THE CHANGE - CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
PART FOURTEEN - MARTHA TAKES A RIDE (STAGE TWO) / SQUEEZE PLAY
PART FOURTEEN
MARTHA TAKES A RIDE
(STAGE TWO)
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19TH
MALIBU, CA
FORTY-ONE
One thing was for certain: rich people’s weed wasn’t anything like regular people’s weed.
Within seconds of my first toke – pretty much from the moment that I exhaled, coughing – I got so high that words felt funny. Not just to think of, but to put in my mouth. I tried to say something clever, but the consonants jumbled. And the next thing I knew, I was laughing hysterically.
When I was a kid, and first starting getting high, that was pretty much what cannabis did to me. Just giggle-fits, punctuated by the occasional “Oh, wow…” But I hadn’t felt this high since junior high school. And the regular Oregon weed I smoked was really fucking good.
I went to comment on this, but the joint had already come back around again: from Angela to me, from me to Liam, from Liam to Kitty, from Kitty to Jimmy, and from Jimmy back to Angela, who was now sitting beside me, neatly sandwiching me in the middle of the middle row.
“Here you go, baby,” Angela purred, holding out the smoldering doob.
“Uh-uh,” I said, giggling. “I better wait.”
“Why wait?” Up close, she was magnetic, too. I couldn’t take my eyes off her smiling face.
“Maybe she wants a shotgun!” Jimmy yelled.
“What do I need a shotgun for?” I yelled back at him. “Am I gonna hafta SHOOT somebody?”
Jimmy, Kitty, and I all started laughing. They looked cute in the back seat, all entangled and handsy. Was I starting to find them magnetic, too? Were they all secretly made out of magnets?
“No, no,” Angela said. For all I knew, she was reading my mind. “He means this kind of shotgun. Come here. Lean close.”
I did as she suggested, leaning forward at the waist, and watched as she turned the joint around in her fingers, inserted the lit end between her perfect lips, and leaned toward me as if going in for a kiss.
Then she paused, with only an inch between us, and blew a thick stream of smoke from her mouth into mine. I took it in as if it were sacred, inhaling slowly and reverently. The smoke was incredible, rich and sweet, and the instantly-multiplied double-buzz rippled through my nerves like a wave of warm butter made entirely of loving tongues.
It was only when I exhaled that the coughing resumed. And it was so absurd that I should cough in this glorious moment that I started laughing again, coughing and laughing, tears streaming down my cheeks and a string of helpless drool lolling down onto my t-shirt. My fabulous t-shirt, with the title of his book that I made.
‘OH, NO!” I bellowed, wiping my lips and coughing some more.
That was when Angela wrapped her arms around me, pulling me close into a comforting hug, going, “That’s okay, that’s okay,” as the coughing subsided, my cheek against her shoulder and my lips in the soft stretch between her shoulder and breast.
She started stroking my hair, from the back of my head down past my shoulders, Her other hand rested at the small of my back. And her lips very gently kissed my forehead.
“Oh,” I said. “That feels nice.” Because it did. I took a deep breath and snuggled in closer, firmly hugging her in return, my fingers kneading her back, which was thin enough for me to feel her bones through her light jacket.
Suddenly, I realized the only things I could hear were my own soft breathing and the beating of her heart. And her heart was beating loudly, very loudly in my ear as it pressed against her breastbone.
My heart was pounding, too.
But the strangest thing was, there was no other sound. The Caddy Escalade itself was like a cone of silence, at least when it came to the rumble of the road. And it rolled so smooth that it barely even felt like we were moving at all, although we’d gotten free of the traffic and were fully cruising now, the Pacific Coast Highway pavement somewhere out there beneath our wheels.
I could hear our hearts, and my breath coming quicker. But inside the limo, there was no other sound. It was as if the whole world was holding its breath, waiting to see what we would do next.
Suddenly, I could feel their eyes on me.
That’s when I started to feel the burn.
