Sunderson reported in to Ziegler, limiting what he had to say, and told him of the plan to infiltrate. Ziegler was anxious and wanted him to drive down that evening but Sunderson was tired and had a plan with Barbara early the next morning. The first and last sex with her hopefully would be memorable.
Marion had returned during his phone call with Mona and chuckled incredulously when Sunderson filled him in. They had caught six fish in all and drove hastily home and made a fish chowder with potatoes, salt pork, and onions. You poached the fish first to have a stock. Diane usually served it with a pat of butter on top and then you watched it melt patiently. You rounded it out with some half-and-half and a dash of Tabasco.
They watched part of a pro football game but it was dreary and low scoring and they were drowsy so they made it an early night.
Weather permitting Barbara intended to come over early in the morning to weed and Sunderson spent a restless night brooding about Marion’s lecture and his morning plans. He wasn’t quite sure he could say to himself that sex was over for this short life. He was okay when he was still married to Diane but cutting that cord he became a nutcase. Could he deny himself beauty? Of course. Jail or prison would be particularly unpleasant for an ex-lawman.
Nevertheless, as agreed he left the back porch door unlocked for Barbara then waited all night for the click with a mixture of dread and anticipation. First he heard her pull up on her bicycle then walk softly and slowly up the stairs. She stood in his open doorway, smiled, and pulled off a sweatshirt and down with the shorts. Now she was nude. She sat gently on his bare chest and said, “This little bear went to market,” and tickled his penis with her bare hand. She leaned over and gave him a rough French kiss, straddled his cock, and put it all the way in with a gasp.
“I think I love you more than my boyfriend.”
“Don’t say that.” He held her back by her elbows thinking that this wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Marion’s words drummed in his ears. “You better pick on someone your own age.”
She rolled into a crunch. “Do me like a dog. I read that people did that.”
His resistance folded. He was on her with particular gusto, thinking that he was the happiest man on earth for the time being. Her back was radically muscular from gymnastics and she revolved herself below the waist aggressively. “Do that thing you did the first time on the sofa,” she said. He knew she meant to go down on her which he did. She had a delightful whimper but then he heard the back gate of the garden open and Barbara’s mother call out for her. She was off the bed and deep into the closet in a trice. His heart hammered and he opened the window and answered. The upshot was that she was driving down the alley and had seen Barbara’s bicycle at the back of his garden. Was she here? “No,” he yelled. “She must have walked downtown with a friend. She’s working here later.” “Tell her to call when she shows up. Okay?” Barbara’s mother continued down the alley in her blue Chevy. Barbara came out of the closet and laughed at his limp dick. “You aren’t turned on by my mother?” She blew him then while giggling. “My boyfriend wants this every day. It gets boring.” It worked and they returned to eating then dog style.
There was a very brief moment of shame, again a recall of Marion’s lecture. If it didn’t stop now when he was sixty-six when did it stop? It couldn’t continue, could it? In Blake’s terms what are the actual limits of desire? He had no philological knowledge of what constitutes it. After the prom in high school his date Missy Carling had fallen asleep drunk on a friend’s floor and he had shamefully lifted her frilly prom dress for a look. They were steady dates but other than simple kissing she wouldn’t allow a touch, and he couldn’t help thinking if he were still the star linebacker and not a lowly wrestler she’d feel differently. When swimming they would wrestle a little but the water diminished the sexuality of the act while lifting her dress was explosive, even more so than the tight swimsuit photos of Janet Leigh in Life magazine which had him chewing his fingers painfully. Once after a workout he was resting on a wrestling mat and Missy stood over his head in her scanty cheerleader outfit. He was keenly aware of her exposed body in all of its glory. As a senior she had abandoned him in favor of the star basketball player who had taken the team to the state semifinals. This made him burn with rage. He got in a fight with the guy who was unfortunately tough. The coach made them put on big, puffy sixteen-ounce gloves. The fight was declared a tie when Sunderson had hit him in the gut until he puked on the sidewalk outside the gym door. Missy watched the fight and was so disgusted she said she would never speak to him again, and she didn’t until graduation day when she gave him a French kiss and said that he had always been the best kisser. She went off in the fall to Brown University on a big scholarship and ended up marrying a rich guy which had always been her ambition as the daughter of a poor biology teacher. The wedding was in Marquette but he hadn’t been invited, he thought because he was at Michigan State. The basketball player was invited but then he went to the University of Michigan which was thought to be a step up and played star quality basketball there.
More than forty-five years later his temples still burned at the memory of lifting her prom dress. Lust didn’t seem to go away. According to Marion, the curdled lust for Missy was still haunting him. You could feel practically sick with it. He had with Barbara wearing the T-shirt and sliding it up so that the prime rump was on display. That was as tough on his system as the time he’d made love with Mona in Paris. It was right after the rock ’n’ roller left her for the young girls and Sunderson had been overwhelmed by her advances, he told himself. Diane had been angry but had eventually forgiven him because she knew Mona had used every hook and crook to seduce him and when it came to sex nearly all men were fools, him especially, which she’d learned from his slavish sexuality in their marriage. Now sexually sated with Barbara he, of course, could think of giving up sex with her.
He did however feel a remote tickle over the idea of anal sex, which he’d read about but done only once in college. According to his reading Brazilian girls considered it a birth control measure. But what if he were careless with Barbara and they ended up at the ER with a Beethoven chorus singing shame before a squad of police showed up?
He shivered and turned Barbara over on her belly. “Don’t even think about it,” he said to himself. He put the tip of his cock there.
“Don’t even think about it,” she said. “This coach over in Duluth did it there to a girl. She ended up going to a hospital that night. Think of explaining that to my parents. The coach had five kids and went to the same Catholic church as the girl’s family. My aunt goes there and told me.”
The story hit uncomfortably close to home. He asked what happened. “Nothing,” she said. “They prayed a lot over her sore butt with the priest.”
“What would your dad do?”
“Get out his deer rifle. He’s real religious. He would shoot you square in the head, that’s for sure. I might try it tomorrow with lots of lotion.”
Sunderson was back to thinking of the seven deadly sins with the help of her dad’s rifle. He wasn’t coming close to her tomorrow. He’d be on a long hike in the woods if he could pick up a true friend from the dog pound.
It was noon and they were famished when they go out of bed, him with an aching prostate gland. He made them hamburgers from frozen patties, not a preference but all he had on hand.
“Fucking makes you real hungry,” she said nonchalantly. They dozed on the sofa for fifteen minutes and then she went out and attacked her weeding. She despised the man Sunderson was working for and referred to his daughters as “rich bitches” and their brother as a “nerd” and a “dweeb,” slang he wasn’t familiar with. Later she took a shower and had a quarrelsome call with her mother concluding, “No I am not dressed properly. I’m showing Mr. Sunderson my bare ass. Old men like to look at bare asses.” She slammed the phone down. “With Mother everything is propriety. Though my wicked aunt told me bawdy stories about her when she was in high school. Evidently she fucked the football coach on a junior camping trip.”