Anita & Me: A Story

And it was a long way home, but I had a lot to think about so I decided to walk. First off, I didn't want the job, but I knew I could use the money and, anyway, the way he put it I couldn't refuse. But before I actually accepted a paycheck I was going to do a little research into Frank Construction Company. I had no intention of becoming a Corleone.

Second, I was a little scared to go home. My role in Anita's fantasy wasn't one I relished and I wanted to sort out how to approach it and so far I'd come up with nothing. And third, I wanted to think about the matter that surface the night before, this business of having a committee of women looking out for me. I wanted to think that through because at first blush, and, admittedly I was a little preoccupied at the time, but at first blush it seemed like the proverbial double edged sword. The upside was fairly obvious; I needed to think about the down side. And I needed to determine which of the two was the sharper, the more dangerous.

But I didn't think about any them. Instead, I counted my blessings all the way home and when Anita met me at the door I just looked at her, searching her pock marked face trying to figure out why she was trying to make my life so fucking perfect.

But I was infinitely less perfect to her. Clearly, she wanted to get right into the fantasy and equally clearly she wasn't pleased when I begged off for lack of prep time. We'll do it tomorrow, I said. Tomorrow is our engagement party, she responded. It was the first I'd heard of it.

The party was in a bar downtown, closed for the evening. It was hard to believe that Big John would own such a joint. It seemed a lot more like a place I'd own. It was dark and seedy and you could tell at a glance that over time a lot of guys had left last call with their chins on the chest. It was my kind of place, a real drinking joint but it didn't take long to learn that the food was utterly spectacular and that it was a favourite luncheon haunt of every guy in town with a seven digit salary.

Frankly, the evening was a bit of a whirl, from the booze, yes, but from the frantic action as well. Everyone was just so fucking animated, so fucking happy. I'm certain there wasn't a useful thought utter all night, but the good will? You could cut it with a knife. Right up until I made my little speech.

But let me back up just a little. After dinner, Stella gave a lively, funny speech on behalf of ‘the girls.' It was tasteful, sincere and the glow on Anita's face almost made me want to cry, like everyone else was crying. Then Sonny stepped up to the plate (I've got to stop calling him that)! Wildfire is slow compared to how word spreads throughout the family. Sonny, it turns out has been attending Toastmasters for the past 10 years or so and is a brilliant speaker. Anita must have told Sonny's wife, Stella, who must have told him about how I ‘proposed' to Anita and he lamented how my ‘poetic romance' had changed life for all the Frank men. Everyone of them, he reported, was being tormented by his wife to ‘do a Jim', to give himself away, totally, and in return take his wife, take her totally; to own each other. Turns out, everyone absolutely loved the idea and all were making plans, in their own special way, to do precisely that. So, far from being considered the puff-piece I thought I'd be, I was considered something an almost epic lothario. It nearly blew me away.

And I wish it had. Instead, I was there when Big John took to the stage. With a tear in his eye, the big, tough sonofabitch reported that he was inspired by the idea and planned that very evening to rededicate himself to his fallen wife, to give himself to her completely, once again.

Had I not been drinking I may have been more circumspect but I had been, and I went for it. In thanking everyone for their warmth and hospitality, I commented on the commitment I had made to Anita and that's where I overplayed my hand. As I had said to Anita at the time, I couldn't just give myself to her without taking her in return, that would only make me a slave to her, not a healthy relationship. So, I said, turning to Big John, "better you make a commitment to someone who can make a commitment in return."

The place went silent, deathly silent and it never recovered. In a matter of a few minutes, everyone reached for their coats, said polite goodbyes and were gone, leaving me in the passenger's seat with Anita's knuckles white at the wheel.

We didn't talk on the way home, nor when we got there, unless "how could you?" can be considered talk. But she lit into me the next morning about my bottomless insensitivity and reminded me of it every chance she got for the next week, even up to the moment we got to Big John's door when she told me to "behave."

