The Orphan Page 15

  When the music stopped, Mrs. Bailey gently disengaged herself, walked back with Charles to his former seat where the two other boys were glowering at him, and thanked him for the dance. She murmured that he was really very good and certainly should ask Betty or one of the other girls to dance. Then she excused herself back to the kitchen where, she said, Millie was getting some special snacks ready.

  Charles was about to ask Betty to dance the next slow record when Flossie Portola dashed over to stand in front of him, looking expectant. Charles could not be less than a gentleman and asked Flossie for that dance while he heard Carl’s faint “Geezus H. Crise,” behind him.

  Dancing with Flossie was considerably different from dancing with the older woman. Flossie was more Charles’s size, supple and slender and full of bounce. Charles found himself stumbling and said apologetically, “I’m just a beginning dancer, Flossie,” after mashing the end of her shoe under his foot.

  “But you’re learning so fast,” Flossie said, moving her body in its flame red dress close up to his. “The best way to learn moving together is to get the hip-lead,” she said, pressing her abdomen against Charles.

  In alarm, Charles tried to back away as his face began to flush, but Flossie held on, gently but firmly.

  “Now you move from the hips down,” she was saying, but Charles was feeling very hot and choking as he tried to keep stumbling around the room while Flossie Portola moved her body against his trying to guide him. She moved away after a minute, laughing softly and extending her arm again in the usual style.

  “You’ll get it, Charles,” she said. “You just need practice.”

  “Thanks a lot, Flossie,” Charles said, feeling sweaty and suddenly as if his clothes were too tight. “But I think I’d like to try the hip-lead after my feet know what they’re doing.”

  That record was the end of the dancing, since the “snack” was ready. Charles thanked Flossie for the dance and retired behind the slouching Carl Bent to stand in line in the dining room. They ate tiny sandwiches with some sort of fish in them, strips of carrot and celery with cheese on them, and finally each had a piece of pumpkin pie which Mrs. Bailey apologized for, remarking that her husband had insisted on something substantial in all the froth. They laughed politely and ate their pie, and then it was time for games. Charles was surprised at the changed atmosphere as they got in a circle on the floor to play spin the bottle.

  Mr. and Mrs. Bailey excused themselves and the circle of guests in the flickering light of the fire seemed to change back into school kids again. Even Alfred took on a younger look as they laughed and did the funny forfeits and penalties. Paul Holton spun the Coke bottle, and it pointed at Charles. Paul looked up, a fiendish grin on his face.

  “Charles is the victim and must pay the penalty,” Paul said. “And the penalty is,” and he paused for effect, looking around and rubbing his hands together, “that he must kiss Betty’s bare foot.”

  There was giggling and snorting around the circle as Betty took off her dancing slipper and the knee-length silk stocking. Charles crawled forward in the firelight until he was at Betty’s foot, held out with its painted toenails to his face. He took it in his right hand, feeling it warm and a bit damp in his palm, and he looked up the smooth leg to where it disappeared beneath her white party dress, and on up to her smimg face, her head inclined to one side as if she were listening while her dark auburn hair fell in a wave to her shoulders, and he lowered his head to plant the kiss on the top of her foot as the other players leaned over to watch, and as his lips touched her instep, he quickly drew a fingernail along the sole of her bare foot. She leaped, squealing, something wet hit Charles a drop on his ear and he heard Alfred curse.

  “Look at what you did, you damned idiot,” Alfred was saying, hacking away from the circle with his rear stuck out.

  “Alfred,” Betty said, shocked. “It was an accident. Don’t talk like that.”

  But Alfred was more than a little angry. He had been leaning over Betty’s shoulder, not being a game player at that point, holding a Tom Collins that Mr. Bailey had mixed for him. When Betty had leaped up from the foot tickling, her shoulder struck the Tom Collins, firing it directly back at its holder and wetting him from chest to knees. The stain was particularly embarrassing, as it was mostly concentrated on his light blue trousers at crotch level. He went on cursing and dabbing at himself until Betty insisted in stern tones that he leave the room because he was spoiling the game, and he shouldn’t have been drinking that stuff anyway. Alfred left, stamping up the stairs, looking back meaningfully at Charles who still sat in the middle of the circle smiling.

