Back to school

But when I arrived back home--that is, when I had called my mother, blushed into the phone as I recounted the story, and asked sheepishly if she could come up and get me--there was only one thing on my mind.

That was nothing new, of course. But things had changed.

'I'm going to get into Stanford,' I announced to my father and Mona as we sat around the dinner table.

'You only have a 3.1, and you've participated in no extracurricular activities,' my dad observed.

'I don't care,' I said. 'I'm getting in.'

I studied for five hours that evening, and did not think about beautiful women, or flowing hair, or bra straps showing. I thought about The Individual and Society--only The Individual and Society.

How not to date

I'd always been partial to the siren song of attractive women. It was just part of being Alfie Norton, I thought. And I'd never been able to resist it, until that talk in my hotel room with Ratione.

That night, as I looked back over the years and examined my romantic past, I realized that I always seemed to fall in with odious women. I began to think I might be masochistic.

Years later, I said to a girlfriend of mine, 'I'm dating you because I hate how happiness feels.' She gasped, and promptly slapped me.

(Her sister was an ever less sympathetic character than she, and so, needless to say, several weeks afterward I promptly began dating her.)

You mean she was you?

'Ratione?' said I.

'That's right,' averrèd he. 'I said my name was Victoria a bit earlier, but I lied.'

I stood stunned for a moment. 'So she was you?'

'That's right, sport.'

I said, 'Well, that was a rotten thing to do.'

Ratione's eyes sparkled and he let out a musty chuckle. 'I know how it may seem, Alfie. I knew you wouldn't like it, especially at first. But I had to.'

I looked bewildered at him. 'What?'

'I wanted to help you,' Ratione said. 'But before I did, I had to take on the only form you would understand.'

I furrowed my brow again, scratched my head. 'Um, how do you mean, sir?'

'Let's put it this way,' Ratione said. 'If I had come up to you in the lobby looking like this and said, "Excuse me, young man," what do you think you would have done?'

I looked at Ratione again, noted with a more critical glance the grizzled face, the fedora, the dusty suit. 'Probably gone to sleep,' I said, laughing for the first time that evening.

Ratione

When I regained consciousness, Victoria suggested that I come to her room at midnight. In the meantime, I could feel free to use the pool and treadmills, or pilfer yogurt and biscuits from the lounge.

But when I knocked on the door to her room at the stroke of twelve, Victoria did not answer the door. It swung open--slowly, of course--to reveal a weather-worn, stately figure.

I stepped into the dark room. The man was six feet tall, with hair greying at the fringes; he was clad in a dusty old business suit, held a fedora in his left hand, and wore a rugged visage bearing a crop of three-day grizzle. A vague, almost ethereal, air clung about him.

'Hello, Alfie,' said he.

'Uh. . .hello,' said I.

'You may be wondering who I am.'

I nodded. It had been a bit of a letdown to be greeted by this grizzled apparition, rather than by the comparatively comely young Victoria. I was wondering when she'd burst into the room in scanty lingerie.

'You should also have been wondering how I knew your name,' continued he. 'You were, however, much too busy picturing a certain "Victoria" prancing around the room in scanty lingerie.'

'How in God's name would you know, you intrusive septuagenarian?'

'It is really quite simple,' he said calmly. 'I am Ratione.'

No cause for concern

'I don't know, Victoria. I mean, are we talking about separate beds here?'

Victoria laughed. 'Oh, don't worry, Alfie. There's only one, of course. You don't have to be concerned about that.'

'What do you think I was concerned about?'

She laughed again: a pleasing cascade of giggly femininity.

'I'm on the pill,' said she. 'And I'm a virgin. . .you can even check.'

I eyed her skeptically. 'An attractive virgin, on the pill, who proposes sleeping with me (of all people) on the night we meet?'

'That's right,' she said.

'Are you sure you're not just a figment of my imagination?' said I.

A fire seemed to come into Victoria's previously calm brown eyes. 'Would a figment of your imagination kiss you like this?'

After the kiss, I said weakly:

'Why would a virgin have to be on the pill, anyway?'

Then I dropped to the floor.

Imagine that

'I propose,' she crooned--and I could feel her warm breath against my face--'that you stay with me in my room, tonight.'

I don't know, I thought to myself. This seems a bit promiscuous. Is she 'of loose morals'? Might she have a disease? Is she desperate?

