A Matter of Love in da Bronx (25 page)

Mary was on her second cup of tea. She found it hard to concentrate on Gina's words. Before her, Sam's face in all its fury when she turned him down. Mary really wanted her solitude to reflect on the recent events in the deli, to rehash them over and over again, to wonder and to wonder and to wonder. But, she couldn't deny the intensity she also found in Gina's face, her voice, her movements. And when she talked about her need for sex! Lord! Like talking gourmet food to the starving! Could Gina guess she was a virgin with a mountain of wonderments, speculations and feelings about sex of her own? All this had to be shunted aside. Gina needed her more than she needed to analyze her own no-love life.

--Aunt?

--I'm not your aunt. Why do you insist on calling me ‘aunt'?

--Because I think I need an aunt more than I need a cousin. Haven't you been listening to me?

--Yes. I have. I may have an answer for you sooner than you expect.

--Like what? When? Something I should get excited about?

--Let's say I'm working on it. No promises. If it works out, fine. If it doesn't the disappointment won't even show.

--Aunt, you know what that means to me? Just that you have an interest, which you can sit and listen to me? I've no one else to talk to in the whole world; do you know what a difference that can make to someone like me?

--Tell me about it.

--What did you say?

--Nothing.

--I didn't hear you.

--You weren't supposed to.

--Oh! Okay. So? Heavy date tonight with Vito?

--I suppose you think that makes me lucky.

--Of course, any man is better than nothing. My doctor friend would say, `Better dyspareunia than no pareunia at all.' Dyspareunia means...

--...I know, painful intercourse. But I bet both you and he don't know that best of all is Parousia.

--Now what's Parousia?

--The Second Coming! Gina clapped her hands and shrieked.

--I love it! I wish I could tell him that! You see, we both knew we really wanted each other. He was very apologetic when he said his room at the hospital wasn't really very romantic, but it was there or no place. Hell! Compared to missing out, it was Paradise! Vito can't be all that bad.

--Vito is more painful than the wrong kind of intercourse in the wrong room in the wrong place.

--Then why go out with him? That's not like you. Do you make it with him?

--Do you mean...? Good Heavens! No! I told him to stop coming around, they--my folks-- make me go out with him. They get so abusive. They think he's some kind of millionaire businessman because he owns his own bakery and is going to dump a whole limousine load of dough--ahem--on them. I told him, he always smells like something that's always fermenting, so he loads himself with this cologne, so now he smells like a fermenting load of rotting flowers. He keeps asking me to marry him--sure, out of the frying pan into the baker's oven. I told him I'd never marry him, and I told him I was forced to go out with him. Do you know, he says it really doesn't bother him. He tries to stick his tongue in my mouth, and I spit in his face. He smokes those guinea stinkers, those little black bits of rope, so I tell him it's just like kissing a spittoon. He just laughs! Then tries to feel me up, to get in my blouse, or claw at my crotch. I tried to scare him off by saying I'd tell my parents just exactly what kind of a person he was, trying to take advantage of their daughter. Do you know what he said? I couldn't believe it! He said he already spoke to my folks and said they could be sure if I became pregnant he would marry me! And he said my father wanted to know what the hell he was waiting for! I think he's lying, but I wouldn't put it past them.

--Aren't you afraid he'll try to rape you, or something? I mean, a guy'll go along for just so long.

--He wouldn't dare! Once he tried to feel me up in the movies, I told him I had to go to the john. I got up and came home instead. Then, about a month ago we were having dinner at a restaurant--I think he was just sort of testing--and said he had reserved a motel room for later, so when I said I had to go to the john, this time he followed me right there. Know what I did? I stayed in there until he promised to take me right straight home. Now we have a truce: When he takes me out, all he gets is my company, and I get my parents off my back. He does have some spunk, though; he drew the line at us going Dutch...!

--Least you get out of the house...on a date, no less. She got up to get hot water for them.

