Thunderbird

Oh my fucking god, you've got to be shitting me! Mmmmmm . . .

I curled my arms and fists even tighter into my chest, tangled with the pillow and blankets, holding onto them for dear life.

I moaned incoherently into my clenched fists. My every thought, every cell of my body, and the pulsing waves from the tower wrapped themselves tightly and completely around that precious, magical object.

With a satisfied grunt, he bottomed out, fully immersed, his balls squashed into my cheeks, the front of his thighs rubbing up against the backs of mine. He kept still for a moment, allowing me to adjust to his size while he caressed the curves of my ass and hips. He then started to slowly fuck me.

I didn't move. I crouched, tensely, concentrating on the feelings. I took one last look at the shadows, our bodies lost amidst a swirl of feathery forms, and then my gaze shifted to the desert and the sky full of stars.

My eyes, half-closed, latched onto the vast space, so still and quiet. I thought of the planets, spinning in their orbits. I saw a falling star.

I felt Billy, behind me, rising and falling. I was lost to the sensations, my mouth agape with pleasure. I watched the landscape, thinking of Mr. Fisher's words.

The world reduced to simplicity, distilled into symbols. Billy, and the tower, myself and the desert.

How had I never noticed, imagined it before? The "emptiness" before me was not vacant but full. It was a receptive, passive sea coming up to meet and recede from the tower like the tides.

"Frannie . . ." Billy moaned, behind me. "Oh god, Frannie. . ."

"Don't stop!" I whispered back. "Please don't stop."

I focused on the driving pleasure of his cock inside me, pushing me closer with every stroke towards the precipice of a huge hole. I clawed at the rock floor, clinging to its weight, anchoring me down to the ground. Our bodies grew slick and slippery with sweat.

"Franniiiiie," Billy groaned. "I can't stop it. . . oh. . . here it comes. . . "

I closed my eyes, concentrating with all my might on the single aching spot he was hitting, over and over. It completely filled my mind. And then something seemed to cave in, and I slipped and fell, spinning into space.

"Oh Jesus, oh god . . ." I cried out, as I tumbled into it and started to come.

I felt him, spurting deep inside me, swollen and pulsing, and my body shook and contracted in earth-shattering pleasure. It went on and on, echoing out into the sky.

My eyes were open. I saw everything. I saw that I was alone in the universe, and it did not scare me. The entire day replayed itself in my mind as I came. All my thoughts, all the things I did not say, all the things I had seen in secret, and everything I was feeling at that moment. It was all mine. Not Jeannie, not Billy, not a single living soul could see the beauty I saw; no one knew it was there, except, maybe, a man with pale green eyes.

I knew I would tell of it, someday. I knew I would never forget the exact moment I discovered my soul.

+++

A while later, we cuddled together, watching the stars.

I kissed Billy.

"That was amazing."

"Uh. . . yeah . . . that was . . . uh . . . wow," he said, still out of breath. He shivered, and I drew the blanket over us.

"Hey, uh, do you mind? I could go for these right about now."

I laughed when he handed me a green wine cooler.

"Sure."

I looked at him as we clinked the bottles together.

"To the alien apocalypse."

"Yeah . . . to the . . . mmmmm . . ."

Whatever else he was going to say I never heard, because he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into a deep kiss.

Eventually, we made it to the car, which miraculously started, and I drove Billy home before I went back to Jeannie's. I crept into the dark house to find her fast asleep with her tin foil hat still stuck in her Mohawk. She rolled over and moaned and I whispered, "Go back to sleep."

I woke up early, eager to get back home, and she grilled me over pancakes about what happened with me and Billy.

"Well?"

I grinned at her.

"Well . . . you were right."

"About what?"

"He has a big cock," I replied, as I stabbed a sausage with my fork and popped it into my mouth.

+++

When I got home, I crashed, and fell it into a long, dreamless sleep. I slept the entire day.

I was awoken by my mother late in the afternoon. She came in and handed me the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey."

It was Billy.

"Wake up, sleepyhead."

I rolled over luxuriously and curled into a ball, clutching the phone and smiling from ear to ear.

"Are you . . . ok?" I asked him.

"I'm great. Hey, go back to sleep. I was just wondering if you'd heard."

"Heard what?"

"You should check the news, Frannie."

"What? Why?"

"Just go look. I'll call you back. You still want to get together tonight?"

"Of course."

