He unhooked her bra, his fingers on her bare breasts. Okay. She had decided it was all right to go this far, but no farther. He never stopped kissing her. Touching her. And then his hand was on her belly, his fingers creeping lower and lower . . .
She sat up. “No, Shep, you promised!”
“But, Sandy, what am I doing wrong?”
“I don’t know. I just have this feeling.”
“You like me to touch you?”
“Yes, you know I do.”
He took her hand and pressed it to his pants. “How far do you go with your other boyfriends, Sandy?”
“I’ve gone this far but it wasn’t the same. Besides, I don’t have any other boyfriends right now . . .”
“I’m glad to hear that. You understand that I go out with other girls . . . with other women . . . because I have to . . . but you’re my favorite, kid. I really mean it, I like you the best.”
“Thank you.”
“The others, well, they’re just for sex because I’m a pretty hot guy, Sandy, and I really need it.”
“Yes, I understand.”
He started to laugh. “Hey, do you believe everything I tell you?”
“Yes.”
He put his arms around her. “Sandy, Sandy, I want to be your first lover. Will you remember that? Some day when you’re ready I want it to be me.”
“Not until I’m twenty-five or married, whichever comes first.”
“Twenty-five?”
“Yes. My mother thinks I should wait until I’m thirty if I’m still single but I’ve decided that twenty-five makes more sense.”
He laughed again, then reached inside her sweater but this time he rubbed her back. “How many cashmeres do you have?”
“Twenty-seven, why?”
“Just wondering.”
“That’s a pretty funny question.”
“But you had the answer, didn’t you?”
“Everybody counts their cashmeres.”
“You see. Is your father rich, Sandy?”
“Not rich, but we’re well off. He’s got a tire business.”
“I’m poor, but I’m going to make it someday.”
“I hope you do, Shep, if you want to so badly.”
“And I’m going to be able to buy my kids twenty-seven cashmeres at once.”
“I didn’t get them all at once. I collect them.”
“I know, I’m just telling you how it’s going to be for me.”
He seemed so different when he talked that way. More like a little boy. Certainly he wasn’t a threat when he was sharing his dreams with her. Sandy found this side of Shep very appealing. She could handle the little boy in him. It was the man that terrified her.
Sandy went off to Boston U. that fall and didn’t see Shep until Thanksgiving. He was sharing an apartment with three other guys in the Hotel Albert on University Place, working for Pilgrim Knitwear, as a salesman, and taking courses in business administration at NYU, nights.
Sandy wore her beige wool dress, three-inch heels, seamless stockings, gold bangle bracelets, green eye shadow, and her Borgana coat. The picture of sophistication. She thought.
He took her out for a drink, then up to his place.
“Sandy, Sandy,” he said, looking her over. “What’s happened to my little girl?”
“I’ve grown up, Shep.”
“Not too much, I hope.”
“Enough.” She smiled knowingly, trying to keep her voice husky, her legs from trembling. She’d rehearsed this moment for two months.
“Seeing a lot of guys?”
“I go out.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Well, what are you talking about?”
“You know damn well!”
“I told you once, twenty-five or marriage, whichever comes first.”
He took her in his arms. “I thought you said you’ve grown up.”
“I was just pretending.”
“I’m glad.”
It felt so good to have him hold her again. She wanted it to stay this way forever. He unzipped her dress and she tensed. “It’s all right,” he whispered, easing it over her shoulders and down, until she stepped out of it. “It’s all right.” He held her close. She was in her lacy beige nylon slip, her beige garter belt, her beige lace bra and matching panties. She’d bought it all in September, at Filene’s, with some of her living allowance, and every day she took the set out of her dresser drawer, fondling it, thinking about how it would be when she wore it with Shep. And every day she came, picturing them together.
But she’d never tried it on. No, that would have spoiled it. She hadn’t even worn it to the Tufts Homecoming Ball and her date, Norman Pressman, was a senior, vice-president of the graduating class, a BMOC. She’d let him kiss her goodnight, twice, but that was it.
“I bought it just for you,” Sandy told Shep. “Do you like it?”
