_______________________________________________________________________ “Jesus, Mitchell,” standing back, Gina held him at arms’ length, “you grew up great!”
“Yeah,” he lied, “you, too!” Because, for his taste, Gina was still the complete opposite of what he even remotely considered to be attractive in a woman and, truly, she did not look good to him at all, but he did not know what else to say.
No longer having green teeth, Gina was still tall and skinny, at least the upper portion of her body. Her hips, though, from what he felt when he’d held her, and approved of, had widened.
________________________________________________________________________
Chicago, Illinois
October 26, 1956.
Wearing a dark blue, fashionably correct dress for a receptionist at a Michigan Avenue advertising agency, Mitchell mentally conceded that—now that he’d, sort of, gotten used to the look of her—Gina was somewhat attractive, in a rather gaunt sort of way.
Even though her outward demeanor had seemingly matured, Mitchell could not relate this woman to the girl whom, the last time he had seen her, had his penis in her mouth.
“Your mom…” Fishing for conversation, remembering she’d told him that her father had deserted them when she was a young child, “…she okay? You ever hear from your dad?”
“Don’t know. I haven’t talked to her in a couple’a years now,” Gina said matter-of-factly. “An’ no, we never heard from my ol’ man.” Looking at her watch, “Mitchie, it’s past time for my break. What say you’n’me go down for a cup’a coffee an’ talk for a few minutes to kind’a get, uh, reacquainted.”
Having no objection to knowing what had happened in her life for the past seven and a half years, or to let her know what had happened in his, also flattered by her attention and obvious attraction, “Yeah, sure,” Mitchell said. “Coffee sounds great. I’ve been out there freezing…”
“Your balls off.”
“Yeah.” Smiling, “It’s colder’n’a…”
“Witches tit.”
Oh, well. So much for Gina’s inner demeanor. “Yeah,” agreeing, “it is colder’n’a witches tit.”
Lifting the phone, dialling a two digit number, “Shelly, I’m taking my break. How’s ’bout pickin’ up for me?… Thanks.”
“My case…” Mitchell asked. “Okay to leave it here?”
“Yeah, sure.” Going to the door, “Come on.”
“No coat?”
“Don’t need it. Restaurant’s just a couple’a doors down.”
“Gina, you’ll freeze your, uh, butt off!”
“Don’t worry ’bout it. Remember me,” sending, so she thought, a subtle message, “I’m always hot!”
Catching the not so subtle message, “Yeah, I remember.”
When Mitchell had first met Gina she seemed to be in heat from the moment he and Frank walked through the door, so now had not the slightest doubt about the meaning of this statement.
In the crowded elevator, allowing Gina first entry, standing immediately behind him, Mitchell sensed the light touch of her breasts, stomach and thighs as she pressed against his back… And, although having room, he did not move away.
Outside, the wind blew against Gina’s dress, contouring the slick material against the sharp points of her breasts, the thin roundness of her thighs, and deeply through the valley formed by her crotch, outlining the pronounced bulge of her vulva. And, Oh, yes, Mitchell did, indeed, notice.
In the restaurant they sat on opposite sides of a small table where Gina’s nylon clad ankle lay—accidentally?—across Mitchell’s wool clad ankle and, Oh, yes, once more Mitchell was aware of her touch, for just a few seconds, until…
Subtle female messages had always been lost on Mitchell, but even he caught the not so subtle “come on” messages he’d been receiving from Gina and knew if he asked her to take the rest of the day off, she would, and they would end up in bed! But either out of loyalty to his marriage, love of Marsha, fear or, more the likely, a combination of all three…
Taking his wedding ring from his pocket, Mitchell put it on his finger.
“Mitchell!” The magnetic bond of her ankle broken as she moved her legs, “What’s that?” pointing to the white gold band, but knowing full well what “that” was.
“What?” he asked innocently. “Oh, this!” Holding his left hand forward, “I thought you knew.”
“How the hell would I know?” Gina said angrily. “Why the hell weren’t’j’ya wearin’ it when you came in the office?”
“I’m sorry, but I heard that when waitresses work, some of ’em take their wedding rings off so they’ll get bigger tips from guys, and I’ve always got to get past a secretary or receptionist if I want to see ‘the man,’ so I thought it would be easier, sometimes, if the woman didn’t know I’m married.”
Quiet a moment, Gina pondered the logic in this.
Okay, now she knows, Mitchell thought. And if she still wants to…However, really, Mitchell had no idea what he would do if she did want to. In the elevator, on the street and now in the restaurant, between breaks in the conversation his thoughts had touched on sex with Gina.
