Home Run

by Paul Kropp

  “I knew you liked me,” Pug said. “I could tell by the way you were looking at me at dinner.”

  I didn’t recall ever looking at Pug during dinner, but this was a poor time to offer a correction. “Of course I like you,” I said.

  “Do you think I’m hot?”

  “Yes, definitely hot,” I told her. “But there’s this problem.” Now I was squirming under the covers.

  “Don’t listen to my father,” she said, pushing one breast into my shoulder. “He talks big, but he’d never do anything. And he doesn’t have any idea what I do. I mean, I’ve been hooking up since I was fifteen. If dad was serious about protecting me, he’d have shot at least a couple of boys by now.”

  I find it difficult to think straight with a breast pressed against me. It’s just hard to form a rational argument, to keep the mind under control in a situation like that.

  “There’s also your brother,” I managed to say. “He’s my roommate, maybe my best friend, and there are things you just don’t do.”

  “Like sleep with his sister?” Pug asked.

  She had pulled back the covers and was climbing into bed with me. “Like…yeah,” I said.

  “But my brother doesn’t have to know,” Pug said, pushing up right beside me. “If you don’t tell him, then I won’t tell him. It can just be our little secret.” She flipped off my reading light as if to emphasize the secrecy.

  By now, her mouth was right at my neck and I could feel her hot breath on my skin. I still had the book in one hand, but soon it was flying to the floor.

  Did Pug kiss me or did I kiss her? I’m not sure exactly who moved first, but in no time our lips were locked together, our tongues dancing with each other. This is good, I said to myself. If nobody knows…

  But then I remembered my problem. I pulled my lips away from her and sat up a little to get back some self-control.

  “Patti, I can’t do this,” I said.

  “Why not?” she whispered. “I’m on the pill.”

  “Because…because it’s not right, and…and because of my problem.”

  “What problem?” she asked, pulling herself back. “You’re not gay, are you?”

  “No, not that, it’s just…” How does a guy admit that he’s suffering from ED?

  “I…uh…uh.” Why am I always so inarticulate at moments like this?

  “I don’t feel any problem down here,” Pug whispered.

  I felt her hand touch me and realized the most amazing thing—she was right. I didn’t have a problem. My penis was working just fine! I was cured!

  In a second, she had dived under the covers. I leaned back on my pillow and enjoyed the sensations coming from down below. Whatever else Pug had learned at her fundamentalist school, she had certainly mastered one skill.

  “Oh my, I think—”

  But before anything else could happen, there was knock at the door. A loud knock.

  Pug stopped. I froze. This was a truly awkward moment. “Uh, yeah,” I said, my voice cracking just slightly.

  The door opened and Kirk stuck his head in.

  “Al, you asleep?”

  “Not exactly,” I replied.

  “Well, I’ve got to talk to you about something. Come down to the billiards room and we’ll play a few more rounds.”

  “Give me a couple minutes,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

  The door closed. The little sliver of light from the hall disappeared, but not before I noticed Pug’s pink bathrobe in a little puddle on the floor. Had Kirk seen that? No, the room would have been too dark. Had he seen the double shape under my covers? No, not possible. Besides, Kirk was too virtuous to possibly imagine…

  I pulled back the covers. “We’ve got to stop,” I said.

  “I heard,” Pug replied. “My brother is such a pain.”

  Pug hopped out of bed and grabbed her bathrobe. I hopped out of bed and tried to figure some way to deal with my new problem. How do you make a penis deflate?

  “We’ve got to finish this,” Pug whispered to me. “Tomorrow. It’s Christmas Eve. I’ll be your elf.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  “And, Al,” she added, “you’ll be my first.”

  I looked up, though I could barely see her in the dark bedroom. “I thought you’d hooked up with a few guys.”

  “That’s just hooking up,” she said. “I want you for my first real sex.” Then she went noiselessly out into the hall and closed the door.

  I suppose I should have been honoured. Pug had chosen me to be her first real sexual partner. And wasn’t sex what I’d been looking for all these years? I mean, the situation should have been perfect…except it wasn’t.

