“My God,” he said, “It’s really you.”
“I was having a cup of coffee,” she said, “and looking out the window and wishing I knew somebody in this town, and when I saw you I thought you were a mirage. Or that you were just somebody who looked the way Doug Pratter might look eight years later.”
“Is that how long it’s been?”
“Just about. I was fifteen and I’m twenty-three now. You were two years older.”
“Still am. That much hasn’t changed.”
“And your family picked up and moved right in the middle of your junior year of high school.”
“My dad got a job he couldn’t say no to. He was going to send for us at the end of the term, but my mother wouldn’t hear of it. We’d all be too lonely is what she said. It took me years before I realized she just didn’t trust him on his own.”
“Was he not to be trusted?”
“I don’t know about that, but the marriage failed two years later anyway. He went a little nuts and wound up in California. He got it in his head that he wanted to be a surfer.”
“Seriously? Well, good for him, I guess.”
“Not all that good for him. He drowned.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Who knows? Maybe that’s what he wanted, whether he knew it or not. Mom’s still alive and well.”
“In Toledo?”
“Bowling Green.”
“That’s it. I knew you’d moved to Ohio, and I couldn’t remember the city, and I didn’t think it was Toledo. Bowling Green.”
“I’ve always thought of it as a color. Lime green, forest green, and bowling green.”
“Same old Doug.”
“You think? I wear a suit and go to an office. Christ, I wear glasses.”
“And a wedding ring.” And, before he could tell her about his wife and kiddies and adorable suburban house, she said, “But you’ve got to get home, and I’ve got plans of my own. I want to catch up, though. Have you got any time tomorrow?”
* * *
It’s Kit. Katherine Tolliver.
Just saying her name had taken her back in time. She hadn’t been Kit or Katherine or Tolliver in years. Names were like clothes, she’d put them on and wear them for a while and then let them go. The analogy only went so far, because you could wash clothes when you’d soiled them, but there was no dry cleaner for a name that had outlived its usefulness.
Katherine “Kit” Tolliver. That wasn’t the name on the ID she was carrying, or the one she’d signed on the motel register. Once she’d identified herself to Doug Pratter, she’d become the person she’d proclaimed herself to be. She was Kit again—and, at the same time, she wasn’t.
Interesting, the whole business.
Back in her motel room, she surfed her way around the TV channels, then switched off the set and took a shower. Afterward she spent a few minutes studying her nude body and wondering how it would look to him. She was a little fuller in the breasts than she’d been eight years before, a little rounder in the butt, a little closer to ripeness overall. She had always been confident of her attractiveness, but she couldn’t help wondering what she might look like to those eyes that had seen her years ago.
Of course, he hadn’t needed glasses back in the day.
She had read somewhere that a man who has once had a particular woman somehow assumes he can have her again. She didn’t know how true this might be, but it seemed to her that something similar applied to women. A woman who had once been with a particular man was ordained to doubt her ability to attract him a second time. And so she felt a little of that uncertainty, but willed herself to dismiss it.
He was married, and might well be in love with his wife. He was busy establishing himself in his profession, and settling into an orderly existence. Why would he want a meaningless fling with an old girlfriend, who’d had to say her name before he could even place her?
She smiled. Lunch, he’d said. We’ll have lunch tomorrow.
* * *
Funny how it started.
She was in Kansas City, sitting at a table with six or seven others, a mix of men and women in their twenties. And one of the men mentioned a woman she didn’t know, though she seemed to be known to most if not all of the others. And one of the women said, “That slut.”
And the next thing she knew, the putative slut was forgotten while the whole table turned to the question of just what constituted sluttiness. Was it a matter of attitude? Of specific behavior? Was one born to slutdom, or was the status acquired?
Was it solely a female province? Could you have male sluts?
That got nipped in the bud. “A man can take sex too casually,” one of the men asserted, “and he can consequently be an asshole, and deserving of a certain measure of contempt. But as far as I’m concerned, the word slut is gender-linked. Nobody with a Y chromosome can qualify as a genuine slut.”
And, finally, was there a numerical cutoff? Could an equation be drawn up? Did a certain number of partners within a certain number of years make one a slut?
“Suppose,” one woman suggested, “suppose once a month you go out after work and have a couple—”
“A couple of men?”
“A couple of drinks, you idiot, and you start flirting, and one things leads to another, and you drag somebody home with you.”
“Once a month?”
“It could happen.”
“So that’s twelve men in a year.”
“When you put it that way,” the woman allowed, “it seems like a lot.”
“It’s also a hundred and twenty partners in ten years.”
“Except you wouldn’t keep it up for that long, because sooner or later one of those hookups would take.”
“And you’d get married and live happily ever after?”
“Or at least live together more or less monogamously for a year or two, which would cut down on the frequency of hookups, wouldn’t it?”
Throughout all of this, she barely said a word. Why bother? The conversation buzzed along quite well without her, and she was free to sit back and listen, and to wonder just what place she occupied in what someone had already labeled “the saint-slut continuum.”
