“Happy birthday darlin’, I’ve no present, no fancy cake.
But I hope I’ll make you happy with everything I take.

Happy birthday, darlin’...”

Bicentennial weekend, Omaha, Nebraska.

It was terribly humid as we made our way back to Bellevue from our jobs in north Omaha. A 4-day weekend presented before us. Fireworks, she’d cook and bake and we’d stay up late every night, till dawn launched.

“Can we stop at Auntie’s, Girl?”

My favorite bookstore in Omaha, the Antiquarian in the Old Market District.

“Sure, Cully. Whatever you say, boy.”

I liked when Girl was pliable like this. I could tell when I picked her up at her work that afternoon she was in good spirits. That blue summer dress was my favorite. She’d taken to nylons and a garter belt the past few months.

“The doctor, boy, he says my vagina needs to breath free, Cully.”

“Can I watch?”

“Sure. But look, don’t touch. I don’t want these nylons ruined with runs.”

“I promise, youngster.”

I kept that promise.

“Are you still going to wear panties? I can get you a nice pair.” I’d help her dress in the mornings, when she’d let me.

“I’m torn, between going without and using a tampon to play it safe and wearing white cotton panties. Doctor Dowdell recommended the tampon route though so we’ll go with that for a while, at least till my cycle hits in a couple weeks. Can you fetch one, C, please?”

I did, then watched in rapt attention as she inserted it nice and deep, drew out the cavity and smoothed the thin, white string.

“You like when Girl does this don’t you, Cul?”

“You let Dowdell look at it, don’t you?”

“Sure, he has to, boy.”

“Does he get excited?”

“Cully!”

Clint X.

He showed up about a month, perhaps more before our 200th Birthday.

“Who is that guy, Mick?” Mick was the owner of the Antiquarian. A genuine fellow and one I’d spent a lot money on for choice books thru the years I’d patronized his business. I never dickered. Just paid the list price. It was an investment.

“He just got paroled out of the state pen. I put him on so he’d have a job. Clint, Clint X is his name. He’s okay though.”

“Why?”

Mick knew without being prodded further.

“Bank robbery. He drove the get-a-way car.”

A decade later I’d be reminded of Clint, not only thru our time with him, but thru the auspices of the motion picture -Something Wild-. He was the spittin’ image of the character Ray Liotta portrayed therein, right down to the meticulous white t-shirt and tight jeans.

I could tell when Girl liked another guy. She’d flit just a measure, the giggle just a smidge more pronounced, the golden flecks in her hazel eyes would sparkle just so. She liked Clint right off and that did not change when I breathlessly informed her of his criminal past, grateful I could assure her nobody was harmed in the commission of his crimes, as far as I knew.

“Yeah, he drove the get-a-way car on a bank job.”

“Wow.”

“You like him, don’t you, Girl?”

“Boy.” With a bit of the lament I so disliked.

For once I just shut my mouth as we drove on in silence.

A few miles further on:

“He likes me too.”

The 2nd floor.

There was an upstairs to the Antiquarian. A long staircase, twisted at the top leading to an unknown. [NO ADMITTANCE] read the sign on a red chain across the foot of the stairs.

“Go ahead, Culburn, it’s just storage and a lot of antiques, though no books.”

“Maybe some other time, Mick.” I didn’t care for antiques and just wanted to roam the shelves.

The ascension.

We’d been in there about a half-hour, me perusing the shelves for a nice find, her by my side, an angel softly humming/singing different melodies of the circa; “Turn the Beat Around,” “Let Your Love Flow,” and my favorite “Shannon.”

I’d about made a firm choice on a volume concerning Masons and the craft when I heard that laughter, her laughter in the near distance. I looked and sure as shootin’ she was by my side no longer. I bent my ear to the faint cacophony. A muted baritone countered her. “Clint!” I hissed. I held tight to my choice as I went in search. Three aisles over, far end as I marched on by.

She was ready.

“Hey, boy!” She hailed me. “We’re down here, sweetheart.” Adorably waved me to the tight quarters at aisle’s end.

“Hey!” I hustled to them. “Hey, Clint.” He nodded kindly in return.

Pristine white t-short, tight jeans, those black boots of the day with the dull silver buckle on the side. Impressive. Me? I had on shoes of the day, sure, absolutely; white. One of us smelled of British Sterling. One of us smelled of Hai Karate. Not me. Girl? Estee Lauder.

And then just like that it ramped, on-the-spot.

“Boy, Clint wants to show us the 2nd floor.”

I’ve thought about that day in the intervening decades thousands of times and have fantasized what it would’ve meant if she hadn’t included me in that ascension, at all. Oh, my God, have I.

Me: “Is it air conditioned up there?” It was downstairs.

Her: A slight giggle.

Him: “Sure.” He lied, but I located a fan. I always locate a fan. That’s what I do. It’s my religion.

She wedged in twixt me and him. Those hazel eyes, the golden flecks were all afire. She was ready. “It’ll be fun.” Followed instantly by her pursing her lips not once, but twice.

I don’t remember much of the climb. One minute we were downstairs, the next upstairs and I was watching myself, pure out of body had taken full possession of me.

She never had that problem then, nor the 5 decades on. Never. Must be her religion.

“You take it too seriously, pumpkinpuss.”

There was no pretense of perusing the antiquities that were in abundance.

I do remember a crass statement early on. I can swear to it. “I haven’t had nookie since they sent me up.”

“I’m your girl, Clint.”