His answer was a sliding kiss, from her mouth to her neck to her shoulder. He picked her up and carried her to his bed. Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler. He lay next to her, kissing, kissing, until she thought she would die. He lifted her slip and took it off, over her head. He unhooked her beige lace bra and tossed it to the floor. He looked down at her and kissed her bare breasts. One, then the other, making her nipples stand up, sucking on them. “Oh, Shep . . . God . . . please . . . no . . . I can’t . . . I . . .”
And he rested his hand on the soft flesh on the inside of her thighs, between the tops of her stockings and her beige lace panties, and then, he let his hand rest on the panties themselves.
“So wet,” he whispered, “your pussy is so wet.” His hand was suddenly inside her panties, his fingers touching her,
There.
The first person she’d ever let get inside. “No, Shep, I . . .”
“Shush . . .” He kissed her again and kept playing with her, one finger moving around inside her, the others squeezing her lips.
“I love you, I love you,” she called as she came.
“I know,” he answered. “I’ve always known.”
She kissed him.
“Was that nice?” he asked.
“You know it was. I never came that way before. I never let anyone touch me
there.
”
“So how did you come?”
“Oh, by myself, mostly . . . rubbing . . .”
“Like this?” And he rolled over on top of her. When had he taken off his slacks? He was just in his jockey shorts now and she could feel him against her, feel how long and hard he was. They moved together and she could imagine what it would be like to have him inside her. Yes, she could imagine it. She could want it. “No . . . stop, Shep . . .” She pushed him away.
“Sandy . . . Sandy . . . it hurts . . . please . . .” He reached inside his shorts and pulled out his penis.
She looked away.
“Don’t be afraid, Sandy, come on.”
“I can’t, Shep.”
He took it in his hand, his fingers wrapped around it, pulling, rubbing. “See, that’s all you have to do.”
He took her hand and put it around him. “There . . . there . . . see how easy that is?” He kept his hand over hers and together they made him come, into his handkerchief.
At Christmas he was begging her to kiss it and wanting to eat her. But she couldn’t, couldn’t do that. It was unhealthy, abnormal. Shep was pushing her too far.
Mona warned her. “I won’t forbid you to see him, Sandy, but I want you to know how unhappy Daddy and I are about this. He’s not the right kind of boy for you. He has no background. His mother scrubs floors. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“A Jewish scrubwoman. They’re not our kind of people, Sandy. And God forbid, he could make you pregnant.”
“Mother! I’m not doing anything like that.”
“I hear he’s already made twenty girls pregnant.”
“Who told you that?”
“Margie Kott’s mother. Margie had to stop seeing him because she couldn’t trust him.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“You better believe it before it’s too late . . . did you know a girl can get pregnant without doing . . .
you know what
. . .”
“No!”
“It’s true. So don’t go losing your head over him. He could ruin the rest of your life . . . remember that . . . look at Myra . . . look how happy she is . . . you find yourself a nice boy, like Gordon . . . somebody with a future . . . with a profession or a good business and you go after him . . . and give him enough to keep him interested but don’t give him everything . . . because once he’s got everything from you he’ll never marry you . . . believe me, I know what I’m talking about, I gave Myra the same advice . . . and look what she got. What about that nice boy who took you to the Ball?”
“Norman?”
“Why don’t you see him over vacation?”
“I might.”
“He calls every day . . . a nice boy from Plainfield . . . the same background . . . that’s what counts, Sandy. Remember, you can’t eat love . . .”
“Please stop saying that.”
So Sandy went out with Norman Pressman. He took her to the Chaim Chateau for dinner and dancing, and although he couldn’t dance at all, it turned out to be a very nice evening. No pressure. Two good-night kisses. And the next day he asked her to dinner at his house and his mother served a roast and his father carved it at the table. Three days later Norman drove her back to school in his new Oldsmobile.
Still, she dreamed of Shep. She dreamed of kissing him
there
and over midwinter vacation had a sudden urge to take him in her mouth. What was she going to do about these disgusting thoughts? Decent people, normal people, didn’t do those things . . . didn’t even think about them. Shep was perverted. But she let him do that to her. Just once. And oh, it was so good. Like nothing she had ever experienced. She came over and over, as he licked and kissed and buried his face in her. Until she cried, “Stop . . . please stop . . . I can’t take any more . . .”
