Sixteen
After my weekend of pretending to be E’s brother I noticed my withdrawal symptoms of not being with her had lessened somewhat. I still had an aching and wanting to be with her, but it wasn’t as painful as it had been before. It was almost a pleasant sensation. I knew that what we had done was strange, but it was also a great deal of fun and when she called me a couple days later, we both laughed and recounted some of the events. She was kind of hard on Mr. Long Beach and told me she had no intention of seeing him anymore. I said I thought he was a nice guy even though it seemed that he had undesirable friends. She said he was a loser, and I was a little shocked at her condemnation of the guy, but just set it aside and listened to her outline the plan of our next date to see the play “Miss Saigon” in the city. Her grandma was recovering from a fall and E would be at her place looking after her and I was to get a ride there and we could go to dinner and then the play. I asked how her grandma was and she said she was sharp as a knife and that she had her own exercise program and was eating well and getting in home massages. She kept saying that she couldn’t believe that Mr. Long Beach didn’t catch on to our fine bit of acting and told me she was proud of me. After we said goodbye, I hung up the phone and just sat thinking that if she had lied to Mr. Long Beach what was to keep her from lying to me. A slight panic swept over me and then subsided. After all she did trust me enough to include me in her little scheme. And besides, she was pretty. When the day came for our second date, I had a hell of a time booking a ride before someone accepted, apparently the driver dropped off another ride nearby and then came to get me. I thanked the driver and asked why it was so hard to get a ride. He said nobody wanted to come to my part of town. I said I understood even though I didn’t and promised him a nice tip. He took me on some winding route. We made it to Market Street where we followed it all the way to Twin Peaks until we got to the part of the city that really isn’t a part of the city. People live in houses where the outside walls don’t touch and where they have lawns. That’s not really living in the city. The driver found E’s grandma’s house and I gave him the nice tip I promised and got out. I rang the doorbell. A young Yellow man answered and let me inside. He said that I must be here for E and told me to make myself at home. I stepped in and sat on the sofa saying hello to the Young yellow woman curled up in a ball reading in the recliner near the window. The young couple looked very, very scared and I made an effort to be extra friendly to try to put them at ease without any success. After sitting for several minutes in silence I got up and had a look around. I yelled upstairs to E and she said she would be right down. When she came bouncing down the stairs, I could see that it was her that the young couple was scared of because they both noticeably tensed and withdrew even more when she entered the living room. She was extra cheerful wearing velvet slacks, a tight sweater, and was in a hurry to go. I told her I wanted to say hello to her grandmother, and I think I caught her off guard because she couldn’t formulate a clear reason why I wasn’t allowed to. I stepped up the shag carpeted stairs asking which room was hers. She darted past me and knocked on the door at the end of the hallway telling her grandma that she had a friend she wanted to introduce her to. I stepped inside the room and instead of finding the mentally sharp, fit as a fiddle grandma E had described her to be, I found a withered and confused shell of a woman. She was shaking and rocking slowly back and forth in her chair staring blankly at the wall muttering to herself. I walked over to her and patted one of her hands telling her that E had told me that she was taking good care of her. Grandma didn’t respond. I would guess that she didn’t even know I was there. E spoke loudly saying that were going to dinner and a play and that there was food in the fridge and the young Yellow couple would be there if she needed anything. Grandma made no reply. E told me to come on already and I followed her back downstairs where we ran into Mom coming in the front door. E was obviously unhappy she hadn’t escaped before her mother’s entrance and tried to take one of my hands and lead me past her. I pulled away and stopped to greet Mom with a big smile. I think it surprised Mom because her first reaction was to return my smile and then checking herself, she put on a dour face and told E she needed help bringing in a few things from the car. It was weird, But I could tell that flash of a smile she initially gave me was out of genuine likeness and that made me feel good. I carried an armful of fresh flowers and E shut Mom’s trunk and I followed us empty handed. I asked Mom where she wanted me to put the flowers and she told me to set them on the kitchen counter near the sink. I did and then stood facing her ready to make small talk when E told me to excuse them for a moment. I moved just outside the doorway and listened. I heard E asking for her allowance and Mom digging through her purse. I thought it was kind of odd that E was still getting an allowance, but before I could really think about it fully, she took my hand and tried to lead me away. I leaned into the kitchen and said goodbye to Mom who answered without looking up from the task of cleaning