twins.  The dark one-piece swimsuit
clung tightly to her body, and I tried not to stare.  We
talked about the house, the countryside, the weather.

"You going to school next year?" I asked.

She sighed and pouted.  "That's not something I want to
talk about so early in the summer," she said.  I admired
her lips.  "Tah-wa-a," Tommy commented from the playpen.
We laughed.

"So what do you do, back in the city?" she said.

"Maybe I don't want to talk about THAT so early in my
vacation!"

She made a face at me.  Our eyes met and held for a long
quiet second; then Keda rolled into Tommy, and we tickled
them and didn't touch each other.  I felt about ten years
younger, sitting on the beach with this perfect girl, her
thighs by mine, her bottom on my blanket.

"Yow," she said eventually, "I'm supposed to be home for
dinner," and she waved goodbye and gathered her stuff up
from the dock.  She wriggled her hips into a pair of shorts,
and I watched her legs as she walked quickly up toward the
house, toward the road up the mountain.

Dinner in the slate-blue house was a long and convivial
thing, warm and a little crowded.  Tommy and Keda and
four or five other kids were swept up by Aretha, a big
hearty second-cousin-once-removed who deserves a story
or two of her own.  I ate and talked, and after dessert
I went out into the cool of the evening.  Around the corner
away from the door there was an old white porch swing.  Pat
and Julie were expected back any hour; I sat down on the
swing and yawned and relaxed.

I opened my eyes a little later, and Melissa was smiling
down at me.  "Hi again!" she said.

"You came back."

"I came back."  She sat down next to me on the swing.  I had
one arm up along the back of the seat.  She was wearing a tank
top and the same shorts; she smelled freshly washed.  "I like
it here."

We talked some more, or just sat and listened to the crickets
in the field and the hum of conversation from the dining room.
She told me stories about the house and the relatives, stories
they told her when she was a girl.  I told her about the city,
the babies.  We sat together, not saying anything.  She turned
and smiled at me and kissed me softly on the mouth, just a
brush of her lips.  Then she turned away again and started to
talk.  I forget just what about.  She snuggled closer to me on
the swing, her hair close to my face.

I moved my arm off the back of the seat, around her shoulders.
She leaned against me.  My fingers touched the warm bare skin
of her arm.  I stroked her lightly and listened to her breath.
The night was quiet out here, suspended in the twilight.  She
slipped her sandals off and crossed her ankles.  I cupped her
shoulder in my palm, and she turned slightly toward me.  I
kissed her.

Her lips were thin and very warm, soft and yielding.  We kissed
for a very long time, mouths closed, noses touching.  Her eyes
were closed.  I broke the kiss to admire her face.  She stayed
still, not opening her eyes, her lips pursed and innocent.
Then she leaned toward me, tilting her head, and our mouths
met again, in a deeper kiss, my lips over hers, and her left
hand was on my chest, caressing me.  My heart was pounding.

"Oooh," she whispered, drawing away an inch and looking into
my eyes.  "Oooh," I agreed, and I put my hand behind her head
and drew her back to me.  I kissed her mouth lightly, kissed
her nose, kissed each of her eyes, and she made a lovely soft
sound far down in her throat.  She turned her small body toward
me, and I could feel the soft hills of her breasts under her
shirt.  She moved her mouth to mine, and kissed me, and opened
her lips.

I stroked her hair as our tongues slid together and her fingers
slipped between the buttons of my shirt to touch my chest.  The
sweet muscles of her lips pulsed around my tongue.  I hugged her
more tightly to me, and my other hand strayed down to her leg.
Her skin was taut but soft, over firm young muscle.  We broke
our kiss, arms still around each other, both breathless and
happy in the gathering dark.  "Kiss me again," she whispered.
I did, and she pressed herself against me, and her tongue
probed my mouth, and she moaned.  Then she make an angry
sound and pulled back.  "I've really gotta go to the bathroom,"
she said, "save my seat?"

"Promise," I grinned.  She kissed me softly and untwined herself
from me and walked off with a long backward glance.  I lay back
on the cushions and waited for my heart to quiet down, making
plans to smuggle her up to my room, or maybe down to a blanket
on the beach.

"Cradle robber!" said a familiar voice from the shadows.  I
looked up, and Pat, the mother of my children, stood leaning
against a post, arms crossed, looking archly at me.  "That
was Melissa Elton just leaving, wasn't it?"

"Everyone needs to rob a cradle now and then," I said, holding
out my hand.  She stood by me and took it, squeezing my fingers
fondly.  "She'll be back in a minute," I added, gently hinting.

Pat smiled, "Just how old would you say this particular cradle
booty is?"

"Nineteen," I said, which was actually a year older than my best
guess.  But there was something in Pat's eyes.  "Seventeen?"

Pat shook her head at me.  "She'll be fifteen in September," she
said.  "She matured real early."

Oh god.

"Oh god!  I didn't --"

"Of course you didn't," Pat said, looking through the wall into
the dining room, "someone in there was SUPPOSED to be keeping an
eye on her."  She turned back to me.  "Sweet man.  Don't worry,
you haven't done her any harm."

Any harm!  "But what do I do now?"

"Just," and she leaned down and kissed me, "just don't do anyone
any harm."  And she kissed me again and she was gone.

Melissa came out a minute later, and curled back into the
curve of my arm.  She fit perfectly.  I hugged her, and she
brushed her lips over my mouth.  "Hi!" she said.  I touched
her hair and guided her head down onto my shoulder.  She put
her hand on my chest.  "Now where were we?" she said very
softly, and looked up at me.

"You're very beautiful," I said.  She moved her face to be
kissed, but I just touched her lips with my fingers.  She
looked puzzled.  I looked into her eyes, admiring her, not
knowing what to say.  She kissed my fingers.  I sighed deeply,
tried to look at her as a fourteen-year-old.  She turned her
face away from me, put her head on my chest.

"Someone squealed, didn't they?"

"Squealed?"

"Someone came and told you that Melissa is only fourteen, that
Melissa is a virgin, a baby, a dunce."

"Just the fourteen part," I said.  I stroked her hair.

She was quiet for a long minute.  "It's not fair," she said,
her voice unsteady, "It's really not."

I kept my arm around her, nuzzled the back of her head with my
nose.  "You're a really good kisser," I said.

"So are you," and she turned her face hopefully back to me, but
saw what I meant and turned away and sighed.  "It's really not
fair."

Another long quiet time, Melissa warm and young lying with her
head on my chest, her legs soft and bare, her smell filling my
head.  She sniffled now and then.  I hugged her.

"Do you want to talk about school now?" I asked.

"If you'll talk about work."  And we laughed, and talked again,
still holding each other.  In the circle of my arms, she was
as perfect as ever, infinitely desirable, valuable, vulnerable.
My love was utterly confused.

Eventually she untwined herself again.  "I really should go in,"
she said.  I nodded.  She kissed me quickly and lightly on the
mouth.  Her tears had all dried; the ability to be comforted
is an important survival skill.  I watched her walk away.

"Maybe I'll come and visit you someday," she said from the dark.
"Maybe when the babies are five or six."

I smiled.  "That'd be really nice," I said.

"Yeah," she said, and she sighed, and she went in.


Melissa
by Mark Aster
The End