I had walked out onto a long limb trying to balance the demands of the job against the demands of my marriage. And finally the limb had given way.
And no matter what her feelings for me had been once, now she was loving another man and if I knew her, enjoying every minute of it. She had sent those goddamned emails and I could never scrub them out of my brain.
What I’d said was truer than I knew when I said it. I loved her but I couldn’t stand looking at her at the same time. It wasn’t quite as bad now as it had been three months ago. If I could just stay the hell away from her long enough, I might stop being so crazy.
I’d been holding her wrist in my hand. I let her go and backed away.
“Consider me consoled, Debbie. You’ve done your almost-over-with marital duty and ran to my side. Thank you. Now you need to leave.”
“Bill...”
“There are no words, Debbie.. You can’t ever make it better. Let it go. I’m okay now.
“So you won’t worry, and Cheryl doesn’t need to tattle to you, I’ll tell you that I’m leaving town Friday. Edwards ordered me to take a week’s vacation, a cruise. I’m not going to jump overboard or do anything stupid. I’m probably just going to watch the stars and get drunk a lot.
“Tell Kelly and BJ that I probably won’t call them from sea, but I’ll call them when I get back into town.”
She just looked at me for a long time and I wondered what was going on behind those eyes.
“You lose weight, you start looking really good, and you go on vacation. After our marriage goes to hell. Why did you have to wait until now?”
There really wasn’t an answer and she turned and left without another word.
Saturday, June 1, 1985 – 9 P.M.
I was scarfing up the remains of a cold pepperoni pizza with some lukewarm and flat Pepsi when the door to the room swung open. Debbie stepped in, as usual preceded by those unbelievable tits.
If I could have sold semen by the quart, the amount I’d wasted in the bathroom jerking off thinking about them and other assorted parts of her anatomy could have financed my college education.
She took in the picture of me on the bed surrounded by books, cold pizza, flat Pepsi and a couple of Playboy centerfolds on the walls of my room that didn’t come close to being as hot as she was fully clothed and just grinned at me.
“What am I going to do with you, Bill. I guess you can take the boy out of Palatka, but you can’t take Palatka out of the boy.”
I had made the mistake of telling her somewhere along the line that when we’d moved south, my Mom and had taken me to Palatka for a year before moving up to Jacksonville. Now she never hesitated to remind me because for some reason, in her mind Palatka was the ultimate hick town.
“It’s Saturday night, the middle of the summer, the living is easy, professors are bored, and the girls are horny, and you’re in here eating old pizza and reading textbooks and jerking off when everybody is gone.”
I guess I started to blush. Even after knowing her for two months, that mouth of hers surprised me sometimes.
“Debbie...” I started.
“Come on, Bill, now you’re going to tell me you’re the only guy among thousands of males here who doesn’t jerk off. Or are you getting so much action you don’t need to use your hand?”
“Anybody ever tell you you got a mouth on you, Ms. Bascomb?”
She made a sucking motion and even though she was playing I got so stiff I couldn’t have stood up right then without embarrassing myself.
“Actually,” she said, gesturing with her hand as if she was giving a blow job, “guys have always told me I have a great mouth.”
I tried to think of a clever comeback to that but the words stuck in my mouth. I finally said, “Anyway, what are you doing out alone on a Saturday night? I thought that was against your religion?”
An emotion that I could almost believe was disappointment flashed across her face for an instant, but I knew I was reading something into them that I wanted to be there and, in reality, it wasn’t.
“I’m on my way over to CC’s place. Some people are getting together there, listening to some music, smoking a little dope, just hanging out. I didn’t feel like doing anything so I’m headed over there; halfway there I thought about you and figured this is what you’d be doing. It’s depressing as hell, to be honest.
She stood there in front of me and reached out with one slim hand.
“I probably couldn’t enjoy myself tonight thinking about you here alone. Come with me and eat something, have a few drinks and a couple of tokes. You might get lucky and hook up with somebody and then you wouldn’t have to beat your own meat. You’ll go blind if you do that too much, you know.”
I pretended I couldn’t see her and gestured with my hand as if I couldn’t find hers, saying, “What happened? I’m blind.”
She pulled me to my feet so hard that we bumped fronts and the soft pillows of her breasts cushioned the impact, but her nipples were hard enough to cut glass. She wasn’t so tall that we didn’t’ press our important parts together. Then she moved back and she might have been breathing hard. I know I was.
“Idiot,” she said softly, “you know that’s the only reason I hang out with you. You’re so weird you make me laugh.”
“Whatever it takes,” and although I knew she didn’t realize it, every word was the truth. If she was with me only because I made her laugh, I’d take it
Then she looked down at the bulge in front of my jeans and licked her lips, saying, “You might want to take care of that before we get to the party. Unless you want to advertise what you’ve got to the unattached ladies.”
Two months ago I could never have imagined joking so easily with anyone who looked like Debbie, but we’d become something like friends.
“It’ll go away. Besides, I want to keep my powder dry just in case...”
She just shook her head, saying as she turned to leave, “You keep it too dry and you’ll blow some poor girl’s head off when you explode.”