. . .Am I?

I gently pried her fingers from my collar, tucked her hair back behind her ears, and tapped my fingers against the desk.

A pleasing proposition

'Let's put it this way,' said she. 'I'm someone who knows your situation. . .'

'Yes. . .'

'. . .and can do something about it.'

'Really?' said I. 'And what, exactly, would give you the power to remedy this predicament?'

Victoria ran a hand through her hair. 'You see, Alfie, my parents own this hotel.'

'Really? Well, I'm impressed. It's an excellent hotel. Four-star, well kept-up, nice jacuzzis--'

'And you're cute,' Victoria said. She grabbed a hold of the collar of my shirt and brought my face within an inch of hers.

I should have been used to this treatment. But no: my heart rate quickened; my veins dilated as usual; I felt a strong desire to increase our proximity still further. Outside, I said (with the glib air of a well-spoken board member in the midst of calm discourse):

'What solution, then, do you propose?'

Galaxies

I've said she looked like a twenty-something, this Victoria. Well, she did. This girl wore a hushed, majestic, worldly cloak of an attitude, though not flourishing it much. She also wore small, dark-framed glasses. They gave her the look of an old soul, who would perhaps venture far beyond her library if she didn't see all the traps. But she told me that, like me, she was only nineteen:

'I'm telling you, Alfie, I am really only nineteen.'

'But you wear,' said I, 'such a hushed, majestic, worldly cloak of an attitude (though y' don't flourish it much). And those glasses,' said I, 'impart to you the look of an old soul, who would perhaps venture years beyond her library if she didn't see--'

'If you could drop the poetry,' she said, 'maybe you might get somewhere in figuring out who I really am.'

I read this as code for 'getting me into bed'; but perhaps I am crass.

'All right, Victoria,' I said. 'The poetry's all down. I'm tucking it in my back pocket, along with my dignity and temperance. Now tell me'--this time with her hand on my arm--just who' (looking deep into her eyes, those shadowed galaxies) '. . .exactly' (so so beautiful) '. . .you are.'

Victoria II

I walked up to the desk. I also did not smile.

'Hello,' said the young woman. 'May I help you?'

I found her tone opaque. Her eyes, though, supplied what the former didn't. I said, 'Yes, my girlfriend's just left me.'

'Oh,' she said, eyes almost imperceptibly wider.

'--here,' I finished. 'Left me here,' I said.

'Oh. You must be feeling. . .um. . .forlorn.'

'Rather,' said I. 'Of course, as far as she's concerned, we're still an item. See, she wouldn't give up our adventures in the sack for. . .'

The young woman regarded me rather more rubicund than before.

'No,' I said. 'The question isn't whether she'll forgive me. It's whether I will forgive her. How do you call yourself?'

'Victoria,' she said. 'I am Victoria.'

Victoria

I got up and dusted myself off from where I had fallen into the potted palm. I ran out into the parking lot, cursing and imploring and tearing my hair.

It was all to no avail, though: Sam gunned the motor of the red Civic, pulled out quickly, and sped away, shaking her fist (as well as making other less appropriate gestures) at me all the while. Though the parking lot was newly blacktopped, marred with not a hint of dirt or debris, the tires still managed to kick up a cloud of dust behind.

I filled my mouth with air, filled it with more, let it escape slowly. I ran my fingers through my hair. I looked out at the evening, clear and cold. Full of stars, it was. Beautiful. I'm screwed, I thought--screwed. Absolutely screwed.

I looked back at the lobby of the hotel. The entrance was all glass--funny I hadn't noticed that before. I looked in to find a pair of calm brown eyes fixed on me. The hair belonging to these eyes was also brown, and she flipped it, seemingly, at me. She didn't smile.

I started walking back to the hotel.

Doing this to me

'Wait, Samantha!' I yelled after her. 'You can't do this to me!'

'Can't do this? This is nothing!'

'Nothing?' I cried. 'Storming off without having paid for our room and stranding me in the middle of Saltmurf County with only five dollars in my pocket, sure to be kicked out of the only place I have to sleep? You call that nothing?'

