by R. D. Power
“Because of what happened, they met their soul mates. I’m sure they’ll always be together now. What could be more important than that? If someone made me choose between living ten more years with the man I love or sixty more years with anyone else, I’d choose you in a heartbeat.”
“You think I’ll live sixty more years?”
“Shut up. And look at what they left for the world: you wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for his injury.”
“See? It’s still causing problems.”
“So, how did he propose?”
“I know that story, too.3 Mom loved to tell it. It’s funny. Mom was content on her own; she had her career, and men were pigs. Dad was happy, too; he had, well, he had to start over with a new career, and women were plentiful. Then they met, and everything changed. So, two people who were perfectly satisfied in their independence were now dependent on someone else for their happiness. It’s sad, really,” he said, with an arch smile to get a reaction from Kristen. She hit him again. “I’m not sure exactly how long they dated, but before long, he began to hint about getting married, and she was hinting yes, but he wouldn’t come right out with the question.
“So, she pushed things along by renting the ice at a local rink to skate for him. Dad said she started out in an elegant black dress that flowed across her body as she skated gracefully to a slow song. When that song ended, a fast song came on, and she zipped the black dress off, revealing one of those sexy, short, body-hugging skater’s outfits in dark red. She danced across the ice, spinning, jumping, swaying her hips and such, all the while smiling at him. She bragged he was mesmerized and practically drooling by the end of it. I guess he really was impressed, because while she changed he scribbled her a little something to express his feelings. She treasured it till her dying day. I have it here.”
He pulled out of the trunk a small box that contained a scroll of lined paper tied with a blue ribbon and handed it to Kristen.
She untied it, unrolled it, and read it aloud:
No mere words, especially my clumsy words, can do you justice, but you inspire me to try. When I first set eyes on you, I was enchanted (a poetical way of saying “horny”), which offended you, I know, but mere man that I am, I was utterly lost in your gorgeous eyes when they first shone upon me. Though I stared, it is unfair to reproach me for becoming ensnared in the trap that your supernal beauty sets, from which no mortal man has the power or will to escape. Yet, now that I know the pure joy of knowing you, I understand your objection to being judged by appearance alone, for you are so much more than beautiful. Every day I spend with you, I find something else to admire about you. Every fleeting minute with you, I fall more in love. Every eternal minute apart from you, I desire nothing but the paradise of your company. And today … One minute I’m spellbound by your beauty, talent, and grace, and I know how much I want you. The next I’m buzzing with raw animal excitement and I know how much I need you. What more can I say to tell you how much you mean to me other than to declare: I love you, Jill!”
Kristen smiled with teary eyes, thinking, Why can’t the son be as poetic?
Noticing her moist eyes, Robert said, “Pretty sappy, eh?” She smirked. He continued, “Despite his proclamation of love, to her great disappointment, he didn’t ask her to be his wife then. He wanted to, but had decided years before that if he ever wanted to marry he’d pop the question while flying. I guess he thought it would be romantic. Plus, if she said no, he could just nose down into the Pacific, and have done with it.
“He rented an expensive plane and took her up to show off … He was such a good pilot.” His face became somber, and he said with evident resentment, “That fucking airline pilot made a mistake that cost them their lives, and destroyed mine.” He lowered his head. Kristen embraced him and stroked his hair.
He went on, “Anyway, the funny part was Dad went too far showing off. There were a few too many acrobatic manoeuvres for her unaccustomed stomach. Just as he was getting set to ask the question, she turned white and puffed out her cheeks. What would come first? The question or the vomit? If the latter, she could well imagine it putting a damper on his enthusiasm and she might miss her best shot at him, but if the question came first, how would it look to answer the most profound expression of a man’s love with a puke?” Kristen laughed. “Many men would consider that the definitive rejection. As the purging began, she grabbed a bag next to the seat. When she put her face in it and spewed forth, she saw a small jewellery box in it, which held?”
“The engagement ring,” Kristen said with a chuckle.
