BF4Ever

by George Matheos

  Josh was six-three and Kitty barely five-two.

  “That’s what you think,” said Kitty.

  *

  Sharon Langdon and Hank Merker were married two months after their high school prom. During the last quarter of her senior year Sharon experienced a series of gastrointestinal disturbances that medical treatment could not alleviate. Doctors couldn’t find any physical damage and Sharon understood that her problem was emotional. She didn’t say anything to her parents or friends thinking they would think her wacko, but she did find some comfort in being with Hank. Her pain would subside while making love to him and she persuaded herself she could find remedy in a life with Hank. Well aware of her parents’ unhappy marriage she nonetheless decided to hold her nose and risk it. She had read in some magazine that life is a series of repeated patterns which scared the shit out of her because she simply couldn’t stomach being like her mother. Still worse, the prospect of an obnoxious continuation of the familiar high school fruitless days led her repressed mind into the prospect of a similar future full of fear and uncertainty, like her mother’s. During moments of neurotic clarity she saw her life filled with psychosomatic disorders provoked by sad-sack images of her mother, or breaking the pattern with Hank. Her mind convulsed like her stomach when she sought relief in the arms of the man who had raped her.

  The decision to marry was viewed as barely this side of common law marriage since her heart really wasn’t in it. The two of them swore eternal union at Sherman Oaks City Hall with Hank’s best buddy Mark Freeman being the best man witness to the signing of the civil ceremony certificate. Honeymoon was a night at the Van Nuys Village Motel where they also had lobster and fillet mignon for dinner in the proud presence of a perspiring bottle of Moet Champagne. After a bashful dinner with Mark, the newlyweds went to their room to “fuck our brains out”, was the way they worded it, and best man Mark gave them his blessings. Whereas ages before, the night of the wedding might have been a sacred time of miraculous discovery for bride and groom in the presence of gods and angels to witness and chant the consummation of breaking the hymen, there were no rituals or mysteries to be had that night and even the fucking was just a formality. Years later, reflections on her wedding night always transported Sharon to memories of her prom night which in her mind had registered as her real wedding night.

  As was the thing to do, Sharon had formal sex with Hank during the night of the prom. It was formal because Hank wore a tuxedo and Sharon a lovely pink gown. It’s a sign of our times that most high school kids have had sex often more than once by prom night. Unlike years before, the enthusiasm now days is somewhat subdued because the sex is all too familiar. Still, there is something special about having sex on prom night, the boys being formally dressed in tuxedo and tie and the girls beautiful in their gowns; it’s almost like a prelude to the wedding that’s not far off into their future. The anticipation of the occasion, more than the event itself, induces an efflorescence of festive appetites the moment the corsage is neatly pinned on the breast of the girl, very carefully not to prick her, right there, in front of mom and dad. It is a magic moment of daddy pride, of pretence that his daughter is still a virgin, though mother knows better, as he approvingly takes the unforgettable photo that signals to his little girl that it’s ok for her to fuck that night. Plump, skinny, tall, short, pretty, not so pretty, smart, dumb girls, they all get daddy’s tacit approval to fuck on prom night. It would be naïve to think that daddies don’t know what happens on prom night; as naïve as not knowing what happens on honeymoon night. It’s understandable, then, why tears are sometimes shed as the dainty daughter walks out of the house in her expensive gown holding her beau’s hand. You can prick me all you want, she smiles at him as he gently pushes the corsage against her swelling breast.

  The pinning of the delicate corsage rushes in colours that make all girls feel that their favorite fantasy is about to come true. They will make love that night and the delicate corsage will be crushed beneath the weight of all those years of waiting to be loved without guilt. And what is true love but the feeling of doing it for the first time every time you do it.

  No male, least of all Hank, could have resisted Sharon’s smile, or face, or her perfectly pinned breasts, or, in brief, her whole God-given rose-lovely-in-the-June-moonlight seventeen year old breath-taking body that night, even though Anton didn’t take any photos, and the only thing Judy had said to her daughter was, “Be careful, and don’t come home too late”, as if she didn’t know.

