by Lola Swain
“I don’t get that impression,” I said.
“It’s true. One thing about me, Sophia,” she said and leaned on the counter, “I tend to get attached to people, so you have to tell me to back off, okay?”
“Sure.”
“But I’m loyal as the day is long, that’s what Brandt says. When I am your friend, you’ve got a friend to the end.”
Nellie and I exchanged telephone numbers and as promised, I met her at the coffee shop the next evening. The dread I felt about our outing as I walked to the coffee shop was quickly lifted when I saw the boy standing next to Nellie as I walked through door.
“Sophia,” Nellie said as she ran toward me, “you look beautiful.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“How do I look?” she said as she did a twirl.
I searched for a word to adequately describe the drab brown dress she wore, which was not far removed from her blue waitress dress.
“Radiant,” I said.
“Yes,” she said, “I think so too. Come meet the boys!”
“Boys,” Nellie said as she dragged me by the hand over to the two guys sitting at the counter, “this is Sophia Pearson. Sophia, this is Brandt Therrault and Conrad Weylin.”
Both of the guys stood up from the counter, but it was Brandt who got my attention.
“Pleased to meet you,” Brandt said and shook my hand. “This is my friend Conrad. Conrad’s in town from Providence.”
Conrad was a nice enough looking fellow, but he was certainly no Brandt.
“Hello, Conrad,” I said and removed my hand from Brandt’s grip and extended it to him, “it’s nice to meet you.”
“My pleasure,” Conrad said and kissed my hand.
“Conrad, Sophia’s a model,” Nellie said and nudged me out from in front of Brandt and toward Conrad. “In fact, she did a swimsuit shoot today. How did that go?”
“Um, fine,” I said.
“Conrad is an art student in Providence. Very forward-thinking,” Nellie said and winked at me.
“So, what’s the plan?” Conrad said and pulled his jacket off the back of the counter stool.
“Well, I have a really wild evening planned for us,” Nellie said and pulled her coat on. “A film in the Combat Zone, for starts.”
“The Combat Zone?” I said. “My father calls it the Ward of filth.”
“I told you she was rich, Brandt. A real upper-crust, blue blood. What’s the big deal, Sophia? I’m sure you’ve not even been down there, have you?” Nellie said.
“Well, no,” I said. “But this is Boston, I’m sure there are many things we could do on a Friday night that don’t include the Combat Zone.”
“Look, Nellie,” Brandt said, “if Sophia doesn’t want to go, perhaps we should make alternate plans.”
Nellie and Brandt looked so strange standing next to one another. He could pass for one of the All-American male models I worked with. He had short, blond hair and looked like he fit in with the rugby or rowing teams rather than with Nellie. But for him, I happily dipped my toe in the cesspool that was the Combat Zone.
“No,” I said, “it’s fine. I’m all for the Combat Zone.”
“Excellent,” Brandt said and smiled. “Let’s get a cab.”
The group of us filed out of the coffee shop and Nellie grabbed my arm and pulled me back inside.
“Are you interested in him? Because if you are, I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.”
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“No, but…it’s hard to explain. Just don’t like him, okay?”
“How do you know him?” I said.
“Brandt’s father and mine used to work on the same boat. I would do anything for him and he would do the same for me. We are extremely dedicated to each other.”
“Dedicated?” I said and looked over Nellie’s shoulder and watched Brandt staring at me.
“Yes, you know, as in we’d do anything for each other.”
Brandt stood on the other side of the glass and stared at me. When he winked at me, I knew that it was me he wanted. My entitlement oozed as I looked Brandt in the eyes and smiled.
“Sophia?” Nellie said and gripped my arm. “I was talking.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “What did you say?”
“Where’s your head, Sophia? When we get into the cab, I’ll go in first and pull Brandt in with me. Then you allow Conrad to go in and you get in last. Okay?”
“Okay, fine.”
