The American Princess - Best Love Story Ever (23 page)

In the morning, if she awoke before Brad,
she'd watch him sleep, and the rhymes would come:

He's cuddly as a kitten

A sexy koala bear

Tastier than chocolate

In his underwear.

I've lost it, she thought.

He's sweeter much than honey

Cheerful as a clown

Goofy as a gopher

When he lays me down.

Stupid! I know nothing about gophers—no idea
if they're goofy or not.

I really cannot stand it

He's an aphrodisiac

He's doing it on purpose

And I want my money back.

"From now on I'm going to let you wake up
first. And besides, what are my chances of getting my money back,
now that I've almost worn you out?" She pounced on her sleeping
lover and bit him. "Why do I have this urge to bite you?" she asked
a disoriented Brad, as she ruffled his early morning feathers.

Before the day was even christened, she found
herself missing him terribly. Then, all day long, she would ask
herself, "Tawny Cat, what's your bear's name?" And she would
answer, "I Love Only You Brad." For variety, she would ask herself
the name of Brad's beauty spot, but that only made things worse

Everything he did: the way he drank a beer,
leaned back on a chair, or tied his Adidas, seemed erotic to her.
No sooner would they stop making love, than she would find herself
wanting him again. Often, she would dance herself around campus,
pretending she was dancing with him. But you can only dance with
yourself for so long before people begin to talk, especially if
you're chatting to yourself while you dance.

"How have I allowed myself to become so
dependent on you, Bad Brad?" she wanted to know. The answer eluded
her. "Maybe if I hadn't allowed you to name your cupcakes Fun and
More Fun. Stupid names for breasts anyway. Besides, I can never
remember which is which." She smiled while she twirled. "Although
it is nice that he knows which is which. But then he should, 'cause
he's the goof who named them."

Part of her problem, she knew, was all the
hugging. She loved to hug and be hugged. Brad's hugs were the long
and enchanting kind. Often, what started out innocently enough as a
hug, ended up with Brad inside her, but that was tricky while
standing, because of their height differential. So Brad, after
considering the problem, had her stand on The Random House
Encyclopedia. The encyclopedia assisted inner hugs, or 'hug-ins',
as they called them, were marvelous. With Brad inside her, and
fitting her perfectly, they could inner hug forever. And, as an
added bonus, she controlled the hug-in action—it was initiated when
she stood on her toes, and then eased down onto him.

Betty-Jo soon came up with a plan to get even
more inner hugs. When Brad was at one of his hockey practices, she
went to the lumber yard, and had them cut her enough plywood and
boards to make five hug-in boxes: three feet long, one foot wide,
and four inches deep. She drilled the necessary holes, screwed the
boxes together, covered them with black satin, and then put one in
each room. When she heard Brad's key in the lock, she stood on the
box in the living room. As an added incentive to encourage him to
do what she wanted, she wore only a smile and her black choker.

* * *

When Brad returned home, he found his Tawny
Cat standing, au naturel, on the living room, hug-in box. When he
couldn't see any pictures that needed hanging, he knew what he was
expected to do.

"How many of these satin boxes do we own?" he
asked.

"Five. One for each room."

"But what if I want to inner hug with you in
the closet?"

She smiled. "Take a look," she said.

He picked her up, and carried her to the
closet. On the floor was 'The Random House Encyclopedia'. He eased
her onto it and hugged her.

"Promise you'll never show anyone but me how
proficient you've become at inner hugging," he said.

She laughed at him. "I promise," she
said.

* * *

Brad wanted at least four hugs a day. Much of
the time he initiated the hugging, but Betty-Jo was responsible for
meeting the hugging quota. Failure to satisfy the minimum
requirement meant that she could find herself playfully positioned
over his knee.

The way he watched her go about her daily
routine gave her a warm womanly feeling. He makes me feel so very
hot.

"I could spend hours watching you move," he
told her.

"And I love it when you watch me," she
replied, a little embarrassed.

