Songs_of_the_Satyrs Read Online Free PDF Page A

so stupid,” Jess said. “Let’s get out of here.”
    “Aw, it’s not that bad,” Denny replied.
    “Really?”
    Denny looked around. A freshman girl was puking in the bushes while her friend held her hair out of her face. But she’d gotten there too late. The friend now held the vomit-soaked strands gingerly as she muttered support and encouragement, trying to keep from getting puke splatter on her sneakers and jeans.
    “Yeah, you’re right,” he said. “This is pretty bad. Lemme top off our cups and we’ll go.”
    They cut through the woods on the far side of the park, leaving the noise of the partygoers behind them. Deeper in it grew quieter, despite the expanse of the city around them.
    “Whoa, what is that?” Denny said.
    “What is what? Come on, I need to pee.”
    Denny let go of her hand and picked his way through the brush toward a dark obelisk situated beneath some branches. Getting closer, Jess could see it was a statue tucked away in the trees. A leering creature formed in marble—half man, half goat—crouching on a pedestal. It was ancient and stained. Green moss hung from its weathered horns.
    “Denny, I want to go home,” she said.
    “Yeah, yeah. Just hold on a second.” He hunched down by the base of the pedestal and began brushing at the filth and grime. “Can’t see,” he grunted.
    She sighed loudly at him, then found her keys and shined a small pen light on the area he had unearthed.
    “Sixteen seventy-four.” He whistled, touching the engraving on the base. “Weird. It’s classical style but they didn’t do much of that in the Colonial period, especially with this kind of subject matter.”
    “That’s my history major,” she said.
    “Yeah. Something strange . . .”
    He looked around as if confused and then suddenly reached for her, kissing her urgently. Within moments he was peeling away her Albemarle University sweatshirt and bra, exposing her full breasts to the moonlight. She was flushed and breathing heavily.
    “We don’t have any condoms,” she said.
    “I know. But I want you now.”
    Her mind raced. Had she missed a pill? She decided she didn’t care. She gasped as he entered her, and somewhere deep in the recesses of her mind she imagined the sound of drums and flutes.
    They stayed in bed at his place all weekend, ordering pizza and leaving only to get wine. Monday morning she realized that she had missed her nine-thirty class and hadn’t written two papers that were due. Denny pulled her back to bed, and she surrendered willingly.
     
    ***
     
    Jess pulled herself away for a couple of days to get caught up on school. She liked Denny, but this was insane. Constant fucking. Inventive positions that seemed dreamlike and strange in the sober light of day.
    She’d never been prudish but now found herself spontaneously blushing and horny while sitting in lecture. She almost came once just daydreaming about their experiment with the reverse cowgirl. She excused herself from seminar to run to the bathroom, finishing herself before racing across campus to Denny’s room.
    Denny hadn’t changed or bathed. His room held the deep musky smell of sweat and sex. His computer screen was plastered with windows open to porn sites, the monitor framed with empty liquor bottles and tissues like an X-rated shrine to penetration.
    He grunted and pulled her inside. After the first hour, she realized his hands were stained with dirt and moss.
    “Denny, have you been out at the park again?”
    “Yeah,” he said. “It’s just got me curious. That monument is out of place period-wise. It’s something the Founding Fathers would have to have built, but they were strict Presbyterians. They didn’t embrace statuary anyhow, and that thing is practically pagan idolatry.”
    His honors thesis was on the influence of religion in politics during the late seventeenth century, so he would know. She really didn’t care much at the moment though, not when he was so close in the room. She