Truly, though, Mitchell felt ambivalence towards Gina and, truly, did not know how far he wanted to take this… Or how far he wanted it to go. He was not attracted to Gina! There was no physical attraction. But yet there was an… allurement?
Gina was a woman! A different woman! And this different woman was showing a sexual interest to him. And, yes, he was flattered.
Although, God knows, he’d tried! Before his marriage he had “tried” with a number of girls and later, women, but something always happened to stop him. Mitchell Lipensky had never completed sexual intercourse with a woman other than his wife.
So now—his upper brain influenced by his lower brain—the very thought of being with a “strange woman”; of looking at her nude body; of her looking at his nude body; of touching her; of her touching him; of tasting the taste of her flesh, and her fluid. Remembering Gina, knowing she would do to him something his wife would never do to him: to taste him, if he wished, all the way to conclusion. And above all else, the very thought of being within a new woman’s body, a different woman’s body; of inserting his penis in another woman’s vagina; yes, the thought of fucking a strange woman thrilled Mitchell Lipensky… even if he felt ambivalence towards that strange woman.
Yes! A part of Mitchell did want to go on with this.
But yet, a part of Mitchell did not want to go on with this.
So okay, he thought, now she knows, and if she still wants to…? Truly, he didn’t know what he would do.
“You should’a said somethin’ ’bout bein’ married! You shouldn’t’a led me on!”
“I didn’t have a chance at first,” he said, although he had. “And to be honest, it slipped my mind.” It hadn’t. “And just what did I do to lead you on?”
That’s true ! Gina thought. Outside of not movin’ his leg, really, what’s he done to lead me on? Nonetheless, “You forgot? How the hell can a guy forget he’s married?”
“Gina, when I realized who you were, it just… I don’t know, it brought back so much! You know, Frankie, and…” This much was true , at least.
A distant look coming to her face, “Yeah,” Gina said softly as, sitting back, she sipped her coffee.
“Anyway, what I started to say before was, a couple of years after we first met I wanted to see you…”
“Yeah?” Flattered, “You remembered me?”
“Sure, I always remembered you!” Untrue ; he had forgotten.
Thinking, I knew he’d remember his first fuck! Gina well remembered that day in 1949 because Mitchell was the best looking boy she’d ever been with, also the most inexperienced. In her mind, that day had culminated with sexual intercourse rather than oral. So now thinking, What the hell, so he’s married! So what? That’s never stopped me before.
“Anyway,” Mitchell continued, “I didn’t have your phone number and hadn’t talked to Frankie since that last time I saw him, so I called to say hello and to get your number, and his sister, uh…”
“Cynthia.”
“Yeah, Cynthia, she, uh…” Finding it hard to go on, choking up a bit, looking to the side he closed his eyes.
Gina’s only outward emotion usually being lust, now though, seeing the play of emotion on Mitchell’s face and being a rather callous woman who truly believed it to be a sign of weakness for a man to cry, averting her face, looking out the window, “Yeah,” she said, “you remember Lisa? Anyway, Lisa begged him not to join, but Frankie insisted, said maybe he’d learn some kind’a trade in the Marines…”
“And the fuckin’ gooks blew him up!”
“Yeah, the fuckin’ gooks blew him up alright!”
Rubbing a napkin over his eyes, “Whatever happened to Lisa?”
Laughing, “Believe it or not, she’s becoming a nun.”
“A nun?” Envisioning Lisa with Frank laying on the floor with her underpants tangled about her ankles, “Really?”
“Yeah! After Frankie got killed she became some kind’a religious nut and went into a convent. I ain’t talked to her in a ’bout a year now… You remember your ol’ pals Quido an’ Al?”
“Quido and Al?”
“Yeah! Them two fuckers that wanted to beat the shit out’a you ’cause you’re a Jew.”
“Oh, yeah! Them two fuckers.”
“You’ll like this: They both got drafted. Al went over the hill in Korea an’ last I heard he’s still makin’ little ones out’a big ones in Leavenworth. An’ Quido came back in a wheelchair an’ he’s over in a V.A. hospital someplace weavin’ baskets.”
Absently stirring his coffee, Mitchell remembered the people that populated that day in 1949 and thought of the twists of fate that made them what they were on this day in 1956: A whore that became a receptionist, a young girl that’s becoming a nun, a hoodlum that became a convict—it couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy—and, though, he wouldn’t wish that on anyone, another hoodlum that became a paraplegic. And his once best friend, Frank Rizzo, dead.