Rose wondered what it would be like with Sam. She thought of Gina's description of the excitement she felt in anticipation of lovemaking. Vito was about as thrilling as a cotton ball. With Sam, there was that air of excitement both times she was to meet him. Then, last night in the deli, she couldn't explain how or why, but he made her feel...special. There was some kind of attraction, there was no question about that, yet...a feeling of impending doom, some harbinger of dark moments hung over their meeting, it seemed. Unshakeable. It wouldn't go away even when she admitted to herself that she would enjoy seeing him again, and again. The instinct to persevere was greater than her desire; she cut him off cold, then he came up with that wild notion that, if they were destined to be, nothing in the world could come between them. She expressed her ideas at lunchtime with Louisa, but her friend really had no room in her mind to give ear space to anyone. Louisa could only talk about her affair with Lou Harness, and what a wildly romantic combination they were. Simply, it was a contest between them to see who could fuck the brains out of the other. Louisa had found a way to slip in and out of her room, had done so, and had spent the whole and entire night in an atrociously excessive indulgence in venery. Rose could only quiet her by reminding Louisa of her insensitivity to the exiguousness of her own experience in such matters. Though reacting as if Rose was depriving her of further pleasure, she made the sacrifice and listened to her friend. The topic was Sam, the meeting in the deli, as well as the possible directions of a hypothetical relationship. Louisa expressed her feeling that one problem was simply that Rose was so indecisive. She escaped the responsibility of running her own life, her own self, by leaving the matter of Sam up to fate. Not worth a fart, Louisa said, and lunch was over. It was this that Rose thought about for the remainder of the afternoon, not the prize she would pick up at school that night for winning the design contest. Was she really by-passing her own responsibilities to herself? She really didn't know what to think. There was so much to be concerned about, more than worry, what complications he would bring into her world! Just too much. First, the feud; and even if that weren't to be considered, her parents would never approve for someone who worked for a salary over someone who ran his own business--like Vito, of course. The romantic factor in their lives could be measured in quantity of dollars. Vito over Sam for them, hands down. But there was bad blood between the families, and how could that ever, ever! Be resolved? It had been around too long. It would be confrontational every single time for every single moment they met, as well as when they were apart. Forget it! Who needs the hassle? Besides, nothing would come of it. How could it be otherwise? Destiny? Destiny! With a helping hand from Sam Scopia there would be destiny, no other way. His meaning of destiny would be, as he'd manage to arrange it. So, she made Louisa swear on the Holy Mother and promised to say the rosary while working that afternoon that she would never, ever in any way aid and abet Sam Scopia to arrange for the two of them to meet in some sort of deliberately arranged accidental way. Louisa teased her while promising, there was no need for collusion--Sam and Rose would meet. It was destined. They'd meet again. And again. Louisa asked forbearance for an addendum: Rose would have to give consideration to the deliberate shorting of her possibilities, and pre-ordained failure with such thoughts. If she conceived that Sam could orchestrate a `destined' meeting, then, even if a meeting should occur deemed by the Gods for happenchance such a meeting would forever be tainted by her own mistrust of her world. How could she be sure the next time she met Sam it was purely accidental? Easy, Rose replied, plumbing her intellectual heart, because when next she saw Sam, she'd know. She would just plain know. That left Rose with the whole entire afternoon to think about her seduction, and much later in the day, she surprised herself to realize, finally, that the man she was thinking about all the while was Sam. Would he gently ease her lips apart when he kissed her to send an avalanche of red-hot coursing sensations throughout her body? Would she welcome his searching, searing tongue implanting volcanic desire for him in her soul? How could her mind remain earthbound as he at first fondled her bosom, then traced with his tongue the circle around her nipple before he pulled it suckling soft into his mouth to make her heart race her pumping breath. Then, how would she receive him? What would his...organ be like? Some enormous, outrageous butt log? Would her hymen resist his advance? Would he resist her hymen, refusing to be the despoiler of her innocence? Or, would he barge on through to make her bleed, a testimony to their destiny? Are the sensations as exquisite as the porno flics depict while pubes bash and smash one into the other? And what of the orgasm? Is she to wait for some signal to come? What is the indication of the impending climax between them that brings on the eclipse of sun, moon, stars? Or, is there a natural, mutual harmony that brings them to a simultaneous, stupendous orgasm? And how often can it be done? Was it true that that was the only way it happened with lovers? As she remembered hearing from her parents' bedroom, the action was gruff, grunt and done. She heard, too, the ecstasy could be so intense one could scream the bloody hair off one's head. Was the orgasm brought on by fucking so much more than jerking off? If so...Oh! God! Why was the pleasure so long in coming to her? And then there was the lovely peace that supposedly befell lovers which... Ahhhhrrrr! You depraved, wicked girl! You would send your eternal soul to burning damnation! To cast aside the Kingdom of Heaven for a few moments of fleshly pleasure? To defy all you have been brought up and taught to be! To turn such teachings into excrement and befoul your soul. How worthless a being you have become! Say it! Say it! ...Our Father who art...pray for our sins, pray for our sins, pray for our sins... Get on your knees! Pray for forgiveness! Thank you. Thank you! --Thank you! What I'd really like to do with this check is turn it right back to the school for their scholarship fund considering all the years I've been granted the privilege of coming here to study. Perhaps one day I'll be able to do that, to repay in some small way the generosity shown to me; but I find...a much more pressing need for this prize. I want to thank the judges for selecting my work for this award...

