Chapter 21

After extensive cranial surgery to repair the damaged caused by a super heated metal fragment, six percent of Tommy Bledsoe’s brain resided in a glass specimen jar at the pathology lab at Brooke Medical Center. The missing gray matter contained Tommy’s memories after the age of twelve. Although Tommy was missing a portion of his brain, he was an intelligent young man with a much better than average ability to learn. Tommy caught up to adulthood academically in less than a year. In that same year, his physical strength returned and he rediscovered females and sex.

The area where he did not advance was socially. The years during which a young person learns social skills were eradicated from Tommy’s brain, and he could not go back and regain them as quickly and easily as he had history and mathematics. The lack of social sophistication was what made some people think Tommy was a simpleton.

Tommy knew that he did not make a good first impression on most people. He accepted that fact and didn’t worry about it much. He didn’t worry, because at home in Brantley everyone knew and accepted him. The few times he had traveled outside of Brantley had always been with one of his friends or family.

That was not the case when Tommy departed for Houston on Friday morning after tending his goats. He was by himself because Ruth had to work and Connie was tired of traveling after her trip to England. Tommy was going to miss being snuggled in between them later that night, but Molly was important enough for him to make the sacrifice. Tommy thought making the trip by himself was one more milestone in his road to becoming a functional adult.

Tommy went straight to the hospital as soon as he arrived in Houston. Molly was already awake and fairly alert when he arrived at the recovery room. Big smiles on the faces of the nurses and Molly’s mother let him know the operation had been a success. Tommy handed Molly a neatly wrapped ‘get well’ present and Molly eagerly ripped off the colorful wrapping paper. Molly gave a bandage muffled squeal when she saw it was a picture of her and Princess from the weekend before. Cora Snyder gave Tommy a kiss on the cheek for his thoughtfulness towards her daughter, and left them to chat while she went for lunch.

With a promise to return the next morning, Tommy left after supper and headed over to the house Caroline shared with two other co-eds. Tommy rang the door bell a few minutes past seven o’clock. A tall, slender young woman wearing an ankle length granny dress opened the door. The woman’s hair was black and straight; it was parted in the middle, encircled by a tooled and beaded leather band and hung down to the small of her back. She had big brown eyes partly hidden behind pink tinted, wire-framed glasses. The glasses were perched part way down a slightly hooked nose. Her full red lips were curved in a small smile as she arched an inquisitive eyebrow.

Tommy doffed his Stetson and introduced himself.

“Hello, I’m Tommy Bledsoe, a friend of Caroline and her family. Is Caroline here?”

The young woman’s smile grew bigger, showing her blindingly white, perfectly straight teeth.

“Groovy, come on in, Tommy, I’m Paloma. We were expecting you earlier. Caroline and Janet — our other roomie — are primping; they both have hot dates, so you are stuck with me for the evening.”

Tommy nervously twisted his hat in his hands as he looked at the young woman. She was the first genuine hippie he’d ever met, and he didn’t know how he was supposed to talk to her. In addition, she talked about as fast as anyone he’d ever heard, it was all he could do to keep up with what she was saying. He finally found his tongue.

“Uh ... Miss Paloma, maybe it would be best if I found somewhere else to stay, I don’t want to keep you from doing anything you had planned.”

Again the dazzling smile, as she grabbed his arm and started tugging him through the door.

“Nonsense, Tex,” she said, “I don’t have anything planned so everything is copacetic. Besides, from what Caroline’s told me, we have lots to talk about.”

Tommy didn’t know what to make of that statement, so he nodded, grabbed his dufflebag and allowed her to pull him into the house.

She sat him on the couch in a nicely furnished living room, then excused herself to fetch them a Coke. Tommy looked around while she was gone.

The couch he was sitting on and the matching overstuffed chairs were covered in buttery soft, burgundy leather. The walls were an off white and the floors were oak inlaid with cherry. Thick burgundy and gold paisley drapes covered the large picture window behind the couch. A glass topped walnut coffee table with a couple of casually displayed art books was in front of the couch. A big Magnavox console television/hi-fi dominated the opposite wall. Iron Butterfly was growling out the Psychedelic Rock anthem In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida on the turntable. The only light in the room was from a couple of large, cinnamon scented candles on the glass topped end tables that bracketed the couch.

All this was fascinating and more than a little scary for Tommy, but he was determined to hold his own as an adult.

Paloma returned with a couple of ice cold bottles of Coca-Cola. She set the bottles on the coffee table and folded her lanky frame down onto the couch about a foot away from Tommy. She tucked her bare feet underneath her and turned to face him.

Her real name was Susan Compton. Her mother was an Osage American Indian from Oklahoma, and her family was oil money rich. The house the women lived in belonged to her parents. Paloma was not a medical student as were Caroline and the other roommate. Instead, she was a graduate student working towards a master’s degree in psychology, a task she’d been idly pursuing as her Paloma persona dabbled in the counter-culture, hippy life style. She was very interested in talking to Tommy because Caroline had briefed her on his unique situation. With that in mind, she eased into a conversation.

“Caroline told me you were wounded in Vietnam,” she said for openers.

