Read Online Beware of Love in Technicolor by Kirstie Collins Brote - Free Book Online

face, but I was afraid to move. I closed my eyes and did my best to relax. I prayed that biology would kick in and I would suddenly have a clue what to do next. With one hand on the back of my head, and one around my waist, he guided me down on the bed so we were lying down, facing each other. He propped himself up on his right elbow, leaned in, and continued kissing me. His left hand wandered from my shoulder, down my side to my waist, and over my right hip. He pulled me closer, and kissed me harder. I felt my body turn to liquid, and my right hand find its way to the small of his back. At that moment I think I would have let him do anything.
    Anything, that is, if the doorknob hadn’t started twitching and turning, and Molly’s voice hadn’t squeezed in under the door, shredding the moment with her twang as sharp as a wet cat’s claws.
    “What the hay? Now I know I didn’t lock this dang door!”
    We heard the clicks of the combination door lock being punched outside the room, but before we could sit up and straighten ourselves out, Molly was standing in the door, backlit by the fluorescent hallway lights. She flicked on our overhead light, and jumped when she saw us.
    “Good Lord! Ya’ll scared me nearly half to death!” she laughed and walked into the room. “Hi John,” she continued, seemingly oblivious to the scene she had just interrupted.
    “Hi Molly,” he replied, rolling onto his back and grinning at me. I rolled my eyes and mouthed an apology to him. He took my right hand in his and kissed it.
    “Where were you?” she asked me while she switched on her computer. “I thought you were going to watch the movie with us.” She kicked off her sneakers; they landed in the pile of clean and dirty clothes growing in her closet.
    “Something suddenly came up,” I told her.
    “Like what?” she pressed.
    “Like I had to fleece John’s friends out of a bunch of money.”
    “Nice work, by the way,” John said to me. “I haven’t yet told you how damn sexy that was.” He grinned and gently pinched my butt. I swatted his hand away.
    “Oh good Lord,” Molly said dramatically. “Why don’t you two go get a room?”
    But the moment was lost, and instead, we got a pizza.
     
     
     
    ***
     
     
     
    There is a rule in writing that goes something like this: Don’t introduce a gun in Act One if you don’t plan on using it in Act Two. The gun, in this case, was John’s affinity for illegal narcotics.
    Like I said before, I was not a fan of drug users. I found it hard to respect people who would deliberately trash their body and their mind for some cheap high, only to come crashing back down in the end anyway. Many of my group of friends in high school had been “straight edge.” Some even wore black X’s on their hands to symbolize they were clean.
    The problem was not new to me, though it had never been this personal. Many of my heroes had been terrible drunks and/ or junkies. Bukowski and Kerouac to name two. Hemingway, Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison. The list is too long to go into.
    I always felt so disappointed in them, when I came to the end of their stories. But it was all theoretical. Dealing in reality, and with matters of the heart, is always a much messier affair. John and I forged a deal. He could do all the drinking and smoking and whatever else he wanted to do, but not when he was with me. When he was with me, I wanted him sober.
    “I just don’t want to see you like that,” I told him as I removed the cheese from my slice of pizza.
    “No problem,” he said. “Anything for you.” And he kissed the tip of my nose.
    I’ll wait for you to stop laughing and thinking things like, “What an idiot!” before I continue.
     
     
    ***
     
     
    I spent the next week trying to figure out what John and I had started. We had dinner together twice, but he made claims to being busy with labs and study groups afterward. He held my hand to walk to the SUB to see a movie, and then spent twenty