Chapter 2 The Power of Love #2
Rebecca had a side that he had yet to unearth, a room with a locked door.
Never had he met a cheerier person, but every once in a while, she would retreat into herself.
They sat next to each other every day, chatting some with others, but mostly the two of them, an attraction so intense that Otis would look out the window and realize he’d missed an entire state’s worth of the drive.
Of course, Otis worried that the attraction was quite possibly and most surely one-sided, but he tried not to dwell on that part.
At night, everyone slept in tents or stretched out on the floor of the bus.
Perhaps any other man would have made his move by then, but Otis slept out under the stars by himself, bidding good night to Rebecca after dinner.
Each night he would walk away, wondering what she was thinking.
Was she sad that he left her or was she grateful that he’d understood his place in her world, namely, as a friend?
He hated himself for his lack of courage, but he thought her potential rejection would cut so deep that he would never recover.
It was in a campground somewhere east of Chicago when Rebecca came to him at night. Scents of dwindling fires and charcoal grills lingered in the warm Midwest air. Near the bus, the guitarist strummed folk songs.
She appeared, standing between him and the moon.
A skinny band held her hair back over her ears, showing half-moon earrings. Glitter sparkled under her eyes. A floral kimono hung loosely from her shoulders, revealing a crochet bikini top and ample bare skin. An oversize belt held up a pair of corduroy trousers.
“Can I join you?”
Otis should have been more comfortable with her by then, but her question turned him to stone.
Unfazed and not officially invited—considering Otis was unable to utter even the simplest response—she lay down and rested her head next to his on the pillow.
Otis caught himself with his mouth open, his mind ablaze with the reality of the moment.
If she could smell of desire, she did so then.
Perhaps he was about to be used, or maybe it was more, but either way, she had come for him.
Rebecca faced him. “What a night.”
“Indeed. Very bright stars.” Very bright stars? Had he just said that, on the precipice of what was to come? Very bright stars. His father would take the word very and slap him with it.
She didn’t laugh at him. Instead, she looked at him as if he were an adorable puppy who hadn’t quite figured out how to walk yet. She placed her hand on his chest.
His heart thumped as if a timpanist stuck in Otis’s chest were striking his instrument in the climax of a symphony. Could she tell what she was doing to him?
Enough, he thought. Get out of your head. A kiss was coming. His legs shivered; he’d never kissed a girl in his life.
“How long were you going to make me wait for you?” Her whispered question startled him, causing the timpanist to fall out of rhythm. He’d probably fallen out of his seat and knocked over an entire row of oboists.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re still afraid of me.”
“Intimidated maybe.”
“So you need an invitation then?”
He chuckled and slid his eyes to her. “Preferably a written one, yes. Don’t forget that you’ll have to persuade me with your prose. Beware of lazy adjectives and dangling modifiers. I am not easy, you know.” Only she could do that to him, give him courage.
“Oh, I’ve figured that out,” she said.
Why did she look at him so, as if she were truly mesmerized and even impressed by him? She saw something that he didn’t see when he forced himself to look in the mirror.
A silence that hadn’t likely existed since the aftermath of the Big Bang followed.
They’d come to a crossroads, a moment in time where Otis was cornered into making the most important decision of his life.
Not that it was much of a decision at all, but the self-doubt running through him was still so heavy that he wasn’t sure, even after her comment about the invitation, that he was worthy of her physical affection.
People like him didn’t get to kiss people like her. Even if he did, what would happen from there? He would botch every moment. There would be no Big Bang about it.
All the doubt in the world wasn’t enough to keep him from giving it his best shot, though.
As he moved toward her, it wasn’t with the feral voracity of a tiger or even the desperate craving of an animal at all.
Every millimeter—yes, millimeter, as he still refused to cede the metric system—that he moved toward her felt like crawling into the cave of a monster.
Nevertheless, he pushed through, because this was a chance that he would not miss, and with his eyes closed, he bumped right into her forehead, missing her mouth altogether.
She laughed while he wished that he could disappear. That was it, he’d blown it, and he was convinced she was a second from leaping up like he was a leper and run, run, running away, seeking a man more fit for her perfection.
