The Secret Diary Of Laura Palmer Part 3

I came like I never have before. My body just couldn't stop, and I had to grab on to the tree, peel off bark in one place, grab again, dig in with my nails... and then it slowed. I was so warm with the marijuana and my little show for the woods that I almost took a nap, there, lying naked. But I couldn't do that. I won this one. He hadn't shown up. Night or day doesn't count. I showed him I wasn't afraid. I touched myself under his tree. I called to him and made him the fool. I'm going to pa.s.s this test... you'll see. If BOB wants nasty, all I need is a little time. I can be the bad girl he wants.

On the way out of the woods, I was nearly killed as an owl swooped down out of nowhere. I could feel the power in his wings as he shot by me. I thought of the Log Lady. Something she has said: "Many things are not what they seem."

This used to seem frightening to me. This place, the slightest thought of touching myself, and teasing myself, frightened me. No more. No, this place I visited is not what it seemed. I see now that it is a place of darkness, but I love it. I welcome it. I will not fight it, even when it slips deep inside and cuts me. I have found light and pleasure inside this horror. I am not done with my plan.

I'll be back, BOB. I'll be back to open and close around you like you thought I never would. I'll be back.

Laura August 3,1986 Dear Diary, Just to fill you in, I did spend the rest of the day with Troy at the stables. Being around him relaxed me, and I went home later that evening feeling very strong, very new inside. I did not entertain any thoughts of being bad, or wrong, by doing this. I was going to stop being hurt and taunted by this man. A man I know only by his first name. I do not know where he lives, or where he comes from. But I will get him back. There's no fun in a game of torture if the victim is screaming for more.

That was almost two weeks ago... no, maybe a week. I am very deep in concentration lately. Seeing Bobby Briggs is fun. He is anywhere I want him to be, with anything I want him to bring. Just yesterday, I decided he had waited too long to be with me the way he wanted. I, too, was tired of the process of petting and going home feeling like a cork had been stuck inside me, that it had trapped everything I so wished to let go. But I had to let him think I was the fourteen-year-old I appear to be...

Mom and Dad left for the entire afternoon, and I told them I'd be out for almost as long as they would be, but that I wanted to help with supper that night, so I would be home no later than six-thirty. Mom's face s.h.i.+ned at the sound of such words. I have to keep my parents happy. I have to keep loving them, like their little girl should. I have to support what I have not chosen, but have, quite simply, been given. Two lives. Two very different lives.

The naughtier Laura had a date with Bobby Briggs in Low Town. He said he knew of an abandoned barn out where no one would find us. I liked the idea that I would have him alone someplace where I could go kinda crazy on him. I was nervous, for a bit, because I suddenly realized that this was not the BOB I hated, but the young Bobby who swaggered up to smiling Laura Palmer and asked if she would be his. No matter, I'd play him like he needed me to. I knew he was aware that I had never made love with a boy before... I knew it would be different with someone who took care... I knew it might pull me back to thirteen years old, when I learned to love a man's hands in a stream late at night and cried because he was gone so soon afterward. I couldn't let that come up. I knew I had to be strong. I could have BOB watching me right now... at any moment. I couldn't fall in love... certainly not out loud.

Bobby was charming and I could tell he was nervous because he couldn't get his words out very well, and the blanket he brought on the back of his bike wasn't opening as he tried, diligently, to spread it.

This made him very nervous, because I was balancing a bottle of vodka, a small one for two, and a marijuana cigarette (some smoke) in between my fingers, and I didn't have as good a grasp as I would have liked, and I had to fall to my knees to avoid breaking anything.

He felt very bad, but I turned it around so that he had been more of a hero than a dunce. He was neither, but I allowed him to lift me to my feet and steady me with his arms. I could think only of how I just wanted to take a drink and do some smoke so I could relax. Things come much easier for me when I am loose, and feeling confident. One of the reasons I most enjoy Bobby is that he can get me smoke anytime I want ... he can have a friend buy us alcohol, anytime I want. I like the way that feels, that kind of devotion. I enjoy the way he moves, little tiny waves inside him, when I lean in close and say, "I can't wait, but let's take our time." His immediate smile and his readiness to let me take over first.

