The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (20 page)

 

 

"Not like Liz, you mean," Yale grinned. "Well, Liz is the epitome of the
modern woman, and most modern women lack that femininity. Actually they
probably prefer not to show the soft and quiet approach. Not you, Cindar,
you are very much a female. You know, I think that American men may be
at fault. They want their wives to be self-sufficient. Women being women
adapt to their environment, very readily. Result . . . very thorough,
efficient wives. I read in
Fortune
the other day that a fellow died
who owned a big glass factory. His wife is running it better than he
did. Showing a profit for the first time in years. I would guess she
was not very feminine, somehow."

 

 

They were approaching the Pulaski skyway. "We'll go in through the
Holland Tunnel." Yale laughed nervously. "Don't know any other way as
a matter of fact."

 

 

"Don't you feel guilty, Yale. . . ."

 

 

Yale shook his head. "No, I love you. For the next twenty or so hours I
want to be with you and have fun and make love to you, and I don't feel
anything wrong about it. When we finish college I want to marry you and
live with you until you are a gray-haired little old lady."

 

 

"It says in all the books that girls read that a girl should wait until
she is married. That when you let a boy have intercourse with you before
you are married it cheapens you, and the boy will think you are just
loose. I read somewhere that every man wants to marry a virgin." Cynthia's
voice was wistful. She wondered if she should tell Yale. It was so silly.
How could you tell such a thing to even your husband? And Yale wasn't
her husband! How could she tell anyone that one rainy afternoon two
summers ago when she had been alone in the house . . . not knowing what
had possessed her, but feeling a terrible loneliness and a hunger to be
loved, she had taken off all her clothes. She had walked idly around
the house and then into Lennie's room and sat on his bed and smelled
the boy smell of sweaty football clothes and the musty odor that clung
forever to the boards of the old farmhouse. She had stopped in front of
Lennie's mirror. Slowly she shook her breasts at her own image, and then
her hand had touched her belly and felt her wiry pubic hairs.

 

 

As if in a dream she had walked downstairs into the cold closet where
Aunt Adar kept the vegetables and she had surrendered wildly to some
unknown and primitive desire. When the terrible emotion vanished, she
was on the floor with blood on her legs. The shock, the fear, the utter
distastefulness of what she had done to herself left her emotionally
spent. She had cried until there were no more tears, and her eyes burned,
and her throat was wracked with sobbing. Somehow in the ensuing days
the act was forgotten, although occasionally the memory would return
and she would hastily try to think of something else. But now it would
come out. Sin never has its remission, she thought, because even in a
thing like that you sin not against yourself but against the strong
moral fibre of the world that one day will catch up with you. She
was a virgin. If she told Yale, he would think she was horrible, a
sex maniac. Or worse, he would think she made it up to cover up that
she had actually had intercourse with another boy. Maybe he would even
think she had had intercourse with many boys. Jewish girls were supposed
to be very hot. What a horrible untruth. All last year at college she
had listened with prim dismay to her roommate, Sue Wallace, describe
her sexual encounters. "Sure, I've been laid (the word made Cynthia
shudder). Every once in a while, I need it." Sue told her, "I don't let
the boy know. I even fight him off. But if he's nice, I know I'll end
up doing it with him eventually." That was Sue. Sue was typical of many
of the girls she had known in high school and at Midhaven College.

 

 

But Yale was the only boy Cynthia had ever gone steady with. Even with
Yale and despite the many times they had been together, he had never
touched her "there."

 

 

And she knew, too, that he had held back because of a strong aesthetic
sense. A desire to love her to the limits of his devotion -- alone in
beauty. Not furtively clutching in a parked car or rolling on a blanket
in the woods, near the college, as some of her classmates had done. She
knew that Yale's love had a strong religious coloring -- not fanatic --
but adorational. Now she was going to have to reveal herself as more
common clay.

 

 

Sensitive, as always, to the nuances of her emotions, Yale turned off
the road in front of a roadside ice cream stand. "Honey, what's the
matter? You think because I didn't answer you that I think you're not
a virgin."

