With the exception of tormenting Gina on her holy acquisition pilgrimages, I was almost always on time for everything. It just seemed to make life easier. I’d gotten in the car to meet Kathy that night at nine-fifteen, allowing myself a generous forty-five minutes for the run to the Village and to park. So it was especially frustrating to be sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge at ten o’clock, with no idea how long I’d be there.
When I’d returned from looking for Louise my father hadn’t come in yet. I lay down for a couple of hours, and when I got up, he was in his room sleeping. I was beginning to feel like one of those immigrant stories where three Haitians rent one room and everybody sleeps in shifts. I ate something, and took my time getting ready. There was no way I expected any kind of traffic heading toward Manhattan at this hour.
Eventually the traffic began moving again, and as was so often the case in New York City, there was no visible evidence of what had caused it to stop. I took the streets to the Village, costing me another ten minutes, but insuring that I wouldn’t get bottlenecked on the FDR Drive. When I got to Bradley’s—which, thank God, was right where the information operator had said it would be—I discovered that along with my driving luck, my parking space karma had been exhausted. I finally got a spot three blocks downtown and ran to the bar. It was ten-forty.
Bradley’s was dark, and laid out the way a proper tavern should be, with the long sturdy bar itself—backed by an ornately carved wood and gilt-trimmed mirror—the star of the show. A handful of tables lined the opposite wall, and in the back, a few more were arranged in a loose semi-circle around a small stage. The back-bar was strung with blinking Christmas lights, and several green cardboard wreaths were taped to the glass. It wasn’t much, but it surprised me. I hadn’t seen any decorations sprouting around the neighborhood yet, and I hadn’t given even a moment’s thought to the approaching holiday.
Two enormously fat black men were performing on the stage, one pounding a piano, and the other playing a huge standing bass fiddle. I’d never seen anyone play one of those except in old movies. The crowd was very much into the music, and it was, to be honest, pretty infectious. It sounded like real old-time jazz, big-band stuff or earlier, before everyone had to change their name to Zimbabwe and play songs of social significance that sound like a car wreck.
The bar was crowded, but never more than one deep, and there was a space here and there. All the tables were filled. I didn’t see Kathy anywhere. Heartsick is such a corny word, but I swear that’s what I felt. I made a quick tour of the room and was about to ask the bartender if he’d seen her when she walked through the door. She came right over to me and took my arm.
“I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” she said pleasantly.
Loaded question. If I was meeting Gina I would have paid hard cash for this kind of scenario. I’d rant and rave and look at my watch, and buy at least two broken dates from something like this. But so far, anyway, Kathy and I were on fairly equal ground, and making her feel bad wasn’t really a part of my plan for making me feel good.
“I just walked in,” I said. “I’m so goddamn relieved that I didn’t keep you waiting. Everything that could have gone wrong did.”
“Really?”
She smiled quickly, genuinely, and I realized in an instant that I’d been set-up. She had been in the bar before I got there. She had waited for me. She was pissed or went to make a phone call, and returned after I arrived. And she’d tested me. She wanted to know what I’d say. I hadn’t thought she was the type for that, but as my father kept pointing out, I was still young. I could almost hear his voice through the background music. Keep on your toes, it said. She may be the girl of your dreams, but that doesn’t alter those XX chromosomes. The truth of the matter was I’d never felt more attracted to her. She kissed me briefly, and I felt proud. The tough ones might get me later, but I could still field the ground balls.
We signaled a waitress and told her we’d like a table whenever one opened. I asked Kathy if she’d like a drink, and she weighed the question far longer than was called for. When the bartender approached us, she was still agonizing over it. I went ahead and ordered Wild Turkey on the rocks, and she eventually asked for a screwdriver.
“Cheers,” she said, lifting her glass.
“To vitamin C.”
Kathy asked me if I knew the song that was playing. I didn’t, but it sounded vaguely familiar. She hummed little snippets of five different songs until she hit one I’d heard before.
