GIRL 12
TALL GIRL
I
hadn't had much in the way of conversation with her, neither email nor
phone, and after some of the last dating disasters I thought I might be
making a mistake. It was time to start screening them, I thought. "Pot
luck dating" was not working out. But then, who was I kidding? I was
still in full rebound from Alayna, Girl 6, but I was convinced that if
I kept telling myself I was over her, I would be. I know I'm harsh on
women for their numerous instances of self-deception, but perhaps I
would be able to brainwash myself. If I kept my happy thoughts, I
figured, I might yet fly.
The date was at my favorite place in the world, the Princeton Triumph
Brewing Company, more commonly known as "the brewpub," on Nassau Street
opposite the famous campus of the college of Albert Einstein and Brooke
Shields. It had soaring ceilings, walls of brick and glass, a
transparent wall where the brewing vats and piping could be seen, with
a mahogany bar on the middle deck, a more cozy one on the lower level,
and above, a large balcony overlooking the brewing machinery and the
lower bar. Tucked under the balcony were copper-clad tables in
walled-in booths with hanging chandeliers.
When Tall Girl walked down the steps to the lower bar, I smiled. She
was a stunning blonde, fully an inch over six feet. She'd been
delighted that I'd asked her to wear her highest heels. A six foot
woman rarely breaks out any shoe other than flats, and tall girls love
sexy shoes as much as any woman. She smiled as she came up to me,
happy, I suppose, that my advertised six foot one inch frame was
actually that tall. I put my arm around her and kissed her cheek. She
smelled good and I liked her skin. I smiled to myself, because she was
girlfriend material. Oh, Magoo, you've done it again, I thought.
Two minutes later, we each had a tall pint of beer brewed on the premises at one of the enclosed booths. Perhaps it was the intimacy of the booth that made the conversation go the way it did. Perhaps it was the same clairvoyance I'd used with Girl 5, Frog Girl. All I know is that five minutes into our date, I narrowed my eyes, looked at her and said the words:
"There'ss something wrong about you and your father."
I don't know why I said it. I try to go back into my mind at that moment to see what I saw then. I remember seeing a darkness shrouded around her, and it was a shadow, and the shadow belonged to her father. I assumed that the darkness meant her father were dying or perhaps already dead. And perhaps he had been sick but had so recently died that even Tall Girl didn't know it. But what doesn't make sense is how I said the words. I didn't say, "there's something wrong with your father." I said, "there's something wrong about you and your father." I included Tall Girl herself in the statement.
"What did you say?" she asked, her normally fair complexion seeming to drain of what color it had.
I swallowed, wondering myself what the hell was going on. I shut my eyes for a half-second and tried to listen to myself, and I opened my mouth. I was going to say exactly what was inside me.
"There's something wrong about you and your father."
The exact same phrase. What the hell was going on?
Tall Girl burst into tears. In helplessness I watched her makeup melt and run down her face. In between sobs, she got out the story:
"My father started raping me when I was twelve. He kept raping me until I was sixteen. I graduated early from high school, and the next day I left forever and joined the Coast Guard. I was expected to go to an Ivy League school, my grades were that good. I left that opportunity behind."
"I'm so sorry that happened to you," I said. It was all I could think of.
She stopped and stared at me. "My mother doesn't know. My sister doesn't know. My ex-husband of eighteen years doesn't know. How the hell do you know?"
Good question, I thought.
For the answer, I needed only to go back in time one month, to the chapel of the hospital where my son lay unconscious in surgery.
Or perhaps I should start the story earlier, back when Ronald Reagan was finishing the legendary presidency that won the Cold War. When my firstborn son Matthew was born in 1989, the headline was Ronald Reagan, "Uncle Ron" as we called him in the military, saying, "WE CHANGED THE WORLD." He'd given a good-bye speech fromthe oval office the night before. Fast forward to when he was 15. A fast-growing tumor had appeared in his left arm, half the size of a baseball, and it grew that big in four days. The oncologists, though calm, were telling us that this was extremely severe. They used the term, "life threatening." On the day that Matt was in surgery, Reagan's coffin was being marched down the streets of D.C.
It was the "bookend" aspect of this illness that had me worried. When Matt was born, Reagan filled the headlines and his obstetrics doctor was named Dr. Kelly. When Matt had cancer surgery, Reagan again filled the news, and his oncological surgeon was Dr. Kelly. Bookends, I thought. So he began, so he ends.
This boy was more to me than my firstborn child. I credit him with teaching me how to love. I see him as the one God himself sent as a personal message telling me how much I myself was loved. And now, here he was with what looked like life threatening cancer.
