On Friday, Cyn and I picked up Pattie and we spent the day shopping. It was
funny to watch them bargain hunting. “Old habit,” Pattie laughed. I hadn't
planned on spending any money, but Pattie found a dress she insisted I try
on. “It is perfect for you!” she claimed. I didn't know about it being
perfect for me, but I loved it and went to try it on. The linen dress was
sunny yellow but not overpoweringly bright, sleeveless with a small stand
up collar and a simple body-skimming line. A string of white crocheted
daisies separated the high waist from the body. It looked like summertime.
It wasn't all that expensive and I was weakening as I slipped it over my
head. It fit perfectly. I came out of the dressing room and Pattie and Cyn
both said at once “Paul will love it!” and then looked at each other and
laughed in surprise. Of course, I bought it!
When we couldn't carry any more, we headed for a restaurant and requested a
table where we could have some privacy. Pattie and Cyn had been recognized
several times today in spite of dark glasses. As soon as we had ordered,
Pattie leaned over the table and asked in a conspiratorial whisper, “So how
are things going with Paul?”
I blushed and Cyn put in “He's been giving her a hard time of it.”
“I'll bet!” Pattie giggled. Now I was really blushing and Cyn was laughing.
“No, not that. He won't talk to her one minute, then hot after her the
next.”
Pattie shook her head. “Men!”
“It's OK now, “ I said. “At least I think it is. We talked about it
yesterday. We are kind of on hold until I finish the articles for Tony."
Pattie looked surprised. “What have they got to do with it?”
“After that mess with Ellen, he's just not comfortable talking to me
knowing I am writing about him.”
She started laughing. “I thought you two were past the talking stage!”
“I didn't think Paul bothered with talking much anymore,” Cyn laughed.
“He's been through so many birds since Jane, I don't how he'd find the
time.”
Pattie raised an eyebrow and said, “Oh, he's always been known to find the
time.” She wasn't laughing now and a knowing look passed between them.
Someone walked by the table and our conversation halted for a moment. Once
the coast was clear Cyn went on more seriously, “Well, he was no saint, but
way back when I first met him, he was different.” Cyn argued. “He liked
girls. He went out with a lot of different ones but it wasn't often just
for the night. Even after Jane he still seemed to be looking for someone
special. Since then, and especially since that creature Ellen, every time I
see him with someone it is someone new, and with so many of them, you can
just tell he really isn't interested in anything but shagging them. He
hardly talks to them, doesn't even introduce them half the time. It is
really a bit awful when he brings them around.”
Pattie nodded in agreement. “Yes, she did a job on him.” They both turned
to look at me.
“Tess, Paul has had kind of a tough year." Cyn began, making a switch from
criticizing Paul's bed-hopping to defending him. I thought that was so
sweet and so typically Cyn, and rushed in to assure her I understood.
“I know he broke up with Jane, and I know that Ellen said a lot of things
to the press that upset him, but I wouldn't do anything to hurt him,” I
said.
“I know that,” Cyn said, “but it's not Paul I am worried about,” she said.
“I don't want you to think this is going to mean a whole lot to him.”
I must have looked stricken because she hurriedly added, “I know he likes
you. You'd have to be blind not to see that. Even so, it isn't the same for
men and right now especially Paul isn't being very nice when it comes to
girls' feelings. Maybe you should think about this a little more before you
go ahead with your plans.”
“Think about it?” Pattie asked, puzzled by the turn the conversation had
taken. “What are you planning?”
Cyn didn't answer, and I knew she wasn't about to betray my confidence, but
Pattie was so nice and seemed to care. “I'm going to…um…let him,” I said in
a whispered stammer. She knew exactly what I meant.
“You have to plan that?” Pattie asked with such surprise I had to laugh.
Pattie wouldn't have planned it. She was a spontaneous person who got
through life on enjoyment, not planning.
“Like the Normandy invasion,” Cyn teased. “She is a nurse and knows the
failure rate for every form of birth control.”
Pattie laughed at that, then something registered with her. “And a virgin
to boot?” Like my roommate Sandy, Pattie didn't come across as the world's
deepest thinker, but she certainly was insightful in some ways.
I nodded.
“Oh, boy.” She sat back in her chair. “You are smitten, aren't you?”
I nodded again. “I want to be with him and I doubt that he... well, he
probably is used to ... I mean, he's been around and a girl who won't …. ”
Pattie giggled. “You mean you think he'll expect you to put out.”
“Yeah.”
“So that's why you are going to?” Cyn asked in surprise. “You shouldn't.
Not just because he expects it!”
I looked at her, questioning my motives yet again and had to admit the
truth. “No. Maybe it is part of it, but mostly, I just want to!”
That brought an outburst of stifled giggles from both of them. “Oh, we can
understand that!”
“It's not because of who he is,” I protested. I honestly didn't think that
was it. I hardly thought of that when I was with him.
Cyn apologized. “No Tess. That's not what we think. We both just know how
it is.”
“You go along all your life listening to your Mum and thinking it is wrong
and only bad girls do it and then some guy walks in the door and you are
undone. Just completely undone!” Pattie declared. “Just like that!”
We all laughed, and Cyn agreed with her but then she looked at me,
concerned again. Hesitantly she said, “You know Paul might not... well,
maybe you are expecting more."
I knew what she was trying to say. “I'm not expecting anything, Cyn. I just
want to have a chance to be with him. Then I am going back to the States.
Back to school, back to my real life. This is all just a crazy dream anyway
and I don't expect anything but a couple of weeks of fun.”
Cyn and Pattie looked at each other again. “I guess if you go into it with
that attitude, you can't get hurt,” Cyn said.
Pattie shrugged, then grinned and said, “Maybe we ought to be having lunch
with Paul. He is in for a little shock. He's going to get a little of what
he has been dishing out!”
The next day went by quickly. I spent most of the day working on the last
article. At four o'clock, Les dropped me off at Paul's, tape recorder and
notebook in hand and glowing sunshine in my new dress. Mrs. Grady, Paul's
housekeeper, answered the door, and Martha thundered into the room ahead of
Paul. Martha's greeting was enthusiastic, Paul's more restrained. He put
his hands on my shoulders, gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, then
straightened his arms to hold me away from him. The body language was
clear; nothing more between us until the articles were done, but the look
in his eyes was enough.
I talked to Mrs. Grady briefly, then she dismissed herself to go “fetch a
spot of tea.” Paul and I sat down in the living room.
“I've been working on the article,” I said, feeling awkward. He smiled a
slow, warm smile.
“Finish it tonight,” he ordered.
I started to laugh. “I'll try. Believe me, I'll try!”
He reached over and flipped on the tape recorder. “Let's go, Luv.” I opened
my notebook and started with the same set of questions I had asked the
others. What were the good times on tour? The worst? Why was touring
important to them? How had touring changed over the last few years? Did any
of their newer songs work on stage? Did they think about that as they wrote
new material? What was influencing the change in their music?
Paul had no problem answering. This was his chance to do the groundwork for
the changes that were coming. It was pretty much the same answers I had
heard from the others, but it was obvious Paul was more enthusiastic and
optimistic about the whole situation. Ringo's attitude was that it was
great while it lasted and he was glad he had been given the chance at it.
He didn't know if he was glad or sad about the fact that it could be over
soon. His statement for the record was “I am looking forward to spending
more time with Maureen and the baby. He is growin' so fast. We're all
pretty tired from all the touring. We need a little time to catch our
breath, decide what to do next.” George said he was glad it was winding
down. It was just impossible to live like that and as much as he had
enjoyed the first year or so, it just got too bizarre, too out of control.
It wasn't anything to do with music, it was hype, and, as he had already
made clear, if they could keep on going without the crap, he would stay. It
was going to take some editing, but if I focused on the fact that George
was in it for the music and tolerated the rest the best he could, it would
come out sounding right.
John had started out saying they had sold out their music the day they put
on suits, but then came back to the fact that now, at the top, they had the
freedom to make the music they wanted again. It wasn't the music they had
played in Hamburg. Those days were gone, but it was wide open to them now.