“They’re all Duke Ellington,” she said. “Each one’s different, but unmistakably his. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
“It’s impressive,” I admitted, “but what really amazes me is that you can hum one song while another song is playing.”
“What?”
“You know, these guys are playing good rocking jazz, and you were able to hum half-a-dozen tunes at the same time.”
“And that means more to you than Duke Ellington’s songbook?”
“Actually,” I said, “I’ve always felt that it was a sign of demonic possession, but I’m trying to be polite.”
“Good job,” she said.
A table opened up, mercifully far enough from the music that we could make conversation. Kathy talked some more about jazz, and though I had little to add, I enjoyed listening to her. She had a kind of intensity when she spoke that I suspected could make a lecture on Flemish architecture seem interesting. At the same time, of course, it meant she’d be a bitch on wheels in an argument. I filed the thought away.
We talked and drank for almost three hours. There were times when I was genuinely caught up in the passion of the conversation, and other times when I felt like I was barely treading water. She was sharp on music, mostly rock and jazz, but didn’t know much at all about rap. I countered her suggestion that it promoted violence against women with several examples to the contrary, including lyrics by female rappers; and added the observation that she was judging from outside the cultural experience, and that just might be construed as racist. She backed off. The best defense really is a good offense.
She never slurred or lost focus, but when she got up to hit the ladies room I noticed that she was moving like she was negotiating the deck of a whaling ship in a nor’easter.
“Are you okay?” I asked when she returned.
“You could tell, huh?”
“You seem fine. It’s just the way you were walking.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s a curse. I can talk about nuclear physics with four drinks in me but don’t ask me to pass the chips. Do you get like that?”
“No. I’m pretty lucky. I just get stupid, so no one can really tell.”
“I’d be able to tell.” She leaned forward and kissed me.
“Would you have done that,” I asked when we finished, “if you weren’t too drunk to pass the chips?”
“Yes, I’m pretty sure I would have. I’ve wanted to since we got the booth. Why? Does it matter?”
I shrugged. “Just curious. If it was the drinks, I wanted to keep count of what it took.”
She smiled. “Give yourself a little credit.”
“Vodka is more consistent. It doesn’t have an off day.”
“I hope you’re not having an off day,” she said. “I’ll need you to pour me into a cab if we don’t get out of here soon.”
I told her that I had the car and I’d drive her home. After many assurances that I was still functional, she agreed. I left her in the booth and paid the check, then booked back to the car and drove to the front door. Kathy was waiting outside when I got there, and she looked noticeably better. Night air, especially cold night air, will either kill me or give me a second wind when I’m half in the bag. It seemed to be agreeing with Kathy.
We drove back to her place, and the parking gods decided to smile on me once again. I got a spot about two doors down from her house. She was steady on her feet and maneuvered the distance to her door better than I would have expected.
“Was the staggering a false alarm?” I asked.
“Not so much a false alarm. More of an early warning sign. As long as I see it when everyone else does, I stop before I wind up with a lampshade on my head.”
“Pity.”
“Trust me,” she said as she opened the door to the foyer, “you don’t want to carry me up these stairs unconscious. I’m not as light as I look.”
Although I was sure Kathy was plenty light enough, I wasn’t even crazy about dragging my own conscious ass up all those stairs. Considering how awkwardly she’d moved a short time ago, she navigated her way up pretty smoothly. I made myself keep pace.
When we got in her apartment I noticed that the morning’s dishes had been cleared from the coffee table. They weren’t in the sink, so I assumed she’d done them and put them away. The flyer for the performance artist was gone too, and the whole place looked pin-neat. Kathy tossed her jacket over the arm of an over-stuffed wing chair. I dropped mine on top of it.
“You can put some music on,” she said, gesturing at the ancient stereo. “Most everything I have is still on vinyl, but there’s a bunch of tapes on the bottom shelf. I still don’t have a CD player.”
“Me either,” I said, scanning her collection. “I’d like to hear what you had on the last time I was here.”
“Dire Straits?”
“Yeah. The Sultans of Swing guys.”