  After the bottle game came Post Office, a game suggested by Fern Portola with much giggling and whispering to her twin. Brenda Gustafson said she thought it was silly, but she was overruled and a post office was set up in the darkened stairway alcove with the sliding doors to the parlor partly closed. Charles had never played this game either and was mystified to see Carl go back of the doors in the dark and call out, “Letter for Carol Jones.”

  Carol got up with much giggling and bounced out of the room to the darkened hallway. After a moment of strange sounds from that area, Carl Bent came slouching out with a wide grin on his face and sat deep in one of the overstuffed chairs where he muttered something to Paul Holton.

  “Special Delivery for Frank Kearny,” came Carol’s voice from the darkness, and Alfred’s older brother went back of the doors amid much ohhing and ahhing over Carol’s courage. After that, Carol came out grinning and sat down and Charles began to get the idea. When Flossie was called back by Frank, there was a long, long pause until Betty said, “Come on, Flossie,” and then some muttering from the pair in darkness until Frank came sliding out and sat down on the floor beside the door.

  “Special Delivery Air Mail,” came Flossie’s voice from the darkness, “for Charles Cahill.”

  “Wow!” “Air Mail!” “Special Delivery too!” And Charles walked back of the doors where he could dimly see Flossie waiting for him in the alcove at the bottom of the stairway. He groped his way over to her and was about to ask her what he was supposed to do when he felt her arms go around his neck and her moist mouth pressing against his lips. He was surprised, tried to pull away at first, and then got the full impact of his own arousal like a shot of adrenalin straight into a vein. He felt suddenly larger and more powerful, more in command, and he put his arms around Flossie’s supple body, feeling her ribs and the round edge of a breast with one hand, her hips with the other, pressing her to him as he felt her mouth opening and her tongue coming past his opened lips. The dizzy sensation flowed first up into his head and then down into his loins, and it was mixed with fear and a tight longing that he had never felt before.

  In that moment, I approach the surface very closely, feeling what Charles feels, not questioning or wanting to shift, just feeling what is going on in Charles’s body which is at the moment like a new factory set in motion for the first time, heart pumping new blood, lungs breathing new, scented air from the girl’s body and hair, glands making new and exotic products that exalt, and create new feelings for Charles and for me. All of his nerves are vibrating on the same wavelength, and his mind is lost in a non-thought realm consisting of the sensation in his mouth and hands and the mounting tension in his groin.

  “Wow, Charles,” Flossie said, pulling her head back and licking her lips.

  He did not release his hold on her body, wanting her warmth and the pressure of her to remain where it was forever. He couldn’t say anything, and after a minute she put her lips back where they had been and the kiss went on.

  After what might have been a long time, a time that Charles felt as a sort of ascending spiral stairway that he and Flossie were somehow going up by pure bodily ecstasy, they heard shouts and catcalls from the living room.

  “Come on, the rest want to play. Hey you guys, break it off!”

  “We’ve got to stop,” Flossie said, panting, pushing against the hold Charle
s still had on her. He thought momentarily of willing her to stay there, but then his mind came back, and he realized where he was.

  “Yeah. I guess. Gosh, Flossie,” Charles said, still dazed. He dropped his arms from their hold and Flossie leaned over to give him one more wet peck on his lips. He raised his head, but she was gone.

  He sat on the stairway for a moment, listening to the kidding that was going on in the dim living room. He had an erection, and his hands were shaking, and his eyes spun and buzzed with light spots. He wondered what he could do now. He thought, I can’t call Betty in this condition, and then he thought more strongly, I can’t not call her either.

  “Special Delivery letter for Betty Bailey,” he croaked.