His answers were going to take some careful editing, especially since he
repeatedly came back to the fact that there wouldn't be any more tours. He
was sick of that crap, sick of the hype and tired of working his ass off so
the promoters and the government could take 99% of the money. At least I
got a usable quote from him about the future of their music being wide
open, and that was exactly the kind of stuff Tony wanted.
Paul was pure gold, a PR man's dream. “Touring is great, even if it gets a
little inconvenient and out of control at times, but now the music is
suffering and we aren't giving the fans our best out there. We can only do
that in the studio.” He never came out and said there would be no more
touring, but what he did say was a strong hint of that. Again, just what
Tony wanted. He talked for a long time and there wasn't a word I couldn't
have used.
We took a break for tea but went on talking. The tape recorder was off, and
he knew it, but still, as he talked about the last few years, it was
upbeat. He loved what they were doing, and believed in their ability to
keep it going if they were willing to work as hard as they had to get
started. He was.
Mrs. Grady came to pick up the tea things and said she was leaving. “There
is plenty in the icebox to see you through until I can get to the market
next week,” she instructed him. “Do try some of that broccoli while it is
fresh,” she went on. “Doesn't eat half right,” she said in an aside to me.
“And you mind Martha now, young man. I've cleaned the rug again this week.”
With that comment on Martha's housebreaking, she was gone. Paul laughed,
reassured Martha, who had looked up at the mention of her name, that she
was more important than the rug, and I popped a new tape in the recorder.
What were the good things about the fans?
Paul grimaced, recognizing the part of the interview that was going to take
tact. His responses about the fans were very similar to what I had heard
from the others but, again, more positive. He talked about their loyalty.
Staying with them as the music changed, as new groups came out. The
enthusiasm for the music that made it all worthwhile.
And the worst?
Lack of privacy. Not being able to go shopping, go to a movie, go out to
dinner without a crowd gathering, but most of the fans were OK even in
those situations. It was only the ones who barged right in and interrupted
in the middle of a movie or a meal that were a nuisance, and the ones who
asked him personal questions.
How had the fans changed over the years?
The fact that there were new, younger fans now, not just the ones they had
started out with was incredible to him. They had never hoped to last more
than a couple of years, and now, five years into it, it was still growing.
Fans now seemed to care more about the music. When he talked to them, they
talked about how they liked a certain new song, how great Revolver
was.
The final question was one the others all had trouble answering: “Where do
you see yourself in five years, professionally and personally?”
Ringo had just laughed. “If you had asked me that five years ago, I would
have been dead wrong in me answer. I won't even try to answer that.”
John just looked at me. “What else is there? We can't go any further. I
don't know where I want to go professionally. Personally. That is no one
else's business even if I knew.” It was not an answer I could even begin to
edit to some form that would please Tony. I planned to use it anyway
because it was an open, honest answer—the only kind you ever got from
John—even if it hurt to hear it.
George said he would be doing something related to music. If not recording,
maybe producing. And personally? He smiled when I asked him that and pulled
Pattie to him for a kiss. “Just say I plan to be happy.”
Thank you, George. No editing needed.
Now I asked Paul the same question. He didn't have trouble answering. He
was a musician and that was all there was to it. Five years from now, he
would be writing and performing. He had just been asked to write a score
for a movie. He wanted to do some producing, something with new people
trying to break into the music business. Maybe get involved in sponsoring
young artists, filmmakers. He talked for several minutes about the things
he wanted to do.
“And personally?” I prompted. For the first time, he didn't have an answer.
He looked at me for a minute, shrugged, then reached out and switched the
tape recorder off. Martha recognized the end of the interview and got up
from the cool spot under the dining room table to come over and try to jump
onto Paul's lap. He pushed her down and she had to content herself with
being scratched behind the ears. I closed my notebook and put the tape on
rewind.
“Married,” he said belatedly. “Raising a family.” I smiled, not really
surprised. The times we had spent together talking had told me something
about the most eligible bachelor in the world, the guy the fan mags showed
with a new girl every month. He was the son of Jim and Mary, brother to
Michael, part of the McCartney clan. A family man by heritage.
“The tape is off. Your secret is safe,” I teased.
He smiled. “No, put it in. Kind of a Mr. Lonely Hearts thing. Maybe I will
get marriage proposals.”
“Don't you?” I asked in surprise.
“Some, but I get a lot more propositions than proposals.” He stood up and
headed for the stairs.
“Come 'ead. I've something I want you to hear.” We went upstairs to the
music room at the front of the house. He sat me down on the piano bench
next to him and played a song.
“Think it will turn into something?” he asked. I nodded, and he went
through it again, bits and pieces of lyrics, talking about adding trumpets,
other sounds. It was “Penny Lane” in its earliest stages. I was fascinated.
I couldn't imagine writing a song. He played other bits for me, talked
about how some songs just wrote themselves, almost overnight. Others were
bits and bars that had come to him and just needed to wait until the
matching pieces decided to come along. He kept playing, seeming to forget I
was there at times, going over a piece, trying something different with it,
singing a few lines at times. I was beyond fascinated. In awe was more like
it. I had reached the point where I generally forgot about them being the
Beatles, but this got to me. Then he was grinning at me as he watched my
reaction as he pounded out a few bars of “Great Balls of Fire”. Finally, he
played “Yesterday” all the way through and when he finished, there was the
sound of applause from the street out front. The window was open and the
gatebirds were listening. One of the girls called out “I love you, Paul.”
He got up and went to stand by the window, far enough back that he couldn't
be seen, but so he could see them. I walked over to stand next to him.
There was a group of four girls outside the gates, talking and pointing up
at the window. A little mini-tour bus pulled up and unloaded another half
dozen girls. They shrieked and giggled and took pictures. One just cried
and hung on the gate.
“A half-pound,” I said.
“What?”
“That's what they paid for the tour.” I told him about the tourist center
and the special Beatles tours.
Paul just shook his head. “Daft,” he said. He was quiet for a long time,
watching them. “Why do they do it, Tess? Why do teenage girls think they
are in love with someone they will never even meet?”
“Because it is safer that way,” I said. “They can practice being in love
without a chance of getting into a situation they can't handle. They can
have imaginary conversations with a guy, think about how he would react,
practice grown-up feelings.”
He looked down at me and smiled. “So who did you practice on?”
I blushed at the memory. “Little Joe.”
“Who?”
“Little Joe Cartwright from Bonanza. I was crazy about him. I had pictures
of him all over my bedroom walls.”
“Did you hang about his gate?”
“Couldn't. He didn't exist. It wasn't Michael Landon the actor I had a
crush on, it was Joe Cartwright. Virginia City, 1860.”
“And you imagined yourself as what? His Miss Kitty?”
I had to smile at the image of Matt Dillon's worldly Miss Kitty turning her
charms on my sweet Little Joe. “No. It's funny, but I don't think I ever
really imagined myself with him. I used to write scripts for the show—love
scenes and boy gets girl, boy loses girl stuff—but the main thing was how
they felt about each other, how they talked to each other.” I laughed. “I
guess I couldn't imagine anything more. I led a sheltered childhood!”
“I don't think all my gatebirds were quite so sheltered,” he laughed. “They
leave incredibly explicit notes, sometimes pinned to lacy knickers. They
try to climb over the gate, ring the intercom and giggle, and spy on me day
and night. They snoop through my rubbish bin and they know more about me
than most of the girls I ever invited in.” He was quiet for a moment. “Just
when I think I'm going to call the police and have them chased away, some
sweet little girl too shy to talk to me comes up to the gate and waits for
me with a month's worth of allowance in flowers and a note that just says
“Thank you, Paul.”
He sighed. “If only they were all more like that but most of them seem to
think that buying a record or buying a ticket means they bought us. All
they are paying for is the music. That's all we are selling, but some of
them seem to think they are entitled to our whole lives for the price of an
album. I don't mind most of it but sometimes I get to wondering if anything
would ever be enough. They just keep wanting—”
His words cut off abruptly and stared at me with dismay. I knew he had just
had a sudden vision of his comments appearing in print. As if to put
physical distance between himself and that risk, he stepped away from me,
turned and leaned back against the wall alongside the window. He crossed
his arms over his chest and stared at the floor.
