by C. D. Payne
Soon, we were in each other’s arms on the tiny couch—our locked mouths mixing the lingering bitterness of coffee with the sweet taste of desire. Emboldened by passion, I pushed up Sheeni’s bikini top. In the bright light of day I could finally view her fabulous breasts—made even more delectable by the contrast of virginal white skin rising from deep tan. Sheeni moaned as my eager mouth closed around her warm nipple. She moved her hand down my body and found the T.E. throbbing in my pants. I unzipped and Sheeni pulled out my granitelike tool as the Lincoln rumbled to a stop outside.
Damn!
Furious barking from Albert. Sheeni instantly unclinched and pulled down her top, expertly tucking away her incomparable charms. I lurched up and stepped on Albert, who began to howl. Sheeni reached down to comfort him, as I lumbered painfully toward the bathroom, my outthrusting T.E. preceding me by several feet.
From within the tiny, dim bathroom I heard Sheeni greet Mom and Jerry.
“What’s wrong with that damn dog?” asked Jerry.
“I fear it’s separation anxiety,” answered Sheeni.
Jerry did not reply.
“Where’s Nick?” asked Mom.
Coolly Sheeni replied, “Oh, he’s in the bathroom putting on his bathing suit. We’re going to the beach.”
I contemplated my record-setting T.E. Without relief this vast erection would take several months to subside. I couldn’t wait. Nine quick strokes (one for each inch?) and a monumental gusher splattered the walls like milky buckshot. My entire nervous system felt like it was pulsing up through my urethra. If light petting was this intense, could I really live through intercourse? Only time will tell.
After wiping down the walls and ceiling, I quickly changed into my bathing suit, grabbed my beach gear, and calmly walked into the living room. Sheeni was cuddling our love child.
“Mrs. Twisp,” said Sheeni, “Nick has something to ask you.”
Mom assumed a wary parental posture. I flashed a cautionary glance at Sheeni.
“Uh,” I said, thinking fast, “is it OK if Sheeni goes out to dinner with us tonight? It’s our last night together.”
Mom smiled. “Sure, that would be nice. Sheeni, our reservations are at seven.”
“Wear something low-cut,” suggested Jerry with a leer. Mom gave him a dirty look.
“Just kidding, doll,” he said, slapping Mom on the ass. His hand lingered on her shorts. “You people leaving now or what?” he asked.
We left quickly. Sheeni snapped a leash on Albert and the three of us strolled toward the lake in the hot sunshine.
“Sorry I jumped the gun on asking your mother about Albert,” Sheeni said. “There won’t be any problem keeping him, will there?”
“Nothing insurmountable,” I replied. “Of course, a big request like this requires careful strategic planning. You can’t just waltz in and pop the question. That invites the Big No. And once you get parental ego invested in a ‘no,’ then you have to contrive some convoluted face-saving way for them to say ‘yes.’”
“Well at least, Nickie, you don’t have to deal with constant interference from God. Be thankful for that.”
“I am!”
We passed Mrs. Clarkelson, who was out on her tiny patio folding newspapers into tsetse-fly swatters for the missionaries in Africa. I stuck a finger in my nose.
“Sheeni, why are you holding that boy’s hand?” the old lady demanded.
“I’m taking him to the lake, Mrs. Clarkelson,” replied Sheeni brightly. “It’s for his hydrotherapy.”
“Oh, I see. Well, I suppose that’s all right then.”
I held out my finger. “Want a booger?” I grunted. “I’ve got lots.”
Mrs. Clarkelson shuddered. “No, thank you, young man. That’s filthy and nasty.”
“Be nice, Nickie,” Sheeni scolded, “or I won’t buy you a popsicle.”
I started to slobber and pule, continuing until we were out of sight of Mrs. Clarkelson.
“You do that marvelously well,” said Sheeni.
“Thank you, my dear,” I said. “I hope to study with Stanislavsky someday.”
“That will take some doing,” replied Sheeni. “He’s been dead for 50 years.”
