by Jason Starr
Mark must’ve made a face, or maybe rolled his eyes, because Doug said, “Wait, does the friend wanna weigh in?”
“They’re not fake,” Mark said.
“Whoa, whoa, hold up,” Doug said. “You’re just friends but you know her tits are real?”
“Sounds like a confession to me.” Stu was smirking.
Wishing he’d kept his mouth shut, Mark said, “She mentioned it to me once.”
“Mentioned it?” Doug laughed. “How did she just mention her tits? Were you like, ‘How’re you doing?’ And she said, ‘Pretty good, oh and, by the way, let’s talk about my tits’?”
Stu and Richie were laughing so hard that an old guy, maybe twenty yards away, who’d been in the middle of his backswing, about to tee-off, glared back at them.
“Oh, sorry,” Stu stage-whispered.
“I forgot how it came up,” Mark said. “I think we were talking about some famous actress who’d gotten a boob job and Karen said she’d never do that, even when she got older.”
“That sounds mildly believable,” Doug said.
“Mildly,” Stu said. Then he said to Mark, “Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t you set Richie up with Karen?”
“I love it,” Doug said. “Then at least somebody we know would be fucking her, and we can find out what it’s like, you know, vicariously.”
“She’s too old for me,” Richie said.
“Too old?” Doug said. “You gotta be kidding me.”
“Yeah, she’s gotta be what, forty?” Richie said. “In ten years she’ll be fifty. My mother’s fifty-three.”
“That makes sense.” Doug rolled his eyes.
“You could be a motherfucker,” Stu said.
Stu and Doug were trying to stifle their laughter, middle-aged guys acting like kids in the back of a classroom.
Mark, getting seriously irritated with the conversation and wanting to change the topic, said to Stu, “What’re you using on this, iron or a wood?”
“I’m using an iron, you’re the one using the wood on Karen.”
All the guys, except Mark, laughed.
Then Stu said to Richie, “Seriously, I’m not talking about marrying the broad. Just to fuck around with a few times. I mean somebody’s gotta motorboat those knobs.”
“Yeah, you gotta check the cougar box before you get married,” Doug said to Richie.
“And you know she knows her way around in the sack,” Stu said. “Since she and Joe broke up she’s been a dating machine. My wife said she’s on Match, OkCupid, all that shit.”
“Yeah, I think I’ve seen her with three different guys in the past month,” Doug said.
This was ridiculous; she’d only been with one guy lately—Steven. Unless there were others Mark didn’t know about. This thought made his gut tighten.
“Did you see her with that new guy?” Stu asked. “I think his name’s Steven? Tall guy, long hair, ponytail. I ran into them at the bagel place one morning a couple of weeks ago.”
“Nope, then I guess it’s been four guys in the past two months,” Doug said.
“Great, so now you’re trying to set me up with a slut,” Richie said.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Mark said to Richie.
“Oooh, I think somebody’s getting protective over his girlfriend,” Stu said.
“Relax, I’m just kidding around,” Richie said to Mark.
“Take it easy,” Stu said to Mark.
“Yeah,” Doug said. “And if you’re not hitting it yourself why do you give a shit who she’s fucking?”
Mark cocked the three iron he was holding over his shoulder like an axe and took a step toward Doug, as if about to whack him over the head with it. He actually started the backswing.
“Hey, whoa, whoa, take it easy, man,” Doug said, backing away.
“You crazy?” Stu said to Mark. “He’s just messin’ with you.”
Mark felt crazy. He felt out of control.
Then, maybe after a few seconds, sanity returned.
He lowered the club and said, “I was just messing with you too,” but he knew no one was buying this, not even himself.
“I think somebody needs an anger management class,” Stu said.
Mark wanted to say something to help smooth things over, but he couldn’t think of what exactly to say.
Then Richie broke the tension, saying, “Looks like we’re up.”