  I thought of Kirk waiting for me downstairs, wondering what was holding me up, but now I had a new problem. I was standing there in a T-shirt and boxer shorts with my penis pointed at the door. I thought about the obvious solution, but that would take too long. So I tried to talk reasonably with the problem.

  “Down,” I whispered furiously. “Get down!”

  No response. I still had an erection that was quite painful and extremely embarrassing. It was time for drastic action. I walked over to the sink, turned on the cold-water faucet, and ran the stream over my penis.

  “Ooooah!” I cried, or something to that effect. The freezing water was painful, but effective.

  Quickly I threw on one of the fluffy bathrobes in the closet, then walked down to the basement. Kirk had already racked the balls.

  “Took you a while,” he said.

  “I had to freshen up,” I replied. Another forties movie line, but I think I was the wrong gender to use it.

  Kirk handed me my glass and then looked me right in the eye. “Al, we’ve got a problem.”

  I squirmed. I tried to look away. I tried to stay cool and calm and collected, but none of this was working. Kirk had a disconcerting stare at the best of times, and this was not the best of times. “What problem?”

  “My sister,” he said. He seemed to be spitting out the words.

  “Your…uh, sister…uh, Pug.” Was I turning red in the face? Was I somehow giving away my guilt?

  Kirk shook his head and looked away. I took that second to take a breath.

  “Pug is out of control,” Kirk declared. “My dad and I were just talking about it.”

  “Just now?” I asked.

  “Well, for the last little while. There are things going on at that school over there…”

  “Ah, the school,” I said, breathing even more deeply. “Might be a bad crowd, even at a small Christian school.” I sounded like a high school guidance counsellor.

  “I don’t think it’s the crowd,” Kirk replied. “I think it’s Pug. In the last year or so, she’s gone wild about guys. There have been rumours.”

  “Not good rumours?” I said.

  “No, not good rumours,” Kirk agreed. “Even my dad has heard them. So I guess that was one of the reasons I asked you to come out here. My dad and I were thinking that maybe you…well, you’re a decent guy, Al. We can trust you. Some of the guys at school, well, they might take advantage of Pug. But, you—”

  I said nothing. How could I say anything?

  “—anyhow, it looks like Pug likes you. Maybe you noticed over dinner, how she was always looking at you. It must be the attraction of the older, experienced man.”

  I blushed. I think I really blushed. “Must be,” I said.

  “So we were thinking, maybe you’d be willing to play along. I mean, my sister is just a kid, really, so if she hooked up with you it would keep her from getting in trouble with some of the guys at school.”

  I had a hunch that “hooked up” meant different things for Pug and for Kirk. I just gave my friend a look.

  “I mean, you don’t have to do anything,” Kirk said. “Just be nice to her, pretend you like her, and then set up some kind of long-distance romance. It’ll keep her happy and preoccupied, and by the summer, you can drop her and maybe this crazy stage will have passed.�
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  “You’re kidding,” I said.

  “Al, I know it’s a lot to ask,” Kirk concluded, “but it would really help us out. I mean, you’re the only person we can trust for something like this.”

  “Oh my,” I sighed, and nodded my head.

  14

  The Most Frustrating

  Christmas Pageant Ever

  I PRAYED THAT NIGHT. Maybe I was moved by all the religious books on the shelves, or maybe it was all the talk about sin and righteousness, but I actually prayed. It feels good, really, getting down on your knees and asking Somebody Else to solve your problems. It takes a little weight off the shoulders and gives you some perspective on the world.

  The only person we can trust. That was the most galling phrase. They trusted me! My best friend and his family were delivering their delightful Pug into my hands, trusting me not to do exactly what my body so desperately wanted to do.

  In any other circumstance, in any other situation, I could have taken advantage of my good fortune. I had a more-than-willing girl, two more days of opportunity, and a house so large that surely there were rooms we could use. I even had her family encouraging me to “be nice” to her.