the flowers and then I said goodbye to the young Yellow couple in the front room who flinched when I spoke. When we were outside E pinched my hand very, very hard without telling me why and then opened the garage door and backed out her car. My hand hurt and felt good at the same time as I closed the garage door and got into the car. E said that I looked great and that she didn’t think I would wear a suit like she had told me to, or that if I did, she expected it to be neon orange. I told her my neon orange suit was in the cleaners and asked her to kiss my hand where she pinched me to make it feel better. I held it up to her face and she acted like she was going to bite me then gave it a kiss and it did make it feel better. We drove more or less the same route back down Market Street that my driver took me on the way up, passing above the gay part of the city. E made some sort of comment about the giant rainbow flag that flies over the apartments just as you turn the corner that puts on back on flat ground, but I didn’t really pay attention to what it was exactly she said because I was looking at one of her pretty little ears hoping she would pinch me again. The restaurant we went to has since been bought by this famous Hollywood actor who films a weekly television show here that is always messing up traffic. I don’t know what the place is like now because I have no desire to go. Before this guy took over it was very cool. It is just behind the Maritime Museum in the square named after a candy bar. It’s close to the place I was finally alone. E and I parked on the street after waiting in line at the parking garage and walked by the old Black man playing his guitar and singing clever songs at the tourists in an effort to drum up some cash. E said she loved this guy. We stopped and watched him do his thing for a while. She put a couple bucks in his case before we moved on to the restaurant. The reason I knew about this place was because a friend of mine played piano in the upstairs bar. I went to see him one evening after the restaurant part was closed and decided I would come back sometime and eat. And there I was. E and I were seated at a cozy table in the middle and I asked the waiter his name. He told me it was Phillip and I let him know we needed to be fed and out the door by six fifteen at the latest and there would be a nice tip in it for him if he made that happen. I was such a big shot. The inside was quite impressive. It was artsy and Eastern with paper dressing screens between some areas and big metal doors and staircases. We ordered our meal and a guy with two attractive White women was apparently ease dropping while we ordered because after Phillip left this guy leaned over and asked what we recommended. E got quite flitty, flipping her hands back and forth, tossing her hair back, and brushing her bangs to one side, replying that it was her first time here, but she was sure everything on the menu was delicious. I studied her and realized it was because of the two attractive white women at the guy’s table that she was acting this way. Dinner was good and Phillip had us out by six fifteen as promised, but we ran into a bad jam of traffic on our way to the theater. E weaved in and out of cars and maneuvered down several different streets allowing us to arrive at the parking garage at Civic Center with ten minutes to spare before showtime. The thing is they don’t seat you after it begins, and you end up watching the first act in the lobby on the monitors. It was very important that we hurried to the theatre. We parked the car and made our way above ground to the theatre. I held Es hand as we sprinted across the Civic Center to the theatre. We rushed through the entrance, across the lobby, up the stairs and excused ourselves between people’s legs and the backs of chairs to our seats. We barely sat down before the lights dimmed and the curtains drew back. “That was quite an entrance.” E said. She sounded like she was glad it went the way it did and that it would have been almost disappointing to her if we hadn’t been able to cause a stir with our arrival. If I didn’t know better, I would say that she was some kind of a witch and had placed a magic spell that had the traffic be the way it was. The first half of Miss Saigon was pretty cool. My favorite part was when the helicopter came down from the ceiling. But the weird thing about musicals is that they sing about every little thing. I mean just because someone runs out of toothpaste doesn’t mean it needs to be manipulated into a song. During intermission E and I went to the bar. She said she really needed to use the bathroom, but the line for the woman’s was usually too long. I suggested that she could always use the men’s room and she told me to go check for an open stall. I did and told her that there were several available and she stood and contemplated going in. She said that in her younger days she would do it no problem. I dared her. I double dared her, and double dog dared her, and she shifted back and forth on her heels thinking about it. I finally gave her a break and said that actually the women’s bathroom didn’t look crowded at all. I pointed across the lobby, and she told me it wasn’t polite to point before dashing over and disappearing inside. After the play we sat in our seats and let most everybody exit before we did the same. We talked about the show and held hands as we walked back to the parking garage. There was a carnival