Making the Galaxy Great

“Jason!”

Turning in the direction of the bar, he saw young Evie running toward him. They had never actually been introduced, nor exchanged any words apart from ‘hi’ or ‘good morning.’ Yet she was calling to him as if they were well acquainted.

“Evie, right?” he said as he pulled himself up by holding onto his car.

“Dude, what happened?” Evie asked. “I heard yelling and I saw two people hauling ass that way. Did your girlfriend do this to you?”

“Not my girlfriend. Ex-wife. But it wasn’t her.”

“Was it the scary body builder chick?” she asked.

Jason tried to stand straight and focus, without looking directly at Evie. She was all of twenty-two, maybe twenty-three. Which made her more than 15 years younger than him. And there was something unnervingly straightforward about the way she addressed him.

“No, I think she was trying to help the person the hoodie. I thought it was a boy, but it might be somebody in between. Hell, they might not even be . .” .

“Jason,” said Evie. “I think you may have a concussion, ’cause you’re not really making sense. I mean, your head is bleeding. Kinda ugly.”

“There was this other guy,” Jason continued. “He jumped all the way across that ditch. That’s got to be—”

“So is he the one that hit you?”

“No . . . no, the one in the hoodie ran into me. Trying to get away from that guy. I’m telling you, that was one bizarre-looking . . .”

Jason suddenly thought he might hurl, so he turned away from Evie. The feeling passed, and he reached a hand to the back of his head and felt the warm, damp spot. Evie was right; he was bleeding. A couple of young women walked by, not bothering to hide their curiosity as they stared at him and whispered to each other.

Go ahead and pull out your phone, he longed to tell them. You know you want to.

Feeling angry seemed to focus his brain. “So they’re all gone?” he asked. “The guy and the woman and . . . the person in the hoodie?”

Evie shook her head slowly. “All gone. Hey, don’t do that!”

Jason was starting to open the door to his car.

“What do you think you’re doing? I’m driving you home,” said Evie. “I really think you may have a concussion.”

“I don’t have a concussion,” he insisted. But maybe he did. And had Evie just said she was driving him home? “And I don’t want to leave my car here.”

Evie frowned at him, clearly thinking he was delusional from his injury. “Which is why I’m driving your car for you.”

“But what about your car?”

“I Ubered here, because I was supposed to be meeting my roommate here, but I think I got stood up.”

“Why the hell would he stand you up?” said Jason.

Okay, he realized as he listened to himself, I probably do have a concussion.

“She. Her boyfriend Ion’s a DJ and he had a gig tonight, and we were supposed to meet here and then go over later. But he has a bad habit of getting wasted and sometimes missing his shows. He’s really kind of a shithead.”

Stormy? Ion? Seriously?

“What kind of name is Ion?”

“It’s spelled I-A-N, but he pronounces it Ion.”

“That pretty much seals the deal then,” Jason said. “He must be a shithead.”

Evie grinned, which made her even prettier than usual. Jason’s head was rapidly clearing, like the sky after a sudden summer storm, and he decided he needed to get away from her.

“I feel much better,” he lied. “I’ll go home and wrap my head and by Monday I’ll be great.”

“No you don’t,” said Evie. “Go around to the other side of your car.”

“Really, I feel—”

“Get in,” she ordered.

“Not shabby,” said Evie as she climbed into the driver’s seat. “I guess being Marketing Director doesn’t suck.”

That’s what you think, he said to himself. The image of his boss as a bobblehead popped into his head and he felt woozy again.

Evie reached down to the shift lever. “Oh my God, this is so — shit, is this a stick shift?”

Jason frowned. “You can’t appreciate a German sports sedan unless you drive a stick shift.”

“Now you sound like a shithead,” said Evie. “And I thought you weren’t going to be one.”

She was right, and Jason cursed himself for a moment. “Sorry. Listen, there’s a little first aid kit in my trunk. Maybe if you can help me wrap my head—”

“And your elbow.”

