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This appears in a pre-2010 issue
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That Silly Place
Ruth Innes
George was her first college boyfriend.
When they met during freshmen orientation Karen felt an instant, overwhelming physical attraction toward him.
Their first date turned into a wrestling match.
“I loved you as soon as I saw you,” he insisted.
“I want all of you.”
He was determined to make her his own, which meant having sex with her.
Karen fended him off as she was still fairly innocent—a virgin—and girls in the 1950’s were constantly reminded to save themselves for marriage because “nice boys wouldn’t want damaged goods.”
But the physical attraction was strong and Karen grew weaker as George grew more insistent.
Each date brought them closer to GOING ALL THE WAY.
It almost happened one beautiful fall afternoon when they went for a walk on the hillside to “admire nature” and, when they stopped to rest in a grove of maple trees, he admired her naked body instead.
The thick blanket of leaves on the ground would make a good bed, George declared.
Karen, with only token resistance, allowed him to remove her clothes.
When he took his pants off she stared frankly at him as she had never seen a naked man in living color before.
The crackling of dry leaves made a strange accompaniment to their grappling.
They did not quite have intercourse as Karen managed, against her ow n desire, to stop him.
George ejaculated on her leg and Karen was amazed at the amount of sperm which spouted out.
She could feel dead leaves stuck to her skin and semen dripping down her leg all the way back to campus.
“I’ll love you forever,” he told her. “Soon I’ll make you mine“all mine.”
But Karen had different ideas.
She knew if she kept on dating him they would eventually GO ALL THE WAY and she hated the idea of ending up pregnant and having to get married, which was almost the only option open to girls then.
The pill had not been perfected and the social stigma of having an illegitimate child was very real.
Abortion was only hinted at.
No, it was just too dangerous.
When she told George they would have to break up he actually cried.
“I moved too fast for you,” he said.
“I should have waited.
But I wanted to have you before anyone else.
I wanted to be your first and only lover.”
Although the freshman prom was months away, George made Karen promise that she would go to that prom with him–no matter what.
“Maybe by then you’ll realize you love me,” George said.
He cried again when he kissed her goodbye and she always remembered the slump of his shoulders and his downcast head as he walked away from her.
Karen cried, too, after George was out of sight.
There was a quivering sadness inside her, but she knew she had done the right thing.
A month before the freshman prom George called Karen and asked her to meet him.
“I can’t take you to the prom,” he said.
There were tears in his eyes.
“Helen and I are going to be married next week.”
“What?”
This from the man who was going to love her forever!
“She’s pregnant.”
George looked sheepish—and anguished.
“Honest to God, I can’t even remember making love to her.
I got drunk one night and stayed with her.
She says we did it and now I have to marry her.”
George shook with sobs as he hugged Karen.
“You’re the one I love,” he said.
George married Helen and, although Karen saw him around campus a few times after that, they never spoke except for a casual hello.
George accelerated his studies, graduated and left town with his family a year before Karen finished school.
And then—the letter.
Last year Karen had finally joined the alumni association of their college and the newsletter had published her address.
George said in his letter that he had tried to find her for years but his letters were always returned to him.
His words were charming–full of bullshit, Karen had to remind herself–but charming.
She was enormously pleased that he had written.
He said he and Helen were divorced and he had married again.
He said he knew that someday he would find her because she was his only true love. p;
Karen felt a curious stirring in her breast and she had the silly notion that her heart was singing.
She wrote a polite note to George saying it was a nice surprise to hear from him.
She told him a bit about her travels and troubles, her divorce, her children and how she was finally living alone and loving it.
She wished him the best of everything.
Perhaps that will be the end of it, she thought.
But inside, in that silly place in her chest that quivered and sang, she knew she was starting something instead of ending it.
When the phone rang Sunday morning, Karen was not surprised to hear his voice.
“Is it you?”
“Yes,” she answered, out of breath for no reason at all.
“This is George.”
“I know.”
“When can we see each other?”
“George, you’re married.”
“There’s nothing wrong in two old friends getting together to talk over old times.”
He was right, Karen assured herself.
She was anxious to see him, too, and agreed that he should come for an overnight visit the next week.
At the airport Karen worried.
Of course he’s changed.
I’ve certainly changed.
How will I know him?
As she sucked on a breath mint and dried her hands again on a tissue, she was afraid that, even if she did recognize him, she might not want to acknowledge him.
What if he had become grotesquely fat?
Her mind raced with all the terrible possibilities and then turned to her own shortcomings.
She still looked good people told her, but she certainly showed her age with gray hair and wrinkles and she longed, if not to be at least to look young and slim again.
This whole thing is a dreadful mistake, she told herself, I should leave immediately.
She wanted to run away but curiosity kept her from rising from her seat as passengers began streaming into the lounge from the plane.
Karen scrutinized each man and began to hope, but fear at the same time, that George wasn’t coming at all.
That place in her chest quivered again.
Then she saw him and there was no doubt.
He had hardly changed at all and she would have recognized him anywhere.
His eyes met hers instantly.
“Hi,” he said, and before she could speak he put his arms around her and kissed her.
Karen took him to one of her favorite restaurants for dinner.
The applejack chicken, a specialty she always enjoyed, was tasteless that night and she hardly touched it.
At her recommendation, George ordered the same thing and said it was excellent, but ate very little.
They drank white wine, exchanged confidences about their lives, and did a lot of gazing into each other’s eyes as they sat side-by-side on the banquette.
George touched her hand frequently as he kept exclaiming about how wonderful she looked and how her eyes were still as deep and blue as they had been in college.
He seemed not to notice her gray hair and extra pounds.
After dinner she drove him home and showed him the bedroom she had made up for him
the opposite end of the house from hers.
He left his bag in that bedroom and after she showed him the rest of the house they talked some more.
George told her a little about his present wife, who was much younger than he.
“It can be taxing at times.” he said, “She likes a more active social life than I do these days.”
“Is she your trophy wife?” Karen asked.
George smiled.
“Perhaps.
After Helen divorced me, I was lonely.
It was flattering that a younger woman found me attractive.”
“Do you get along well?”
“Mostly.
Sometimes it’s annoying, though, having to explain things to her that I expect her to already know.”
By midnight Karen was tired and ready for bed.
She said goodnight, kissed him, and went to take her shower.
She really was not sure what she expected–or hoped.
When she came into her bedroom, wrapped in a towel, George was in her bed.
“You didn’t really expect me to sleep in the other room, did you?” he asked.
She didn’t answer–just dropped the towel and got in bed with him.
George’s lovemaking was tame.
His penis was very small.
As soon as he entered her he asked, “Am I hurting you?”
She couldn’t feel a thing.
Then he asked, “Am I big enough for you?”
Karen murmured, as though contented.
In her mind she had always assumed that George would be a fabulous lover.
She couldn’t help feeling a sharp disappointment at the reality.
“I prefer the missionary position,” George told her as he heaved and grunted on top of her.
Karen comforted him by saying that she did, too.
During the night his snoring kept her awake.
In the morning George rolled over, and repeated the performance of the night before.
After breakfast she drove him to the airport.
He looked soulfully into her eyes and promised to love her forever.
While driving home Karen thought about the night before and she felt that silly place in her breast begin to shake in a new way.
“No wonder he tried so hard to be my first and only lover,” she murmured to herself, and she laughed uproariously all the way home.
