Hello Summer: A Satire (?) on Bradbury's Last Chapter in Farewell, Summer: For Jessica
cw: talking genitalia, explicit masturbation (because i'm pretty sure if your genitalia is going to talk to you--well. cough. this accidentally turned into porn. i'm sorry jessica)
Grandma Fullmane woke because someone had said something or called out in the night air.
But that was impossible. Nobody or nothing had. Because she was alone, the other side of the bed empty and cold.
She looked out the window at the great face of the courthouse clock and could almost hear it clearing its throat, preparing to announce three in the morning.
“Who’s there?” Fullmane said into the cool night air.
“How’s that again?’ She lifted her head and peered left and right.
Remember hot summer nights, too hot for night clothes, too hot for anything, too hot for the sweat slicking her skin as she gunned towards climax, toes curling and clutching her cast off sheets.
And now, she looked down along the quilt.
Without moving her hands to touch and find, she knew her old friend was there. The familiar throb, the familiar itch, her fingers twitching against her side to rub the urge clean, to gasp and pant for breath, for the drink of someone else’s mouth.
She ducked her head under the sheet to peer down along her length, along the soft pooch of her tummy, to the v of her legs, to the heart nestled there, a pulse, a lost member, a ghost of flesh. But it was there.
“It’s so good to see you again.” She put her hand to her forehead, squeezed her thighs together.
In reply, a soft pulse of recognition. Hello.
“How long will you stay?”
The slender mount beat its own private heart twice, three times, but showed no signs of going anywhere; it seemed it would stay awhile: the first kiss of a promise, bated breath as she slipped her hands under the covers, gripped the flesh of her thigh, and squeezed her legs together.
“Is this you very last visit?” asked Fullmane.
Only if you want it to be was the coy reply of her old friend, hot and young in a wirework of ancient hair.
I do not so much mind my scalp turning gray, Fullmane had once said, but when you find whiteness sprouting down there, to hell with it. I do what I want – and sometimes she wondered if she had said it for the various grossed out faces, or the clap on the shoulder of solidarity, or if she really believed it.
Because it really had been a long time, but what if the fountain of youth could really be found between your legs, she whispered to herself, smoothing her grey hairs with the palm of her hand.
But age she did and age it did. She was all of a bright winter grayness now. Still, there was this heartbeat, this tender and incredible pulse saluting him, a promise of spring, a seedbed of memory, a touch of – what was the word out there in the town in this strange weather when everyone’s juices roused again?
Never too old. I need you. Stay. Stay for always. Forever young.
Her friend stayed. And they talked. At three in the morning.
(Clitorical conversations are hardly strange at that hour of possibility and dream.)
“I’m so happy,” she said, her hand resting on her navel, tracing the knot of it, the silver jewel buried there. “Don’t ever go away again.”
I cannot be expected to keep such a promise.
“Then come back soon,” she said. “That’s all I ask. Just come back soon.”
All times are soon. Years come and we move on and we drift back again, a constant love song of hello, goodbye, will I see you, yes I will, but I am not a tame lion, even if we purr, our mouths wet with anticipation and thirst.
She shifted her pelvis upwards towards the heat, a noise in her throat, rusted and old and eager, but she was met with a coldness, like laughter between dry lips.
“What the fuck,” she said.
Don’t forget your fingers.
But the great courthouse clock struck three. And Mrs. Fullmane had already fallen asleep.
[insert image of a leafy tree here to signify a cut-to scene]
Harley opened his eyes in the dark. The town clock finished the last stroke of three.
He looked at the ceiling. Nothing. He looked at the windows. Nothing. Only the night breeze fluttered the pale curtains, scraped against his Doctor Who season 3 poster of Martha Jones running to save the goddamn world.
“Who’s there?” he whispered.
“Someone’s here,” he whispered.
And at last he asked again, “Who,” he said, “is there?”
Here, something murmured.
Me, something spoke in the night.
But the pool of warmth filling his skin, his body, pulled his gaze downwards.
“There?” he asked, kicking off his blankets so that he could look down along his body – yes, oh yes, look at me, drink your fill, look at us – below his chest, below the dip of his navel, between his two hipbones, where his legs joined—there it was.
He pushed aside his boxer shorts, ignoring the wet spot right there on the crotch. “Who are you,” he whispered, spreading his lips apart with his fingers. “Who are you?” he whispered, tracing his finger up one side, touching the pale pink slip of skin where his lips joined.
He swung his legs over the bed, bare feet on the cold floor, and looked for the small, handheld, circular mirror Grandma had given him. What for, he had asked, wondering if she had found his secret stash of dollar eyeshadow from the drug store.
For whenever you need it, she had said.
And Grandma was always so wise because yeah, he did it need it now.
He crawled up on his bed, poofed his pillow against the wall, and settled against it, heels digging into the mattress, knees bent high, and legs splayed wide as he lowered the mirror so that he could see who, exactly, he was talking to.
“Hey, wow, gosh,” he said, running his fingers through his coarse hair, spreading the wetness until he hit that spot at the top again until his stomach coiled with heat and his thighs shivered.
But what if you spread my lips apart, grind on top of me with your palm—
And Harley did, gently at first, peering into the mirror so that he could see the way his fingers spread his lips, revealing his opening, the muscles flexing there as his fingers teased the opening until –
Just do it—you know you want to—
And, fingers already slicked because wow he was wet, he pushed his way through, felt the ridges inside of him, the way he could grip himself when he squeezed around his finger, the clench if he closed his thighs around his wrist the grip he had on himself. His head lolled back, thunked into the wall and the dull pain in his skull couldn’t even compete with the heat, the way his stomach flipped into free-fall, how his muscles jerked against him as he dropped the mirror and clutched the sheets instead.
And so Harley lifted his hips, grinding hard into the palm of his hand, so that his butt bounced on the bed, sending the mirror sailing over the edge, and shattering into the floor.
But he didn’t stop, barely noticed, as he kept going even though one half of him wanted to stop because oh my gosh each nerve was a wild bare fuse and he just couldn’t keep going but the other half wanted it, wanted to see what would happen so bad because
Don’t you stop, don’t you dare stop—
And he was going, and it was going, everything was going until all his muscles seized at once and he paused—
The breath in his mouth still—
Just his heart thudding and scudding against his chest and the pressure in his groin and the coiled tightness screwed too tight in his gut
Until everything released, and he shuddered against himself, little flutterings of something like contentment and joy in his stomach and between his legs, fingers and toes and everything in between flexing and relaxing as he flopped over, panting and sweating, into his bed.
He smiled against his sheets, thick with the sweet tang scent of him. “Heck, yeah.”
Just lie there. You have two hearts now. Feel the pulse? One in your chest. And one below. Yes?
“Yeah.” Harley put his hand over one heart, cupped the other in his palm.
Do you feel them? Do you feel us? Do you feel you?
“Will you be here when I wake up?”
Waiting for you. Awake long before you. Good night, friend.
The best you ever had. For life.