I, after all, was for the first time beginning a s.e.xual experience with interest, and affection. A little control of my own. I knew he would take over, once he felt I'd let him. But for now, if he was to keep bringing me little treats all the time, I wanted him to feel it was worth it... that he hadn't chosen a dead fish, like I promised I would never be.

An hour later, after taking my time with his lips, and occasionally feeding him the smoke, or vodka, I was ready, and I told him to lie back and imagine whatever he wished. I told him to build a dream inside his head, and to let his imagination follow me. It was just for him, we both knew that. I put him, hard, into my mouth, and had a picture in my head of BOB's hand as he did himself... as he put my hand on it... and then I was back in the barn. I slowed it down, found the rhythm he liked, and I kept my tongue moving inside and I went up and down him, following the noises he made, the whines... listening with delicacy, making sure I kept him where he wanted to be. This time was not about teasing him in and out of his pleasure. He came the way I dream men do.. with suddenness after a long internal climb, sitting upright with a look of amazement and awe... gratification. A smile.

We spent another hour or so buried in each other, until it had to happen and he slipped inside. I opened my eyes and saw him as his eyes fell closed. I forced the memory of wanting this... away. Feeling like that would be so easy, and yet, I could not become weak.

We moved together, and I found it easier to handle, easier to really enjoy, with my eyes closed. I could move with him, roll around to the top, place his hands where I love to feel them. He is so good to me, without any words. I wanted him to know how wonderful it felt, locked there inside, never wanting to leave, just wanting more and more of me! We rolled and pushed and pulled at each other and came apart hours later, when it was impossible that we do more.

I felt truly satisfied, like years of taunting and emotional pulling and pus.h.i.+ng had been set free. The steel bar I imagined holding me upright was flexing, turning to flesh, and melting. The tension and the anxiousness I felt for so long, about how it would be when someone really wanted me. Not because they wanted me to weep or to die slowly of a sadness I could not name. Someone who cared how it felt to me, wanted to make sure it was nice. I felt like I should feel, like all girls should feel... but I could not forget that there were other worlds to think of. Other moments. Rude awakenings at the darkest hours of night. A man in my window, smiling... offering a challenge by waving a black glove. I lay there wondering if he would come soon, or if by my simply deciding he no longer frightened me, he was somehow eliminated.

I couldn't rely on dreams like that. And suddenly, there was a terrible problem. A terrible and sad problem that I had to face without the emotion I so wanted to give! From Bobby's mouth came, slowly, small words of love, then confessions. Soon after, promises of loyalty and happiness forever.

Laura, Laura, I can't let you hear this. Just watch his lips move, do not listen, I told myself, over and over. But Bobby meant it. He was, after all, the boy who had admired me for years, who had tugged on my ponytails for as long as I wore them, and soon after made a point to pa.s.s me at least once a day in the hallways at school, or to catch my eye in cla.s.s. Smile, as if it were an unexpected sight.

I knew he had planned this. But the Laura who loved him back, the young girl who so desperately hoped he would come after her, when the time was right, cannot come out to play. She is inside resting. Deep inside, cradled in the braver half. The one that finds this Bobby boy satisfying, yes, but not interesting beyond that. There is no strength in him... no challenge. I'll keep him with me, save him for her, when it is safe for her to come back. But these words of love are too real, too innocent. This boy, so young, is merely a messenger to the Laura that is living here now.

I was forced to do something cruel. Something that would make him, perhaps, rethink the entire idea of Laura. He had to see her as something he never thought existed. I had to laugh at him. Hard. Laugh until his eyes lost their light. I had to shoot him down, couldn't let him be so appealing to the same young Laura that BOB wants. The one I'm sure he's waiting for. To save myself, I had to laugh in the face of a boy, who now may never be so honest again.

I had to do it! Why does it hurt so badly to protect myself? Where was this love when I was on my knees begging for it? Dammit. I know I hurt him... I hope someday he will understand why. I would never crush someone the way I was crushed. Had I been the one laughed at, I don't know that I would ever stand as straight again-never approach someone with even the smallest compliment, because the memory of laughter would still ring in my ears.

