Student and Teacher Ch. 19

As might have been expected, Wallace moved into the house soon thereafter. Space was getting a bit tight, and the three older members of the household began giving serious consideration to getting a bigger house to make things more comfortable for the seven occupants. All four bedrooms—the master bedroom and three guest bedrooms—now had to be made suitable for nightly goings-on, and the shuffling of bedmates every night became somewhat complicated. There was even talk of setting up some kind of schedule so that each person would have roughly equal time at night with everyone else.

Damon wasn't the only one who pointedly noticed that Iris was in some senses a kind of solitary figure in her own house. While his own rapturous love for her hadn't abated in the slightest, and while he could tell that Brad was equally devoted and Wallace was quickly forming an intense attachment to the young professor, Damon couldn't help feeling that the natural pairing that was happening (Damon and Nan, Brad and Sylvia, Wallace and Vera) left Iris out in the cold. There were times when she seemed to sense this isolation, staring off into space at odd moments as if contemplating some lost opportunity.

But things changed in an utterly unexpected way when, one evening later that summer, there came a tentative knock on the front door. For a time Damon, who was in the living room, wasn't even certain that what he'd heard was a true knock. But when the knock was repeated, he lifted himself off of the couch and opened the door.

There stood in front of him a man, maybe in his mid- to late thirties, who was a curious mix of features. While not tall (maybe about five foot eight), he was stocky to the verge of being fat; but he had a tired, defeated look, and wrinkles of dissipation scarred his face. His unruly blond hair was already thinning, and something in the man's eyes gave him the impression that he was single-handedly carrying all the world's ills on his back.

"May I help you?" Damon said.

The man seemed to think Damon's very presence was a surprise. After a moment he said, "Does Iris—Iris Farquhar—live here?"

"Yes, she does," Damon answered.

"Is she at home?"

"She is."

The man swallowed hard. "May I see her?" He had trouble getting the question out.

"Are you . . . a friend of hers?"

"I know her," the man said ambiguously. "I used to know her."

Damon grudgingly let the man into the house and led him to the living room.

"Maybe I'd better let her know who you are. Can I have your name?"

The man seemed to ponder the question for an unduly long time. Licking his lips, he said, "Just tell her Hal is here."

"Hal," Damon said. "Okay, I'll see if she's available."

He strode up the stairs and up to the master bedroom, where Iris was resting. He almost came right back downstairs to tell the man she couldn't be disturbed; but Iris was not sleeping, and she had heard the knock on the door.

"Who is that, Damon?" she asked.

"Some guy," Damon said with some distaste. "Says he knows you."

She frowned. "Did he give a name?"

"All he said was Hal."

The transformation that came over Iris was appalling. First she let out a gasp, then she fell back on the bed. She suddenly curled up into a fetal position and started moaning pitiably. Damon, alarmed, rushed over to her.

"What's the matter?" he cried. "Who is that guy? Shall I tell him to get the hell out of here?"

"Did he really say Hal?" she said in an urgent whisper.

"Yes, that's the only name he gave."

"Is he heavy-set, like a football player?"

"I guess you could say that—although I suspect it's been a while since he's been on the field."

"Omigod, it's him," Iris said, mostly to herself.

"So do you really know this guy?" Damon pursued. "What do you want me to do with him?"

Iris seemed lost in contemplation and didn't answer for what seemed like minutes. Finally she said, "Send him up here, please."

Damon eyed her keenly. "You're sure about that?"

"Yes!" she snapped almost viciously. Then, more quietly: "Yes. It's okay. I'll be fine."

Damon gave her a long look before turning on his heel and heading back downstairs. The guy named Hal was standing indecisively in the middle of the living room, and when Damon entered he gave him a plangent look as if his life depended on what the young man would say.

"She'll see you," Damon said grudgingly. "Upstairs—first door on your left."

Damon thought Hal would almost break down in tears. His face crumpled, but he fought to keep his self-control as he walked stiffly up the stairs. When he opened that first door on the left, he saw Iris standing in front of him, wearing a cotton blouse and wraparound skirt.

Both of them stood motionless for a long time. Then, at last, Iris said: "Is it really you, Hal?"

