"Bye, Clive, thanks for the ride." Mark waved as he headed up his front walk, mask in his other hand, his step a little unsteady. It had been that kind of party.
"Later, Mark," I called back, watching him go. My vision swam a little, but not for the same reason Mark's probably did. It was late, it had been after ten-thirty when I'd left the party, and I was starting to feel it. I didn't have work tomorrow, which was good, but my dad would probably still drag me out of bed before eight to get chores done, which was bad. Three passengers down, just one to go; the blessing and curse of having a car.
When you grow up in a small town, thirty miles from the nearest mall or movie theater, having a car suddenly makes you very popular. Back in 1990, back before the internet, cellphones, or commonly accessible cable TV it made you very, very popular. When the most interesting place to hang out is the parking lot of the 7/11, the guy with the trashed Chevy is king. It wasn't a great car: it was a hand me down, over a decade old, guzzled oil, and needed constant work. It got people around, though, and it got me invited to things. Things like the beach trip on Memorial Day, or to the city last summer to see Total Recall, or just out to the tracks to throw rocks at trains. I wasn't a popular guy, but I wasn't unpopular either; I was just a guy. The car changed that. The car was why I'd been at Andy Hoover's Halloween party that night, it was why I'd been grabbed to drive four people home, and it was why I now found myself alone with Abigail Krueger. It was also why I met Maria McConnell, the ghost of East Hill Bridge.
Abigail Krueger. She was a looker and she knew it, but she'd gone overboard for Halloween. I don't know who or what she was dressed up as, but her hair was up, her skirt was short, her legs were long, and her top was low. She was hot, she was half-dressed, and she had a reputation. We didn't run in any of the same circles, but in a school of four hundred students you're passingly familiar with everyone and I'd had more than a few late night fantasies about Abigail. Now here she was, all dressed up (or down), alone with me in my whipped Chevy on Halloween night.
"So, um, which way to your place?" I asked, trying desperately to keep my eyes on the road and out of her cleavage.
"Turn around, then take a right on Creek," she responded.
I did a three point turn at the end of Mark's street, doing my best to avoid the downed tree, and leaned forward to stare into the twin circles of the headlights on my way back up the hill. I did keep my eyes on the road, mostly, but seriously this might be my only opportunity to see that much of Abby before we both graduated next summer and what I had now would probably keep me going for weeks.
"You're going to join the Army, right?" Abby asked.
"June, as soon as school's out." I hadn't signed up yet, but I was going to. Springvale's not a bad place to grow up, but once you're grown there's not a lot to do there either, either for fun or employment. There's also not a lot of ways out, you either need money or a scholarship, and I had neither. So: the Army.
"Are you a virgin?" she asked.
I nearly hit a tree.
"What?" I stammered.
"Are you a virgin?" She asked again. I debated what to answer. I don't know if you've ever been an eighteen year old guy, but whether or not you've popped your cherry is a big thing, huge, far bigger than it really needs to be. So a lot of people lie about it. Except in a school of four hundred people everyone talks about everyone else's business, including who's slept with who and who hasn't slept with anyone.
"Because it's okay if you are," she went on, "it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's okay to be a virgin. Hell, I am."
"You?" I blurted out in surprise. Like I said, in a school that small everyone talks about who's sleeping with who, and Abigail, well, she got talked about. A lot.
"Yeah, me. Don't sound so surprised."
"I'm not, I mean I am, because, uh..." I trailed off.
"Because guys talk? Of course they do, but what did they say? Because blowjobs and tittyfucking don't count, and anyone who says I've done more is a liar."
I stared at Abby. You have to remember, this was before the internet. Raunchy teenage boys had to learn what they knew from the Sears catalog, stolen nudey magazines, the occasional VHS tape, and wildly exaggerated stories told by their peers. Blowjobs, those I knew about. Tittyfucking, though? I had guesses, and the next ten seconds had me uncontrollably staring at her rack trying to work out if they were right.
"Like what you see?"
"Sorry," I said, dragging my eyes back to the road.
"So are you? A virgin?"
Well shit.
"Yes," I admitted.
"Ever gotten a blowjob? A handjob?"
"No," I admitted.
"Well, that just won't do," she said, "going off to the Army without ever getting your whistle wet." What did that mean?
