Chapter 3
Kathy was flustered. She didn't feel she was prudish but anything she had ever done with sex in the past had been private.
Where was she? What was happening? Why was there so much talk of sex? And why was it so openly discussed? Why had Mitch written to such an advertiser? What about those pictures?
She felt trapped. She glanced at Dale. He had a big grin on his face. It wasn't disturbing him.
And this all brought back one unpleasant memory. Even Dale didn't know. She tried not to think about it but she couldn't blot it out.
She was sixteen and a virgin. Her parents had bought her a lovely yellow lace dress with ribbon decorations. She desperately wanted to go somewhere to show off the dress.
So when Eddie Fale, her football-playing neighbor, asked her to go to a movie on a sunny Saturday afternoon she had consented. She had talked to him often but had never been out with him.
When he called to pick her up, he was with another fellow she knew as Porky. He was a high school football player, too, and very big and heavy. The three of them went to the movies and sat up in the balcony so the boys could smoke.
They met friends in the lobby of the theatre and as expected everyone loved the yellow dress. Eddie and Porky kept telling her how great she looked and while she didn't care for either of them she glowed with it all.
After a while in the dark Eddie got out a whiskey flask and he and Porky got louder and louder as they swigged it. Kathy wouldn't take a sip.
Then Porky kept talking about her yellow dress and how much better it would look off her. She began to get scared and asked Eddie to take her home. But all Eddie would do was to laugh uproariously.
She started to get up but the boys pulled her back. When she threatened to scream, Porky put his big ham-like hand over her mouth. She struggled and it made Porky angry. They carried her into a little "EXIT' vestibule outside the top of the balcony.
Porky said he'd take his hand away if she'd be quiet. She said she would. Then he asked her to just take her dress off. He swore he wouldn't touch her. Eddie just stood there and laughed.
She had on bra and panties and fearing if she didn't take it off Porky would get mad, she took it off slowly over her head.
It was a mistake. Eddie immediately stopped laughing and started pawing her. When she slapped him, Porky tossed her on the hard floor and ripped off her bra and panties. Then while she struggled and tried to scream, each raped her in turn while the other held her. The nice touch was they dressed her after that, all the while laughing about her pretty yellow dress.
She didn't care about the disgrace or any revenge. She told her parents who told the police. The boys each got a year in a detention house.
The experience had a lasting effect on her. She didn't date for a year after that. Two years after the attack, when a boy touched her breast-and she wanted him to-she fainted.
When she saw the two men and a girl in the photo she felt weak. She drank a long swallow of the vodka. Dale was still smiling.
"Put that away," Liz commanded, and Mitch was surprised by the sharpness of her tone. Liz could see that Kathy was upset.
Mitch put the pictures into the envelope and returned it to its hiding place. "The Good Lord knew what he was doing when he invented sex," he laughed.
Like a little boy, Liz thought. He'll never grow up. "Gosh,"-she thought, "I remember that first night. It's bad when something starts so good because nothing can top it after that. He was so handsome and so slim." She smiled at the recollection. He had sent her six dozen bundles of violets after their first date and it all came from borrowed money. And then they had their first affair on the violets strewn on her bedroom floor. She couldn't get the smell of violets off her for days. How wonderful it all was! Not that Mitch was a disappointment. Not at all. But those initial thrills were gone. The trouble was she got older. Mitch didn't. In business he grew up but with her he was the same happy-go-lucky, carefree Mitch.
She wondered if it all hadn't happened whether she'd marry him now. Yes, despite their sex problems, she would. She loved him and she wouldn't want anyone else.
Also she knew that he'd say the same thing. He loved her. She knew that instinctively. She also knew that the new young couple, Dale and Kathy-they loved each other. In a way she was sorry they were there.
Mitch's parties were for more sophisticated people. There was something young and untouched about Kathy-she wasn't right for their house.
Liz's thoughts were interrupted by the door chimes. Dale looked up. Why was it he could only find the door knocker?