Loving Sheeni, I decided, is at times like being romantically involved with the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
We walked through town. The motel-lined streets were busier now that the weekend was approaching. A slow parade of overheating motor homes, campers, and big pickups towing speedboats inched toward the blue water. Three rednecks leaned out their windows to whistle at Sheeni, and two fat women called out rude comments about the ugliness of our dog. Sheeni and Albert pretended not to notice.
Large signs at the beach proclaimed “No Dogs Allowed,” but Sheeni blithely ignored them. We spread our towels in the hot sand and worked on our tans. Albert quickly went to sleep in the shade under Sheeni’s overturned straw basket—snoring noisily through his pushed-in snout. I oiled up my date and got a T.E. you could spot three miles offshore.
“Maybe, honey, you should have your pituitary checked,” Sheeni said. “I’ve never seen anyone with such overactive hormones.”
I assured her the treatment I required was a simple in-home procedure that could be performed without medical supervision.
“Soon,” said Sheeni. “Be patient, Nickie. I’ll figure out some way to come down to see Albert and you.”
“God, I hope so!”
The rest of the afternoon (the last with Sheeni until who knows when) passed in a warm haze. I remember the smells of suntan lotion and hot dogs, the heat of the sun on my back, the inch-by-inch shock of cold water, the taste of lake water on sweet lips, the touch of a hand slipping into my trunks under murky green water, the mystery of a soft cleft felt only for an instant through thin wet spandex.
When, tired and sunbaked, we got back to Sheeni’s trailer, she paused to remove the mail. One letter, I could see, was addressed to her in a bold masculine hand.
“Shall I tear that up for you, honey?” I asked.
“Why no, darling. That wouldn’t be quite fair to the sender, would it?”
“I am not interested in fairness toward that person,” I replied.
“Why not?” she demanded.
Because he has kissed you and fondled you and God knows what else with you! “Because I am not,” I said. “I hope you will respect my feelings on this matter.”
“I don’t see what your feelings have to do with destroying U.S. mail,” said Sheeni obdurately. “Vandalism under any pretext is inexcusable. Besides, I have never asked you to tear up a letter from Martha.”
“I don’t get letters from Martha,” I said. “And you know it!”
“Well, when you do, sweetheart,” said Sheeni, turning in at her gate and handing me the leash, “bring them by and we’ll make confetti of our love letters together.” She leaned across the gate and kissed me. “See you at 6:30, lover. Bye-bye, Albert!” Clutching the offensive envelope, she disappeared into the multi-story trailer. Whimpering, Albert tugged at the leash to follow.
I turned away angrily and pulled him along. Albert skidded behind me like a small ugly dog trying to water-ski on asphalt. Finally, I picked up the reluctant canine and carried him home.
Mom, still looking flushed from an afternoon of truck-driver wrestling, was standing in bra and slip in the tiny bathroom, putting on her face. From what I could observe, the small bottles of goop multiplied exponentially for each year past 35.
“Oh, there you are,” she said. “Better get ready. And what are you doing with that dog?”
“Sheeni asked me to watch him while she dressed,” I lied. “Where’s Jerry?”
With great concentration, Mom painted on an artificial eyebrow. “He’s taking a shower. Do you need one?”
I had a vision of the ever-lurking naked porcine minister. “No, I got clean in the lake,” I said. I closed the meager privacy curtain that separated my room from the front of the trailer and pulled down my still-cl
ammy trunks. My damp, sandy member had shriveled to the size of a small, unshelled peanut. Hard to believe this was the same robust organ a feminine hand had been fondling underwater only hours before. Knowing my privacy was transient, I dressed quickly. Albert lay on the linoleum and watched me sullenly.
When I finished and pushed back the curtain, Mom was still applying layers to her face. She gave me a quick once-over.
“Oh, you look nice, Nick.” She always says this. I could have 47 draining boils on my face (and probably will someday), and as long as my pants were pressed, Mom would say I “looked nice.”