“That wasn’t the album.” She came over and removed a record that was literally under my nose and handed it to me, then walked over to the kitchenette area. “What would you like to drink?” she asked. “Last time I offered you juice and you ran away. I don’t have any bourbon. Would you like some vodka?”
“At the risk of ruining my reputation,” I said, “cold water would be wonderful.”
She opened and closed things and rustled and clinked while I figured out how to work the sound system. I don’t know if deja-vu is the right term for something as set-up as this, but I realized that I’d managed to get myself back on the same sofa with the same music, and the same girl was only a few feet away. If I had to cut off the tattoo, change political party, religion, or gender, I vowed I wouldn’t fuck it up this time.
Kathy brought me my water and sat across from me. “So,” she said, “why Dire Straits?”
“I don’t know much about them, but since the last time I was here I heard them on the radio a couple of times and thought of you. It was nice.”
She shrugged. “Good thing I didn’t play Thelonius Monk.”
I stared at her.
“Never mind,” she said. “You tried to hide your tattoo the last time I saw you. What’s your game plan tonight?”
“Well, the last time I was here you put your glass on the floor, and I was able to suavely move in and kiss you on the way up. I’m sort of waiting for that kind of opening.”
“Oh. It’s a good thing you told me. Does it have to appear spontaneous?” “That would be better,” I said.
“Too bad.” She leaned in and kissed me. It was across a fair distance, and I think she did it purposely to catch me off guard, but it was wonderful anyway.
“Not fair,” I said when we stopped. “You didn’t put your drink down.”
“No, but if it makes you feel any better I did spill a little.”
She put her glass on the floor and I slid along the couch to her. I was clearly a product of these twisted times to the extent that I was never sure whether I was going to have sex until I was in the middle of it, but I had to admit this looked pretty good.
We held each other tightly while we kissed. Her body felt absolutely perfect: soft, like a girl’s should be. I was relieved. I’d never been an advocate of the great fitness craze that seemed to have most of the planet killing themselves or feeling like shit for not killing themselves. I thought that trim and toned was nice in a woman, but if you felt like you had your arms around the guy who just came off the lat machine at the gym, well, that made me feel queasy. Kathy was definitely trim and toned, but she was soft in all the right places. I was getting short of breath, and my erection was giving me serious discomfort due to the half-turned, stretched-out position I’d sunk into. We made out like two kids at a drive-in for a long time. Eventually I needed to sit up and realign my circulatory system. I asked Kathy where she slept.
“This is it,” she said.
“The couch?”
“Yes. It opens up. I don’t usually bother, but I think tonight we should.” She stood, scooped up her glass, and walked to the kitchen area. “Why don’t you open that up?” she said, gesturing to the sofa. “I’ll toss you the sheets.”
Dire Straits had long since stopped playing, and I didn’t really know the lyrics anyway, but I had to resist the impulse to hum the tunes that were still circling in my head. Kathy crossed the apartment, and I stopped her for another long kiss before she made her way to the bathroom. She stepped in, then right out, and threw two folded blue sheets over to me.
“I’ll bring the pillows out with me,” she said, and disappeared back into the john.
I got the cushions off the sofa and was thrilled that Kathy wasn’t in the room to see me trying to figure out the mechanics of the pullout bed. After eight or nine attempts some unseen mechanism clicked and the frame lifted up and out.
The bed opened easily from that point, and it appeared sturdy, though the mattress looked suspiciously thin. I had secured the fitted sheet and was tucking the top sheet in around one side when Kathy emerged from the bathroom. She was carrying two small pillows and wearing the same kind of white athletic undershirt she’d had on the last time I was up there. It seemed to be all she was wearing, but it reached just far enough that it was impossible to tell if it was covering underwear. She walked to the opposite side of the bed, tossed the pillows at the top, and began helping me with the sheet as though we were spreading a picnic blanket.
