She smiled at me-my God, she was gorgeous!-and dutifully held the panties out in a little rectangle and stepped into them, pulling them up. Then I discovered that a girl looks just as sexy squiggling into a pair of slinky panties as she does wriggling out of them. Why is that? And also, though you'd eventually tire of viewing the Taj Mahal by moonlight, or the sunset over Morro Bay, a beautiful woman slipping in or out of her drawers is a sight that never ceases to enthrall. Why is that?
Lolly Popp smiled at me and then gave an exaggerated blush, realizing that I was watching her pivot back and forth as she drew up the lacy pants. Gee, they were snug. She grinned, turning around.
"Here's the good part," said Moe intensely.
"You're not kidding," I answered as I stared at the sumptuous globes of tan flesh that jounced and jiggled as they fought their way into the slinky nyloncasing. Lolly made a final adjustment, then smoothed out the fabric- if one could call it that- with her hands. The pants were nearly transparent except for a tiny if pie-shaped wedge of darker material at the crotch. Perhaps this was for reinforcement, but I know better. Like the seams in nylons, it was designed by some kinky frog in Paris at the turn of the century to make the wearer yet more seductive. Bless him (or her), whoever he was. He should be canonized.
"Ah, this is terrific!" said Moe. Then I realized that he wasn't referring to his friend; he was engrossed in Dr. Mortimer Adler. He leaned over and turned up the volume. The good doctor said: "… and so by the term goodness, we could be referring to the classic Judeo-Christian concept of purity… or perhaps in a more modern sense the Sartrian view, so well expressed by Gabriel Marcel, of goodness as a behavior template- an active as opposed to passive concept, if you will- which leads to the individuals own responsibility to immerse himself in the upward march of humanity.. ."
Lolly stared at the tube and sighed. She turned to me.
"Moe's so smart, isn't he? Isn't he terrific?"
"Yes he is."
She sank silently onto the couch between us. Our sides were touching. Above the dark wedge of material on the front of her pants the top of her bush peeked out through the thin material. It looked cute. They tend to.
"Pay attention, Doc; here's the essence of life," said Moe, leaning forward. "The real essence?
"I know," I said, staring at Lolly's sport section. My head refused to budge. Hydraulic levers couldn't move it. I heard Mortimer Adler continue: "And so we ask- literally for goodness' sake- what we each can do, every day, to contribute to the general welfare. Now this daily game plan, mundane as it may seem- a sort of Boy Scout ethos, if you will- remains a salutary mode of living. lt is reflected in the New Testament…"
Lolly sighed again and shifted her bottom. She leaned over, and in a cloud of delicious scent whispered to me.
"I'm finally able to show Moe how grateful I am. Do you know he's paying for my junior college?"
"A wonderful guy…" ·
"I don't have any home now but this; I hope he'll let me stay."
I was about to offer her alternative residence, but some vague voice in the old gray matter told me it was unwise.
"Loretta, dear, those pants are inappropriate. Why don't you put your gym shorts on over them, okay?"
She stalked off toward the bedroom, giving me a last fleeting glimpse. I could've killed Moe.
"What kind of cockamamy chess game is dis?" He scowled. "Your king gand queen are switched and you just moved your pawn like a rook!"
I set the chessboard aside. "I can't play chess with her around, Moe."
"Why not?"
The cowbell rang. We heard Lolly answer it. A second later she hobbled around the corner, yanking on a pair of faded cotton shorts. They became her. But then- oh, skip it.
"Doctor Adams?" she inquired, but the visitor had come on in anyway and now stood behind her, gaping. It was Joe. "There's a john here to see you- oops! I mean, a man…"
"Thanks, Lolly. Hiya, Joe."
"Doc. I gotta see you."
"Sure. You remember Moe. Moe, Joe. Joe, Moe."
"What is dis, the mojo song?" said Moe irritably as he put away the chessboard and pieces. "Joe, want some food? Dried pears? Tofu? Celery? Wheatgerm muffins? Bean sprou-"
"No thanks," said Joe, his mouth curled in revulsion, "that stuff will kill you. Doc, I have to talk with you privately a minute. Got to. Sorry, Moe."
I rose to go and looked at Lolly, who winked at me. It was not a teasy wink; it was a good-luck wink. She looked terrific in the shorts. The more clothes she put on, the better she looked, because I knew what she had on underneath the shorts. But I couldn't see those slinky panties. And I knew what was underneath those, but I couldn't see. That would be the ultimate striptease, I thought as I drew on my jacket, to have a girl come on the stage naked and get dressed, piece by piece.
"Nice meeting you, Lolly," I said as we left through the airplane-style doorway. "You've made my day."
"You're in enough trouble at home," Joe reminded me, pausing on the doorstep. He was looking at two old photographs that hung side by side on the kitchen wall above the tiny sink. "Who the hell are those guys?"
"Two of the greatest chess masters who ever lived," said Moe, who was showing us out. "Great but tragic. On the left is the American Paul Morphy, the first true chess genius. On the right is Akiba Rubinstein, a rabbinical student from Lodz. Both of these men had their careers terminated by mental illness. Specifically, it was schizophrenia. Both died in asylums."
"I might as well get to the point, since you're leading up to it so brilliantly," I said, reaching for a taped oatmeal carton with a slot on top. It was heavy in my hand as I held it out to my brother-in-law. I rattled it under his nose.
"Give to mental-health research, Joe," I said. When he dropped two quarters in I asked for more. He claimed he had no more change.
"It'll take folding green, Brindelli. Give!" I said.
"All I got's tens. I can't give a ten."
"Ten bucks for leaving," Moe announced, blocking the door. We skinned Joe for a tenner and then he and I left. Joe paused outside the old trailer, still in shock. Through the thin walls of the domicile we could hear Lolly cooing at Moe.
"Not now dear. Not now; I just have to see this second tape."
And then came the voice of Mortimer Adler: "- and so to leave Reinhold Niebuhr for the moment and explore the existence of a Supreme Being as expressed by the systems philosopher Alfred North Whitehead-"
"C'mon, Moe," cooed a sultry voice, husky with desire.
"Not now, Lolly; I've got to hear the rest of this lecture."
"- in relation to what he calls absolute entities, which become the building blocks, the molecular and atomic structure, if you will, of his system…"
"Moo-00e…"
"Now as you'll recall, Russell and Moore attacked the dilemma differently… and- posing the dilemma, merely asking the question, you see, flips ordinary language analysis and logical positivism into the proverbial cocked hat-"
"Stop it, Lolly, or I'll send you to your room."
Joe shook his head sadly.
"Can you believe it, Doc? Can you believe that dirty old man in there with that young piece?"
"You are in error. Moe is many things, some of them a little strange. But one thing he is not is dirty. Not in thought, word, deed, or body. And not in soul. Nobody is cleaner than Morris Abramson."