Ronda by Ray Haltlane

Her name was Ronda--she spelled it without an "h"--and she rented one of the upstairs rooms of the house where I lived with my mom.

I was so naive when I was 17 that I thought, when she said she was a dancer, that she meant ballet. But I knew there was something funny about her story. There was this guy, she called him "Billy" and he was balding, middle-aged and a little sad, who was always knocking on the door asking for her. Usually when she wasn't around. Why does this mean she wasn't a ballet dancer? I don't know.

But she seemed a little too big for ballet. She wasn't fat; just tall-five ten or eleven, with all this platinum blonde hair. And she was always standing straight up like a statue. She looked like some chick in a comic book you'd expect to see riding in on a flying horse and carrying a big sword.

It can't be true but I can't remember her ever wearing anything but a halter top. And God, she had big boobs. They SALUTED you. I think now, remembering back, that they couldn't have been real. But at the time? Hell, I didn't know. I just knew they were big. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

My mom was always off at some happy hour with this guy named Ellis Styles, who rented the other room upstairs. Ellis was about ten years younger than my mom, but he was great friends with her. He had a desk job at a hospital. I remember his high, screeching laugh. Man, he was spastic. He used to iron all the time. But I suppose that has nothing to do with it. I suppose lots of people iron all the time.

It was always happy hour somewhere, that's how I remember those times. My mom said she and Ellis just went for the free food. Back then I believed her, but now I'm not so sure. They used to laugh an awful lot when they finally did come home.

Anyway, this one particular evening I was sitting around the living room--we had a shag carpet and a massive couch, that kind of scene--watching T.V. This was, like, the week after cable was invented, at least in Portland. I was always looking for something sexy to watch. I remember "Young Lady Chatterley." God, I must have watched that fifty times. But this night, the only thing on was a Chuck Norris movie.

Even then I could tell old Chuck couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. Those back kicks were pretty cool, though, and I was kind of hoping Ronda would stick around. So when she came down from her room, I pretended I was watching something great.

I had beer. Ellis had bought it for me; his way of showing, I guess, that no matter how much shit I gave him, at least HE was old enough to buy beer. But I was feeling very grown-up now, because I had a beer.

"Do you want a beer?" I said, trying to be cool. At that age I still thought it might be possible. And you can get a buzz off the first tablespoon of beer when you're 17.

"Are you su-ure?" Ronda said in her little voice. She may have looked like a superhero, but she tried to sound like Ginger from Gilligan's Island. She was 22.

"Totally," I said.

She walked her trademark walk to the kitchen: arms waving at her sides, fingers out. I suppose it was mostly to keep her balance. She never wore anything but high heels.

She came back and we sat together with our beers on the couch, drinking. She flirted with me a little bit. At some point she said, "Are you really a virgin?" and I knew it was decided. The door to my room was only a few feet away.

I waited, standing, while she went upstairs. She wanted candles. I wondered if I should take my shirt off.

Finally she came back, and somehow, despite my awkwardness, we wound up lying next to each other on the bed.

"What do you want to do?" she whispered.

"Everything," I said.

I kissed her mouth. It tasted like lipstick. She moaned, unconvincingly I thought, when I kissed her big boobs. When it seemed like enough time had passed, I went down on her. I thought her pussy smelled interesting. I hoped I was good.

"OHHHH!" she said to the ceiling. "Where'd you learn to do THAT?"

I wanted to believe her. "I think I read it in a book somewhere," I said. Which I had read in a book somewhere.

Later she told me she'd done it with me because she wanted my first time to be special. But I can't remember anything else she said, probably because none of it was particularly true. Whoever was in there behind the makeup, she wasn't coming out. I guess, neither did I.

A few days later I was sitting at the dining room table at some ridiculous hour--maybe it was five A.M., maybe it was Sunday morning--writing a paper on the Emancipation Proclamation, or something, when I heard her coming down the stairs. She rooted around in the kitchen for a minute, then she came in.

She walked up behind me and put her arms around my neck. That's all. Her boobs were kind of falling against the sides of my head, but maybe it was an accident. I reached up and held her that way. Nobody said anything. The funny thing is, it was a really nice moment. I felt a twinge of something.

Then she asked me to give her a ride out to Beaverton in the afternoon. Which kind of pissed me off. But I did it, when the time came.

I'll never understand how we got all the way there without the question coming up: "So, what are you going to Beaverton for?" But we did. When we got to a certain point, she had me turn into a gravel parking lot. There was a police car waiting, and she got in. I don't know why.

I don't know what I did when I got home. For all I know, I went straight to my room and jerked off to beat the band. I did that a lot. But I remember I cried in the car, driving.

A couple of weeks later Ronda moved out. I never did see her dance.

Ray Haltlane is a fanatical runner, amateur chessplayer, and professional student from Portland, Oregon. His most nearly actual ambition is to become a librarian.