in the Civic Center that weekend and as we walked by the rides E let go of my hand and stepped over the closed gate into the seat of a spinning ride. I followed her and spun the seat she was in round and round. She laughed and told me to stop, which I did with a jolt. I grabbed the bar that held her in, and she flew to the side. This made her angry, which made me happy. I tried to help her down and she swatted away my hand, storming off ahead on her own. I followed behind trying not to laugh and stepped over the railing into the bumper cars. I sat on the back of one with my feet on the steering wheel and called for her to come give me a push. I think she saw her chance for revenge and eagerly complied, pushing me very, very, fast around the metal floor. The bar above clicked as I steered with my feet deliberately avoiding the other cars, weaving around them until either E grew tired or bored and told me it was her turn. She sat down and I pushed her slowly. She sang some kind of nursery rhyme and then steered straight for the wall. I stopped pushing and let the car glide away. It stopped with a slight bump against the rubber railing and bounced slowly back. E laughed and told me to come here, which I did. I sat on the front of the car with my legs sprawling on both sides like I was in a saddle. E’s pretty green eyes were sparkling, and she took my face between her hands and pulled me to her. When we kissed it was like an explosion. I had the weird sensation of being underwater. It was like I was drowning, and it felt wonderful. It was still early. We decided to check out this club that does bondage once a week. It’s south of Market and we found a parking place about a block away. E was cheerful and we walked and chatted as we took our place in line. Most of the people were young White couples dressed in black like us, well actually I was wearing a light green suit, but E was in black. I paid our way, and we got our hands stamped and found the place to be only marginally filled due to the early hour. The clientele could be divided as follows: Gay men, young affluent couples, and folks wearing bondage gear. The dance area near the entrance was small. There was a young college looking White boy on his knees licking the boots of an overweight White girl who looked younger than he did. She barely squeezed into her leather buster, and she didn’t seem to notice the boy. She looked bored and distracted. Maybe that was her pose. E seemed uncomfortable, but I wanted to check the place out. I got her a drink and made my way to the back. Off to the side just before the entrance to the rear door was a space set up for discipline. There was a large White woman who was naked and manacled to the wall. She was being whipped by an obviously gay man in a leather pair of chaps. She faced the wall and writhed in painful ecstasy with each lash across her buttocks, which were quite red. Next to her was a rack where one could be strapped in by the hands and punished as well. It was unoccupied. I watched for a while before I realized E was standing right behind me. I turned and saw she was very, very, much unamused and said something like she found it disgusting. Different strokes for different folks I figured and took her hand and led her to the rear dance floor. This floor was livelier than the one in front and had two featured dancers off to the side doing this: One was a buff white guy dressed like a centaur grinding solo, his horns bopping to the beat and his hooves shifting to the rhythm. The other was dominatrix who danced on the backs of men who would take their turns being her submissive dance partner. Most of them were geeky looking like the kind you might find working in the computer industry. E was definitely not amused, and I tried to convince her to just ignore them and join the other folks and dance. She couldn’t deal with it and demanded to leave. As we made our way out, I saw that the rack near the woman being whipped was now being used by a bald headed gay man wearing glasses. The whipping provider now had to divide his time between two happy campers, and I watched long enough to realize that E was nowhere around and since she had the car, I made it a point to find her as quickly as possible. She was standing just outside the club and her eyes were wide and angry. I told her I knew another club about a block away and she said any place was better than here. I thought it was kind of funny that with all we had done she would find a little stagy pain enjoyment to be so offensive.
The other club we went to was this hip-hop place that I had been to with some people from work who I thought were Brown, but it turned out they were Yellow. Their skin and eyes are brown, but their history is from a big group of islands in the Pacific. These people from work have treated me very, very well. They’ve invited me to their house parties where I met their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousin, brothers, and sisters. The ones with good voices sing karaoke. I am usually the only White person there. And let me tell you, their food is delicious. The hip-hop club was fairly full which surprised me since it was only a little after ten thirty and last time I came it didn’t get happening until about midnight. I paid the cover for E and I and checked my suit jacket, shirt, and tie, stripping down to a black rock concert T shirt. The girl at the coat check seemed to have a problem with me checking all my clothes. I