Second Best Fantasy by Angela Kelly Read Free Book Online Page A

silently commended myself for remembering several side street short cuts. We’d lost the signal of the New York radio stations hours ago, and Janine flipped the tuner before landing on a pop charts station. Cruising the strip, with eyes peeled for a parking spot, I felt teenagey all over again.
    Who was I kidding? This woman couldn’t possibly be amused by roller coasters and skeeball tables after Versailles and Julliard. Then again, she had suggested going fishing, so this idea didn’t seem too much of a stretch when it came to comparing intellectual stimulation. As I rounded the court at the end of the beach to search for parking on the other side of the strip, Janine’s song came blaring out of the speakers.
    She reached out an arm and snapped the radio off without comment. I thought better of commenting myself. Giving up, I drove a while longer and paid the outrageous amount of $15 for the privilege of parking in a lot where I’d be lucky not to have my stereo stolen.
    “When was the last time you were here?” she asked.
    “Four years ago,” I said without effort. I’d been home from Illinois for a visit. An ex of mine nearly ran me over with a shopping cart in the supermarket of my hometown. We hadn’t seen each other since before my move, and this ex happened to be one that was not gotten over easily. It was like a movie that went with that Dan Folgerberg “Auld Lang Syne” song. We went to our separate homes, unpacked our groceries, met at a bar, and left one car behind. Four hours later, we were naked in a hotel room with a Jacuzzi surrounded by our winnings from the boardwalk. That night she’d broken my heart a second time.
    “What are you thinking about?”
    She didn’t know? “About how much I want to kiss you right now,” I said, and then did.
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    “I’ve only ever been to Coney Island,” she said. No wonder, I thought to myself. Between Versailles and Julliard, when would she have had the time?
    “This is great, I love stuff like this. I hope that’s not what you’re worried about, why you’re so quiet all of a sudden. As a matter of fact, it’s just this kind of thing that will make me fall in love with you, you know.”
    She kissed me again, and I resented her joking about falling in love. But I didn’t want to be a mope, so I smiled and got out to open the door for her. When I held out my hand to her, she pulled me into the passenger’s side, leaving me with one foot on the gravel, a knee on the floor mat, and my torso sandwiched between her knees. She kissed me hungrily and reached a hand between my legs, and I was suddenly very sorry for wearing jeans. I was unaware of anything or any passer-by, only the animalistic way she groped me and the fear that I was going to come right then and there.
    Janine surpassed normal human existence; she was like a fiery ball comprised entirely of energy and electromagnetic fields, passing from moment to moment not moved or touched by the laws of earth or society. This adrenaline charged sexual being wrapped in skin controlled me, and any innermost desire I didn’t even know I had. Breathless and wet, it took whatever energy remained to break away from her before I really did come in my jeans.
    “Are you always like this?” I asked.
    “I want you,” was her only response.
    Incredible. “I want you too, Janine, I just tend to be more particular about time and place.”
    “Why?”
    I had to think about it. Why not right there, right then, in my car in the back of a parking lot?
    “Isn’t it, I don’t know, better if we wait? Until later, when we’re home for the night? Baby, I’m willing to do whatever you want, over and over again, I’d just rather be in a more comfortable place, or maybe in more comfortable clothes.”
    She snaked around me to get out of the car and lit a 35
     
    cigarette.
    “Please don’t be angry.”
    “I’m not angry, Maggie, I can wait. However, in the meantime, let’s talk.” She kissed me much more