“Paul?” He looked up at me, shaking his head, almost angry, certainly
exasperated.
“The tape recorder is off.”
He tipped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.
I wanted to say “Please don't shut me out,” but the words wouldn't come.
Instead, I went to him and slipped my arms around his waist. It didn't feel
like a bold, forward thing to do, it just seemed like the most natural
thing in the world. As soon as I touched him I knew it was more than all
right. His body was tense but instead of pulling away, I could feel him
lean toward me. I had to smile, remembering how I had once thought Paul
only remembered girls by touch. I couldn't always read his face, but if I
was touching him, I knew what he was feeling.
His arms went around me, he sighed and his body relaxed, giving in to the
simple comfort of being held. I turned my face into the curve of his neck
and relaxed with him. I was thinking how good he felt, not in a sexual way
but in a warm, comfortable chair-by-the-fire way, a place I wanted to stay,
a feeling I wanted to go on feeling. His heart beating steady against my
chest and his arms around me was as good a memory to take home as those
other moments of holding him and kissing him. Apparently, I wasn't alone in
thinking of those times. He hugged me harder and lowered his head to press
his cheek to mine.
“If I had any sense, I'd take you home right now,” he said softly in my
ear, but I knew from the way he said it he didn't want to do that. He
kissed me instead, soft little whispers of kisses on my neck, my cheek, but
he stopped short of my lips. I guess he knew as well as I did that it
wouldn't stop there and he didn't want to take this any further. Not with
Tess Martin, girl reporter.
I returned the kisses, edging up to the corner of his mouth, wanting him to
really kiss me but respecting the boundary he had set. When I couldn't
stand the temptation any longer I turned my face away. He held me. The only
sound was that of passing cars and the occasional burst of laughter or
excited chatter from the girls outside. That was all a million miles away.
“Come 'ead. I'll drive you back to John's,” he finally said but didn't let
go of me. His not letting go was all the encouragement I needed to say the
words.
“I don't want to go,” I said softly. “We only have a few weeks together,
and I don't want to go.”
“Tess, you know how I feel. I just can't get past it,” he sighed and
loosened his hold on me. “I'm sorry. I want you to stay too, but if you
stay, it won't be how I want it to be with you. I want to be able to talk
to you, not just take you.”
Hearing him say it so plainly made my heart pound wildly. He wanted me and,
even better, he wanted it to be more than just sex. His next words rocked
me even more.
“Oh Hell. That isn't what I wanted, but I want you anyway! So will you
stay?”
I couldn't! Not yet. Not for what he was offering. Another week and a half
until I was safely on the pill. Waiting seemed impossible but even as I
felt resolve—and common sense—abandoning me, another thought was forming.
Waiting would give me more in the long run. In a week and a half, I could
easily have all the articles turned in with only some editing by Tony's
staff to be done. He would see that he could trust me and the time we had
left would be free of worries about the articles for him and getting
pregnant for me. It could be the way we both wanted it to be.
Right now though, I had to leave. Standing here in his arms, feeling his
heartbeat was taking what little resistance I had left. I pulled away from
him.
“Paul, I have to leave. I can't stay, not for that. Not yet. When the last
article is done, then we can be together. The way we both want. No magazine
articles to worry about.”
He let me go, his hands sliding slowly down my bare arms as I stepped back.
He slowly let my hands slide out of his, but then suddenly he was holding
my fingers tightly.
“Wait, Tess. I ... I don't want you to think ... I shouldn't have said...
.” He stopped, uncertain, embarrassed.
“What?” I asked, bewildered.
“I don't want you to think that finishing the articles is going to change
things. I want you, but I can't promise any more than just... ."
”You don't have to promise anything,” I said. Did he think I was expecting
it to turn into something... real? Wanting to replace Jane Asher in his
life? I had no illusions about that. I could hardly believe what was
happening much less imagine more. “I just thought if we waited until you
knew I was done playing reporter we could be friends. Have something a
little better than just sex.”
He was still holding my fingers and he lifted his arm, pulling me back
toward him and gathered me back into his arms, slipping his hand under my
hair at the back of my neck and pulling my face back into the hollow of his
neck. I loved that, the feel of his gentle control over my body. I
certainly didn't resist.
“Ah, Tess,” he said. “I want you and I know you want me. Isn't sex enough?
Simple, uncomplicated sex?”
I was so confused by all of this. He wanted me, and he had said he wanted
it to be more than an impersonal roll in the hay. Something in my head was
saying that it would be better that way. Sex and nothing more. I told
myself “Don't put anything else on the line. You have to leave and you can
leave your virginity behind, but not your heart and you'll lose that too if
it is more than sex.” Another part of my brain was working on the fact that
this just wasn't making sense. He had read the first article and found
nothing wrong with it. He knew he could veto anything in what I wrote for
the others. I realized then that the articles for Tony didn't matter. They
were a smokescreen for something else. Pattie and Cyn's comments about how
Paul had changed since the incident with Ellen came back to me. I pushed
away from him so I could see his face.
“It's not just the articles for Tony, is it?” I said, not really asking.
“What?”
“It's not just a matter of wondering what I might write. You've read the
articles and you know you can stop anything you don't want to be said. It
is trusting me, trusting anybody again. ‘Just sex' is OK, but getting to
know someone, getting close, is too dangerous.”
I couldn't read his face. He let go of my arms, walked away from me and
stood by the piano. His hand reached for the keys, absently plinking out a
few notes.
“You can't shut everyone out forever,” I said. “That's safe, but that means
there won't be any ‘Married raising a family' five years from now.”
He looked up at me, absorbing that. He didn't look angry, just thoughtful.
He wasn't ready to answer and went back to softly tapping out notes. As
distracted as he looked I expected aimless sounds but even without his
thinking about it, a tentative melody was forming as he repeated it once,
twice, a third time. Still, he said nothing. It was as if it were easier to
put his feelings into music than into words. There was nothing angry in the
melody he was building so I went on. There was something else I wanted him
to think about, too.
“Someday you are going to have to let someone in or you'll always be alone,
but for now, for us, ‘just sex' is OK. I am only going to be here a few
more weeks,” I said, “so it's better that way for me too. That's all I can
handle. Just a chance to be with you, then back to my real life.”
With those words, I realized I was giving up the idea of spending a few
sweet, special days with him in exchange for simply going to bed with him.
It was letting go of a hope and settling for a sure thing, a dream
surrendered for a cash buy-out. It was practical, fair. I got to be with
him and he got me in bed without risking getting close. Yes, practical,
fair, sensible, and the best I had any right to expect.
What I said, what I was offering, took him by surprise. I could see him
react as it hit him. He turned around slowly, studying my face, not sure
whether to believe me. “That isn't the way I wish it could be either,” I
said, “but that's the way it is.”
Thoughts and feelings I couldn't read crossed his face. Finally, he nodded.
“All right, Tess. If that is all you want." He reached out one hand to me
and I put my hand in his and squeezed his fingers. A bargain sealed.
“Let's go,” he said quietly and lead me out of the room, down the hall
toward the stairs. I was bewildered. I thought we were OK, but he was
taking me home. At the top of the stairs, he stopped and opened the door to
his bedroom. I froze in the hallway. He put his arms around me and kissed
me. I unfroze. I melted. I kissed him back, heart hammering so hard it
hurt. It had been two days since I had kissed him and I had thought of
little else since. I was lost in the feel of his arms around me and his
mouth on mine. Somehow I let myself be led into the bedroom where the sight
of the bed cleared my mind. This wasn't agreeing to get into the back seat
for a grope session. This was a bedroom and that was a bed and he expected
to do IT and I couldn't. After my announcement that all I wanted was sex, I
was going to have to tell him I couldn't do it!