Hal's face suddenly became blank. In a kind of formulaic monotone he intoned:

"I'm Hal Webster, and I'm an alcoholic. I—"

But Iris interrupted him. Her own face now crumpling to a mask of misery, she placed both hands on her cheek and cried, "Oh, Hal, what's happened to you?"

He was nothing like the strong, charismatic guy she had known fifteen years ago. . . .

*

Spring had come early during Iris's senior year in high school, and she gloried in the blooming of the cherry trees and the general reawakening of life that the season portended. She also celebrated her eighteenth birthday—a bit earlier than most others in her class—and, as she had already been accepted into Villanova, she believed she could ease up a bit on the hard work that had characterized her high school years. She wasn't even remotely a "party girl," but she felt the time had come for a bit of relaxation.

And maybe it was also time to have some fun with the boys.

Well, one boy in particular—Hal Webster. She chided herself for falling for him: yes, he was the starting middle linebacker on the football team, and yes, every other girl in class—and, for that matter, the whole high school—seemed to think him some kind of demigod and yearned to be kissed, embraced, or just looked at by him. But she had other reasons for the affection, bordering on passion, that inflamed her when she thought of him.

As the editor of the school literary magazine, she had known that he had submitted poetry—yes, poetry—of a surprisingly tender, brooding, and even poignant sort. She was no expert, but she actually thought it was pretty good: free verse, somewhat influenced by the Beat poets, but really seeming to express his conflicted emotions in regard to his conflicted family life (his father had deserted his mother only a few years after he was born) and other matters. She had readily accepted the poems for publication; but he had refused to allow them to appear under his own name, thinking that he might be jeered at by all those who otherwise worshipped him as a monster on the gridiron, in the mold of Dick Butkus or Lawrence Taylor.

So Iris felt that there was a lot more to this guy—who had also turned eighteen, only a few weeks after she had—than mere brawn and toughness. In fact, she convinced herself that that tender, sensitive side was really aching to be coaxed out by an understanding, sympathetic woman (she was a woman now, wasn't she?).

The only problem was that Hal already had a girlfriend.

And yes, she was the leader of the cheerleading squad. Maryann Collins was exactly the sort of girl you'd expect a football player to love: a tall, athletic, big-haired blonde whose lavish physical assets were on full display, not only while she was wearing that cute cheerleader outfit but at just about every other time, when she showed up in outfits that came dangerously close to violating the school's dress code. Even though Iris felt she was in no way inferior to Maryann, at least in the breast department (she had caught any number of boys—including Hal—gazing raptly at her chest from time to time), her general shyness where boys were concerned made her seem more like a plain Jane than she was willing to admit.

And so she seemed destined to admire Hal from afar.

But the prom was coming up, and she couldn't endure the prospect of having no one to go with. (Years later, Iris shook her head at why her eighteen-year-old self took such essentially ephemeral events so seriously; but at the time, these things seemed like matters of life and death.) With no date, she would have to stay home, and never hold her head up with pride at any future gatherings of her classmates. Couldn't she somehow, with a kind of mental telepathy, cause Hal and Maryann to break up and have him fall into her willing arms?

Of course, even if that incredible event were to occur, she didn't give much thought of what would actually happen if Hal were to take her to the prom—especially what would happen afterwards, where (according to the tales that upper-classmen had told her earlier in her high school career) the real partying would take place, either at someone's house or in the classic confines of the back seat of someone's car.

And yet, the incredible did happen: Hal and Maryann did break up.

Maybe it wasn't a true break-up, but they definitely had a fight that seemed to estrange them at the most inopportune time. The sources of the dispute were cloudy to Iris, but they seemed to revolve around the fact that Maryann seemed to have taken a shine to one of Hal's teammates—the starting right cornerback (whatever that meant)—a young man who was, aside from being lean and lithe as opposed to stocky and beefy like Hal, was African American. Hal actually liked the guy (his name was Carl Something-or-Other, so far as Iris could remember), and it wasn't that he objected to Carl dating a white woman; but he did object to any incursions on his woman, as he saw it.

