Chapter 7

Kathy suddenly felt Mitch would be aware of her silence. She didn't want him to think she wasn't trying. She lifted a silver-frame photograph from the table and studied it.

Mitch immediately took his hand off her shoulder and said proudly, "That's my son."

"He's a fine looking boy. I like him right from his photograph. How old is he?"

"He'll be sixteen next month."

Suddenly Kathy was hit by a terrifying thought. "What happens if everything is happening here and suddenly he walks in. My, that would be terrible."

Mitch smiled calmly. "He's away at military school in Oceanside."

Irv who had been sulking a few feet away overheard Mitch and said, "No plebian public-school for Mitch Burnett's pride and joy."

Mitch sparked to the challenge, "You're damn right. I'm not having my kid's mind poisoned by a bunch of left-wing pinko teachers." Mitch's face got red.

The music stopped and Mitch got up to put a new record on the turntable. He turned to Natalie and Dale who had stopped dancing but were still enfolded in each other's arms.

"Just play something slow and sexy," Natalie purred. "I think I'm beginning to turn this rooster on. I don't want to spoil the mood."

Irv looked disgusted. "I don't have a wife. I have a sex maniac. Pant for the folks, darling."

Natalie continued looking into Dale's eyes. "Pay no attention to him. I was once pure as the white driven snow, that is until that fiend led me into a life of sin."

Dale now fit comfortably into this new society. He only grinned and asked, "Are you sorry you're a sex maniac?"

Natalie's answer was done to a grind into his pelvic region, "I keep fighting it but what can I do?"

Dale's answer was obvious. "I like the way you fight."

Mitch found an album he liked and spun it. Natalie and Dale went back to dancing slowly about the floor. Mitch went back to Kathy, sat down and continued from where he had left off. "Just wait until your kids come home with this one-world integration crap. Public schools! You know what they are-public cesspools."

Kathy didn't like the turn of the conversation. She didn't follow politics very closely. She wished Mitch would go back to playing the boy-girl game with her. She had to say something. "I went to a public school. I think some of them are good."

Irv, watching them, could see Kathy was out of her element. He came in like a gladiator on horseback. "Save it, Kathy. Mitch is an ironclad reactionary. A typical Wasp."

Mitch took umbrage at the remark especially with Kathy paying rapt attention. He said, bitterly, "You forgot to add bigot."

"All right," Irv obliged, "bigot."

"Okay, okay," Mitch said," at least I'm not a fuzzy-headed social reformer blind to all facts."

Irv kept needling him, "Glad to see you're getting something out of those Birch meetings."

Mitch believed deeply in his theories. "You watch. People are fed up. One of these days the turn of events will startle you. There's going to be a real house-cleaning."

Irv, who wasn't taking any of it seriously, looked around the room and with a twinkle in his eyes said, "If there's going to be any housecleaning, they'll start with this one."

Liz was amused by this banter. She had heard it before. But now she felt it was out of place at a party where politics and religion didn't belong. "Oh, can it Mitch," she said. "Your pretty little companion doesn't want to hear those things. Why don't you whisper tender little words to her?"

Natalie chimed in, "Yeah, Mitch. You take everything too seriously. That is, everything but sex."

Mitch had to have the last word. "You all give me a pain. Only interested in your own little needs and problems. There'll be a day of awakening."

Liz tried to wrap it up for Kathy: "Mitch and Irv are always arguing. If they couldn't fight they'd be miserable."

Irv held out his arms. "Come here, Liz. I'll show you why I'm really here."

But Liz did a side-step and went right to the bar. She said to Natalie, "Well, I suppose if they were any smarter they wouldn't have married us. Right?"

Natalie laughed. "Right."

Kathy, getting Mitch's full attention again, asked him wide-eyed, "Are you really a member of the Birch Society? I heard someone say that." Kathy found all this so strange. She was warned there'd be a wild party. Well, when? She was starting to get sleepy from the booze. She reminisced. She had been to just one wild party in her life. Not like this-something planned. No, this was a wild party that just got that way.

It was a high school graduation party. Kathy had come without a date because her date had become sick at the last minute. That made her very popular because there were several stags. She was dancing steadily with no rest. It began to get tedious so when one of the boys asked her to sit one out in the gardens she was happy to.

She remembered perfectly. His name was William and he ran on the track team. He was slim and tall and quite good-looking. They sat on a bench and William kissed her several times which she found pleasant. Then a teammate of William's, Judd Bernard, came by and he joined them even though William complained about it.

The boys were very jealous of each other and when Judd kissed her, William punched him and it became a brawl. Kathy tried to separate them and got her dress torn and a bruise on her cheek for her trouble. When she started to sob, it stopped the fight and the boys said they were real sorry and would get the mother of the hostess to fix Kathy's dress.

She got into a little sewing room with the mother with the boys waiting outside the door. She had her dress off when the mother went to get another spool of thread. The boys boldly walked in. They were wrestling when the mother came back. She stopped them and said she was shocked and Kathy was crying again.

Then William took her in his arms and tried to pacify her. Judd got jealous and the fight started all over again. The mother tried to stop them and got her dress torn and before you knew it the four of them were rolling around on the carpeted sewing room floor.