“Thanks, Mom. You do too,” I lied. I decided to do some preliminary dog adoption spadework. “I found out what kind of dog Albert is,” I said casually.
“Oh. What kind?” Mom was brushing on a top-coat sealer that looked like shellac.
“The man in the pet store in town says he’s a purebred Spanish Tonzello.” Albert looked up skeptically.
“Tonzello? Never heard of it.”
“Sheeni hadn’t either. So we went to the library and looked it up. Turns out that’s Spain’s famous sports dog.”
This piqued Mom’s interest. She put down her paintbrush. “What kind of sports?”
“Well, they have this competition. Called a Tonzello-athalon. Each team consists of one athlete and one dog. It’s sort of a combination of running, acrobatics, and precision gymnastics. Quite a spectacle to watch, according to the encyclopedia.”
“Do they play it here?” Mom asked.
“Not too much,” I said. “But Spain is always petitioning to have it made an Olympic sport. If they ever did, it’d be real easy to make the U.S. team, because there are so few Tonzellos in the country.”
“The Olympics. My goodness!” Thoughtfully, Mom buffed her varnish. I hoped she was contemplating life as the mother of an Olympic gold medalist.
I picked up the young Tonzello and gave him an affectionate squeeze. “I hear they’re real easy to train too.” Albert squirmed in my arms, nipped at my hand, and dribbled on my shirt. I hastily put him down.
At that moment, the door opened and Jerry entered. Pink and damp, he was dressed in an off-the-shoulder bathrobe that showed off his lush back hair.
“Hi, Nick,” said Jerry, toweling his hair. “You get a piece off your cupcake yet?”
“Jerry, that’s not funny,” said Mom, walking toward the bedroom. Jerry hungrily eyed her bra and slip.
“I was just kiddin’, Estelle,” he said, following her. They shut the door. I heard Mom say, “Not now, Jerry. I just put on my makeup.” Then came the sounds of a scuffle followed by a slap. I was wondering if this county had 911, when things suddenly became ominously quiet.
“You OK in there?” I called.
After a pause, Mom answered, “We’re fine.”
Disgusted by parental lust, I put on a record and turned it up loud. “Albert,” I said, “this is Frank Sinatra. You are going to be hearing a lot of him.”
A half hour later, everyone except Albert was out on the patio waiting for my date. The Tonzello was locked in the trailer practicing his whimpering skills. Mom was wearing a flaming-red low-cut dress that looked like it had been mail-ordered from Hell, Carnal Sins Division. Jerry apparently had dressed to coordinate with his car: white linen suit, white shoes and belt, lime-green shirt, and yellow bow tie. I had on my usual dress-for-invisibility outfit: flannel trousers, beige shirt, conservative knit tie, and generic tweed jacket. I looked like a Young Americans for Freedom volunteer waiting for Dan Quayle’s motorcade to pass by.
We looked up to see a beautiful woman approaching. Improbably, she spoke to us. “Hi, Nickie. Good evening, Mrs. Twisp. Jerry.”
It was Sheeni. Makeup, pearl necklace, earrings, and chestnut hair artfully pinned up had added ten stunning years to her age. She looked like the world’s most beautiful graduate student. Her exquisite tan glowed like 24-karat gold against the deep blue of her gossamer dress. My heart thumped wildly. I was speechless.
“Good evening, Sheeni,” said Mom. “You look nice.”
Nice! Nice! How we violate our language!
“You look beautiful,” said Sheeni, compounding the language debasement. “And that suit is terrific, Jerry.”
“Thanks, dollface,” said Jerry.
My paralysis continued. Sheeni looked at me quizzically. “Something wrong, Nickie?” she asked, taking my hand.
“You. You… you’re beyond rapturous,” I stammered.
Sheeni frowned. “No, Nickie. Rapture is a mental state. I don’t believe the adjective rapturous can be used to describe someone’s physical appearance. That usage is incorrect.”
