A Place Where Nothing Ever Happens: Short Story by Claude Lalumiere Page B

go of his hand and answered it. “Hold on a minute,” she said. “I’ll see if he’s available.” She held her palm tightly over the receiver and pointed the phone toward Kyle. “It’s for you. Should I just take a message?”
    Automatically, Kyle grabbed the phone and said, “Hello?”
    It was that voice again. “Is that your girlfriend? She sounds nice. What’s her name?”
    Kyle dropped the phone on the floor, let out a long, loud, angry howl, and started crying again. This should have been a perfect evening, and it had turned into hell.
    Lauren picked up the phone. Kyle was too wrapped up in his own misery to hear what she said.
    Later — a few minutes? an hour? Kyle had lost track of time as well as hope — his face and chest were being softly wiped clean by a warm, moist towel. Kyle refocused, brought his senses to bear on his immediate surroundings.
    He was still sitting on the couch. From the light coming through the window, he estimated that it was still early evening. Not much time had elapsed, then. Lauren had taken off her jacket. Her shoulders looked so soft. She was washing him. Could he feel more pathetic?
    She looked up at him — she must have sensed a shift in his posture — and it took all of his will power not to segue into the never-never land her eyes usually sent him off to.
    â€œLook, Lauren, I — I, huh, I’m sorry about all this. My Uncle Flip died last week, and then the phone — I mean, this isn’t — I’m not — Fuck. I — ”
    She said, “Shh,” tracing his lips with her finger. Facing him, she sat on his thighs. She slipped the straps off her shoulders and pulled down her dress. She put his hand on her breast and kissed him, tentatively.
    Feeling stupid as the words left his mouth, Kyle said, “But what about the movie? It’s only playing tonight.”
    She kissed him again, shutting him up.
    Kyle didn’t believe it. “You’re telling me that everyone knows this? How come I don’t? It doesn’t make any sense.” Kyle and Lauren sat in a booth at The Small Easy, an all-night café that, it turned out, they both knew and really liked. The lighting was intimate, but not too dark. There was a candle burning at their table. A big cactus-like plant further enhanced the feeling of privacy by isolating the booth from the rest of the cramped café. Not that it really mattered then, anyway. At 4 a.m., there were only two other customers, neither of whom paid them any attention: an immobile grey-haired man staring out the window, his phone lying on the table and his hand resting on a full cup of tea that looked like it had been cold for a long time, and a teenage Asian girl, with more rings on her face than Kyle could count, scribbling furiously in a notebook between gulps of steaming coffee from a jumbo mug.
    â€œBut it’s true. I’ve been talking to both my grannies almost every day since it started last week.” Lauren took a bite out of her tomato sandwich.
    â€œOkay, so how come this stuff isn’t on all the talk shows? Why aren’t there TV specials about it? If what you’re saying is true it would be on the news, in the papers, and all that. There’s no way I wouldn’t know. People would be talking about it. All the time.” Kyle dipped a thick French fry into The Small Easy’s extra-spicy mustard-and-mayo sauce and waved it at Lauren to emphasize his point.
    They’d had sex for nearly seven hours. At first, slowly, tentatively, shyly. Then faster, almost violently, flipping impatiently between every position and permutation, trying to experience every sensation the union of their bodies could produce. Then almost in slow motion, taking the time to appreciate the lingering sensations of every touch, kiss, bite, friction. All this without a single word spoken, until, reacting to a loud stomach rumbling, Lauren