So you don't trust that this is what she is offering you. But she is.
'You wanna look around?' she asks, sliding off the hood of the car and barely glancing to see if you're behind her. Of course you are behind her. Where else would you be? Stumbling over the rough ground, hands shoved in pockets, not helping your balance at all, but they are so sweaty.
"They say this used to be some kind of commune or something."
"Religious?"
"Yeah but not like now. You want to know what I found in the library about it?"
"Huh?" You ask dumbly. There is a library in your town. It never occurred to you to go there. Suddenly that seemed like a terrible omission of vision.
"The library? Local history section?"
"Yeah, yeah. I know about that." You say. You do not know about that. You know only that you're alone with Jess. That she seems to like you. That she is talking to you like a friend and you have no idea what you did to get such a gift. So yeah, you know. You know you are feeling a lightness, a hope, a fleeting something that's making the windswept nowhere town you live in less intolerable, less gray. Like maybe it's a place it's alright to be from. This is happening anyways.
"Free Love Commune. They called themselves the Free Love movement. Back in the early 1900s, even before that I guess. They tried to sell the country on the notion that all social ills - and probably economic ones too - were a result of a repressed sexuality and the insistence on monogamous relationships - which greatly favored the men - and that all would be well if everyone would practice free love."
gulp. your hands sweat through your pockets. "Free Love?"
"Yeah - like love whoever. Like share it rather than hoard it."
'You wanna look around?' she asks, sliding off the hood of the car and barely glancing to see if you're behind her. Of course you are behind her. Where else would you be? Stumbling over the rough ground, hands shoved in pockets, not helping your balance at all, but they are so sweaty.
"They say this used to be some kind of commune or something."
"Religious?"
"Yeah but not like now. You want to know what I found in the library about it?"
"Huh?" You ask dumbly. There is a library in your town. It never occurred to you to go there. Suddenly that seemed like a terrible omission of vision.
"The library? Local history section?"
"Yeah, yeah. I know about that." You say. You do not know about that. You know only that you're alone with Jess. That she seems to like you. That she is talking to you like a friend and you have no idea what you did to get such a gift. So yeah, you know. You know you are feeling a lightness, a hope, a fleeting something that's making the windswept nowhere town you live in less intolerable, less gray. Like maybe it's a place it's alright to be from. This is happening anyways.
"Free Love Commune. They called themselves the Free Love movement. Back in the early 1900s, even before that I guess. They tried to sell the country on the notion that all social ills - and probably economic ones too - were a result of a repressed sexuality and the insistence on monogamous relationships - which greatly favored the men - and that all would be well if everyone would practice free love."
gulp. your hands sweat through your pockets. "Free Love?"
"Yeah - like love whoever. Like share it rather than hoard it."