I am ashamed and confused again by the things that happen to me. Is this a trick that BOB is playing on me? Another test? Ruining my chance at love with the right boy, by forcing me to humiliate him, the way I have been and have now turned cold and bitter because of its scars? ... Will Bobby pick himself up and see that I did not mean it? Or have I been tricked into spoiling a romance I could have been protected by at least during the day?

What does life want from me? What have I done, and what do I do now?! I only wanted to stop the pain, not to begin spreading it myself.

I'm thinking... I'm thinking. Everything that had to be done has been done. If this is something BOB did, then it will only cause him an amazing victory if I show any regret... any... remorse. I cannot care. I must believe Bobby will come back, tail wagging. If he does not, I shall master the whistle he responds to. Let the boy earn my attention outside the barn l.u.s.t, outside the kisses I give out only when I feel like it, never just because. I'll become a professional at not feeling anything.

I'll find a way to do it. I can't give up. I don't even believe half the time that what I'm living is real. I am lost. Lost. But a stronger, more manipulating Laura is rearing her head, and opening herself to threats and games played only in the dark.

When I find out who he is, I'll make him known to everyone!

To a New Strength, Laura August 3,1986 Dear Diary, It is a little after ten P.M. on the evening of the disaster with Bobby Briggs. I am surprised to say that he phoned not fifteen minutes ago, and ... somehow, in a ma.s.s of words that were sounding more rehea.r.s.ed than heartfelt, he apologized for being too quick to recite such oaths of love when maybe I didn't find that attractive in a boy. That maybe I wanted someone who had to be broken a bit, before it all came out. ... He told me he meant what he had said, but was wrong to say it so quickly.

The whole thing sounded like it had been picked word for word out of the dictionary or thesaurus, and I couldn't help but wish for a moment that I was dead. Here he is apologizing for something I, and I'm certain girls everywhere, even outside of the Peaks, dream of hearing a boy say. He's chosen his words carefully, tried to prove he is still, hours after his o.r.g.a.s.m, in love. Another miracle ... and what do I do? I am forced to keep silent on the phone, to stifle words of love, from my own heart, simply out of the fear that this is all part of a grand scheme to drive me, no brakes in the fast lane, down the road of insanity.

I am trapped inside a part of me I hate. A hard, masculine part of myself that has surfaced to fight, after small memories and scars come out of me with a suddenness that is sobering as well as horrifying-and I fight to save the Laura I wish I could be again. The one everyone thinks is still around. Me in a sundress, hair in the wind, and a smile engraved into my cheeks by the sharp fear that a man may visit me at any moment this evening and try to kill me.

L.

August 4,1986 3:30 A.M.

Dear Diary, It comes to me now that I have decided to play along. After repeating it to myself for ages it seems, I finally feel a sense of resolve with my joining him for the sole purpose of battle. To join the darkness, and perhaps cling to the bit of light remaining inside me, and use it as the strength it should always have been.

Ah, the fairness of life. That special moment when a hand flies up whether visible or verbal, screaming, STOP, she is dying! This child is dying without a safety feature everyone else seems to wrestle with, as if it were an inconvenience.

I searched carefully and have found a s.p.a.ce inside me that says that it is almost too late, mine are not the eyes of a girl fifteen, but the eyes of someone who has been afraid to look around herself and to question the simplest of things. My mind, it continues, is not the mind of a young girl who imagines life to be a series of warm sweaters, while the cold spell pa.s.ses by.

It warns me that the mind in which I live belongs to someone who knows too much of life and how it ends most often without warning. How it deals us blows, dares us to dream when in fact there is no use. Manages to leave out that there is a plan etched in the planet for me. This mind knows.

The reality that there is no choosing a day's events, or even a moment's when before you've even opened your eyes to see light for the very first time, someone of a great evil and stealth chooses you. Spins a bottle of sorts and giggles at the power in a simple game of selection.

Laura August 6,1986 4:47 A.M.

Dear Diary, I cannot let myself sleep because I have to see BOB when he comes through the window. I have to be ready.

