Donna in the Senior Year Ch. 02

[Actually this should be chapter 3; chapter 2 would be the consummation of the relationship but I couldn't pull that together. Thus I skipped it for the time being.

The story about Charlotte's role-play is Lioness Limousine. The story about Michelle and Judy in the moving car hasn't been published yet.]

***

I found that being a college student gave me a lot of unstructured time which seemed to suit me quite well. I've heard (mostly male) partners at big law firms described as the kind of guys who "if you give them an axe in the woods they will spend all day cutting down trees." I can only be like that if something really motivates me and even then I'm not always diligent. If I was the one with the axe I would likely spend some time felling trees and then take a break to read a magazine for a while. Or maybe after lunch I'd sneak off for an afternoon session whipping my favorite puppy.

In my senior year I was still on one of the City College student newspapers but my interest in it was waning. I had never really liked doing news stories and I had run out of topics for essays. Graduation was eight months away but at the moment I was happy enough to coast along.

Thus one day in October 1976 I called my new Manhattan College sweetie Donna and suggested we do something to fill up time on the upcoming Wednesday afternoon. I knew she was in her own senior year doldrums. She liked to come up with her own plans and suggestions which were fine with me. On this occasion her idea was to have a picnic in Pelham Bay Park. "Let's get some beer to go along with it," she said. "We can take the bus out there instead of driving."

In those days driving after a couple of beers was not quite the no-no it is today. I was surprised that she gone with the bus option. I had already gotten used to Donna being the car-owning member of the couple and I took it for granted that she would always have her Chevelle for any trip not requiring access to downtown Manhattan. But the Bx12 ran only a half-block from her apartment so I went along with her request.

On a sunny afternoon I met her in her apartment on Barnes Avenue. She seemed almost overdressed for a picnic; she was wearing a maroon skirt and black ankle boots with matching purple socks. During my first few moments there I complimented her on her appearance.

She said, "You like women who wear skirts, don't you?"

"Definitely, that blue jeans fashion thing can get overdone."

Donna was usually low-key and polite but sometimes she would drop a piece of raunchiness to catch me by surprise. "I know, a skirt gives you more access to a girl's crotch, doesn't it? You can reach up and grab her panties." Then she laughed and said, "You should see the look on your face, like a little boy with his hand caught in the nookie jar."

I knew I had to recover some male credibility but before I could do that she put her arms on my shoulders, "That's okay, I know you're a really nice guy."

"Right, I'm so nice that I propose we should have a quickie right here on your couch."

She wagged a finger at me, "No, no, the picnic first, then sex."

"You mean out at the park, maybe?"

She knew I was kidding her, "I'll tell you what, if you can find a place out there that I feel comfortable with - and good luck with that - then maybe I'll consider it. Consider it for future reference that is."

Fifteen minutes later we had our picnic basket and a six-pack plus some loose bottles we had bought at a deli. As we rode the bus eastbound on Pelham Parkway I asked her, "Were you really that concerned with driving today?"

She reached into her purse and pulled off a pint bottle of Jim Beam. I was surprised because Donna was a very moderate drinker. In fact this was the first time I had known her to imbibe anything on a weekday. She said, "I decided we should have some of this too."

"You must really want to party out there."

"It was just a spur of the moment kind of thing."

******

The day before I had decided on the exact location for our outdoor luncheon. Just inside the park's entrance was a Neoclassical World War I monument with a raised platform around the base. It wasn't the most comfortable place to sit but Donna had seen it before and she was satisfied with the location. We sat together with our backs against a wall and had our sandwiches washed down with beer. In a few minutes we started sipping our bourbon too. I had this mild late-summer day with my new girl and I felt contented.

Drinking alcohol in New York parks was illegal, but on this quiet weekday we figured if we were discreet about it we'd probably get away with it. At one point I said, "What do call Budweiser with a Jim Beam chaser? A Bronx boilermaker?"