Probably it was just a matter of Maryann's inveterate flirtatiousness—and to the fact that, having gone with Hal for well over a year, she may have been feeling just a wee bit bored or taken for granted. She may have wanted nothing more than to prove (more to herself than to others) that she was still attractive to other males than her "steady." Whatever the case, there had been a big blow-up just a few days before the prom, and the prospect of the two of them attending that event together was definitely off.

As she saw Hal fuming as he walked down the hallways, Iris ached to approach him and announce her availability. Naturally, no one had asked her (well, one total nerd, gazing unrepentantly at her chest, had done so, but she had told him where to get off), and the anguish she felt—so close to being Hal's date, but so far because he still barely acknowledged her very existence—was almost beyond tolerance.

What changed the calculus was a stroke of pure luck.

Iris was walking disconsolately down a corridor, scarcely knowing where she was going. As she was about to turn a corner, who came looming up but Hal! Their bodies met painfully—painfully, that is, for Iris (to Hal, it was nothing more than what he experienced on the field day after day—and this was, of course, only a girl he could have picked up with one hand, not a bruising fullback he was trying to bring down). She had been clutching her books to her chest, and they came tumbling down—as she herself almost did. Instead, she staggered back and hit the wall hard, letting out a sharp "Oh!" and almost falling to her knees.

"Omigod, I'm sorry!" Hal had cried.

Even those few and inadequate words were music to Iris's ears, justifying all the pain she felt. As Hal sensed that she might actually collapse, he clutched her by the upper arms and held her in place, looking keenly at her and saying, "Are you all right?"

"I—I'm fine," she stammered, but still feeling dizzy and disoriented.

"I'm really sorry," he said, making haste to pick up her books. He didn't hand them back to her, but held onto them, first making sure that Iris really was okay.

"You're Iris Farquhar, aren't you?" he said.

He said my name! Iris thought, becoming even more dizzy at the thought of it. It had been more than a year since he had submitted any poetry to her, and as she didn't hang out in his social circle it was not surprising that he had almost forgotten who she was.

"Yes," was all she could say.

"Are you going home?" he said, concern still evident in his voice. "I can walk you back."

"Can you?" she said dreamily.

"Sure," he said. "I just wanna make sure nothing happens to you."

In a daze she left the building, Hal at her side carrying her books. She walked particularly slowly to extend the magical experience as long as she could—but in so doing she had trouble keeping up the conversation. So she resorted to that age-old tactic of females: get the guy the talk about himself.

He did, telling of his latest exploits on the field, in language Iris didn't quite understand (what was a "blitz," anyway?). But after a while his mood turned dark, and he spilled the beans about his argument with Maryann.

"She's a sweet girl," Iris said, in a weak effort to be diplomatic.

"Not so sweet as all that," Hal said sourly. "She thinks she can do just about anything just because she has nice tits and a nice ass." He suddenly stopped, coloring. "Oops! I didn't mean to say that." He had evidently forgotten he wasn't talking to one of his teammates on the field.

"That's okay," Iris said. "She's really pretty."

"You're just as pretty as she is," Hal said in a tone of judicial evaluation.

Iris almost fainted at the compliment. Her knees buckled, and she had trouble putting one foot after the other on the sidewalk.

"Really?" she breathed.

"Sure," Hal said, staring pointedly at her breasts with a sly grin. "And you're way smarter than her. 'Course, that's not such a hard thing to do," he concluded in a chuckle.

She chuckled too. Maryann truly wasn't the brightest candle in the candelabrum.

That was when Hal popped the question.

"You going to the prom with anyone?"

Iris didn't faint, but she found her mouth seemingly so full of cotton that she couldn't get the words out. Hal waited patiently for her to reply, and finally she croaked: "No."

"Well, you can go with me," he said decisively, as if conferring a great favor.

And he was conferring a great favor. Iris would be the envy of the whole school—at least of the female element of it. She had to swallow several times before she managed to say: "Okay."