His face flushed, and he pressed his eyes closed with such intensity that he became dizzy. Take me away from here, he begged.
Her laugh wasn’t sinister, though, certainly not mocking. Perhaps more a giggle.
Otis opened his eyes, and she was still there. Her laugh had melted to a slight grin. He felt a million things, but the strongest was an inviting, welcoming, forgiving, loving sensation that made him feel like he was home, like he’d been lost all his life and now he was found.
Rebecca reached over and touched his skin, gliding a finger along his cheek and to his chin.
In a whisper as comforting as a feather bed, she said, “Let’s try again.”
Oh, dear Lord, when their lips met the next time, Otis felt like they’d rattled the moon. All the philosophy they’d discussed, the solutions to the world’s problems, the answers to life’s purpose, it all came together then.
“Again,” he whispered as she pulled away. This time he took more charge. He certainly didn’t turn from Bambi to a gladiator, but he felt a cinder of strength ignite deep within.
She liked him.
For some unexplained reason, more unexplainable than the existence of God, she was attracted to him. Perhaps he was merely a play toy for her, but it didn’t feel that way.
He couldn’t discount what had led them to this point, days and many miles of travel and conversation. What if this was his break? What if the runt of the litter was finally being chosen?
This time the kiss lasted longer, and he actually enjoyed it as opposed to freezing up. This time he used his hands, too, leaning up and letting her fall back to the earth. He straddled her and came at her with a craving he’d never known.
Between moans, she whispered, “There you go, Otis Till. Show me what you’re made of.”
In what could only be described as a moment of pure freedom, Otis pulled his lips from hers and arched his upper body into the air and let out a howl that came not from a lost boy trying to find his way, but from a dream seeker who had found his princess and slayed his first dragon and tasted what it would be like to live life on his own terms.
“ Ahhhwwwwoooooo!” he called out into the night, hearing the coyotes back in Montana howling with him, feeling the fire in his chest. “Ahhwwwwwoooo! ” he called, feeling her beneath him and knowing that anything was possible, knowing that whatever had led him to that bus and to the seat beside her was destiny, and he had hold of it, the whole bloody world, and by God he loved her more than he thought it possible to love someone, and . ..
Otis looked down and found her smiling at him, feeding his fire, surely witnessing the true birth of the man inside him. He smiled back, and then she took hold of his collar and pulled him down on top of her.
Ahhhwwwwwooooooo!
Since the night of their kiss, they’d barely separated for a moment, and as the purple bus decorated with flowers waited in the longest line of cars Otis had ever seen, he and Rebecca held hands and looked out the window at a spectacle that would make any other circus or carnival on earth appear run-of-the-mill.
Otis had never seen more naked people in his life—all totally uncaring of the curious eyes on them or even the forecast of terrible rain.
Theirs wasn’t the only painted bus by a long shot.
They were simply another float in a parade, a continuous river of soul searchers hoping to finally find what they were looking for.
People marched alongside cars and buses and trucks that all blasted different kinds of folk and rock ’n’ roll that morphed into one singular song: an anthem for those on a search for the profound.
If they were wearing anything at all, they wore bell-bottoms and headbands and bead necklaces and a thousand different bright colors.
They carried backpacks or duffel bags and danced their way toward the promise of a stage somewhere up ahead.
Their smiles were almost enough to defeat the long lines and coming rain.
Otis heard a match strike, and he turned to find Rebecca lighting up a joint. She took a long, slow toke and handed it over. He couldn’t find one reason not to, and off he went into wonderland.
A wet weekend it was, but the rain didn’t stop the bands from giving their all.
Otis was particularly impressed with Carlos Santana, who played like a man possessed.
Or was it the LSD creating illusions? Otis wasn’t exactly sure, but between the drugs and the music and this princess who’d latched on to him, he was having the time of his life, while also questioning everything that had led him to this moment.
The part of him that had been hiding, that piece that questioned the purpose of life, now screamed at him, telling him he didn’t have to follow a path paved by his father or anyone else in his family.