Trying to make up her mind on whether or not to put the “make” on Mitchell, even if he was married. “So tell me, Mitchie,” she asked, “how long ya been married? She a Jew, too?”
“Yeah, Marcie’s Jewish. We got married while I was in the service.”
“Service? You in the Army?”
“Coast Guard. I got discharged about three weeks ago.”
“Your wife, she’s from ’round here?”
“Yeah, I met her…” thinking a moment. “Matter’a fact, I met her the same summer I met you.”
“Christ, you guys sure believe in long engagements!”
“Nah,” chuckling, “I was almost fifteen…”
“Almost fifteen? Thought you was older’n that.”
“Yeah, well, lying about that was Frankie’s idea. Anyway, I was near fifteen and she was not too far from being thirteen and it took all these years for our ages to catch up with us. We were married in December, a year ago, and lived in New York until now. We got back just a couple’a weeks ago and got a small apartment on the north side that’ll be big enough till…”
Deciding, her ankle found Mitchell’s… for just a moment, though, for the time it took him to say…
“…the baby gets bigger.”
Jerking her ankle away, “You’ve a baby, Mitchell?”
Feeling the touch… “No,” then the rapid removal of her ankle, “but we’re expecting one in March.”
Remembering her childhood; a baby made all the difference.
****
The little girl had loved her father dearly… Until Fredrick Glambos began to return his daughter’s love in less than a fatherly way… Until he was discovered by Maria Glambos, then, guilt ridden, terrified of the police, Fredrick left home that very evening, disappeared and, within a few days, at the onset of World War Two, enlisted in the Army under an assumed name and was subsequently killed.
The sexual abuse, then abandonment by her father was crushing to the eight year old child.
****
“It’s bad enough you didn’t tell me you were married, Mitchell, but okay, I can understand that.”
Gina Glambos had no compunction about having sex with a married man. After all, that is how and why she had her job at Hillhouse & Hodges.
“But,” she said, “wanting to fuck around with me while your wife’s pregnant?”
Gina did, however, vigorously draw the line if children were involved. “That’s really kind’a shitty!”
“Gina,” speaking defensively, “when did I ever say I wanted to fuck around with you? How and when did I give you that idea?”
Being a delusional woman, Gina believed all men were hot for her, and…
“All we’re doing is having a goddamned cup of coffee!”
…in many cases that was true because…
“And offhand, I can’t think of a thing I’ve said or done to make you even think I wanted to fuck around with you!”
…as a teenager and young adult, her sexual aura and openly prurient nature had often converted boys, and later men, that had originally seen only her homeliness, to boys, and later men, who quickly began to see Gina as a creature of easily accessible sexual gratification… Who were, indeed, hot for her.
Gina wanted Mitchell when she had met him in 1949 and she wanted him now. But his admission of pending fatherhood putting her off, she also knew what he’d said was true : really, he hadn’t said or done anything to lead her on, and this, because in her mind Mitchell was supposed to have the hots for her and, If he is hot for me, she thought, he sure isn’t showing it! And this, for some reason making her irrationally angry. “Look,” she said, “I gotta get back upstairs!”
Feeling guilty because, Maybe I did do something to lead her on! Also feeling stupid because, Maybe I could’a gotten laid if I’d’ a kept my mouth shut! At the same time feeling guilty for thinking that thought. “Ok, Gina,” he said, “that’s fine with me!”
****
Upstairs, dialing the phone, “I’m back, Shelly.”
Sensing her hostility, “Whoever buys the photography here, is he in?”
Dialing another number, looking at the business card she’d left on the desk, “Les, I’ve a guy here from, uh, Walter Lewis Studio that wants’a talk to you ’bout photography… Yeah, sure.” Placing the phone on the cradle, glaring at Mitchell, “He said you should call for an appointment,” Gena said belligerently.
“Okay,” said just as belligerently. “What’s his name?”
“Nocera! The guy you want’a talk to is Lester Nocera.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Marking the name on the index card.
“Yeah!” swiveling the chair, turning her back to him, “see you ’round sometime.”
“Yeah, so long, Gina.” Taking his coat and sample case, anxious to be out of there, he put his coat on in the elevator.
****
Downstairs, outside, taking the pack of index cards from his pocket, removing the Hillhouse & Hodges card, tearing it in pieces, Mitchell let the wind of Michigan Boulevard take it.