“Here it is here,” he said, as he extracted his mother’s ring from the same box.
Kristen held out her hand and he gave her the ring. She slid it onto her ring finger, smiled, and noted, “It fits perfectly.” He said nothing, so she went on: “So, what happened next?”
“Mom was so embarrassed and upset that she started bawling. Dad was angry with himself for his overzealousness. He knew it was his fault and apologized. He thought the moment sufficiently unromantic to proceed with the question, so he flew back to the airport, his plans shattered. But Mom wouldn’t let it end like that. Just before she got out of the plane, she looked into his eyes and said, ‘I’d love to, Jimmy.’
“He knew what she meant, but just to make it official, he said with a hopeful smile, ‘You’ll marry me?’ She said yes and went to kiss him, but recalled her barf breath and turned aside at the last minute. He turned her head back and kissed her on the lips. I’m guessing he didn’t slip her the tongue.”
Kristen chortled again and commented, “I never thought throwing up could be so romantic.” She took his hand. “You should feel good knowing they’ll always be together.”
“Dust together. Great.”
“You don’t believe in anything beyond this world? You don’t believe in God at all?”
“On my most religious days, I’m an agnostic. Most days I’m pretty sure there is no God. What I don’t understand is how such a smart person can banish doubt by citing faith. What you’re saying is you believe because you refuse to doubt.”
“I don’t feel like I’m trying to fool myself. I’m not saying there’s a personal god who watches over us and smites us when we’re bad; that’s nonsense. But I think there’s a benevolent order to the world.”
“A sort of intelligent design?”
“I have no doubt that evolution is a fact. It’s just that the universe is so … I don’t know, spectacular. I can’t believe it’s all a cosmic accident. I don’t understand how such a smart person can dismiss it all as an accident.”
“I’m just smart enough to know that I know maybe a trillionth of what there is to know. From unconscious ignorance, I have attained conscious ignorance.”
“Well, don’t assume that your conscious ignorance is somehow superior to my faith. My faith is not just wishful thinking as you seem to think; it’s a fervent conviction.”
“And what’s the need of reason when we have conviction?”
“So you think reason and conviction are mutually exclusive? I’m convinced God exists, and that some of the most important things in life are predetermined.”
“So god is a mechanism to engineer fate?” She shrugged. “Seems impossible.”
“So we’re simply here because of evolution?” she said.
“Precisely, though I don’t see how humans will continue evolving.”
“Why?”
“Because natural selection doesn’t operate on us anymore. Anyone—smart or stupid, strong or weak, attractive or ugly, healthy or not—can have as many children as he wants. I’ve read that the best educated tend to have the fewest children. If stupid people have more kids than smart people do, we may be Cro-Magnons again in a million years.”
“We can get there a lot sooner if you have lots of children,” Kristen joked.
After she left, he returned the cherished relics of his dead family to the trunk, but took his mother’s photo out of the frame and rep
laced it with Kristen’s, which he set on top of his trunk facing the bed.
3Parts of this scene first appeared on the website of the literary journal, Johnny America:
http://www.johnnyamerica.net/archives/2010/04/19/07.00.00/
Chapter Fifteen
The Date
Kristen had been patient with Robert’s lack of wherewithal to take her out on the town, but he felt guilty about it since she’d given up a man who could do so much for her. After saving up for four months, he asked her out for a special dinner-and-dancing date.
To kick off their special day, he surprised her with a serenade under her window. He wasn’t romantic, but he knew she was and knew she would like it. At one AM, he walked down to Kristen’s house, climbed the flowering dogwood tree near her room and tapped on her window with a stick he’d brought for the purpose. She came over to the window and opened it.
“Are you crazy? It’s one o’clock in the morning. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to peep. I climb up here every night to watch you change.” She smirked. “Actually, I’ve come to serenade my woman.” He began to sing Cole Porter’s “Night and Day.” It had been his father’s favorite song. He played Sinatra’s slow tempo version so often, little Bobby learned the words by heart:
“Night and Day you are …”
“Wait, wait! Just a minute,” she said. She stepped away from the window and within thirty seconds was back. “Okay, start over please, and louder this time.”