Mark played worse on the back nine, partly because he could tell everyone was still uncomfortable around him, and partly because he was anxious to finish up and get back to the clubhouse in time to hopefully bump into Karen. After eighteen, he rushed ahead to the clubhouse, disappointed that he didn’t see Karen on the terrace where she usually hung out. The guys were lingering, talking, and he didn’t want to make it too obvious that he was looking for her, so he went nonchalantly into the indoor area of the clubhouse. He didn’t see her and then went into the bathroom and peed and washed up. Then he texted her: Hey saw u playing tennis b4 @ club, was hoping to run into u How was it??
He waited for a couple of minutes, staring at his phone, but didn’t get a response. Then he went through to the café and saw Karen and her friend at a table in the back in the corner.
Mark noticed that Stu and Richie were now near the bar, and probably would see him going over to Karen, but he didn’t really care what the guys thought anymore. He definitely wasn’t going to let their teasing affect his friendship with her.
Mark approached Karen from the side, and she didn’t see him until he said, “Hey you.”
“Hey,” she said.
He could tell she was as happy to see him as he was to see her.
“I have a little while till I have to get back,” he said, “mind if I join you for a few minutes?”
Karen and her friend—Jill, that’s right, her name was Jill—looked at each other.
Then Karen said, “Sure, of course.”
“Awesome,” Mark said, sitting in the seat to Karen’s right. “So how was tennis?”
“Jill won again,” Karen said.
“Well, I got lucky on a couple of shots in that last game,” Jill said.
“No, it wasn’t luck,” Karen said. “I’m secure enough to admit my inferiority to you on the tennis court.”
Mark laughed, even though what Karen said wasn’t particularly funny. He couldn’t help it; he always felt so upbeat and happy when he was around her. Then Jill announced that she had to get home. Karen tried to get her to stay, but Mark knew that she was just being fake-sincere, that she actually wanted Jill to leave. It was possible, even probable, that Karen had told Jill what a great friend Mark was—maybe even that she wished she could have more someday—and now Jill was probably just doing her a favor to give her and Mark some alone time.
When Jill was gone Karen shifted over to her seat so that she was facing Mark, which was perfect. He imagined they were alone, in a little secluded café somewhere, maybe in Italy, on the Amalfi Coast.
“We’re finally alone,” Mark said, smiling.
They talked for a few minutes, just random small talk, but with Karen it never mattered what they were talking about; it was just the talking that was so incredible. Then he noticed that she was distracted anyway, her eyes widening in a concerned way.
“See, I told you,” she said.
Mark had no idea what she was talking about until he turned and saw Deb near the entrance to the clubhouse. She was just standing there, glaring, but Mark knew that look. She was thinking, How dare you, how dare you. Mark could also tell that she’d been drinking again.
Turning back to Karen, Mark said, “Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with her lately.”
“She’s looking at me like she was last night,” Karen said. “Like she wants to kill me.”
“She’s just drunk. You were right, she has a problem. A serious problem.”
“She’s coming over here.”
Mark turned, and saw Deb marching toward them. He also saw that Stu and
Richie and now Doug were at the bar. Shit, this was all he needed, Deb causing a scene, saying the things she’d said last night, putting him in an embarrassing awkward position with Karen.
Deciding he had to do something to ward off a disaster, he got up and tried to intercept her, saying, “Okay, come on, let’s go outside,” but Deb was too enraged, and pushed by Mark, not even making eye contact with him.
Then Deb shouted at Karen, “You fucking whore! You fucking slut!”
Everyone in the room looked over. He’d been having this wonderful time with Karen and now, in an instant, it had all gone to hell.
Karen seemed shocked too, and mortified. She seemed to be struggling to come up with some kind of response.
But Deb beat her to it, saying, “You just stay away from my goddamn husband. He’s mine, you understand that? Mine.”
“Calm down, Deb,” Karen said.
“Don’t tell me to be calm, bitch!” Deb shouted. “I’ll be however the hell I want to be!”
Then Mark grabbed Deb by the arm and pulled her away and whispered harshly, “What are you doing? What’s wrong with you?”