"Ok, see you then."

"Bye."

I got up, got dressed, and wandered into the living room. My mom and dad and brothers were watching TV.

"Oh for Christ's sake!" my Dad blurted out.

"Dan!" Mom said, in a reproving tone. "Hi, honey."

"Hi. What's going on?"

My brothers were staring open-mouthed at the TV, which had a news report blaring. At the bottom of the screen there was a scrolling red banner that said "Desert Sightings."

I stood there, silent, listening. When my brothers giggled, I hissed "Shh!"

"Numerous reports are coming in today of suspicious activity in Roswell last night. June, what do you have?"

The screen cut to a perky blonde standing outside the "Desert Winds" Motel. I knew that place. It was the last outpost on my side of town before you headed into the desert. How many times had I seen the same scene, growing up?

"Well, Steve, I'm standing here outside the Desert Winds, and I have to tell you, a lot of folks seem pretty shaken up this afternoon."

"Damn it!" Dad blurted out.

"Honey! Language!"

"Yep, there goes my beeper. Well, my Saturday's ruined. I'll have to go into work."

On the TV, June was interviewing an eager couple.

"The ground was shaking!"

"We saw something shoot up into the sky!"

Dad swore again under his breath, and Mom glared at him.

I stood there, taking it in, my stomach swooping up and down.

I knew, standing there, listening to those tourists, that I would never see Mr. Fisher again.

I also knew, later, there'd be some talking head in a suit, being interviewed on TV. It might even be my dad. And they'd be saying, "We conduct test flights all the time, but I can't say anything more than that. People have no need to be concerned."

+++

I never did see Mr. Fisher again. Billy and I knocked on his house a few days later, but there was no answer. I asked some teachers at the school, but no one knew a thing about him, and he didn't return the next year. He'd come out of nowhere, it seemed, and vanished off the face of the earth.

I thought about him, though, and our many conversations. When I went to college in the fall, I followed his advice and enrolled in a Creative Writing program, and, well, if you know me, you know the rest. They stick my books in the "Science Fiction" section, which I've always found kind of irksome. I'll always be considered one of the crackpots and kooks of the literary world.

Billy and I had an amazing summer, and we were together for two years. In that time, nothing strange or unusual ever happened.

I never forgot it, but the memory of that night did fade a bit in time, until years later, when it was all brought vividly back into my mind.

I was in the library one day, investigating "legends of the American Southwest" for a new novel, and I came upon a version of the Thunderbird myth I'd never heard before. I thought I knew all about it; I'd even written a paper on it in college. But this was new. I can still remember that moment, late on a rainy afternoon in the basement of the Portland Public Library, and the cold shivers that broke out all over my body.

In this version, it is told, the great bird, when it comes down to earth, will reach up, grab hold of its beak, and peel it off backwards, along with all of its wings and feathers, to become a man. And when it ascends, the process is reversed.

I remember, reading this, it was as if I could smell the Jovan musk and the Aquanet. I could hear Blondie playing in the depths of that basement. I could see Billy's beautiful blue eyes, and those shadows on the wall.

Where I live, there are Thunderbird totems all around me. Many of them are in the form of masks, and you can see a human face peeking out from the bird's.

My husband scoffed when I told him all this.

He's a scientist, and you could say we have a pleasantly combative relationship about certain things. It drives him crazy when I curl up on the couch and watch those faux documentaries—you know the ones, where someone's claiming aliens built the Mayan temples and the pyramids. I never miss a single alien autopsy, and my bookshelf is crammed with every book ever written on Roswell, New Mexico.

I met him when I was college, not soon after Billy and I broke up.

We had a wonderful two years together, but we drifted apart, eventually, and in time he went the way of my dad's Thunderbird, Jeannie's Mohawk, '80's music, and little green men.

But the desert—the desert never leaves me. All I need to do is close my eyes, and I am there.

+++

If you want to take a trip down memory lane, here are the songs referenced in this story:

The Police – King of Pain
Icicle Works – Whisper to a Scream
Don Henley – Dirty Laundry
Depeche Mode – Everything Counts
Grandmaster Flash – White Lines
The Violent Femmes – Gone Daddy Gone
Nena – 99 Luftballoons
Wang Chung – Dance Hall Days
Tears for Fears – Shout
Prince – Purple Rain
New Order - Blue Monday
Echo and the Bunnymen
Blondie - Angels on the Balcony