A FBOW excerpt in sequence: Reflection”
‘If’ I want to be’ Registering on Marsha’s mind.
He waited for her to say or do something…
When she didn’t, not knowing what else to say, laying down and turning onto his side facing away from her, he hoped she’d say ‘something’ to give him a glimmer of hope... To say ‘anything’ to encourage him.
And more than anything he wanted Marsha to touch him, to physically touch him.
As for Marsha, she wanted more than anything to touch him, to physically touch him…
Sadly, she did not.
After a few minutes he sat up, looked at the water then at Marsha’s back as she, too, had turned onto her side, facing away from him. “Marsha…”
Rubbing her fingers across her eyes before turning around and maybe, were it not so bright or possibly were he just a bit more observant Mitchell would have noticed that her eyes were red and glassy.
“…I spend so much time working in the sun that lying out like this sometimes gets boring real fast. Besides, I’m getting kind’a hungry. So unless you ‘really’ want to stay here, what if we go back to the cottage, change our clothes and the three of us take a walk into Union Pier and go for lunch someplace.”
“Yeah. Mikey’s going to start screaming for lunch pretty soon anyway.”
Their conversation now over.
Their time together now strained.
Taking his bag from the bedroom, Mitchell changed into shorts and a T-shirt shirt in the bathroom— closing the door behind him.
Marsha went into the bedroom to change into shorts and a blouse.
****
...Watching as Michael gobbled two slices of ‘Oscar Mayer Bologna’ and a slice of ‘Kraft American Cheese’.
Mitchell attempted to help feed his son dessert, but insisting on holding the ‘poon’ himself, Michael ended up dumping half the contents of a bottle of ‘Gerber’s Tapioca’ over his bib.
****
...Words at a minimum, they walked the shoulder of the Old Road in silence.
Walking on the outside, to the right of the buggy, Mitchell was quiet because ‘yes’, the memories of the past were at play and he did feel that being on this road, the road he’d walked as a child…
Walking the ‘Old Road’ of some of Mitchell’s yesterdays with ‘his’ child called forth a nostalgic emotion that bordered on a soft, subliminal pain.
Facing forward. Sitting with his back resting against the rear of the buggy with his head tilted upward, void of infantile gibberish Michael was silent because —looking upward he was mesmerised by the alternating radiant blue sky and the lacy shadows of overhanging trees.
Not realising they were abreast the ‘Lakeside Hotel’ until they were almost beyond it, his head turning to the left, Mitchell looked until they were past the once manicured, beautiful grounds.
“Sometimes things really do go to hell, don’t they, Marsha?” he said sadly, more a reflection of the state of their marriage than the neglected grounds of an old hotel.
“Yes, that’s true ,” Marsha said, adding faintly, “but sometimes things can be fixed again,” referring ‘only’ to the state of their marriage.
Looking forward he wondered if he’d ‘truly’ heard Marsha’s words, and if he had did they have the meaning he prayed they had?
But…
Pushing the buggy, the set of her face giving nothing away, Marsha looked straight forward.
****
The summer town of Union Pier was crammed with people over this long Fourth of July weekend and the ‘Palladium’ was jammed with adults and children only too happy to shove their nickels into the slots of pinball machines that were illicit in Illinois, but legal in the state of Michigan.
Leaving the buggy outside, with his wife at his side, Mitchell once again hoisted his son onto his shoulder.
Inside the Palladium, those adults that noticed Marsha and Mitchell stopped a second to look at the handsome couple, then turned their attention back to what they’d been doing with whomever they were with.
Standing taller. Both proud to be seen with the other and the beautiful child they had created.
Waiting in line for seats at the crowded lunch counter, they enjoyed the long remembered intermingled, incomprehensible chatter of the horde of people. The din of dinging pinball machines and the raucous, blaring sounds of the jukebox, all of which were a part of the memory of this place—of this place where Marsha Goldman and Mitchell Lipensky met those nine years ago.
The tumult of the Palladium also healing take their minds off themselves and their failed marriage.
Finally seated...
