Julie pushed herself closer. Her not inconsiderable bosom pressed against my arm. She was giving off an almost irresistible fragrance, and she was breathing heavily. Why can’t Mary be this passionate? I wondered, instantly hating myself for thinking that way.
“I’m not going to keep any secrets from Mary,” I said. “Want to play some cards?”
I stood up and kept my distance until the rest of the family arrived home. Julie pouted but not enough to cause anyone to question her. Everyone got into a game of Monopoly, and after that, it was time to prepare dinner.
When I went home, after a lovely lingering kiss—but only a kiss—from Mary at the door, I found my father waiting for me.
“You’ve been at Mary’s, haven’t you?” he said.
“Yes, Pop,” I said.
“You know I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to fraternize with the factory staff, don’t you?”
“Yes, Pop.”
“I know she’s a nice girl but I’m afraid there can’t be any exceptions. Besides, there must be lots of university girls who’d like to go out with a bright young chap like you.”
Dear Jenkins:
I’m so glad you forgive me!
Boy, does that take a load off my mind!
I hate to have anyone mad at me, especially you.
You know you’re someone special to me, don’t you? You are. I know I’m a klutz for treating you so badly. Maybe I was just afraid of getting too close or something.
I’d never tell Harry this. Harry’s the guy I’m going out with here. I might tell him someday. Maybe not.
I just think you and I have a special bond or something. Do you think that could be?
Yes, I’m in Grade 12 here and I play basketball. I think I have the most points on the team.
I know I told you how much I liked your kisses. You bandit, you! But your eyes, Jenkins, I love your eyes.
I’m writing this in English class. I’m supposed to be writing an essay. I’d better get on with that.
Write again when you have a chance, won’t you?
I absolutely adore your handwriting!!!
Affectionately,
Janie.
Marcia Pentland and I met in the Canterbury Club. She was what people today call petite and she had dark brown eyes and bobbed brunette hair. Marcia talked me into being on the club executive, which meant more meetings as well as the bi-weekly services at St. George’s Church. Partly motivated by my father’s urgings and partly by Marcia’s hints that she didn’t have a steady boyfriend, I asked her for a date. I suggested a movie, but she wondered if we could go to the symphony instead. Now, as a guy who knew the William Tell Overture only as the theme music for The Lone Ranger radio serial, I might’ve balked, but, in the interest of self-improvement, I told her I’d get tickets.
I felt pretty smug when I asked my father if I could have the car to take a university girl to the symphony. He patted me on the back as I went out the door in my blazer, grey slacks, white shirt and tie. There were tears of happiness in my mother’s eyes.
Marcia’s parents were out of the country for a year and she was living with her aunt in a fashionable apartment building on Hugo Street. She was ready to go as soon as I got to the door.
“What kind of car is this?” she asked.
“An Austin,” I said, feeling self-conscious.
“It’s cute,” she said. “My aunt drives a blunderbuss, a Caddy. Hard to park.”
I began to feel better when Marcia complimented me on the Auditorium seats.
We both enjoyed the program and, over coffee afterward, I tried to carry on an intelligent conversation about it. The only flaw in the discourse, from my point of view, was Marcia’s over-use of the word exquisite, as in “Wasn’t Walter Kaufmann’s conducting exquisite?” and “I thought the string section was absolutely exquisite.”
When we got back to the car, she said, “Oh, that concerto was so exquisite, it gave me goosebumps!”
I was experiencing goosebumps for another reason. Marcia seemed so happy with the evening, I anticipated an oscular reward of appropriate intensity. The Kissing Bandit enters high society, I told myself.
We parked and I accompanied Marcia through the crisp winter air to the building and up the flight of wide stairs. The hallway was too well-lighted for what I was expecting, but I thought she would surely ask me in.
She didn’t.
“That was exquisite,” she said, turning to me. “Thank you, Jenkins.”
I didn’t say anything—maybe that was stupid of me—and I bent to kiss her.