“Paul,” I said. It was supposed to come out sounding like, “Um, Excuse me
sir, but I do need to have a word with you.” Instead, it came out sounding
like “Ohhh Paul!”
“Tess,” he said softly, his hand reaching to touch my face. His fingers
gently stroked my cheek as he looked into my eyes.
Oh yes! This was a bedroom and those were bedroom eyes and this was going
to be IT! He put his mouth over mine and kissed me deeply. As his tongue
gently touched mine, the symbolism of French kissing hit me. I marveled at
the fact that it had never occurred to me. Now I understood, and he was
unzipping my dress to show me exactly what it symbolized.
“Paul, I can't do this!” I gasped.
He stopped, mid-zip, absolutely bewildered.
“Not now, not yet.” The confusion on his face cleared. He smiled ruefully,
then kissed me softly, tenderly. “How much longer?” he asked kissing my
ear.
“About ten days, I think,” I answered, awed by his sweetness.
He held me for a moment and then hesitantly pulled back to look at me.
“Um... I don't know much about that sort of thing, but... ah... isn't ten
days a little much?”
It was my turn to be bewildered, but his embarrassment gave it away.
“Oh, no. It's not that! It's just that I can't take any chances. I have to
get on birth control pills first and I can't do that until my next ... for
a while.”
He smiled and kissed me before walking over to the bed. I held back. He
opened the drawer of the bedside table and picked up a little packet from a
large variety of little packets and brought it to me. I took the packet
from him. Never having seen a condom, it took a minute for it to register
that this was what I was holding. I was suddenly very much aware of the
fact that all my information about sex came from a book. So much for my
idea that he wouldn't use a condom. He was obviously a big supporter of the
industry, but that didn't solve my problem.
“These things have a fifteen percent failure rate,” I said.
He looked at me, uncomprehending for a minute. Then he said “Impossible!”
“It's true.”
“You mean if I used them with one hundred girls I would end up with fifteen
kids?” He laughed a little at the thought. “Wrong, Tess.” He knew from
experience.
“No, that's not how the statistics are calculated. Of one hundred couples
depending on them as their only means of birth control, fifteen will have
an unwanted pregnancy in a year.” I was acutely aware that I sounded like I
was reading from a textbook, but I was a hell of a lot more familiar with
discussing birth control in a classroom than in a bedroom. St. Vincent's,
being Catholic, did not go into detail on birth control in its nursing
classes. The subject could not be avoided entirely in a nursing course, but
they gave it as little emphasis as possible. The student grapevine told us
we needed to attend a lecture given by Planned Parenthood if we wanted to
know about birth control, and most of us did just that.
Paul was considering statistical probability. “So what are the odds for a
couple of weeks?”
“Unacceptable. I just can't take the risk. They would kick me out of school
if I got pregnant,” I answered, dropping the packet back into the drawer.
He looked at me, the picture of male sexual frustration.
“So what do you use?”
I hesitated. “Nothing,” I whispered, trying to think of how to tell him
that the need had never arisen before. I didn't have to. He looked at me
and knew.
“You've never done it!” he said.
I shook my head. He was smiling, even laughing a little as he reached out
and gathered me back into his arms, but when he kissed me it was so sweetly
as if I were something fragile, precious. “Ah, Tess, I should have guessed
that,” he said. “but the way you kiss me, you just get me so crazy."
He kissed me until I was kissing him back, all thoughts of failure rates
gone. I couldn't let go of him, couldn't stop kissing him, couldn't stop
wanting him.
His voice was soft, reassuring as he unzipped my dress the rest of the way.
“Tess, I think we can come up with other things to do for ten days.”
He slipped it down over my shoulders and it dropped to my feet. I shivered.
I had never done IT, and as sketchy as my working knowledge of IT was, my
knowledge of Other Things was even more limited.
Just as I read him by touch, he felt me shiver and knew I wasn't cold.
“It's OK, Tess.” He held me tightly. “I just want to touch you. If you want
to stop, just tell me. I'll be careful. I can wait. You don't have to do
anything you don't want.”
Then I knew it was going to be alright. Whatever he did, whatever I knew or
didn't know, it would be alright. It never occurred to me not to believe
him. That wasn’t inexperience or plain stupidity, it was the simple, honest
way he said it. No persuasiveness, just quiet reassurance. I put my arms
around his neck and gave him my answer. It felt so good to just let go, to
trust that I wasn't the only one taking responsibility for being careful. I
kissed him and moved my hands over his face, his hair, his back, his chest,
slid my hands into the back pockets of his jeans. When I pulled myself up
against him, wanting to feel again the way his body fitted to mine, he
moved me over to the bed.
In the movies, the couple seems to sink onto the bed in one fluid movement
that doesn't even begin to interrupt their kiss, but I was finding out this
wasn't like the movies. First I had to step out of the dress pooled around
my feet or trip over it. Then I took the two steps to the bed and realized
I wasn't going to be magically levitated and wafted gently down on the bed
while orchestral music built to a crescendo around me. I had to turn around
and sit down. A conscious act. An act of consent. Not a swept away moment
at all.
He bent to kiss me and began to tip me back onto the bed. The logistics
were getting more difficult and I had to think fast or end up on my back
with my feet dangling over the side. That was not how it was done in the
movies! I put my arms around his neck, established lip and upper body
contact, then executed a ninety-degree spin while at the same time bringing
my feet up onto the bed and sinking back onto the pillows. Somehow my
spur-of-the-moment choreography worked and I was gracefully reclining, with
him sitting on the edge of the bed leaning over me. Kissus uninterruptus!
Had it been a movie, the cameras would have been rolling as he stretched
out next to me, gathered me in his arms and the music soared. Oh, but these
kisses were real and so was his touch. The camera crew disappeared and the
only sound was my pounding heart. I reached for his shirt and tugged it out
of his jeans. He sat up and peeled it off and then came back to me, leaning
over me and slowly stretching out on top of me, covering my body with his.
I went crazy with the feel of his bare skin against my hands, my arms, my
bare shoulders. Any lingering self-consciousness melted away, and I felt my
body lifting to meet him, wanting to be closer and still closer. I kissed
him over and over, bruising my lips and feeling the burn of his beard on my
cheeks and not caring, only feeling like I couldn't get enough. In no time
I was making that sound again, moaning softly, breathing in little gasps.
His kisses changed. Softer, less demanding, as if he were intentionally
slowing things down. Frantic lust gave way to easy, sweet desire. My body
relaxed and I caught my breath. Able to think at least hazy thoughts again,
I found myself smiling up at him. Pure happiness. Well, “pure” was
certainly not the right word for the situation but happiness certainly was.
He grinned back at me and I started to laugh with the joy of being here,
like this, with him. He rolled over, pulling me on top of him, laughing
with me.
He hugged me tight to him and when we stopped laughing, I lifted my head to
look at him. He looked back at me and his hands began to move over my back,
my bottom, caressing me, pulling me tight to him, watching me react. I
closed my eyes and just let the touch of his hands send shivers all through
me. It felt like every nerve ending in my body was screaming to be touched.
I couldn't stand it. Break time was over and I wanted more kisses, more of
everything.
I started to kiss him, my lips so sensitive that I could even feel the scar
on his lip. I wound the fingers of one hand through his hair, loving the
silkiness of it. My other hand was tracing his rib cage, working its way
down, frustrated by encountering his jeans and the thick layers of his
pockets but finding something so enticing about the muscles of his thigh. I
squeezed and stroked just as he was doing to me and wondered how to go
about the next step. My mind toyed with the idea of sliding off of him so I
could continue my explorations of an even more interesting area of his
body, but my body had other ideas. It seemed to know what it wanted and how
to get it and wasn't waiting for my mind to catch up. I found myself once
again locked against him, moving slowly against the hard bulge in his
jeans. It felt so good to me, and from the look on Paul's face, it was the
right thing to do, but after a few minutes of that, I wanted more.
