She was wearing a mustard-colored bathrobe. Something black and lacy showed from beneath the collar of the bathrobe. She smiled. “Nicky.”
“Hey, Jackie.”
“You’re mighty punctual tonight.”
“That’s me. Johnny-on-the-Spot. Here.” I handed her a bottle of Chilean cabernet. She inspected the label.
“Looks fine,” she said with a nod.
“Gran Torres, 1982.”
“Come on in.”
I stepped into the condo and removed my overcoat in the marble foyer. Jackie hung it in a hall closet, and then I followed her into the living room. A Yule log burned in the fireplace set in the lavender west wall, and in the dining room a beveled glass table was set for two. On the center of the table one lavender candle was lit. Jackie kept walking and I followed as I talked to her back and watched the shimmer of her thin calves.
“Where we going?”
“To the bedroom, pal. We’ve got a date, remember?”
“Sure, I do. But this is all happening so fast.” Jackie stopped walking, turned, and rolled her eyes.
“Dinner’s almost ready. Let’s do it, okay?”
“Do it?”
“Yeah.”
“How about a drink first?”
“Nope.”
“Hinders the sample, right?” Jackie didn’t answer.
We moved into her bedroom. It was a futon-and-halogen-lamp affair with a fireplace on the wall adjacent to the bed. She had built a small fire, and the halogen lamp was dimmed to its lowest degree. Two Bose 301s were mounted in a teak wall unit behind the bed. Chaka Khan was doing “Everlasting Love” through the speakers. I nodded to the speakers.
“Chaka a relative of yours?”
“She spells it differently,” Jackie Kahn said. “Quit stalling, Nick. Let’s make a baby.”
Jackie undid her robe and sat facing out on a sky blue towel ttallihat she had spread on the edge of the futon. She spread her knees and leaned back, resting her palms on the futon. The black lace teddy she was wearing ended at her midriff. Below that was her flat abdomen and below that faint tan lines where her panties would have been. The muscles of her inner thighs rippled and then met in one beautifully manicured vee of cleanly shaved pudendum. I felt slightly dizzy as the blood in my head quickly headed south.
“You plan on doing this through osmosis?” Jackie said.
I shook my head, closed my mouth, gulped, and removed my shirt. I tripped climbing out of my slacks, then did the one-legged hop as I pulled off my socks. Chaka Khan screamed as I took off my underwear and dropped it in the pile with the rest of my clothes.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
Jackie smirked. “You only look half-ready.”
“It would help if you’d say something romantic.”
“How about grabbing that Vaseline off the nightstand?”
“That’s a start,” I said.
I retrieved the blue-and-gold jar from the nightstand, removed the top, and dipped two fingers into the petroleum jelly. I walked toward Jackie with a cupped hand and a smile of crocodilian sensitivity.
Jackie said, “Hold it right there, soldier. I’ll do that.”
I nodded bashfully and handed her the jar. Jackie scooped out some Vaseline and massaged it into her vulva with two index fingers. When one of the fingers disappeared knuckle-deep into her vagina, the dizziness returned, and I glanced down to see my dick jumping about like some rude marionette.
“I think I’m about ready now,” I said.
“Well, you look it. Come on.”
I moved forward, and we did the dance. Except at the moment of entry, when she grudgingly let a parted-lip wince cross her face, Jackie remained quite expressionless throughout. Twice during our “lovemaking” I greedily reached inside her negligee to feel her breasts, and both times she mechanically slapped my hand away. That slowed things down a bit, as did my lame attempts at humor (“Jackieee,” I shouted at one point, “oh, Jackie, oh, Jackie, uh-Ooooh!”), but when I finally closed my eyes and began to enjoy the great pureness of sensation, the shortness of breath, and the last tongue-biting, eyes-rolled-up-into-the-head preejaculatory seconds, then everything in the room, everything in the world in fact, was better than fine.
When it was over I removed my sweaty forehead from Jackie’s dry shoulder. The edges of Jackie’s deep brown eyes crinkled as her smirk twisted up on one side. She brushed a hand back through her short black hair and leaned back on the futon.
“Well?”
“Well, I can’t tell for certain, of course,” I said. “But it sure felt like the mother load.” Then I cocked my head thoughtfully to one side. “Was it beautiful for you?”
“Nicky,” she said. “You are such an asshole.”
Jackiehad grilled swordfish steaks on the Jenn-Air and served them topped with a mustard, butter, and dill sauce. We ate them with grilled new potatoes and a green salad lightly seasoned with oregano and pepper and garlic vinegar. I had a sip of the cabernet and Jackie did the same.
“Nice wine,” she said.
“I’m a hero, then. I thought the red might not go with the fish.”
“A myth. The red goes fine. As for being a hero, I’ll tell you in a couple weeks.”
“That when you find out?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, if it doesn’t happen this time-you know, I’ll always be there for you.” I slid an oily nod toward her bedroom, and Jackie laughed.
“If it doesn’t work out, I’ll try the insemination route next time, thanks.”
I put my wineglass on the table. “It wasn’t all that awful, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t all that awful. But I didn’t enjoy it, if that’s what you mean. I went through my entire youth and my twenties not enjoying it, as a matter of fact.” Jackie had a taste of fish and closed her eyes briefly as she chewed and swallowed. “When I finally did admit to myself what I really wanted, there was a long period of curiosity, and then some guilt, and after that acceptance. And now I just feel right. And happy.”
“Well, then I am too,” I said. “Happy for you. We’re friends, right?”
Jackie smiled radiantly in the light of the single candle that stood between us on the beveled glass table. “You are a good friend.” She leaned in on her forearms. “So I was wondering if you could scare up the energy to give it another shot after dinner. For insurance. I know I’m ovulating-I’ve been on Pergonal to stimulate it, and I can feel it, like a little tickle down there.” She looked toward her lap and back at me. “What do you think?”
“It’s been a while since I’ve Done the Deuce.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It is.”
I left Jackie’s around midnight and drove out of Kalorama, up Connecticut and west to Wisconsin, where I turned right and headed uptown. Christmas lights were strung in the windows of the bars and in the pizza parlors that served AU students in that part of town. I listened to the Cure’s “Pictures of You” and kept listening after I had cut the engine of my Dart in front of Lee’s apartment. When the song was done I climbed out of my car and turned the collar up on my overcoat as I took the stairs to Lee’s.
She answered on the third knock after a check through her peephough tole. I straightened up as the door opened. Lee wore black jeans and a hip-length, army green sweater. The sweater picked up the green from her eyes.
“Hi, Nick.” She smiled weakly and looked behind her toward the living room, then back at me.
“Hi. Can I come in?”
“I don’t think it’s such a good idea,” she said.
“Got company?”
Her features softened. “Yes.”
“Talk to me for a minute?”
Lee looked behind her once more and nodded. She checked the lock and closed the door, and stepped out with me into the yellow light of the stairwell. Her arms folded up and she began to shiver. I took off my overcoat and draped it over her shoulders. The hem of the coat nearly touched the ground. Lee looked up.
“How’d it go tonight?” she said.
“It went okay.”
“I’m sure you found a way to make it interesting. Anyway, I didn’t expect to see you tonight.” She turned her head and nodded at the door. “Obviously.”