So I did the only thing that made any sense. I camped out in the chapel and threatened God. In the book where you can write your prayers, in my hand is the following:
"God, it's me, your old friend, Michael. My son, and yours too, Matthew, lies unconscious in surgery right now, having a tumor removed. I am here to tell you, my supreme being friend, don't you fucking dare take him away. You need blood, you goddamn well take mine, you understand? If it's any other way, you and I part company. Forever. Do you read me? I fucking mean it. You need blood? YOU FUCKING TAKE MINE!!!! Thank you. Michael."
The hoofs clomped on the pavement and Ronald Reagan's remains moved slowly through the capitol, the scene on every television set in the hospital. The seconds of the clock ticked. Tears continued to wet my face, though I wiped them off. I went outside to make a cell phone call to Alayna, Girl 6, my post-divorce first love and girlfriend, and right beside me was a mother delivering the news that their child's tumor was malignant, and the mom dissolved into tears.
I looked at the sky. Ron, I said, you were there with us in the beginning. Intercede for us now.
As I got ready to make the call, the phone rang. It was my ex. Matt was coming out of surgery. They were waiting for me.
When the surgeon came into the family briefing room, he was soaked in sweat, his face long and lined by worry and fatigue, and there seemed like there was nohope in his face.
"We removed the tumor," he said wearily. "The pathologists were in the OR. They did the frozen section. The tumor is benign."
The weight of the world fell off my shoulders. Thank God.
"What was it, Dr. Kelly?" I asked.
He shook his head. "We don't know. Your son made medical history today. We'll be studying this for a long time."
When he left I thought I caught sight of the supreme being leaning against the wall, stirring a cup of coffee with his usual overdose of cream and sugar. He looked at me, as if to say, I own you now. Your blood is mine. A deal's a deal.
So my blood was no longer my own. I didn't expect to wake up the next day. My life for Matt's. He would live. I would die. It was a great bargain, I thought, and I'd gladly sign up for it again. We'd have one last night to celebrate, after which I would die in my sleep.
The next morning, I saw bright light, and assumed I was rising out of my earthly state, but it was the light from the curtained window of the Marriott Hotel. Frantically, I called Matt's mom, my ex-wife. "Is Matt okay?" He's fine, she laughed. I can see him outside playing basketball with his friends.
So what the hell am I doing alive, I wondered. And then it came to me. God didn't want to take my life -- as in killing me -- he wanted to "take my life" and do things with it. The stories in literature are filled with what happens when men sell their souls to the devil. I wondered to myself, what happens when you sell it to the other guy?
My thoughts returned to all the reading I'd done on the nature of evil and demonic possession and satanic possession. Even in cases where Satan, Lucifer himself, possesses a person, the individual's personality persists and is not destroyed, but is just somehow pushed aside while the evil one takes over the person's body and brain. And since the soul is not destroyed or crushed or killed, exorcism is possible, through the appeal to the free will of the soul of the possessed.
And if that were true of evil, would it not be true for the holy forces? Would it be possible for God to occupy a person, take over their words and actions, if only for a few seconds, and say the things that needed to be said? Was it possible that now that the supreme being owned my blood, that I was as possessed as the girl in "The Exorcist"? Except with the holy one rather than the evil one?
"There's something wrong about you and your father."
That hadn't been me speaking, I thought. It had been my lips and my breath, but it was the words of the supreme being. But what was his motivation? Did something need to be said to Tall Girl to break her free from where she was stuck? I'd find out soon enough.
Dinner ended in a blur. I figured that after the conversation we had, Tall Girl would get in her fancy sports car and disappear in the night, but I found her taking off her blouse on the couch at the Snake Ranch, so named for the unofficial U.S. Navy term for bachelor pad -- presumably because of lonely "snakes" slithering inside boxer shorts. I kissed her and cupped her breasts. She pulled my clothes off, her movements sensuous yet predatory. Her cool fingers curled around the flesh of my penis, and she looked up at me.
"Nothing's happening," she said.
I nodded. "I know," I replied. After some of the disasters of the early dates, I'd confessed to my doctor that there were times in "tactical situations" where my cock had stage fright and needed help. I told myself, the Viagra is for first dates only. And I'd taken my dose. My cock should have been ten feet tall. Or at least its lust-induced seven inches. Instead, it was doing its turtle imitation, wearing a turtleneck sweater, refusing to come out and play. I didn't blame him, either. Had I known I would hear what I'd heard, I would have saved the dose.