Samantha's face took on a contemplative cast, but the expression soon vanished. 'Well, it's nothing compared to what you deserve, Alford J. Norton! Now I'm leaving!' At this point she had reached the end of the hall and rushed emphatically into the elevator. I got there just as it was closing. The stairwell echoed with my frantic footsteps.

By the time I reached the lobby, Sam was just getting out. She ran across the room, and I rushed desperately to cut her off, missing her by only a few yards. The twenty-something brunette at the desk flipped her head to regard the scene, and stared at us with wide eyes through her glasses.

Yellow as red

She had her shirt off and was plastered against me by the time I shouted, 'No! No, Samantha! I won't have it!'

Sam was tipsy and impassioned enough to take a moment to recoil. She didn't say anything. She just sat in the middle of the bed, nipples popping from her chest, eyeing the protruding sign of my waning arousal with a mixed, but ultimately inscrutable, expression. A second later she grabbed her bra, rose to her feet, and quickly whipped on her shirt.

'That's it, Alfie,' she said, pulling on her shoes. 'I'm leaving right now. You can stay here and fuck yourself, or whatever the hell you want. I'm out of here.'

She grabbed her bag, stuffed the remnants of her panties into it, and stormed out of the room.

Waterbedded

I nuzzled up next to Samantha in the king-size waterbed. She appeared almost asleep, but was still conscious enough to laugh at Conan's jokes emanating from the set.

'Oh, Alfie,' she said, rolling over and wrapping her arms around me. We shared a wet kiss, then pulled together closer. Then Sam reached down and I felt a twinge of discomfort. I pulled away.

'Sam, you don't love me.'

'Of course I do, Alfie.' She reached again, got her hand around it.

I pulled away again. 'Sam, I don't know about this.'

Sam put her hands behind my head, stroked my hair. 'Alfie, you worry too much. Just go with the flow; don't overthink it. Just. . .kiss me. . .and I'll put my hand. . .'

I looked at her eyes clouded with lust, felt the heaving dugs prodding my chest, the hand moving down. I wondered once again whether I should let this wedge slip in between me and my closest companion: cold, unflinching, scowling reason.

Wine, a jacuzzi, and thou

We were in a jacuzzi at a four-star hotel, drinking wine. The police car had been going after the Cadillac; apparently, they had been too intent on a drug bust to notice Samantha's weaving.

Now I was fishing around in the water for the portions of caviar I'd spilled. The task made looking for needles in haystacks appear decidedly elementary.

Sam said, 'Feed me another strawberry, will you?'

'Sure thing, sweetheart.'

Lips open. Strawberry is inserted. Voluptuous chewing ensues.

'Oh, Alfie!' gushed Sam. 'These strawberries are so fresh. . .so sweet. . .so juicy!'

'They're a metaphor for my love, aren't they?' said I.

'Not really,' said she.

In the rear-view

A minute later I was apologizing to her for asking her to put down the drink.

'That's more like it,' said she. She punched the radio on with her free thumb, let go of the wheel, and began unscrewing the lid of the flask.

The song that came on was Scandal's 'The Warrior.' 'Oh, I love this song!' Sam yelled, apparently so moved as to take her first swig.

I leaned over her from the passenger side and put a hand on the wheel. Meanwhile, my companion tossed her hair, sang along raucously to the stereo, and took her second and third swigs from the drink.

'Look, Sam,' I said, 'we'd better watch out.'

'What? Why? . . .You mean because we might have an accident or something?'

I looked over my shoulder. A Cadillac and a Suburban were gaining on us quickly, despite the fact that we were going at least ten miles per hour over the limit. I also saw something else.

'Well, actually, I have a more immediate concern.'

Samantha suddenly stiffened in her seat. 'No, Alfie--you don't mean. . .'

'Look in the mirror,' I said, snatching the flask from her and stuffing it in the glove compartment. 'And while you're at it'--shaking a box of Tic-Tacs I'd whipped from my pocket-- 'pop one of these in your mouth.'

'Oh, Alfie!'

'Don't worry, Sam. . .everything will be all right.' Yes--except for the fact that we're toast and probably won't get out of jail until we're too geriatric to do anything in bed besides piss ourselves, I thought.

Awaiting us had been a night at a cushy hotel with jacuzzis and wine--and now the lights flashed.

Up the wall

We'd been on the road about two hours when she pulled out the flask. Given the earlier filching of her mother's credit card, it probably shouldn't have come as a surprise. Still, I looked at her as if she were from Mercury.