 

 

She nodded and there were tears in her eyes.

 

 

"Oh, Yale, I am a virgin -- I am! . . . but . . ." She put her face
against his shoulder and whispered . . . "I have no hymen. I won't bleed."
And amidst sobs she told him everything. Even as she told him she couldn't
justify herself. "I am so ashamed. I must be queer or something."

 

 

Gently, Yale lifted her face from his shoulder and held it between his
hands. He looked at her tear streaked cheeks and her wide-apart brown
eyes. When he kissed her her lips were soft and salty.

 

 

"Honey . . . I'm nineteen. I have masturbated. I've got a book I'll
lend you. I read it last year. It's written by a woman anthropologist --
somebody named Meade. A study of sex in primitive tribes. The youngsters
in those tribes don't masturbate at all or have any neurotic sex
ideas. You know why?

 

 

"Because, you dumb-bunny, when they are growing up and before the girls
menstruate, they just go out in the bushes and have intercourse. In our
society we don't let boys and girls, who are vastly ready to make babies,
get near each other until they marry . . . which is usually ten years
too late. Stop crying . . . tonight I'll tell you how I would know you
were a virgin -- even if you didn't bleed," Yale laughed. "The trouble
with you is right at this moment you are starving to death." He looked
at his watch. "It's six-thirty. I think we have obeyed the letter of
the law. Yom Kippur is over. Let's eat."

 

 

Sitting opposite him in a Howard Johnson's booth while they ravenously
ate hamburgers, Cynthia felt a strange and wonderful sense of joy. The
feeling of guilt was gone, replaced by the knowledge of her secret shared
and understood. She knew for the first time how deeply committed she was
to this tousled haired boy who somehow had a depth of understanding she
had only previously experienced with her father. No . . . not even with
her father, because with fathers and mothers there was always a pale of
experience beyond which you could not go.

 

 

"Aren't you scared," Cynthia said as they drove up in front of the Hotel
Pennsylvania. "What if they look at us funny? We don't look old enough
to be married. What if they start asking questions?"

 

 

"Jiminy --" Yale said. "You are going to have me a nervous wreck.
Of course, I'm scared. But they'll never know it." I'll act just like Pat,
he thought. Very cool. Very certain.

 

 

He had picked the Hotel Pennsylvania because he was familiar with the
location. Pat had taken him there once to a grocers' convention.
The Marratt Corporation had had a suite of rooms to entertain visiting
buyers. Yale remembered he had hung around for a while watching the
interminable drinking . . . mostly men and an occasional woman buyer
topping each other with the dirty jokes, one after another. Bored, he
had left the room and spent the evening walking around Times Square,
marvelling at the bookstores that stayed open until early morning.
He had spent all his money on books, putting together such a collection
that it had been necessary to take a taxi back to the hotel. At three
in the morning Pat had still not returned to their room. Yale gathered
from the conversation at breakfast that there had been a stag show. "You
probably should have been there," Pat had said, thoughtfully. "It would
have been a good experience for you."

 

 

Yale left his car with the doorman. Followed by a bellboy carrying their
bags, with Cynthia hanging tightly onto his arm, he made the long trek
from the door to the registration desk.

 

 

It was surprisingly easy. "We are on our honeymoon," he said, trying to
keep his voice level. "We'd like a two-room suite for the night." The
room clerk expressed no interest. He fumbled through reservation cards
and shoved a registration card in front of Yale.

 

 

While Yale signed "Mr. & Mrs. Yale Marratt, Midhaven, Connecticut" the
clerk passed the key to the bellboy. "Twelfth floor," he said. "A very
nice suite. Twenty-five dollars a day."

 

 

When the bellboy closed the door of their room and they were finally alone
Cynthia slumped down on a huge sofa. "I can't believe it," she gasped.
"I wouldn't go through that again for a million dollars. Wow, the way that
bellboy kept looking at us in the elevator. I know he knew! I turned my
mother's ring around. See," she said gaily and flung off her coat. "It
looks like a wedding ring." She put her arms around Yale. "Oh I love you
so very much. Look at this room, isn't it beautiful. I've never stayed
in a hotel. Do you know that?"