So did Paul. He started to tug my slip up to my waist and I sat up,
straddling him, so he could pull it up and off over my head. Even though I
knew what was going to happen next and even though I wanted him to do it,
some reflex made me cross my arms over my chest to hold my bra in place as
he unhooked it. Like the business of getting onto the bed with him, reality
kept intruding, putting the brakes on what should have been a runaway
train.
He looked up at me, a little surprised. “No?” he asked.
I had let him touch my breasts, kiss them that day in his office and he
wasn't expecting me to stop him here. I wasn't planning to, but this was a
lot further than I had ever gone. This was flat-out undressing, not just
fumbling around under a blouse, and I needed a little time to adjust. Or
savor the moment. Whatever.
“Yes,” I answered and slowly lowered my arms. He reached up to touch my
face, touched my lips with his fingertips and slowly traced warm lines of
desire down my neck, across my shoulders, lifting the straps of my bra and
with a warm caress slid them down my arms. He held onto my hands for a
moment as he looked at me.
“Oh, yeah,” he said softly.
I tossed the bra aside and he reached for my breasts. As his hands touched
me, I felt a wave flow through me, a wave that carried me across the gap
between desire and need. I closed my eyes and put my hands on his chest,
rocking against him, finding the rhythm, the movement that felt so
incredible. He was so hard and felt so good and I was aching, melting. I
wasn't thinking, only feeling, moving faster, intensely aware of the heat
that was building. His hands left my breasts and they ached to be touched
again but his hands went back to my hips, pulling me down against him,
rocking me harder and faster, turning heat to fire. I wanted to be touching
him, feel his arms around me again and so I melted down onto him. His chest
was so warm against my breasts and his mouth was searching for mine. We met
in a hungry, breathless demand that was way beyond a kiss. We were back at
frantic lust and I was grinding against him, his hands on my bottom
encouraging me and both of us breathing hard. Suddenly he groaned and,
taking me with him, rolled over on his side. He was still holding me close
but it had stopped the momentum cold. He held me there, not moving, face
buried in my neck. I could feel his heart pounding and I couldn't
understand why he had stopped me. I was way too inexperienced to jump to
the conclusion that he was done, so I jumped to another conclusion: I had
done something wrong! Oh my God—maybe I hurt him! I had been moving so hard
against him. Pounding him. Can you break a penis? We never covered that in
school! Fear and embarrassment flooded through me and I didn't know what to
say.
After a minute he raised his head and began kissing me softly. I pushed him
back to look at his face. “What's wrong?” I asked fearfully. He saw the
look on my face and burst into a laugh he tried hard to stop.
He put one arm under my neck and snuggled me against him. “A man is just
ready faster than a woman,” he explained. “Especially if he wants her as
much as I want you. So you are just getting warmed up and I need to back
off a bit or it will be all over.”
“Oh!”
He laughed again and began kissing me, running his hands over me, and
following with kisses. Time slipped by. The late afternoon sunlight turned
the room warm and golden and the intensity built again. When his hand moved
below my waist, I caught my breath. After just a few seconds of his gentle
touch, I pulled his hand away. He looked at me as if regretting that he had
said I could stop him at any time, but I had no intention of stopping. Not
yet. I smiled at him and lifted my hips to pull my nylons off entirely. I
tried to slip them off gracefully, but as wonderful an invention as
pantyhose are, they do not lend themselves to a graceful striptease. I
laughed a little as I tugged them off my feet and he laughed too. He
stopped laughing as I lay back down next to him. He reached over and
slipped his fingertips under the waistband of my panties. “These will come
off easier, Luv,” he said, in a voice that should have sent my virgin
monitor into the red alert stage, a husky, almost urgent whisper. As his
fingers circled slowly, gently, and oh so irresistibly down across my
stomach, I shivered, as much in anticipation as trepidation. As turned on
as I was, I was still very much aware that a new barrier was about to fall,
and I wasn't sure I could handle this.
I wasn't afraid of being touched. I wanted that desperately. I was afraid
that desire was about to override what little was left of my thought
processes. I would completely give in to the pleasure and if I did I didn't
think I could—or would—stop him. Not the way his touch was already taking
over. I had never felt anything so incredible, so exciting, so addictive,
so demanding!
He moved slowly, his hand touching, stroking my stomach, easing downward. I
was going crazy wanting him to touch me there and yet knowing if he did I
would let him do anything else he wanted. He said he wouldn't, but if I
lost control, wouldn’t he?
He made a sound, a sigh as his fingers touched the triangle of pubic hair.
“Oh, yes!” he murmured.
That little exclamation somehow spoke not only of pleasure but of success.
Anticipated victory. That and the sudden change in sensation from his touch
on my skin to his touch on the springy curls was enough to break the spell
and snap the old virgin monitor back into working condition. My body tensed
up. I didn't exactly clamp my thighs together and push him away, but he
felt it.
He looked at me and saw the apprehensive look on my face. “Do you want me
to stop?” he asked through soft kisses.
“No. Yes. No! But I think we should.”
He smiled down at me. “We don't need to. This is safe.”
“I don't think so. I won't be able to stop if you keep on.”
That got a little laugh from him. “You don't have to stop, Luv. I do, but
you don't.”
From everything I knew about sex and men, that was not supposed to be
possible. Men were animals when aroused beyond a certain point. Beyond
reason, out of control, not responsible, and unable to stop. With that in
mind, I asked in surprise, “Will you be able to?”
He must have known exactly what was going on in my mind because he had to
work to keep from laughing. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he
shook his head. “There is a point where I can't stop, but I know where that
is. I know what I'm doing. I do have a little experience in the field.”
We both had a laugh at that, and then he held me tight and said very
seriously, “Tess, I promised you I'd be careful. It's not going to happen
tonight. Not until it's safe. Not until you want to. I wouldn't do that to
you no matter how much I might want it, and believe me, I want it, but
there is no reason to stop here. We can make love without taking chances.”
If there was anything else he could have said to make everything all right,
I couldn't imagine what it would have been. I whispered, “OK,” and he
kissed me, caressed me and gently brought me to the point where I thought I
would go crazy if he didn't do what he had started to do before, touch me
where I had never been touched before. When he did, the intimacy of his
touch struck me hard. There was a little self-conscious discomfort, a
little uncertainty, a little embarrassment at how wet I was, a little guilt
that I pushed away, refusing to allow it. All that was outweighed anyway by
a rush of intense pleasure. The physical pleasure was a giant leap from
what I had already thought was an impossibly high sensation. How could
anything feel this good and still keep finding ways to feel better? It was
more than physical. It was a feeling of warmth and tenderness and... awe.
To be touched like this was so special and I was glad I had never let
anyone else. Couldn't imagine ever letting anyone else. This was just for
us. I had never felt so close to another person.
Any thoughts about stopping were gone from my mind. His fingers stroked me,
sending electric shocks to the bottom of my feet. My panties joined the
nylons on the floor and that was the end of any inhibitions I had left. I
reached down to touch him.
Although it had never set off the reaction in me that being with Paul had,
feeling the hard bulge of a guy's erection pressed against me was familiar
to me, thanks to slow dances in the school gym and the big back seats of
'60s cars. Touching him through the heavy denim jeans told me little I
didn't already know. As I unzipped his jeans, I thought of John and Neil
laughing at my fumbling with John’s zipper and mentally thanked John for
all the practice. Touching Paul through the soft cotton of his underwear
was just not what I wanted either. I wanted to touch him the way he was
touching me. I didn't even hesitate. I slipped my hand inside, feeling for
the first time the warmth and the combination of hardness and resilience
and silky softness. So different from the limp, laughable appendage that I
dealt with as a nurse! Fascinated by the way he felt, the way he fit so
perfectly in my hand, I slid my fingers around and down him.
Paul groaned, reached for my hand and pulled it away. Now it was my turn to
look surprised! Smiling, he got up off the bed, pulling me up with him.
With one arm holding me close, he pulled the covers back. He let go of me
and hooked his thumbs under the waist of his jeans and started to strip
them off.