Tommy bobbed his head up and down once. The subject wasn’t his favorite topic of conversation, but he didn’t shy away from answering honestly.

“I was. Something went into my brains and messed them up,” he said. “Now I’m not so smart about some things and I can’t remember anything from since I was twelve until last year.”

“Caroline says you are doing well, considering everything. She told me you own a ranch and are partners in her parents business.”

Tommy smiled and shrugged depreciatingly.

“That’s because of Momma Fricke and all my friends. They helped me a lot.”

Paloma didn’t ask Tommy any more questions because he began regaling her with stories about his friends and life in Brantley. They were both laughing at a story about Rex, the yellow wonder dog, when Caroline and another woman walked into the room.

Caroline’s heart beat a little faster when she saw Tommy, and she felt a pang of jealousy towards Susan as the two canoodled on the couch. For a few seconds she regretted the date she had arranged so she could avoid spending any time with Tommy. She shook that idea out of her head, pasted a smile on her face, and introduced the third roommate, Janet Longrie. Caroline had no sooner made the introductions, when the doorbell signaled the arrival of their dates and off they went.

As soon as Caroline slipped through the door on the arm of a nattily dress young intern, Tommy turned to Paloma and once again asked her if it wouldn’t be better if he found another place to spend the night.

“We are all cool with you staying here, Tommy, and I’m enjoying your company. Say, I made some killer double chocolate brownies; what say we eat a couple and rap for a while.”

Tommy agreed and Paloma scampered into the kitchen to snag a couple of her special recipe brownies. Paloma giggled as she cut her new friend a large slab of the marijuana-laced chocolate confection. She was usually pretty stingy with her reefer, but her new friend was so up tight, she couldn’t resist. Besides, she was bored, she was between lovers, and the big handsome cowboy was yummy looking in his white shirt, tight Levis and shiny cowboy boots. She figured the grass would relax him enough to make him susceptible to being seduced.

Thirty minutes later, Tommy was slow dancing Miss Paloma around the dimly lit living room when the Acapulco Gold snuck up on him. Tommy had no memories of being high with which to compare what he was feeling, so he chalked it up to the company and the music. Whatever the reason, though, he felt incredibly good. His body seemed to tingle and he felt vibrantly alive. And he was suddenly hyper aware of the tall willowy woman molded against him, her head on his shoulder, and her strawberry scented hair tickling his nose. Instantly, he was hard and throbbing. Before he could disengage enough to keep from being embarrassed, Paloma started grinding herself against him.

“Is that your six gun I feel poking me cowboy?” she whispered teasingly in his ear.

Tommy grinned and shook his head.

“Nope, it’s more like a seven and three quarter gun, and if you keep rubbing on it, it’s subject to go off,” he replied, the grass making him loquacious.

“Then we better put it somewhere safe so we don’t put an eye out,” she said with a throaty laugh.

Tommy didn’t need any clearer an invitation than that.

“I know just the place,” he said as he whisked her up in his arms.

Paloma yelped in surprise, her arms that were already around his neck instinctively tightening. Tommy spun around and started heading down the hallway past the bathroom she had pointed out earlier. Paloma giggled and languidly gestured toward the second door on the right.

Tommy was at his absolute sexual best that night as the THC coursing through his damaged brain put his libido in over-drive. He was a veritable sex machine from the minute he joined her on the bed, until midnight when he finally ran out of steam. He made love to her for three hours with only two short drink and snack breaks. Amazingly, she stayed right with him, contorting her long and yoga limber body into positions Tommy didn’t think a snake could replicate. Even better, Paloma was a squirter like Ruthie, and she was as noisy as his friend and former tutor Becky Dierdorf.

For Paloma, whose sex drive bordered on insatiable, Tommy was the first person of either sex to completely satisfy her without help.

Paloma thought Caroline was insane for choosing some stuffed shirt intern over him. Paloma didn’t mind that Tommy was unsophisticated. Instead, she thought his uncomplicated personality and his goodness made his karma certain to end him in Nirvana. And amazingly, Tommy was that way by nature, not through years of meditation and study as had been the case with her former guru, Swami Madras. Paloma happily snuggled against her handsome new lover’s muscular back and sighed contentedly as she imagined his aura enveloping her. Caroline could stop worrying about Tommy getting in her way, because Paloma had every intention of monopolizing his time until he went home.

Tommy woke up the next morning with Paloma wrapped around him like a tetherball rope. He raised his arm gently so as not to awaken her and squinted at the luminous dial of his watch. He smiled in relief when he saw it was about half past six; he had plenty of time to get ready and be at the hospital by nine for the start of weekend visiting hours. Tommy tried to ease his way out of Paloma’s grasp, but she wasn’t having any of it. Her eyes popped open and she tightened the grip of the hand that had been loosely holding his morning erection.

“Not so fast cowboy,” she said as she rolled over on top of him.

Tommy grinned in surprised delight. He was delighted that Paloma was a kindred morning person, and pleased as punch that she liked eye-opener sex.

After half an hour of ‘wake-up exercise,’ she said, “Come on big boy, let’s take a quick shower and make some breakfast, I’m famished.”