  The exit scene from the Langdon house, as Hank led Sharon to their prom, had all the innocuous force of two young people bound in tragedy. Sharon’s heart and mind were in her stomach; events were proceeding with the fury of all the butterflies now storming her insides. Incoherent prompts to protest blocked all thoughts of reason for Sharon who felt that pockmarked Hank was dragging her to a huge despair. A clamorous plea between her ears screamed for her to drop her hand from his and to turn back and go home. More than ever, that prom night, as they were walking hand in hand to his car, she had come to despise silent, Hank, the man who had raped her, and she wanted to scream to him, “Go fuck yourself” and start all over. Like the bride who changes her mind as she walks to the altar, she wanted to rip off the corsage and turn away, but there were no guests to cheer her on. The distance from her porch to Hank’s car seemed unforgiving and all the time the idiot had this twisted smile and bulging eyes grossly disproportionate to the rest of his face, like a cartoon out of Warner Bros. She felt faint and looked back to catch a glimpse of her parents but all she saw were dark windows. She lifted her gown and got in the car away from Hank who reached and squeezed her breasts.

  Throughout the evening Sharon became more and more despondent as the night of pretended ecstasy proceeded. She acutely realized, on that prom wedding night, that Hank was the wrong guy to permanently commit her body, soul, and mind. Despairingly Sharon felt sure of this, she had no doubts, and she didn’t want to do it, though it would not have been possible now alone with him, nor for the first time, but what else could she have done when everyone else was doing it in formal attire? On the other hand, Hank had no idea what Sharon was thinking that prom night, and more importantly, he didn’t particularly care as he groped time and again for Sharon’s unbridled breasts. Even as they were copulating, the love that Sharon was desperately looking for behind her tightly shut eyes was that of the boy on that field trip of long ago whose dreamy, wonderful translucent smile did gently surface in spite of hurried Hank’s powerful attacks of incomprehensible humping in the back of his dad’s Buick.

  What was his name? She reached again and again to remember, still with her eyes closed while Hank unloaded away; such a beautiful, tantalizing face, irresistible, she found all the comfort in that smile. She kept her eyes closed during her prom night and all she wanted to do was to just keep looking at that beautiful boy. Unlike growling Hank’s, the boy’s face was an unblemished miracle, its presence so much more powerful than any prom reality during the various climaxes of the horrific night. Unbeknownst to Hank, on that prom night, and forever and ever after, he was indeed, at best, a depressing second choice.

  *

  If untimely independence from home and mother comes with anxiety for many young women, the possibility of no marriage frightens them into panic. This is especially true when there’s unhappiness at home; then, it truly becomes difficult to think straight about what’s best for you. Regardless of your home setting, when you finish high school, you’re supposed to be some kind of an adult making serious decision about your future. For a high school graduate, single girl, very few things are more serious, more adult like, than the constant brooding over marriage possibilities. For many, marriage is a more important preoccupation than even college, or a career, or just a job. It’s well known that parents often send their daughters to college not for a degree but for a husband; and sadly, forced to become a waitress condemns a young woman to a lif
e of groping by insensitive greasy owners. For Sharon there was no dilemma about degree or husband: she knew where to get the husband. She wasn’t sure if he was the best of choices, but then, really, what choice did she have?

  Shit! Marry Hank, and be like my mother, or wait for my boy-man who most likely will just forget to show up in time for the wedding. Or maybe I could get a job as a clerk at some bank or supermarket, and pass my days away waiting for the weekend happy hour; or marry one of the Kennedys, Sharon would ponder the night away trying to reassure herself that miracles do happen.

  Deluded by fears of loneliness, she made the furtive decision to marry Hank Merker and not go to college. The less than loving union was further sealed when Hank was denied a football scholarship at San Diego State, thus crushing him to East LA Junior College. Ironically, there was comfort in the thought that they were playing in an even playing field now: no huge expectations for Hank; both were equally losers. Disillusioned, they put up with each other knowing that neither of them had on advantage over the other.