  But no. How low are you? I asked myself. How low will you sink just to get laid? There are limits, after all. There are moral standards. All is not fair in love and war. And if I should be weak, if I should give in, how could I ever justify it to Kirk, or his family, or Maggie, or even my own nagging conscience?

  So my mind was resolved. I would be like Odysseus lashed to the mast of his ship in order to resist the temptations of the Sirens. I would be strong. I would be resolute. Of course, Odysseus had a bunch of ropes holding him back, not to mention a shipful of sailors whose lives were at stake, but I still liked the analogy. At least I got one thing from my Humanities class. I could picture Pug as a Siren and me, roped to the mast, resisting her song. Glorious. Heroic. Admirable.

  Then there was real life.

  The day before Christmas, we all gathered in the kitchen to have breakfast together. When Mr. Chamberlain asked us to bow our heads in a prayer, Pug ran her bare foot up my leg. When Mrs. Chamberlain was telling us about the upcoming Christmas pageant, Pug extended her leg beneath the table so that her toes could play with my crotch. When Kirk said how helpful it would be if I would look after Pug for the day ahead, she gave me the most devilish grin imaginable.

  Stay lashed to the mast, I told myself.

  The Christmas celebration at their church was an all-day extravaganza that included everyone in the family. The older members would sing, or organize, or help out; and Pug had a role in the pageant. When we assembled in the living room, she appeared already dressed in her costume.

  “How do you like me?” she asked.

  In truth, she was the sexiest angel I had ever seen, or could possibly imagine.

  Mr. Chamberlain decided that we should travel in a car convoy from the ranch to the church. The two parents would drive in the Escalade, Kirk would drive his own vehicle, a little SUV, and I would take Pug in the pickup truck. The plan, of course, was to give Pug and me some time alone together.

  I still find it difficult to remember the drive. Let me say, metaphorically, that this Odysseus was lashed to the steering wheel while the Siren beside him did her best to destroy his willpower. Fortunately we reached the church before my resolution crumbled altogether.

  I’m told that the average Christmas pageant lasts only an hour or so, but the Christmas celebration at the Chamberlains’ church seemed to go on for most of the day. It began, not long after we arrived, with some full-throated Christmas carols in the church basement. I saw that Kathy was playing the piano, seated beside some guy who was turning the pages of the music for her. Obviously she was both beautiful and talented. When the crowd was exhausted, the adult choir did a few songs, and then the children’s choir raised their voices. This brought us to lunch, served by the church ladies—every bit as good as Kirk had told me—and then to preparations for the pageant itself.

  I was assigned various duties: hanging lights, wiring the star of Bethlehem, and guarding the llamas. I realize that there are no llamas in the Christmas story, indeed, there were no llamas at all in the Middle East at the time, but they were as close as the congregation could come to camels in the middle of an Alberta winter. My guarding of the llamas was fairly simple: make sure the animals didn’t run away, make sure they didn’t bite or spit at the children, and make sure the children didn’t bite or spit at the llamas. I managed this job splendidly. Odysseus could not have done it better.

  At two o’clock, the pageant began. Mostly the event seemed to be about animals, small children, and adults with video cameras. There were times when I thought the pastor might ask everyone to do the whole thing over again, just so the parents could improve their camera angles.

  I can report that the children were excellent in their roles, the animals reasonably good, as animal actors go—except for the donkey, which resisted any effort to make it move. And the Herald Angel, in her tight-fitting outfit, was a tremendous hit among the male members of the audience.

  “Go thou, wise men, to Bethlehem where this day is born the Christ child,” Pug intoned as the Herald Angel. “Go see the infant Jesus. Though he was born in a humble stable, and sleeps now in a manger, yet he is the Son of God.”

  The three young wise men responded enthusiastically and led the llamas off to the final scene of the pageant. As they made their way, the Herald Angel saw me in the audience and delivered both a smile and wink.

