BF4Ever Page 7

  Kitty was proud of her handsome husband because in such a short time he had become very successful. It was a huge accomplishment and not just the usual success story of immigrant making good in America, though Kitty thought it incongruous that such a good looking blond-blue-eyed, tall, thin Italian should be involved in such a sticky, gooey business like collecting restaurant grease, wealth generating as it was. She would have preferred if Claudio had been a hedge fund manager, or perhaps in real estate, from maybe Oregon, or Massachusetts, but Claudio was as always well focused on a reality that produced results. The opportunity, greasy as it might have been, was all over Southern California and the ambition in Claudio cashed in on the American dream.

  Easy enough, Claudio’s street-wise innate marketing genius was soon evidenced in the Brentwood Village sixteen thousand square feet mansion that he and Kitty lived in, and in the numerous trips they took abroad, now rarely together. Their trips were anxiously looked forward to and were full of sweet intrigues and discoveries away from each other. As Claudio would laughingly boast about their separate trips, “I can’t keep up with her anymore. She likes sightseeing everything, while I just like sitting around bars and cafes enjoying another beer with my Southern Comfort.”

  Such commentary usually embarrassed Kitty not because of their revelations but because country bumpkin immigrant Claudio thought he was being witty. Besides, how do you say “Southern Comfort” with a Sicilian accent?

  “Not to worry, Kitty, nobody is really listening to Claudio,” Sharon had once wickedly volunteered for the whole gang. Sharon was always afraid to look Claudio straight in the eye so she made silly remarks about him pretending she didn’t care.

  “He’s so pretty,” she would say, and all the friends would laugh with her sarcasm.

  “He looks so much like a blond Marcelo Mastroianni,” said Myrna.

  “It’s a lovely name Claudio, but Claudia is so much prettier, like Claudia Cardinale,” sipped Robin past her martini. “It’s not Cardinale, it’s Martinelli … shit, who cares?”

  “Isn’t there some character name Claudio in some famous play,” asked Myrna?

  “Life is one surprise after another, a sunny country road full of new discoveries,” Kitty would counter her husband’s embarrassing accent with her own stories of “luxurious hotels” and “ill- mannered Negroes” all over the Caribbean who always looked like Harry Belafonte with strange fetishes. Her friends always blushed every time Kitty, speaking graphically under the influence, revealed each treasured insight; and they would all laugh, together, also under the influence. Mischievously she would then recount stories of her naughty Claudio’s rogue confessions of his adventures while traveling abroad solo.

  “He always travels to Cuba for the ‘big-assed broads’ and to the Philippines for ‘the tight twats’,” she would laugh quoting her husband.

  There would be a brief hesitation between the things she would say about her Claudio, and then she would ask of no one in particular, “Can you understand that?”

  “She’s such a tight ass,” in the meantime, full of pride, Claudio would boast about his oversexed wife to all the friends in humorous indulgence.

  “You mean anal, dear,” Kitty would smile at her loving husband.

  “That’s right, Kitty, just like you and your son,” Claudio would laugh pretending innocence of language. His DNA was of ancient grandeur, and glorious blood flowed through his Sicilian veins, he conveniently believed, forgetting the possible Ghermania connection. The ancient Greco-Roman link was the only thing that he never forgot. He was of splendid stock in spite of his blond hair and blue eyes and after his greasy success story the only sensation he felt when in the presence of his newly found friends was the ever-present desire to fuck Sharon.

  Kitty’s son, Albert, now in his early twenties, from a previous marriage to a college romance first lover, Milton, then a bipolar social worker, now recovering from barbiturate overuse somewhere in Oregon, had dropped out of college during his freshman year, about the same time his father dropped out of everything, and for several years had been working calving cows in a breeding farm in southern Nebraska.

  “He’s delivered thousands of calves by now,” Kitty would applaud her son’s audacious triumphs in a blush of self-deprecation.

  Sicilian Claudio didn’t give a shit about Albert but at the behest of his beloved Kitty he would splendidly provide monthly support “for the bastard” as he unkindly referred to Albert.

  “Hell, we’re probably eating one of his babies right now,” Claudio had once insensitively shouted at a bar-b-cue affair and Kitty never again fed another straight line about son Albert and his line of work in front of her fucking dago gigolo husband.

  “He had all the makings of a gynaecologist,” Myrna had pretended sympathy and had picked up on Claudio’s medleys of stepson Albert.

  “Long, skinny arms perfectly suited for insertion up a cow’s…”

  “Shut up and go to hell, Robin,” Kitty would feign anger at Robin.

  “I feel sorry for the cows,” said Sharon her sarcasm keen.

  “No need to, Sharon, his arms are long with girth,” Claudio hugged Sharon who sensed revulsion at the uninvited incursion.

  “That’s what Sharon meant, Claudio,” said Phil.

  What a jerk, thought Sharon.

