Chapter 13 – Lola

“I love you.”

She shifts onto her side, giving me a glimpse of her smooth belly and the perfect curve of the underside of her left breast, while keeping her nipple covered with her elbow as she leans over me, her sweet breath brushing my eyelids as she whispers into my forehead.

“I love you too.”

“I wuv you too, my puddy bear.” It’s Ralph, in the upper bunk in our tiny shared dorm room at the University of Seattle, Washington. I have no idea how I ended up hear, in the rainiest place in the world, but there you have it. And with Ralph as a room-mate, no less. Ralph, who lived up to his namesake by vomiting with even the slightest amount of alcohol in his bloodstream. Ralph, who couldn’t get a girlfriend on his own, so he cherry-picked my pips, letting me listen to his latest conquest – my last ex-conquest – moan and groan theatrically as I know she never did, and was only doing to get back at me.

And that is what had happened last night. The girl I had last been with was currently in the communal showers – a not-so-rare treat in the all-male wing of our mixed H-shaped dorm.

“Fuck you, Ralph.”

“No thanks. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.”

Lola gives me a look as if to say, “oh yeah?” Insinuating that I had screwed Ralph recently. Truth be told, I wasn’t against a little experimentation – why should the bi’s have all the fun? But Ralph is the last person on earth that I’d have sex with. He was pale, and lanky, and spotty. No meat on him at all.

“Clearly, it was a forgettable experience, Ralph, cause I can’t remember a damn thing.”

“So you haven’t found the chloroform, then. Good.”

“Sick, Ralph. Truly sick.”

What was sick was what happened next – Ralph stepping out of bed wearing too-big boxers which gave us an umbrella view of his hairy asshole and dangling balls as he stepped off the top bunk. A bunk I wish we had never manufactured from the two separate single beds we had had at the start of our time living together – moved to give us more space to ‘party’ in our room – a joke because an 8 by 10 foot room was never going to be party central, at least with Ralph taking up half the space.

“Thanks for the view, Ralph.”

“Wanna see the rest?”

“No!” But it’s too late. He strips his shorts off and stands there buck-naked, swinging his hips and enjoying exposing himself to me and my bed partner, Lola.

For her part, she doesn’t seem to mind, tipping her head and making appreciative hm-ing and haw-ing noises, putting her finger to her chin as if concentrating, before turning to me and saying, “It’s a bit on the small size, don’t think?” My eyebrows go up, and then we break out laughing, chasing Ralph out of the room in his towel, to go join my ex in the shower room.

And that’s why I love Lola – she’s me, but in male form, in the best possible way. She points out the women that catch my eye, or would do if my eye wasn’t full of Lola.

Like when we’re walking to the quad to soak up the rays and watch the beach bums and babes skate and jog around the large square of grass that centers the university. I don’t know how they can do it – after growing up in the south, Seattle always seems so damn cold to me, but that’s just the way it is with us southerners…we’re warm-blooded animals through and through.

Yesterday we had just left my door to go to breakfast at the greasy café in the student union where I worked, to grab some greasy eggs and even greasier bread (I don’t know how they do that, even though I work there I still haven’t figured out how their toast comes out greasy – it’s magic in my eyes), and along comes the average bleach-blond babe in low cut halter-top, bouncing along on her bike, boobs hanging out and jangling gloriously together for all to see, except for me, because my mind is still soaking up the image of Lola bent over to untie her shoes, wearing nothing but my oversized-on-her t-shirt, her gloriously curved thighs disappearing up into the teasing shadow of my shirt.

And that’s when Lola nudges me and tips her head, before saying, “boing boing” and tipping her head back to laugh uproariously. I join in. There is nothing else I can do, even as my mind strips the cyclist naked, her breasts bouncing in bare perfection as she rides along. And then she is not riding the bike, but me, with Lola standing by, alternating massaging and licking her breasts, and kissing me, and laughing, before mounting my face and riding me like a bike, up and down, back and forth, until we are all coming together in one happy, holy trinity.

The imagery trails me until we reach the quad, and further beauties emerge. The man walking his stoat on a leash (cruelty, I think). The other man carrying his ten-foot Burmese Python, fluorescent yellow and writhing in the chilly air, gripping him for warmth and moving like a slug rather than a snake. All of these freaks out for show, and still more.

The young women with altered hips and chins and lips and noses. Breasts enlarged and tummies thinned. Not yet twenty-one, and already carrying more false-flesh than their grandparents did in a hinterlife of replaced hips and knees.

Thinking of age and joints, joined up with a jarring step too hard on unseen, uneven ground brings me creakingly back to the real world. Too much time spent running around manic when young has left me achingly old before my time. But before that thought can take hold and bring me down, Lola is off again, prodding me in the side, seeing my slide into sadness and depression, and catching me, pulling me out before I can fall, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat she is pulling me from myself, coaxing my laughter out until forced to get physical she tickles me. And I tickle her back, because it is only right. Then we are more than tickling, we are fondling, and I grab her, and she pushes away and runs, and I chase and tackle and lift and spin, and bring in for the kiss. And she melts.

But not for too long, because she digs her elbows into my shoulders, and propels herself from me until my arms are stretched beyond strength and I have to put her down, let her go, set her free, and she is off again, running and laughing, spinning, her long golden hair flowing around her like a dream, like my dream woman.

A loud clatter in the cell next door brings me crashing back down to where I lay on my bunk, arm pressed hard against the cold, wet wall, the echoes of my past stealing back into their deep, dark hole in my center, followed swiftly by my soul, that soul I have carried for so long, protected within a shell of pure, unadulterated malice, pointed outwards, and in, until all that I can really say is that no one has touched me as deeply as Lola had, way back then. No one has come inside and played on the swings, or slid down the slide, or made castles in the sandbox of my soul. No one has been invited in, nor found the secret door and her very own key, like my Lola. And I wonder, not for the first time, where she is, and what she is doing. How long she has been married, and how many children she has. For she must be surrounded by love and light, my Lola. She must be, for that is what she is. Love and light.

Lola’s love and light chase me as I descend into my own personal hell, crushed beneath the thousands of tons of concrete and steel that stand between me and anything I had ever known as life.

Why did I waste so much time not living, when I was free?