Confessions of a Transylvanian (37 page)

Cast/audience hookups could happen in a lot of different ways. Yo
u’
d get introduced to another castmat
e’
s friend or the friend of a friend. Sometimes a girl or two would tag along with the cast over to Denn
y’
s and when the cast meeting was over, yo
u’
d meander past their booth to see if there was anyone willing to make it a late night. Or there would be an Orphanage party and at some point, usually around 3:30 or so in the morning, everyon
e’
s standards would begin to decline, lowering exponentially as morning approached. At these moments, girls had a time-honored tendency to do things they thought better of in hindsight. Lord knows I did.

I should also mention that, by this time, word had gotten around the cast that my real name was
n’
t “Jack.” (This was doubtless a direct result of my mothe
r’
s nefarious, behind-the-scenes plotting.) As they learned my birth name, the cast member
s’
reactions varied from “Who cares?” to “What kind of idiot would do a thing like that?” to “Kevin? Seriously? Tha
t’
s the dorkiest name I ever heard. I do
n’
t blame you.” But there was another side effect:

As I made my determined way through the various Rocky fans who came to the show aiming to copulate with one of the players (and I was pretty determined, no question), a strange thing started to occur. The minute we finished up one of our trysts, each of the girls would immediately and absolutely refuse to call me “Jack” from that moment forward. I do
n’
t know if calling me by my real name made them feel closer to me or if it made them feel less trashy, but it was as if they had all made some secret pact that the use of my Rocky name was
verboten
once we had knocked boots.

Pretty soon, news of
that
development had also spread through the cast and Sunday, in particular, took careful notice. She would pretend to become incensed every time a new girl showed up calling me “Kevin.” Rolling her eyes in disgust, she would turn to me and say, “Jesus, Jack. You nailed
another
one? Give it a fucki
n’
rest before it falls off.”

I was not inclined to give it a rest. By any means. Which brings me back to Dorothy.

Dorothy was an interesting case, to say the least. She had no subtlety and did
n’
t play coy, girly games. So what made her so memorable? Well, it was
n’
t that she was more mature or grown-up than the other Rockettes. No way. She was clearly as shallow as a puddle on a pool deck. But
I’
ll say this for her:

The girl knew what she wanted.

The particular evening
I’
m talking about, which was around Thanksgiving of 1982, what she wanted was: me.

We had finished up the show and were hunkered down at Denn
y’
s, taking part in our usual post-show confab. Dorothy, I noticed, had planted herself in a booth across from the cast table with three or four of her friends. She was making no secret of the fact that she was appraising me the way a hungry lion eyes a limping gazelle.

She was a tiny little thing, a good six inches shorter than I was, with dark-brown hair cropped short. Yo
u’
d look at her and think, “gymnast.” Or, rather, “slutty gymnast.” She wore a black choker around her neck that looked remarkably like a dog collar, and offset her freckled, youthful face by encircling her eyes with enough liner to alarm a raccoon.

Those eyes kept flashing over to me and that was all the signal I needed.

When the evening finally wound down, I stood up to go talk to her, but she and her friends were already walking out the door. I did
n’
t pursue them and, to be honest, I almost wrote her off, thinking she was just a tease or, worse, that she was somehow intimidated by me.

I flatter myself with this assumption. I was, I knew, about as intimidating as a sleepy kitten.

So I was surprised to hear a sharp knock on the restaurant window, looked up and found her standing outside the front window of the Denn
y’
s, one hand cocked on her hip, looking impatient and motioning for me to come outside.

I was out the door like a shot.

She looked a little pissed as I trotted up to her.

“I thought you were gonna follow me out,” she said. “What happened?”

I was
n’
t sure how to answer. “Well, you…you looked like you were leaving, so...” And tha
t’
s about all I had.

“You always give up so easily?”

“No!” I said, defensively. “I really do
n’
t. I just...”

She cut me off. “So you want my number or not?” She had a real gift for getting to the point.

“Sure!” I said, maybe a little too enthusiastically. “Tha
t’
d be great.”

“Okay.” She waited a second or two and then frowned a bit. “You planning to get a pencil or something?”

“Oh, right,” I said, and then realized I had nothing of the kind on my person.

Seeing that I was clearly incapable of anything so complicated as actually
writing something down
, she whipped open her purse and plunged in her hand. Rooting around for a moment or two, she pulled out a tube of something and turned back to me.

“Give me your arm.”

“My...my what?”

“Your
arm
. Give it to me.”

Reluctantly, I offered her my right arm. She pushed up my shirtsleeve and, pressing the tube to my forearm, started to write.

It was at this moment that the smell hit me and I realized what she was using as a pen.

Somehow or other, in lieu of putting her hands on an actual writing implement, this young lady had instead fished out of her bag a tube of cherry-flavored sex cream (complete with glitter!) and was using it to jot her name and number on my outstretched forearm.

And I, to my utter bafflement, was letting her.

She finished up and looked with a critical eye at her handiwork.

“Can you read that?”

Scrawled up my arm in glittery translucent goo was the name “DOROTHY” and a ten-digit phone number. I was pretty sure I could make it out.

“Yeah,
I’
ve got it.”

“Good.” She grinned. “Do
n’
t lose it.”

