The Flex of the Thumb (9 page)

Chaplain Johansen thanked him and left. It was now Reggie Rose's turn to feel the strong sense of accomplishment.

The Saturday night bash at Professor Revuelto's lakeside home was an invitation-only affair. Vano and Arnold were placed at the scene by the magic carpet effect of Robin Snook's coattails. He seemed to carry them along like production extras.

Vano's identity was a known factor to a few people, particularly those individuals recruited by Coach Radulski to act as his agents. It was their thankless task to try and influence him to return to the diamond. For the most part, though, Vano dwelled in campus anonymity, and so it was at this party.

There were kegs aplenty next to the strident rock'n' roll band playing on the spacious deck. Japanese lanterns lighted the way clear to the beach front, where a few people were swimming in spite of the chill night air. Some of the swimmers wore swim suits, while others were wearing nothing.

Mary Thorne was standing at the threshold of the pier, drinking a raspberry wine cooler and talking with a
Playboy
photographer named Dickie Yen. Yen was explaining to her that he was on assignment to do a pictorial called
The Girls of Idaho
.

“This isn't Idaho,” Mary pointed out to him. “I'd say you took a wrong turn somewhere.”

“Okay, so I'm cheating just a bit. I couldn't find enough beautiful women in Idaho. When I found one who was willing to take her clothes off for a shoot, she usually looked like a professional field hockey player.”

“Oh right. Like there's such a thing as professional field hockey.”

“I guess you've got me there.”

Mary Thorne was a 22 year old senior, majoring in home economics. Her ample chest, which measured out at 38D, was sculpted in high relief by her 24 inch waist. She was five feet, nine inches tall, and weighed 130 pounds. She had lustrous dark hair with a trace of coppery auburn tint. Her features were fine and regular, but no more so than her teeth.

Mary usually wore the provocative kind of clothing which underscored the contours of her voluptuous figure. She was a woman of rare beauty, a fact she understood clearly. She enjoyed knowing how men lusted after her because, as Camille Paglia put it, that was power. Mary enjoyed power as much as the next person.

There was almost no man on campus who could be indifferent in her presence, or maintain his hormonal equilibrium. Even the impervious Oboe Meel usually broke a sweat along his upper lip.

Dickie Yen told Mary, “You'll be a centerfold, I can practically guarantee that. You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.” Dickie was sincere in this observation, and he had seen many, many beautiful women.

“A centerfold?” asked Mary. “Are you serious?”

“I've never been more serious. Trust me on this.”

“Gee, now I don't know,” said Mary.

“It pays fifty thousand dollars.”

This piece of information gave Mary further pause. Now she had to think. She thought,
my body is so beautiful I should share it with the world at large
. Then she thought,
fifty thousand is a lot of money
. She thought some more:
If I pose for the centerfold, a lot of scumbags will see it; they will pin my picture up on the wall and pound off while they look at it
. Then she couldn't help thinking again,
fifty thou is a lot of money
.

It was fatiguing to work through these difficult thoughts. Mary turned to Dickie Yen and asked, “Would Kowalski see it?”

Naturally, Yen had no ready answer for this question. “Who is Kowalski and would he see what?”

“He's an animal, he's subhuman, he's a shit, he's a scumbag, he's—”

“Okay, okay, I get the picture,” Yen interrupted. “He's someone on this campus, right?”

“Right. If I had my picture taken with no clothes on, would Kowalski get to see it?”

“Well, I suppose so. I don't know what would stop him.”

“Then no.”

“Then no?”

“Then no. If he gets to see it, then no picture.”

“You're telling me you would turn down fifty thousand dollars because Kowalski would see the picture?”

“Now you understand.”

For nearly 20 minutes, Dickie Yen tried to argue Mary out of this position, but she would not be dissuaded. He even followed her clear to the deck, where she left him standing by himself.

Arnold Beeker had found his way to Professor Revuelto's lower-level den, where he was playing
Super Mario
on a computer. Vano was alone in Revuelto's library, sipping a beer and inspecting the spines of the professor's many books. When he came to the leather-bound volumes, he breathed deeply their aroma and let his fingers travel the ridges. A junior named Rita Lieberman approached him to strike up a conversation. Rita wanted to know how he got an invitation to the party.