They took root by Mick’s old desk, a good distance from the stair case. He leaned back against it as I halted close to an antique brown clothed davenport, circa ‘40’s caddy corner 10 yards off, maybe 15, yes, closer to 15. I did not want to get closer even though there were hard back chairs readily available close to them. You couldn’t a dragged me there with a 20-mule team. I reached and switched on the floor fan like I knew what I was doing. It activated, thank Christ. At default low speed. I goosed it, but once.

She nudged in close, their lips met, parted and it began.

The fucking.

She likes to kiss, just not me. “Boy, we’ve known each other since we were little.” I get it-I suppose.

He kissed my wife, he loitered her tresses and neck area, as their splayed fingers intertwined.

“He said he liked my scent.”

The blue cotton dress disappeared. She wore no bra, it was the ‘70’s. He whispered something, but it was into her far ear away from my juxtaposition.

“Yes.” Her near lyrical response.

He’d asked and received permission to remove the garter belt and nylons. I was never permitted that honor after work. “You’ll run ‘em, Cully. I’ll do it. You fetch fresh panties.” I love to fetch for her, to-this-day.

“I wanted to be naked, boy, and you wanted that too, correct?” It was during the extensive Q&A session on the slow drive back down 73-75. But, that drive, that Q&A will be later.

“Let me see it.” - Her

He obeyed. Off came the spotless white t-shirt. Right over his head like in the movies. He’d been working out in Lincoln, at that state pen.

“Let me.” He had some kind of western buckle that was popular in the circa. She figured it out in short order and the zipper followed.

Again, this time with a sternness...”Let me see it.”

Christ-a-mighty, it was impressive.

“But did you see his sack, boy?” The coming Q&A.

Fuck me, his scrotum was like when you see one of those ball sacks attached to the hitch of a present day pick-up truck.

He was fully engorged, it was precisely perpendicular to his flat stomach. I’d veered an inch, maybe two to get a better angle at said sack.

“Be still, boy.”

I froze, then took a seat on the davenport before I fell on the damn thing. When I get hard, my balls disappear up by my belly button. I have, I mean I had a comparable cock to him, even bested him, but his sack was just stupefying.

“My goodness, Cully, it was so bulbous and warm, like a cauldron. It was actually heavy, C. Didn’t you see it?” Q&A.

Just the genuine imitation pearl necklace I’d bought her at the Woolworth’s remained. We don’t wear our rings, ever. He was butt naked, had a Swastika tattooed on his right shoulder. Nah, I’m just joshing, fellows. He was clean as a whistle from the Kresge’s, white as a Bishop on the chess board.

Clint picked her up, she giggled, he set her back upon the desk, got her situated to his liking, she parted those long legs, flexed her knees, tilted it at the angle of his need, he lodged it at the portal without touching himself and held fast.

“C’mon, fuck me.”

I felt the bile rise, throat and scrotum, consecutively---balls receded like the dickens.

The copulation was incredible. The genuine antique General Electric clock on the far wall attested, he fucked her a good 20 minutes, longer. No screaming, nor epitaphs like in the movies, just a steady pounding of their bodies. She crossed her ankles on the small of his back as he bent to their task, spread her hands out to the expansion of Mick’s old desk and did it to her. I might as well have been back at the trailer home. I was granted nary quarter. The lone time she turned her face toward me was as he made his move to inseminate her, as the end grew nigh. The lights were on, oh sure, but there was the proverbial nobody home. Eyes glazed, vision tunneled, she was somewhere else.

“Didn’t you see me there, honey-bun?” Q&A again.

Alert! “Girl!” Like he knew her, like the SOB ex con had known her. Big time Q&A. It’s comin’, you’ll see.

“So easy, baby, give it to your girl. Sooooooooo easy.” He twisted thru his release like a boa constrictor, in tortured silence, as she stayed at his far ear imploring him with whispered salutations I know not of their content multiple decades on. “No, Cully, no. I promised.”

Bullshit, she just won’t tell.

Pragmatic me I immediately thought of it getting thru the pill and the backup IUD buried deep and how I would explain that back home.

She held him tenderly, cradled him as he at once took to gently licking her breasts in turn. I thought I’d heard Clint cooing, but I may be wrong.

“Cully, darling, could you give us a few minutes? ... Downstairs, please?” Like God, if He was a woman. I genuflected at the tenor and I at once obeyed the thinly veiled command.

Descension.

I don’t remember the walk across to, nor making it back down that staircase. Not on the drive home, not nigh on 50 years later. No. Uh, uh.

It was past closing time, Mick had locked up and was in the back room, counting the day’s take.

“Hey, Castleberry.” Like he didn’t know. He was all about the business, bless his heart.

“Hey, Mick.”

“That’s a great book you got there, Cully.”

I’d never let go of that damn book on the Mason’s.

“Here, let me pay for this, Mick, I nearly forgot with everything going...” I trailed off.

“It’s on the house.”

“Wouldn’t hear of it. It’s my pleasure, Mick.” Dished out the fifty dollars.

“Okay if I poke around in the stacks, Mick?”

“Sure, go ahead, you got your key right? Just lock up when you leave and I’ll set the alarm later. I’ll be here late.”

“Thanks man.”

“Night, boy.”

He’d let me have a key to the joint two years prior. I’d never used it though. On the day we left town I stopped by and returned it to him. She waited in the U-Haul.

It wasn’t an hour, but past it when I finally heard them descending that stair case. The kicker? The livin’ end? I was disappointed it wasn’t longer! It’s just the way it was. And the way it has sustained.