With Michael on Mitchell’s lap. With hamburgers and Cokes before them. Eating french fries from his father’s plate, probably ‘back-washing’ more than he drank, every now and then the squirming child was given a drink straight from his father or mother’s bottle.
“Marcie…”
Warming to the degree of calling each other ‘Mitchie’ or ‘Marcie’, outside of the momentary touch of his finger onto her chest, neither had yet to touch the other.
Marsha still waited for him to make the first move and Mitchell… Besides feeling he should still maintain his rapidly crumbling of facade of anger, at least for a little longer—Mitchell was hesitant for fear of rejection.
Besides, for just once he’d like her to ‘at least’, apologise.
“Marcie...”
The hamburger about to enter her mouth, Marsha looked to her left.
“…I’m curious about something.”
“Yeah…” Taking a bite, putting the burger onto the plate as she chewed…
Now that they had begun to address each other in a less formal, more affectionate way, as though the name of the other was the bit that would bore the hole that would begin the process of crumbling the dike of their separation, each using it whenever possible…
“…what’s that, Mitchie?”
“Marcie, how come you never got hold of, uh, Mister Berman to have him send me a letter or something?”
“No need to, Mitchie. You started sending me money almost right away. Besides, I didn’t see any reason to build up a bigger bill till I knew what was happening...” omitting, ‘with us’. How come you didn’t have…uh?”
“ ‘Hoffman’,” Mitchell said, giving Michael—who turned his head to the right when his mother spoke and upward when his father spoke—another slurp of Coke.
“Yeah, ‘Hoffman’.” Putting a catsup dipped french fry in her mouth and chewing and swallowing before answering. “How come you didn’t have him send me a letter or something.”
“Well, Marcie I…”
Mitchell didn’t want to say, ‘I never stopped hoping you’d change your mind and come back to me’. Or ‘I never stopped loving you’.
“Well, Marcie I didn’t want to spend more on lawyers till I knew what your plans were. So I thought I’d wait to see what you planned on doing first.”
****
“I Can’t believe it, Marcie, in all this time it’s like nothing’s changed.”
With the exception of going in the opposite direction on the other side of the road all was as it was an hour and a half ago: Marsha pushing the buggy; Mitchell now walking to her right and Michael, still sitting up watched the passing scenery.
“I guess so, Mitchie...” thinking of the Lakeside Hotel, “...except everything’s getting older.”
“Hey!” Passing it on the way to town, Mitchell had been in such deep thought over Marsha’s observation about ‘things can be fixed again’, that he hadn’t recognised it. “That’s where we used to stay...” adding, “...when I met you.”
“Yup, that’s it, alright.”
Marsha remembered the cottage only too well because after that first night—remembering their kiss, her first real kiss—passing the cottage on her way to Union Pier, on so many occasions she would see Mitchell through the screened porch and had wanted to knock on the door to say that she wasn’t angry at him any more for dropping her as ungraciously as he had after she had been forced to admit that she was not quite thirteen years old. But of course, even then Marsha, being Marsha, never did.
Passing slowly, putting his hand onto the buggy handle Mitchell stopped momentarily to see if he could see through the screened porch and open door—and if he could, half expected to see Lawrence at six years of age, sitting at the table eating a bowl of ‘Kellogg’s Corn Flakes’ and his mother, on the old, flaking wicker sofa reading a book.
His hand remaining on the buggy handle, about three inches to the left of Marsha’s hand they went on.
Shining over their shoulders—flickering in and out due to overhanging tree limbs, the sun cast an undulating star of reflected light onto the buggy’s chrome plated handle.
Unaware they were, both sets of eyes were drawn to the flickering spot of light emanating from between the tip of the little finger of Mitchell and the little finger of Marsha.
Walking on. Approaching the southern boundary of the Lakeside Hotel, the flickering star of light no longer there because —without noticeable movement, the fingers of Marsha and Mitchell had stretched inward, to the point of light…
Now…
The very tips of their fingers touched and that quarter inch of flesh transmitted a shock of spiritual power that transcended pride and stubbornness, anger, hurt and fear of rejection and as a shock of electricity might cause one to unwittingly fling their arms about themselves, suddenly…
Marsha and Mitchell found themselves in the arms of each other with their lips on the lips of each other and the breath of each, again, became the breath of both… of one.