Brad purchased lights, a tripod, and a Canon
A-2. With a picture speed of five frames per second, the A-2 was
similar to cameras used by professional model-photographers.

"Your eyes tell me you're mine—that you
belong to me," he said. "They undo me even as they're promising me
heaven on earth."

"That's useful information."

"I want to capture them on film when they
have that special look." And he did. He blew up his favorite
picture of her to two feet by three feet. Then he framed it.
"Tawny, you could be a super model if voluptuous women are ever
back in vogue."

She grinned at him. "Meaning I'm fat, but
because you love me, you'll do me anyway."

"Getting you done is loads of fun. I wouldn't
trade you for two Twiggies."

"Not even if the Twiggies were
oversexed?"

"Hell no. One of you is better entertainment
than any double feature. You've given me beauty and laughter, and
best of all, you've given me love."

On February the 17th, Betty-Jo took off her
clothes, wrapped herself up, and gave herself to her Aquarius
birthday boy. She was certain that finding her naked under the
wrapping paper would be present enough for him. But she had another
surprise for him: a red, heart-shaped tattoo enclosed his beauty
mark, and etched in the crescent-shaped upper portion of the heart,
were his initials.

"Now you know for sure who this tawny cat
belongs to," she said, before she pulled his head closer to give
him a better look....

Brad was the unprophesied adventure in
Betty-Jo's life—a life that no longer seemed real. Impossibly in
love, she could tussle tigers without crying, or grapple lions
without dying. But there was a problem. Not that the Tooth Fairy
was Brad's fault, but then again, maybe she was.

After she had moved in with Brad, she had
given out his number so she could be reached. One afternoon, when
she arrived home before he did, the red light on the answering
machine was blinking. She was expecting a call from Coach Bender,
so she ran the message playback.

"Hi, terrible Grasshopper," the answering
machine said, "it's your favorite tooth fairy. How's the bite mark?
Why don't you give me a call? Miss you—Bye." That message ruined
her evening. She knew that Brad loved her, and that he was devoted
to her, but she also knew that with tooth fairies you could never
be too careful. There was, after all, that bite mark on his
arm.

She found she was unable to tell him that she
knew about the tooth fairy.

Am I jealous? Am I suffering? she asked
herself. Darn rights I am!

Betty-Jo's dream of standing triumphantly in
the middle of Stadium Court, at the U.S. Open, was slipping into
the quagmire. Chrissy Evert had won her first U.S. Open when she
was twenty, so Betty-Jo still held onto the slim hope of being able
match her heroine in that respect, but it was discouraging, when to
date, all she had in common with Chrissy was hair color.

Where's Chrissy's grit? Where's her
consistency? Where's her burning desire to win? I'm making the
wrong moves to advance my career. I should be playing on the pro
Tour, but if I go on the Tour I'll have to go without Brad—and I
won't do that.

In women's tennis, teenyboppers burst onto
the scene to contend for grand slam titles; Tracy Austin and
Jennifer Capriatti had arrived in their early teens, and now, at
fourteen, the Swiss Miss was playing at Wimbledon. Betty-Jo was six
years older than Martina Hingis, and that infuriated her.

True, the crowds at my matches are getting
larger, but how heartening is that when my game is so ragged? Then
she came to her senses. Foolish girl, she admonished herself,
forget your game. Brad's love is miracle enough in your life.

* * *

Brad encouraged Betty-Jo to work hard to
improve her game. "It's easier for me to be a hockey star than it
is for you to be a tennis great," he told her. "For starters,
relatively few people in this world play hockey."

"That's difficult to believe when getting
whacked with a stick looks like such fun," was her retort.

"Then, if you're talented enough to play
professionally, there are twenty-six NHL teams with twenty-seven
players on each team. That's seven hundred players in the league.
Those guys are paid hundreds of thou a year minimum, a couple of
million bucks on average."

Betty-Jo smiled, kissed him, and snuggled up
to him. "I knew I had a good reason for wanting to be your only
groupie."