  Chapter Five

  No wars occurred in California during the best friends four years in high school. Sharon, Robin, Myrna, and Kitty, the best friends forever, felt good about their lives though at times, like for all people, emotional disappointments would invade their days, often unjustly they would think. But because they had each other for support, gracefully they suffered the unfairness of social setbacks including the constant interference of familial crises that were always an embarrassment. Most importantly, there were the banalities and scandals of high school social gossip to be carefully avoided. Thanks to their determined love and friendship for each other, the best of friends had become impervious to even unfair prejudices from obvious rivals who ultimately registered as jealous annoyances. Their four souls had combined into one firm firewall and aside from the usual teenage angst of crossing into womanhood, the four friends’ friendship had matured as solidly and as satisfying as had their still girlish beauty.

  Sharon felt the high school anxiety more than the others, unable to rid her mind of her parents’ loveless union, but she hid her wounds in the love she found in her girl friends’ arms. She knew she would never overcome her parents’ stupidity for being what they were, and she wished they weren’t so; and she thought that in time she might perhaps be able to forgive them and get over her secret despair. But that was far removed from the horror of being viewed as a geek in high school. All her effort was focused on being ‘normal’, just like everybody else.

  The other three also felt their parents’ meddling into their affairs, but noted it as normal. Myrna felt a bit slighted by her father during these years but then he had always slighted her, his son being a lopsided favorite. Robin adored her father because she thought she had to; after all, he did own a bank. Kitty’s main concern, all her life, was that the boys wouldn’t like her because she might be too short. She had a smile on her face all her life, and a tremendous need to be loved, something that had not been forthcoming from her parents’ maternal and paternal instincts, which was ok with Kitty.

  Their friendship during high school reassured them that they weren’t alone, that they had each other to confide in and share their anxieties, particularly when periodically hormonal disturbances of sexual tensions surfaced. But even for best friends, the sexual stuff had their own perverse discomfort, and often each of the girls went her private ways. Rarely did they raise arguments of intellectual content during their periods because they couldn’t count the irritability of their mood swings; nobody wanted to pick a fight out of nowhere. But even innocent thoughts and talk about boys came u
nder the heading of sexual activity, and no matter how close the friends had become, personal, opposite sex feelings were out-of-bounds, non-committal, neurotic secrets that simply could not be shared without the possibility of argument, which nobody wanted. Though they tried to be open and honest with each other, their secret desires sometimes clashed with their public displays, particularly about a boy that they all might have liked beyond the feelings of “he’s cute.”

  “I think Darryl is cute.”

  “I guess you’d fuck anyone wouldn’t you, Kitty.”

  “That is not fair; not just anyone!”

  “What about Hank Merker?”

  “Hands off Hank, Myrna. He’s Sharon’s boy.”

  “You can have him anytime you want, Myrna,” and Sharon wished it, and meant it, and hoped it, but nobody would believe her.

  “Do you think they go all the way,” Robin would inquire Kitty, over the phone, about Sharon and Hank.

  “Isn’t obvious? I can even tell you every time they do it.”

  It was a game they played because they knew it all, though they pretended ignorance.

  “She’s such a tight ass,” Kitty would say, and they would laugh.

  “Sharon, what’d you think of anal sex?” Kitty one time teased.

  “I don’t know, Kitty. Do you like it,” Sharon would hit back.

  “I don’t, but Robin does.”

  “No I don’t.”

  “So you’ve tried it. Who was the lucky guy, Robin? Does Daddy know?”

  “It’s probably with one of her daddy’s vice presidents,” and they would all laugh.

  “I think she likes Mark more than Hank,” over the phone hopeful Myrna would say to Robin who also couldn’t understand what Hank saw in tight ass Sharon.

  “Well, she is very pretty,” Kitty would always remind the friends and do away with the jealous shroud that might hide conflict.

  “Yes you do, you like him and it shows.”

  Hank would be the touchy quadrangle topic of sexually annoying arguments between the high school friends that was to be avoided at all costs. Invariably, references to Hank made for unpleasant fears that might lead to revelations and confessions of complex, or even psychotic entanglements.

  It was during their high school years that the best friends’ natural urge for sex that the friends lost their holy virginity. As in times immemorial, it had to happen sometime, and in Twenty First Century America, Sharon, Kitty, and Myrna, but not Robin, were deflowered in the course of intense libidinous sensations that were part and parcel of Friday night high school dances. So powerful were Robin’s feelings for Hank, that she preferred to stay away from the Friday night dances, rather than find herself in Hank’s arms. For the rest of the friends, the desire for sex, hygienic among neighbourhood boys and girls who knew each other to the point of almost incest, did naturally rush the senses to find release among friends, who find love in each of his or her own conventional private fucking world, with the tacit understanding that all had to remain secret. Sometimes these secret affairs were nothing to brag about and they quickly dissipated after the first time; others were such a conquest that they had to be shared especially among boys. But unlike boys, bragging is rare among girls who rarely want to blatantly admit about these things. And sometimes, for those that do not brag, the love and sex they find in high school turns to lifelong sweetheart marriages.