We walked toward the door and Brandt opened it for us. As Nellie went through Brandt leaned down and whispered in my ear.
“I could tell by your beautiful body, you are a swimsuit model.”
I looked up at him and then caught Nellie looking at me as if I just screamed fuck in the middle of a church service.
“Thank you,” I said and blew past Brandt and stood next to Conrad.
We hailed a cab and I made sure that we all got into the backseat in the order that Nellie instructed. I stared out the window as the streets turned from first class to no class and we were deposited in front of a theater.
“Is this place even open?” Conrad said.
“Yes of course, my brother works here,” Nellie said and walked toward the front door.
I walked ahead of the boys and reached Nellie at the front door.
“Nellie,” I said. “your brother? Why would you want to be anywhere he is?”
“I don’t know if he’s working tonight, but if he is, I want him to see me with Brandt,” Nellie said.
“Is Brandt your boyfriend?”
“One day,” she said.
“This is a porno house,” Conrad said as Brandt reached above our heads and held the door open.
“I know,” Brandt said and chuckled.
“Anyone want popcorn?” Nellie said as we passed a filthy concession counter.
“I’ll pass,” I said and wrinkled my nose at the grimy counter worker who flicked his tongue in and out at me.
“Good idea, Sophia,” Brandt said as he walked behind me.
I looked down at the thread-worn, burgundy carpeting as we walked down the corridor to the theater and knew my parent’s would absolutely die if they found out where I was.
“I hope the cops don’t raid this place,” I said to Brandt.
“It’s okay, I will officially be a lawyer soon. I’ll get us out of it,” he said and winked.
“Where are you going to law school?” I said.
“Harvard. I’m—”
“Guys,” Nellie hissed, “let’s stop talking.”
Conrad turned to me and shrugged. We walked into the theater room and Nellie stood to the side and let Conrad lead.
“Make sure you go into the row after Conrad. I want to sit next to Brandt,” Nellie said into my ear.
I nodded and walked ahead of Nellie as I followed Conrad down the dark pathway toward the front of the theater. I saw the typical occupants of such a place: men sitting alone in long coats and a few couples already sitting on top of one another. Conrad turned to me and asked where we should sit.
“I have no idea,” I said and turned to Nellie. “Where do you want to sit?”
“Toward the front,” Nellie said as she nudged me along the path.
We crab-walked down the aisle in front of a row of seats and sat down in order: Conrad, me, Nellie and Brandt on the end. The theater smelled of smoke and sweat.
“You sure you don’t want anything?” Conrad said in my ear.
“Yeah, to go home,” I said.
I was barely nineteen and my only dates with boys up until that point ended with heavy petting in the boy’s car. Now I was at a pornographic movie theater. As much as I wanted to be unlike my parents, I did want a traditional relationship with a boy of worth. I wanted to be taken care of and protected and I was pretty certain I was not going to meet husband material sitting in a porn theater in the middle of the Combat Zone.
Or would I?
The lights went down in the
movie theater and I glanced to my left and Brandt stared at me.
“Hey Conrad,” Brandt said as he twisted in front of Nellie’s legs, “switch seats?”
Nellie looked from Brandt to me and back to Brandt as if she was watching a tennis match. She shook her head at me and looked back at Brandt.
“Uh, sure?” Conrad said.
“Wait,” Nellie said, “where are you going?”
Brandt didn’t answer Nellie and slid down the aisle toward me and Conrad. Conrad stood up, waited for Brandt to pass and then made his way toward the empty seat next to Nellie. Nellie gripped my arm.
“What did you do?” she said through clenched teeth.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said. “I swear.”
Conrad sat down next to Nellie and I looked at Brandt. He smiled at me and shrugged. Nellie slammed back into her seat, folded her arms across her large breasts and pouted. I looked down in my lap and wished I was anywhere but there.
“I’m sorry,” I said into Nellie’s ear and she turned her head away from me.