“Whoa, just a minute,” she said, ducking away from me. “Let’s not rush things, maestro. We’ll see you in church on Sunday. Good night.”
I could only assume that sophisticated symphony-attending girls didn’t kiss on the first date.
Dear Janie:
Thanks for putting me ahead of your English essay, but you shouldn’t do that too often.
I don’t think I was ever mad at you. I don’t think I could be mad at you, Janie.
You know, you might be onto something when you mention “a special bond.” I feel a connection, too.
A few weeks after the last time we spoke, no, it was a few weeks after I’d heard you’d left town, I woke up one morning and I had the feeling you were in the room. I could smell your perfume. It was strongest near my wardrobe cabinet and, for a weird minute, I thought you were hiding in there.
I opened the door and traced the scent to my suit, the suit I wore to graduation. Of course! That sexy nutmeg fragrance was imbedded in my suit.
I was ecstatic. All I had to do to conjure you up was sniff my suit.
Janie, I’ve spent a lot of time in the past few months sniffing my suit. Beware, any mother who tries to send that outfit off to the dry cleaners!
Glad you’re doing well at basketball.
Say, it won’t be long until you graduate. Do you think there’s a chance you might go to university in Manitoba?
Ah—just took another whiff of the suit. Now I can get by until I hear from you again.
Thanks again for being my grad date, and thank you for writing.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Jenkins.
Marcia and I saw each other in Economics class three times a week and at Canterbury Club meetings and at church, and, on our second date, we went to see the movie High Noon, which was being touted for an Academy Award (Gary Cooper was exquisite). Marcia’s seeming enjoyment of my company, her laughter, the way she’d touch my shoulder or my arm with delight—these things led me to believe that we’d go home to her aunt’s apartment and—if the aunt, whom I hadn’t yet met, had retired for the night—neck till the cows came home.
Once again, I didn’t get past the door.
Marcia reached up and gave me a quick hug and softly said, “I know a little smooch is probably important to you, Jenkins. But the feeling has to be mutual, and you and I just aren’t on the same page right now.”
I left the apartment building disappointed. Though there was a chance she might be building up suspense for something spectacular, I was getting frustrated.
So one night, I arranged a date with Mary. It was weeks since I’d seen her last and I told her, in my phone call from the local hotel, that I’d been ridiculously busy with my studies. I told my dad I was going out with Marcia but I felt bad about lying, so, on the way over to Mary’s, I resolved to tell Mary I couldn’t see her anymore. We’d neck first and then I’d make my dramatic announcement and then we’d do some more necking because it was going to be the last time.
But when I saw her before she put on her coat, in a powder-blue sweater and dark blue slacks, looking so feminine and cuddly and enticing, my resolve melted away and I could barely wait till we’d driven out to Lockport and parked on the riverbank just above the locks—a good distance from where Janie et al. had parked on grad night. How marvellous it was to taste Mary’s mouth again! My tongue eagerly explored the cavity in her too
th as if it were a gold mine. And she unhooked her bra for me and, with her coat covering us and the Austin windshield steaming up, I found one of her perfectly formed handfuls of flesh and squeezed it the way today’s corporate executive might squeeze a stress ball—not as hard, of course, but enough to give me instant comfort and relief. This is where I was meant to be, I told myself.
On the way home, my arm around Mary, who was snuggled against me, I said, “Just one minor little problem. My father doesn’t think the staff should fraternize—you know, date one another. And since I’m going to be working there again this summer, it’ll be best if nobody knows we’re dating. Okay? Just a nice little secret for you and me to keep.”
Janie’s next letter came liberally doused in nutmeg. My mother brought it to me in my room but, being the least nosy person I ever met, she didn’t say a word.
Dear Jenkins:
That was the best letter!
So funny! So touching!
You had me laughing and then crying.
But I’ve got something to tell you.
God, you’ve got to promise to burn this right after you’ve read it. I mean it!