  It was a huge setback for Hank, from the high school days of glory and a promise of a possible NFL career, to the lowly East LA Junior College; the disappointment slowly seeped throughout his body emotionally numbing him. Events nowhere near his expectations, he dropped out of East LA, and after months of drooling over his past glories, he borrowed money from his father, who had been supporting him all along, and bought a pizza-by-the-slice, hole-in-the-wall carryout near an East LA high school. It was a dump sold to him by a run-away Mexican immigrant for two thousand dollars. He was barely making it when out of nowhere the high school was converted into a community college that stayed open till ten pm with many more hungry students. In attestation to the free market forces, and the many hungry undergraduates, at the encouragement of a friend of his father’s, he introduced Italian Beef and Italian Sausage sandwiches that immediately became a huge success. Unexpectedly, he quickly made a killing grossing hundreds of thousands of dollars within a year. Over the next few years, in a chain reaction, one fast food place led to another of several beef and sausage franchises throughout LA high schools and colleges, and very quickly lucky-in-love Hank became very rich. With a newly discovered entrepreneurial savvy, and a little investment capital and consultation from Robert Sargent’s Pioneer Bank, thanks to the intervention of Sharon’s best friend, Robin, Hank soon moved upscale to expensive ‘downtown’ restaurants and luxurious suburban homes.

  Unhappily, as fast as Hank’s investment restaurants were reproducing, Sharon wasn’t. To her great grief she was diagnosed as incapable of getting pregnant due to an infection she had contacted sometime in her youth, probably from Hank, she had concluded, very likely on that fateful prom night, or maybe in that boys’ locker room. There had only been Hank, she couldn’t believe her great misfortune. Such was the blow of her great miscarriage in life that Sharon cursed unfeeling fate that had brought such sorry fulfilment to a beautiful body such as hers. One man, for goodness sake; nature had been kind in its promise to beautiful Sharon, but most heartless in denying her a baby. Deep in her saddened heart she found only guilt that she had somehow, sometime sinned against the Lord who was not being very merciful in her need. It should have been Hank who should have been punished with not having babies; but as far as she knew he was probably having all kind of babies with all those young bimbo waitresses shoving their round asses around him.

  It would have been a most beautiful baby, in spite of Hank’s pock face, Sharon would cry in silent anguish.

  Nothing after that clinically diagnosed barren day had any real meaning for her.

  Long were the days and longer the nights that followed in familiar long silence between Sharon and her husband. Nothing that poor Hank did would provoke any reaction from her. No asides, no diversions, no digressions were to be had from his lovely wife in life. Finally, Hank lost interest in screwing beautiful but emotionally barren Sharon and sought relief in “…other fish in the ocean…” as he would periodically remind Sharon who would laugh at the metaphor. During those long intervals of non-intercourse, she surprised herself at the liberation she felt from being unchained from dumb Hank. With ambivalent feelings she accepted the dark pleasure of separation, a most personal private affair, which was her empty marriage of no love. There was no love and no baby which might have been God’s testament to their love. In a most mindless leap, in time, she found salvation in her bareness believing it to be God’s way of demonstrating His presence to her. Here was the revelation that one needs nothing more than God in his or her life. And only God knew what the future would bring. At last, she understood that like her mother she too was destined to be alone. With distaste she had come to rejoice the physical and emotional divorce from her tongue-tied husband. The separation was not total because they continued to live openly together and once in a great while they would also have a bout of old-time sex. She blamed their odd moments of marital intimacy on the ferocity of the sun’s hot light which, as it did to the birds, bees, and weeds in springtime, also made her temporarily receptive after the many months of vindictive abstinence. But there was nothing more to their coupling than some leftover splenetic grind of primitive instinct, a mere pointless remnant of the menstrual female. Not even the hot sun, thank You Lord, could warm her or her husband to any prolonged amorous sensitivities, and their temporary intimacy would numbly subside to its customary everyday back to emptiness. Other attempts at reliving the once animated memories, like conversation with her not too bright husband, ended as they began: with grunts, and long passages of time, on both sides of the bathroom.

