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Bloody Marys

(Adapted from the novel San Onofre)

"Well, here you are," she said, opening the front door of her apartment and rousing him from his daydream. She placed her small hand inside his large one and led him into the front room. "I've fixed us some drinks." She handed him a tall glass filled with a red liquid. "Here. Drink it."

"What?" he said, intimidated.

"Drink it."

He hesitated. "I, I, I mean what is it?"

"I, I, I," she repeated mimicking him, "What do you need to know for? I said, ‘drink it.’" She thrust the glass at him a second time. "Do you think I'm trying to poison you?"

He shook his head.

"Drink it."

For some reason, he found it difficult to look at her. The plunging neckline of her housecoat revealed her nipples jutting out at him like two large eyes. He wanted very much to have sex with her—now—without any preliminaries.

The tall glass of red liquid in her hand looked like tomato juice. He took a sip and choked. "That's not tomato juice."

"You are such a baby. Now take another sip, a bigger one this time."

He reached for the glass, but she would not let go of it, forcing him to stand on tip toe while he drank. He took a quick sip, trying to pull away from her hand, but she kept the glass tilted until he’d drunk almost half of it. She released it only when he began to make choking sounds.

"You are a virgin. Don't you ever drink alcohol?"

"I drink beer," he said. A hurt, almost puzzled expression crossed his face.

"I bet you do, as much as a bottle at a time. Here, eat this stalk of celery, maybe it will help dilute the alcohol.

"Or stir your drink with it, I don't care." She poured herself a second glass from the pitcher and took a sip from it, watching until he’d finished the glass she’d given him.

"Well?"

He felt very warm and slightly dizzy from the unfamiliar alcohol. "I, uh, thought we might go for a bike ride this evening, to get some exercise."

"A bike ride?" she echoed, a teasing lilt in her voice.

"To get some exercise."

"I'll give you all the exercise you need." She put her arm under his arm and grasped his fingers in hers, locking his arm against her as she did so. They walked into her bedroom.

After they’d had sex—she'd made him come twice before conceding her own satisfaction—she sat propped up on the pillows smoking a cigarette, while he lay flat on the bed beside her. "You're really going to have to get a room," she said.

He sat up startled.

"And you're going to have to start taking showers. You smell awful."

"But I just got home. I didn't have time to. You wouldn't let me. What do you mean, I'll have to get a room?"

"Well you can't stay here all the time." She blew a lazy puff of smoke toward the ceiling. "I may have to have someone come and stay with me. Besides, I need my privacy."

"Who?"

"Who what?"

Angrily he grasped her shoulders, "Who is coming to stay with you?"

She pushed his arms away irritably. "Well, my daughter for one, and her husband, and their triplets. I am a grandmother, you know."

"No I didn't know. When are they coming?"

"Who?"

"Your daughter, her husband." He couldn't bring himself to mention the triplets, to think of her as a grandmother.

"Not for awhile, but you've got to get yourself moved out of here. It's just too messy."

"But," he said, "Does this mean? Will we?"

"Of course, we will. I just don't want the mess. Look, I'm going to give you a drawer. The things you absolutely need, fresh underwear and a clean shirt for when you do stay overnight, you put in the drawer. Everything else, well it just has to go. I've already started a pile for you."

"Where will I go?"

"You'll get a room."

"There are no rooms."

"Oh, don't be ridiculous. There are plenty of rooms."

"There are no rooms around here, I've looked. And the motels are worse."

"Yes," she said, remembering the one night they had spent together in a local motel. She’d insisted he come to her house after that. "Well you'll just have to keep looking."

He made a gasping sound.

"Oh for God's sake. I'll make the call for you." She stubbed out her cigarette, threw back the covers, revealing her long shapely legs, and stalked into the living room. He came after her, slipping on his pants as he went.

"Mildred? Yes I am fine. Do you have room for another young man? I recommend him. Highly. Well, he was a student. At Berkeley. I'm sure he'll fit in with those other brains of yours.

"Well," she said, as she hung up the receiver, "I've found you a room. Aren't you proud of me?"

"Where is it?"

"Next to the University."

"The University! That's twenty miles from here."

She looked at him closely as if seeing him for the very first time. It seemed plain to him that she did not like what she saw. "Well, that's a lot closer than going in all the way to Los Angeles to be with your girlfriend."

"My girlfriend," he echoed, gradually turning beet red. How did she know about Lenore?

"Your girlfriend. When a man hasn't had a woman in a while, he's not able to control himself, and when he finally gets the opportunity, the little dear, he comes all in a burst. You go away for a night, you come back a better lover than ever. Ergo, you have a woman and you've slept with her."

"Do you want me to go?" he said quietly, very quietly, as if afraid she would hear and order him to go.

"Not yet," she said and poured the remains of the pitcher of Bloody Marys into her glass, "I think we may as well have some more bicycle riding as you call it."

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