I inched into the house like a burglar and was beside Anita when I heard her gasp. It scared me so my eyes darted the foyer for danger but all I saw was a few familiar faces and an a middle age pleasant looking woman who was positively beaming with delight. In a matter of seconds that same woman was in Anita's arms and they were both crying, a bubbly kind of cry that was unmistakably joyous. And then she was in mine, hugging me and just before she turned and hurried away she said, "I can never, ever, ever thank you enough."

Well, talk about a turn around. Next thing I knew I had a cigar planted so far back in my face my lips almost burned when someone lit it. Turns out, Mrs. Antelli was Big John's long-time Executive Assistant who lost her husband two years after Mrs. Frank died and had more or less played Mrs. Frank's role ever since — all as an efficient assistant who no doubt was desperate for a promotion. And the family loved her. It was Mrs. Antelli who remembered all the birthdays and anniversaries, bought all the gifts, arranged for all the favours — who more times then not showed the soft side of Big John. Now Big John got to see all her soft sides and they both looked as pleased as punch about it.

And, of course, this was all thanks to me. When a week ago at our engagement party I told Big John to more or less get a life, he took my advice and called Mrs. Antelli — who was probably waiting by the phone, and everybody in the family couldn't have been happier about it, and with me. Particularly Anita whose voltre-face had me literally rubbing my hands with revenge. She'd get her fantasy soon enough, but first I'd get mine, whatever it might be — that was the least she could do to counterbalance the suffering I had endured from her stony silence.

But, of course, it didn't work out that way, not because of her. Because of me. At some time during the back-slapping revelry it occurred to me that what Anita had done — chosen family solidarity over her rude husband-to-be's insensitive outburst — was one of her most enduring characteristics. I mean, part of my love for her was her strong family bond so how pleased should I be that at the first sign of trouble she'd side with me over the family? Not very, so at some time late in the evening I walked up behind her, put my hands on her hips, pulled her into me and kissed her on the neck. "I love you, Anita. I love everything about you." Her glow was instant reward.

I went for a long bike ride the next day, in part to help dissipate my slight hang-over but mainly to think through my role in Anita's fantasy, which I wanted to deal with when I got home. I say deal with because that's the way I saw it. I didn't know what her expectations would be, of herself and of me, and I was a little concerned that things could go wrong. I would be sailing in uncharted waters and so would she.

I came through the door at 6, as we agreed. She was seated on the kitchen chair in the centre of the living room. I sat down in the chair directly beside her, just like I was sitting on a bus. She didn't look at me, she just sat there with her hands in her lap looking out the imaginary window. It took me awhile to focus but I was in no rush; we had agreed we were only going to do this once so we'd try and get it right.

"Anita?" When she looked at me I tried to imagine an 18 year old with a face effaced with boiling pimples. She smiled at me with her lips but the pain in her eyes didn't soften a bit. "Will you?"

"No. I won't go …," she hesitated for a moment, "And you don't want to take me anyway."

"I do." And I did. This was a lot easier then I thought it would be. I really did want to put some excitement into this girl's sad eyes. I really did want to take the pimply faced kid to the Senior Prom.

"I won't go." When she turned away I didn't know what to say. I thought maybe the fantasy had run it's course. Then she said to the imaginary window. "Would you come to my place instead?"

"Yes." I wanted to reach out and pull her into me, break off the charade and get at it. But I didn't, mainly because she stood up, pointed to the door and headed for the bedroom saving, "Give me a few minutes."

When she opened the door to my knock I was a little shocked. She had obviously put a lot of thought into this. She was dressed in a kilt-like skirt, knee-high blue socks and a spectacularly provocative see through blouse under which was a blue bra that you could see was fighting to hold her in. If her idea was to get me excited it had worked: she was the sexiest 18 year old I could ever remember seeing — until I remembered why I was there and I again imagined the acned face.

While I sat on the couch she went to the kitchen and got cokes and when she sat down we slumped on the couch in silence, just like awkward teenagers until she said, "It was sweet of you to ask me to the prom, but I feel too much like an ugly duckling to go."

I was about to disagree with her. I was about to say, no, you look great but she wouldn't have. She would have look awful, even revolting, so I said, "It must be very difficult."