And that's how it was. Iris's mother, knowing how important the event was to her daughter, went to the effort of buying her a really nice prom dress—a blue strapless thing that left no doubt of Iris's glorious assets in the chest department while also accentuating her curves in other areas. Iris was shocked at herself at the mere thought of wearing such a daring outfit, to say nothing of what her brainy friends would say when they saw her in it. But this was the chance of a lifetime—and she wondered wistfully whether this might even be the start of a real relationship with Hal, even though he had been recruited to attend Ohio State University in far-off Columbus. Maybe they could continue to meet during vacations and holidays, or could visit each other in their respective colleges. Iris shivered delightedly at the thought of smuggling this mountain of a man into her freshman dorm room, keeping him there for days while her appalled roommate left them to their own lascivious devices.

Of course, what those lascivious devices might actually be was not entirely clear to Iris. She had had almost no involvement with boys or men, and all she had ever done was kiss one boy at a party on a dare—a kiss that had lasted all of about two seconds. But that didn't prevent her from dreaming of big, strong Hal wrapping her in his arms and kissing her—and doing a lot more than kissing.

Iris passed the few days before the prom in an agony of anticipation, and when the day—or, rather, the evening—finally arrived, she was almost unable to see straight. As she slipped into her provocative dress and put on some dabs of makeup, she wondered if this really would be the night she would lose her virginity after eighteen long years. She had no particular concern about the consequences: she wasn't ovulating, and the thought of receiving a man's thick, viscous discharge into her vagina was awe-inspiring. Chronologically she was a "woman," but emotionally and spiritually she knew she wouldn't be until she had taken a man's organ into herself.

Hal came early, corsage in hand. He pinned it on Iris himself—and she noticed with a secret smile that his fingers lingered a bit on her left breast as he made sure the corsage was firmly in place. And he had greeted her at the door with wide eyes and the heartfelt cry: "Gee, Iris, you look great—and smell great too!" The perfume she had pilfered from her mother's dressing table hadn't been used in vain.

The prom itself proved to be something of a disappointment, only because Hal, after a few perfunctory dances with Iris (chiefly, she felt, to show Maryann that he could have a good time with a girl other than herself), all but abandoned her and danced with any number of other girls who clustered around him. She was pleased that they all looked daggers at her, fuming in obvious envy; but she was left either to sit on the sidelines while Hal swept some other female onto the dance floor or grudgingly dance with some other guy whom she hardly knew or cared for. It did amuse her that her own social standing among her classmates had shot up because of Hal's anointing her as his date.

But Iris knew that the real event of the evening would be one of the private parties that she and Hal would presumably retreat to after the official prom was over. Sure enough, toward the end of the event he peremptorily said, "Come on, Iris, let's go," and bundled her into his car. He was a bit red-faced, and Iris suspected that he had imbibed some alcoholic drink that had been surreptitiously sneaked into the place. She had heard that Hal was a vigorous drinker—a fact that dismayed her, as alcoholic beverages had yet to pass her lips.

Hal took her to a friend's house. On the drive there he explained that he was going there precisely because he knew that Maryann wouldn't be there. It was one thing to be in her presence with the entire senior class at the prom; it would have been a very different thing if she and Hal were forced into the confines of a private home. Iris breathed a sigh of relief, for she had no idea how she would have dealt with the potential fireworks of the two estranged lovers encountering each other in such a situation.

But the party wasn't all fun and games—at least for her. Iris felt cut off and isolated as Hal, a naturally gregarious type, chatted up with boys and girls alike. And it became obvious to her that, with the host's parents conveniently absent, there was not only an abundance of liquor but also the likelihood of all manner of shenanigans, in public and private. Already she could see various couples openly making out in the living room, dining room, and even the kitchen; and some couples were drifting upstairs, trying to find a bedroom where they could get down to the serious business of lovemaking in relative seclusion. Hal, for his part, was openly groping some girls—patting their bottoms, giving their breasts (covered by dresses even scantier than hers) a genial squeeze, and so forth. Everyone seemed to regard it as just wholesome fun and games, but this was not Iris's idea of intimacy. The whole thing was beginning to repulse her, and she was determined that neither Hal nor anyone else was going to take such liberties with her tonight.

At last her patience was at an end, and she strode up to Hal and said, "Hal, I'd like to go home."