  He forgot he was sitting on the stairs, and when Betty came groping into the alcove, she at first didn’t see him. “What’s the matter, Charles?” And as she leaned down he began to stand up, catching her chin with his head a solid knock. It hurt his head, so he knew it must hurt her chin. She didn’t cry out, but stood very straight, holding her chin and mouth.

  “Oh my gosh, Betty,” Charles said. “Oh, I’m so sorry about that.” He felt he had just ruined the whole evening with his clumsiness.

  “It’s all right, Charlie,” Betty said, moving back into the alcove so her back was against the wall. “It was my fault. Come over and give me the stamp, Charlie.”

  He moved over to her, wondering if he dared embrace her with his sweaty body and embarrassing erection, and then he forgot all about it, for she reached out to him, taking his head in her hands and kissing him on the lips, and he moved close to embrace her regardless, heedless, wanting to feel what he had felt with Flossie, but with Betty. He caught the mushy odor of her skin and perspiration and the perfume in her hair, and almost automatically he opened his mouth, forcing her lips apart and pushing his tongue into her mouth.

  She struggles at that moment, but he holds her tight, feeling her tense body against his, wanting her while I come to the surface so that he cannot release his hold while I am again savoring the sensations. The girl is struggling, but it seems more tantalizing to me, and so I will her to push in against Charles’s body instead of trying to get away. She does, throwing her arms around Charles and pushing against him so that his excitement increases. It is more pleasurable, and I am about to push further in this direction, over what seem to be some weak, conscious feelings of both Charles and the girl when suddenly the alcove is shockingly flooded with light. I retreat.

  “Oh, Charles!” Betty cried out, suddenly pushing him away so that he staggered back and sat down on the bottom step. “Maybe Flossie lets you,” Betty began, and then realized someone was standing on the stairs above them. They both looked up to see Alfred standing in his stained pants at the stairway landing.

  Betty’s face was red, her hair in disarray, and Charles’s bow tie was wedged in the bosom of her dress. Alfred came down the stairs slowly, looking at Betty standing against the newel post beginning to work up anger toward him for doing what he had obviously planned. Charles sat on the step, partly because he was dazed, partly because it would he embarrassing to stand up.

  “Charles,” Alfred said in a low, dangerous voice, “you lost something.” He picked the bow tie from Betty’s bosom and tossed it into Charles’s lap.

  Betty stepped back startled as he did it, and turned all her anger on Alfred. “You did that on purpose, Alfred Kearny,” she said, stepping up to him. “You don’t want to play our games, and you don’t want me to have any fun either. You’re hateful, Alfred, hateful.”

  Betty pushed her hair out of her eyes and slipped out into the livingroom, said “excuse me” to her guests and disappeared into the back part of the house. The other guests were standing up now, talking in low tones, but staying out of the alcove where Charles, standing now, faced Alfred whose features looked drawn and muscular. He grabbed a handful of Charles’s new white shirt and pulled the boy up close to him in tough guy fashion.

  “You made Betty mad at me, you dumb little snot,” he said very low, “and I’m not just giving you a warning. I’m telling you that I’m going to take you apart first chance I get.” He released Charles and turned away to the hall closet from which he took a light brown camels hair overcoat. He slipped into the coat and was out the front door before Charles could think of anything to say back to the threat.

  The party ended at that point. The guests stood around in the living room awkwardly for a time until Mrs. Bailey came out, graciously and sadly announcing that Betty had developed a very difficult headache and was sorry she had to say goodnight. Mr. Bailey came out in his overcoat and offered to drive anyone home who needed a ride. Several of the young people accepted his offer; the Portola twins only lived at the next farm down the road, so they said they would dash home on their own. Charles said he liked to walk in the dark and really didn’t want a ride, and Mr. Bailey nodded his head as if he understood. Charles put his tie in his pocket and slipped out the front door ahead of everyone. As he was leaping down the steps into the frosty darkness, he heard Flossie say something behind him that sounded like “Wait up!” but he pretended he did not hear. He wanted to run in the cool night and think about things.