I finished my side while watching her as surreptitiously as possible. When she stretched to tuck the bottom corner her shirt rode up a little, just a couple of inches. I got a brief glimpse—the proverbial flash—of black fur. No underwear. It probably wouldn’t be good if I came before I was physically in the bed.
When Kathy was done with her side she cut the light by the bed, pulled the top corner of the sheet down, and slid in. The kitchen light remained on, and it gave off a nice twilight effect. I felt a little awkward about her having changed in private, while I was being watched. I undressed quickly. Shoes first, then pants and shirt and shorts. I sat on the bed to get my socks off. I wasn’t really drunk, but trying something like that standing up was just asking to be compared to Jerry Lewis. When I turned toward her I was naked, but Kathy was still wearing the white shirt.
“What happened to you?” she asked, gesturing at my bandaged side.
I’d changed the gauze after I showered, and the new dressing was half the size of the old, so it didn’t look like much. “I got hurt working,” I said.
“Driving?”
“Doing a messenger job. I had an accident.”
When I climbed into bed she ran her hand over it lightly. “Does it hurt?”
“No, but if you promise to keep doing that I’ll go bandage the rest of my body.”
She traced the outline of the dressing with her nails. There was a moment when I was sure she was going to ask about it some more, then she changed her mind. Just for that instant, that one beat of time, she looked like Gina. It was the facial expression, the one that says It’s better that I don’t know. I hated seeing it on Kathy. It didn’t belong on her face. That was not how I pictured us. But, as much as it disturbed me, I couldn’t bring myself to say anything either, and the moment seemed to pass.
We kissed side by side, running our hands up and down each other’s flanks. I cupped her breasts through the shirt, and felt her nipples harden against my palms through the thin material. I wanted to tear the shirt off her, to shred it. I reached under it and she stopped me, smiling.
“Not yet,” she whispered. “I don’t think just yet.”
I slid my hand down her stomach and between her legs. She rolled half onto her back and parted them slightly.
That was it for me. I went from kissing her face and throat to a slow but steady slide south. I licked and sucked at her breasts, right through the cotton fabric like I was filtering a hit of strong weed. I kept moving down, and replaced my hand with my mouth. She gasped lightly, and cradled the back of my head with both hands, adjusting her position and pulling me in a little tighter. I was so horny I was starting to hump the mattress. This was what I loved. As far as I was concerned, women should be served on a plate. The smell, the taste, the feel, there was nothing quite like dining out. I usually dove down before I had the blouse open.
We had maneuvered ourselves over to lying diagonally across the bed now, and that was a good thing because otherwise I would have fallen off. I went at her greedily, and she responded to my movements by arching her pelvis up to push herself even more tightly to my mouth. Once we established a rhythm we went on like that for a long time.
I reached up again after a while, and slid my hands under Kathy’s shirt while she rocked back and forth against my chin. She took one of her hands from my head, reached for my arm, then changed her mind and stopped. She raised herself slightly and pulled the shirt up to her neck. I laid my hands on her breasts and moved in small circles, pulling lightly in sync with the motion of her body. Dimly, far off, I was aware of the frame of the sofabed moving with us, swaying, squeaking a little. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Someone could have shot me again. Kathy was breathing fast and her movements quickened. She began pushing so rapidly that I released her breasts and reached under her with both hands, holding her ass to anchor her to me. As soon as we locked in that clinch she began to shake. Just a little at first, once or twice, then more frequently. The more she pushed the more I did. Kathy stopped moving suddenly, and was completely still for about five seconds, then grabbed my head in both hands and pulled herself hard against me. I sent my tongue forward as she convulsed two long times, then relaxed back into the bed.
I was right up against her, but no longer moving. I removed my hands from under her and rested one on her stomach. She caught my wrist in a grip normally reserved for handling poison reptiles and pulled my hand away from her. She let go, and I waited a minute or so, then wiped my mouth quickly on the sheet and slowly slid up the length of her body.