It took a while to find an answer. In addition to the fact he was deep in, Vano didn't know this person. “I don't think I got an invitation,” he finally admitted.

“If you didn't get one, why are you here?”

“I guess I came with Robin.”

“Like I'm sure I know what that's supposed to mean.” said Rita. “I got invited this afternoon because I helped Professor Revuelto unload some Aztec statues. Every statue is an Aztec warrior with a hard-on. He got the statues on his trip to Guatemala. They look about a thousand years old, but I happen to know they're manufactured in this factory in San Diego. Either that, or they're made in Korea. Do you know what I'm saying to you?”

When he was able to answer, Vano replied, “I think you're saying that the statues aren't authentic.”

“Would you mind speeding up a little bit with the answers? I'll tell you one thing, though, every one of the statues has about a nine inch schwantz. I wonder if the Aztecs were really hung like that.”

Vano wondered if he was supposed to provide some sort of answer, but it didn't matter. Rita continued, “I'm a Jewish princess.”

“That's nice,” said Vano.

“I have a powerful sexual appetite,” she added.

“That's nice too.”

“Do you know what a Jewish princess is?”

“No, I don't.”

Rita Lieberman proceeded to tell him. “A Jewish princess has a doting father. In his eyes, she can do no wrong, so he loves to spoil her with attention and gifts. My father has given me lots of expensive gifts. I drive a red Corvette which he gave me last spring.”

“I see.” Vano took a closer look at Rita. She was tall and awkward and gawky. Her hands, wrists, elbows, knees, and ankles were large and bony. Her frizzy hair was carrot colored. She had buck teeth. Vano concluded you didn't have to be beautiful to become a Jewish princess.

Rita continued, “Sex is one thing I can't seem to get enough of. The truth is, I wouldn't mind having one of Revuelto's statues in my apartment. I mean, we're talking about a nine inch stiff which never goes down. In a few years, I plan to write a best-selling book about campus sex. The title of the book is going to be,
How to Seduce a College Man and Make him your Slave
.”

Vano was so deep in that a pause of more than five seconds yawned in advance of his response. “I like to read,” he said. “Writing must be nice too.”

“Hey, didn't I tell you to speed up with the answers? The one thing that really pisses me off is beautiful women who can get all the men they want, without any effort. Mary Thorne is the worst. She's so beautiful that men practically cream their jeans whenever she's in the neighborhood. I resent the hell out of her.”

Vano didn't know who Mary Thorne was, but he tried a suggestion: “Maybe Mary Thorne could help you write your book.”

“Are you out of your gourd?? Look, I can't stand the bitch; I'm not about to do her any favors.”

Vano receded down his inscape into deeper
hooommm
. “It was just a suggestion.”

“Yeah, well it's a suggestion that sucks. To get back to the bitch herself, the only flaws on Mary Thorne's body are the ones I put there, I'm proud to say. I stabbed her in the back three times with my nail file. She's got these little scars, about half an inch long, between her shoulder blades.”

Vano asked if he could see the nail file, and Rita was happy to comply. She took it from her purse. It was six inches long, and made of heavier gauge steel than a conventional nail file. Its point was razor sharp. “I keep it sharpened on a grinding wheel,” Rita explained.

Vano asked if it was really necessary to stab Mary with it.

Rita raised her voice, “Of
course
it's necessary! I
told
you, I
hate
her. Didn't I tell you that?”

In his zone, Vano was not perturbable. He had nothing to say, but his bland and pleasant smile was fixed. It was the visage his father often urged him to wipe off his face.

“Look,” Rita explained. “In a way, I'm doing Mary Thorne a favor. Because of her looks, everything is too easy for her. She needs to know that she can expect problems in life, the same as everyone else. That's just reality.”

Vano said, “I didn't think of it like that.”

