Hearts in Atlantis

by Stephen King

Jackie Wilson sang “Lonely Teardrops” and I went slow. Roy Orbison sang “Only the Lonely” and I went slow. Wanda Jackson sang “Let’s Have a Party” and I went slow. Mighty John did an ad for Brannigan’s, Derry’s hottest bottle club, and I went slow. Then she began to moan and it wasn’t her fingers on my neck but her nails digging into it, and when she began to move her hips up against me in short hard thrusts I couldn’t go slow and then The Platters were on the radio, The Platters were singing “Twilight Time” and she began to moan that she hadn’t known, hadn’t had a clue, oh gee, oh Pete, oh gee, oh Jesus, Jesus Christ, Pete, and her lips were all over my mouth and my chin and my jaw, she was frantic with kisses. I could hear the seat creaking, I could smell cigarette smoke and the pine air-freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, and by then I was moaning, too, I don’t know what, The Platters were singing “Each day I pray for evening just to be with you,” and then it started to happen. The pump turns on in ecstasy. I closed my eyes, I held her with my eyes closed and went into her that way, that way you do, shaking all over, hearing the heel of my shoe drumming against the driver’s-side door in a spastic tattoo, thinking that I could do this even if I was dying, even if I was dying, even if I was dying; thinking also that it was information. The pump turns on in ecstasy, the cards fall where they fall, the world never misses a beat, the queen hides, the queen is found, ...