Chapter 17A

Saturday, August 24, 1957.

I woke up at six. Martha slept like a log beside me. Even after a good night's sleep, I was grumpy; I was ready for life to ease up. Nothing was turning out the way I wanted it to.

Two weeks left in New York. I had a hard run through Central Park, trying to run past unease and frustration but feeling it keeping pace with me. When I arrived at Martha's I was covered with sweat.

Martha was in the kitchen shower. She swept aside the shower curtain and peered out at me. I stood in the living room, panting, pulling my soppy t-shirt over my head and then hurling it to the floor, where it landed with a loud, wet slap.

She said, "You don't know when to give up, do you? It's too hot to run."

I didn't answer. I was pissed. I lifted a leg and untied my shoe. Sweat dripped off my forehead.

She asked, "What's the matter?"

I lifted my other foot and yanked at the laces. I said spitefully, "Memphis! Memphis, I guess!"

"Come on in the shower, I'll leave the water running. Come on and rinse off. You're all sweaty."

I removed my other shoe and walked to the shower, pulling down my cotton running pants.

She said, rubbing the bar of soap in her hands. "Come on."

I took off my jeans and started on my jocks. "I thought you were in the shop and didn't like --."

"It's almost over. Come on, I'm all right. Let me rub you down a little, you're overheated -- in more ways than one."

I stepped into the shower with her and closed my eyes and let the water run over my face.

She said, "Turn around. I'll get your back."

I turned around, facing into the kitchen.

She slid her soapy hands over my shoulders and back, kneading my shoulder blades. "That better?"

"Yeah I guess so. Better."

She got more soap and lathered my butt, kneading. "You're hard as a rock back here."

"Sore, too."

"From the workouts?"

"Yeah."

She slid a slick hand under my crack and massaged my balls.

I said, "You're getting' me started."

"I know. You're very tense." She cuddled against me, her nipples hard against my back. "Be still, now." She was blocking the water. I could hear it hissing and slopping as it sprayed on her back and shoulders.

I said, "You have enough room?"

"Yes. Be still."

A soapy hand held my cock and milked slowly, her other hand holding my nuts.

She whispered behind my ear, "That all right?"

"Mm. Yeah."

"Just be still."

She milked me slowly. I moaned.

She said, "Let's make it nice and easy, now."

I didn't last long. Within half a minute I lowered my head and started gasping.

She asked, "Almost there?"

"Ah! Yeah."

"Turn around, hon."

I faced her, my legs wobbly. I had to raise my arms and hold onto the top edges of the shower stall. She aimed my cock at her tummy and pulled slowly.

She said, "There's nothing we can do about Memphis. Get rid of that anger. Come on, now. Squirt it out."

She pulled and pulled, looking down at my cock. Her other hand squeezed my balls. A moment later I grit my teeth and we watched cum squirt on her, hot and thick and angry.

Saturday, 10 AM.

Fiore's class was wearing me out again. The instructor yelled at me to reduce the poundage. I did, and I was able to work harder and longer. But I remembered Fiore's cautions about pacing myself. I remembered, but I tried anyway, and I paid the price with arms so sore I could barely turn the shower spigots on when I got home.

Saturday, 1 P.M.

Martha, Ronnie and I had lunch at a cheap deli. I ate two tuna fish sandwiches on rye and some potato salad and slaw and fries.

Ronnie said, "What are you trying to do? Clean this place out? Save some for the other customers."

Martha said, "I think he's fortifying himself for Jessica."

Ronnie looked at me and said, "Yeah? Tonight's the big night with sexy Jessica, huh? Here, Steven. Want the rest of my sandwich too?"

We returned to Martha's and I rested for an hour while Martha and Ronnie chatted in the dining room. Then I put my running outfit back on and headed for the front door.

Martha frowned at me from the kitchen. "You're going out there again?"

"Yes," I said, and I went out the door. For an hour I jogged up and down the promenade along the East River between 77th and 89th Streets. I was amazed at how long I kept going, even with weak legs from Fiore's earlier workout. I was fueled by anger and frustration. At the end of the hour I had burned up the physical urge to strike back at history and time. But I was still angry. I still felt trapped and confused.

Saturday, 6:30 P.M.

I stood in front of Martha's dressing mirror, all done up in slacks and sport coat and tie, all ready to go out with someone I didn't want to go out with.

Martha said, "You look great. Jessica should be impressed."

"Yes," I muttered cheerlessly, working on my tie. "Jessica."

"Well, if it's going to be so agonizing, why don't you call her up and cancel the date?"

"Steven doesn't cancel. Steven's going to go through every process, every step. Steven will prevail."

"Good lord. What a mood to go out with. I hope Jessica survives."

Saturday night.

It was a disaster. As soon as I met Jessica at her parents' home, she announced that the two teenaged couples we were going with would show up in a taxi soon. While we waited in front of her building I tried talking to her. Being with her felt like such a letdown, although she seemed pleased and cheerful. She was even a little flirty, commenting on the shape I was in. And I felt I was being nice as well, telling her she looked very attractive -- and, in fact, she did. But I didn't seem able to connect with her or pin her down. She was illusive, opening conversations and then cutting them off, remaining at the same, cursory, impersonal level about everything.

She described her friends as part of a "special crowd" she hung around with. They were middle class kids in their late teens, rowdy and equally superficial, and often rude.

"Hey, don't they have cowboys in Tennessee?"

"Naw, stupid, not in Tennessee. Hillbillies, not cowboys."

"How do you know, stupid? Hey, stupid, get off my foot."