I don't know if this scene ever actually happened to her. It might have because when she started crying I could feel her sorrow, her torment, her pain. I hesitated for a moment before I reached for her, but I did, because I would have. She came into my arms and pressed her face into my shoulder, careful, I thought, not to touch her face to mine. I tried to correct that, I tried to push my cheek down on hers but she wouldn't let me, she kind of butted me back with the side of her head. Then I tried to bring my hand up to her face but she stopped that, too. She caught my wrist and pulled my hand down. But she didn't let my wrist go; she held onto it for the longest time. Then she brought my hand up to her breast.

My mind was traveling a mile a minute. I was a teenager again, I had a babe in my arms and she was letting me feel her up. Funny how fast it takes to revert to form. Her pimpled puss and fragile ego were the furthest thing from my mind. The girl had put my hand on her tit and that could only mean one fucking thing! So I did what I would have done and, instinctively, the way I would have done it. I think I started with the panting and the rubbing, then the leaning and the groping. Anyway, in a matter of a minute I was leaning into her, pinning her to the arm of the sofa, my right hand mashing at her tit while my left hand explored the mystical folds of her skirt. When my hand finally found her panties, my mouth was on the blouse at her breast.

She wasn't fighting me off, but she wasn't inviting me in, either. In fact, she had me more than a little confused. I had no idea what she wanted. Did she want sympathy? Empathy? To get felt? To get fucked? What did the 18 year old girl with the rotten luck want in her parent's living room on prom night?

My guess was that she was trying to sort out just that question: what had she missed, what had she wanted? What would she have done if she had been alone in a room with a classmate anxious to get into her panties?

In a matter of minutes, we both had our answer. She started to push me away — with just a little resistance at first, but then more forcefully and when I tried to press back, ultimately she shoved me away and we both slumped against the opposite arms of the couch. Fantasy over. Experiment completed.

"Jimmy." Jimmy, not Jim — she was still in character and that surprised me. "Have you ever had sex?"

"Yes." It wasn't a lie. I'd had what I gathered was sex once when I was 18, although it happened so fast I still wasn't entirely sure that it was sex, like officially.

She was unbuttoning her blouse now and it kind of startled me and I must have looked a little shocked because, even though she wasn't looking directly at me, more at my chest, she said, and I had heard this line from her before, "The pimples stop at my chin."

That's when it hit me. I knew she had a fantastic body but what I had never considered was that she'd had that fantastic body probably since youth and yet all she could show to the world was her face, a pimpled, pockmarked face that must have turned heads in the most ego-destroying way. Then all the pieces fit together. Her message, when I first really noticed her, that you had to look beneath the clothes to see what's there. That's what this was all about. She wanted to be seen in a way other then a scarred, frightened kid. God, I loved this woman. I didn't really know if what was rushing from my body was compassion or passion, but either way I was watching her fingers unfasten the little white buttons like I was cheerleader. You can do it, I was thinking, you can show off your perfect body. I felt myself urging her on, urging her not to stop, urging her to get all her clothes off, to show me her 18 year old body, her perfect, strong 18 year old body, the part of her without a mark or blemish, the part of her that only she had seen.

Her buttons were undone now, but she was faltering, hesitating, maybe losing her resolve. It must have been so much easier in her imagination, in her dreams when, just before she slipped into sleep, she stood in front of that guy she must have cared for and shown him a self only she had known. I waited. Fascinated. What was going through her mind? What would she do? I thought of pulling my shirt from my pants, I thought of speeding through my own buttons but I didn't want to risk it. This was her show, this was her one chance to really sort out her feelings.

She knew I was looking at her, studying her, waiting, but she didn't look at me, not when her fingers held both sides of the unbutton blouse and not when the fingers rose higher to strip the blouse from her shoulders. They were on the buckle of her kilt now. It was undone in seconds and when the tartan fell away, tiny folds on her taut stomach appeared like tiny accordion baffles just above her white panties as she bent forward to strip off her socks.

How she must have looked. Her face an angry red, with tiny boiling volcanoes, yellow and pustulent. And beneath it, that strong, innocent body, white and perfect. How she must have wanted someone to see the hidden her. This was her time.

