Sex Still Spoken Here: An Anthology by Carol Queen Read Free Book Online

“what-if” and lots of small fragments, like a lot of stories probably are.

Heart -Shaped Box
    Charles Lyons
    It was the first thing he noticed after climbing out of the car. Before the dust or the heat or the Flintstone mobile trundling by had even registered, he saw her come around the back of the cargo truck, arms full of camping gear.
    She wasn’t wearing pants.
    Not just a bathing suit or panties or even a thong, nothing. Her ass beneath her t-shirt as bare as the day she was born, legs dusted with a pale sheen of talc, fluffy tuft of pink—yes, pink!—in the front.
    He forced himself not to stare as she dumped her armload on the lift gate of the truck, clapped her hands a couple times, and came over to him, one hand extended in greeting.
    “You must be Nate,” she said. “Sarah’s little brother. Sorry, not little. Younger.”
    “Yeah, that’s right.”
    “So you’re a virgin, huh?”
    His sister had been referring to him this way for weeks, so he knew she just meant this was his first time here. But he was sure that he blushed.
    She had almond eyes and a dark bob with magenta streaks in her bangs. As he fumbled through a reply, he managed to avoid checking to see if the carpet matched the accents in the drapes. But he was sure it did. She introduced herself as Treasure and he spent several minutes trying to guess which Eastern European country she was from before he realized it was an English word.
    His sister and her shaggy boyfriend came around the car to hug Treasure and started discussing the camp layout, pointing to the little red boundary flags that dotted the edge of the street, the pile of tarps marking the far corner of their territory, the distant, barren mountains beyond which the sun would rise and set.
    It was only then that he noticed the pirate flag over the neighboring camp, the immaculate blue sky, the couplet of cupcakes cruising past camp in the clear afternoon light, folds of frosting hiding the heads of their drivers.
    He had arrived. He would have stories to tell back in Ohio, oh yes. They thought he was a weirdo for coming out here, but they had no idea.
    Nate followed Treasure around all afternoon, helping to unload the truck, offering to lift heavy things whenever possible, stealing glances when he was sure no one was looking. When she pulled off some work gloves he managed to get a good look at her left hand, which was ringless—but maybe she’d taken it off for safekeeping. She had Mediterranean skin, a mild tan everywhere he could see, no bikini lines except for a pale stripe on her neck, and her round, firm ass cheeks taunted him all day long.
    He unloaded and set up his tent, then repositioned it when she suggested a better location. He put his cooler in one corner and his duffel bag in the other, then pumped up his air mattress only to realize he should have put it inside the tent first.
    Godzilla walked past and waved hello before moving on down the street.
    He and Sarah’s boyfriend Justin unloaded a couch from the truck, then Nate helped raise the shade structure, tighten the ratchets, and string blacklights, meeting his other campmates-to-be along the way.
    There was Wild Bill Yonder, a tall man in a cowboy hat who showed him how to tie a trucker’s hitch. DJ Trainwreck, who had brought a surprisingly large pile of expensive-looking audio equipment to a very dirty place. Everest, a brassy girl in a tutu who flirted with everyone and called him Sparky. Doctor Awesome, who came striding up out of the dust in a waistcoat and a pith helmet, crooked grin on his face, and knew where everything went and in what order. Princess Tumbleweed and Mayday and Dirty Vargas and Captain Trips and Lulu and Steve, and all of them very friendly and most of them somewhat odd and he had a hard time imagining them in normal clothes sitting behind a desk or talking on the phone or watching television.
    Around them their neighbors’ camps sprang up: a field of crucified Barbies, a jungle