Bethel's Meadow (11 page)

“Don’t worry,” she said. “It won’t ruin it for me if you give me your opinion. What is your criticism of the book?”

“It’s flavored with lemon and pomegranate,” I said as I held up the package of mints. “Not the book—just these mints. You want one?”

We spent the next twenty minutes talking about nothing but literature. She had just finished reading
The Brothers Karamazov
, and she recommended I pick it up on my way out. She asked me about other good books I had read. I told her I thought she might enjoy
Catch-22
, if she liked dark humor.

“I’ll be reading that book soon,” she said joyfully—yes,
joyfully
. “Oh my God. We like a lot of the same type stuff. The only thing is, you read a lot faster than I do. I’m just now getting near the middle of
Slaughterhouse Five
. I’ll give it to you when I’m done with it.”

I told her I was afraid she’d get in trouble because we’d been talking for so long. She waved her hand dismissively and said not to worry. So I spent the next few minutes peppering her with questions about herself.

Her name was Glory Nolan. She was thirty-three, a few years older than I had presumed. She told me she had lived in Orlando for five years and that she didn’t like it much because the town was a soulless tourist trap with no real culture. Like me, what she enjoyed most about Orlando was the weather. Before moving to Orlando she’d grown up in Dallas, Texas, her place of birth. While I had been to Dallas before on business, I’d never had a chance to spend much time doing anything there aside from working. I told her I wanted to hear all about it sometime, especially with regard to the city’s music scene.

Then she asked: “Do I have to call you Smith? I know your first name—I looked it up when you walked out of here last time. I hope that doesn’t make you mad.”

“I’ll tell you sometime why I don’t go by my first name,” I said. “I promise.”

“Okay,” she said. “I think it’s silly of you because you have a really cool and uncommon name. You should readopt it and make it your own. You are, after all, a unique man.”

I smiled and thanked her for the compliment. My heart was thrashing inside of my chest, and I could feel sweat beginning to pool in my armpits. I was afraid that raging floods of perspiration would soon cascade down my sides.

“You told me you were a speed reader,” she said. “Did you speed-read
Atlas Shrugged
?”

“That’s right,” I answered. “If I’d taken my time with
Atlas
, I’d have been on Social Security by the time I returned it here. That John Galt fellow can flat out talk up a storm. He’s worse than my buddy Sidebottom.”

She laughed and told me I was funny. Then she said, “I don’t like the idea of speed reading. When reading a good book I want to take my time and enjoy it. You know what my dad used to say to me?”

“What did he say?”

Glory giggled and stood from the table. Within a flash she whooshed her way into the chair next to mine. With a mischievous smile she leaned into me and whispered in my ear: “Like wine, cheese, and sex, you have to take your time with fine literature. Slow and easy, he’d say, and enjoy and savor every bit of it.”

I damn near popped a woody.
God help me
, I thought.
Oh, how I want to be with this woman. I will forsake all others right now just to be with her. I don’t care. I’ll give up everything.

She leaned back and playfully sighed. “Real soon you’ll be going by your first name. I think it’s disrespectful to address a man by his last name only. Just wait and see. One day, you’ll be glad you met me.”

I already am
, I thought, though I was afraid to say it. Being next to her made me forget about everything in the cold and cruel world that I desperately wanted away from. Glory Nolan was the total package. I just knew it without any doubt. She now owned my heart.

“You want to know something funny?” she said. “Your friend—Walter Sidebottom—had his library privileges suspended.”

“Why?” I asked.

Glory chuckled, then said, “Walter has a terrible habit of marking up library books with a pen. He makes note of comma splices, verb confusion, fragmented sentences, run-on sentences, idiomatic anachronisms, trite phrases, or anything else he can think of. He even makes editorial comments, like if he thinks a character shouldn’t have acted a certain way or have performed a certain act. He’s so cute. I really, really feel bad for him.”

“Well, Wally’s a literary snob if there ever was one,” I remarked. My voice had returned to full strength, but just barely. “How many books has he defaced?”

“About fifty,” she answered. “He can’t regain his check-out privileges until he has made restitution. Honestly, I think they’re being a little too hard on him. They want about two grand from him. Unfortunately, he mostly marked up hard covers. I’m working on getting the financial penalty reduced, if he promises to reform his behavior.”

Glory then stood and smiled. “It’s so good to see you again,” she said. “I think we’ll be really great friends. Maybe we could go to lunch sometime?” It was half question and half statement. In light of my current entanglements, I didn’t know how to answer.

Glory’s eyes were really something special to behold. I never wanted to see even the slightest trace of sadness in them. I never wanted to be the cause of any pain in her life. Not ever. So in that split second I decided she deserved a man better than me. Just like that, and all bets were off. So much for forsaking all others.

“Lunch sounds good,” I said. Though from there I regretfully had to hedge a bit: “But my life is so busy right now. Maybe I can come back and we can talk again. You know, about literature and stuff.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Glory asked. Her smile slowly faded. There was a look of anticipation on her face that said:
I hope you say no
.

I was deeply ashamed of myself, because all I could think about was having sex with Samantha. For now, I could be nothing more to Glory Nolan than a friend. After all, it was because of Samantha that I was being well fed and receiving proper sleep. She was the tonic I needed right now. If I started dating Glory I’d be doing something improper, something that wouldn’t be fair to Glory or to Samantha. I had cast my lot with the beautiful but damaged Dr. Fleming. Until that bond was broken, I couldn’t be with anyone else.

So I was obligated to say the absolute worst thing you can ever say to a beautiful and wonderful woman who wants to keep you company.

“Yes,” I finally answered, “I do have a girlfriend.” I didn’t add any qualifying statements to it. I just left it at that.