I have thought a great deal about my life. I am aging without my own permission. I believe when he comes to take me, I will either leave home and return harmed although satisfied by the brutal death of an enemy, or I will never return. And in death admit silently I knew not of my visitor's strength nor of his will.

For now I am half-numb, half-raw. A girl who still manages to rise each morning and exit the place I lately must be reminded is called home. As if nothing were less noticeable than the trail of blood left behind me as I go.

I do not doubt that BOB is aware of my every movement. That this horror who calls himself a man sits up high when the sun s.h.i.+nes or perhaps curls up below. No matter. He watches me with eyes that burrow inside, seeing each speck of doubt, sensing each palpitation of my heart when a boy pa.s.ses, each embrace from a mother who knows nothing of how far away her daughter's bedroom has become.

I try each day to memorize the face that looks back at me in the mirror. I hold tight to it. I imagine I'll be in flight when I compare it to my remains that I often dream soon will be found.

I have such an anger and an urge to charge at the sky, to call the wind a liar for never showing itself. An urge to scream at the two who allowed my birth. Cries for help to anyone who will hear them. To scream into the street that there is a lack of miracles in Mother Nature herself. Her divinity is a lie.

In a forest of trees again and again, I have been brought down. Surgery of a strange and indescribable nature takes place. Blood is let. This Mother Nature has not done away with this evil, nor has it opened its wood to allow a scream to escape. Instead, it cradles this man and keeps him safe from discovery, safe from daylight. He knows the planet will not betray him. This light will come, and stay, leave only to return on schedule. He has a promise. The universe's habit, conveniently requiring a twelve-hour fix of the two extremes.

His time is the evening, the hour during which rescue is least possible, and when most with pure hopes and dreams and memories of swinging on swing sets are fast asleep. Their eyes moving quickly under their lids. Seeing nothing.

Never is there a noise that stirs even those who sleep in the next room. Never does the world lean a bit for me, cast a vote, and cause an eye to open... See the man... see the way his eyes are frozen in the image of my face in a scream. No explanation for WHY he has chosen me, or even if he has a final plan.

I can only wait. Hold my tired eyes open with the energy of a dare. A fight to see who in fact is the darkest. Who, when forced to see the other side, will in fact survive?

I sit awaiting his arrival, kept awake by the notion that I shall grow accustomed to the dark far easier than he to the light.

Laura September 10,1986 Dear Diary, Enclosed please find my mind and its memory. As well, a characteristic the enemy lack in excess-conscience. "Guilt" is simply a word he uses to silence me. He has no regard for mortality, no concern for danger.

How could such an intruder fear death, or the possibility of imprisonment, and still manage to come so consistently up the side of my home, using my window as if it were familiar to him?

He mocks me entering dressed in the clothes of one who could be a best friend. A neighbor. A traveling salesman who casually invites himself in, goes as far as to request coffee, regular, before dissolving into the daydream he sometimes is?

Does he expect to sit down and chat before taking the house's only child from her room and treating her like an experiment?

I am either dreaming him to life, and slowly killing myself, or he has told my parents of his visits and has offered, in return for their own safety, that these visits will continue without possibility of interruption. They would simply go unnoticed. Junk mail, somewhere in the house. I imagine that they would have to hear me as I am led out. Is it possible they do not care?

L.

September 11,1986 2:20 A.M.

Dear Diary, I cannot tell you how much it upsets me that I am no threat to him.

He is too safe with the idea that he will always gain entrance to my home and exit painlessly and without sound. In the dark he knows he will find a grip around my wrist strong enough to silence me, and to carry me, like a child drags a doll, to a place where he knows no one will find me. He knows this because the place is miles from any source of light other than that which pours sometimes, so clearly in my memory, from his lips and eyes-the very light stolen from within me. The girl who, ever since she can remember, made a patient effort to tolerate, and keep secret the very man who wishes to steal her innocence, never allowing her to mature, never permitting the joys of maturity. The time this little girl has dreamed of ever since she knew how to skip, and run, and smile at even the slightest breeze, the way it tickled her so. Unselfishly, she gave and gave of herself, emptying the delicate basket inside her, of her soul.

