____________________________________________________________________

Marsha watched in rapt attention as the blood reversed and the hard, erect tissue was magically replaced with soft, spongy tissue, and as it shrunk, it slipped, unaided, through the slit, into the confines of Mitchell’s white, cotton Jockey shorts.

Trying to bring herself and Mitchell back to some sort of normalcy, “Know what I think?” she asked jokingly. “I think you’re some kind of’a miracle of modern engineering.”

Miracle of modern engineering? Still feeling somewhat embarrassed, laughing, “Shucks, Marsha,” he said in mock modesty, “almost any guy can get a boner!”

“Yeah, maybe,” she said, “but you’re my guy!”

____________________________________________________________________

Chicago, Illinois

October 17, 1955

Wondering why so many things always reminded him of things in the past, wiping a drop of semen off the dashboard with the handkerchief, “I’m sorry it happened this way,” motioning towards his lap with the handkerchief, “but, Marcie, you got me so hot!”

“Yeah, you got me pretty hot there, too. And don’t say that,” reaching behind her back, re-clasping her bra, “I’m not sorry for anything that’s happened today!”

Zipping his fly, watching her, “Hold on, baby,” reaching to her, lifting one of the cups of her brassiere from the bottom, popping it up, over a breast, kissing the breast, “I love you!”

“Yeah, sure!” Pulling the cup down, grasping the brassiere from the bottom, readjusting it. “You just love my boobies.”

“Yeah, baby, I sure do, but I also love what’s attached.”

Reversing the car, “Marcie, baby, you’n’me, we’re married now…”

“Yeah, baby,” rubbing her hand high up on his thigh, “we sure are!”

Feeling her fingers graze his, not-altogether-flaccid penis, smiling, “And I’ve been thinking that we can do whatever we want now that we’ve, uh,” looking at her hand, “kind of broken the ice…”

Sensing her flow again, “So to speak.” wantonly tightening her fingers around his absolutely-no-longer-flaccid penis.

“What say we find someplace to eat, then… Damn it, Marcie, we’re married now and I know,” her hand still on his penis, “you want to make love to me, really make love to me and believe me, I want to, too, so much! So, please, we have all day, so let’s find a motel someplace. We don’t even have to tell them we did it if you don’t want to. Marcie, we’re married now and it’s none of their fu… uh, business if we make love to each other!”

Her hand no longer holding him, “Mitchie, you’re right! Believe me, too!” Oh, God I want to! “I do want to, but just can’t!” Holding her hand up, stopping him from speaking. “Besides the fact that I promised my mother, maybe she’s right and we’re not really married in the eyes of God till it’s done by a rabbi…”

“Or maybe,” Mitchell cut in, “if she wasn’t spending so much for a white wedding gown.”

“Yeah, maybe that, too.” Not wanting to think that money spent on a virginal, white wedding gown was the real reason they couldn’t spend the night together, alone, doing what newlyweds do.

“Anyway,” Marsha said, “I hated the way it happened with that judge, so fast and so…?”

“Impersonal.”

“Yes, impersonal. You know what, Mitchie?” Without waiting for his response, “I’ve waited so long to do it, to make love…”

Never telling her that he hadn’t, because a guy, a twenty-one-year-old guy, that hadn’t had intercourse by this time, to his way of thinking, should have, so he thought, Yeah, me too.

“… that I might just as well wait another couple of months so you and I can do it right.”

“In the eyes of God?”

“Yes. And also, about us finding a motel and not telling them. I want the two of us to get started off right, and I don’t think lying about something like that is the right way to do it.”

“In the eyes of God! All of a sudden our families got religion. I think the last time my mother and father’s been in a shul was when I had my Bar Mitzvah. How ’bout yours?” he asked, trying to make a point. “When’s the last time, you know of, that your folks went to shul?”

“When she’s gone, I don’t know, probably for Roger’s Bar Mitzvah, too. But daddy’s religious and goes every Friday, if he can.”