  None of the secrets between the girls were so offensive as to be anywhere near destructive to their friendship. Such was their beauty that it multiplied when they were together and the attention they got, for being best friends forever, was almost as satisfying as their private fucking exploits. And when at last the senior prom came, there were very few secrets left between them, and they were ready for America’s ultimate spring festival.

  *

  “Who you going to the prom with, Ord,” yelled across the gym locker room Josh Keller the non-stoppable grinding muscular ape fullback on the Magnolia High Varsity Football Team. Jimmy Ord, the 300 lbs middle line backer didn’t bother to respond knowing that Keller was an asshole trying to josh him.

  “He’s taking Connie Joye,” said Mark Freeman, Hank Merker’s trusted wide receiver. Mark was a good man, liked by all, both on and off the field. Most observers held that Mark had a good chance to make it into the NFL because rarely did he drop a football.

  “She’s a good kid, Jimmy,” continued Mark to his affable teammate Jimmy Ord.

  But everybody knew that Joye and Ord were a gross mismatch, she being only a ninety pound, five foot two “short stuff”, which was what every one called her.

  “Everybody is going to the Prom this year,” said Josh. “It’s going to be a blast this year. Who you taking, Mark?”

  “I don’t think I’m gonna go; no girl wants to go with me,” said Mark with a grin on his handsome face.

  “He’s taking Sharon Langdon,” somebody yelled from the other side of the lockers.

  “You’re crazy, if you think that. Everybody knows that big Hank has his hands all over Sharon,” came the reply from the same side.

  It was true, the whole school knew that Hank and Sharon were a serious couple and that it was a foregone conclusion they would be dancing together at the prom. And no one had to say it, but they all knew that big Hank would score that night, and that greased the way for all of them to do it too. The orgiastic festival would smell of wine and green grass as soon as the temple dance was over. All the pent-up excitement and familiarity of four years of high school would explode into lustful naughtiness on prom night.

  *

  “I guess we all know who’s taking Sharon to the prom,” said Kitty as the best friends were walking to school one bright morning. In the distance they could see the junior varsity team in spring training. Like the seasons, they just kept coming.

  It was hard to believe that four years had gone by so fast. It seemed like yesterday, when they were giggly little girls on their way to becoming big girls. And for sure just before their senior prom, just before their high school graduation, they were mature, serious girls.

  “Who you going with Robin?” said Kitty.

  “I don’t know,” said Robin. “Mark Freeman asked me but his heart didn’t seem to be in it. So I don’t know.”

  “He’d be a good fuck, don’t you think so Robin? He’s a momma’s boy, good looking, and you seem to like those types,” said Kitty.

  “Kitty, is that all you can think about? If you think he’d be a good fuck you fuck him,” said Robin.

  “What did you tell him, Robin?” asked Sharon, thinking that it would be great to double with Robin and Mark. She had been nervous, full of apprehension, she didn’t want to be alone with Hank on prom night.

  “I told him I’d think about it,” said Robin.

  “Please, please, please, say yes,” begged Sharon trying to be pleasant without showing uneasiness. She wanted to double, which normally wouldn’t have been unusual, but a bit strange for a prom night.

  “Relax, Sharon; it’s not like any of us is still a virgin,” said a confident Kitty.

  “I know you’re not,” said Robin.

  “I know you’re not,” said Kitty.

  “Kitty’s right,” said Myrna, “this prom shit is overrated. Maybe a hundred years ago our grandmothers would have been full of trepidation at the prospect of maybe being deflowered on a park bench but we all know what it’s all about and if you want to know my opinion it’s no big deal. It’s all a slip-slop …”

  “Myrna, are you still going steady with Ronnie?” asked Robin wanting to move on, away from sudden unpleasant discharges.

  In the old days princesses pretended to be deflowered when the occasion called for, especially when they had already been deflowered.

  “Yes, and he’s asked me to the prom and I’ve already accepted. I know he’s not a super foo
tball jock like you guys like, but I think he’s very handsome, and he’s very sweet. Did I tell you guys he’s been accepted to Johns Hopkins? He’s going into pre-med, he says.”

  “Well look at you,” said Kitty. “Girls, our Myrna is going to marry a doctor.”

  “Probably a proctologist,” said Robin, and they all laughed.

  “Fuck you, Robin,” said Myrna feeling good.

  “Who you going with Kitty?” asked Sharon.

  “Well, I was gonna keep it a surprise, but Josh Keller asked me and I said yes,” said Kitty. “He was so sweet and so nervous when he asked me.”

  “Kitty, he’s gonna rip you apart. The guy has a reputation for being an animal,” said Sharon, good-humouredly.