Then she reached out, grabbed me by the back of the head and pulled me down to her face. Our lips met briefly and she jammed her tongue so far down my throat that ther
e’
s a good chance it poked out the other end.

Then, before I could say, “What does my lower intestine taste like?” she was gone.

I staggered back inside, a little unfocused from the experience. Finding my mental balance, I quickly borrowed a pen from one of the waitresses and transferred the phone number from my arm to a napkin, all the time wondering if calling this crazy tramp would be a good idea.

Steve, who had seen me follow her out into the parking lot, sidled up to me.

“So, how did that go?” he asked, clearly hoping for a good story.

I was
n’
t sure how to answer.

“I do
n’
t know,” I said at last. “I guess w
e’
ll see.”

I’
m not big on the psychological games involved in courting rituals. You know what I mean. Variations of the “Do
n’
t call her for two-and-a-half days and then only after 2:00 in the afternoon, and when you do, act like yo
u’
re really bored and then leave her alone for a week.” Not much point to it, I figure. So, to get things rolling fast, I called her just a few minutes after I woke up that Sunday (which was around noon). To my great surprise, she answered almost immediately.

“Yeah?”

“Um...is this Dorothy?”

“Tha
t’
s me. Wh
o’
s this?”

“This is Jack? We met last night? At the Rocky show?” I do
n’
t know why I was talking in questions. It was just happening.

“Oh right. You were the wheelchair guy in the show, right?” I had played Dr. Scott the previous evening, so she was right about that. I was, indeed, “the wheelchair guy.”

“Right.” There was a pause. And then there was another one. I decided to break the awkward silence with another, “Right.” I was really dazzling her here with my verbal acuity.

“So,” she said after about a half hour or so. “You want me to come over?”

That was the problem with my home phone. It was always making the oddest noises.

“
I’
m sorry...what?”

“Well, you called. I figured you might want me to drop by. You interested?”

I guess the phone was working fine.

“Uh...sure. Absolutely.”

“Sweet.” Another silence. Then she said, “You want to tell me where you live?”

“Oh, of course. Sure.” I rattled off the address.

“See you soon.”

“Wait!” I hollered before she could hang up. “Listen, can it be around 7 or so? My...” I could
n’
t say “mother.” “My
roommate
goes to work then. Is that...cool?”

“Okay. See you then.”

I started to hang up, but then I heard her say, “Oh, hey!”

“Yeah?”

“Wha
t’
s the name again?”

“Jack.
I’
m Jack.”

“Jack. Right. Okay,
I’
ll see you later.”

I spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready. I was
n’
t sure what for, exactly, but I wanted to be prepared for anything. The first order of business was to get rid of my brother so I could have the house to myself, but he had plans anyway (there was a big smokeout party at the house of a stoner friend of his) so that was no problem. My mother would leave for work at about 5:00 and
I’
d have a couple of hours to contemplate the possibilities.

The key would be: Assume nothing. Maybe she was looking to come over and mess around. Maybe she wanted to get to know me, watch some TV, go swimming in the pool. It could be anything. Do
n’
t count on this being anything more than what it was: a visit. Tha
t’
s all.

David left. My mother left. I was left to myself, with nothing better to do than anticipate my visitor.

After an hour or so, I realized that the time seemed to be crawling by, so I turned on the television to keep myself distracted. As a result, I did
n’
t hear the car pull up at 7 and about jumped out of my skin when Dorothy knocked on the door.

I would have preferred answering the door
without
my heart leaping out of my chest, but it was not to be.

“Hey,” I said as I stuck my head out. “You made it.”

She had changed her look, opting to switch from Teen Slut to a very convincing Pat Benatar impersonation, which was all the more compelling given her small stature. She had dabbled some white base on her face and slashed it with some dark-red blush, but also tinted her hair, which looked even shorter than I remembered it.

As she had made clear the evening before, she was all business.

“Of course I did,” she said. Then, after a pause: “You planning to invite me in?”

“Sure, sure,” I said, stepping aside and ushering her into the living room. She looked around, but did
n’
t seem to take in anything. The surroundings were, it appeared, beside the point.

“Can I get you something?” She turned and looked at me with an odd expression on her face. “W
e’
ve got...soda. Beer, even, if you want one.” My mother drank this awful, low-cost beer. Dorothy might opt for one, but I suspected that she would
n’
t be all that thrilled if she did.

“
I’
m good,” she said. And again she looked around. “Which wa
y’
s the bedroom?”

“The...?” It was
n’
t possible sh
e'
d said “bedroom” less than one minute in the door, so I assumed she had
n’
t.

“Bed. Room,” she repeated carefully, as if to a dimwit. “Which way?” There was a very slight edge of impatience in her tone, which was disconcerting.

I leaped into action.

“Right...um...right this way.” I started down the hallway to my room and she followed closely. I walked into my room and sort of vaguely gestured around. “This is it.”

“Nice,” she said in a tone that indicated that she thought it was anything but. “You mind if we keep the light off?”

“It does
n’
t...bother me, no.” She reached over and flicked the wall switch and the room was plunged into darkness.

I sensed, but did
n’
t see, that she had taken a step toward me so I did the same. I put up my right hand and found her shoulder and the moment I did so, I felt her hands slip around my neck and pull my face down again.

Our lips met and she started kissing me. And I know it should have been great. Wonderful, even. I mean, this was instant sex. How cool was that?