The American Princess - Best Love Story Ever (13 page)

O'Hara, Brad's height but beefier, moved into
Brad's space. "Shove off, Raiden!" he snarled. Then he turned to
Betty-Jo. "B-J, you're comin' with me!"

The
Real Enemy

"Men only want one thing from a woman,"
Felicity's mother had told her—not once, but many times. But men's
obsession with sex didn't bother Felicity—what troubled her was
their cruelty. She despised their desire to control, to manipulate,
and to humiliate women. It was all spelled out in Kate Millett's
'Sexual Politics', her mother's bible. One passage, from a Henry
Miller novel, was especially revealing. It described how a man
could achieve an 'impersonal fuck' by having as little contact with
the woman as possible, and by never looking at her face. The 'cold
fuck' was achieved by 'back-scuttling'. The approach used was to
'get her half asleep, her blinders on...sneak up on her, slip it
into her while she's dreaming.'

"Are all men that inhuman?" Felicity
asked.

"The good ones are," Katherine replied. "The
spiteful ones also beat you. A war's being waged against women. We
fear and live an abuse by men that's both psychological and
physical."

Felicity was intelligent and attractive. She
had her sights set on getting away from the drabness of Riverton
Springs and onto Wall Street. She saved, Katherine saved, and with
hard work, she won a scholarship. Felicity Ready was off to
college.

In 1978, Felicity's sophomore year, she was
finally beginning to push Christian Paris—a year earlier he had
been reported missing in action—into a corner of her mind. She
would have stayed away from men a while longer had it not been for
Terrence Spratt. Terry sat behind her in her English lecture hall.
He gave her back rubs, and told her how beautiful she was.
Actually, it was even better than that.

"Felicity," he said, "you're the prettiest
swan on the pond." That was sufficient to give her a serious liking
for him.

She knew that Terry would never be her soul
mate—he wasn't bright enough. 'The wheel's still turning, but the
hamster's dead' was her assessment. However, Terry was fun, and he
could dance. On their first and only date, he took her to his
fraternity party where the evening passed quickly in his arms.

Felicity's first drink put her at ease, and
with her second she was feeling light headed and having fun. After
her fifth drink she didn't remember much. She did remember going to
lie down but could recall nothing after that. She was later told
that she had become the life of the party.

At class on Monday, everyone seemed to have a
print of her sitting on a couch, stark naked, holding a drink in
one hand, and some guy's equipment in the other. It wasn't a pretty
picture.

Terry told her, "I couldn't believe the
change in you. My frat buddies had told me I'd have to put your
panties in the freezer just to warm you up. Were they wrong!
Everybody had a ball skinny dipping with you."

"Please Terry," she pleaded between sobs.

"Don't you 'please Terry' me—I knew you
weren't the sharpest tool in the shed, but who knew you were the
hoe?"

She became known around campus as Gooden
Ready.

That was the last time Felicity dated for
eight years. She had been an equity-feminist before she met Terry,
but her ordeal with him flung her headlong into the
radical-feminist camp.

Three years at college gave her an
undergraduate degree in psychology and women's studies. It was in
her women's studies classes that, for the first time, she fully
understood the extent to which women are entrenched in a gender war
in which their psychological and physical violation is the norm.
She learned that consensual sex and rape were virtually the same
thing, and that marriage was a license given to men so they could
legally rape women. She learned that from time immemorial, men had
schemed to get women into bed. Virgin sacrifices to the volcano
gods were simply a male ploy to keep each new crop of recently
fertile women eager. After all, what woman in her right mind wanted
to be a virgin come sacrifice time?

It was obvious to her that nothing had
changed since the days of virgin sacrifices. Studies on the plight
of women in the areas of rape, battery, eating disorders, and wage
differentials underscored the oppressive, patriarchal, sex-gender
system that men perpetrated on women. One study showed that 675,000
rapes occur annually in the United States, that battery of women
was responsible for more birth defects than all other causes
combined, and that 150,000 women died each year of anorexia, in
excess of three times the annual number of fatalities from traffic
accidents.