I hope to call him to my window soon. I fear he is waiting for me to tire of these all-night writing sessions. These moments where I lapse in and out of the part of me who plans to open the window this time and give my hand willingly. The part of me that doubts anything really exists at all and that therefore there is nothing at all to fear outside that window, and so am willing to venture to the usual spot, without struggle. I who swears a noise or powerful slap at the back of the head will not cause even the slightest change in footsteps. The part of me that has rehea.r.s.ed its cries for more and more incisions, more insertions, more insults and threats, and has planned to continue them until his appet.i.te, before insatiable, grows smaller. The animal frozen solid in front of his shotgun barrel, begging to fill that s.p.a.ce on his wall.

Remove the thrill. Program yourself. There will be pain, but none worse than before. Hold tight on the image of home and of bed and of the warm smell of him as you rinse and rinse and rinse. Home awaits you as it always has.

Play with him as he plays with you. Accept that you are bad and dirty and cheap and should be thrown to the wolves as sc.r.a.p meat, and must never bear children, for who knows the faces they would be locked behind from birth until death... Remember to ignore. Leave an opening large enough inside to take on his body weight in hatred and methods of reduction that only apply to the emotional portions of oneself, the most vital and irreplaceable of all.

Believe that he is only intrigued by the fear he breeds, the lack of interest you display in life when he leaves you back at your home. How he pretends to ring the doorbell, mocks you, your life, your hopes, your most private insecurities, watches as you struggle with the sense that you are unworthy to even enter the house in which you took your first steps, feel as he watches you catch a tear before it has left your eye - look for him and he is gone.

As if it were a religion, I have chanted inspirations to myself, for days now I have whined, and taunted, and almost wished him to arrive, and he has not. I have an incredible headache from trying to think of his weaknesses, when in fact, I couldn't begin to know them. Perhaps I am wrong altogether about his l.u.s.t only for the fear in his particular victim... I must say honestly, I am tired of making light of the situation and believe that if I do not sleep soon, I shall begin seeing BOB everywhere. This, need I mention, would not be good for me at present.

I am lonely here, and find myself thinking about Bobby, who I know would hold me in his arms the way I can't imagine anyone else doing.

Be careful, Laura October 1,1986 Dear Diary, I'm sorry I haven't written, but so much has happened. Tonight as I began to undress for bed Bobby Briggs came to my window. A beautiful, dreamy sight that sent me reeling. He says there is a party we couldn't miss out at the end of Sparkwood. A friend of his, Leo-who I think I've heard of before in the air of gossip that I often hunt down-is throwing a party. I warned him, I had only thought seriously of curling up with him, and confessed that I was missing more sleep than I need to be sociable.

He promised me there would be no problem in the alertness department, as he had a new treat for me to try that sometimes negates the need for sleep entirely.

I'm out the window, Diary. Shhhh!

I'll tell all the moment I return. I'm hiding you... beware of BOB... he is sometimes tardy.

Laura P.S. It just struck me that BOB's name is a warning in itself...

B. BEWARE.

O. OF.

B. BOB.

October 3,1986 Dear Diary, I don't know where to begin! I returned home the following afternoon, without a single gripe from the watchdogs, Mom and Dad. I was halfway down the side of the house when I realized I was heading way out of upper town, to a party filled with people at least six to ten years my senior... and I was thinking I'd be back by sunrise? Never! Not to mention that Bobby had some "Go Fast" for me somewhere... at least I thought that to be the situation before we arrived at Leo's... I'm guilty of the understatement of the year with that one.

But anyway, I must first brag about the tangled web I did weave, and how not a st.i.tch was out of place or questioned when I arrived back home at nearly six P.M. the following day! Need I say, I have now crossed over into a dimension of intense sleep deprivation? Three days and four nights... and taking into consideration the treat I was given as a door prize before leaving, I could be up until next month, painlessly dropping pound after pound... (six and a half since the last day I slept). I find that no matter what drug, if any, I have inside me, the less I sleep, the less I eat.