“But she’ll die happy.”
She looked back at me and shook her head, saying, “I think you’re a nice, sweet, shy guy and every once in awhile I wonder if it’s just an act.”
“It’s all an act.”
She started out the door, wiggling that ass and I almost reached out to pat it but stopped myself just in time.
CC was Charles Carter Winfield, heir to the Winfield Tobacco Fortune and more money than I’d ever be able to imagine having. Winfield himself was a roly-poly plumper with a really nice personality for a guy who lived a life 99.99 percent of the human race would never enjoy.
But, then he usually had three super-hot women in his bed or jousting for a position in his bed. So who wouldn’t be jolly?
His off-campus apartment was a three-story compound with eight bedrooms, game room, pool room, theatre room, room room or whatever the hell you wanted to call it. Debbie pulled up in the circular driveway larger than the house and yard I’d grown up in and let one of the attendants take the keys to her restored 64 Cherry Red Mustang and park it.
We found our way through rooms where wine, tequila, scotch and Coors, which was imported as tradition would have it straight from Colorado although it was now on sale nationally, flowed in fountains and bartenders were available with glasses, bottles, snifters and anything else your heart could desire.
Pot in every brand and species I’d ever heard of, as well as every form- bombers and blunts and hookahs were available from smiling waiters.
Just some people hanging out. I guess in Winfield’s world that’s what this was.
I followed Debbie as she wended her way from room to room with an ease that showed she’d been here before. I hated it, but I wondered if she was one of the hot babes Winfield enjoyed in tandem with any friends he felt like sharing with at the moment. If she was, so what. Winfield didn’t have to force any woman into his bed. They climbed in willingly.
We found Winfield on a lo
ng couch in the movie room watching a movie called “Back To The Future.” which I knew wasn’t going to be released until the next month. I figured I’d have to wangle a chance to see it before we left.
He turned to look at Debbie as we walked in. He had a sheet covering him and a dark complexioned beauty with naked breasts like ripe Macintoshes was obviously jerking him off under the cover. Then she dipped her head under the sheet and the bobbing shape of her head made it clear what she was doing now.
“Deb, give me a kiss,” he said and she leaned forward. As he zeroed in on her, she turned her face slightly so he brushed her cheek. He looked at her for a moment and then at me and laughed. It was a good natured laugh.
“So the stories I’ve heard are true. God damn, I wouldn’t have believed it. It’s still good to see you, babe. I’ve missed you and your-“
I couldn’t see her face but something flashed across his and he stopped, then added, “that beautiful face of yours. We’ve all missed you. Ramone, I think, most of all.”
She looked back at me and I couldn’t read her expression.
“Bill Maitland, this is CC. CC, this is my friend, Bill.”
He reached out and took my hand, then squeezed it as he closed his eyes and groaned. I realized he was cumming in the mouth of the head bobbing under the sheet. Debbie just rolled her eyes.
“Um, damn...”
He just took a few deep breaths and then opened his eyes.
“So you’re the knight errant that’s captured our Debbie’s heart.”
She reached out to rap him on the nose, hard enough to make him draw back.
“CC, Bill’s not familiar with your...warped sense of humor. Ignore him, Bill. He thinks it’s funny to play with people’s heads. CC, leave Bill alone until he’s had time enough to know when you’re joking.”
Unfortunately I had no idea whether he was joking or not, but he had to be and it was the kind of joke one of the beautiful and rich people would run on a poor kid who was completely out of his element. The way Debbie had reacted told me she didn’t appreciate the joke.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” I told him, “and it looks like it was all true. Who do you have to kill to become your friend?”
He looked at Debbie and said, “I like him,” then to me, “Make yourself at home Bill. Things get pretty relaxed around here. Find something, or someone you like and have a good time. With Debbie around, I don’t think you’ll have a problem finding something fun to do.”
She took my hand and said, “Let’s go get a drink Bill.”
“Later,” CC said and sank back onto the couch as the head under the sheet went back to bobbing and a guy I’d just noticed slipped a hard cock into the pussy of the beauty sucking CC and started pumping her vigorously.
I stood there for a moment just watching and realizing I was getting hard until Debbie pulled on my arm.
“Come on, Bill, unless you want to join the orgy.”
“This kind of thing go on all the time?”
“You think I know all about it? You think I’m one of the ones that winds up sucking and being fucked. Asshole.”
She was stalking away from me and had walked out of the orgy room when I grabbed her arm and spun her around harder than I expected to.
“Debbie-“
“Asshole - let me go.”
I let her go and then grabbed her upper arm again.
“Why are you getting pissed off at me, Debbie? You act like you’re a friend of his. I expect this isn’t the first time you’ve ever been here. Why wouldn’t you know what goes on here. I didn’t say you were doing anything. I do a good enough job of sticking my foot in my mouth without your help.”
She jerked her arm away from me but didn’t walk away.
“I have been here before, plenty of times. CC is a good guy. There’s always plenty of booze, good food, good drugs. And, yes, hot guys. And fun things to do.
