“So what’s the plan for after dinner? Did I hear you say something about driving up into the hills and getting into the back seat of the Galaxie and steaming up the windows?” I asked her.
Marilyn laughed at that. “Is that all you can think of? No! We’re meeting Tammy at a place she knows between Utica and Rome, over on 5.”
“Who’s Tammy?”
“I told you about her. She was my best friend all through UCA. I called her and asked where she liked to go. It’s a country bar sort of place.”
I vaguely remembered Tammy. She was a ditzy blonde, very cute and curvy, who was pals with Marilyn. She was Marilyn’s maid of honor at our wedding, but after that we moved out of the area for a few years and they totally lost track of each other. If I recalled correctly, she was dating a greasy asshole that I nearly got into it with a couple of times. I think they got married and had a nice slew of white trash kids.
“Oh, I think I’ve heard of the place. They have a dress code, right? Women aren’t allowed to wear bras and panties, something like that?”
“You’re horrible!” she said, laughing.
“I’ll have to check on that when we get there,” I insisted. Marilyn just laughed, a sound I really enjoyed listening to. I always loved it when she laughed. Whatever it took, I was going to have her laughing and snuggling with me the rest of our lives, all over again.
“Horrible!”
Marilyn gave me some half-assed directions to the place we were going, and thankfully I knew how to get to 5 and going west, because her directions would have sent us to Lower Slobbovia. It was about nine when we got to the place, which was not quite a night club, but more than a bar. It was a country place, with a live band and a dance floor, and both a bar and table service. This was in the days when you could still smoke in bars and restaurants, and it had a smoky tobacco scent that I loved and that would have my eyes red by closing time. Once we got inside and our eyes adjusted to the low lighting, I recognized Tammy at a table on the side, jumping up and down and waving to us.
I pointed out the girl to Marilyn. “Is that Tammy?”
“Yes!” She grabbed my hand and pulled me along behind her. Tammy was wearing skin tight jeans and a tank top with nothing underneath it. Her date was a greasy and thin scuzbucket that looked like he had graduated from the Oneida County Jail, where he had majored in auto theft. I shook his hand and then carefully counted my fingers. Thankfully we were seated boy-girl-boy-girl, so I didn’t have to worry about getting my wallet lifted just by sitting next to him.
There was a band playing, loud and good, but not great. You want a great bar band, you go to LA or Chicago or New York or Miami, or for country, you go to Nashville or Austin or Branson. You can really tell the difference in those places. There’s a crispness to the music, where every single note is hit with a precision that only comes from superior skill and relentless practice. This band was good, but not up to that standard. They would do the bar band circuit for a few years, before settling down in their day jobs at the Arms or Faxton or wherever they called home. They were okay to dance to, though, doing mostly covers of country and southern rock, lots of Eagles, Molly Hatcher, 38 Special, and some Johnny Cash and Bocephus thrown into the mix. When we walked in, the band was doing Merle Haggard’s Okie From Muskogee.
It was loud enough I didn’t have to converse with Tammy’s date. I just eyed Marilyn and Tammy (surreptitiously, of course). Tammy was a cute and tight little blonde with some interesting knockers swinging freely under her tank top, a look always good on a girl. She had a slight gap in her top front teeth that actually looked very cute on her. I always thought she could have done better than the guys she hung out with.
We danced and drank some beer and danced some more. Tammy and her boyfriend ordered up pitchers of beer and mostly drank them themselves. Marilyn had a few glasses herself. I had a couple, but I’m not a heavy beer drinker and I stayed sober. Marilyn got a bit loose, and Tammy and her friend really got lit up. After an hour or so, Tammy announced she had to go to the bathroom, and Marilyn was drafted to accompany her. They must have union meetings in there, I swear!
When they returned, the two girls were giggling and laughing, and Marilyn asked me for the keys to the car. I asked why, and she said she wanted to put her purse back in the car. I just shrugged and handed her my keys. Tammy’s boyfriend looked at me curiously, and I just shrugged and gave him a mystified look. The girls took off, still giggling.
Five minutes later they were back, still giggling, like little girls with a secret. The riddle was solved when Marilyn and I were dancing again, and the band started playing something slow by the Eagles. As I took Marilyn in my arms, I stroked her back idly, and found something missing. Marilyn’s bra was gone! She and Tammy must have been talking about it, and either she took it off in the bathroom and needed to hide it in the car, or she and Tammy went to the car and Tammy covered for her while Marilyn stripped it off in the parking lot. Normally Marilyn wouldn’t be that crazy, but she was drinking and Tammy was drunk, and they were thick as thieves anyway.
I rubbed Marilyn’s back, and she giggled at me. “So did you do that in the bathroom or out at the car?” I asked her, speaking into her ear.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?!”
“I would! It makes me really hot for you!” I surreptitiously brought a hand up and tweaked a nipple through her blouse.
Marilyn shuddered in my arms. “Behave yourself!”
“Do you want me to?” I asked. “Or do you want me to take you outside and ravish you in the back seat of the Galaxie right now?” I nibbled on an ear while I asked that.
Marilyn whimpered. “Behave!” she told me, weakly in my opinion.
I let it slide and gave her a smile. After our dance we sat back down at the table. Tammy was laughing at us knowingly. Her date was leering at Marilyn and looked like he was about to make a smartass remark. I just looked at him without smiling and he must have gotten the message. I hadn’t been afraid of him way back when, and I certainly wasn’t impressed now. Tammy missed everything, and she grabbed his hand and dragged him out onto the dance floor. The band was doing.38 Special now and she was shaking those tits inside the tank top in an amazing way.
“What’s with you and Jim?” asked Marilyn.
That was his name, Jim. Eminently forgettable as a human. I just smiled. “Nothing, why?”
“You look like you want to fight him or something.”
“Marilyn, I’m a peaceable kind of guy.” I put my hand on her thigh under the table. “I’m a lover, not a fighter!”
Marilyn shuddered and flushed, and I just moved my hand northwards until my fingers were slipping under the very short hem of her denim skirt. “What are you doing?” she asked.
I pulled my hand away and then moved my chair around, so that we were facing each other. I moved my other hand down and placed it on her thigh and quickly moved it up her leg and under her skirt. “I was just wondering whether anything else got left in the car.” I pushed my hand farther in, but the skirt was tight and without some explicit help from Marilyn, I wasn’t going to find the answer.
She whimpered and panted, but begged me to stop. “You can’t… no, stop… not here… people will see… please…” Then her eyes focused and she moved back violently, almost backing into a waitress and getting a shower of beer. “Tammy and Jim are coming back.”