Deb yanked her arm free and said, “Friends, my ass! You’re fucking her, aren’t you? Why don’t you just admit it already? Why do we need secrets anymore?”
Deb’s breath reeked of alcohol. Mark grabbed her again, trying to pull her farther from the table.
“You have to leave, right now,” he said. “You’re embarrassing both of us.”
“I’m embarrassing you? How about how you’re embarrassing me by fucking this slut?”
“You talking about me?” Karen was standing near Mark and Deb.
Deb broke free from Mark and said to Karen, “Somebody should tattoo a letter on your forehead!”
“Bitch,” Karen said.
“Whore,” Deb said.
“Cunt,” Karen said.
Deb pushed her, nearly knocking her down, and then Karen grabbed her, forcing her back toward the table. Deb lost her balance, tripping backward over a chair, and Karen fell with her, still grabbing her, as the tablecloth got yanked and dishes fell off and some smashed. Now Karen and Deb were wrestling on the floor, screaming, cursing at each other, and then Karen’s hands were pushing down against Deb’s throat. Deb said something and Karen spit in her face.
Mark watched the surreal scene for several seconds, too stunned to act, then he snapped into action and managed to separate the two. He got Deb to her feet and pulled her away as she screamed, “Lemme go, I said, lemme go!”
Mark forced her to walk toward the exit, saying, “Did you drive here? Did you?”
“And I was gonna go to fucking Italy with you,” Deb rambled. “Why would I go to Italy with you?”
“You didn’t drive here drunk, did you?”
“Where is she, huh? Where’s the whore?”
“Come on,” Mark said.
He walked ahead, pulling her toward the front of the clubhouse. She kept resisting, screaming for him to let go. He knew everyone was watching them and, Jesus, some people were holding up their phones, filming. He was looking away, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. The only one he really cared about anyway was Karen, and he just wanted to get Deb away from her. He felt awful that Karen had gotten caught up in this, and he was terrified that she’d be upset and blame him.
Then, as he exited onto the terrace, still pulling Deb along, he looked back toward the table he’d been sitting at and saw that the nightmare was already happening.
Karen was gone.
OWEN HARRISON didn’t get what was up with Deb. Last week everything was so cool. They’d hooked up that afternoon in his room when his mother and stepfather were away and his brother was at school, and they were texting regularly too, and she seemed as into him as she always was, then today, out of nowhere, she was freaking, and he had no idea why.
He’d started worrying about her attitude in the morning when he’d texted her about how psyched he was to meet up at swim practice, and she’d gotten all panicky, afraid her husband would see some texts. He was hoping that was all it was—panic—that it didn’t really mean anything. So he just chilled the rest of the morning, driving his brother to the practice, and then slipping away up to the classroom, waiting for his naughty student. When she arrived right on time, he’d thought, Okay, this is cool, because, seriously, if something were really wrong, would she even show?
So they did their whole teacher-student thing, which was as awesome as always. Well, he liked it better when they were in his bedroom and he could get her to put on the schoolgirl outfit he’d bought for her on eBay, but the actual fucking was always awesome. He loved telling her what to do, giving her orders, especially when it was stuff that he thought was really nasty. He got most of his ideas watching porn online. His favorite scenes were schoolgirl and cheerleader scenes which he knew didn’t make a lot of sense because in those movies the girls were always young and the teachers and coaches and whoever were always old and in real life he was into MILFS. Well not totally into MILFS. He hooked up with girls his own age sometimes, and it was okay. But older women were different. There was just something about the idea of being with a woman who was as old as one of his teachers, or his mother, or one of his mother’s friends, that drove him crazy. Before Deb, he’d had another older girlfriend. Well, she wasn’t old-old like Deb—she was his babysitter, Melanie. She was sixteen when they’d started hooking up, and he was like twelve, and it continued until she went away to college at Oneonta and got a boyfriend up there sophomore year and wanted to stop. Owen was angry and tried hard to get her back, but it turned out to be okay, even better, because right around then he’d started his thing with Deb.