“No matter,” Glory said as her smile returned. “We can still be friends. You can come in here any time you want, and then I’ll take a thirty minute break to talk to you. Will you at least give me that? It would mean a lot to me, as selfish as it sounds.”

“Yes,” I said, “I would really like that.”

And then I changed my mind about avoiding Samantha tonight. After I left the library, I bee-lined it straight to her place.

12

“
O
UR SEXUAL BEING IS God's greatest gift to us.”

No, that wasn’t Sidebottom yapping. It was instead Samantha, dispensing her own brand of philosophical bullshit as we lay in bed following a three-hour lovemaking session that had been entirely confined to her bedroom. Tonight we had steered clear of previously covered territory, which had included the staircase, the billiards table, the back porch, the Jacuzzi, the pool, the surfaces of major kitchen appliances (both horizontal and vertical), all tabletops, the hoods of three cars in the garage, et cetera.

Samantha, however, would
never
have characterized it as “lovemaking.”

“What we’re doing is
fucking
,” she would say. “It is what it is. It’s a damned good time between two people who really enjoy having sex with one another.” However she viewed it, I did appreciate the softer, more loving and tender touch she was treating me to tonight. She normally preferred her sex rough, extremely rough, no matter what. I expressed my gratefulness for the change of pace, and asked if I could expect more of this in the future.

“I’m just giving your body a little break tonight,” she said. “It’s only because I’m tired, though. Baby, I’m telling you, I am getting so burned out with everything. It’s beginning to take a real toll on me.”

Oh brother. Here we go again.

Samantha’s nonstop burnout rants were ringing in my ear with one sour note in particular: her stated wish to find a wealthy man who would rescue her from her living hell. The past three years of raising Devin on her own, combined with working full time for longer than that, had her longing for the role of a rich housewife. On top of that she desired to travel the world, go to every continent, visit every civilized nation, climb every mountain, and sail every sea, adventures I couldn’t foresee myself being able to finance for quite some time.

If Samantha believed that openly plotting the seduction and conning of a rich old fart was engendering any of my loyalty, she was mistaken. I had just decided that this relationship—or whatever it was—wasn’t going to last very long with her talking like that. If it was just about money with her, then something was becoming painfully clear to me: I had become Samantha Fleming’s fuck buddy. I didn’t want that for myself. I really didn’t. Not for too long, anyway.

She thankfully changed the subject.

“Tell me about this woman you just broke up with,” Samantha said. “What was her big hang-up about sex? You’re great in the sack, baby. No, don’t laugh—you really are. When you first told me about her frigidity, I figured you were a minuteman or something. I thought maybe you were uncaring and clumsy in bed.”

I schooled her on Caitlin’s horse shit “quality over quantity” theory.

“Oh my! Such a
terrible
thing to say,” Samantha said. She rolled over on top of me and laughed hysterically. She then straddled me until I quickly regained an erection. Samantha kissed me passionately, darting her tongue deep into my mouth. This time the sex was a quickie, only lasting fifteen minutes. It was so fast and furious that after I came I thought she was going to fly off my lap and crash into the ceiling.

After Samantha climaxed she fell to my side. She caught her breath and declared: “No erection should ever go wasted. Your old girlfriend is full of shit, baby. Don’t ever let anyone say something idiotic like that to you. Not ever. You did right by dumping her.”

I didn’t need the validation, but I loved Samantha’s latest mantra:
No erection should ever go wasted
.

But Dr. Fleming wasn’t done philosophizing.

“Let me tell you something,” she said. “Sexual timidity is the hallmark of today’s modern American woman. American women are boring, and they only like dull and boring American men. In fact, they simply adore the
hamburger eating man
. The circumstances under which a hamburger eating man displays any kind of emotion are rather limited. When his team scores a touchdown it elicits orgasmic joy from him; when he rips a fart in the company of his hamburger eating buddies it is cause for celebratory high-fives; or better yet, when they all gather round and tap open a keg of Rocky Mountain piss water, they exult together as one to the gods up above to express their gratefulness.

“Get the hamburger eating man in bed, though, and all he cares about is shooting his load and rolling over to quickly fall asleep, just to wake up the next morning to go to his mind-numbingly boring eight-to-five job. When Saturday rolls around, forget about him doing any yard work. No sir, he hits the road and cruises about town on his Harley, only stopping long enough to scarf something down from Steak ‘n Shake or Burger King. And a romantic vacation to Paris or Rome? Forget it. He’d rather plan a getaway to Vegas for a weekend of golf and gambling with his hamburger eating cronies. Because that’s who he is, baby, a hamburger eating man!

“And you, Mr. Smith, you’re no shallow and boring hamburger eating man. That’s why your ex couldn’t handle you. You know what? It’s her loss. Good for you for getting away from her.” Samantha kissed me and smiled. “Now fuck me again, you handsome bastard. Give it
all
to me.”

…

Later:

“If I ever hear of you being with another woman, I swear to God I will cut your balls off.”

Now I was really confused. We were still in bed. In fact, almost all of our conversations took place from the horizontal position now. I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

“Okay, let me get this straight,” I said. “You’re being honest with me about your desire to find a rich man to take care of you. You say you are actively seeking such a companion. How can you do that and still stake your claim with me?”

“Baby, you don’t understand.” Her eyes suddenly became doughy and sympathetic. “I’m falling in love with you, you know that.” She was looking at me straight in the eyes. “Once I find this man, that doesn’t mean you and I can’t be together anymore.” She reached again for my crotch. “This cock is mine, and it always will be.”

I grabbed her by the wrist and sat up.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I said. “You’re going to marry some rich guy and expect—”

“
Old
rich guy,” she said. “So old he can’t even get it up, not even with the aid of modern medicine.”