Jason now saw that his blazer and the shirt under it were ripped, and his left elbow was dripping blood through the tear and onto the seat. It looked purple because of the ambient lighting in the cabin. “And my elbow,” he agreed.

Evie proved surprisingly skillful at cleaning and wrapping his wounds. When she was finished, they traded seats.

“Now, where do you live?” he asked.

Evie frowned at him. “Don’t be a dumbass. We’re going straight to your house.”

A drum line began laying down a furious tempo in Jason’s chest. He felt like a piece of dirty driftwood floating down the River Lust. As he drove, Evie leaned reclined her seat a bit more and pulled her legs up against her chest. “So, I guess you live in a big new house in a brand new neighborhood way out in the boonies?”

“I live in an old house in an old neighborhood,” he replied. “And it’s just a couple of miles away.”

When he pulled up to the curb in front of his bungalow a few minutes later, Evie turned her head and exclaimed: “I was right; you’re not a dick.”

Jason hesitated for a moment before he turned off the car.

“Your head hurting?” Evie asked.

It was, but it was nothing compared to the pummeling he was taking from his conscience. It was time to tell Evie that he was fine and she could call for a ride and go home. But instead, he got out of the car and led Evie up the first set of steps to his yard, then the second set of steps to his front porch. As he reached for his keys, she leaned against him and he could feel her pleasantly soft breast against his arm. Once inside, she pulled away from him and leaned over the short wall that separated the entry from the living room.

“This is so drastic,” she said softly as she took a panoramic gaze around at the living room on one side and the dining room on the other. As she came full circle, she noticed the stained glass over the front door. “And I totally love that.”

Without warning, she put her arms around his neck and pulled him down toward her, kissing him wet and open mouthed, foraging in his mouth with her tongue before he even realized what was happening. Then she whispered, “I guess all the bedrooms are upstairs.”

It was all so easy it was making Jason dizzy. Or maybe it was the wound on the back of his head. and his probable concussion.

As they started up the steps, Evie pulled the chain on the lamp atop his newel post. “You have a little light on your stairs,” she murmured. “This is such a cool house.”

He winced. And it’s probably five times as old as you are.

Once safely upstairs, Jason decided that he was not delirious and that sex with Evie might be just the thing to get him over the trauma he’d suffered earlier. He sprang into motion, sprinting around his bedroom, frantically pulling together the curtains while simultaneously pulling off his ruined blazer and shirt. When he turned around, Evie was already topless. His heart skidded to a momentary halt.

“Oh Christ,” he gasped.

She slinked around the bed toward Jason and this time he initiated the mouth on mouth activity, keeping one hand free to begin exploring her chest. Meanwhile, she had begun rubbing his groin and quickly and deftly undid his fly.

“You know, you’re not in bad shape for a guy your age,” she said when their lips momentarily parted.

Jason tensed up all over, except for his dick. “My age?”

She patted his chest with her hand. “Don’t worry. It’s not pervie or anything. I’ve hooked up with guys who were, like, forty.”

“Oh. Okay then. I feel better.” At least he had a few months to go before it became pervie.

Evie then turned around and pulled off her skirt and underwear, affording Jason a clear view of the vines climbing all the way up to each of her cheeks, which were lovingly adorned with elaborate blooms. She climbed onto the bed and Jason inhaled.

I’m Jack and I’m about to climb the beanstalk.

He yanked off his his own underwear and put one knee on the bed, then stopped. In a frenzy, he turned and jerked open the drawer of his night stand.

“What are you doing?” Evie asked impatiently, turning her head around to watch him.

“Oh, thank God!” he exclaimed as he found a single condom packet and tore it open.

“Dude, I’m on birth control.”

Jason rolled the rubber in place. “I have a thirteen-year-old daughter because the woman I was seeing was supposed to be on birth control.”

“She must have been lying,” said Evie, scowling.

“Probably,” Jason agreed, hoping that Evie would please please please not move. “But I’ll never take a chance again.”

Just as he slid the rubber over himself, the doorbell rang.