For a long time Owen had no idea Deb was even into him. Yeah, she always treated him nice and smiled a lot when she saw him but a lot of moms did shit like that and those moms didn’t want to, like, get naked with him. But then, two summers ago, when he got the job at the country club, she started to talk to him more, asking him a lot of questions about school and whatever, and sometimes she gave him looks. Like sometimes they were talking and she’d look in his eyes a little too long, and one time he thought he saw her checking him out, looking him up and down, and it gave him a boner. He still wasn’t sure she actually liked him—maybe she was just flirting or maybe the whole thing was in his imagination—but then one afternoon, her husband Mark and her kids weren’t around, and he saw her sitting alone at the bar at the club, drinking—big surprise, right?—so he went over and talked to her. He just thought it would be a ‘Hey, how you doing?’ polite-like conversation, but then she was like, “You want to go for a walk in the woods?” Then he knew she was into him because, seriously, why would a forty-something-year-old woman be asking a sixteen-year-old to take a walk in the woods if she didn’t want to get laid?
So they were in the woods, talking about whatever, when Owen noticed that Deb wasn’t walking fast, like she was trying to get somewhere. No, she was taking her time, and once or twice their arms brushed, but she didn’t seem to care, which was another good sign. He wasn’t going to try anything though. He was thinking things in his head, yeah, but he was afraid to come out and say them. Maybe it was because with Melanie he never had to ask. From the beginning, Melanie had always told him what she wanted.
Then he heard himself say, “I wanna fuck you against that tree.”
He didn’t mean to actually say what he’d been thinking; he wished he could suck the words back into his mouth or go back in time ten seconds and say something or nothing at all because now it was going to be a disaster. Deb probably wasn’t into him at all and would get all upset and offended and tell Owen’s mother what had happened, and then his mother would tell his stepfather, Raymond, and Raymond would beat the shit out of him.
So Owen was shocked when, instead of yelling at him or running away, Deb said, “Then what’re you waiting for?”
For a few seconds he thought he’d imagined it, but then he was pushing her back
against the tree and one hand was in her hair, grabbing a fistful of it, and his other hand was under her panties. He loved how she let him do whatever he wanted to do to her, how instead of just seeing a movie inside his head he was actually in the movie, or even better, it was like he was the director of the movie and she was the actress, and she had to do whatever he told her to do.
It only took that one time and, that was it, he was hooked. He wanted Deb all the time, he couldn’t get enough of her and, even cooler, she felt the same way about him. He loved that she was so old—Melanie was a girl, but Deb was a woman.
Things had been going great until today, then all of a sudden shit got weird. After she was his naughty schoolgirl he saw that look in her eyes. It reminded him of two years ago, when Melanie came back from school and said, “I’m in a relationship.” Her tone had been so cold, so distant, and Owen didn’t get how a girl could change so fast, how she could be so into him one day, wanting his body so badly and saying she loved him and couldn’t live without him, and then suddenly she was a completely different person, saying, “It’s over,” like none of it had really meant anything to her, like it was all just a big lie.
Owen didn’t want to go through that pain again; he couldn’t go through it again.
He was hoping he had it all wrong, that it was just something else going on, like some fight with Mark that had nothing to do with him. But then he texted her, just to make sure everything was still cool and shit, and she didn’t text back.
Now memories of Melanie, how shitty and helpless she’d made him feel when she wanted to break up, were rushing back. Why was Deb acting this way? What did he do wrong?
He looked for her in the hallway and near the bathroom and then checked outside. Once in a while she smoked cigarettes, so she could have gone out to smoke, but more likely she’d gone to have a drink. She’d been drinking a lot lately, getting tanked at the club, and sometimes when they met in the backseat of his car in the back of the John Jay High parking lot, her breath smelled like alcohol. He’d ask her if she was drinking and she was like, “No,” but that was bullshit. She was probably an alcoholic, just like his stupid asshole stepdad.