So, he crooned the song while the beguiled girl sat beaming.
“Oh, that was amazing!” she proclaimed when he finished. “I didn’t know you could sing. Your voice is sensational.” His voice did not approach sensational, but love colors every sense.
Nothing could dampen her spirit, not even the gruff neighbor who yelled, “Shut up, asshole, it’s the middle of the night,” right after Robert finished, or her parents, who woke up and told her to keep him quiet.
“You’d better go now. My parents and half the rest of the neighborhood are awake now. Thank you, Bobby. I love you.”
She would long treasure the recording she made of him with her computer, listening hundreds of times over the years. It was the most romantic moment of her life, and would remain so. Her father shook his head before returning to bed, but her mother smiled at her. She could see how thrilled her daughter was. Kristen played it back eight times that night. So elated was she, it took her two hours to fall back to sleep.
The big date commenced at 5:30 the next evening. Fine dining comprised the early part of the evening. Kristen had chosen a restaurant in London, overlooking the Thames. Robert perused the menu, glossing over the unfamiliar dishes, focusing on the prices and blanching. Kristen, who observed his discomfort, smiled and reassured him, “If you insist, I’ll forgo my usual thousand-dollar bottle of champagne.”
He put down the menu and tried not to think of what he could do with the money this one meal would cost. All his attention he focused on Kristen. He would have been content simply to gaze into her gleaming eyes, with some prolonged glimpses at her long legs. She’d worn a new red mini-dress for the occasion.
She cherished the ardor in his eyes, the same longing look he used to give Jennifer, the look any woman wants to see when her man regards her, but Kristen, like any woman, demanded more: he had to engage in intercourse. Not the kind men want and women put up with; the kind women want and men put up with.
“Up here, Mr. Owens. Look at my face. My legs don’t talk,” Kristen reproved with a smile.
“But they’re communicating nevertheless,” Robert said. “They’re saying, ‘Look at us. Aren’t we perfect? Don’t you want to do things to us?’”
The waiter came, and they ordered dinner. He asked if they wanted an appetizer or anything to drink. “Should we get the goat cheese pâté for an appetizer?” Kristen asked her date.
“Yuck.”
“Robert Owens, you have no culture.”
“And you figure the cheese will provide it, do you?”
The waiter gave Kristen a commiserating smile. Kristen told the waiter they wanted nothing else besides water. Turning to Robert, she said, “Let’s get serious.”
Uh oh, here it comes, he said to himself.
“As you know, I got accepted at all the universities I applied to, but I need to give them my decision. I know you don’t take well to demands, so I won’t make one, but I’m pleading with you to make a decision to go to university instead of the baseball draft.”
I knew it! he declared to himself.
“It’s not only for me I’m asking this. With your brain—”
It would be a crime not to go to university, he said silently, having heard this entreaty before.
“—it would be a crime if you don’t go to university. And don’t you think the places that gave you scholarships will give you training and experience at least as good as you’d get in the minor leagues?”
“Maybe, but it would mean no matter how well I pitched, I put off any possibility of a major league career for at least three years and probably more.”
“Please do this for me, for us. If it takes you a year or two longer, is that such a big deal? If you go into the minors, it’ll delay my education for God knows how long. I want to be a doctor, which is a really long process as it is.” He said nothing. “Bobby?” she said.
To put the uncomfortable issue behind him, he answered, “Okay, I’ll go to university.”
“Woo!” Kristen yelped as her arms shot up and out. “Which one?”
“Berkeley or Stanford, I guess,” he replied, trying not to show his consternation and irritation.
“I’d rather go to Stanford,” she pronounced, “because they have a program in medicine. Going there should give me an edge to get into medicine there, and it’s one of the best in the world.” He would have preferred Berkeley, because his father had gone there, but he was on automatic pilot now and acquiesced.