Jerry rescued me from this grammatical conundrum. “OK, let’s blow,” he said.
We all piled into the big Lincoln—now equipped with a shiny chrome ball on the back bumper. Fastened under the steering wheel was a trailer brake mechanism. Every time Jerry stepped on the brake pedal, a lever on the mechanism pointed obscenely at his crotch.
Mom insisted Jerry put up the top to preserve “the ladies’ hairdos.” He complied reluctantly, so we had a relatively breeze-free drive to the restaurant. I held Sheeni’s warm hand and tried to regain control over my tongue. I felt like Quasimodo on a double date with Esmeralda. Any minute I expected Trent and the king’s soldiers to stop the car and send me back to the bell tower for my presumption. Meanwhile, Esmeralda was giving off fabulous aromas.
“Is, is that perfume?” I inquired.
“Yes,” said Sheeni. “Like it? It’s Joy, my favorite. It was a gift from—” She stopped just in time.
“Oh,” I said. “Well, I like it anyway.”
Sheeni leaned over and kissed me. “I like you too.”
I took advantage of the occasion to look down her dress—and caught Jerry leering at me in the rearview mirror. At that moment I felt like the world’s youngest dirty old man.
Jerry pulled in and parked at a large lakeside restaurant called Biff’s Bosun’s Barge. Mounted on a tall steel pole at one end of the crowded parking lot was a World War II landing craft. Anchoring the other end of the lot was an immense plywood cutout of the Flag Raising at Iwo Jima. In between was the restaurant: a rambling, one-story wooden structure with vast expanses of blue-tinted glass facing the lake. Above the windows swam a school of blue neon fish.
As usual, we were on the very fringe of the smoking section. Jerry always requested this location so he could blow smoke at anyone he suspected of harboring antismoking sentiments. He felt strongly that freedom to smoke was a constitutionally protected right. As he lit up his first unfiltered Camel, I could see him scanning the nearby nonsmoking tables for potential fascists. But since this was the boonies, not Berkeley, no one seemed to mind the noxious fumes wafting their way.
“Isn’t this nice?” said Mom. We all agreed it was. The sun was setting on the opposite shore, painting the sky and water with pinks, blues, and fluorescent oranges. Powerboats zipped by, the people on board laughing and holding aloft cans of beer.
Jerry ordered three margaritas and a root beer from our waitress—a 50-year-old country housewife in Biff’s regulation miniskirt and push-up bra. (Marketing question: do grandmotherly boobs swelling above low-cut bodices sell fish dinners? From the size of the diamond glinting on Biff’s pinkie I guess they do.) The waitress looked at Sheeni and didn’t even ask for an I.D.! So I slurped my soft drink while the three “adults” sipped their cocktails. Sheeni did offer me a taste of hers. It was intoxicatingly delicious. So far, I have enjoyed every alcoholic beverage I’ve sampled. Perhaps this means I shall grow up to be an oversexed alcoholic writer.
We studied the menu. Nouvelle cuisine it was not. Anything that was not deep-fried in molten grease was tossed—raw and bleeding—onto the grill. Mom decided on scallops, Sheeni requested sea bass, and the men ordered steaks.
Everyone except the child had a second cocktail and soon the conversation grew loud and boisterous. Sheeni told amusing stories about life in Ukiah an
d Mom related painfully embarrassing anecdotes about my childhood. From early toilet-training mishaps to my brief but mortifying kindergarten crush on Miss Romper Room, Mom trotted out them all with total recall—egged on by an inebriated truck driver and The Woman I Love. Gamely I smiled and tried to think of it as a celebrity roast.
I was made even more uncomfortable when Sheeni took a Camel from Jerry. It pained me to think of those carcinogenic tars sullying her perfect pink lungs. It saddened me even more to contemplate her Parisian future amidst hordes of nicotine-stained, debauched Frogs. At least I will be there to defend her honor and insist we sit in the nonsmoking sections at artsy Left Bank cafes.