Then Rita changed the subject. “On the night of our senior prom, I gang fucked four guys in a Mercedes on the high desert near Palmdale. Has anything remarkable ever happened to you?”

“I don't know,” said Vano. He thought of the night when he and Sister Cecilia made love, and wondered if Rita Lieberman would enjoy hearing about that. Then there was getting hit in the head by Jose Canseco's bat. That was surely remarkable, by almost any standard.

“Oh, there must be something,” Rita insisted.

Vano went deeper in before he said, “We were on our senior class trip at Magic Mountain. I was standing under the sky chute when a girl fell out of her harness. She fell all the way down and landed on the blacktop real close to me. She was wearing a white blouse and a pair of blue shorts. Her body was just busted all up. There was blood and guts all over, like a run-over possum on the road.”

“Very gross, I'm sure,” said Rita. “I'll tell you what: you're not much of a talker, but you have a good body. How about if you and I get it on?”

Vano was pretty sure she was talking about sex. “I guess it would be okay,” he said.

“I'll go get the Vette,” Rita told him. “It's going to take me a few minutes, I had to park over by the marina. Just wait right here till I get back.”

“That sounds nice,” said Vano. He was left alone to ponder whether having sex with Rita Lieberman would provide any substantial pleasure, when Mary Thorne approached him to ask for a light. She had a cigarette between her lips.

“No, I'm sorry, I don't have one,” said Vano.

She put the cigarette away in her purse. “It's just as well, I need to cut back. What I really ought to do is quit.”

Vano didn't know this person either, but the answer seemed simple enough. “It would be good for you to quit. Smoking is bad for your health.”

“You're agreeable, aren't you? Do I know you?”

Agreeable,
thought Vano.
That word again
. He said, “I don't think we know each other.”

Mary was still seething about Kowalski, even though he would never see the pictures which would never be taken. It was the
principle
of the thing. “Let me ask you something,” she said to Vano. “Why are men the way they are?”

The question was too hard. Vano listened serenely to his own primary resonance.

“May I have a sip of your beer?”

This was easier. “Of course,” he said, handing her the can.

Before she continued, she took two or three swallows. “Let me put it to you this way. If it's not guys like Dickie Yen who want you naked for taking pictures, it's horny vermin like Kowalski looking to get their rocks off. Am I right?”

Even though Vano was unfamiliar with the two names, by listening to her words while looking at her physical beauty, Vano was able to get the drift. Even so, the answer was a long time coming. “I think you're saying men don't treat you with respect. They just want to use you for pleasure.”

“That's it exactly.”

“It makes you a sex object rather than a person.”

“I couldn't say it any better myself. You really are agreeable, aren't you?”

“I guess I am,” he admitted. “I'm getting so used to being called it, I can't think of any reason why agreeable wouldn't be appropriate.”

“I bet you treat women with respect.”

After five seconds Vano replied, “I guess I do, but I'm pretty sure I used to be the other way.”

“That's hard to believe. You know what? I could get
heat
for you.”

“That's nice.”

“Do you know what I'm saying?”

“No I don't.”

“Compared to Kowalski, you're the other end of the spectrum. I
am
getting heat for you.”

Vano wondered what to say, but the agenda was all Mary's now. She looked at him with eyes that glittered. “It's been a long time. Why don't you follow me into the bedroom?”

“Okay, sure.”

She took Vano into the bedroom, closed the door, switched on the dresser lamp, and turned down the bedspread. Vano wondered if he was betraying Rita Lieberman, but only briefly.

Mary began taking off her clothes. While doing so, she delivered an
apologia:
“I've never been promiscuous in my life, but every once in a while I get a truly desperate need for a particular man. My hormones go into overdrive and all my juices start to flow. I call it
getting heat
.”

Vano's mouth was open, watching as she removed her brassiere. Mary continued by saying, “There's no way I can explain it. I never know how long the heat will last when it comes. When I was a sophomore, it was Sydney Gibbs. He's an electrician for god's sake, but it was his long blond hair that touched it off. It lasted about six weeks, then it was over. I've been celibate ever since then. That's too long.”