The leaning fence splintered and no longer whitewashed.
The lawn overgrown, weeds choking what flowers there once had been.
Though it was late mid-day.
Their eyes closed... Within their minds both saw the flickering silver light of fireflies within the eyes of the other.
I love you! Oh, God, how I love you!
The thoughts of each, the unspoken words of both.
The hold of their lips breaking.
Taking a deep breath, “Mitchie...” reluctant to release, to be released, “...I’m so glad you’re here, honey!” Meaning here in her arms, as well as here, where they were... “So glad!”
“Me, too, baby!” Holding her. His arms tight about his wife as though were he to let go she would disappear again. “Oh, God, it’s good to hold you again! To feel you next to me again! I missed you so much! I love you so much!”
Turning to see, to watch... The few people walking on either side of the Old Road slowed to look at the two young people standing on the cracked driveway of the old Lakeside Hotel passionately kissing as the toddler in the buggy looked on.
Forcing her lips from his, “Mitchie,” looking about, seeing people looking at them, “we’d better get home before Mikey starts to get restless, and so...” completely meaning this “... we can have some privacy.”
“Yeah, honey...” standing back, glancing downward, “...I think that might be a really good idea.
Following his eyes, “Yeah, Mitchie.”
Marsha’s body shielding her movement; rubbing the palm of her hand hard over the rounded projection within her husband’s shorts sending a delicious physical sexual sensation throughout Mitchell and a delicious mental sexual sensation throughout Marsha and...…
Suddenly taking his face within both hands. Eyes locket...
“I’m sorry.” Tears coming. “I’m ‘so’ sorry, Mitchie...I thought I’d lost you.” Sobbing now, words coming as gentle gasps, “I’m-sorry, baby-so sorry.”
His arms tight about her… “Shhh, honey...” rubbing her back, “...it’s okay now, Marcie...”
Never able to see one cry without... Mitchell’s tears now coming. “Shhh…” Rubbing her back, “... s’okay honey, I’m here.”
“I thought I’d lost you.”
No, baby, I’m not going anyplace without you.”
Husband and wife, standing within view upon the cracked driveway of the old Lakeside Hotel — four arms clasping tightly, two mouths together in a passionate kiss as the tears of each dampen the cheeks of the other...
Enough said: Together again ‘for better or worse’.
****
Playfully lifting him from the buggy as one would a sack of potatoes, flinging his son over his shoulder Mitchell carried the laughing boy up the three steps and into the cottage.
Dropping him onto the sofa, lifting Michael’s shirt, “Bubububububu!” blowing flubbering air onto his bare stomach caused the boy to attempt to grasp at his fathers short cut hair and to laugh even harder.
“You ‘do’ wanna take a nap, bubububububu, don’t you!”
“Mitchie...” standing back, enjoying the play between father and son, “...he’ll be fine. Just put him in the playpen and if Lucy’s on…”
“Ucy! Ucy!”
“…he won’t make a peep.”
“That’s what you taught my son? ‘Ucy’, ‘Ucy’?”
“Nah!” Going to the refrigerator, taking the milk, “He also says ‘ka-ka’ and ‘pee-pee’. Only problem is...” Filling small bottle, she put a nipple on. “… he never says ‘ka0ka’ and ‘pee-pee’ when he’s gotta.”
As Mitchell put his baby into the playpen, as though knowing they were talking about him… “Da-Da!”
“Yeah, my baby...” sensing a tightening within his throat, “... I am ‘da-da’.”
Kneeling before the television, he turned it on. “Only three channels, eh? Uh-oh!No ‘Ucy’.”
“That’s okay, Mitchie, ‘Woody Woodpecker’ will do just fine.”
“Talk about peckers.” He turned, but she’d left the room, and…
***
Daily life with Mitchell: When life’s day-to-day problems overtook Marsha. When due to his capabilities he was unable, or—especially regarding his mother —unwilling to bring about a solution to those problems, Marsha’s patience and passion became nonexistent and Marsha forgot those things that caused her love of him and she became, minimally, caustic and her desire—besides the fact that so often… ‘too’ often she really was exhausted and really did not feel well—her desire for sex dwindled to nothing so when, occasionally, she did submit to her husband’s urging, Marsha’s lovemaking was by rote and wholly uninspired.
