Tomcat in Love (15 page)

I forced my eyes to the typewriter. “Well, of course, and we were almost there. You didn’t let me finish.”

“You didn’t let me
start
.”

“Just helping out,” I replied. “A pertinent example sometimes makes it easier.”

“In bed,” she muttered.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I did it in bed, Thomas! The first time. I don’t
need
an example.”

I nodded. “In bed. Unique.”

“You bet it is,” said Mrs. Kooshof, “and I don’t see why you can’t just shut up and listen. The world doesn’t revolve around Abe Chippering.”

“That is not my name. And I must request that you—”

“My
own
bed.
Twice
. With my
third
boyfriend.”

“I see.”

“It was fun! He had brown hair!”

Mrs. Kooshof’s voice had skittered up to a pitch that endangered my fragile hearing. She trembled, sat down, and quickly consumed her drink.

“Brown hair,” I said. “Is there more?”

Mrs. Kooshof did not respond.

More than a full minute passed by—I gave her ample opportunity.

“In that case,” I said, “perhaps you’d be interested in how things turned out with Lorna Sue? As I mentioned, the
where
matters.”

The wait for Saturday night still ranks among the major tribulations of my eventful sojourn on this planet. Exciting, yes, but so much tension I could barely function. I skipped two days of school; homework was out of the question. Each evening, I practiced in my room, imagining how Lorna Sue and I would comport ourselves in the backseat of my father’s Pontiac. Details consumed me. I borrowed a blanket from my mother’s linen closet, dosed it with Old Spice, and stashed it the trunk.

By Saturday evening I had reached a state of premature exhaustion. If not for all the labor, I would have canceled, and it required the last of my willpower to shave
^*
and get dressed.

At seven o’clock sharp I rang the Zylstra doorbell.

Ned and Velva stood waiting in the hallway, flanked by Earleen and a half-dozen aunts and uncles. The family had arranged itself in two rows along the hallway, like an honor guard, and as Lorna Sue approached they stood grinning and gaping at me. Ned flicked his eyebrows. Earleen shot me a sly, flirtatious wink from her wheelchair.

Lorna Sue, I must say, looked delightful that evening, though perhaps a speck sacrificial: white skirt, white blouse, white stockings, white shoes. Her hair had been freshly braided, each long plait decorated with such items as tie tacks, feathers, and what appeared to be Cracker Jack prizes.

Altogether, in any event, I had the impression that our appointment with destiny was no secret.

Outside, I glared at her.

“You blabbed,” I said. “You told everything.”

“Not exactly. They sort of guessed.”

“Guessed? It’s not something you
guess.
” Instantly, a sequence of hard truths struck me. “What about Herbie? I suppose he guessed too?”

“Maybe. He didn’t look happy.”

I slid into the Pontiac, started the engine, glanced up at the yellow house. “How could they just guess?”

“I’m a girl,” she said briskly. “I needed advice.”

The drive down to the movie theater was stiff with acrimony. Apparently Lorna Sue had confided in her mother, which was like confiding in the Pony Express, and for several days the entire family had been preparing for this night. Ludicrous, I thought. The whole idea had been to escape Herbie, to give our relationship a boost of intimacy and solitude. Now I faced the specter of disembowelment. Herbie Zylstra was not someone you wanted to upset. Under any circumstances. Ever. Standing in line at the movie theater, I kept my eyes open for sudden movement. “This advice,” I said, “you could’ve asked
me
. I’m good with advice.”

“Not this kind,” said Lorna Sue.

“Like what?”

“Stuff. Female stuff.”

At which point I nearly marched off into the night. (Certainly my life would have taken a far different trajectory.) Instead I shook my head. “What about the honor guard—where does that fit in? Most families, they’d get out the shotguns and start—”

“We’re Zylstras,” Lorna Sue said primly. “We’re not
most
families.”

For the next ninety-eight minutes we sat in the back row of the Rock Cornish Theater, Lorna Sue’s eyes pinned to the screen, my own scanning the crowd. The film, I believe, was a Western, though I remember very little about it—periodic gunfire, people falling off horses. When it ended, we exited by a side door, circled around to the Pontiac, took a discreet route out to Highway 16.

Hormonal issues were no longer paramount. I was suddenly terrified, full of doubts, weakened by a strange biological fuzziness. (
Perform:
the word loomed before me like a locked door.) Thus, as I turned up the gravel farm road, I took a deep swallow of pride and informed Lorna Sue that we were calling it off. “It’s just a bad time,” I said. “I’m not ready.”

She tilted her head back and chuckled.

“Too late, Tommy. Everybody knows. No matter what happens—either way—they’ll think we did it. Besides, you’re not getting the watch back.”

“Keep it,” I said.

“Oh, you know I will,” said Lorna Sue. “It’s mine. Whether we do anything or not.”

Her voice had a mocking, singsong quality that compelled me to strike back. “All right,” I said. “You
asked
for it.”

Immediately, I turned onto a tractor path, thence into the dense, crunchy folds of an autumn cornfield. I pulled the emergency brake, listened for a moment, then got out and retrieved the blanket from the trunk. When I returned, Lorna Sue had moved to the backseat and was busy unbuttoning her blouse. “You can’t just watch,” she said. “Close your eyes, wait till I’m ready.”

I sat there with folded hands, rigid, more apprehensive than aroused. Events seemed to have conspired against my receiving the slightest pleasure from all this.

“Look, I don’t want to force you,” I said. “We could always try later. Maybe after we’re married awhile.”

Lorna Sue shrugged. “Just make it fast.”