“But you see CC having fun and the first thing that pops into your head is that I must be fucking him. Tell me the truth. You saw her sucking him and being fucked and the first thing in your head was me down there doing that. Right?”
“No. Maybe....look you’re hotter than hell and I know guys would give their left nut to have you. Why wouldn’t you have fun and CC has a reputation for having the best women in his bed? So, yeah, I guess I could see you there. But...”
I stopped because there was a hurt expression on her face that made no sense.
“But why do you care what I think about your sex life? Why would you give a second thought to me? We’re – what are we? Friends, I think. I like hanging with you. But we’re nothing more than that.
“You and I – you’re an eagle and I’m a turtle. We travel in different worlds. I got you out of a tight spot and you saved my ass and kept me in school. I guess you must like me, or you wouldn’t keep dragging me to places where I can have a good time. But again, Debbie, why do you care?”
“I – I don’t know, Bill. Maybe...maybe because....you saw me at my worst. You saw me at my slutty, stupid worst. I don’t give a shit about the others, because they’re all shit. But you’re different. And every time I see you, I see myself there. And I feel...”
“You remember the first time we met. I told you I thought you didn’t want to be around me because I reminded you of what had happened that night. I think I was right, Debbie.
“I like you and I am grateful for what you did for me, but I don’t want to keep bringing you down every time we’re together. I’ll go down and call one of the guys. I can get somebody to give me a ride. You stay and enjoy yourself. Thanks for getting me out of that room, for a little while anyway.”
I had made it back almost to the front door when I heard steps coming up behind me.
“Don’t go away, Bill. I was being stupid. I didn’t...”
I put my hand on the doorknob and sensed people hovering but nobody interfered.
“I don’t want you to go, Bill.” She put her hand on my shoulder. “You are a friend. You’re the only guy I can spend time with and not worry about when you’re going to try to grab a boob or get in between my legs.”
“Thanks one hell of a lot.”
“Don’t go all macho masculine on me. You know what I mean. I know you get hard around me, which is sweet, but I think you actually might like me as a person, apart from my tits and there haven’t been many guys I’ve ever known that I could say that about. I like being with you. Don’t go off pissed. Stay here and let’s get drunk and stoned and have a good time.”
“Shit, you can be persuasive when you want to be.”
I turned and she hugged me and couldn’t help rubbing those sweet yielding mounds against me as she gave me a kiss on the cheek. It was a sisterly kiss, a friend’s kiss.
There is no kiss of death in the world that can compare to a sisterly kiss from a girl you want to be more than a friend to. But what could I do? I was a nice guy, and we all know how that story ends.
So I want back in and we shot pool and took a dip in his heated indoor pool and watched a porno featuring John Holmes and ate caviar on crackers, drank Tequila and shooters until we both puked, and then smoked about a pound of pot while watching a Three Stooges marathon and both laughed until we puked again.
I loved that she loved The Three Stooges. Girls generally didn’t get The Stooges. Oh, they say they do, but they don’t. How often would I ever meet a girl who got The Stooges and could also honestly say that her boobs were bigger than the starlet in the John Holmes feature.
“Did you ever notice that I have big boobs,” she said at some point during the evening.
“Nope, I can honestly say I’ve never noticed,” I said with almost a straight face and then both of us started laughing so hard we nearly strangled.
I came into and out of consciousness and at one point I noticed a big, dark haired Latin type sitting cross legged with us with Debbie’s head in his lap. He leaned over to kiss her and I started to say something.
Debbie opened her eyes and seemed to see him for the first time and rolled to one side and then sat up.
“He’s tough enough, Ramone, tough enough. I don’t think you would have done what he did, and you would have had a reason to defend me. He was a stranger.”
“He’s a nobody, a kid, Cara Mia. You can’t possibly –“
“He’s a man, Ramone. Being a man is more than having a big dick. You’re born with that. You have to become a man and, in that, you don’t measure up.”
“You’re just hurt, Cara. She meant nothing to me. She had just...heard about me and...had to satisfy her curiosity. She caught me in a weak moment.”
“I was hurt, but that was then. This is now. Get the hell away from me.”
“Cara-“
He had grabbed her and was pulling her into his embrace.
It was more of a drunken slap than a punch, but it caught him on the side of the face and in the process of rising it caught him off balance and he went down. An instant later he was up.
God damn, but he was big. He looked down on me from about six and a half feet, all lean muscle and sinew. At that moment I really didn’t care.
“You’re a little punk,” he said, staring down on me with the contempt that big men always have for a little man.
“A little punk who’s going to kick your ass.”
There were guys in waiters’ white uniforms and two black guys even bigger and better put together than Ramone between us and then CC was standing between us.
“Guys, guys, let’s not put a damper on the party. No rough stuff.”
He smiled up at the glowering Ramone and then over at me and came over and put one chunky arm around my shoulders.
“Hey, I got an idea. Everybody, everybody who’s still able to move. Get your asses out to the vans. We’re going to fly down to Miami, be there in an hour or two and you can spend all day tomorrow on my dad’s yacht in the Bay. You don’t even need to bring along clothing if you don’t want to. That’s right, clothing optional. Come on.”
The Long Fall Page 30