Virgin Pie

When her gums swelled and her jaw began to throb her parents told her she was just getting her wisdom teeth, and that she'd probably get away with a little orthodontic work and some caps.

Like most everything else they had told her, it turned out to be a lie.

~

"What the hell . . . ? You bit me!"

It was Brittany's sixteenth birthday and she'd invited to her room the tanned, buff nineteen-year-old landscaper her parents had recently hired.

They'd been going at it on her bed as the pool party (complete with vodka-spiked cranberry punch, roaring hip-hop music and about a dozen crashers from another school) blazed on without her in the courtyard below. She'd been relaxed, and slightly drunk; Randy had been nervous but eager. Then as she was just getting into it, he'd pulled away. Now he was staring at her wide-eyed and trembling, clutching at his neck with both hands, like he was about to strangle himself. He looked ridiculous, like one of those sci-fi movie morons about to give birth to a slimy alien worm. What was his problem anyway? Sprawling on the bed, she propped her head on one elbow, sighed and rolled her doe eyes at him.

"Oh gimme a break. Like you've never gotten a hickey before," she slurred, and grabbed at his leg. He might be a moron, but he was still a yummy one.

"Hickey? You call that a hickey?"

Frantic, he jumped off the bed and backed up into the corner, stumbling as he knocked over her vintage Barbie collection. He waved a frenzied hand in front of him. It was covered with blood, as was his neck. That sobered her up pretty fast. It also stimulated her, more than his fumbling hands and unskilled tongue. Her insides burned as her skin, it seemed, was massaged by hundreds of invisible icy fingers. She could smell the iron-salt smell of his young blood. Yummy. Yes.

Brittany stood up and moved toward him, grabbing a Kleenex and holding it out to him like a peace flag.

"Oh God Randy I'm sooo sorry! I guess I got, like, sort of carried away or something. Let me clean that up for you." As she spoke her breath fogged in front of her face in an icy vapor, as if she were in one of those commercials for breath mints or chewing gum.

"Stay the hell away from me you . . . freak!" Randy squealed, his voice a few octaves higher than it had been earlier. "I'm not into this weird shit."

With that he zipped up his cargo shorts and made a beeline for the window through which he'd come, scrabbled over the roof and down the trellis, then disappeared into the bushes.

"Hey, you're a virgin, aren't you?" she called after him. She said it without thinking, and then wondered how she could know this. But she did know it, somehow.

Brittany plunked down on her bed again, baffled and frustrated and mildly giddy. She wanted Randy back-to do what with, she wasn't sure. Then there was a knock at her bedroom door. She recognized the pattern of raps.

"C'mon in, Jas."

Jasmine entered quickly and shut the door.

"What's up girl? You're missing your own damn party, you know." Her designer bikini and wrap dripping from the pool, she slid over to the dresser mirror, picked up a comb and started to slick back her kinky hair into a high ponytail. "I saw that garden boy running away through the trees. Hey, if you're done with him can I have him? He's yummy as a hot fudge sundae."