Liz said, "The Sobermans" before she answered the door. She was right. It was Irv and Natalie. Irv was a friend of Dale's and that's how Dale and Kathy were invited to the party. Natalie was a tall, showy redhead, noisy, wearing a leopard coat trimmed with a mink collar. Irv in his mid-thirties, looked trim. Both were extroverted.
The thing Natalie said was, "Are we late? We're always late."
"Yeah," echoed Mitch.
Natalie tossed off her coat revealing a mini-length harlequin-hemmed dress and black mesh hose. She appeared all legs-sexy legs.
"Hi!" Irv said, and planted a kiss on Liz's cheek, meanwhile squeezing her rump. Kathy, noticing Irv's hand caressing Liz's behind, was startled. In her crowd no man ever touched another man's wife especially in front of him. She looked at Dale to see what he thought but Dale chose to ignore it.
Liz closed the door and had to take a step to do it but Irv never took his hand from Liz's behind.
She looked meaningfully at Irv as she closed the door and said, "We have neighbors you know." Irv squeezed her behind with his other hand too.
"Neighbors?" he grinned. "Ask them over."
Liz did a good-natured quick turn to get out of his grasp and took Natalie's coat.
Irv spotted Dale and shook his hand. "Glad you could make it, Dale."
Dale responded with his most charming smile, "We wouldn't have missed it. Would we, Kathy?"
Kathy responded with a noncommittal smile. But when Irv extended his hand to her, she took it graciously and returned the handshake. . Irv studied Kathy admiringly as any man would look at a pretty girl. "It's a pleasure to meet you. And what a pleasure." He turned to Dale. "You didn't exaggerate. She's better than you deserve."
Dale's response was, "That's what she keeps telling me."
It was all gay and light but Kathy didn't feel that way. She had the eerie feeling that she was on the block. She wondered if she could talk Dale into leaving. She was uncomfortable.
She watched Liz go off to the bedroom with Natalie's coat. She liked Liz-she was the only one she liked. Liz had a quiet dignity. To Kathy, Liz seemed above everything that was happening. But what was happening? Nothing. Kathy didn't like it anyway.
Natalie had come to Kathy's side, "Hi," she said.
Kathy smiled back. Irv joined them and with his arm around his wife's waist said, "This is my better half, Natalie. This is Dale, the young man I told you about and his beautiful Kathy."
Kathy didn't miss Dale's eyes travel down Natalie's long legs. When she caught him doing it, he grinned. Kathy didn't like it but she affected a polite smile. They stood there self-consciously until Liz re-entered the room.
Natalie asked, "Where's the beast?" referring to Mitch.
"Dressing," Liz tossed off.
"What for?" asked Natalie innocently.
Liz shrugged.
Natalie ran her hand up her legs, straightening her stockings. "Hey," she said complaining. "I need a drink. I want a fancy one. A Mai Tai." , Irving nodded and went to the bar to fix her a drink.
Natalie, not content with the action, looked mischievously down the hallway to the bedroom door where Mitch was dressing. "I'll be back in a minute," she said, and off she went down the hall.
Again Kathy followed Dale's eyes glimming Natalie's legs as she walked off. There was a rhythmic beat to the backside too that topped off the picture.
Kathy's comment was, "She doesn't hide much, does she?"
Dale without missing a beat of the legs answered, "With legs like that, why should she?"
Kathy said succinctly, "If the skirt was an inch higher, she'd be arrested for indecent exposure."
Dale said, "Meow" and Kathy gulped down the rest of her drink.
"Let's get another drink," she said.
They walked to the bar where Irving was mixing drinks. Kathy and Dale put in their orders as Irv looked more at Kathy than he did at the mixings.
Liz worked her way to the bar and asked for any tall drink. Irving mixed it and Liz sipped, "Perfect. You should have been a bartender."
Irv shook his head negatively. "I've got enough troubles without listening to other people's."
Suddenly a squeal echoed from Mitch's bedroom. It automatically turned everyone around.
Mitch was hollering, "Cut it out, Natalie. You'll tear them." Then silence. Then Mitch squealed again, "Hey, you long-legged sex maniac."