The theater lights went down and a grainy film popped onto the screen. A large woman in a bikini gyrated to canned music that crackled from the theater’s speakers. There were grunts of approval from the theater patrons as the woman began a slow striptease.
Brandt grazed my neck with his fingertips as he brushed my hair to the side and whispered into my ear.
“I hope you don’t mind me sitting here.”
I turned and looked at him and forgot we were in the middle of a filthy theater that played dirty movies.
“No, not at all.”
I felt Nellie’s eyes burning a hole into the back of my head and I sat back in my seat and stared straight ahead at the screen.
The large dancer was now naked. Her breasts flopped back and forth in time to the music and the only thing she wore was a black mass of thick pubic hair over her vagina. I laughed to myself as I thought of Katt’s comments about European women who had what looked like carpet samples covering their areas.
Brandt shifted in his seat and I kept my head as rigid as I could, neither looking at him nor looking at Nellie who was probably looking at me.
The music in the film changed to a sort of psychedelic-Indian track and two men walked into the room with the naked woman. The woman in the movie feigned distress as the men pawed at and mauled her naked body. One of the men threw her down on a bed, conveniently positioned in the middle of the room. The men stood over the woman and began to remove their clothes.
Despite the weirdness of the situation, I was aroused by the scene. Brandt stretched his long legs out as much as he could in the cramped aisle and his leg brushed against the side of mine. I didn’t move away, but parted my legs a bit until the side of my leg pressed against his.
I glanced to my left and was shocked to see Nellie practically sitting in Conrad’s lap and the two of them making out.
On the movie screen, one of the men knelt on the bed at the naked woman’s head. Her arms were stretched over her head and she stroked his penis back and forth. The man leaned over the woman’s face and kissed her breasts and sucked at her nipples. Her legs were spread wide and the other man knelt between her legs and he rubbed his penis.
I glanced back at Nellie and Conrad and did a quick double-take as Nellie shifted down to the floor on her knees and knelt between Conrad’s legs. Brandt chuckled beside me. I looked over at him and he was leaned forward and watching Nellie and Conrad. Nellie fumbled with Conrad’s belt buckle and he looked down at her. I wondered if Nellie had seen the movie before as she mimicked the actress’s moves.
I looked away when Nellie looked at me as she took Conrad’s penis out of his pants. I stared at the movie screen and the man at the naked woman’s head shoved his penis roughly into her mouth while he kissed her breasts. The man between the woman’s legs shoved his penis into her and pumped his hips back and forth as the woman flailed her arms.
“Hey Brandt,” Nellie said, “watch me.”
I looked at Brandt who sat back in his seat and stared at me. He had a sheepish look on his face, but he did not seem embarrassed. I, on the other hand, would have crawled under my seat if I didn’t think I’d contract something from the floor. Brandt shifted in his seat a few times and he unzipped his pants. I was shocked, but not shocked enough to look away.
Brandt pulled his penis out and I froze. I had seen naked men before. Sometimes by accident as the other models changed, sometimes in the magazines Katt kept in her room and sometimes up close when my dates incorrectly assumed I was that kind of a girl.
“Touch it, Sophia,” Brandt said in my ear. “All I can do is think of you.”
My hand, as if it belonged to the kind of girl who touched men’s penises in pornographic movies, moved slowly toward his lap. Brandt’s penis was hard and stood straight up. I looked up at him and he looked down at himself and smiled. Brandt brought two hands around his penis and gripped it tightly.
And then I thought about what Nellie would do to me if she happened to look over and see me fondling Brandt. I pulled my hand back quickly and dug my nails into my leg.
“I can’t,” I whispered. “Put it away.”
“But it wants you,” Brandt said and stroked his penis. “Touch me.”
“No.”
“Then watch me. Watch me touch myself and think of you.”
“Please stop,” I said and stood up from my seat.