When we were dancing? You remember how close we were? I felt you against me. I know you know that. And we fit together so perfectly, I wanted you, Jenkins.
I mean it.
I wanted you and we hadn’t even kissed!
Then when we did kiss, I couldn’t stand it. Everything felt so good! I wanted you right there in that stupid rented car.
I got scared. I thought I was losing my mind. I had to get out of there. I thought, what are you going to think of me? You were going to think you were with a crazy girl.
It wasn’t the booze. I know it was just us. Being just right.
God, you see what I mean? You HAVE to destroy this.
But I’m glad I told you.
Luv,
Janie.
I’m sure I wasn’t the first guy receiving letters from one girl who fantasized about his touching her, was officially dating another girl who wouldn’t let him touch her, and was secretly dating a third girl who would—all at the same time. Still, I guess I should’ve realized I’d never had it so good. I should’ve savoured it.
My fourth date with Marcia was the symphony again and somewhere in the evening she let me know that her aunt was away. This is the night, I told myself. This is what she’s been waiting for.
On the way out of the Auditorium, she said, “Want to come to my aunt’s for a snack?”
My ont’s. Lovely. A snack. Yum. “Yes, I’d like that,” I said.
Marcia showed me into a sitting room or den. There was a wall of books, floor to ceiling, and a desk with a covered typewriter, and a sofa with a coffee table in front of it. On one of the walls was an original oil painting of what was perhaps a Paris street scene.
“Do you want some wine?” she said. “Maybe some chardonnay?”
I was glancing at some of the books. “Oh, please,” I said.
“And why don’t you give me that?” she said, gesturing toward my blazer.
“Yes, thank you,” I said, taking the jacket off and looking into her eyes for some sign of longing. I didn’t see any, but perhaps she was a little nervous.
She took my jacket and headed out of the room. “Make yourself comfy,” she said.
I sat down on the sofa, thinking this was the kind of date I’d always dreamed about. This was classy. I loosened my tie and wondered if she’d return in something more comfortable. She was gone for a while and I began to think she’d come back in something sheer, maybe a negligee. She came back in the same thing she’d worn to the symphony, a high-necked, long-sleeved black and grey dress. She was carrying a plate of crackers with something pink on them as well as two stemmed glasses of chardonnay.
“That’s salmon,” she said. She pulled up an upholstered dining-room chair and sat across from me.
“Lovely,” I said, thinking, Seafood—good for lovemaking.
I took a cracker and ate it in a well-mannered way. I took a glass and raised it.
“Cheers,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “Oh, Jenkins, excuse me for saying this, but it’s best to hold the glass by the stem only.”
“Of course,” I said, adjusting my hand.
“Look, Jenkins, I wanted to talk with you and I thought now was a good time.”
I looked at her apprehensively.
She said, “We’ve had—what is it now—four dates?”
“Yes, four, yes.”
“It’s been exquisite. We’ve had a lot of fun, I think, and one thing I like, we leave the Canterbury stuff in the meetings. I’m going to level with you, though, Jenkins. I’ve noticed that at the end of every one of our dates, you have this look of utter disappointment on your face, like a child that’s been denied dessert. You obviously think it’s your God-given right to kiss me and touch me in some sexual way.”
“I thought it was natural for a couple who—”
“Let me finish, please. I like being with you. And Jenkins, what I’m going to say has nothing to do with our coming from different social stations or with anything the Church has to say in these matters. You and I are young, but we are, I think, using dating as a prelude to mate selection. We want the usual things, like emotional security and appreciation of personal worth and companionship and fulfillment of physiosexual need. As I said, Jenkins, we have fun together, but there isn’t any spark. There has to be fireworks, Jenkins—”
“We haven’t even kissed—how do you know—”
“Jenkins, I’m sorry, I just don’t have any desire to kiss you. That doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. I’ll repeat. We have a lot of exquisite fun together. And since we know that, I’m asking you, do we have to spoil what we have? Can’t we just be good friends?”