 

 

She flitted around the sitting room, touching the chairs. Yale watched her
happily. "Come here," she ordered and poked her head into the bedroom.

 

 

"Did you ever see such a big bed?" She ran and dove onto it. Caught up
with her high spirits, Yale jumped on the bed beside her. The bed creaked
and shook as if it might collapse. Laughing hysterically, Yale hugged
her. "I'll bet no two people under fifty ever slept on this bed."
He bounced up and down. "I'll bet no two people under twenty ever slept
on it for sure. We'll wreck it!"

 

 

As they kissed, their breaths mingling in laughter, Yale felt the soft
touch of her cheek. Leaning on his elbow, he looked at her. "You are
beautiful, do you know it?"

 

 

"Yup," she giggled. "And you are handsome. Do you know it?"

 

 

"Yup," he said.

 

 

She got up and threw a pillow at him. Suddenly she was serious. "Do you
feel guilty?"

 

 

Yale lay on the bed looking at her. "No, I don't, Cindar. How can I
feel guilty when I love you? You know I've read a lot of books on love
and marriage in the past year. I think most people have the wrong idea
of love. They can't get it out of their minds that it is dirty. The
courses I have taken in comparative religion started me trying to dig
back. Love of man and woman is all mixed up with religious dictum. I
began to wonder how the belief in God came about. What were the beliefs
of the ancient people before the Jewish tribes, before Christ came on the
scene? You know something? I found a book in the stacks at the Midhaven
College library that I'll bet you and Doctor Tangle didn't even know was
there. It's called,
The Worship of the Generative Powers
, by Thomas
Wright. It was written in the 1800's. Some minister must have had it
in a collection that he donated to the school. I decided to steal it
before someone else did. I'll give it to you to read. Do you realize
that in practically every country of the world original worship was
worship of the phallus and the female organ? When you think about it it
was quite a natural idea. Those ancient people depended on fertility
-- human fertility, as well as fertility of the crops for their very
existence. This worship was fundamental. I think religion has gotten
away from the fundamental. We worship at the wrong altars. We should
worship the most amazing thing within our comprehension . . . the utter
complete beauty and wonder of man and woman, creating and transforming
their environment. Wouldn't we really be worshipping God if we did
that? Because I love you, I love God. Can God ask for more?"

 

 

Cynthia listened to him, fascinated by his words and the dreamy expression
on his face. "You know you would make a good minister."

 

 

Yale laughed. "Ladies and gentlemen, my sermon for today is, 'Adore Your
Wife. How beautiful are her feet, and the joints of her thighs are like
jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. Her navel is like a
round goblet which wanteth not liquor. Her belly is like a heap of wheat
set about with lilies. Her breasts are like two twin roses. Her neck is a
tower of ivory. How fair and how pleasant is she, O Love, for delights'
. . . there you are right from the Bible." Yale laughed. "I'll betcha
I'd get tossed out of church."

 

 

"You stay there!" Cynthia said mischievously. "You think because you have
read the Bible through that you are the only one who can quote from the
Bible. I'll show you." She walked into the sitting room. In a few minutes
she returned and stood in the doorway of the bedroom. She had taken off
all her clothes. As she walked slowly toward him, Yale felt tears come
to his eyes. He tried to grasp and hold the impression of her dainty,
spring-like loveliness. "'I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the
valley,'" she said. "'As the apple tree among the tree of wood, so is my
beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste'" . . . Yale put his arms around
her. "Don't stop me," she pouted. "I can remember more." He kissed her
lips . . . "Later . . ." he said.

 

 

He undressed and lay beside her. He could feel her legs trembling against
him. "You'll take care that I don't get pregnant, won't you, Yale?" He
nodded. For the first time in his life, in a drugstore near the college he
had bought contraceptives. "I have some things. I have never put them on
before. When I do, if you laugh, I'll choke you!" He kissed her breasts,
and her belly, and gently opened her legs. "I want to look at you."