It had been stupid to try to touch her right away. She was still giving off little tremors when I got up next to her. We held each other for a couple of minutes, and when she’d unclenched enough I sent my hands out over her again. As soon as she reciprocated, I rolled over like a dog and she swung herself up onto me. Memories of lovemaking often tend to be warm and romantic, but the truth was we humped like lab rats on crack. I’d been half-mad from going down on her and now that I was getting off it couldn’t possibly be soon enough. The bottom legs of the sofabed raised off the floor and thumped down with our movement, and although that should have quieted us, it only seemed to spur us on. I felt challenged, like we needed to make enough noise to drown out the bed.
I came quickly. It felt quick in sex-time, and real time is about half of that, but I couldn’t hold back. When we stopped moving I felt like I didn’t have the energy to blink. I decided that I’d been correct the last time I’d been here. Kathy was going to kill me.
She rolled off to the right and lay next to me. The mattress felt like a sponge. After a couple of minutes she pulled the top-sheet over us. I was starting to feel cold and damp, and I assumed she was too. When she didn’t move after another minute, I excused myself and went to clean up and dry off. When I returned Kathy was back in her undershirt, and waiting to get in the john. I noticed that she’d removed the fitted sheet from the bed. It was rolled in a ball on the floor. She’d replaced it with the top-sheet, and tossed a light green cotton blanket over that.
I got into the bed, and almost immediately felt drowsy. The evening—the drinks and the sex—had finally caught up with me. Maybe it was the whole day, or more to the point, the last several days. I felt like I could sleep for a week. More. Twenty years. I fought to remain awake until Kathy came back. I managed, barely, and was still conscious when she returned. She walked past the bed and over to the kitchenette.
“Do you mind?” she asked, pointing at the overhead light. “I’m really exhausted.”
This was the sort of sign that could send me back to the Church. “No. Not at all. If you’re tired turn it off; we can go right to sleep.”
She hit the switch and the room was plunged into total darkness. I couldn’t even make out her silhouette. Kathy must have memorized the layout of the apartment, because I heard her navigate her way to the bed. She didn’t hit anything. She got in, slid across, and curled up next to me.
“Isn’t this a great way to spend a Friday night?” she whispered against my neck.
“Yes, but I think I would have had a good time even if it was a Tuesday.”
“You’re an idiot,” she said.
I didn’t have a response, and it was just as well, because she was asleep in about a minute. I nodded off shortly after, but for a little while I lay there thinking about how this was the first time I’d stayed with a girl after sex; the first time I stayed over; the first time I was falling asleep in someone else’s bed.
I woke about two hours later with a vicious piss hard-on. I slipped out of bed without waking Kathy, and hit the john. Once the immediate problem of my bladder had been addressed I found myself back in bed, wide awake and with another erection. Kathy was sleeping like a stone. My judgment is rarely at its best at moments like that. We had been sleeping curled into each other, spoonlike. I returned to that position, and after squirming in as close as possible, shifted myself downward a little and went from rubbing gently against her ass to actively seeking shelter from the storm.
Kathy had barely stirred when I first moved. Now she rocked back against me steadily, still asleep. I was quiet, and tried to be as even as possible in my movements, but the sofabed started making noise again, swaying with us, and in spite of my efforts to control my breathing, I suspected that I rasped a bit in her ear. I couldn’t see what I was doing, but when Kathy woke up, it felt like I was almost in. She stopped moving, and it was as shocking as my oxygen supply being cut off. Her body frozen in place, she turned her head to look at me.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Nothing. Why do you ask?”
“I’m sleeping. You can’t be looking to get laid now.”
“You were doing all right for sleeping,” I said.
“I thought I was dreaming.”
“You are. None of this is really happening.” I began prodding her again.
Kathy shrugged her shoulders once, slowly, elaborately, and squinted her eyes closed tight. “Jesus Christ,” she said, pushing back hard against me, “I really need to sleep.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “I’m Irish. You won’t even know I’m here.”
She rolled over to face me, and reaching down, grabbed my dick firmly in both hands. I maneuvered myself on top of her, and, still holding me, she steered me in.
“Must be Black Irish,” she said.
