Buds Part Five

[buds]

SUMMER BUDS

by Jeremiah Murphy

The more time passed, the faster it seemed to go. He didn't even notice the anniversary of being alcohol-free as it passed by, over two hundred and ninety-two days ago. His support group would have reminded him, but he had skipped that meeting to go to a party. In fact, he skipped most of the meetings to go to parties over the past nine months, much like the one he'd been avoiding this evening.

This also marked exactly four hundred and twenty-two days since the beginning of the truce between Lisa and himself. For the most part, it functioned as smoothly as child custody following an amicable divorce. Sean was even getting used to the idea of Eugene and Lisa cohabitating. He didn't like it, but he was used to it. Besides, they lived on the second floor of a rental house, and it had rooftop access. This gave him somewhere to escape to when he'd had enough of a party. He'd done this enough that Eugene even thought to stash a blanket near the window so he wouldn't be too uncomfortable.

The amount of solitude he needed following a party was directly proportional to the size of the gathering. Tonight required a lot of it. Unfortunately, Lisa wasn't letting him have any. He didn't know what had gotten into her, but she took control of him before a coherent thought could even form in his head. He couldn't resist her, even though a small, rational part of him knew how much of a terrible mistake he was making with his best friend's girlfriend.

His concentration focused on her brown eyes, sparkling with a bit more joy than he was used to seeing. Her attention was focused a little further south on his anatomy.

He took a breath and moaned, "I need a cigarette."

She bit her lip. "Wait until we're finished."

"When's that going to be?"

"When I'm satisfied."

"You're never satisfied."

"We should have done this a long time ago," she said. "I can't get enough of it."

They matched gazes for a moment. He asked her, "Do you really mean that?"

A smug grin crawled up her cheek. "I'd get enough if you were any better at it."

"You don't always have to berate me. Especially now."

"Yeah, I do. It's the basis of our relationship."

"I thought marijuana was the basis of our relationship."

"That and the physical stuff," she said.

That reminded him: "I have a cramp."

"Suck it up."

"I am sucking it up."

"Suck it up harder."

"Do I always have to be on top?" he asked.

"If you knew what you were doing, I'd be the one on top. Now shut up for once in your life."

A few more intense moments passed without a word between them, when she shifted her weight suddenly. He yelped and pulled out. After she let out a deep, throaty giggle, she told him, "That's two for flinching."

"Ah, fuck." Knowing that not cooperating only made it worse, he gritted his teeth and offered her his shoulder. She punched him twice in the exact three-inch area she'd been slugging since they'd made their way outside. One had to admire her accuracy.

"Again," she said.

"I don't like this game," he whined, moving from Indian style to a crouch to get circulation back into his legs.

"That's because you suck at it," she replied. "Maybe you'll get lucky and get to pound me this time."

"It's the only reason I'm sticking around," he admitted, extending his hands, palms-down.

She moved her own palms about an inch beneath his and waited. They stared each other down for a while until she shrugged. He held his ground this time, and was rewarded for his fortitude by her clapping her hands together, smashing all ten of his knuckles between them. The impact made him stagger backward off the blanket. This in turn made him slip on a shingle, lose his balance, and pitch off of the roof.

Before he could get too far, Lisa caught his flailing arm. "Easy there," she whispered as she hauled him to safety. "I think you need a break."

He blinked his bulging eyes and sat down very carefully on the blanket. A two-story drop onto a concrete driveway might not kill him, but it would hurt a lot. He gasped, "I think that's a fantastic idea."

"Cigarette," she said.

"That's another fantastic idea," he agreed and reached into his pocket.

"No," she clarified, "I meant, 'Give me a cigarette.'"

"Don't you have your own?"

"Yeah, but yours taste better."

"We smoke the same brand."

"I know," she told him, "but stealing from you makes them sweeter."

"Get your own," he said and put one to his lips.

She punched him again on the bruise.

"I see your point," he conceded and gave her a cigarette.

They smoked in silence. Sean thought about his own mortality. He didn't know what Lisa was thinking about as she gazed absently at some barely visible storm clouds in the distance. A low-pitched rumble rolled over them. He just assumed it was thunder until it occurred to him that there had been no lightning. A twitter coming from the same direction told him exactly what the rumble had been. "Rocky, darling, you are not nearly that drunk!"

"Then how come I can see two of you?" the rumble asked.

Mateo hopped out of the window. "You cannot see two of me," he shouted back.

"Seriously," Rocky told him as he pulled himself outside, straining the frame as he did. "You look like the number eleven."

Mateo gave up and turned his attention to the others on the roof. "How long have you two been here, cupcake?"

"Long enough for Sean to try to pound me," Lisa replied.

"He wouldn't dare!" Mateo grinned.

"He wouldn't dare to do what?" Eugene asked from the window.

"Try to pound her," Sean replied. "The operative word is try."

Lisa told them, "I pounded him first."

Eugene shrugged and sat on the blanket next to her. "She does like to take the initiative."

"I pounded him hard," she added, snuggling up to her boyfriend. "Glad you're here, sweetie. Did you bring the Dude like I asked you?"

"Sean has it," he replied.

Her knuckles slammed into Sean's injured shoulder. With a yelp, he dug it out of his pocket and handed it to her. She studied it for a moment and slugged him again. "You had it the whole time?"

"You didn't ask me for it."

She cocked her fist again and he flinched. "What if you dropped it?"

"I have a feeling I'd go down with it."

"Fuck, yeah," she replied. "I would have let you go."