Kathy searched Dale's face for some explanation. He only shrugged. , Irv barely looked up from his bartending to shout, "Mitch, you molesting my wife in there?"
Mitch shouted back, "Hell, no!"
Liz caught Kathy's eye and smiled reassuringly.
Irv shouted back, "Well, what are you waiting for-a written invitation?"
Kathy blinked at the surprising exchange. She had never experienced such talk. She couldn't imagine ever indulging in it with Dale. What if another woman would tear at Dale's shorts. She might shoot her. She glanced around surreptitiously. No one seemed concerned or even interested. She felt a panic well up in her. She'd have to get out of this room. She knew if she didn't she might say or do something stupid.
"Excuse me," she said and walked to the bedroom opposite where Mitch and Natalie were carrying on. Mitch was shouting threats now and Natalie was laughing. For a brief moment Kathy felt faint. She was frightened but she didn't want to think of why she was.
In the bedroom she just stood there looking into the mirror that reflected the lush surroundings. The telephone was cradled in the arms of a pink doll and she couldn't help pet it for a moment as if suddenly she had become a little girl again.
Irv had finished his bartending and oblivious to the squeals that were still going on asked in a practical voice, "Are Mike and Thelma coming?"
Liz seemed preoccupied. She was worried about Kathy. Irv had to repeat the question. She then said, "They have babysitter problems. Thelma called. But they'll work it out."
Irv was philosophic about it. "The whole world has babysitter problems-the result of the population explosion."
As a period to his sentence Mitch let out the loudest, shrillest shriek of all. They were still in the bedroom.
This time Liz seemed annoyed. "The party's in here Mitch. Here."
Kathy heard all this but it was as if she were deaf. She continued to fondle the doll and didn't even look in the direction of the sound.
Meanwhile Natalie walked out of the bedroom with Mitch about four paces in back of her. Mitch shouted at her, "Damn it. Give me those, Natalie. Those are my fun shorts."
Natalie was obviously holding something behind her back and grinning.
Mitch made a grab for the shorts Natalie had but she eluded him. Natalie ran to the group leaving Mitch in the semi-darkness at the head of the hallway. "If you want them so badly, come and get them," she said. She waved the shorts back and forth like a flag.
Mitch hesitated and stood nude from the waist down but obscured by the darkness. "Damn it. Either give them back to me or put them on."
Natalie gave him a Bronx cheer and said, "You're not getting them back because they're going into my collection. And these I earned."
Mitch came up and dashed back into the bedroom with his bare butt just discernible as he ran.
Irving smiled, "So soon? The evening hasn't even begun yet."
Natalie moved to the bar with her trophy and waved it victoriously in front of Liz. "Why, pray tell, should men collect all the souvenirs?"
A couple of minutes later Mitch came out with his trousers on. He glared at Natalie.
"Didn't I tell you," Irv said to Mitch, "she's a barracuda. You don't believe me."
Natalie only laughed.
Mitch had a complete change of mood and seemed to forget the whole thing. "How's it going, Irv?" he said. "How's the old jungle? The lions still tearing the wolves apart or vice-versa?"
"No, everything's surprisingly good." He knocked on wood. "In fact I got that toothpaste account I was telling you about. Let Colgate be nature's little helper."
"Great," Mitch said. "You know I have a theory that if you work hard and have a little mozel, everything good will eventually happen. Like with you."
"And," said Irv affectionately putting his arm around Natalie, "if you also have a healthy barracuda at home."
"Right," said Mitch. "When I lose faith and wonder what the hell I'm breaking my balls for, I think about Liz and I try harder."
Liz mixed herself another drink and said, "Boys, all this sentimentality is driving me to tears. Let's talk about the weather or politics."
"See," Irv said, "when you criticize, they get furious and when you compliment they want to change the subject. Einstein could figure out the fourth dimension but he couldn't figure out women."
"Look," Liz said. "Everything is timing. Men do everything right but at the wrong time."
"Where's Kathy?" Mitch asked, finally aware of her absence.
"Potty," Liz explained.
Dale, worried now, said casually, "I better get her or she'll be there all night."