  But then, who could figure the ways of the Lord, Sharon’s thoughts slowly began to flow into her passion. Only He, in His infinite wisdom and compassion, only He knew why He had brought the two of them together in an anaesthetized marriage. In the matter of her dead marriage, she had put her faith in the unquestioned wisdom of the Lord.

  Thanks to the presence of the Lord now in her life, the estrangement from her husband had become a no big deal to Sharon. Thanks to the variety of painless tranquillity readily available, she found easy comfort in the abundant prescriptions conveniently affordable at any drugstore. Happily she had discovered uppers and downers in a vast selection of pharmaceuticals that make possible an infinite number of doors to a variety of realities and perceptions. It was easy to subscribe to the seductive little pills’ invitation that any marriage, or lack of, or any relationship, was just another door to another perception, within another relationship in an ever repetition of unending ceremonial days. Everything was meant to be. It was senseless to suffer pain, from whatever the source, when relief was a short reach, now and forever, amen. And every time she reached into her medicine cabinet to find cheer, she demanded the relief to be immediate, with one pop of a pill after another. Faithfully, she would walk the valley of darkness alone with her pills and her Lord.

  “Now, and forever, and from all ages to all ages,”

  “Amen.”

  Now and a painless forever were to be found within the arms of the medicine man, and the greatest of pharmacists was Jesus, Sharon felt reassured. In the house of the Lord where Jesus caressed away the pain with a medley of pills and prayer, she prayed and wished for the painless day to come while she was still young. She didn’t want to grow old in pain, O Lord, for she knew that without her youth and firm looks, there would be only pain. And in her melancholic prayers she would ask herself, where was there sweet love for her. There were many pills and just as many prayers but no soothing love except in that long ago memory of that beautiful boy on the fieldtrip bus.

  Chapter Six

  “Are we going to have food today or shall we stick to our neat martinis?” said Robin.

  “I’m gonna have a burger with my martini,” said Kitty. “They have great Angus burgers here, even though they’re a sushi bar.”

  “You’re such a little pussy, Kitty,” said Robin.

  �
�Kitty, did you know that in England old ladies are called pussies?” said Myrna.

  “Up yours, Myrna. I don’t want to get plastered again,” said Kitty. “You can have that sushi shit if you want. That goes for all of you. I want some good American beef.”

  “You mean like Claudio,” said Sharon, and they all laughed.

  “Did I offend my little pussy willow,” said Robin. “Pussycat, pussycat, I love you … my little puss, pussy, pussycat, pprrrr.”

  “Keep it up my little bird Robin and I’ll eat you up, right now, meow” purred Kitty.

  “This conversation is getting too dirty,” said Myrna, as she took her place at the table.

  “They’re just talking about pussies, Myrna,” smiled Sharon.

  “Sure they are, and any minute now they’ll start licking each other,” laughed Myrna.

  “Get your mind out of the gutter, Myrna,” hissed Robin.

  “She meant ‘licking’ as in ‘scratching’,” laughed Sharon.

  “Screw that shit. Let’s have a drink,” said Kitty.

  It was a fifteen minute drive from UCLA to Sooky’s in Santa Monica where the four friends periodically met for lunch and a few martinis. Sooky’s was a regular hangout for the best friends and the management there always welcomed them because the girls were heavy tippers. In return the four friends made it a point to look stunning in their expensive fashions and they succeeded every time. There was a glow to their high cheekbones after a martini or two and they loved the warm effect on their boobs. They crossed their fabulous legs this way and that way under the salmon coloured table cloth, and their mood was always receptive to easy talk, whose eye makeup never smeared, and whose nail polish never faded, because they were the best of friends, from the days of middle school. The aroma of their expensive perfume ostentatiously mingled with the subtle but virile odor of the vodka sweetening their words as they melodiously rolled out of their artfully painted lips.