Despite the reasons she had to despise men,
it was women who became the primary focus of her anger. She
concluded that the major problem for the women's movement was the
stupid or misguided women who cooperated with men to push women
back into the subservient roles of servants, sex objects, or wives.
Somehow, those traitors to the cause had to be stopped.

A Love
for Eternity

Betty-Jo was incensed. "I'm not going
anywhere with a wart hog like..."

Brad interjected. "There seems to be a
misunderstanding here. I thought B-J was my date. But perhaps we
can settle this amicably. What say the guy who gets the best result
on the StrongMan gets her for the rest of the evening?"

"The hell he does!" She tried to get away,
but Brad still had a firm hold on her blouse. Then, abruptly, she
was upside down, hanging over his shoulder. With an easy, flowing
gate, he carted her toward the StrongMan. She yelled and fought, as
best she could, given that she didn't want to drop I Love Only You
Brad, but he was gripping her so tightly that she could hardly
move.

"O'Hara," Brad said, "you go first. I'll hold
the prize."

"The what!" she hollered. O'Hara laughed.
"You won't think it's so funny when you're burning in hell!" A
crowd had gathered, because of the commotion she was creating.

"Betty-Jo," Brad said, "hush up, or I'll have
to put you over my knee in front of all these people." He put her
down, but maintained a resolute hold on her.

When Jim Bob picked up the mallet, Betty-Jo
felt a rush that was almost thrilling. It is kind of exhilarating
having two guys compete for me.

Jim Bob positioned the mallet to strike his
blow for her. Then, as the crowd pressed forward, Brad put his arm
around her waist, and walked away with her.

She looked at him in disbelief. "So bite me!
You're chicken! I can't believe 'I thought you were someone
dangerous.'"

"That's like the Cowardly Lion calling Evel
Knievel yellow. You did your best back there to make sure your
friend got hurt. Hockey players know how to brawl."

"The Wart Hog thinks I belong to him. He's
not going to let you wander off with me, and then do nothing about
it!"

"If he's smart he will. You've heard of
Badman José? Well now you belong to Badman Brad." He grinned at
her.

I want to belong to you, she thought "You
wish!" she said.

"O'Hara—what's his first name?"

"Jim Bob."

"Jimbo would have ended up in the hospital if
I'd been unable to avoid a fight. Is that really what you
wanted?"

She felt like a bottom feeder. "No," she
said.

"And B-J, the guy's not all bad. Fabulous
taste in women."

She gripped Brad's arm. "You weren't going to
let him have me, were you?"

He grinned again, and disheveled her hair.
"After the effort I put into getting this date with you? I think
not. Jimbo can find his own prize."

"Why do I feel like a naughty girl, who's
just swatted someone's pet mosquito?"

"Because you haven't been telling me your
bear's name often enough."

He's right. She put her arms around him, and
pulled herself tight. "I Love Only You Brad," she said.

As they drove south on 17, Brad seemed
distracted. Finally he said, "You know, even a love for eternity
has to have a beginning."

She had also been contemplating the meaning
of their kiss. In many of her tennis matches there had been a
pivotal point, a point, that if won, gave her the match, but if
lost, meant defeat. And that was what had happened when she'd
kissed Brad. She had lost the pivotal point. So now she belonged to
him. She was his kite. His to fly as high or as recklessly as he
pleased. That Betty-Jo could understand. What she couldn't
understand was how one kiss could ignite a love that she knew would
be forever.

There was an exquisite tension in her body
as, vulnerable and apprehensive, she snuggled against him. I'm
pretty sure I know what he's planning to do with his prize.

Time should be kind to lovers—it should give
them an opportunity to make some sense out of what is happening to
them, but time was being mean spirited with Betty-Jo. In what
seemed like only a few minutes they were at Pawleys Island,
crossing over from the mainland on the South Causeway.

"What's on this island?" Brad asked.

"There's a bird sanctuary on the southern
tip."

"We'll drive south then—see if the birds are
home."

