Chapter 10
Maurice stared at the fading green of the campus lawn, dotted with fallen brown leaves. The year was nearing its end ... he tried to recapitulate what he had gained since last New Year's Eve.
He trudged along a row of dead flowers near a hedge that -rimmed the side yard. What have I accomplished? I worked and lectured and graded papers until my eyes bulged. In fact he knew the same process had been going on for a quarter-century and it was certainly time for him to change the pace. Everyone deserved a bit of fun. Maurice was glad that he had gotten emotionally close to these kids even though it meant seduction and now a sad, trying moment with Korin.
The purity of the white clouds framed her as she stood dejectedly before him on the knoll, her young curves out-lined above the horizon. She refused to look at him.
"Korin, you're taking this much too seriously. Other girls have been suspended and lived through it-by hook or crook." He frowned at the suitcase propped beside her low-heeled shoes. "I wish I could talk you into staying."
"You sound like pious Mr. Fedorhall."
"He's the dean. A lost student makes him appear inept. I hate to see you ruin your attitude on life, going sour-"
"No one at this college understands the truth."
"Truth?"
"We coeds have tempers, Maurie, and a lot of pride. Do you think I'd sit back while Genevieve or the dean go around slurring my name? Suspension. Crap! He knows where he can shove his stupid rule."
Korin looked delicious in the linen suit and round straw hat; he knew by her jouncy movements that she wore nothing more than a half-slip underneath. He drifted nearer to her but she grabbed the suitcase and backed away. "I suppose you want to be friends all of a sudden."
"Please don't leave with the idea I squealed on you. You kids are like my daughters, because I never had any of my own. I'd die before I'd hurt you."
"Someone ratted on me." He pinched his brow and forehead with his fingers, then gazed numbly at her. They had disciplined her for drinking and staging a too-wild party in the dorm. Luckily the dean had glossed over any mention of lesbian activity. As it was, his implications had been enough to enrage Korin and she was enroute back to her parents. She would probably fade away from home, also, because the world of offbeat sex lured her irresistibly.
"Believe whatever you want to believe," he said. "I thought we could part as friends."
"You acted so nice and clean at first, didn't you? It was a pose. Just like the other hypocrites around here, you talked about dignity and friendship and then you got me in the hay. After that I'd had it."
"Korin-"
"Oh, keep quiet!" she sobbed. "I'm leaving the whole rotten place of Milltown U. and you're included!"
Shame saddened him as the girl strode off toward her car on the Boulevard. Of course she was disillusioned. But he felt unjustly branded as a seducer, without being given a fair trial in her mind. The way these teenage babes paraded semi-nude around town and throughout the campus, he found it surprising how few rapes occurred. Korin was far from angelic. She had virtually asked him to sleep with her on the beach that day-so he merely consented as a gentleman would.
He sighed, wandering across the yard to the faculty parking lot. Rationalization did not ease his doubts or sense of guilt where his lust was concerned. But very few men could live as a recluse in a cell, in this day and age of sex filling the air they breathed.
Maurice decided to enjoy a few beers at the Diamond later that night. He drove alone down the highway until he reached the cafe, a stone and oak building set back from traffic and nestled near a miniature golf course. He strode jauntily into the dining room of the Diamond. Money was no object to him, as it rarely had been, and he ordered the best whiskey for his boilermaker mix when the waitress arrived at his table.
Somehow he could think problems out with such a night club aura around him. He squinted in the dull light and smelled the clothing and perfume of other patrons enjoying their cocktails.
The jazz combo increased its beat onstage. Trixie, a platinum blond whom Maurice had seen before, waltzed to her position in the spotlight. He smiled at her and she acknowledged with a wink. Trixie ran the Connecticut strip circuit up to New London and then south again, returning each weekend to her musician husband in the Bronx.
Tonight she wore a luminescent, leopard skin outfit that was tight enough to have been tattooed on her very skin. Maurice gulped with flickering passion as the dancer tossed her long hair and interpreted the African jungle music. Off came the dress and stockings. Her yellow body shone with rippling nudity under the light which probed each luscious part of her.
He thought about Ida and about his wife, Ellen. Things had gotten so mixed up ... did he love both of them or just one-or neither? The choice was a hell of a thing to make. He studied the contours revealed by Trixie as she danced and sat on a chair and hoisted her legs at the audience. The blond was naked except for a thin G-string and two pasties on her breasts. They were mountainous and high, those professional breasts, which she aimed like guns under her chin.
She attached balsa propellors to her breast-ends and stood up. The piano thundered while she rotated, jumping up and down, grinning as the propellors spun in crazy circles before her mammary delights.
And yet he felt jaded with the sight. The decision he must bring to fruition involved his happiness and the future of two women. You couldn't take that lightly. The ramifications and dangers were so vital that he considered the witnessing of a total strip paltry by comparison. A hush fell over the crowd in the Diamond-Trixie bowed while exiting.