And then he kissed her face and she tasted herself on him. And she liked it.
If her mother knew, she would grow faint and say: Sandy, a nice girl like you! I can’t believe it. How could you? That’s against our religion. All those years of Sunday school . . . didn’t you learn anything?
And her sister would add: Sandy, I’m shocked! Gordy and I are married and we
never
do anything so disgusting. Didn’t you take Health in school? Don’t you remember what Miss O’Shea taught us? That if you engage in abnormal sexual practices you’ll give birth to abnormal babies. Don’t you want healthy babies, Sandy?
But it feels good, Sandy would argue.
So do a lot of things, Mona would tell her. But we don’t do them.
Like what? Sandy would ask.
And then Mona and Myra would look at each other and shake their heads.
Sandy knew she had to be strong. Strong enough to stop seeing Shep before he ruined her life.
Fortunately, he was drafted before Easter and after six weeks at Fort Dix was scheduled to go overseas, to Germany.
Mona relaxed.
Shep called to say good-bye. “Will you wait for me, Sandy?”
“Are you asking me to?”
“I can’t, Sandy. I’m going to be gone a long time, but someday I’ll be all yours. I promise.”
“I don’t know, Shep. I’ve got to think about it.”
She thought about it while she went out with Norman Pressman. To dinners at expensive restaurants. To fraternity parties. To dances and movies and plays.
By the end of the summer they were pinned.
By November engaged.
She understood Norman. Felt comfortable with him. Safe. With Norman she was in control of the situation. She didn’t have to be afraid. He knew the rules.
Dear Shep,
I haven’t heard from you in ages, but I just thought I should tell you that I am engaged to marry Norman Pressman. He went to Tufts but graduated last June and is now in his family’s dry cleaning business in Plainfield. We plan to be married in August. I will probably transfer to Douglass next fall.
Please Shep . . . call and tell me not to do it and I’ll listen. Come home and kiss me, Shep . . . hold me . . . and I’ll call it all off. My knees don’t shake with Norman, Shep. My stomach doesn’t roll over . . . but you can’t eat love, can you? I mean, really? I know what kind of life I’ll have with Norman. I don’t know about you, Shep. With Norman there won’t be any surprises and that’s good, isn’t it? My mother says so . . . my mother says surprises can only mean trouble . . .
Norman fits in, Shep. You don’t. You’d never be satisfied with just me . . . would you? And I couldn’t stand it, Shep, if we got married and then you went with other women . . . I’d die . . . I have an engagement ring. A two-carat, emerald-cut, blue-white diamond. And we’re going to Puerto Rico on our honeymoon. And we’re renting a new garden apartment in Plainfield. Five and a half rooms. And I’m choosing my china and crystal and silver and linens . . . oh, I’m so busy choosing everything . . . and my picture is being done by Bradford Bachrach next week, Shep . . . and please, if you care . . . if you want me the way I want you . . . please, hurry and send a telegram before my picture is in the paper and everybody knows I’m going to marry Norman Pressman . . . before it’s too late, Shep . . .
S
HE MOVED INTO
the seat behind Shep on the train, willing him to turn around. But he didn’t. He had longer hair now, brushing his shirt collar. She thought about touching the back of his neck. Remembered how he’d shivered when she’d kissed him there. Funny, she’d never kissed the back of Norman’s neck. Ten minutes later they pulled into Newark. Sandy had to change trains. She walked out past him. He was reading his paper and never looked up. She was clutching the book Lisbeth had given to her.
S
ANDY AND
N
ORMAN
went out to dinner that night. Not to The Club, The Club was closed on Mondays. To the new Chinese restaurant in Scotch Plains. Everyone was raving about it. And the owner, Lee Ann Fong, had recently joined The Club herself. Sandy told Norm about Lisbeth and Vincent and their arrangement. Their Thursday nights off.
“I could never tolerate anything like that,” Norman said. “Marriage is a contract.”
“But Lisbeth says it’s helping their marriage.”
“Lisbeth is full of shit . . . always has been.” Norman stirred his Scotch with his index finger as he spoke.
“Did you know McCarthy did that?”
“Did what?”
“Stirred his drinks with his finger.”
“You think I’m like Joe McCarthy? Is that what you’re saying?”