The note said something simple and to the point. Skip it if it bores you, but I guess I gained a sense of satisfaction and joy out of pulling the wool over the "folks"' (as Bobby says) eyes. Mom, it is just about five A.M. and I have tried again and again to get back to sleep. After almost two solid hours of fair tries, I was suddenly reminded of the clearing I spent the other afternoon in. Troy so enjoyed the grazing there, and I think a blanket and a book will set the stage for the distance I guess I need to feel. Not from you, Mom! I could hear you taking that personally, but don't. I just mean away from people. Just a few hours with my pony, Troy, and maybe a nap over Nancy Drew or something? Please don't worry, I'll call before six if I'm not already home by then.

Love, Laura I spent the night at the most outrageous party ever, and Mom sat quietly at home, imagining me wrapped in the words of a good book, sinking softly into a blanket on the gra.s.s. I'll need to make sure Troy gets a ride tonight... somehow... s.h.i.+t. I hadn't thought of him until now... I hope Zippy doesn't phone to suggest he take Troy out... d.a.m.n. I'll be right back. I'm going to ring the stables right away.

So! Bobby had borrowed his uncle's truck for the night, and as long as we stayed off the 21 we weren't running the risk of getting pulled over... Bobby without a license... me no sleep, and an enormous lie, in my book, to my parents... ? Can you imagine?

Off we went, music playing surprisingly loud and clear for the age of the truck... it made me feel like it all worked. The way the trees were blowing, the speed of the truck, the music, my nerves as I began to undress into my birthday gift, sent via AIR MAIL from Cousin Maddy. Did I even tell you, I talked to her for almost an hour last week? Well, this dress is to die for, skin tight, and it came with an insert in the breast area that allowed you, if you so desired, to lift your b.r.e.a.s.t.s upwards, instead of leaving them flat the way some dresses do. Bobby nearly killed us, when he missed a tree by a quarter inch. He said it would have been worth it to die, with my eyes "transfixed on a bosom as sweet as yours". Doesn't that sound like a country song or something... transfixed on a bosom as sweet as yours...?

Bobby took me off to the side of the truck before we went into the house. He kissed me, and then said it was important that I knew that Leo, from a straw's distance, is a great guy, funny and can hold his own in a chat. Then he shook his head in a drastic "N.O." I wanted to know what the h.e.l.l that meant, I mean what if I did what he said N.O. to? Bobby turned around just when we got in the doorway, and he said, "Tonight it's not important, I'm pretty sure you'll hang with me... just don't ever f.u.c.k the guy. He's into some weird s.h.i.+t, that Leo, man..." I nodded and was suddenly, unmistakably intrigued by the phrase, "weird s.h.i.+t" and its s.e.xual context. Bobby went to grab me a beer, I guess, and Leo came up to me. s.h.i.+t... it was there, right away.

Both of us knew it, and he said, "Laura Palmer... how 'bout that? Last time I saw you, Old Dwayne Milford was giving you a plaque or something... some prize you won...?" I had to interrupt him - "Finest Performance/Five Consecutive Years."

He asked if I had proof of performance quality, and I a.s.sured him proof was in abundance but I was about to fall asleep and die of thirst at the same time. He called to Bobby, which I was grateful for, seeing as how I was entering a bedroom, post warning and all.

(Hang on, I gotta do a couple lines... I'm coming down and I'm about to tell you some incredible stuff-hang on.) So I'm in this room with Leo and Bobby, and just as we're about to pa.s.s the straw, the door to a bathroom opens. A bathroom off the bedroom... and Ronnette Pulaski walked out of it, looking like she had given up junk food, and had started taking pretty good care of everything on her body except her nose. She was pretty high, and just by the way Leo nodded his head toward her and said a quick hey led me to believe this was a regular kind of thing.

You want to hear something freaky... It didn't become completely clear to me until now, but when I went down to the spot BOB takes me... and I was saying that sometimes I smelled my panties and wanted to put my face between the legs of a girl and taste her... (G.o.d, sometimes it feels right to say, other times I can't)? Well I had actually just for that moment thought of Ronnette, just because she was the only girl aside from Donna that I had seen naked... we were in an a.s.sembly together about two years ago, maybe more, and we were the only two costume changes in the middle of the program... we changed clothes... and kind of smiled at one another... I guess I was attracted to her somehow ... by the way her eyes appeared sad, but cold. I liked her body... anyway, it was strange to see her there. I have no idea what she thinks of me... I doubt it's wise to ask. All I need are rumors buzzing around that Ronnette and I are "seeing" each other every chance we get. Mom would have to be sent to the Haywards', if not the hospital itself, and Dad, he'd most likely think we were talking about a new game... an extension of kick the can, maybe? Who cares...!!!