“Okay, I respect your dad for that, but I don’t think he’s the one that came up with this stupid idea. I don’t think any man would ask that of another guy. And I know my mom, and it’s sure as hell not her!”

“Well, your mother didn’t exactly not agree with her.”

“Maybe not, but I think she was forced into it.”

Knowing Myra was, “Yeah,” Marsha conceded, “maybe she was.”

“And, Marcie, I don’t know if after this…” putting his hand on her thigh, “I can go back to New York tomorrow and wait ’till December… hell, ’till almost the end of December! Marcie, I dream of sleeping with you. Of turning over at night and touching you. Of waking in the morning next to you. Yeah, baby, it is the sex, too, sure it is! I can’t wait till we’re naked in bed together doing it… But, to be honest, it’s mostly the closeness to you that I dream of.” This was true … sometimes.

“Mitchie, I feel the same way”—she did, oh, yes, she did—“and I’ve got an idea.”

An idea? “What idea?”

“What if I call… Better yet, I think we’ll do better talking to her face to face, so let’s go back to my place and we’ll tell mother that if we were going to do anything, we would have already, and that we want to spend the night together. No! I’ll tell her that we are going to spend the night together, and that we won’t do anything! I’ll say that one of us"—uh, huh—"will sleep under the blanket and one above it, or something like that.”

Oh, yeah, “or something like that,” indeed.

“And,” Mitchell asked, “if she doesn’t buy it?”

Sighing, “You’re right, Mitchie, December is a long way off. If she says no, then we will go to a motel.”

“And we’ll…” Mitchell asked.

Oh, yeah, sure thing!

“… sleep over and under the blanket?”

“Of course we’ll sleep over and under the blanket!” Marsha said sternly.

“Of course we will,” Mitchell said slyly.

                                                                            **** 

“Walter Lewis Studio!”

“Myra, the kids are here, and they’ve come up with something of an ultimatum.”

“An ultimatum! What kind of ultimatum?”

“They say…” staring at them, “that they want to spend the night together.”

“Together! They want to spend the night together?”

“Myra, please stop repeating everything I say! Yes, they want to sleep together.”

“Together! They want to sleep together?”

Christ! “Yes! But they say they won’t do anything.”

On the other end of the phone, fighting back laughter, “Won’t do any…”

“Do not repeat that! They say that one of them will sleep on top of the blanket and one of them will sleep under the blanket! And they say if I… if we, don’t let them, they’ll go to a motel.”

“You buy the blanket thing?” Hardly able to hold it back, “Sounds like a bunch’a bullshit to me.” Holding her hand over the mouthpiece, Myra began to laugh.

Wincing at “bullshit.” “I don’t know.”

Standing in the doorway to the kitchen, watching her, getting a bit edgy under Rhea’s intense stare, Marsha and Mitchell listened to the one-way conversation.

Stifling her laughter, “You believe them, do you?” Myra asked.

“I don’t know! They are married, after all.”

Thinking the whole Eyes of God thing as ridiculous, trying to sound serious, “Yes, they are,” Myra said solemnly.

“And what’s true is true .”

“What’s true is true ?”

Glancing skyward, “Well, like they said, if they were going to do something, they would have already!” Looking from her daughter to Mitchell, thinking,  I certainly would have!

“How do you know they didn’t, or won’t?”

“No,” looking at Marsha, “I know my daughter! And anyway, right now it’s beside the point.”

“Rhea, this was your idea! What do you want from me?”

Not trusting Myra, knowing she was not taking this seriously, “In your house they’d have a bedroom with a door.” Smiling at Marsha, “And here they’ll be sleeping in the living room, with a door that doesn’t close all the way…” now, smiling at Mitchell, “and here they’ll never know when I might just pop in on them.”

 A “Becoming” Excerpt.

“Becoming” (734 actual pages) can now also be purchased as a Kindle Ebook . $4.95