Prick of the Spindle: fiction: Carafano: Race Car Bed

Race Car Bed
by Vincent Carafano

In Louis' earliest years his family lived in a tiny house on sketchy Cutty Sark Street. Venturing outside risked the neighborhood roughnecks, a flasher traumatizing tricycle riding kids with quick glimpses under his bath robe, a villainous neighborhood dog that humped anything that would cry.

Across the street lived Alex Wix, the eldest daughter of the woman of the house, interested mostly in her collection of McDonald's Happy Meal toys and in memorizing the panel dropping patterns of the final level of Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade on Nintendo. She loved being swept out on Saturday afternoon dates with her grandparents and always left the bathroom door open when she peed. Louis found this awkward, but her lack of personal space gave him the same tingly feeling in his privates as the downward plunge of bench style swing sets. This intimate attachment always insured Alex was Mom and Louis was Dad when they'd play House under the shadowy crossbeam of Louis' backyard jungle gym. There was oftentimes the wanting of more affection between them; Alex had seen her parents under the covers and she told Louis about what happened there. They played House more often after this privledged look into adult life, on most weekdays after dinner, all their games from then on tense with matrimonial expectation. One evening when winter brought unexpected storms and Alex's left mitten had gone missing, they played all the way back to Louis' bedroom.

Louis boosted Alex up into his race car bed; a red paneled NASCAR frame, steered by light switches and stray wires covering the dashboard; Louis' dad table sawed and assembled this rocket in the garage with little boys' happiness on the heart. Climbing into the cabin second, Louis held his solid blue comforter up for Alex to crawl under, arranging her passive frame side by side with his, and pulled the covers up to their chins, leaving only their faces exposed.

Louis moved first. Inching his left hand over to her palms-upward arm, he slid it down her sweater-warmed skin, anxious, and her arm felt much too long for her body.
Determined, Louis kept his hand on course, spilling into her open hand, and their fingers laced like perfect merging traffic. Louis gently squeezed. Alex gently squeezed back.