"In professional tennis, women from all over
the world scratch and claw to make it to the final sixteen so they
can earn a few dollars. The top WTA Tour money winner only makes a
couple of mill a year, and fewer than forty players make over two
hundred grand."

"They'd make more if they did the hockey
thing, and hit each other with their racquets."

He ignored her. "I'd guess that for you to
make the same bucks playing tennis that I might make playing
hockey, you'd have to be three times better at your sport than I am
at mine. You'd really have to want it."

"What I really want is you." Her hand went on
a scavenger hunt for his joystick.

"I give up. Perhaps making love with me is
also a worthy life's ambition for you."

* * *

Although Betty-Jo didn't realize it, her game
was improving, thanks to Brad. Fun conditioning came from playing
Saturday morning ball-hockey with the guys, on the tennis courts
off Chanticleer Drive East. She had always roller skated, and two
years earlier she'd started to blade—so she was good, albeit, not
as skillful or rough as the jocks on Brad's hockey team. The guys
had been happy to let her join their game; they loved to watch her
move, especially when she showed up one day wearing her figure
enhancing halter-top. They promptly forgot about the florescent,
orange ball they were supposed to be chasing.

"Who's Pamela Anderson-Lee?" one jock wanted
to know.

"Wear elbow pads, knee pads, a helmet, and
hockey gloves," Brad told her.

At first she refused, because the guys didn't
wear them. Brad didn't argue with her, but he also didn't let her
play. So she wore the protective gear, and it was fortunate that
she did, because the guys only treated her differently for the
first fifteen minutes of the game. Then their competitive instincts
surfaced, and she became one of them—the one on her bum. But she
could take it. Brad often told her how impressed he was with the
way she handled herself. At least that's what he told her, until
she took him out with the hip check he'd taught her.

She was revved. "Sting like those killer bees
you were going to feed me to," she said, apparently unconcerned
that she'd flattened her favorite and only lover.

Brad struggled to his feet. "What happened to
my chickadee? I'm ashamed of myself for turning you into a vicious
scorpion."

She laughed at him. "A mega-vicious, killer
scorpion. Unlike you guys, women have hips, and we know how to
swing them."

"The only good to come from this, is that
I'll never again fear a hip check from a mere mortal."

Brad also encouraged her to do serious
strengthening and flexibility exercises, which she did wearing only
her black velvet choker. In his favorite exercise, the hanging
jackknife, she hung upside down from a bar that was attached to the
ceiling—then she did sit-ups with her hands clasped behind her
head. Before long, when she tensed her stomach muscles, she could
take a solid punch.

"I'm not your average powder-puff anymore,"
she told him. But she questioned his motivation for having her do
the hanging jackknife. He enjoyed watching her do it too much. "Why
is it that every time I show you my impression of a hanging
jackknife on a bar, I then have to show you my impression of a
spread-eagle on satin sheets?"

He just laughed. "Who'd have guessed that
jackknives and eagles have so much in common?"

And he had her do weight repetitions for the
muscles in her upper and lower legs.

"Tawny Cat, you have to carry Fun and More
Fun all over the court, so we have to power up your leggy
grandeur."

He also insisted that she do his hockey
exercises with him, on the golf course, behind their cottage.

"I need company," he said. So she did his
Fartlek conditioning with him until her legs ached, and even her
choker was exhausted. What she didn't initially appreciate was how
much Fartlek was boosting her endurance, and her ability to quickly
change direction on the court.

Fartlek included jogging for four minutes,
alternately sprinting and jogging for another four minutes, running
at a brisk pace for seven or eight minutes, and running backward
and forward for a minute at maximum speed. Then she would hop on
one foot, and then on the other. She knew that Brad loved to watch
her hop, and on occasion, she would tease him by hopping without a
bra. Finally, she would complete her program with an easy
two-minute jog, followed by a thirty-second wind sprint.

One evening, halfway through the program, she
decided that she'd had enough. But she knew that Brad wouldn't be
amused.