She bent forward and undid her bra and swept it away before her hands pushed her panties to her ankles where she kicked them away.

I felt a jolt of pride. She had done it. It must have taken real courage, but she had done it. But she hadn't finished, at least she hadn't snapped out of what appeared to be almost a trace. She hadn't looked at me almost since she had sat down and she wasn't looking at me now. She seemed to be looking inward, concentrating. On what? I had no idea.

She sat a little hunched forward. I didn't think she was trying to hide her breasts from me, but she was. She sat that way for a long time. A few minutes. Then she sat back in the chair and as she did she turned a little towards me bringing her left knee up onto the couch. Her hands were on her belly, one on top of the other. She was looking at a spot somewhere on the carpet in the middle of room. She sat like that for a long time then she took a deep breath and brought one hand to her pussy and the other to her breast.

I didn't know why she was doing this. I couldn't know what it mean to her. Was this her fantasy, to masturbate in front of some imagined love? I have to admit it. I was uncomfortable. Had she come to me and asked me if she could masturbate for me I would have been unbelievable excited. But she didn't. She chose to masturbate, not for me, but for somebody else, somebody swimming around in her imagination and I was getting a trifle ticked and just a little jealous.

I don't know if she orgasmed. She was breathing a little hard for awhile then she stopped. Stopped breathing, stopped caressing her pussy and her breast. Then she looked at me. It was a face I had never seen before and I just about didn't recognize the voice. "You'll tell everyone, won't you, Jimmy. You'll tell everyone we had sex? You'll tell everyone about me?"

I waited for a moment not knowing what to say. "You have a beautiful body, Anita."

"You'll tell everyone?"

"Yes," I said, "everyone will know," and I leaned over and pulled her to me, pulled her head on my lap and as she settled on the couch with her legs curled around her clasped hands I stroked her face and wished I had been in that living room all those years ago so I could have kissed her face, her boiling face, and helped to free her from her demons.

I didn't ask her about her ‘fantasy' that night, nor the next morning but I did when I delivered the flowers to her at her office just after noon the next day. She smiled, kissed me, took the flowers and said, "maybe later." Then she handed me an address. "Meet me here at 6." When I asked her why, she just shrugged.

I used the afternoon to bike around town and was really pleased to note that the address she had given me was near a whole labyrinth of bike trails that criss-crossed the city, mostly leading to and from the university, which was less then a mile from the big, old and beautiful mansion that carried the address she had given me. Anita was already there. With Mrs. Antelli.

They both kissed me, Mrs. Antelli giving my hand a squeeze as she did and I followed them up a wide, sweeping flight of stairs and into a cavernous section of the house that looked to me like an empty movie set for a bio on, say, the Gettys or the Rothchildes, it was just that sumptuous.

I put two and two together pretty fast. Mrs. Antelli was ‘the fixer,' this was an empty and humongously large apartment, our wedding was coming up, it was near the university, we planned to move: bingo, she was showing us a space. "Do you like it?" I have described Mrs. Antelli as pleasant looking. She is. She looks like the kind of person who wants the very best for everyone she meets. She may be the one person in the entire world who couldn't possibly have an enemy.

But she was finding one in me. Sure the place was fantastic, and there was no doubt in the world that we were going to occupy it, that was clearly etched on Anita's beaming puss. But even though I knew nothing about furnishings — I had, after all, been living in a single room, and not a very big one at that — an idiot would know that everything about this place was going to be pricey, from the rent, to the couch that would occupy maybe 2% of the unending living room — with its cathedral ceiling and gleaming hardwood floor that would demand a Turkish rug, or ten. I couldn't help it but I looked at the place as a drain down which was about to go my entire bank account. But I hid my feelings, wondered if Big John could maybe double the work he planned for me, and I gave Anita a squeeze to respond to her crushing embrace.

It took awhile to inspect all the rooms (some of which I knew would remain empty) but we finished up in an hour or so and were down on the street with ‘The Fixer' waving goodbye.

She had all but escaped when I covered the ground equidistant between her and Anita and asked my question in a voice that I hoped wouldn't travel back to Anita. "We didn't discuss the rent."