Which Mitchell was very well aware of, but considered the problem to be his inability to satisfy his wife.
However away from Mitchell for any duration of time—particularly at the termination of their separations—the things she loved about him took precedence over the things that aggravated her and then she remembered ‘exactly’ why she did love Mitchell and the level of her desire escalated and once together—though, unfortunately for him, never shown outwardly—Marsha’s need… Her quiet, unemotional passion for Mitchell was almost limitless.
Now, because of the new Mitchell, the leaner, more muscular Mitchell with his sun bleached, near blond short cut hair, Marsha’s quiet need was not quite as quiet. Matter of fact, since he’d arrived about four hours earlier she’d barely been able to keep her eyes off of him. And since their first kiss on the Old Road barely been able to keep her hands off of him and...
At this moment a humanistic transformation coming to Marsha Goldman Lipensky… Or if you will, a sexual epiphany. Why not? She thought.
“Talk about peckers.” He turned, but she’d left the room, and…
“Wait there, will you, Mitchie.”
Returning a few minutes later wearing nothing but her — extremely accessible— summer weight ‘shortie pyjamas.
Sitting closely alongside, “Mitchie...” said forcefully “… I want us to ‘fuck’ so badly! I want to feel your tongue in my pussy…” words he’d never before heard coming from the mouth of his wife. And now a word he didn’t even think she knew, “... And I want your ‘cock’ in my mouth! I want to suck your cock, I want you to ‘eat’ me while you’re in my mouth.”
His heart beat accelerating, forcing blood into the cells of his penis… Although, really, blood had already filled every possible cell within his penis.
His hand easily finding it’s way through the loosely buttoned pyjama top …
Marsha’s soft, warm breast filling his hand as, lifting the bottom, exposing her stomach and chest... His mouth now closed about a dark nipple as Marsha’s back arched sharply backward, as placing one hand beneath the suckled breast and pushing upward forcing Mitchell’s mouth harder onto a her breast as, drawing most of the flesh of her breast withing his mouth as, Marsha’s other hand, caressing the still clothed long, circular bulge of his penis as it strained for release when…
“Da-da.”
“Oh, shit!” Looking over Mitchell’s shoulder, in simultaneous movements Marsha straightened her back while releasing the weight of her breast pulling it from her husband’s mouth as pulling the panama top from about her neck to about her waist.
In a near daze. Straightening his neck, taking a moment for his breathing to return to somewhat normal. “Honey...” Mitchell asked, “...you think the kid’ll tell anyone that he saw his parents fucking?”
Waiting a second or two for her breathing to return to normal. “No… I don’t think so, but I read someplace that very young children can sometimes remember ‘traumatic’ experiences when they grow older.”
“And his parents having sex might be a ‘traumatic’ experience that he might remember when he gets older, you think?”
Well, baby...” Marsha Lipensky said to her husband “...it might not be traumatic to Mikey, but it sure as hell might be traumatic to you and me.”
“We’re going to do something traumatic, are we?”
“Oh, yes baby, lift up...” As Michael was once again momentarily seduced by Woody Woodpecker…
...Lifting a bit, pulling the right leg of his shorts fully upward revealing her husband’s turgid penis along with a number of strands of black pubic hair,
Leaning forward Marsha licked the length... with her tongue lingering on the glans where — a thick drop of crystal clear semen seeping through — now having the courage, but more so the need; licking it… For the first time ever tasting the fluid of her husband…
“Mmmm, baby...” said breathlessly “... if I knew your cock tasted so good...”
“Marcie...” his hand going between her bare thighs “...what ever happened to ‘good Jewish wives don’t go around giving their husbands blow-jobs’?”
“ ‘Fuck’ good Jewish wives!”
As Mitchell’s hand— between his wife’s thighs moved upward...
“Ma-ma!”
Next FBOW excerpt in sequence: Fireworks: 4th of July 1958
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