(This time, she didn't need to tug on anything. Jay realized, breathing deep wisps of cinnamon Trident, stale beer, and Pert Plus, that he was overtly interested in this girl. Something in their searching lips sucked him in like a doomed sparrow to a jet engine intake. As he enthused, Jay was suddenly struck -- typical -- by the dread feeling of inevitable loss that often came with his little joys.)

"Shit, I need to go to the bathroom," Mara laughed hard, starting to run again now with Jay in tow. "Quit...running...so hard.... When...we get...to the House,...you can go..there,..." puffed Jay as he brought up the rear, "Lead on," he thought. "No," she yelled, "I gotta go NOW!"

Mara ditched him where he stood, catching his breath; she skipped off, bricks underfoot, aiming for a stand of shrub an trees near the gated gorge path. A dine in, disappearing, head first. Jay could barely hear her beer-huskied voice, calling to him now while the rush of flowing water from underneath and the roll of cars from on top. A word or three made contact, "Just...a...min-ute...," until a Volkswagen Van sputtered, bridge whirring from the direction of campus, blocking all communication but the implied connection of most recently warmed tongues.

Jay laughed once (for his luck), he laughed again (for Mara), and he laughed still once again (for being so shit-faced). Down to his worn loafers he spied some polish - no, a shiny beer stain - and catching a small chill, Jay shoved his hands in his pockets, adjusting his shorts to his belly. He was joyous to be Altered -- Out of It -- Fucked Up this who knows which night of Senior Year. Where/what else would he rather have been doing? And hooking up, no less. After Lisa and her sad brown puppy-humping eyes, Mara was a relief, a breath of night air after last call.

Mara appeared from the glade across the street, and Jay started to remember bits and pieces of the conversation which lead up to the discovery of their attraction. Mara liked to spar and he had admired that verbal roughness before tonight. Initially, she had clocked Jay in the shoulder for not knowing her name. Mara was fun to hang out with (he had seen Sean and Mara dancing up a storm, taking turns squirting each other from a beer funnel, or stumbling around house parties with ludicrous hats -- Sean's idea). Maybe a little young. But, young was where Jay put most of his effort these days. All his classmates considered good prospects were either engaged to sleep with someone else or engaged with several else's, riding the final wave of Seniority.

Mara met Jay full on the lips. A station wagon, on the way back from the State Street Diner and passing the two entwined bodies, honked, celebrating the pairing with whoops and catcalls of "Get some!" At their sides, their arms entangled in a mock wrestling match which neither wanted to lose, nor to win. Eventually both gave in. "Jay," whispered Mara, "you kiss really well. All that practice with younger chicks, huh?" She laughed, poking him in the ribs until he jerked outside of the reach of her jabbing fingers. "I'll race 'ya!"

And Mara was off again, this time tearing across the bridge, her off-white sneakers pumping the ground, short hair shaking in the wind. She ran to the center of the span -- where Mara stopped to peer down into the blackness at the bottom of the Cascadilla. Jay shuffled up behind her, looking at the city lights filling the neck of the gorge between one side and the other. The stars overhead mimicked the city lights and vice versa, with an occasional traffic light, now repeating, shattering the mirror image.

The mist from the gorge was palpable, even a bridge height, smelling of Spring pine, algae and last Fall's rotting oak leaves. The shimmering cloud cooked the metal piping of the bridge and the air on the walkways. Cold shower. That's it, rumbled Jay: take Mara down into the gorge. Instead, he caught her from behind and pressed Mara into the railing, catching a quick ear lobe with his tongue in the process. "None of that," warned Mara as she escaped his press and turned around to grab his pockets closer to hers, and smirked, "I'm not that kind of girl." At that, they smiled again and kissed.

Mara broke the bond of the bridge and took Jay's hand, swinging it back and forth in grand exaggeration. She began to notice how he played into her actions. Jay shadowed every move she made, meeting her touch with screenwriter accuracy, responding to her words with script-like quips. I wish he wouldn't do that, she thought, he's acting like my Dad. But it was this familiarity that excited her even more. "I will not do him," she promised herself, "I will not,...I will not do him...tonight,...."

rjw, edited 3/26/96