G.o.d, I am so high, I can't stop writing like a thousand words a minute. I hope for your sake that this is legible, because, Lord knows, I am in no s.p.a.ce to slow down. This is the drug I have been waiting for all of my life! I feel strong, confident, s.e.xy, intelligent, pretty f.u.c.kin' cool, I have to say, and not one person last night made mention of my age. I can hold my f.u.c.kin' own... I could feel the vibes when we walked in.

I knew it was going to be one of those, Bobby was right, parties. f.u.c.king crazy stuff going' on in the corner or something. Leo was watching with basically 100 percent concentration, so Bobby and I had to go see.

Man, there was this chick, lying with her skirt pulled up, and she was bettin' that no one could get her off... and if they did, it was a hundred big ones. She was asking five to give it a shot.

Now remember, I had been at the party for a fair amount of time, and I was pretty fixed up as far as being sedated and wired simultaneously... I looked around at everyone, and I must have been showing it all across my face, because Bobby pulled me back a bit by the arm, and I said I wanted to try it, if it didn't make him too uncomfortable, and he just looked at me like there was no changing my mind now anyway... so... I don't think he thought I would ever even consider such things...

I asked if I could speak privately in her ear... before making a decision, and she said she'd love to hear my voice up close... so I leaned in, and I said I'm going to make you feel real good. That hundred bucks is already spent...

I looked up for a moment, and I asked if she was relaxed. She said she was already getting a strange feeling that I knew what I was doing... I made her move a little on the couch, and I kissed her, just a soft kiss, on her lips .

Before I had even touched her she wanted me to know her name... I told her I'd call her what she needed to hear. She was beginning to get me pretty hot, which I didn't think would happen... but it helped, because the feelings just worked together... just clicked.

I opened her and I told her she was pretty, did she know that? She nodded. I told her I couldn't hear what she had said... She said YES! I smiled... "Yes, what?" I said... "I didn't hear you..."

She took a long breath and she brought her fingers to her mouth, and the guys behind her starting goin' "Yeah." I heard someone in the back drop his gla.s.s, and he said, "s.h.i.+t man, this girl is gettin' her to do it... she's even askin' for it, man..."

I knew she wanted to say things she wasn't. I made sure she had to ask, yell something... I knew she wanted to hear that... for the men in the room to hear it. I told her everyone was looking at her. I told her they all could feel and taste it with their eyes... some men moved their fingers to let out the heat in their hands. I knew it was happening for her, I just had to keep her safe... she wanted it bad, and I told her she was beautiful. Boom! She was grabbing at me... pulling my hair... calling, "Laura, Laura... G.o.d, the way you make me feel...!"

This big guy was trying to squeeze his way in, and I told him to back off a minute... he was bent out of shape, but then watched how desperately the girl needed just a moment to herself.

She took me by the hair and she said, "I haven't been able to do that for almost two years d like to see you back here, if I haven't scared you off already."

It dawned on me that it was an appropriate time to mention that I felt like I was coming down a little, maybe from the sugar kisses... This guy came up to me, and he looked at me, straight in the eye.

"Little one." He waited. "I just had to come look at you, see your skin and all." He smiled. "I never saw so many guys go from lookin' at her like she was nothing to wis.h.i.+ng they were you."

I told him I was glad he liked it... I didn't mean to break up the party, the way I did... I have a hard time believing I did it... I guess I'm sort of out of my mind... I guess they left because I went a little...

He laughed and said, "No one's going anywhere except outside on the lawn with a picture of you floatin' through their heads... They'll be back soon as they all empty out."

The woman finally made it up off the couch and came and kissed my chest, where the dress cut low at the neck...

She wanted me to know she felt she owed me one if we ever crossed paths again...