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Summer Thunder by Jill Candles

August 9, 2016 1 comment
By Jill Candles

By Jill Candles

A romance series exclusive to the Lankville Daily News.

Ivan was my first love. He had strange, tremendous tufts of blonde hair and a glove compartment filled with napkins. You would have never thought it possible to shove so many napkins into a glove compartment.

We drove down to the paper factory. “It’s burned to the ground,” he said. “There’s nothing to see, really.” He opened the glove compartment, removed a single napkin and tossed it out the window. “Hand me those tapes,” he said. They were neatly arranged in a brown leather case. The music was screechy and atonal– he had terrible taste in music, one of his few faults.

I heard the summer thunder off in the distance.

We walked among the charred remains. A train went by and disappeared into a tunnel. “You know what that means?” he asked. At the time, I didn’t. Later, after that summer, that summer of the summer thunder, I would understand.

He let it go and walked over to the car and took out another napkin before I could respond. He folded it carefully and threw it up in the air. It landed at his feet. “Gravity, that shit!” he exclaimed.Summer Thunder

We rented a hotel room that night under the name “Mr. and Mrs. Karl Koupons”. Paid cash. It was a double bed with a yellow comforter and a large painting of a dog above an old television set. “Why don’t you see what’s on?” he said. “I’m going back to the car”. I knew it was to get another damn napkin. It never ended.

When he opened the door, I heard the crash of the summer thunder.

The set sputtered and then flashed on. A series of spaceship rockets were being launched into a bay. You could hear a voice over a radio– “The spaceship rockets just fell into the bay. Mission aborted.” Then, the show ended. There was a long pause and then a commercial came on for soap flakes.

I removed my skirt and unbuttoned my shirt. Ivan came back in with his head down. He looked terribly guilty of something.

“What? What is it?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing. Just, those napkins make me so nervous”.

I kissed him. He ran his tongue along my front teeth. The sensation was odd.

“I…I’m sorry, I’ll be…just a minute.” He left. It was those napkins again.

I slept alone. Listening. Listening to the summer thunder.

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Summer Thunder by Jill Candles

August 4, 2016 Leave a comment
By Jill Candles

By Jill Candles

A romance series exclusive to the Lankville Daily News.

I guess it was Bret who first took me to the Wild Life Room.

“You’ll like it,” he said. “It’s red.” We drove down in his Neptune with the top down.

“I’m going to park around back,” he said. “Because I want…well…I want to kiss you.”

I heard the summer thunder. But it was distant, faraway. It didn’t feel part of this.

He kissed me. I didn’t move my mouth at all. He just crushed his lips into mine. I felt as though I could no longer feel.

“Let’s get some steaks,” he said.

It was a gay room, full of dancers. A band played upbeat trumpet music. Waiters dodged between the tables– they were dressed in white tuxedos.

“Pretty upscale, huh?” Bret said.

I heard it again. The summer thunder. It was louder this time.

“I’m going to the men’s trough,” Bret said. “I may be awhile.” He went off.

"I want you inside of me," I whispered. The summer thunder crashed down upon us.

“I want you inside of me,” I whispered. The summer thunder crashed down upon us.

A waiter came to the table. Later, I would know him as Erik. Or maybe I already knew that. Our eyes locked instantly.

“What will you have, miss?” He puckered his lips quickly, sensuously.

“I…I want…something new, something different.”

“We have that new alternative to soda everyone is raving about. Lithium citrate 7. It helps to…stabilize the mood. Or…perhaps you don’t want your mood stabilized, miss. Perhaps you want it to fly freely into the sky.”

The summer thunder was right above our heads this time.

 

I went away with Erik. The empty beach at midnight. He built a fire and produced a ragged book called Great Rhyming Love Poems of Lankville.

“It is worn,” I said.

“Yes, I’ve read it many times,” he said. “Poetry is just wonderful, don’t you think. It’s intoxicating.”

I heard the summer thunder.

He read me several poems in his deep, sonorous voice.

“I want you inside of me,” I whispered. The summer thunder crashed down upon us.

“Let me just finish reading a couple more poems first,” he said. As he read, he removed his jeans shorts.

And when he was done, the summer thunder crashed its loudest.

The night disappeared around us.

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Summer Thunder by Jill Candles

August 12, 2015 Leave a comment
By Jill Candles

By Jill Candles

A romance series exclusive to the Lankville Daily News.

She looked away from Rod as she fumbled nervously with the cup of after-dinner soda. Outside the plate glass window of the quiet side-street cafe, the first eddying wisps of fog circled about the street lamps accompanied by the sound of distant thunder. Inside, it was all warmth, soft light, restrained trumpet music…and heartbreak.

“Can’t you see what a fix I’m in, Jill,” said Rod, his handsome face sullen and darkened. “I’m poor. I can’t afford to get mixed up with a girl like you.”

“But don’t you see, Rod?” she begged. “I don’t care about money…I just care about us.”

He was silent. Then came the clatter of silverware, the muted sound of traffic from the street. And then thunder. It was growing louder, closer.

“Why did you agree to see me again, Rod?” she pleaded. “It would have been easier just to…not show up.”

Rod’s lips tightened and for one once he didn’t look quite so handsome.

“I didn’t…know what you might do. Why, I thought, perhaps you would…”

“Shall we walk a bit?” he asked. “It is becoming moister.”

Her olive skin flushed darkly; she looked beautiful then– brilliant with fury and alive with suppressed emotion. Her knees were lax with the fierceness of her anger. There was thunder.

And then she rose.

“You have nothing to fear from me!” she told him bitterly. “From this moment on, I don’t know you, never knew you and don’t ever expect to know you again!”

She pushed open the cafe door and the damp cottony fog rolled up to meet her. And then, from somewhere, was a voice.

“I like the fog, it’s so dampish, clammy and moist. Look at it against the light.”

He stepped out of the shadows. And there was thunder. But this time, it was the thunder of her heart.

“Shall we walk a bit?” he asked. “It is becoming moister.”

“Yes,” she whispered. She stared up at his profile, sharply cut against the drifting fog and thought how different he was then Rod. Sure, Rod had perfect features and a model’s smile. But this man, with his beaklike nose and strange, twisted grin had something Rod would never have– something that was difficult for Jill to put her finger on.

They walked, quietly but together. And then he suddenly led her into a low doorway, hospitably lighted by two old-fashioned iron lanterns. The thunder was now right above them. “My home,” he said. “Shall we get out of the moistness?” And he led her into a low-ceilinged room that breathed of peace and comfort.

Jill dropped her coat on a red leather bench and looked appreciatively about. Dark woodwork and pale walls, lighted by ivory-shaded lamps that cast a subdued light over the the built-in bookcases. There were leather chairs, several velvety throw rugs, warm red drapes drawn over sheer window curtains and the gleam of brass here and there. She watched as the stranger lit a fire– it smoldered immediately and then went out as the cacophonous sound of thunder echoed down the chimney.

“Perhaps not the right night…for this kind of fire,” he remarked.

It was inside her now, the thunder.

“My name is Otis. Otis Plaza.” Her heart stirred further, her lips tingled. Some of the misery was stealing from her soul.

“I’m not rushing you,” he said. “I’m just warning you that you better start thinking of me because one day soon, you shall have to make up your mind.”

“I want to be rushed, Otis.” She arched her back. He slipped his hand beneath it.

And then came the thunder, the summer thunder. Constant, streaming, flushing out the night outside.

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