"Whatever you call it I'm starting to feel a bit . . ."

"Tipsy? Girls get tipsy, guys get . . ." I almost said "shitfaced" but I decided against using that term with her. We were still figuring each other out, including what each found humorous. "Anyway, there used to be a thing called a Bronx cocktail but I don't know what was in it."

"Wouldn't that be gasoline in a bottle?"

"No, that's a Molotov cocktail."

We were teasing each other now and she said, "Of course, silly, I know that."

A few minutes later we noted the inscription carved on the base:

A GRATEFUL CITY ERECTED THIS SHAFT TO THE GLORIOUS MEMORIES OF ITS BRONX COUNTY SONS WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR COUNTRY IN THE WORLD WAR.

Donna said, "I wonder who wrote that, and did he consider it the best possible wording?"

I tried a joke, "Did the mason call the sponsors and ask, 'are you sure you guys want this stuff about erecting a shaft?'"

Donna did find that amusing, "They must have been certain, look at the cornerstone." It continued the theme, ERECTED 1932.

The main part of the memorial was a Corinthian column several stories high, and on top was a barely-dressed winged lady. This Victory girl in her allegorical glory had let her robe slip below her waist, and the sculptor had carefully given her small but perky breasts and clearly defined pubic hair.

There was some kind of phallic-sexual-historical story being presented here. I was reminded of Delacroix's painting of a bare-breasted Liberty leading the people to attack the Bastille or something. I imagined one of them saying, hey lady, I've give you a few francs to buy a brassiere. It's kind of distracting with your boobies swinging all over the battlefield.

After studying the twice life-sized statue high above me I looked down again and saw the marching Bronx doughboys carved into two bas-relief panels. I said, "I bet a lot of those guys were my age or younger." I hoped that the virgins among them at least visited a brothel or two before being sent to the front but I didn't mention that to Donna.

In any case I was grateful that they had sacrificed themselves to make the world safe enough for this present-day son of the Bronx. I sat on the platform and compared my life to theirs. When I wasn't in class or doing my desultory job downtown I could spend my time chasing girls and drinking in public parks. No one was going to load me on a troopship bound for Europe.

By now I had downed two of the beers allotted to me and I was getting further into bourbon sipping. I was falling into a thoughtful mood and I said, "I can imagine the crowd at the dedication ceremony for this; they must have been arranged on the lawn over here." I pushed the conceit a little further. "If they time-travelled into the present what would we say to them?"

"I don't know Paul, you seem to have an idea, what have you got for us?" I hoped she was finding me witty rather than weird but the alcohol was loosening me up. I stood up and looked around; the park was almost deserted and there was no one within at least a hundred yards of us.

I walked to the edge of the steps holding a beer bottle and began. I didn't raise my voice much; had there really been an audience most of them wouldn't have heard me.

"Greetings, my fellow Americans of two score and some odd years ago. I am pleased to report that although the war to end all wars didn't quite live up to its billing, much progress has been made recently. Yes, there is still that situation in Cambodia - that would be Indochina to you - with these Khmer Rouge people and maybe the United Nations should, you know, it's like the League of Nations. . ."

This seemed like complete nonsense and I started to feel foolish, "All right, I admit it, I'm glad it was them and not me, the draft ended several years ago and made my high number moot. I'm just happy I can just be here with this lovely daughter of Queens County - look at her folks, isn't she swell? - and have a few beers and a few shots in the shade of this magnificent monument."

Donna had grown up in Queens before moving to my borough. I said to her in a quiet aside, "The best-looking girls are always from Queens," and she smiled at me. Actually I was quoting one of my exes, Bayside-native Michelle Hanley, but I didn't mention that.

I went back to addressing the crowd, "Anyway, we have some good American beer here, Budweiser from St. Louis, so please come up and we can toast the brave sons - not just of the Bronx, but all of America - who helped make it possible for me and my gal to dither away this fine afternoon." I had conjured up imaginary cases of beer for the imaginary audience. Then I sat down next to Donna.