  Ah me, I sighed. Somehow I had to resist not just Pug, but the Herald Angel. Already I was sliding into lustful thoughts. All the Christmas carols seemed filled with double entendres, all this celebration of salvation and rebirth seemed as nothing in comparison to my lust.

  “Was I good?” the Herald Angel asked when the pageant was finished.

  “Incredible,” I said.

  “I could wear this outfit tonight,” she suggested. “Would you prefer an angel or an elf?”

  “An angel seems a bit sacrilegious.”

  “Then I’m your elf, Alan. Let me tell you what this elf can do.”

  I must admit that Pug, the elf, had a tremendous imagination for someone who had never actually had sex. Indeed, as she whispered her ideas, I found myself responding in a very unChristmaslike way.

  Be strong, I told myself. Be resolute.

  Both strength and resolution would improve if I had a plan. I considered various options. I could pretend to be gay, but my obvious physical attraction made that a bit implausible. I could fake some dreadful disease, perhaps throwing up after dinner in a most unattractive way, but that would only delay the issue. I could make myself so crude and obnoxious that she might find me totally disgusting. On the other hand, Pug might just find that even more attractive. Given her whispered suggestions to me, perhaps that’s just what she had in mind. I could invent an alternative girl—a Gloria—to whom I had pledged to be faithful. But I suspected that Pug could quickly overcome that defence.

  So what did that leave? It left a Christmas miracle, or a second Christmas miracle, if you count the first.

  Christmas Eve dinner was a marathon of sexual teasing. I suspect Pug enjoyed the semi-public display, perhaps finding the possibility of discovery something that added to the excitement. There were ten of us at the table—the senior Chamberlains, Pug and me, and six relatives of various shapes and ages whose names I tried very hard to remember. Kirk and Kathy were over at Kathy’s house, doing the night before Christmas with her family after promising to have Christmas dinner at the Chamberlain house.

  If Kirk had been there, perhaps Pug would not have been so outrageous. As it was, she enjoyed flirting with being discovered. It was bad enough to have her rubbing her foot up and down my leg throughout the meal, but still worse were the rubs she’d give me in between.

  In a situation like that, almost every word becomes a double entendre. All those ordinarily mundane asp
ects of Christmas dinner—from “Would you like some breast or some leg?” to “This meat is so juicy”—take on second meanings. If I missed any of these, Pug would give me a little squeeze or a faster rub.

  I had to distract myself. Think about high school geography, I told myself. Think about the craters on the moon. Think about anything but sex.

  All this was made worse by the fond smiles I kept getting from Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain. They obviously approved of Pug’s whispers and smiles, thinking that these were early signs of a slowly blooming romance. Little did they know of what was going on beneath the table, or in their daughter’s imagination.

  “Alan, you seem a bit warm,” Mrs. Chamberlain said at one point. “Should I turn down the thermostat?”

  “Oh, no,” I sighed, probably turning more red in the face. “It’s just all the food.”

  “Alan’s always hot,” Pug added, squeezing me beneath the table. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Well, sometimes hotter than others,” I said.

  “We have an ice cream cake for dessert,” Mrs. Chamberlain said. “That should cool you off.”

  “Ice cream…yes, that would be good.”

  Pug leaned in and whispered another suggestion for the ice cream. Then she sat back and smiled at me, her face looking quite angelic with blue eyes, big cheeks, and one perfect dimple. Ah, the irony.

  When Mr. Chamberlain announced that the “men” were retiring for Scotch and cigars, somehow I managed to pull myself together so I could stand up without embarrassment. I smiled politely at Mrs. Chamberlain and the aunts, then managed to leave the room with some dignity, though perhaps not walking quite as I usually do.

  I believe I smoked the cigar with greater aplomb this second night, though without much enjoyment. The Scotch, on the other hand, was starting to grow on me. I’ve never quite understood alcoholism, though this stuff was beginning to make sense of it. For a second, I pictured myself as a skid row bum, ruined by his addiction to single malt. Then I caught sight of the arsenal and the picture shifted to me lying in a ditch, a large bullet hole where my stomach had once been.