“With cats,” one of the men said, “it’s nice and clear-cut.”
“Cats can be sluts?”
He shook his head. “With women and cats. A woman has one cat, or even two or three cats, she’s an animal lover. Four or more cats and she’s a demented cat lady.”
“That’s how it works?”
“That’s exactly how it works. With sluts, it looks to be more complicated.”
Another thing that complicated it, someone said, was if the woman in question had a significant other, whether husband or boyfriend. If she didn’t, and she hooked up half a dozen times a year, well, she certainly wasn’t a slut. If she was married and still fit in that many hookups on the side, well, that changed things, didn’t it?
“Let’s get personal,” one of the men said to one of the women. “How many partners have you had?”
“Me?”
“Well?”
“You mean in the past year?”
“Or lifetime. You decide.”
“If I’m going to answer a question like that,” she said, “I think we definitely need another round of drinks.”
The drinks came, and the conversation slid into a game of truth, though it seemed to Jennifer—these people knew her as Jennifer, a name she seemed to have picked up again, after having left it behind months ago in New York—it seemed to her that the actual veracity of the responses was moot.
And then it was her turn.
“Well, Jen? How many?”
Would she ever see any of these people again? Probably not. Kansas City was all right, but she was about ready for a change of venue. So it really didn’t matter what she said.
And what she said was, “Well, it depends. How do you decide what counts?”
“What do you mean? Like blow jobs don’t count?”
/>
“That’s what Clinton said, remember?”
“As far as I’m concerned, blow jobs count.”
“And hand jobs?”
“They don’t count,” one man said, and there seemed to be general agreement on that point. “Not that there’s anything wrong with them,” he added.
“So what’s your criterion here, exactly? Something has to be inside of something?”
“As far as the nature of the act,” one man said, “I think it has to be subjective. It counts if you think it counts. So, Jen? What’s your count?”
“Suppose you passed out, and you know something happened, but you don’t remember any of it?”
“Same answer. It counts if you think it counts.”
The conversation kept going, but she was detached from it now, thinking, remembering, working it out in her mind. How many men, if gathered around a table or a campfire, could compare notes and tell each other about her? That, she thought, was the real criterion, not what part of her anatomy had been in contact with what portion of his. Who could tell stories? Who could bear witness?
And, when the table quieted down again, she said, “Five.”
“Five? That’s all? Just five?”
“Five.”
* * *
She had arranged to meet Douglas Pratter at noon in the lobby of a downtown hotel not far from his office. She arrived early and sat where she could watch the entrance. He was five minutes early himself, and she saw him stop to remove his glasses, polishing their lenses with a breast pocket handkerchief. Then he put them on again and stood there, his eyes scanning the room.
She got to her feet, and now he caught sight of her, and she saw him smile. He’d always had a winning smile, optimistic and confident. Years ago, it had been one of the things she liked most about him.
She walked to meet him. Yesterday she’d been wearing a dark gray pants suit; today she’d paired the jacket with a matching skirt. The effect was still business attire, but softer, more feminine. More accessible.
“I hope you don’t mind a ride,” he told her. “There are places we could walk to, but they’re crowded and noisy and no place to have a conversation. Plus they rush you, and I don’t want to be in a hurry. Unless you’ve got an early afternoon appointment?”
She shook her head. “I had a full morning,” she said, “and there’s a cocktail party this evening that I’m supposed to go to, but until then I’m free as the breeze.”
“Then we can take our time. We’ve probably got a lot to talk about.”
As they crossed the lobby, she took his arm.
* * *
The fellow’s name in Kansas City was Lucas. She’d taken note of him early on, and his eyes had shown a certain degree of interest in her, but his interest mounted when she told the group how many sexual partners she’d had. It was he who’d said, “Five? That’s all? Just five?” When she’d confirmed her count, his eyes grabbed hers and held on.
And now he’d taken her to another bar, the lounge of the Hotel Phillips, a nice quiet place where they could really get to know each other.
Just the two of them.
The lighting was soft, the décor soothing. A pianist played show tunes unobtrusively, and a waitress with an indeterminate accent took their order and brought their drinks. They touched glasses, sipped, and he said,
“Five.”
“That really did it for you,” she said. “What, is it your lucky number?”
“Actually,” he said, “my lucky number is six.”
“I see.”
“You were never married.”
“No.”
“Never lived with anybody.”
“Only my parents.”
“You don’t still live with them?”
“No.”
“You live alone?”
“I have a roommate.”
“A woman, you mean.”
“Right.”
“Uh, the two of you aren’t...”
“We have separate beds,” she said, “in separate rooms, and we live separate lives.”
“Right. Were you ever, uh, in a convent or anything?”
She gave him a look.
“Because you’re remarkably attractive, you walk into a room and you light it up, and I can imagine the number of guys who must hit on you on a daily basis. And you’re how old? Twenty-one, twenty-two?”