It was the end of April, a lovely spring day, and I was celebrating the end of exams. We were parked at sundown a few feet from the beach at Matlock on the west side of Lake Winnipeg, and my hot left hand was for the very first time inside Mary’s panties, venturing into her slippery-wet warmth, when I felt her shudder and, although in those days we knew nothing about female orgasms, I thought maybe I was arousing her in some way, but I stopped kissing her because she seemed to be gasping or choking, and I tasted a salty tear that had run down her cheek onto my lips and I still thought it might be arousal affecting her, even as I said, “Are you okay?”
She took a few moments to calm herself and then, her voice breaking on every few words, she said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry … it jus’ doesn’ seem right … we … we shouldn’ be doin’ dis … behind yer fodder’s back … it jus’ isn’ right, Jenkins … I’m sorry … oh, I’m so, so sorry …”
That autumn, I went to a press night of The Manitoban—the university student newspaper—to see if they needed a cartoonist. The editor gave me an assignment to try me out: do something on the theme of freshmen adapting to campus life. At home, I worked on “A study on the evolution of frosh” in two panels: the first showed a typical beanie-topped young man crazily roaring around campus, tearing the sweater off a co-ed; the second depicted the same guy in cramming mode days before the December exams. The editor liked it and ran it in the next issue, and it was closely followed by “What every male student wants for Christmas,” which gave me a chance to draw Marilyn Monroe. Such a hit was my rendering of Monroe in a bathing suit, I was asked to do a cartoon every second issue, one cartoon a week.
I drew the panel at home every Sunday and drove to the editorial offices to hand it in to the editor Sunday night. The staff worked till all hours, often not finishing up till morning. The offices didn’t belong to the university; by day, they housed a local printing company, so the Manitoban staff had to confine their in-office work to evenings, every Sunday and Wednesday, publishing the paper Tuesday and Friday. Some days, the cartoon ideas wouldn’t come, and I’d stare at my blank sheet of art paper until it was late and I started to panic. Sometimes, I’d deliver the
finished product at two in the morning. There would always be some staff members there and often the editor’s door would be closed. Legend had it that the closed door meant the editor was in there making love to one of his female reporters. I didn’t believe it; even when I waited and the door opened and Shelley Kurtz or Lisa McMurtry came out, adjusting her clothing and looking flushed of face, I still didn’t believe it. I’d go into the editor’s office with my cartoon and look around—at the uncomfortable chairs and the cluttered desk and the bare hardwood floor—and conclude there simply wasn’t anywhere to do it. The editor, a tall, well-built guy with a crew cut and a confident smile, loved every cartoon, usually laughing more heartily than the piece warranted. If it depicted a shapely co-ed, he’d light up a cigar and say, “Great tits, Jenkins.”
My new-found notoriety as campus cartoonist failed to bring the girls frothing to my door. On press night, someone like Shelley Kurtz or Kitty Elliott might intercept me when I arrived and demand to see my latest creation, and she’d lean her boobs against me while she looked over my shoulder, but that was the extent of my thrills. At the staff Christmas party, Kitty caught me under the mistletoe and French kissed me, but I was only one of a series of guys she was accosting, and she left me with a taste of the editor’s cigar.
It was a barren time. The past summer, I’d worked at my dad’s factory, mostly in shipping, where I could keep to myself, but I did have daily glimpses of Mary, working at the cutting table. I respected her wishes—and therefore my father’s edict—that we have no more surreptitious dates. I went out once with my friend Marcia, thinking the summer might’ve melted her resolve; we went to an outdoor concert and we sang some of the songs in the car afterward. “You’ve got an exquisite tenor voice, you know that?” she said, and she was out of the car and heading into her aunt’s apartment building before I could suggest anything else.
In September, after I’d heard nothing from Janie Sinclair for weeks, there came this letter:
Dear Jenkins:
How are you?
I’m kind of giddy, I guess is the word. Excited! My feet haven’t hit the ground yet.
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