On the southern tip of the Island, at the
edge of the sand dunes, he stopped. The full moon, with its coterie
of stars, was etched on the blackness, creating an
out-of-this-world backdrop for the want-to-be lovers. And there
were fairies dancing—she could hear them—until she realized that
what she was hearing was the murmuring surf, imposing itself on the
silence.

Brad turned to her and caressed her—soft,
exciting caresses, and he kissed her—tender, spellbinding kisses.
Then, while searching her eyes, he started to undo the buttons on
her blouse: taking his time, lingering when he came to the last
one.

Please hurry, she thought. I need to feel
your hands on me—now!

But Brad wasn't hurrying. He was savoring.
His lips brushed hers as he undid the last button. Then his fingers
teased the beckoning swell above her bra-covered breasts.

She relaxed, thrilling to the Brad made
sensations. "This is so wonderful," she said. "Better than romance
in France."

"B-J," he whispered, "come closer. There's
something I have to ask you."

Surprised, she cuddled closer. Why is he
whispering? No one's here but hopelessly-in-love-with-him me.

He grinned at her. "Tell me honestly. Where
did you get that bra? Bargain Joe's?"

Her eyes locked onto his, and killed him—at
least that's what they wanted to do. She tried to pull away, but he
pinned her arms.

She was furious with him, but she was even
madder at herself. Normally vigilant in her lingerie selection,
she'd slipped up. That morning, running late, she'd grabbed the
handiest bra and panties in the drawer; unfortunately, they weren't
only handy, they were also certifiably shabby. The grape Kool-Aid
stain on her bra, clashed with its faded yellow coloring.

"First time I've seen that," he said.

"What? A shabby bra?"

"Nope. Shabby bra rage."

"What you're seeing is my-date's-a-fool
rage!"

"Let's get this thing off you," he said
cheerfully. "Tomorrow I'll take you shopping for a bra that's
deserving of pleasure pals as delectable as yours."

What a fantastic jerk, she thought. Are all
men that way? Never owned a Barbie, but as soon as they get hold of
the real thing, they become instant experts on women's
clothing—especially their lingerie.

Betty-Jo's fury ebbed, and she went to work
on being embarrassed. All I want to do is find an orphanage for
this third string support. She took off her blouse, unhooked her
bra, shrugged her shoulders, and threw the wretched support over
her shoulder onto 'I Love Only You Brad' who had been lounging on
Old-yellow's back seat.

* * *

Brad watched in awe as Betty-Jo's firm and
ample breasts tumbled free; they looked like a couple of melons
that had escaped from some honeydew heaven, but they were more
mouth-watering than any melons he had previously encountered.

He grinned at his hopefully soon-to-be lover.
"There'll be no sanctuary, in this sanctuary, for those
boobies."

She tried to suppress a smile. "'I taught I
taw a puddy tat.'"

"B-J, put your hand down on the far side of
your seat. Do you feel a large, round knob?"

"Yes."

"Twist it backward, and keep twisting until
your seatback is all the way down." She did as he asked, turning
the knob until her seat became a lounger. He also lowered his
seatback, but not as far as she had lowered hers. Then he leaned
over her, captivated by her swells and recesses in the southern
moonlight and shadows. His fingertips roamed as they pleased,
finding fascinating places—places that felt like paradise.

"You have fabulous pleasure pals. But I'm
sure I'm not the first guy who's told you that."

"You're not." There was a sparkle in her
eyes. "But you're the first guy who's told me that today."

He smiled down at her. "I'm lost in your
splendor." She threw him back a happy face. "Your recreational
vehicles are even more fun than the Play Dough I had when I was a
kid."

That made her laugh. "Just make sure you
treat them better than you treated your Play Dough."

He cupped his hands under his new playmates,
and coerced them upward, watching euphorically as they swelled
before their quivering return. Then he maneuvered one of them in a
circular motion with the palm of his hand, marveling at how it
ebbed and flowed with his touch—arousing passions, invoking
desires.

"Don't ever stop," she said.

"Not to worry. You're more fun than a petting
zoo."