As soon as he let go of me I felt incredibly naked. So much for losing my
inhibitions! I quickly got into bed and pulled the sheet up over me. I
looked up as Paul tossed his jeans on a chair and moved to get into bed
with me. He sat on the edge of the bed and reached out to lift the sheet to
get in. Safely covered by the sheet, I felt daring again. Looking at his
bare legs and the unmistakable, erect rod distorting his shorts, I held out
a hand to stop him. “I may not know a lot about this,” I said with a grin,
“but I do know one thing. You are overdressed for the occasion!”
He grinned back as he stripped and I tried hard not to stare as he got into
bed with me. I must not have succeeded because he started to laugh. “I know
you've seen naked men before!” he teased.
“Not like this,” I said, too entranced to be embarrassed. “Nothing like
this!”
He slipped under the sheets and I moved close, eager to feel him against
me. It was everything I expected and more. Head to toe naked together, skin
sensors all working overtime, drowning in the sensation of touch. I could
have stayed there a long, long time just delighting in the feel of his
entire body, but the feeling of a specific part of his anatomy pressed
against me was so new, so fascinating, I had to touch it. He lay quietly,
letting me check him out. As I touched him, explored the feel, the shape,
the textures of that fascinating part of his body, I realized it was
growing even harder and bigger. Then he was moving his hands over me,
stroking, teasing, squeezing gently. It felt so good but I was still
distracted from the intensity of his touch by this new level of sexual
exploration. My attitude toward what I had always considered a rather
amusing joke of nature changed drastically. I had always thought Mother
Nature must have been in a silly mood the day she got around to creating
the male. It didn't seem silly at all now.
Well, maybe a little.
I wanted to pull the sheet back so I could see as well as touch, but Paul
wasn't waiting for me to work up the nerve to do it. My time out for
exploration had not been time out for him. He was breathing fast, kissing
me harder and touching me everywhere. His touch was lighting fires again,
and touching him fanned the flames. I forgot about specific body parts and
moved back into that world where no part of his body or mine wasn't an
erogenous zone. It wasn't the localized fire of a few minutes before—I was
lost in the total feel of him, the warmth and hardness of his body against
mine, his legs tangled in mine, his hand under the small of my back. I
wanted to feel every inch of his body touching me. I touched him, stroked
him while he did the same to me, and not satisfied with a touch, I wrapped
my legs around him, let it slide between my thighs. If he had tried to do
that, I think I would have stopped him fearing if it got that close it
would slide right into me with unavoidable geometric precision but I was
learning as I went along and realized quickly that the necessary angle for
the lock and key configuration could be avoided.
From a geometric, engineering design standpoint it could be, but I hadn't
reckoned on how it would feel. Oh, how good it felt. Fascinated by the
sensations, stimulated by the pleasure it gave him as well as me, I moved
with him, driven by a force deep inside. I was lost then. The feel of that
warm hardness sliding, rubbing, pushing against me there was too much and I
forgot all about the mechanics of this and went with the feeling. Paul was
going with it too. We had been lying side by side, facing each other, but
now he tipped me onto my back and moved on top of me. I had a hazy thought
that Mother Nature's last laugh was on me. This was what it was all about.
For the first time, I was totally aware of how this worked. Not just a
lesson in anatomical design, but knowing how good it would feel to have him
in me, how it would somehow ease the aching need I felt, somehow put out
the fire. He shifted position, sliding down just a bit and I was suddenly
aware of how close we were to doing it. That change of position moved him
from rubbing against me to aimed at the very center of me. All it would
take was a movement on his part, a thrust, and he would penetrate me. It
was a movement I couldn't prevent now that he was right there and I was so
wet, so physically ready. Panic hit like a blast of cold air. “No, Paul,
don't!” I said.
He rolled back to my side and pulled me over to face him. I was shaking,
feeling both scared by how close we had come and embarrassed at having let
this go so far before saying no.
“It's OK, Luv,” he said softly, and the control in his voice was
reassuring. “I won't. We don't have to. I'll get you there without it.”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
I had studied the anatomy, memorized the pituitary hormones, and understood
the process necessary for fertilization. I thought that was what sex was
all about – testosterone and estrogen choreographing an intricately timed
process. All I knew of the more practical side was that it included
pleasurable touching for both, followed by male ejaculation. That was why
men wanted it more than women. There was something special at the end for
them. The word “orgasm” was not in the textbook at Saint Vincent School of
Nursing. Reading Lady Chatterley's Lover had not prepared me for this. I
hadn't known what it meant when she talked about her “crisis,” her coming
with him. Those were just words on a page, words I had skimmed over,
looking for words I did know, looking for the description of the physical
act. That I could understand, but the feelings, the sensation? No frame of
reference. Like reading about drowning and trying to imagine the sensation
of water in my lungs, I couldn't. And when I dreamed about boys and woke up
feeling... odd, it was just a dream thing like that sensation of falling.
There was no Cinemax or MTV to fill in the gaps in education. The
restaurant scene in When Harry Met Sally that educated a whole generation
was far in the future. I had gotten far enough with other guys to recognize
that sex would be fun, and the last half-hour had shown me that the words
“pleasurable touching” just weren't enough to convey what was in it for the
woman. Although the feeling was something that kept building and instinct
told me it was leading somewhere, I simply didn't know that there was a
grand finale to this fireworks display.
Paul showed me. He had stopped the moment I had asked him to, so now when
he started touching me again, all I was afraid of was losing control
myself. “It’s all right, Luv,” he whispered and I believed him and gave in
to it, let him hold me and touch me, not just in places I had never been
touched before, but in a way I had never been touched. His touch was not
that of a guy enjoying himself, seeing how far he could get, but as a man
giving pleasure to a woman. I was lost, moaning with pleasure, sighing his
name, and never wanting it to end. I ooohed and aaahed every sparkler and
starburst and streaking rocket. Instead of easing off as he had before,
Paul went on, his touch faster and harder, his kisses insistent and
unrelenting. When the grand finale began I gasped in surprise as his hands
set off an explosion deep inside that sent shock waves all through me.
Afterward, I lay in his arms drifting on a cloud of wonder and contentment.
Soft kisses teased my ear, brushed my neck. I opened my eyes. Dark eyes
watched me. “Thank you,” I whispered, surprising myself as I said it. What
was I thanking him for? For the pleasure I hadn't even known existed, for
being so sweet, for not taking advantage of me when it would have been
impossible for me to stop him? For all of that.
He laughed in surprise and delight. “You're welcome!” he said and leaned
over me to kiss me again. Wonder and contentment were lost in a surge of
emotion. I reached up and pulled him down, hugging him fiercely,
overwhelmed by a rush of emotion as intense as the physical sensation of
the minutes before. Overwhelmed and frightened, I thought “This is just a
reaction to whatever he just did to me. That's all. Please let that be
all.”
He was kissing me again. I kissed him back, bewildered by how I felt,
whispering his name over and over. I gave no thought to the effect that
would have on him, until he suddenly grabbed my hand, and guided it where
he wanted it. I suppose it is strange, but my knowledge of sex left me more
prepared for his orgasm than my own. Since I hadn’t understood that women
had such a thing, that is no surprise, I guess, but now I was on more
familiar territory. Between textbooks and dirty jokes, I understood the
male sexual response. I knew where he was headed and had a basic
understanding of how to get him there: “Doin' that crazy hand jive.”
I took my cues from his groans and timed my strokes to match the speed of
his movements. His breathing was fast and labored and I knew when he
abruptly moved on top of me again that this was it. I didn't panic though
because I could feel the hard rod of his penis on my belly. (Yes, that is
the word that I was thinking. Technical, anatomical. Penis. I just wasn't
comfortable with the other names for it. “Dick” was a word in a joke and
this was no joke. “Cock” was a dirty name for it and there was nothing
dirty about this moment.) Anyway, I didn't panic because I knew he wasn't
going to try to put it in me. He began to gasp and moved faster and harder
against me.
Another revelation: “Ooh, yeah, yeah!” isn't just the chorus in a song. No
wonder our parents objected to the music. They knew where the words, the
feeling came from!
