My Summer with Nora Ch. 08

"Of course, I hadn't a real date in the whole ten months I had been at that horrible school."

"It doesn't matter why, you went anyway. And you're still here."

She suddenly said, "I need a drink. I'd like a vodka and tonic, with a slice of lime in it." That was exactly the drink she had ordered at the restaurant that night when she needed to calm her nerves.

I was magnanimous about it. "I'll get it for you. I'm going to have a beer for myself."

She sort of shooed me off. "Go ahead, have whatever you want." I went to the kitchen and came back with our drinks, then I sat next to her that time. We sipped for a bit, and I said, "Nora, it's way too quiet in here. Would you please put something on the stereo?"

She mildly said, "Yeah, sure thing."

When she was over there, she had to nudge me once more. She lifted her skirt and shook her bare backside at me. While doing that, she looked over her shoulder at me and she finally smiled. "Take a good look, because this is something else you wouldn't be getting any of."

"Nora, I know you. Soon or later, I'm going to be spanking your bad-girl ass again and then you'll be begging for a screwing in your damp little pussy. So don't try to fool me or yourself."

She didn't like what I had said, and she sneered at me. "You can be such a smart-ass at times."

"Honey, I learned it all from you and your big mouth. Now would you finally pick a record and put it on?"

She chose one and set the needle down on it. As she walked back, I could hear the beginning of Traffic's "The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys."

When she sat down to my right again, I praised her. "Good choice."

She put on her snippy attitude again. "Well, you were already expecting that from me."

The song was over eleven minutes long, and a good chunk of it was instrumentals. We sat there for a few moments, drinking and listening to the record.

I commented, "I always liked the piano on here. It almost sounds like ragtime."

"What is the song about, anyway? What is the gun that doesn't make any noise?"

"Don't ask me, ask Steve Winwood."

"He was probably on too many drugs to remember." That seemed pretty funny. She continued, "That line, 'don't worry, it will happen to you, as sure as your sorrows are joys.' I understand that perfectly."

I figured she was referring to something about her recently concluded hooking career, but I didn't know what it was. Instead, I asked, "How long before your uncle comes home?"

She looked at her watch. "At least another four hours. But don't worry, he likes you."

I had met him once before, right at that Maspeth house. I asked, "So why does he like me?"

"Because he thinks you put me on the straight path; you made me into a good girl. Do you know he spanked me a couple of times when I was wearing my Burger King uniform? He took the brown trousers right down, then the black thong I had on underneath." That was the first legitimate job she had at the beginning of the summer.

"But he knew you had quit hooking by that point."

"They were maintenance spankings, of course."

"I see, a wise man. I wish I could spank a bad fast-food girl."

"Well, too bad, I don't have the uniforms any longer. I could, if you wish, rent a cheerleader outfit, however." That new sexual offer on her part had to be a conciliatory gesture. "Not that I ever was one myself. It's sort of idiotic in real life but fun as a game."

"Yeah, Nora, you sure do love games, but that one seems better than the one you were playing a little while ago."

She had more for me, "I'd get red pom-poms, red panties, and white sneakers and ankle socks." She put her hands up. " 'Sheesh, boom, bah,' or whatever stupid thing they chant. Those girls at college football games, they always look so damn happy."

"That's because, Nora, they are happy, not like the morose attitude you sometimes project."

When one side of the record was finished, she got up and put on the other side. I had finished my beer, but then I decided not to get another one. As she sat down again, I said, "This whole visit, maybe I should just go already." It would be a long trip on the bus and then at least two subway trains.

Nora said, "No, I don't want you to go." She sounded exactly as she did when she had asked me not to leave the newspaper office that night. "Come on, get refills for our drinks."

"We're going to be completely smashed when your uncle gets back here."

"I already said, he knows you're not one of my customers."

"How can he be so sure of that?"

"Because it's so obvious that you're not, from the way you act, from the way you talk to me."

I was touched by that, but I didn't mention it. As I got up, I noticed that her semen-drenched panties were still on my former chair. I didn't mention those either.

When I came back, I sat down and handed the vodka glass to her. She said, "Give me your hand." I shifted my bottle to my left hand and she grabbed my right one. I felt the warmth of her flesh on me.

Then I looked at the face, and she smiled at me. It was exactly as it had been at the restaurant that night in June. In two hours she had gone from being a prostitute I had hired to being my girlfriend.

I said, "I propose a toast to George Orwell and The International Brigades." We clinked our glass containers and drank from them.

She said, "Too bad those guys lost." She had been inspired to take a course on the Spanish Civil War that semester.

"Yes, and that fucker Franco is still in power."

####

The story of their first sexual encounter and then their first date is in Chapter 1. Descriptions in her own words about her brief hooking career are in Nora Turns a Trick and Freshman Hooker.

The International Brigades were volunteers from various countries, including the United States and Britain, who went to Spain to fight for the Popular Front during the civil war. The term paper he wrote for her was specifically about that. Franco died in 1975 about fourteen months after this scene.