He ground his cigaret out and quaffed the rest of his beer with an impatient gulp. Grimly he saw that no one could help him plot the course of action. Ida was his for the taking. Her sister would not condone any trysts, though, and dealing with Sue might throw a monkey wrench into the entire schtick.
He went home to his quiet Cape Cod dwelling in the suburbs. Ellen was asleep and he eased under the blanket, torpored by the alcohol, swiftly losing his senses as he reveled in a sexy dream.
After breakfast he rode downtown toward the bus route where Uncle Wilbur had his run. Maurice parked at a meter and then waited at the corner stop. Sometimes it helped when another man's viewpoint crashed into your ideas and thoughts. Soon the bus roared up to the pole, stopped, and welcomed Maurice inside its yawning door.
Uncle Wilbur smiled, pursing his wrinkled lips. "All aboard, son."
He eased up onto the first step but was startled by the squeak of the accordion-type door as it closed halfway. Then Wilbur chuckled and hit a lever which opened the way again.
"Scared you, didn't I? Let's get moving or I'll be late."
"I wanted to ask your advice on something," Maurice said as he got seated. "Shoot."
"Ellen and I have been arguing quite a bit lately. For no special reason. Maybe your long experience would lead you to recommend a solution."
"Could be."
The engine droned beneath them as the codger guided his bus slowly through heavy traffic. He seemed to have been expecting such a question. "Maurie, you're what they call middle aged. The profitable years in a guy's life, when he's young enough so he don't get pushed around and old enough to produce from knowledge. But his marriage suffers. The wife gets on his nerves, and vice versa."
"You think we're seeing too much of each other."
"Not exactly. You just have more leisure time to bug one another. Put her into a hobby or social work that'll sweeten her disposition."
"I tried that. She still picks on little things ... and she suspects me."
"Of what?"
"Cheating."
Wilbur stared at Maurice for a moment, wisely refraining from asking whether it was a valid suspicion. He seemed to know. "Then go out on trips, alone. You decide how long the trips should be. Otherwise I don't know what to tell you, son, because I'm a grizzled bachelor who never went for women anyhow."
Their conversation continued, with a few more sage suggestions by Wilbur-all of which Maurice had already tried with his spouse. When the bus circled around to Nutmeg Avenue where his auto was parked, he saw the futility of seeking outside help. The quandary had left him to his own resources.
After his final English period in the university, he returned home feeling tired. Ellen pounced on him as he entered the parlor.
"You left your fishing pole and a can of worms in the basement. I had one rough time cleaning it. Absent-minded again, prof?"
"Sorry about that."
"How emotional of you. I accidentally squashed a worm under my shoe, and Alexander started to eat the slimy things."
"Dogs will be dogs." He removed his raincoat and slumped into the couch, seizing the newspaper. "We have a date for the theater tonight."
"I can't go while this headache is killing me. Wipe your feet, dear. You've tracked mud and rain right across the parlor."
He resisted the urge to call her a pain in the rear, picking at him again for petty things. Ever since the time she had cavorted in a risque manner with John DiCauslow at the party, Ellen had been behaving oddly. Was it possible ... Maurice made a disgusted face and buried himself in the paper. Cripes, it was time to call the men with the white coats when he started thinking she could submit to that kid and shack up with him. An utterly ridiculous concept.
Maurice scanned the movie page. One film was advertised as a shocker-See the amazing saga of this man, torn between love for his wife and a sensuous young mistress-
He glanced up, hearing his stomach churn with hungry, stifled cries. "What's for supper, dear?" he asked.
Ellen squirted liquid cleanser on the window pane and then began rubbing with a rag. The glass squeaked under her touch. "Let's starve for a change and bypass the whole meal. Eating is so realistic. Instead of adults living by realism, why not exist in the idealist world of teen-agers? Let romance and moodiness rule us."
"You sound drunk when you talk like that. I had a hard day-"
"I really do think you've lost your sense of humor. How's Yvette, by the way? The girl you talk about so often, now that Ida went out of vogue."
"For Pete's sake!" He stormed to his feet and walked along the wall until he reached her side. "I haven't mentioned you and that punk kid, John, have I?"
"You'd jolly well best notl"
"Answer my question about supper."
"Hamburgs, darling." She snorted and then laughed as he grabbed the rag out of her hand and whirled her around. "Maurice cut out the caveman stuff and act nice."
"I'm doing whatever is humanly possible to make a go of it. With you and me, that is. You create disputes out of our finances, my habits, the affair you've imagined-"
"As long as the cards are on the table, explain to me where you've been for the past week. Out every night and coming in half tanked up!"
"Yesterday I had an innocent shot of whiskey and beer at the Diamond."
"How convenient. I guess the tutoring of deficient coeds has lost its glamor. Or has it?"
He threw his hands up in despondency. "We're ranting at our problems instead of about them. You must be tired, Ellen. I'll fix the hamburgs so you won't have to strain yourself." He enjoyed seeing her eyes become slits of anger. When common sense lost its power to move her, sarcasm and abuse could be counted on to shake her up.