arranged them on one hangar and after giving her some cash left them on the counter and walked off. I wasn’t in the mood for dealing with any girl with an attitude who wasn’t going to possibly give me a kiss later. The club is divided into two sections. There is this small area to the side as you enter that plays retro hits. This side has a girl dancing on the bar. I stood as close to her as I dared and ordered E a cocktail and me one of those high caffeine energy drinks. The cool thing about those drinks in a night club is that you pour them into a clear plastic cup they glow under the black lights. In my determination to check my clothes and get our drinks I had misplaced my companion for the evening and made my way to the other side of the club, the side with the huge dance floor with the impressive lights. I found her standing at the far end with her arms folded across her chest with her pretty face locked in a look of utter displeasure. I definitely had my work cut out for me. I smiled and gave her the cocktail and said we should toss them back and get more. She looked quizzically at my glowing glass and asked what I was drinking. I told her then said that on a count of three we would down our drinks. She didn’t wait for me to count and threw back her pretty head and finished her drink. I laughed and did the same and went to the bar on this side and got us two more. The drink seemed to mellow her some and she looked around at all the other pretty young people tapping her foot to the music. I was buzzing from the rush of caffeine and noticed my forehead begin to perspire. I asked if she wanted to dance, and she said not yet and she grabbed hold of the bottom of my T Shirt and pulled me to follow. We sat on a sofa near the pool table and watched a couple take turns clacking the billiard balls around. There was a nice mix of all kinds of people, and it made me feel good. E took one of my arms and pulled it over her shoulders and scooted just close enough for her chest to gently touch mine. I felt relaxed for the first time all evening even though my head was racing like the pace car at the Daytona 500 from the glowing drinks. We sat and watched the pool players and listened to the music booming from the speakers and didn’t say a word. This was the first time I think we didn’t say anything and just enjoyed what was happening and it was quite pleasant. After a while I got bored and asked E if she wanted to dance. She said sure and stretched herself, standing like a lazy cat. We made our way onto the dance floor and cleared a space for ourselves near the front stage area. E danced just like the first night we met swaying back and forth and side to side kind of herky jerky like. Every once in a while, she would bust a move on me and when she did it was most enjoyable. E grew tired and sat on the stage. I got us some more drinks and sat next to her. Before I handed her another cocktail, she took hold of my head and gave me a long, luscious kiss. I’m sure it was for show more than anything. But I didn’t mind. I smacked my lips and handed her the cocktail and smiled uncontrollably. We watched the swirling mass and after a while the music became noticeably more tribal. It was now very warm in the dance area and E said she wanted to go on the roof and get some air. Just then this Polynesian dancer was making her way onto the dance floor. I tapped E and told her to hold on a second. The dancer had a lit torch in each hand and the crowd instantly cleared a large area forming a circle around her. It’s hard to recount all the moves of her fire dance, but I remember her thrusting the torches aggressively at the crowd, causing them to pull quickly back. I felt like pushing my way to the front and have her go at me only not move back when she pushed her flame at my belly and see what she would do. She might have taken my challenge to heart and set me on fire. If she did, I would have found E and pulled her close and we could have burned together. I was lost in this fantasy and watched the fire dancer take her exit from the floor and followed E up onto the roof to get some air. It was a beautiful evening and there were young folks milling everywhere. We found an empty spot on the railing overlooking the street below. Leaning against it, we watched a gaggle of roller bladers fly by. E cozied up beside me and commented that rollerblading wasn’t a very safe activity for this time of the night, and I went to brush her bangs away from her eyes. She pulled back and looked at me like I shouldn’t be touching her hair. She still stayed close, but I noticed her look and kept my hands to myself. We watched the street below talking about this and that and somehow the conversation got around to the fact that her father had died about six months before. I told her that I was sorry. She said it was several days before they found his body. When they did, they found his apartment reeking and soiled from his dogs who weren’t able to go outside. This picture was quite vivid in my brain and when I told her I really didn’t know what to say I meant it. She looked at me kind of started and said that none of the other men she had been with since his death really seemed to care about it. I told her I knew a little about losing someone. When she asked what I meant I told her that my ex and I split up about the same time her Dad died. She was shocked and asked me why I hadn’t told her before that I was divorced. I said that I was telling her now.