  It is a new experience to have the human talking to me in this way. I recall Little Robert making a deal with me once, and now Charles is angry and holding a monologue as he walks along the little dark cinder road that leads from the Bailey’s lane to the highway.

  “It’s not fair to do that,” Charles is saying, his hands in his pockets for the cold, “making me do something I shouldn’t.”

  “We could shift and be warmer,” I suggest, perhaps irrelevantly.

  “I’m talking about a serious thing now,” Charles says. You helped me with the rescuing in the river, and I know I’d probably have drowned if you hadn’t, but I like Betty a lot, and what you did in the hallway was really wrong.”

  “Did the girl object?” I ask, trying to recall what had been said after I retreated.

  “She was really mad,” Charles said.

  “Was she angry at you?”

  “Well sure. I mean I was pushing up against her and French kissing her and feeling her up, and, well of course she was mad.”

  “I thought she gave the distinct impression of enjoying it.”

  “You’re nuts.”

  “Didn’t you enjoy it?” I ask, knowing that he did.

  “Yeah, of course I did, but girls are different. They don’t like to be all sexed up like that, the nice ones like Betty I mean. If you’re talking about Flossie, well she might like it. Wow,” Charles concludes, his mind going back to his first Special Delivery Air Mail. “But it’s still not right,” he mumbled.

  I am enjoying the conversation and the unique experience of speaking to the human. Neither of us is quite as alert as he should be, so that Charles is suddenly struck from behind a hard blow on the neck that stuns him and sends my awareness skittering off and down so that I feel unsure of reacting.

  Charles fell to the ground and rolled to one side, trying to see what had hit him from behind. A tall dark person was slipping out of an overcoat.

  “Now, you little punk,” Alfred said, laying his coat carefully down on some low bushes beside the road. “You’re going to get something you won’t forget.”

  Charles got up and faced Alfred, raising his fists, wondering how he was supposed to fight someone so much taller. He tried to punch Alfred in the stomach and something hit the center of his face so hard it made pinwheels and sparkling showers go off in both eyes. He staggered back, blinded, and something else hit his right ear a ringing blow so that he was turned around and for a moment could not find Alfred.

  “Here I am, shit face,” Alfred said, and as Charles staggered around, a fist hit him high on the cheek. He fell into the dried weed stalks, his head ringing, eyes sparking, his mind wavering. He felt me rising back to awareness and said, his head hanging while blood or something warm dripped from his face, “No! No!” I wai
t, and he gropes around until he is on his hands and knees facing Alfred.

  “Go ahead and beg,” Alfred says, and I retreat to wait and see what Charles will do. “Won’t do you any good now, you little punk, you’re not with the ladies now, little Prince Charming. This is men’s country.”

  Charles had dug his toes into the ground and now rushed Alfred’s knees with his shoulders, pushing as hard as he could right at the knees, his arms wrapped around the young man’s legs, and then with all his strength he raised up, keeping hold of the legs, and Alfred went down, clawing at Charles back for a hold, losing his grip as Charles’s shirt came out, pulled over his hack and finally ripped. Alfred hit the ground with Charles still holding his legs, and he kicked out violently, one foot hitting Charles in the mouth. Charles let go and dropped down on top of Alfred who had rolled half over so that he landed on the man’s side instead of on his stomach. He got in a good overhand blow to Alfred’s left ear that let the young man know he was in a fight, and then Alfred put his greater strength to use and pulled Charles to the ground beside him where he got astride of him and began punching his head and face with hard, swinging blows. Charles tried to protect his face, but he was weakening, and Alfred’s much greater strength was too much for even his stubborn spirit. I am rising to the surface and whisper to Charles, “When he raises up next time, knee right there,” and I indicate the spot mentally.

  Charles is almost too far gone to listen, but he watches from his bleeding face, and when Alfred raises up on his knees to punch down again, Charles plunges his leg up suddenly and catches the man a bit low, just at the rectum. Alfred grunts and pitches over Charles, holding his crotch. Charles rolls out and crawls to the groaning man lying on his face. As he climbs astride the man, I feel he has a better chance and retreat.