Then I realized we were traveling east on Creek Road, which didn't lead into town, it led out of town. There were only a few more houses out this way, then the couple on the hill, then a couple of horse ranches outside of town, and I was pretty sure the Kruegers lived in none of those.
"Hey, where are we going?"
She grinned at me. "Wanna fix that?"
My heart hammered. "Fix what?"
"Fix you never getting a girl on your dick before you're off to boot camp."
Holy shit.
"What are you offering?" I asked.
She grinned at me, twisting some of her curls around one finger. "Drive us out to Blowjob Bridge and find out."
Holy shit. Holy shit holy shit holy shit. My fingers tightened on the wheel and my prick hardened in my pants. Holy shit, Abby Krueger was offering to blow me.
East Hill Bridge, or Blowjob Bridge as it sometimes got called when parents weren't around. Every town has got their legends and this one starts in 1978 on Halloween night. The story goes that Maria McConnell and her boyfriend went for a long walk out to Rockfall Turn, our local lover's lane outside of town across East Hill Bridge. They didn't make it all the way to the turn and instead stopped on the bridge for a little hanky panky. Then a car came and they tried to hide, but Maria slipped from the bridge and fell to her death on the rocks and the river below. The part that doesn't get told in polite company is that she'd been giving her boyfriend head right before it happened, and the part every teenager tells is that, if you go out to the bridge on Halloween night, you'll find the ghost of Maria McConnell waiting to polish your knob. No one believes it, or almost no one because every couple of years you hear about some guy trying it. Thing is, the bridge ended up with just as much of a reputation as Maria McConnell, and over the last decade a lot of local couples have decided that ghosts shouldn't be the only ones having fun.
The drive to the bridge was less than ten minutes, down Creek and past the barn red house with the giant willow in the yard, then along the short bit where the road turns to half gravel. It was dark; the street lights didn't come out this far and while it was a clear night the moon didn't do much through the trees. I cruised over the train tracks, rolled around a blue truck parked partway in the ditch, and finally I could see the two glaring white lights of the bridge up ahead. My heart was hammering so hard in my chest I felt like it was going to punch a hole in my ribs.
"Where, um..." I asked.
"Just pull over here, before the bridge," Abby said, waving at the small cutout. I did, stopping the Chevy with a crunch of gravel and putting on the parking brake. Car off. Keys out. Holy shit.
"Here?" I asked.
Abby glanced around the car. "There's not really a lot of room in here. How about on the bridge?"
I glanced out at the steel and wood bridge, hanging over a thirty foot drop into the river. It was at least forty years old. It was also October outside, and I could feel the chill in the car despite the crappy heater that smelled like maple syrup when it ran.
"Really?" I asked.
"Sure," she said, grinning and opening her door. "It's tradition, right? Getting your dick sucked on Blowjob Bridge on Halloween?" She tugged at her skirt, which had ridden up almost to indecency while she was sitting, bending over while she did it. I was suddenly staring down a deep canyon of cleavage, and a hint of something lacy peaked out at me.
"Won't it be cold?" I asked, opening my own door.
"Probably," she said, "but I'm guessing we won't be out here long." She giggled, shot me an evil grin, then walked off down the bridge, hair bouncing and butt swaying in her tight skirt.
This is a bad idea, I thought as I got out of the car to follow that sashaying butt. Holy shit this is a bad idea. Something did not seem at all right about this, Abby Krueger dragging me off to bob on my knob on East Hill Bridge? In the middle of the night? I wasn't thinking with my head, though, at least not the one atop my shoulders, and honestly even if I had been I probably would have done the exact same thing. If you've ever been an eighteen year old guy, you know why.
I followed Abby..
She stopped in a pool of darkness near the middle of the bridge. There were two lights, one at either end, but the middle was mostly in shadow. She'd walked up the road, although there was a walkway on one side of the bridge, separated by a railing. As I caught up with Abby she climbed the railing, skirt riding all the way up as she spread her legs to get over, and I got a flash of neon pink panties in the moonlight just before she jumped down on the other side. Then she tugged her skirt down again, gave me a dizzying look down her top again, and all semblance of sense left me.
"You coming?" she asked, knowing exactly what I'd seen during her acrobatics.
"Hell yes," I said, climbing over the railing.
Then I was face to face with Abby, only a couple of feet apart. She was grinning mischievously and looking amazing, I'm pretty sure I was grinning like an idiot and looking scared.
