____________________________________________________________________

Looking up, he noticed the flashlight on the cluttered, now semen-splattered dashboard… and the hint of an idea came to mind.

Mitchell looked at Ina’s face again. Her eyes were still closed and, Hmmm, she sleeping? Yeah, maybe! It sure looks like she’s sleeping. He looked at the flashlight. Nah! His eyes flicked back to Ina, and back at the flashlight. Shaking his head negatively, Nah! But, But if she is asleep, maybe I can still get to see it. Making the decision… Slowly… Moving slowly, moving his arm only because he did not want to wake her, reaching to the flashlight, he grasped, and pulled. Holding a moment, the strong magnet released with a slight jerk. He looked at her face once again and, her eyes still closed, Ina hadn’t moved.

Holding the flashlight, he waited…

Still, she did not move.

_______________________________________________________

Tilting his head to the right, looking down, slowly, carefully so as not to touch her, positioning the flashlight, taking a deep breath, he pushed the button, and…

Light seemingly filling the car, several things simultaneously happened:

Thinking a cop was shining his flashlight through the window—as had happened oh, so many times in the past—Ina’s instantaneous reaction was to open her eyes and bring her head up, and…

Ina’s reaction to the light drawing his immediate attention, releasing the button, the light went off as…

Bonk!

Ina’s forehead smashed into the hard plastic steering wheel, bounced off and fell back onto the seat.

“Ina?” said softly.

No answer.

“Ina,” said a bit louder. “Ina?”

Still, no response…

Waiting another moment, pushing the button, shining the light onto her face, “Oh, my God!” Swallowing, he blinked his eyes rapidly, for…

Her tongue lolling from the corner of her drooling mouth, Ina Dorfmann’s head lay flat on the seat. Staring upward, blankly, her eyes were open, and crossed.

“Ina?” Thinking she’s dead, “Ina!” And not only dead, “Ina, I’m sorry!” but that he was responsible. That he’d killed her! “Ina,” shaking her shoulder, “I’m sorry!” Apologizing for killing her, he shook her shoulder even harder… and watched as her jiggling breasts flopped back and forth with the motion. “I’m sorry!”

“Ummm.” She moaned.

She’s not dead! Relieved that she wasn’t dead, “Ina, I’m sorry!”

She moved her head.

I didn’t kill her! Relieved that he hadn’t killed her, “I’m sorry!”

She blinked her eyes.

Looking skyward, thinking, Oh, God, thank you, God! Overjoyed because Ina was alive and that he had not killed her, “I’m sorry.” turning the flashlight off, he put it back on the dashboard.

“Oh, God,” holding her head in her hands. “I’ve got such a headache!” Turning, moving off Mitchell, sitting up, Ina faced forward.

Relieved to see her sit up, and move her by-then unbearably hot and heavy buttocks off his lap, thinking he was thinking, I’m sorry, but actually whispering it, “I’m sorry,” he muttered one last time as, reaching to the floorboard, hastily slipping his feet through his Jockey shorts and jeans, he pulled both up to his waist, then, grabbing his shirt off the driver-side floorboard, Mitchell pulled it over his head, as…

Trying to figure out, What happened? “What happened?” Ina asked.

Buttoning his fly, cinching his belt, he didn’t answer.

Ina knew that she was naked and that he was naked, and felt the rapidly evaporating moisture in and on her crotch and the familiar stretched feeling within her vagina, and in her still-muddled mind thought, He screwed me. Which in itself would not have bothered her, except, Why, all of a sudden do I have a headache? And, Why in the hell does he keep apologizing? And also, “Mitchie,” she asked, feeling her forehead, “How’d I get this goose-egg?”

Now thinking, The flashlight was a really stupid thing to do! Trying to think, What should I tell her? Trying to think of a, somewhat, plausible answer, She don’t remember the flashlight.

Stretching over the seat, reaching to the back, reclaiming her brassiere and blouse, Ina slipped her arms through the straps, adjusted her breasts into the cups, fastened the hooks, then, looking at him, “So,” she asked suspiciously, “how’d I get this bump on my head?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” he said, looking away, “I guess you, uh,” telling the truth, “kind’a bumped it.”

Bending forward, reaching for her shorts and panties, “Ouch!” her forehead grazed the steering wheel. Slipping both onto her feet, arching her body upward, Ina pulled both over her hips. “I bumped my head? How, Mitchie? On what?”

He thought a moment, Maybe I ought’a just tell the truth, and figuring the truth, some of it at least, might be the way to go. So, “On the steering wheel,” he said.

As though this was the only logical answer, which in fact it was, Ina simply said, “Oh.” Except, she thought, he just saw me bump my head on the steering wheel.

And Ina Dorfmann, the girl that would screw just about anyone, thought Mitchell Lipensky did…? She didn’t know what, but she did think that this boy—this boy that she felt something akin to love for an hour ago—did something to her.

Fresh air replacing fetid air, Ina rolled her window open, turned the key in the ignition starting the motor, turned the defroster on, and while waiting for a hole of clear glass to appear, “You know, Mitch,” she said, looking across the seat at him. “I’ve never been out with a guy like you before.”

Catching the inflection in her voice, not knowing if this was meant as a compliment—which it most certainly was not—and not knowing how to respond in either case, he said nothing.

“Yeah, Mitch,” Ina said as, wincing, she touched the bump on her forehead. “You know I’ve gone out with lots’a guys, an’ lots of ’em have done… well, you know, ‘it’ to me. But, Mitch, you’re the only one that’s ever apologized.”

Putting her father’s 1950 Pontiac into reverse, then forward, Ina Dorfmann drove off the dirt road of the view site onto the Old Highway.