After a few minutes Tall Girl would leave the Snake Ranch, peacefully if not blissfully. We became friends, frequently chatting by instant message and on the cell when we were commuting. It was then that the supreme being's purpose became more clear.
Tall Girl was a nymphomaniac and a slut. My kind of girl. But she'd been unable to fall in love with anyone. Her ex-husband had been a placeholder, there to keep a real relationship away. Eventually Tall Girl's spirit burst forth, longing for something more. Every night of the week, Tall Girl fucked a different fuck-buddy. Her date with me was much less about love and romance than about getting a new fuck friend for her calendar and firing one that wasn't as enthusiastic as he should have been.
When she came to me for advice, at her darkest hour, it was a teachable moment. Again I opened my mouth, and again someone else's words came out. Get rid of the fuckbuddies, the voice said. Concentrate on the two high-potential guys. And tell them never to say they love you.
As a result of the child abuse, whenever a man would tell Tall Girl he loved her, she would run to the bathroom, puke out the contents of her stomach, and return to dump the boy. When your father rapes you at midnight and tells you he loves you at noon, you associate certain unpleasantness with the words, "I love you." So I told her to confide in her two candidates what happened with the abuse, and to ask them never to tell her they loved her, but instead to just show it if they felt it.
Four months later Tall Girl was in an exclusive, fully functional, happy relationship with Engineer Wonder Boy. I saw her one more time at the Brew Pub while I waited for another date and she was entertaining the girls of her office. Her face was flushed with healthy color, she'd lost five pounds, and she looked marvelous. She kissed my cheek. "Thank you for all you did," she whispered.
Don't thank me. Thank the supreme being.
Shortly after Tall Girl's life became normalized, she disappeared, her friendship with me having done its duty.
And so began the long year of belonging to the supreme being, and crashing into each female life and saying the things that perhaps she could only hear from the man she was fucking. Sometimes the supreme being's voice would actually come out while I was in the act of fucking someone. It made me wonder about the women who so enjoyed having sex with me. Was it really me who was making love to them? Or God himself? In some of the happily exhausted faces I would see over the next year, I saw women who had never been fucked like that, and I confess there were some I could barely remember fucking. The supreme being, I thought, was having a lot of fun possessing me.
****************************************
Comments:
Written by Corvette Girl
Honey,
Do you have any idea just how great a writer you are? That was an amazing postng. I think I felt every single emotion in it. It was so gripping and compelling. I went from suspense to shock, to anger to tears, back to suspense and then tears of joy when you found out Matt was okay. I was drawn the entire time into a deep trance over which I had no control, right up until I got to the ending. I do believe though, that those of us who have had near death experiences, have seen and felt the pull of the long dark tunneland the bright light at it's end, have a very special relationship with God. We were given a second chance for a reason.
Comment from Corvette Girl-
In response to the comment that my kind of girl is a nymphomaniac and a slut, let me comment that my type of girl has a boiling, lustful sexuality, reserved just for her guy. Interestingly, there's not one word in the English language that describes that. Sexually free? Uninhibited? Heterosexual? I settled on nymphomaniac and slut, but they have the connotation of promiscuity. Take a slut and make her faithful, and that is the beginning of a description of my girl.
Comment from tigersharktorp -
Hi Michael,
I find this story interesting but a little lengthy, sorry. LOL. Hey, you asked me and I hope you would want me to be honest? I did love the story of your son. I found that to be very moving. . You also say "your kind of girl" would be like girl #12. I'm no way like a nymphomaniac or a slut....sorry LOL. I guess this means the wedding is off! LOL.
Hi, Michael.
Some story!
I remember you telling me about the girl when i first met you. Yeah i thought it was a little creepy back then, but since getting to know you ( as much as anyone can really know you, BookBoy), i've come to the conclusion that nothing about you suprises me or creeps me out...even the fact that you're a fucking conservative. Just tell me you're not a "neo-con".
I was amazed about the story of Matt having that tumor. I've had that showdown with God myself, over my mom. But since he ignored me and took her anyway, i guess i escaped the holy possession thing. But i was through with him. Recently, we've gone back on speaking terms... curteous, not friendly. Sort of like my relationship with my spousal unit.
I know you'll have a field day with that one! ;-)
Hey, they're both nice guys. I just don't really have much use for them these days.
I am at once curious and terrified to know what you've written about MassageGirl.
Take care, Sexy
Comment from ganja819
Well I for one, think it is a very amazing story but if I may, I wonder why you keep a journal of the girls you have met and I believe you still grieve for girl 6 and that noone you meet will be able to live upto her standards in your eyes.
Comment from ldy916
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