The taxi was crowded and I sat in the right front seat, with Jessica on my lap, grinning into my face and making flirty jokes. I wondered if she were really interested sexually, or if she were just a tease.

The good part of the evening was sitting in the movies watching Jimmy Stewart in 'The Spirit of St. Louis.' I didn't care much for the sappy ending, and most of the comedic scenes fell flat, but Stewart's performance was up to his old standards. The idea of Lindberg's lone daring during the overseas flight sequence intrigued me. I found myself identifying strongly with it. The bad part about watching the movie was trying to ignore one of the guys in our group, who kept flipping popcorn everywhere and thinking it was cute. After it happened a couple of times Jessica giggled and said, "He's so retarded." I was in full agreement, but I kept my mouth shut.

We stuffed ourselves into another taxi and headed for Greenwich Village, with the two guys in back making bad jokes with the cab driver while their two dates giggling senselessly. Jessica sat on my lap again, not joining the fun and apparently becoming aware of my discomfort. She kept staring out the window or gazing at my mouth, saying little.

When we stopped in a traffic jam, Jessica suddenly lowered her face and kissed me on the mouth. The four kids in the back yowled and made lame jokes about it, and one of the guys kept yelling out the window for a cop. When Jessica ended the kiss I looked at her and said, for want of anything better to say "Well, that was nice."

She grinned at me. "Yeah, it was."

Getting me heated up in front of this juvenile crowd was not to my liking. I didn't expect to get anywhere on a first date, especially since I hadn't brought condoms along and I wouldn't have used them anyway.

But I decided to test the waters. As we ate at a Chinese place I put my arm around her chair, touched her frequently on the hand or arm, played footsie under the table. There was no resistance. Most of the time, she seemed to hardly notice. After a half hour in the restaurant I began referring frequently to my being "in training" for some fictional athletic event that would make it necessary for me to get home before midnight. At least this lie caught the interest of the two guys, who kept asking me questions about it. I managed to answer them from the knowledge of working out that I'd learned at Fiore's.

By eleven I was back at Jessica's building, standing on the sidewalk alone with her, talking. She asked if taking a short stroll down Central Park West, four blocks away, would keep me up too late. I figured, what the hell, let's see what she's up to.

What she was up to, as far as I could tell, was some random flirting and a load of information about my folks back home. Apparently having a family in the restaurant, grocery, and liquor business was a much bigger deal in New York than in Memphis; Jessica had the idea that my family's restaurants were along the fancier lines of establishments in Manhattan. I let her believe that.

When we reached a quiet, dark place near the brick wall along Central Park, I embraced and kissed her, moving my hand toward her breast.

"Now, now," she whispered. She removed my hand, but put her arms back around me and returned to the kiss.

As a New Yorker might have said, I didn't need this.

And so, at about eleven thirty, I bid a fond farewell to Jessica. As I rode the crosstown bus back to Martha's I did have some regrets, for Jessica was definitely a beautiful girl. But there was no sex appeal, no romance, and little communication.

When I got to Martha's she was half asleep in bed. She woke up and yawned and lay on her side, her eyes still closed.

She asked, "How's Jessica?"

"Jessica is Jessica" I said, hanging my coat in her closet.

"Wanna tell me about it?"

"There's nothing to tell."

"That's what you kept saying about Anita. I don't want another Anita on my hands."

"I don't think we'll have to worry about that with Jessica."

"Well, you sound angry. So tell me."

"I told you, nothing to tell."

"Steven."

"Oh, all right..."

I told her everything, exactly as it happened, blow by blow. Martha listened, yawning. By the time I finished talking I was yawning as well, lying naked beside her and ready to fall asleep.

"So there you have it," I said, turning onto my tummy for a good night's rest.

Martha said, "If this had been Memphis, or if it had been two months ago, you would have been in a fit of despair by now." She raised on one elbow to give me a kiss on the cheek. She whispered, "Good work, hon." She lay on her side facing me, all curled up, and closed her eyes.

I waited a moment, watching her, and said, "You knew what Jessica was like. You did that on purpose."

"Mm-hm. Sort of."

"What if I'd fucked her brains out?"

"You could have, but I doubted you would have wanted to. Anyway,

it takes more than looks to seduce you. Don't you think I know

that?" She yawned. "You better get to sleep. You're meeting Ronnie in the morning."

I watched her fall asleep. Darn if Martha wasn't right again. Darn if I hadn't learned a lot from her and Ronnie since I came to New York.

Sunday, August 25, 1957

Martha's living room phone rang at ten after seven in the morning. She got up and I heard her mumbling on the phone. She came stumbling back into the bedroom and slid into bed, her eyes closed.

She moaned, "Ronnie's up. Get dressed and go to her place."

I rubbed my eyes. "I didn't mean for her to wake you up."

"I'll meet you at the park later. She knows where. G'night."

I showered quickly. Martha's apartment was humid, even with the big ventilator fan going in the kitchen window. The thin morning layer of sweat was becoming very familiar.

I dressed, went downstairs, and knocked on Ronnie's door.

She was in a plaid shirt and bluejeans. She looked cute as hell, her fluffy black hair still mussed. She gave me a kiss at the door.

"Hi," she said, smiling and hurrying back in to get her coffee. I wanted to fuck her.

In Central Park at eight o'clock we hooked up with a dozen Audubon Society members and went for a hike through the part of the park known as the Rambles, which was a favorite haunt with bird watchers. Ronnie let me use her binoculars. I learned about sparrows, robins, bluejays, titmice, cardinals, and a number of other birds.