I dropped my purse on the ground and crouched down to pick it up. Nellie was sucking Conrad’s penis. I looked back over at Brandt and he was stroking his penis. I found my purse and stood up and the man sitting behind us leaned over Nellie’s seat and watched her sucking Conrad’s penis while he played with himself.
“Hey lady,” said a voice from the back of the theater, “either sit the fuck down or get back here and blow me!”
“I’m sorry,” I said to whoever cared and tripped over Nellie’s legs as I tried to maneuver my way around her.
“Sophia,” Brandt said, “wait.”
I braced myself with my hands as I hit the concrete floor. The floor was cold and slimy and I bit my tongue from the impact of my fall. My knees ached as I got up and began my ascent up the corridor toward the door leading out of the theater.
“Sophia,” Nellie said, “what the hell?”
I ran out the door and into the corridor. When I got into the lobby by the concession stand, I was frightened to see I was alone. I looked out the glass door and wondered how long it would take to hail a cab from the sidewalk as there didn’t seem to be a cab stand around and there were certainly no cabs idling in front of the theater. I wished Katt was home so I could call her. She’d get in a cab herself and come down and pick me up.
As disturbing as the whole scene was to me, I was more disturbed by the fact that I was turned on by watching Brandt and the movie. I wanted to do the things to Brandt he wanted me to do in the theater. I wanted Brandt to do the things to me that the men in the movie did to the woman.
“Sophia!” Brandt said as he came running toward me. “Sophia, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said and turned back toward the front door of the theater. “I’m really not this kind of girl, Brandt.”
Brandt grabbed my arm and turned me toward him.
“I am really sorry if I upset you. I just got carried away, do you understand?”
“Yes, of course,” I said.
“No, I’m really not,” Brandt said. “Between the movie and everything that was going on and being so close to you, I mean, I’m really sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m not passing judgment. I just want to grab a cab and go home.”
“Well, I’ll go with you,” he said and walked me toward the door. “I mean, I’ll wait for the cab with you, if that’s okay? I don’t want you waiting alone.”
Brandt opened the door to the theater for me and we waited outside on the sidewalk for a cab. We chatted with one another easily and when he as
ked if he could take me out to dinner the next night, I was on cloud nine. Until I thought of Nellie.
“Look,” I said as I looked into his gorgeous blue eyes, “Nellie really likes you.”
“But I’m not interested in Nellie. I’m interested in you,” Brandt said and touched his nose to mine. “There is not an instance I can think of that I would ever be interested in Nellie.”
“But Nellie and I are friends of sorts. I know how she feels about you and she’d be crushed if she found out we went out.”
“Marry me,” Brandt said.
“What? We just met.”
“I don’t care,” he said. “I know what I feel. I’m a good man, Sophia. I’m a traditional guy who, despite the fact we came here, believes in the value of family and honors that. I’m going to be extremely successful too. I have job offers lined up all over Manhattan. I’ll take very good care of you.”
“I have my own money and my own career.”
“I know you don’t need anyone to take care of you, but you deserve to have someone take care of you. I want that someone to be me.”
“Brandt —”
“Sophia, just promise you’ll have dinner with me tomorrow night? Quick, here comes a cab…promise me.”
I looked down the street and a cab with its vacant signal glaring against the black of night came toward us.
“Promise!” Brandt said.
“I promise,” I said and sighed as I raised my arm and hailed the cab.
The cab came to a stop in front of the theater and Brandt took his wallet out of his pants and opened the front passenger door.
“I have money,” I said as he talked to the cab driver.
“Hush,” Brandt said, “it’s my job to take care of Sophia. What’s your address?”
I gave Brandt my address and he relayed it to the driver. He opened the back passenger door and helped me into the back seat of the cab.
“Mrs. Brandt Therrault,” Brandt said and gave me a kiss on my cheek that I felt in the small of my back.
He pulled away from me, held my face in his hands and looked into my eyes. When I looked into Brandt’s clear eyes, I thought I could see all the way into his soul.