“I’ll write to Stanford tomorrow to accept their offer. You’ll do the same?” she said, not entirely convinced from looking in his eyes.
“Yes,” said the disgruntled man. The dim ambiance in the restaurant helped to mask his true feelings. The big issue cleared off the table, they retreated to small talk through dinner. His wit was wanting, so apprehensive was he about what had just come to pass.
Kristen didn’t notice in her reverie, though she might have had his mood lasted long. She didn’t need to say anything to him to snap him out of his disquietude. Nature took care of everything. The flame from the candle on the table danced in her eyes, but the reflection, stoked by the passion in her heart, outshone the source and hypnotized the object of her affection. Never had her eyes sparkled so luminously. Never was her smile so dazzling. Never were her cheeks and lips rosier. Never was she more alluring. Never had he been so captivated by a woman.
The couple enjoyed talking and dancing together at the dance club. All the male eyes in the place were on Kristen while she was on the dance floor. Kerns and Fields must have written, “The Way You Look Tonight” with her in mind. It’s unclear how they knew about her so many years before she was born (it’s rather spooky, isn’t it?). Women, always more incisive than men when it comes to judging their own sex, pointed out all her faults. Some comments were disguised as compliments: “I’d spill out of that dress. She’s lucky to have such a small chest.” Some as concern: “Poor thing. Her legs are so skinny. What do you think, anorexia or bulimia?” Others were honest reactions: “Bitch!” Men, those shallow simpletons, were blind to all these faults and merely admired her beauty and panache.
They left the club just before midnight to drive home; to his home, he hoped, for an assignation he’d dreamt about a hundred times. Kristen, still exhilarated with his pledge, elected to attempt to complete the conquest. Explaining to her parents that she would be moving to California with Robert would be much easier if they were engaged. She accepted his invitation to join him in his room.
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br /> After she stepped into his room, he closed the door quietly. He took her in his arms and began kissing her tenderly, but she pulled him closer, opened her mouth and proceeded to lick his teeth and his tongue. It seemed as if she would submit to his wildest desires.
While kissing her, he undid the top button on her dress. She said nothing. One by one, he unfastened the other buttons. She said nothing. Her dress dropped to the floor, and she stepped out of it. Then she undid his buttons and removed his shirt. Their passionate kissing continued. She undid the button on his pants, pulled down the zipper and pushed them down to the floor. She ran her hands over his chest and pushed him toward the bed. She pulled down the blankets, got in, and extended her arms, inviting him to bed. He accepted her kind offer before she could blink.
After what he judged a reasonable period of kissing and cuddling, he attempted to relieve her of her bra. She resisted, feeling fourteen seconds was insufficient to assure his respect. After five more minutes of petting, she did allow him to take it off. His mouth went for one, his hand for the other. She began to approach his level of excitement. Sensing this, he ventured to remove her panties. She resisted, pushing his hands away from there.
He turned up the heat, going down to her feet and sucking her big toes. She giggled. He licked up her legs, turned her over and bit her butt; she shrieked into the pillow. He turned her onto her back and licked her pelvic bones, licked up her stomach to her rib cage, nibbled her nipples, lay down on her and ran his teeth along her collar bones and sucked on her ear lobes. Goose bumps jumped up on her legs and she squealed. Then he went back down to her breasts and sucked and bit playfully. She was in ecstasy. His next try for her panties was successful. He removed his boxers. Naked together! He felt as if he were going to explode. After more caressing, he hoped she was ready for love.
It was her turn to turn up the heat, but in a different manner than he had. She looked deep into his soul and endeavored to communicate telepathically, Tell me you love me, and I’m all yours tonight. Ask me to marry you, and I’m all yours forever. He read this, but something was lost in the female to male translation: If you don’t pledge your heart and soul to me for the whole rest of time, buster, you’re out of luck.