I said, "You know, I've never fired a gun even once."

She knew what I was getting at, "You mean that bullshit that you're not a man unless you get your ass blown off while trying to blow off the ass of some other poor schmuck."

"That's was how General Patton believed it was, except he'd say 'poor bastard' instead of schmuck." I wasn't sure what Patton had really said but I knew George C. Scott's lines from the movie.

She said, "You would think we'd moved beyond that kind of thing."

"I'm dating a pacifist I see. Anyway, I'm really a fun date myself, ain't I?"

"I've never had a guy refer to World War I before."

"It's this monument, it's kind of morbid."

"It definitely grabs your attention, doesn't it?"

A little later she said, "Man, I've really got to take a piss right now. Too much beer I'm afraid."

I stood up and looked around. The nearest rest rooms were nearly two hundred yards away but I knew they were locked on weekdays after Labor Day. There were some stores and a coffee shop over by the el station by that walk was at least a quarter of a mile.

"Just go on the other side of this thing. Right now there's no one at all over there."

The front of the monument faced a roadway, Pelham Parkway; Donna went to the back. After a second I followed her and found her squatting down and hiking her skirt up.

"So you're one of those guys who likes to watch girls pee."

"It's not one of the highlights of my life but it is mildly interesting."

"Okay, so watch then if you must."

She pulled her underpants down to her knees. "Nice little panties," I said. "When I see a woman I get curious about what kind of underwear she's wearing."

"That's the problem with the parks nowadays. They're full of perverts like you." She braced her back against the wall and spread her legs so that the flow went between her feet.

I remembered a previous girlfriend of mine named Judy as she had squatted by a loading dock in Brooklyn. Judy had been stoned that time, not drunk. Some wild events had happened that day a year earlier that I wasn't going to tell Donna about. One of those things was getting a blowjob from Judy in the back of her friend Michelle's car. Michelle at that moment was driving it down the Belt Parkway in the middle of a summer afternoon. Michelle's only complaint was that we should hunch down more so that other drivers wouldn't see us and get distracted.

Those were my version of bad boy days even though I had mostly stumbled into them. Now, I supposed, I was going to be mature and responsible and maintain a steady and faithful relationship with Donna. However, I sometimes had a pang of nostalgia for the times when I was spinning plates with two or three girls at once. When you're twenty-one-years old the "good old days" can be the previous year.

My mind returned to Pelham Bay Park and I said, "Girls always look lost in thought when they pee."

"I suppose men do too."

"You'll find out in a minute because I've also rented some beer."

When she was done I stood facing the wall and opened my zipper. "Hey, our streams are going to mix now."

"I hope you're not one of those people who like golden showers."

I feigned ignorance, "What is that?"

"You've never heard of it? It's when somebody . . ."

I laughed, "Of course I know what it is, I was just kidding you." Then I said, "Although if someone had to pee on me, I hope it's a lady as pretty as you are."

She found that a bit odd perhaps but I think she was complimented anyway, "Okay, maybe, just don't ask to piss on me."

As I zipped up I said, "Speaking of panties . . ."

"We were?"

"When I was sitting with you at that party in Flushing I fantasized that because it was so hot that day - well, I imagined you without panties under your skirt." I actually had imagined more than that but I didn't want to tell her that yet. Fortunately she laughed.

I shrugged and said, "Just a little quirk of mine, I guess."

"Yeah, a quirk you share with about fifty million other American men."

"Do you ever walk around without them?"

"Well at home, but not in public; I assume you meant the latter. I'm not sure why, I'd feel kind of vulnerable."

"I knew a woman who liked doing that - like in Washington Square she said." I was exaggerating a bit, I think she'd only done it about twice.

"Well good for her, I admire her nerve."

