Chapter 14A

Any predictions, premonitions or expectations I might have had about New York were quickly and unexpectedly undone and/or displaced at every turn. Life in Memphis, like its population, was fairly uniform and predictable. Not so in New York.

Martha turned out to be a pretty decent companion during the week, despite an occasionally cranky outburst. If Ronnie was in the throes of her period, she showed little sign of it; she was as eventempered as ever at our two lunch dates during the week. And if I had thought she might have some squeamishness about sex or might allow her relatively narrow, sometimes unpleasant experiences to hold her back from anything, I was wrong.

At lunch Tuesday she announced, "Listen, I've contacted some people who'd like you to pose for them. What do you think?"

I said, "Well, but what about Martha?"

"Oh, she'll say it's okay."

"She didn't say that yet. She wasn't so hot for it last time."

"Okay, if I get her hot for it, how do you feel about it?"

I chewed my hot 'n sour pork and said, "If it's okay with Martha, it's okay with me."

"Great. Great, Steven. And you'll get to meet some people, some really interesting, creative people. So different from those stodgy bureaucrats Martha deals with." She wiped her lips with her napkin and said, "Okay. So you need some practice posing, now, these are professionals and serious students and they get impatient when you just fool around. So listen, tomorrow's Wednesday and I usually get half the day off on Wednesdays. How about another lesson?"

I shrugged, holding my palms up. "Think I'll last?"

"Sure you will. Why wouldn't you?"

I shrugged again. A shrug was getting to be my standard answer for just about everything. I was getting tired of my own lame, boyish mannerisms.

"Come on, now, you were okay last time."

I said, "Well, I guess I do need the practice. Especially at just standing still, period."

"Come on, you need to learn a few more techniques, and you should get used to it so you won't be so restless. Can you meet at my place tomorrow after lunch? Around one?"

"You got it."

Then she gave me the oversized, accordian-fold paper envelope she's been carrying. She said, "Here. Martha says this is part of your ongoing education. She asked me to give you these. But If you ever get around to reading all this, don't forget to give it back."

It was a collection of several issues of The Village Voice, a newspaper I'd heard about but had never seen.

Starting the previous Sunday, Martha handed me a pile of reading matter that she was certain I'd find in Memphis only if I were digging underground for it. It was one of her first major "reading assignments" for me in New York. More would follow. The package included clippings and copies of articles from newspapers, magazines, privately published journals: the absurdist theater movement and the Chamber Theater movement, and some scripts of one-act plays; pro's and con's about behaviorism; a paper on the basic tenets of Jungian psychology; lengthy reports from the New York Times Magazine on the civil rights movement; articles about Southern authors, Southern sexual and religious mores; current trends in educational careers.

And now I had a stash of Village Voice articles about what was coming to be known in the 1950's as the "impending sexual revolution". The articles covered everything from studies in adolescent sexuality to the new indoor sport of wipe swapping in Connecticut.

This was heady material for a teenager. But starting Sunday afternoon when Martha presented it to me, I tore into it as though it were manna from heaven. Much of it was incomprehensible at first, but I began to slowly digest the ideas and images over the ensuing weeks. I spent hours with the stuff all day Sunday, and most of Monday and Tuesday evening while Martha buried herself in paper work.

Wednesday morning, I handled all my chores and struggled through Fiore. Then I tackled more of my "assignments" and ventured into the Village Voice material. Although it was dry, technical stuff, it threw more sexual images into my head at once than I'd seen in years of warnings from the pulpits or in my family's issues of the Catholic Digest.

My adrenaline was flowing by the time I knocked on Ronnie's door at one in the afternoon. She came to the door in her jeans and an old print shirt and said, "Right on time again."

I said, "Five minutes late."

"Oh, who cares?"

She said as were getting ready, "You should see the drawings I did in my dark book the other night. I couldn't believe it, I stayed up half the night drawing you. I even had to start a whole book, just for you."

I said, "A new one? How many of those books do you have?"

"Lots. You'll have to see the others some time. But not now. I want you settled down while we work."

But as we worked, the buildup in my groin over the previous four days became evident now and then. I didn't get a raging hard-on, but I did get somewhat obvious as the session progressed. As time went on she noticed, and she gave me a little smile while she worked and said, "All right, now. Let's control ourselves. You have to learn to control it, especially with my friend Mirabel. She's very attractive and sexy, so you have to keep your mind clear."

"Yeah, but I wasn't in bed with Mirabel last Saturday."

She blushed, erasing a couple of lines, and said, "So that's what you're thinking about."

I said, "Well, it... occurred to me while I was watching you. I think it's very sexy to watch you work, you're so professional.

She said, "Oh, Steven, please. That goes right to my head."

"I don't think this would be a problem with Mirabel. I've never had a, uh, experience with her. So I don't think I'd be thinking about it."

"Not with Mirabel. Now, a little bit of a reaction, she can accept that. She's no idiot. But don't let yourself get all worked up around her, because she would definitely object. Got me?"

"Gotcha."

I settled down for a while, but she set me in a pose again that had me looking right at her, and things got slightly out of hand again. Ronnie saw, but didn't say anything. She kept working. After a while she put me in another pose and saw that I was half hard, so she went into the bathroom and came back with a damp washrag that she lay over me, saying, "There. Out of sight, out of mind. That goes for both of us. And remember, it's still my period."

She returned to her work. The cold cloth helped. After a couple of minutes of intense involvement in her work, she asked, "So how's it goin'?"

"Better," I said.

She drew some quick, sweeping lines, and then she began to work on them, glancing quickly at me and then at the drawing several times, and while she worked she asked, "Mind if I ask you something?"