“An erection,” I said, “is a terrible thing to waste.”
“Shut the fuck up,” she said, a little more harshly than I thought necessary. But it hardly mattered. I was breathing like a steam engine in no time and couldn’t have uttered another complete sentence on a bet. I did have the presence of mind to consider the number and diverse nature of women who preferred my company when I didn’t speak.
We moved smoothly this time, and remained in that position, without the somehow instinctive sense of urgency we’d both displayed earlier. I felt comfortable with her, as though this were our tenth or twentieth time together.
I kept pumping, slowly, long after I came. I felt like one of those wooden birds that, once you push it, dips its beak into a glass of water forever. It didn’t even feel like sex anymore. I just didn’t want to stop.
Eventually I collapsed, but even that felt like slow motion. I slid down a few inches and rested my hips mostly on the bed and very little on Kathy. I propped myself up on my elbows so my weight was off her ribcage. She nuzzled into my neck and shoulder. As good as it all felt, and it felt very good, I knew that I could only remain like that for a couple of minutes before my muscles started to cramp.
“All right,” she said. “I forgive you for waking me up.”
“I was making good time while you were out. Consciousness kind of put a crimp in things for me.”
She shoved me over, sparing me the embarrassment of having to move on my own. I went back to what I was already optimistically thinking of as my side of the bed.
We lay half-entwined and drifted in and out of sleep for about the next hour. I would doze off, and it seemed she would too, but if I spoke she answered immediately and coherently. It was as though whenever I was awake, she was too. Or the other way around.
I got up with the sun, which meant I’d had precious little sleep. My watch read seven-twenty. I washed up and dressed in Kathy’s tiny, ancient bathroom, and when I came out she was sitting up in bed.
“Did Batman beep you?” she asked.
“I’m not allowed to tell,” I said.
“It’s still dark out.”
“That changes in a little while. It gets light. You’ll see.”
She nodded. “Obviously you can go whenever you want. I’m not saying you should stay. It just seems a little strange.”
“These are my kind of hours,” I said. I was embarrassed to tell her that I was afraid my father would worry if I wasn’t home soon. “Staying here at all felt a little strange to me.”
“Why?”
“It isn’t something I do.”
“What do you mean?” She was leaning forward, giving me that anthropology major stare.
“I have a difficult time sleeping away from home. Not in my own bed. Do you know what I mean? It’s just a neurosis.”
“Do you fight it?” she asked.
“No. Like most of my fears and phobias I think the healthy thing to do is surrender to it right away.”
“Sure,” she nodded. “I can see how that would be the way to go.”
I declined Kathy’s offer of fresh coffee, and she looked relieved. The offer had been made while she was still prone, and it appeared that she intended to remain that way for some time. I kissed her and told her I’d call her the next day, after she’d had some sleep. When she told me to pull the door closed tight I realized that I wasn’t being escorted out. I was aware of my temples throbbing a little and my eyes burning as I’d gotten dressed, but that was about it, and it wasn’t all that different from most mornings. I’d probably nap in the afternoon. I had no idea how Kathy was feeling, but I figured it was a little rougher for her.
“Will I actually be seeing you any time soon,” she asked, “or should I just expect a call at five in the morning about a year from now?”
“You don’t know?” I said. “No. Now that we’ve slept together this relationship has escalated into one of those Fatal Attraction things where I really do stalk you and terrorize and drive off any man you speak to until I’ve made you mine.”
She nodded again. “I don’t know how much you’re joking.”
“Then my work here is done,” I said. “I’d like to see you again. I’d like to see you soon.”
“Is that what you really want?”
“I really want to see you often. I really want to become your boyfriend, but I’m trying hard not to push.”
“What about your girlfriend?” she said.
“Did I say I had a girlfriend?”
“No,” Kathy said. “In fact, you specifically said you didn’t. But what about her?”
“You asked me what I wanted. I told you. I’m still sorting out a lot of things and my personal life is one of them. Can this conversation wait a little while?”
“Why not,” she said. “Everything else has.”