When we had returned to our picnic spot on the front side she had a new topic for me, "I've been thinking about some of those role-plays you've been in, especially those involving cars."

Since I'd met Donna I had walked a fine line between being discreet about my past romantic life and boasting a bit about certain aspects of it. A few times I brought up role-playing as a topic. I was young enough to be unsure about how to handle conversations about my past. Yet role play stories gave a pretext to talk about former girlfriends in a slightly indirect way. Even though a couple of these girls were still attending CCNY Donna hadn't expressed any jealousy towards them.

I said, "So any one of them in particular?"

"Yeah, one of them was when you and Charlotte played the driver and the rich lady game with your dad's car." Charlotte was also the same one who had forgone her panties those times but Donna didn't know that.

I said, "That was the one with the limousine service, Lioness Limo I called it."

That game had reached its climax by the train tracks a little to the north of the park here but I wasn't sure that I had told Donna that level of detail

"Well my idea is like that except you would be a taxi driver and I'd be one of your passengers. We could use my car as the taxi."

I was impressed and I let her know that, "You came up with a pretty good idea for the first time out."

"I sort of have a plot for it. I'll have an ultimate destination but first I'll ask to be driven around. During that I'll tease you - or tease him, tease your character I should to say. I mean vamp it up, sexually taunt him."

I remembered that Charlotte's character had masturbated in the back seat while making passes at me as we drove along. That had occurred while we were cruising along the Cross-Bronx Expressway.

I asked Donna, "So in the end, is she going to seduce him?" Without thinking about it I had slipped into referring to my character in the third person. Seduction had been the aim of Charlotte's character and she had certainly succeeded in that goal.

Donna responded, "I don't know yet, maybe yes but then again maybe not."

Now I was doubly impressed. "You catch on pretty fast. As the creator of a role-play you are sort of the 'leader.' You can keep certain info to yourself for a while, then spring a surprise on the other person."

"That's what makes it fun of course, right?"

"But also as the follower I can react and improvise my own surprises, assuming I can think fast enough." I felt a need to caution her, "Be aware that feelings can really get tangled up in these games. Sometimes people get hurt feelings and it takes a while afterwards to decompress."

"But that never stopped you."

"Because it's so intense sometimes. It can be like an Edward Albee play except you're actually in the damn thing instead of watching it. At times you find out things about yourself or your partner that are kind of weird."

We sipped from the bottle for a few more moments and then I moved next to her and we started making out. I forgot about the rough stone surface under us as I put my lips against her face and hair. In the middle of that I said into her ear, "Donna, I love you."

"I love you too Paul."

That was the first time we had said that to each other. Maybe at that age declarations of love came easily. Sometimes they were before the sexual consummation of a relationship, sometime afterwards. In this case it was afterwards

Yet after only a few weeks since meeting her I had a good feeling about her, I was optimistic about our future. Of course, I had felt that optimism about previous girlfriends and they had all ultimately decided to go their own ways. But I wasn't cynical yet.

Donna looked concerned and said, "Oh, so I wonder happens now?" I think I got what she meant. It wasn't necessarily ambivalence, but rather an appreciation that a deeper commitment was being made.

I tried to project nonchalance and I held her tighter, "Hey, we keep doing what we've already been doing, right?"

A bit later I noticed that we had finished eight of the nine bottles of beer and much of the bourbon. Donna said, "I feel like I could just conk out and take a nap here." There was a lawn a few feet away but, except during the height of summer perhaps, sleeping in most New York parks was usually not a wise idea.

I said, "This isn't like the Great Lawn at Central Park, it's not safe to sleep here. We can make it to that doughnut shop over there and get some coffee."

As we pulled our stuff together I said, "After that we'll be back at your place in less than a half-hour." Fortunately the Bx12 was one of the busiest and most frequent routes in the borough. "We can nap there all we want."

She smiled at me, "And when we wake up we'll do whatever else we want to our hearts' content."

********