I sighed. "Uh-oh."

"What does 'uh-oh' mean?"

"When somebody asks if you mind if they ask you something, it means you'll mind."

She grinned. "Oh, you're--" and she suppressed a laugh and said, "Well, you're right. It's personal. So you don't have to answer."

I said, "I thought so."

"Well, she said, shifting closer to the drawing and starting again, "Don't you masturbate?"

I didn't say anything.

She said, "Because one of the models, who wasn't going steady at the time, said that's what he sometimes did to solve the problem. So, you might consider that."

I said, "People up here are very frank about their sexuality, aren't they?"

"Oh, some of them. Not all, by any means. I didn't use to be. Not usually. I was always scared to death. Except with Martha. Martha's the only one I could ever talk to. She's the only one who's ever seen my dark books. And you." She worked for a moment, and she said, "Well, if masturbation doesn't do it for you, wouldn't Martha help?"

I blushed. I didn't want the conversation to lead to the sexual history of me and Martha. I said, "I don't know."

"Sure she would."

I shrugged.

She used an eraser that looked like a small ball of rubber and said, "I would." She rubbed the drawing and glanced at me from the corners of her eyes and grinned. "I know it sounds outrageous. I would never have considered anything remotely like that, before all this happened." She squinted, looking at a line on her drawing and nursing it with the edge of her hand, and said absently, "But it did happen. And I was very surprised. Well... no. No, I guess I wasn't. Martha, maybe, but not so much for me, not that much." She examined her work and leaned back, tilting her head from one side to another, and muttered, "Mmm, I don't know if I like this one so much. I must be getting tired." She looked at me. "How about it, time for a break?"

I glanced down at the cold, baby-blue washrag. I was fairly hard under it. I said suggestively, "Now that we've had that intimate conversation, I think I do need a break."

She smiled and wiped her hands with a small cloth. "I guess my talking didn't help much, did it?"

I shook my head no.

She glanced at the washcloth on me. "Well, you did pretty well anyway." She got to her feet and stretched with a little groan. "Well, I'll try one more effort, just a quickie to finish off the afternoon. You just rest up a minute. Stand up and stretch if you want. I'll be back."

She went into the bathroom and I heard water running. I stood up and stretched, my dong sticking out, and I put the cloth on it again and lay down, sitting halfway up against the arm of the sofa, my legs extended along its length.

Ronnie called over the sound of running water, "Want some tea or something? Water? Soda?"

"No, thanks."

The water stopped. I heard her rustling around in there with a towel, and then she was clinking bottles and stuff together, mumbling, "Oh, where is it? I know it's here." Then she was quiet for a moment and she called in, "You never answered me."

"About what?"

"Masturbating."

I thought: Why the hell doesn't she just leave that alone? I thought her openness about her sexual curiosity could be exciting at times, but here I was trying to get my dick down to an acceptable level. I called back, "Very seldom. I don't particularly care for it. It's too lonely."

She muttered from the bathroom as she rummaged, "Well, you're right about that. It can be very lonely sometimes. But sometimes it helps. It helps me. Sometimes."

I said, "Talking about it while I'm posing doesn't help."

She said, "I know, and thinking about it while I'm drawing you doesn't help me, either." She came out of the bathroom and into my view, holding a hand towel and a small, opaque white, glass makeup jar, and a box of kleenex. She had a business-like expression on her face, all seriousness, and she said as she walked across the floor to me, "My fault. But the damage is done. So I guess I better do something about it." She stood looking down at me, her hands full of the stuff from the bathroom. "But only if you won't think it's gross if I do this. So... is this okay with you?"

I smirked, "Did you think I'd give you an argument?"

She knelt on the floor beside the sofa and put the glass jar on the floor, saying, "You could have. You might have been tired, or maybe too shy." She unscrewed the cap of the small jar. "I couldn't find my Coppertone. But a guy once told me he masturbated with cold cream. You ever do it that way?"

I shook my head no.

"Well, let me know if it feels too messy. Maybe we can try it another way." She settled onto her heels on the floor and started unbuttoning her blouse. Looking at me she said casually, with a taunt in her eyes, "Now, don't expect this on the job. This is just between us."

I sighed and rolled my eyes, and looked down at my cock. My erection raised the washcloth about two inches off me. I said, "Oh, my. He's definitely out of control now."

She said, expressionless, watching me, "Oh. This will definitely solve the problem. I shouldn't have mentioned any of this in the first place, but..." She slipped the shirt off her shoulders and reached behind to unsnap her bra. "... if you relieve yourself before you go on an assignment, or have Martha or me do it, there won't be any problem." She removed the bra, her sweet pears bare and looking very touchable but a little swollen. She looked down while she dipped her fingers in the jar on the floor, and I was taken back by her matter of fact behavior. I found it so bizarrely erotic that my cock stood up even higher.

Ronnie straightened up and moved closer to the sofa on her knees, leaning toward me a little, and she lifted the washrag from my cock. Then she looked at my cock while she used one hand to lift me straight up and the other hand to wipe the cream on my shaft.

I caught my breath with a sudden hiss, and she asked, "Cold?"

"I'll simmer down."

She gripped me with the moistened hand. "Let's hold him a minute and warm him up. I guess that's why they call this stuff cold cream."

I closed my eyes for a moment, enjoying a brief current of pleasure that flowed through my length, and I opened my eyes again. She was looking at my cock, her expression disarmingly calm.

She said, "I felt him swell a little. Does that feel good, just holding him like this?"

I winked at her. "Sure."