--Rose! I think your award deserves a celebration.

--Amiel Goldberg, I do, too! A drink? You think?

--Naturally.

--Let the first drink then be truth serum. Now tell me, how many drinks?

--Until you get loose, drunk and willing.

--Why?

--So I can get you in a bedroom, on a bed, naked.

--And then?

--Then I would have my way with you.

--And after you would discard me?

--Yes.

--Until the next time?

--There would be no next time! You think I'm crazy? Besides, I want only virgin assholes.

--In that case, no thank you.

--Why?

--Why indeed! I understand getting laid with a circumcised prick is like getting fucked with a stick. What makes you think getting sodomized by you is so appealing?

--You think so little of yourself, you'll love the degradation. Besides, have you no sympathy for my hard-on?

--Indeed! My sympathy earns you my advice: Go jerk off.

--Things can't be so terrible, Rose, honestly, if you turn down two dates, even if one is from your married boss, and the other from this mysterious Sam, to go out with our hero, Vito. And where will you go with him?

--I don't know, Gina. Vito always asks if I want to go dancing, or to the movies or out to dinner, or any combination. I tell him I want him to save his money in case he finds someone who wants to marry him--maybe I'll chase him off--so I don't pick the movies if I can help it because I don't want to be that close to him for that long; the same for dancing; so, its dinner somewhere or other. I let him choose.

--What are you going to wear?

--I really feel like dressing up tonight. You know sometimes the easy way out. I feel--pretty. Yes! That's it! Do you ever feel pretty? I guess an owl can feel pretty. I want to respond to that feeling so it'll be my blue dress with the low front--the one with the belt that ties on the side; the matching high heels; and my pearl earrings. I'll wear my hair back, you know, I like to show neckline. I just want to...

--...drive him crazy...

--No. Honest. I'm not even thinking of Vito. Something unusual. I'm thinking strictly of myself. That's new for me. I find it refreshing! I want to look special.

--I'll help you with your hair, or your nails, if you've got the time.

You've got my number. I'll make the time. But, wait, Gina! Just a second. Rose stretched to reach her purse, and pulled it onto her lap. She buried one hand in it, then stopped. Gina, if you make me live to regret this moment, I'll never, never forgive you!

--I haven't laid a comb or a brush on you yet!

--Very funny. Your mind is always working. Now to me. I hope I'm doing the right thing...for everyone. We won't really know that, perhaps ever. I can only do what I think is right for this moment. Now don't get impatient, and let me finish. I want no harm to come to you, but, I see myself, and I want you to have a chance at what you want. No regrets, I never want to hear if you have any regrets about this moment.

--Okay, if you say so. What's this all about?

--This is our secret. I just got this today, tonight, after work. I won a prize for a design I created. It's not much, but it's all yours to do what you want. It's $250. A check. I'm endorsing it over to you. It's not a loan. This is a gift. I want you to take it freely, and use it freely. Besides, I don't want to hear of any repercussions. If I kept it, I'd only have to turn it over to them. That way I wouldn't even get enough for a pack of cigarettes out of it. Save it, spend it, whatever; but, if you're going to go away, I don't want to know anything about it. Leave a note, especially for them, so they don't scare up the police about you getting kidnapped or something. Deal?