'What?'

'What do you mean, "what"? What in God's name are you doing?'

She eyed me askance. 'I like to drink this, Alfie.'

'Yeah. . .that's bad enough,' I said, remembering one of our trysts. 'But you're driving a car, Sam--and you sure are going fast enough, by the way! . . .Are you out of your mind?'

'You're too uptight, Alfie,' Sam said. 'Relax.'

'Relax?' I said. 'Relax, when we're driving down a wet highway at eighty miles per hour and you pull out a goddamn flask? You might as well tell a bird in a crocodile's shutting mouth to relax. Put it down, Sam! Now!'

'No,' Sam said, and stepped on the accelerator.

She drives me. . .II

Samantha gripped the wheel tightly as we sped along the highway. It was dark. Every twenty seconds the sky flickered, followed by a low rumble of thunder.

'This is great,' Sam said in a low voice. 'I can't believe we got away with this, but here we are! Isn't this exciting, Alfie?'

'It's a blast,' said I, gripping the plastic handle of my door. 'The most vivid words could not express how I feel.'

'It'll only get more exciting from here,' she said, as a large bolt of lightning cracked the sky, illuminating the strange expression.

With some effort, I successfully avoided recoiling in horror.

'Your parents sure were quick to believe that we were heading to the Harrison Art Museum, Samantha,' said I, '--especially given the limited suitability of this weather to museum-crawling.'

'Harrison isn't even open on Friday evenings,' said she, 'but that says so much about our ability to convince.'

I devoted a moment to the consideration of certain other factors upon which our success might, in fact, have hinged. 'Yes,' said I finally, 'we're quite good at that.'

Sam looked straight ahead.

Now another surge of lightning flickered the sky; thunder rolled through the darkness. The highway glistened in the moonlight.

Yell 'No'

It's strange how much sway the glittering eyes of a young woman can hold over the judgment of even quite sensible young men. (I would rather not venture, of course, whether I fall into this last category.) If I could have it to do over again, I suppose I would squint my eyes shut, plug my nasal passages with cotton, and yell

'No!'

to the wind.

She drives me. . .

I looked in Sam's eyes (which glowed green amid the darkness), then down at the keys. I let my gaze rest there.

'You don't have a license,' I said.

'Yeah,' she said, a dangerous smile creeping its way across her face. 'So?'

'Just commenting, that's all.' I crossed my arms, pointed one foot toward home.

After tossing her hair copiously into the growing wind, Sam crept closer. . .closer. . .her lips coming nearly to rest on my cheek. 'It'll be more fun this way, Alford,' crooned she. 'C'mon.'

Why do they always have to call me Alford? I thought. And why does it always make me want to accompany them, without delay, to the nearest bower?

'Have you ever driven before, Samantha?'

'Once,' she said, torridly, arching her back and thrusting her chest forward, as if the mere question brought her near orgasm.

'What happened?'

'I hit a mailbox, scattered wild turkeys and a clump of hedgehogs, and ended up in Mr. Hanson's living room.'

'Yeah?'

'Yeah.' (Once again near climax.) 'He would have called the police,' moaned she, 'but I pleaded with him, and we ended it with me doing him a nice. . .um. . .favor.'

'Let me guess,' said I, '--you bought him a lifetime supply of semisweet chocolate?'

'Exactly. Now, c'mon, Alfie'--quickly resuming orgasm mode and fluttering her eyelashes coquettishly--

'Let's go.'

Midnight at noon

Samantha cut me off about three-quarters down Nottingham. She reached her arm over my shoulder and grabbed my torso. I started--but the initial terror quickly turned into something else.

'Hi.'

'Hey.'

Turning around, I drew the collar of the flannel around my neck. 'Cold weather, huh?'

'Yes. . .'

'And?'

Sam looked at me with her clear green eyes. 'You look really handsome with your collar turned up like that.'

'Why, thank you. You look sexy in those--'

'What?'

'Never mind,' said I, distant. 'So are we going to the room?'

'No. . .I have a better idea.' And, as the wind whipped the locusts overhead, amid this night-dark afternoon in which raindrops now began to fall all around us, Samantha reached into her pocket and, with a quiet, conspiratorial expression, brought a group of keys to my face.