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One
The wall above Lisa's bed was a shrine to yearning. Pictures of fantastic studs in G-strings with their chests and haunches greased and flexed languished next to glossy photographs of gorgeous, wet-lipped women in everything from fashion magazine poses to soft-porn stretches. These Olympian men and women steamed up the wall above her bed in a crazy jumble, and above them she had taped a headline cut rrom a newspaper that said, WHAT WOMEN WANT.
Lisa spent hours here, naked on this bed, alone in the muggy little townhome across the street from the Embassy Lakes Mall in the new community of Pembroke Pines. Her father was long gone. Her mother came home tired every day.
In the quiet house Lisa's yearning was pure. She lay on her bed looking up, and her heart burned.
As Lisa saw it, and as she told her mother, the story or the last few months had been the story Or a miracle. In the back Or her mind she had made a deal with her desires: If the boy turned out to be less than handsome, less than perfect, she would accept him and cherish him with all her heart and body. The men on the wall were gods to worship, but she would settle for a regular guy to love.Then when herdreams finally came true, when her boy did finally appear, he was not a regular guy at all but a statue, a hunk, a man more beautiful and sexy and perfect than even the pictures above her bed.
She had to pinch herself to make sure she was not just crazy with lonely wanting. Her heart raced every waking moment. When she was with her mother she talked a mile a minute and every word was about him. It was as if she could not get her breath.
Copyright ) 1998 by Jim Schutze