Kathy discovered in the midst of it her panties were half torn off with everything showing.

When William's hands grabbed her there it made her very excited. He dragged her off into a large closet, while Judd and the older woman made love on the floor. Then Judd wanted Kathy and when she refused he forced her anyway. William then went to the mother. Soon they were all together in one white mass of bodies.

Kathy never forgot it. She was ashamed of it but she got a little thrill every time she thought of it. That was the only time she had ever made love in front of anyone. Now she wondered what would happen. The thought inspired many emotions.

She was shaken out of her reverie by Irv saying to her, "Are you kidding? Mitch is a joiner. The Elks, Monday; The Legion, Tuesday; Birchers, Wednesday; PTA, Thursday and the Little League on weekends. Friday is our night."

It made Mitch very angry. "Very funny! You just keep laughing. When the spooks and commies break loose you'll be the first one here to borrow a gun from me."

Irv continued to needle. "I hope you keep your guns loaded, Mitch."

Kathy sat in the middle of the exchange not understanding why Mitch would react so violently. He was right. All she was concerned with was Dale's need and her needs and their problems.

Mitch said heatedly, "You bleeding-heart-liberals make me sick. It's nothing to joke about, Soberman. When the great unwashed take over you'll be the first ones to get it in the neck. You damn Hebes are all alike. You can't leave well enough alone."

Irv had heard it all before and he was just ribbing Mitch for the fun of it. "Being a Hebe is an ethnic handicap, Mitch. It causes us to pull for the underdog."

Mitch reacted to that. "Underdog! Anybody with an ounce of guts and willing to work can make it in this country. Nobody handed me what I've got on a silver platter. I work damn hard for what I have."

"We can't all have Horatio Alger style," Irv answered.

Mitch held Kathy's hand and looked at her for support. He said to her, "How can you win? How can you reason with a Hebe?"

Kathy didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings and frankly didn't quite know what they were talking about anyway. "Why," she tried to placate, "don't you discuss other things?"

Irv answered, "Because Mitch has class. He likes to talk about the important things."

Liz echoed, "Yes, Mitch has class. I ought to know. I'm his wife."

Natalie warned her, "Don't get involved with those two. Let them fight it out between them."

Irv waved his arms grandiloquently, "It's all right. I can take care of myself with Mitch. Remember, I asked for it. What started him is when I called him a Wasp. Isn't that right, Mitch?"

Mitch said disgustedly, "What's the sense of talking?"

"Right," answered Irv. "So there's one way of settling this. Let's see what kind of men we are. When we retire to our separate rooms with our girls, let them tell honestly how good a lover we both were-how often, too! Let's prove superiority that way. Do you accept my challenge? Let's say for $100?"

"You have a deal," Mitch said. "The girls will have to swear to tell the truth. Right, girls?" They all nodded.

"Now the party's getting interesting," Irv said.

Natalie answered, "I'll drink to that."

Liz said, "Now I want you fellows to shake hands and no more bickering. Okay?"

Mitch and Irv shook hands while the others stood by grinning. Mitch said, "Finally we got a game I can beat you at and give you a handicap if need be."

"We'll see," Irv said smugly.

Liz said, "I'm in favor of such a contest. It's better than trying to solve the world's problems."

Natalie stopped dancing with Dale for a moment and said, "What is it with everyone tonight? It's depressing. I thought we were here to ball it up!"

That remark automatically riveted eyes on Kathy. She met the crisis head on, "All right, what time does the orgy start? I'm getting impatient."

When no one answered out of pure surprise, Kathy went on, "That is the diea, isn't it? A nice sociable sex orgy?"

Dale stopped dancing to say to Kathy in a modulated voice, "Take it easy, darling."

Kathy bridled, "Why? If we're going to have an orgy, let's have it. What's everyone waiting for? I want to get laid." She drank the rest of her drink down.

"You know," Irv said, "the lady has a point."

"I have a point and an empty glass." Kathy held it out and Mitch took it to the bar for a refill.

Dale eased his way over to Kathy and whispered, "Better go slow on those drinks, Kathy."

Kathy looked at him innocent-eyed. "Why? You said I should have fun and I'm having fun. Nothing wrong in that, is there?"

At the bar Natalie said to Mitch, with a gesture, "Look at those two-virgins!" She said it with disdain.

"Well," Liz answered, "I was one once."

Natalie's drunken answer was, "Me too, I mean I am too-someplace."

She latched on to Dale and pulled him away from Kathy. "I'm lonesome," she complained. "Why did you leave me?"

"Because," answered Dale, "I needed a drink."

"No," Natalie corrected, "because you're afraid your sweet little wife will disgrace you. Don't you worry. She's the hit of the party. These guys are drooling over her."

Dale liked that and he didn't like it. Why in hell did he get himself in such a situation. He should have left Kathy home, found another girl and come to the party. This way it was all mixed up and he was worried about Kathy. She couldn't handle herself, especially with drinks in her.

He held Natalie and danced with her.

"That's better," she said dreamily and rested her head on his chest.

He liked the smell of her perfume and he didn't mind giving her a good boff. This was just business. But if he had his choice it would be Kathy over any of them. He loved her.

And now his conscience hurt.