The beach had been her idea. Dave had taken her to a local movie and they’d sat in the last row of the balcony. Almost as soon as they sat down, she’d taken his hand and put it on her sweatered breast and turned to him to be kissed. Her tongue was hot and wet, and her hand had dropped to his lap to squeeze him there. Dave had slipped his hand under her skirt and Rhoda had willingly parted her legs for him. After a while, she’d unzipped his pants and angled so that she was half-sitting, half-lying on one hip, trying to press against him. The chair-arms made it virtually impossible, but even if that hadn’t been the case, the arrival of the theatre manager with the beam of his flashlight splashing over them would have brought things to a halt anyway.
“Let’s get outa here,” Rhoda had whispered after the manager had finished bawling them out and left.
“Okay,” Dave had agreed. But out on the street he’d been at a loss. “Could we go up to your house?" he’d asked.
“My folks are home. How about yours?”
“My folks are home, too.”
“I know!” She’d suggested it then. “Let’s go to the beach.”
“Orchid Beach? How will we get there?”
“We could take a cab.”
“That’s awful expensive.”
“It’ll be worth it. I’ll let you do whatever you want there,” she told him frankly.
They necked and petted all the way out in the taxi. Dave was taut with eagerness after they arrived. He was burning to release the sex energy their playing had aroused. Rhoda led him along the beach to a spot behind a large dune. Here she sat down and began matter of factly taking off her clothes. Dave followed her example and also began to undress.
He’d lain down beside her, nude, aching with the force of his aroused passion. He’d kissed her, stroked her breasts, playing with her as she directed him to, and all the time his hunger to possess her grew. Finally, Rhoda had turned towards him, pressing her body against his to make sure he was ready. Satisfied, she’d rested on her back again, drawing him with her.
Dave had sprawled over her then, ready to take her. Poised, looking into her face, it was then that it happened. Suddenly Rhoda’s features merged into those of his mother. His mother’s eyes looked at him seductively, his mother’s lips smiled at him teasingly, his mother’s voice said “Come on! Do it to me now!” And behind his mother, his father snarled a threat of rage . . .
Dave had gone limp. Completely limp, unable to do anything. Even now, eight years later, he writhed with embarrassment remembering Rhoda’s contempt. Even now, he couldn’t forget how he’d wanted to kill himself when she’d spread the word of his failure around among his school buddies. Even now he was filled with resentment when he recalled for how long after that he shunned girls altogether, afraid of another fiasco.
Looking past the TV set into the bedroom, Dave knew he had good reason to be bitter. Watching his parents as they undressed, he almost wept with rage at his memories. Listening to their whispers, the rage grew.
“You prepared?” his father asked.
“I took care of that in the bathroom.”
“Let’s do it the way you like,” his father said.
“Wonderful!” His mother scrambled over his father’s body, lowering herself eagerly.
Dave watched, feeling a silent sob welling up inside him. The scene was just like the one he had played that first time he’d dared go near a girl after Rhoda. Only it hadn’t been his mother lowering herself slowly to savor the sensation. It had been a prostitute.
Dave had been almost twenty. Tired of viewing himself as a freak, he’d decided he had to do something about his virginal state. So he’d gone down to Eight Avenue, gotten himself drunk, and picked up this hooker.
She was lush without being beautiful. Her body was fleshy, warm, seeming to give off an aura of sex. Her face was a doughy mask, smeared with too much make-up and completely without expression or character. But Dave told himself that didn’t matter.
She’d taken him to her place, a dingy furnished room. Relieving him of the money first, she’d then stripped off her clothes. She’d undressed Dave herself, killing two birds with one stone by playing with him while she did it in a way which aroused him greatly.
She’s pushed him gently so that he was stretched out flat on the bed, his manhood quivering eagerly in the stale air of the room. “This is how they do it in Samoa,” she’d whispered sexily, and started to climb over him.
Dave was bursting with his desire for her. But as she poised over him, his mind played a drunken trick. Suddenly, it was his mother’s knees clenching his hips, his mother’s breasts hovering his lips, his mother’s womb reaching out to envelop him. But it wasn’t like it had been with Rhoda. Instead of fear, Dave was filled with a tremendous sense of triumph. At last he would prove he was as good a man as his father. Just as the prostitute grasped him to settle herself, the triumph became too much for Dave. At the touch of her hand, he exploded prematurely, possessing neither his mother nor the prostitute, but only the stagnant air.
Once again he’d been consumed with shame. The prostitute had tried to get him to stay—for a price, of course — but Dave was too filled with self-revulsion to even consider it. He’d dressed hurriedly and run out into the night, drunk enough to cry real tears at the frustration which possessed him.
Now, as his father’s body heaved up against his mother’s flesh with an eruption the joys of which Dave seemed destined never to know, he cursed to himself and thought of the life of half-sex to which his parents had consigned him. It was mostly a solitary world of shameful release-in the bathroom, or on his couch late at night. Even when it wasn’t solitary, it was never the complete man-woman experience his parents practiced regularly. It was always some sort of half-measure contrived by Dave to gain a bit of satisfaction without having to face up to the possible failure of actually going to bed with a girl. Typical of this had been the interlude with that college girl — Olive Anderson, that was her name—only a few nights before.
She was a college junior, a shy type, which suited his purposes just fine. He’d taken her to this murky cocktail lounge he knew after they’d gotten out of the night class they both attended. She’d gone with him nervously, flattered to have been singled out by a graduate student, apprehensive that her own eagerness might lead her into some folly.
Dave had selected a back table in a particularly dark corner booth. He sat down very close to Olive and ordered drinks for them. Immediately, he launched the conversation on the topic of sex.
The waiter, bringing the second round of drinks, overheard the following: “I had a very religious upbringing,” Olive was saying, “and I suppose it has inhibited me as you say. But it can’t just be talked away, Dave. I have very strong scruples where sex is concerned. Knowing the reason for them doesn’t make them any the less strong. I mean, like, take you—” She paused to take a deep gulp of her second drink almost before the waiter had a chance to settle the glass on the table. “I find you very attractive. Maybe I even want you to make love to me. But my scruples would never let me.”
“It’ll work itself out,” Dave told her. “Bring us another round on your way back,” he called as the waiter moved away.
Three rounds later the waiter was having a hard time keeping his poker face. No hands were visible on the table as he set down the drinks. The couple, lost in a deep kiss, didn’t even notice his presence. Glancing down, the waiter took a long, appreciative look at the girl’s legs. Her skirt had been pushed up to reveal them fully, and one of Dave’s hands was busy between them.