She seemed relaxed, not in the least fearful, and as she spread out the blanket I found myself wondering about her family’s reproductive history. Images of Herbie flashed through my thoughts. I peeked out the window, then turned back toward Lorna Sue. Bare to the waist, she was wearing mesh stockings hooked to a wire belt of some sort. Lower, at hip level, I discovered a number of wires and metallic flaps and what seemed to be a curtain of Christmas tree tinsel.

“What’s this?” I asked.

Lorna Sue smiled. “Sexy, don’t you think? My mother made it.”

“Velva?”

“Mostly. Earleen helped with the tinsel.”

I peered down with interest.

“A special treat,” said Lorna Sue. Her eyes clouded. “You don’t like it?”

Stupidly, I shrugged.

“Then hop to it,” she said.

An impossible assignment, of course, but for the next several minutes I did my best to remove the contraption. One needed the dexterity of a juggler and the eyesight of a jeweler, but more than anything I was troubled by an image of Earleen and Velva rigging up this unlikely garment.

Eventually Lorna Sue sat up and lent a hand. She loosened a metal flap, lay back, and opened her arms to me.

“There,” she sighed. “Do the rest yourself.”

With no foreplay whatsoever, Lorna Sue yanked me down, clamped my head to her breasts, and began humming a soft, mostly indecipherable chant in my ear.

“Amen!” she squealed at one point.

Here, I reasoned, was a very complex young woman. I started to pull away, but then, to my relief, I felt an unmistakable hydraulic surge. I fumbled with my shoes and jeans and shirt, kicked off my underwear, and for the next few minutes succeeded in blocking out the world—prayers, bribery, blackmail, honor guards, Herbie, the whole dysfunctional Zylstra clan. I was powerful. I was the burglar at the door. Altogether, things went beautifully until the instant of entry, at which point Lorna Sue tugged at my ears and cried, “Stop it! My
hair
, for God’s sake! There’s no room!”

I kept lunging. “Plenty of room,” I assured her. “A good fit.”

“I don’t mean
there
!”

She squeezed her legs shut, gripped my shoulders, and muscled me down into the foot well. We were roped together by three feet of braided black hair.

“It’s just too darn crowded,” said Lorna Sue. “I’ll get a cramp. I can’t even move.” Her tongue moved across her upper teeth as she pondered the mechanics. “We’ll have to go outside.”

“Like where?”

“Anywhere. Let’s go.”

I glanced out at the windy cornfield. “You’re kidding. It’s almost
winter
.”

“Hurry it up,” she said. “Take the blanket.”

Which brought us at last—inevitably—to the icy hood of my father’s Pontiac.

It often amazes me how little we retain of the critical events in our lives. A snapshot here. An echo there. The details of my first conquest were largely swept away by a frigid October wind. I remember the critical gaze of an Indian-head ornament. I remember frost on the hood, the car shaking, Lorna Sue crying, “It hurts!”

Was there gratification in this? Delight? The most fleeting bliss?

Perhaps so. But I do not recall.

Lorna Sue hogged the blanket. She made
whining
noises. She yelled at me. She issued stern commands. Slower, she insisted. Faster. Gentler. Rougher. More romantic. She snaked an arm around my neck, yanked me down. She bit my throat. At one key juncture, when I began to falter, she emboldened me with the palm of her hand, levered me in again, beat on my buttocks.

All that I remember vividly. Along with the cold and the ferocious wind. We had left the engine running, with the idea it might warm us, but the elements that night were beyond the capabilities of my father’s Pontiac. In hindsight, I now marvel at my youthful performance. I was valiant. Inexpert, no doubt, and outright shoddy by later standards, but I remain convinced that under the circumstances even a polar bear would have called it a night.

Afterward, there was no pillow talk.

We dressed quickly and drove back to town. I dropped her off a block from her house.

“Well, I hope you’re happy,” she said glumly. “I suppose now you’ll just dump me.”

I smiled. The notion had not yet occurred to me.

“All depends,” I said thoughtfully. “You’ll tell Herbie I backed off? Too much respect for his sister?”

Lorna Sue’s eyes narrowed. “Anything else?”

“The whole family,” I said. “Nobody hears a word.”

“What else?”

“Tomorrow night. Someplace warm. Cute new costume.”

She rolled her eyes and waited a moment. She knew what was coming.

“What else?”

“An expensive one,” I said. “No crummy Timex.”

Mrs. Kooshof was gone by the time I had finished telling my story, and the schnapps too.

For a considerable time I sat motionless at my desk, trolling through memory, all the good things. Lorna Sue’s brown eyes. Her smell. Her laughter. How she purred and hummed and finally bared her teeth as we made love. How at the end she squealed, “I’m coming! I’m coming!” How the wind howled. How she wanted to do it again. How the word
Pontiac
would never again mean Pontiac.

Granted, there were bad things too. But the bad wasn’t always so bad.

“Fucking cornfield,” I murmured, but sweetly—a rare instance of Chippering profanity. Then I laughed, switched to cognac, and resumed my labors on young Toni’s thesis.

Much later, in bed, Mrs. Kooshof said, “You actually married this crazy bitch? She married
you
?
”

“Of course.”

“But why?”

“A beautiful love,” I said. “Greatest ever.”

I
t strikes me that by accident, or out of anger and pain, I may well have painted an unflattering portrait of my former wife. Such was never my intent. I loved Lorna Sue desperately, even obsessively, and more than anyone on this earth, including her brother Herbie, I can appreciate those glittering gems at the center of her soul. As a corrective, therefore, I offer this short sampler of Lorna Sue’s innumerable charms: