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listening to himself. He'd asked Marcia out for a quick drink after work, and
she'd accepted. Then there'd been another one, the next day. Then lunch--and,
as
they both obeyed an unspoken need, separate cabs to her apartment. Where he'd
really found out what was happening: their first embrace, his body feeling at
last the power of his years, while he sucked hungrily at the fountain of
youth
of her lips ... their clothes falling away, she breathing in his ear about
his
maturity, his mastery, while his eyes and hands marveled at the flawless
smoothness of her flesh ... her body, big, perfectly formed, sexually
powerful,
breasts high and round like a picture, blonde hair below like a fantasy, yet
above all, young, young ... and their first time, which took him into a new
or
forgotten world. And after which, when he cried into her shoulder, he'd had
to
explain why.
But now, as he sat in the Chrysler, Marcia was coming out of the Baltimore
apartment building in a white spring dress, toward him. The dream was going
to
be real now, all the time, and just as good for being so. Jack leaped out of
the
car, took her suitcase from her young hand, tossed it into the back. Grasped
her
smooth, sleeveless shoulders, kissed her sweet lips, at last thinking of the
future, not the past. Opened the door, eyes feasting on her graceful figure
as
she got in, became his forever. Got back behind the wheel, and drove off into
the sunset.
They stopped for dinner on the other side of Frederick, at an old stone inn.
And
knowing the romance would be strong enough, they became lawyer and secretary
again, talked lightly of practical things.
"Did you ... tell her?" Marcia asked, her eyes clear in the candlelight.
"Tell
... Meg?"
"No," Jack replied. "She'd never have understood. And that might have made
her
... too strong." He smiled. "But I did leave it so that she'll have more than
enough."
Marcia nodded. "And we'll be okay? I packed just the suitcase, like you said,
and sold the rest, but it only came to a couple
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thousand dollars."
He took her hands across the table, forced a laugh--then found he didn't feel
guilty at all. "Remember, I explained that? Some time ago, when I started my
...
dream, I began hiding away some money. 'Fuck you' money, some people call it."
Her young eyes--God, so wonderfully blue--questioned.
"So that you can say that to what you don't like, have to get out of. Or"--he
had a sudden, happier thought--"in this case, my love, so that I can ... fuck
you!"
She giggled, getting his drift.
And in Pittsburgh, in an expensive hotel room, they did it, all over the
king-size bed; free for the first time, just the two of them, without any
other
commitments. Again, Marcia seemed to hide herself in his older mastery,
praised
his strong chest and legs, while Jack reveled in her smooth white flesh, her
wonderful tightness below. They seemed the perfect combination of maturity
and
youth.
It was the next morning, as they drove leisurely through Ohio, that the
first,
mild problem occurred.
They had fallen silent--no problem, Jack thought; just dreaming together--and
he
reached over and turned on the Chrysler's radio. Out came a sixties song,
something by the Mamas and the Papas. He smiled, sighed, and started to drum
his
fingers on the dash in time with the music. They'd never listened to the
radio
together before.
Marcia smiled over at him, blonde hair ruffling beautifully in the top-down
wind, breasts swelling the T-shirt she wore. But said, "Do we ... have to
have
that old stuff?"
He frowned, told her the name of the group, said the song had been a big hit.
"And besides, Mama Cass was from Baltimore-- Forest Park High School."
"Well, okay," she replied. And she good-naturedly began to beat time too,
trying
to sing along.
But he wondered why she agreed so easily.
By nightfall they were in Indianapolis, in another big room, big playpen,
though
the place was a tank town, continuing to carry their sexual odyssey
cross-country. And the next day, after a big breakfast to replenish their
strength, they were back on the road
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again, the morning sun at their backs.
That was when, as he looked over at Marcia, Jack felt another, little twinge.
It
might have been the light, but ... there seemed to be tiny wrinkles beside
her
blue eyes, the kind an ... older woman might have.
"Are we pushing it too hard?" he asked her, reaching over to put his hand on
her
thigh, which still seemed firm enough. "After all, we have the rest of our
lives."
"No." She smiled back. "Just a bit tense, maybe--getting used to all this.
But
it's wonderful, lover!"
So to help her relax, he flipped on the radio again. Pressed the scanner,
wound
up with a fifties rock station. "You should like this. Doesn't your
'generation'
have a nostalgia thing for the early rock?"
"Well ... yeah," she replied. And her fingers drummed on the dash.
Near Kansas City, after a long pull, they stopped for the night at Jack's
cousin's. The man was his age, and they'd been close, having grown up in
Baltimore together; he was one of the few people he'd told about Marcia and
his
decision to break from Meg and escape with her. And after a much-appreciated
steak dinner, prepared by the cousin's wife, who'd reluctantly come around to
the situation, the two men sat on the dark front porch, drank beer, and
talked
about it.
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