“Twenty-three.”
“And you’ve only been with five guys? What, were you a late bloomer?”
“I wouldn’t say so.”
“I’m sorry, I’m pressing and I shouldn’t. It’s just that, well, I can’t help being fascinated. But the last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable.”
The conversation wasn’t making her uncomfortable. It was merely boring her. Was there any reason to prolong it? Was there any reason not to cut to the chase?
She’d already slipped one foot out of its shoe, and now she raised it and rested it on his lap, massaging his groin with the ball of her foot. The expression on his face was worth the price of admission all by itself.
“My turn to ask questions,” she said. “Do you live with your parents?”
“You’re kidding, right? Of course not.”
“Do you have a roommate?”
“Not since college, and that was a while ago.”
“So” she said. “What are we waiting for?”
* * *
The restaurant Doug had chosen was on Detroit Avenue, just north of I-75. Walking across the parking lot, she noted a motel two doors down and another across the street.
Inside, it was dark and quiet, and the décor reminded her of the cocktail lounge where Lucas had taken her. She had a sudden memory of her foot in his lap, and the expression on his face. Further memories followed, but she let them glide on by. The present moment was a nice one, and she wanted to live in it while it was at hand.
She asked for a dry Rob Roy, and Doug hesitated, then ordered the same for himself. The cuisine on offer was Italian, and he started to order the scampi, then caught himself and selected a small steak instead. Scampi, she thought, was full of garlic, and he wanted to make sure he didn’t have it on his breath.
The conversation started in the present, but she quickly steered it back to the past, where it properly belonged. “You always wanted to be a lawyer,” she remembered.
“Right, I was going to be a criminal lawyer, a courtroom whiz. The defender of the innocent. So here I am doing corporate work, and if I ever see the inside of a courtroom, that means I’ve done something wrong.”
“I guess it’s hard to make a living with a criminal practice.”
“You can do okay,” he said, “but you spend your life with the scum of the earth, and you do everything you can to keep them from getting what they damn well deserve. Of course I didn’t know any of that when I was seventeen and starry-eyed over To Kill a Mockingbird.”
“You were my first boyfriend.”
“You were my first real girlfriend.”
She thought, Oh? And how many unreal ones were there? And what made her real by comparison? Because she’d slept with him?
Had he been a virgin the first time they had sex? She hadn’t given the matter much thought at the time, and had been too intent upon her own role in the proceedings to be aware of his experience or lack thereof. It hadn’t really mattered then, and she couldn’t see that it mattered now.
And, she’d just told him, he’d been her first boyfriend. No need to qualify that; he’d truly been her first boyfriend, real or otherwise.
But she hadn’t been a virgin. She’d crossed that barrier two years earlier, a month or so after her thirteenth birthday, and had had sex in one form or another perhaps a hundred times before she hooked up with Doug.
Not with a boyfriend, however. I mean, your father couldn’t be your boyfriend, could he?
* * *
Lucas lived alone in a large L-shaped studio apartment on the top floor of a new building. “I’m the fir
st tenant the place has ever had,” he told her. “I’ve never lived in something brand spanking new before. It’s like I’ve taken the apartment’s virginity.”
“Now you can take mine.”
“Not quite. But this is better. Remember, I told you my lucky number.”
“Six.”
“There you go.”
And just when, she wondered, had six become his lucky number? When she’d acknowledged five partners? Probably, but never mind. It was a good enough line, and one he was no doubt feeling proud of right about now, because it had worked, hadn’t it?
As if he’d had any chance of failing...
He made drinks, and they kissed, and she was pleased but not surprised to note that the requisite chemistry was there. And, keeping it company, there was that delicious surge of anticipatory excitement that was always present on such occasions. It was at once sexual and non-sexual, and she felt it even when the chemistry was not present, even when the sexual act was destined to be perfunctory at best, and at worst distasteful. Even then she’d feel that rush, that urgent excitement, but it was greatly increased when she knew the sex was going to be good.
He excused himself and went to the bathroom, and she opened her purse and found the little unlabeled vial she kept in the change compartment. She looked at it and at the drink he’d left on the table, but in the end she left the vial in her purse, left his drink untouched.
As it turned out, it wouldn’t have mattered. When he emerged from the bathroom he reached not for his drink but for her instead, and it was as good as she’d known it would be, inventive and eager and passionate, and finally they fell away from each other, spent and sated.
“Wow,” he said.
“That’s the right word for it.”
“You think? It’s the best I can come up with, and yet it somehow seems inadequate. You’re—”
“What?”
“Amazing. I have to say this, I can’t help it. It’s almost impossible to believe you’ve had so little experience.”
“Because I’m clearly jaded?”
“No, just because you’re so good at it. And in a way that’s the complete opposite of jaded. I swear to God this is the last time I’ll ask you, but were you telling the truth? Have you really only been with five men?”
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