So many things were racing through my mind at that moment: Astonishment at
the almost violent storm of passion it took for a man to make it. Wondering
how it would feel to have him in me, thrusting, pounding in me like that.
How could that not hurt? A feeling of awe and power to know that I could
bring on such an intense experience. Was it pleasure or pure relief that
caused him to cry out at the last moment? An incredible sound.
All those thoughts disappeared as I felt the warm wetness spreading across
my stomach. Ten cc's of fluid the textbook had said. This felt like much
more. Once again romance collided with reality. This was messy!
He collapsed on me, breathing raggedly in my ear. I lay there, suffocated
by the dead weight of his body, wondering what I was supposed to do now.
Just when I thought I was going to have to push him off or suffer brain
damage from lack of oxygen, he stirred. He shifted position, kissing my
neck and working his way to my mouth. I could breathe again and I could
have enjoyed the sweet gentleness of his kisses more if I hadn't been
worrying about how to handle the fact that as soon as he rolled off I was
going to have to do something about all that wetness.
I had no idea what good manners called for in this situation. Emily Post
had never addressed this. Or maybe she had. “The well brought up young
woman carries a clean linen handkerchief at all times.”
When he rolled off, I just lay there. The sheets had long since been pushed
to the foot of the bed and I couldn't even cover myself.
“Ach,” Paul said, looking down at himself. An echo of movie dialog ran
through my head: “I'm all sticky!” I heard it so clearly I wasn't sure for
a moment if he said or I had just thought it. He sat up, reaching for the
sheet, swiped at his stomach and then turned to me. He must have seen
something of my embarrassment in my expression because he looked a little
subdued and thoughtful as he tugged more of the sheet up and handed it to
me.
“You've never done any of this before, have you?” he asked softly as he
watched me awkwardly trying to blot up the thick wetness with a
nonabsorbent sheet.
“No.”
“I'm, sorry. I shouldn't have … ”
“It's ok! I just didn't know … ”
“What?”
“How wet this whole process is!”
That got his smile back. “Being wet and slippery is half the fun,” he said
and began to finger paint on my stomach! I watched, embarrassment slipping
away.
“I'll never look at whipped egg whites the same way again!” I giggled.
He burst out laughing and took the sheet from me, gently wiping my stomach.
When he lay down again, he put his arm around me and pulled me close, my
head on his shoulder. I snuggled against him, thinking I had never felt so
physically relaxed and mentally high in my entire life. I nuzzled up to
kiss his neck.
“Now who is your favorite Beatle?” he asked.
“John Lennon,” I answered promptly.
He gave me a look of exaggerated dismay.
“You'll just have to settle for being the one I want most,” I consoled him,
kissing him again.
“That's better anyway,” he said and we settled down for a few minutes of
gentle kissing and soft touching.
“Is it always like that?” I asked.
“It is never the same twice, really,” he answered after giving it a bit of
thought, “and it is even better when you don't have to be careful. Still
wet, mind you, but better!”
“Better? I can't imagine it,” I said, and he laughed. His laughter
embarrassed me a little because I realized that he no doubt meant it was
better for the guy if he really got to “do it”.
“I mean, I know it would have been better for you if... ." and I ran out
words.
“No, Tess. Not just for me. For both of us. You'll see. And don't think
this wasn't enough for me. Don't ever think that. Just touching you,
watching you, that is enough for now.” His voice was husky and he was
kissing me again.
“Remember that first morning at the hotel when you came out of the shower
wearing John's shirt?”
I nodded.
“I took one look at you, standing there in the sunlight and my knees went
weak.” He laughed a little. “I haven't felt like that since I was fifteen.
I've wanted you ever since. I can wait a little longer.”
I didn't know what to say. I had thought he just didn't recognize me! “I
wanted you before I ever even saw you,” I told him. “That first day there
in the hotel, in the big dining room. You walked up behind me and put your
hand on my shoulder and leaned against me. I had never, ever felt what I
felt when you touched me. I never imagined what it could lead to.”
He smiled and ran his hands over me. “It led to this.” He slid his hand
between my legs. “And this. And more one of these days.” He took his hand
away and I sighed with disappointment. He grinned at that. “I take it you
enjoyed this evening?” he teased.
“It was incredible,” I whispered.
“And sticky. Come 'ead. I'll run a bath.”
A long soak in the tub, his hands gently, almost absentmindedly touching me
as I lay back in his arms, slippery with soap. His soap. A blend of herbs
and lavender, distinctive, but still masculine. It was a scent that clung
to him but was perceptible only at very close range, as when my face was
buried against his neck. I'd never forget that scent now, and tonight would
have a sample of it to carry away on my skin.
He asked if I had a boyfriend back home.
“You're asking that now?” I laughed. “Seems like the kind of question you'd
ask before you take a girl to bed!”
“I thought you took me to bed!” he said pretending to be shocked at the
idea of his initiating such a thing.
“I guess I might have given the impression I wanted you.” I teased.
“I feel so cheap!” he teased. “You won't respect me now!”
That hit a sensitive note. I suppose I should have been concerned about him
losing respect for me but I didn’t even consider that. What hit me was that
this was so backward from the usual situation. Although I hadn't thought of
it in those terms, I was just playing around, having fun. My wild summer
vacation. My summer to remember. I was using him! Subdued, I said
seriously, “It is weird to think of a girl doing that to a guy. It's always
the guy who just wants to have sex, but that is what I'm doing isn't it?
Making you my summer fling. I'm sorry.”
There was a long silence and I wondered what he could be thinking. Then he
started to laugh. I sat up and turned around to look at him. I couldn't
help but laugh with him.
“I guess the idea of any red-blooded male being upset at being used for sex
is ridiculous!”
“It's more than that, Luv,” he finally managed to say. “This whole thing is
so backward. I have managed to get a reputation for using girls. Now I am
being used. You said I am the one afraid to get close, but you are the one
talking about a summer fling. If that isn’t loony enough, I have finally
gotten used to the idea that birds think I am something incredible—Beatle
Paul, the best catch in the world—and you reel me in and then tell me you
are throwing me back!”
“I'm not throwing you back, I'm setting you free!” I said, laughing with
him. “Just like letting a bird out of a cage. I'm being noble, releasing
you from a life of serving my sexual needs!”
He laughed again as he pulled me back into his arms. “But I like that idea!
I think I can handle a few weeks of meeting those needs.” He kissed my
neck, sliding his hands up to my breasts and generally behaving in a way
that guaranteed I would have needs.
“You better,” I murmured, turning to kiss his neck, looking for that soft,
tender spot under his chin that needed kissing. “It's all your fault. I
never had these needs until I met you!”
He paused. “So back to the boyfriend issue. There really isn't one?”
“No.”
“But you have had.”
“Oh, yes. Of course.” I thought for a moment about embellishing my past to
make him jealous or at least to make it interesting, but that was silly. He
knew better than anyone how inexperienced I was. So I told him about the
few boyfriends I'd had. My first date, first kiss, first make-out session
in the back seat of a car at the drive-in, the boy I dated the summer after
graduation, the petting sessions that left me feeling guilty about my
impure thoughts and deeds but not so guilty as to dampen my enthusiasm for
the next opportunity. I told him about the sparse parade of dates in the
last couple of years as I worked my butt off to stay in school, about how
they either yielded polite kisses at the door or wrestling matches. Boys
didn't seem to have a middle ground.
He listened, laughing at times, and then asked, suddenly serious, “So why
now? In a few days you are going to give me what you never gave any of
them. Why now? Why me?”
It was a fair question, one I had already asked myself. “If you are asking
if it is because you are one of the Beatles, well, if all I wanted was to
crew a Beatle, I could have done that back at the hotel,” I told him. “John
couldn't have defended himself!”
“Wouldn't have,” he corrected with a laugh. “So why me?”
“Because you are gorgeous. Sexy. Irresistible.” He blushed. Actually turned
pink. It was my turn to laugh at him. “And you are nice, and fun to be
with, but really Paul, I don't know the answer to that any more than I know
why green is my favorite color or why I only like chocolate ice cream and
no other flavor. You are just the one I want even if the time and the place
are all wrong.”
