1 tried to meditate with pseudo-serenity upon my drink but felt ridiculous.
`Seen any good movies lately?' I asked.
`Oh no. I don't go to movies very much.'
`They're very expensive these days.'
`Oh yes. And a lot of them are … well . . . not very worthwhile.'
`That's true.'
She looked over at the fireplace. I looked at the fireplace. It had a little wood-burning grate that looked as though it
hadn't been used since the apartment had been built ninety years ago.
`Would you like to have a fire?' I asked.
`Oh no. It's warm enough, thank you.'
I sipped at my drink and licked the sweat off part of the outside of the cold glass. It occurred to me that this might be
the most sensuous thing I would do all evening.
`Come over and sit by me, why don't you.'
A hippopotamus eating a daisy.
`I'm very comfortable here, thank you.'
After looking nervously at the fireplace for a few moments she added `All right' Balancing her drink carefully like a
child with her first cup of milk, she came over and seated herself about a foot from me on the couch. She modestly
tugged down once on her miniskirt, which remained, however, a few feet above her knees. She seemed incredibly
small. At six four I was used to looking down at people, but looking down at Terry Tracy to my left all I could see was
her curly brown hair and her two seemingly nude legs.
`Hey,' I said.
She looked up-with a smile, but a certain vagueness seemed to have crept into her eyes, as if her yarn- spinning uncle
had just used the word bordello.
`May I kiss you?' I asked. At a hundred bucks a toss it didn't seem too much to ask.
Her eyes went vaguer and she said, `Oh yes.'
I pulled her little body to me and leaned down to meet her lips. Without premeditation I found myself kissing only
with my lips upon her lips. Her mouth was small, her lips dry. After a few seconds I straightened up.
`You're awfully pretty,' I said.
`Thank you.'
`Your lips are very nice'
`Yours are too,' she said.
`Now you kiss me.'
She looked up and waited for me to lower my head, but I remained upright and even leaned back against the couch
while still looking down at her, sexily. After a moment's uncertainty, she placed her drink on the coffee table and got up on her knees. Putting her hands on my neck she slowly leaned towards me. My arms circled her, one hand closed hard around a buttock and I pressed my mouth and tongue against hers. For ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty seconds I kept my tongue in her mouth and moved my hands over her back, buttocks and thighs. Her body was small but firm, her little behind round and rubbery through the woolen skirt. Finally I pulled back and looked at her.
She smiled the smile of a straight-A student.
`That was awfully nice,' I said.
`Oh yes. It was good,' she replied.
`Put your tongue in my mouth,' I said, and as I slid sideways to a horizontal position on the couch, I pulled he her over
on top of me. She was remarkably light and her tongue came out of her small mouth in little tentative darts like a snake trying to frighten someone. I bought both my hands up under her skirt and panties and exploring between her legs, got lost. That is, of the two caves traditionally located in the underbrush, I was able to locate only one, and that, in the immortal words of Robert Frost, The one less traveled by.'
Had she been sewn up? I discovered and caressed a slippery crack, but it led not to the warm-cushioned opening of a
Lil or Arlene but to a dead-end: a virgin with a vengeance. She pulled up a few inches away from me.
`Please don't touch me there,' she said.
`I beg your pardon,' I said and delicately withdrew my hands and smoothed down her skirt.
She hesitated, a moment and then brought her little mouth down warmly on mine, her hands framing my face. Her
abdomen pressing down on my extended penis began to create climactic feelings so I broke our kiss and rolled us both
into sitting positions again. She looked up at me brightly, as if pleased by having brought home a good report card. Of
course it may have been the brightness of sexual excitement: certainly my gooey fingers didn't indicate scholarly
interests. Looking at her a bit drunkenly I asked in a husky voice; `Shall we go to the bedroom?'
`Oh no,' she said, `I have to finish my drink.'
Further straightening her skirt, she reached forward and took a healthier swig from her gin and tonic. I rediscovered
my glass on the floor at my feet and finished it off.
`Are you a professor?' she asked.
`Yes I am.'
`What of?'
'Of history.'
'Oh yes, you told me. That must be interesting. What history do you like best?'
`I'm a specialist in papal bulls of the Renaissance. Look, can't I get you another drink?'
`Oh really? I loved reading about Cesare Borgia and the Popes. I'd love another drink. Were the Popes really as bad as the books say?'
I walked liquor-ward a trifle aggressively but said over my shoulder: `It all depends on what you mean by bad.'
`I mean have children and all.'
`Alexander I had several children as did Pope John IX, but before they became popes.'
The Church is much purer today.'
I poured her a huge gin, added a trickle of tonic, gave myself a bathtub-glassful of Scotch and marched back toward
the couch.
`How much college have you finished?' I asked.
`This is my fourth semester at Hunter. I'm majoring in sociology I think. Oh! - Er.'
`What's the matter?'
For a moment I thought I must have spilled her drink as I handed it to her, but it wasn't that. My fly wasn't open. But she looked frightened. `Nothing,' she said and took a deep drink from her gin and tonic. `But. .. how did you … I mean why did you think I
went to college?'
'You seem intelligent,' I said. `You couldn't know all about the Renaissance just from high school.'