"Then it's a good thing I didn't drop it."

Lisa grunted and started packing the Dude with some fresh weed.

"Guys," Eugene asked, "What the hell?"

"Your girlfriend's a spiteful, violent, trashy monster," Sean informed him.

"Your friend's a girl," Lisa retorted.

"I love this show," Mateo whispered to Rocky.

"I know!" Rocky agreed. "It's got tits and punching! What more could you ask for?"

Lisa rolled her eyes and put the pipe to her lips, which Sean noted were perfect. Also, for someone as promiscuous as she was rumored to be, she didn't put a lot of effort into showing off her figure. It didn't matter, though, because her clothes took care of it by wrinkling, bunching, stretching, and settling in the right places for maximum effect. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to flush the thought from his brain. When he opened them again, she was blowing the hit through her boyish bangs. Women paid a great deal of money to salons get the ruffled hair she styled simply by running her fingers through it.

He shook his head and muttered to his aching libido, "This is bullshit."

"It's not bullshit," Lisa said.

Sean tended to forgot other people could hear him when he spoke aloud.

"You have no balls," she continued. "You're a girl."

"Guys," Eugene interrupted.

Sean ignored him and said, "That implies ovaries." He handed Lisa a cigarette and took the Dude from her in exchange.

"And a vagina," Mateo added.

"And a vagina," Sean agreed.

"Guys," Eugene interrupted again.

"Then you're a eunuch," she said.

"Guys!" Eugene shouted.

Sean shrugged. "Touché," he told her instead of pushing the issue.

The roof went silent, as the verbal tennis match was the only thing keeping most of them awake. But before anyone could doze off, Shannon popped her head out of the window. "Where did you guys go?" she asked them loudly.

"The roof," Sean informed her before he took his hit.

"Of course you're on the roof!" She gently slapped Sean on the shoulder. Nobody but him noticed Lisa snickering at Sean's wince. "That's not what I meant!" Shannon added.

"But that's what you asked," he said through gritted teeth.

She clutched the sleeve of his trusty cardigan sweater. "Please don't confuse me. Sean, I'm baked. Like a brownie. Once, the cast of Waiting for Godot baked an ounce of hydroponic weed into a dozen brownies, and we had two brownies--they were huge brownies--and we went to the state fair."

"You've got to be kidding," Lisa sighed.

Mateo laughed. "The state fair? What the hell were you thinking?"

Sean shrugged, "Probably: 'Why not?'"

Shannon passionately held his hands and looked in his eyes. "That's exactly it! 'Why not?' Why not go on the roller coaster? And we took the brownies with us and ate them and we tried to pace ourselves, you know?"

"Oh," Sean told her, "I know."

"But we ate them all while we were in line and by the time we got onto the roller coaster we were tripping and we saw hallucinations and stuff! And the whole time we were just going, Wow! And we did again, and we were still all, Wow!"

"Can you even trip on weed?" Mateo whispered.

"You have to have a lot of it," Eugene replied.

"Yeah," she giggled then grabbed his shoulder. "Do you have any brownies?"

"No," Lisa growled.

"I'll go check!" Shannon told them and slipped back inside.

Sean said, "That's probably the last person who should be getting high."

Peering off the roof and into the driveway below, Mateo said, "I wonder what would happen if she fell off this."

Sean replied, "She'd float away."

"I wonder what would happen if I fell off this."

"You'd bounce."

"What about you?" he asked.

Lisa said, "I don't think anybody would notice if Sean fell off the roof." Her smirk at the comment was reserved for him alone.

Again Shannon burst out of the window, "There's no brownies in this house, Eugene."

"Sorry you didn't listen to me," Lisa said.

"That's okay, I just feel like dancing. That party was just like the sixties."

Sean said. "The sixties were just a bunch of people getting stoned with a sitar, anyway."

She grabbed his hands again. "I know! But we didn't have a sitar!"

"Or brownies."

"I know!" she giggled. "That's what I've been trying to tell them!" She added, "You know what would be really groovy now?"

"What's that?"

"Sex." She floated over to Rocky and traced his collarbone with her pinkie. Then she looped his gold chain around it and pulled his face closer to her lips. "What do you say?"

"What do I say about what?" Rocky asked. "I wasn't paying attention."

Her hand lingered on his chest for a moment before she gently pulled him to the window. Sean watched the exchange with mild amusement. He tried to take one more hit off of the Dude, but it was cashed.

Lisa took it back and asked her boyfriend, "Do you want to go back to our room and fuck?"

"I think I can do that," he replied.

Sean lit a cigarette and waited until they were gone. "Looks like it's time for us to fall off the roof, Mateo."

"Possibly," he said. "Have you changed your mind about being heterosexual?"

Sean thought about it for a minute. "No," he replied.

"Then it looks like we're both going home alone tonight, raspberry cheesecake," Mateo shrugged before he crawled through the window.

Sean slowly finished the cigarette and tossed it to the driveway. "At least you have an excuse," he mumbled. After entering through the window of the tiny kitchen, he strolled through the rest of the house and was almost outside when he noticed Rocky on the couch, chewing on Shannon's neck. He moved quietly past them, yet couldn't help but notice the way his hips pushed into hers, and the way her left heel rubbed the inside of his right knee.

He almost made it when Shannon opened her eyes, and between moans, said, "Goodnight, Sean."

Rocky mumbled something.

"Yeah," Sean replied, and turned a corner to the front door, which he opened with his head.

To be continued...