“Wrong?” He sounded startled and I thought—wanted to believe?—a little
dismayed.
“OK, maybe not wrong. I don't know how to explain it. It is sort of... just
not real. This whole trip is a fantasy, a fairy tale. You aren't real.
Maybe that's why I want to do it, because this is all a dream. Nothing I do
here counts as part of my real life. In a few weeks, I'll wake up and go
back home, finish school, live a normal life. This will just be a beautiful
once upon a time story.”
He was quiet for a minute, then picked up the soap and began lathering my
back. He did it so casually that I was sharply reminded that this was
nothing new to him. I had a vivid image of him in this same tub washing
Jane's back. Or Ellen's. Or the owner of the pink bathrobe.
“So that is all you want from me?” he asked, jolting me back.
It sounded like a loaded question. He still wasn't sure of me. “That's all
I want,” I reassured him. It seemed to do the trick. Instead of answering
me, he began slowly lathering my chest, caressing my slippery body and
giving me another memory to take home.
After a while, we both decided we were hungry. He suggested a small
restaurant he knew where the manager would let us use a little private
dining room. He got out of the tub, toweling off unselfconsciously. I
hesitated, suddenly feeling very naked. He noticed and with no comment, he
opened up a towel and held it out for me, wrapping it around me as I stood
up. He smiled at me and went out into the bedroom as I dried off.
With the towel around me, I went out to get my clothes and took them back
into the bathroom. I got dressed and moved over to the mirror to brush out
my hair. As I picked up the brush, I noticed a tube of lipstick on the
counter. I smiled, wondering which girl had left it behind. Then I noticed
a powder compact and a trace of loose powder spilled beside it. Paul had
said something the night of the party about Mrs. Grady's cleaning schedule.
Someone had spilled an ashtray in the music room and Paul remarked that
unless he cleaned it up, it would stay until the next Friday when the
housekeeper did the upstairs. Whoever the makeup belonged to had been here
last night or this morning.
That brought me down to earth quickly. As wonderful as tonight was for me,
it was the routine for Paul. I had set the ground rules. Sex with no
strings attached. No matter how he made me feel, I had better not forget
that was all it was for him. As if to prove that I could handle this, I
used Miss Whoever's powder before I went out to rejoin Paul.
Gatebirds were waiting as we pulled out of his driveway, another reminder
of who I was with. I sat with the tape recorder and notebook on my lap, as
if the girls would look in the car and recognize that I had a business
reason for being with him.
The manager at the restaurant seemed to know Paul and his dates. He smiled
a smile that said “Well, well, well. A new face,” but said nothing as he
escorted us to the private dining room. The waitress looked me over
carefully as if she were solely responsible for seeing to it that Paul
McCartney only dated the best. I was grateful for the fact that the room
was dimly lit. The only makeup I had on was whoever's powder. My hair was a
little wild, and my yellow dress was a little rumpled. I hadn't exactly
taken the time to hang it up and linen was rather unforgiving of such
treatment.
After she left I looked up to see that Paul was grinning at me. “I don't
think I passed her inspection,” I said.
“Passed mine,” he said. “and she is probably out there telling everyone we
just got out of bed.”
“Oh, God. Do I look that bad?”
“You look that good,” he said.
Over dinner we talked like we had before all the stuff about the articles
had come between us, and there were only a couple of times when it seemed
he hesitated, held back. I didn't push it. Whatever he was comfortable with
was fine with me. After dinner, he asked me to go back to his place for the
night. I hesitated. “I have to be careful, Paul. If anyone sees me going to
your place at this hour, if reporters start talking about us—"
“You don't want anyone to know about us?” he asked in surprise.
“I guess not,” I said, nearly as surprised as he was. “I just don't want to
deal with reporters. I want to be with you as much as I can but I don't
want people to think that I, that we... "
“We haven't, technically,” Paul pointed out with a grin.
I had to laugh. “True, but everyone will think so. I just don't want the
whole world watching, and I sure don't want my mom to find out!”
“Then I guess I won't ask you to get your stuff from John's and stay with
me.”
I caught my breath. Thoughts of spilled powder and a pink bathrobe were
pushed aside by the thought of spending nights in his bed. As tempting as
that was, this was happening too fast. I simply couldn't make the leap from
virgin to shacking up that quickly. Shacking up. Living together. An option
completely unknown in my world. No one I knew was doing that, absolutely no
one. It was a step too far over the line. There were certainly people who
did that, but if anyone of my acquaintance did, it would be a shameful
secret the family would not talk about and would probably lie to hide. It
was no doubt being done with increasing frequency by the beatnik/hippie
young people, but I had little contact with that slice of society. Even for
celebrities, the press would tip-toe around the obvious, and teen fan mags
didn't even hint that such things were happening all the time among the
rock and roll stars.
“I can't. I really can't,” I told him. Let him think I was afraid of
publicity. “I would like to, but—”
”No. You are right. It would be impossible to keep quiet.”
“It's not just that,” I admitted. I didn't want him to think that I didn't
want him enough to risk some talk. “I want to be with you, but I am just
not ready for that.”
He reached across the table to take my hand. “It's OK, Tess.” He was
grinning at me. “Even though it is unheard of for a bird to resist The Cute
One—Parliament passed a decree you know—I can handle rejection.”
We drove slowly back to John's in a typical London drizzle. John and Cyn
had gone over to Ringo's for the evening and Mrs. Powell was there. We
watched TV with her for a bit, but she soon excused herself and went off to
bed. Curled up on the sofa together soon deteriorated to stretched out side
by side, hands roaming in unhurried caresses. Unhurried perhaps, but
definitely with a goal in mind on Paul's part. Once again he started to
unzip that yellow dress and once again I stopped him.
“John and Cyn could be back anytime.”
“Upstairs then,” he said. It wasn't a question or a demand, just an
assumption.
He was right in assuming I wanted to but, “Mrs. Powell's room is right next
to mine. She leaves her door open so she can hear Julian and she reads for
a long time before she goes to sleep.” I don't know why I cared what Cyn's
mother thought about me but getting caught was getting caught no matter
whose mother it was, I guess.
Paul didn't seem more than a little surprised at my sudden attack of
propriety. He argued laughingly that I was being a tease.
“I don't mean to tease,” I apologized. “I want this too, but we just
shouldn't."
“I know. Are you free tomorrow?”
Free? Nothing short of needing life-saving surgery would have stood a
chance. “Yes!”
“Good. I'm free. We can spend the whole day together. Maybe do a little
sightseeing?”
I could feel my eyes widen with surprise. Paul laughed. “OK. We can do the
‘Just Sex' thingy and throw in a bit of sightseeing. Don't you be using
your feminine wiles on me to make it more. Sex and sightseeing. That's all
it will be. Well, maybe dinner.”
All this was punctuated with kisses, each growing longer. “Maybe a movie,
but that will be the extent of it. Maybe some shopping someday but nothing
more, you understand.” More kisses. “Maybe a few hours each day just
holding you and talking to you, but that is it, I tell you!”
“That is more than enough,” I whispered through the kisses.
Once in bed that night I tried hard not to think. I had thought that the
hour in his bed was an incredible, earth-shattering turning point. It was,
but in retrospect, I thought that evening of dinner and TV probably was
every bit as important. The time in his bed was wonderful
but, after all,
it was sex, not ordinary time together. He didn't turn cold, was in no rush
to leave, was, in fact, downright, well, loving! We talked, and laughed,
and were together. It felt so right, so comfortable, so promising, so meant
to be.
“Don't do this,” the voice in my head warned. “Just go to sleep, don't
think about today, don't think about Paul, don't think about what he did to
you, don't think about how it felt, and don't, no matter what, don't think
about how you feel about him.” As I drifted into sleep I knew that in the
morning I would have to face the facts. I had decided to have sex with this
man, to let him be the first, knowing full well I would never see him again
after this summer. If that was foolish, then falling in love with him was
beyond any reason, and that is exactly what I feared was happening.