Shelley

In the Winter of 1966, I returned to New York from a lonely four-month stay in Europe, carrying my one and only suitcase, wearing my black and only suit, having lost 20 pounds from an already slim frame, and I imagine that my grim, black-garbed, skeletal presence frightened more than a few passers-by on the street.

One of the first parties I went to on my return was at the spare, antiqueand-chrome apartment of an art-director friend; and about midnight, into the party walked one of the cockiest young men I had ever met and the sexiest little girl I had ever seen in my life. The guy, who lived upstairs, was some kind of entrepreneur involved in a lot of deals that, if they had really been as big as he said they were, would have made us all familiar with his name today, and we aren't. The girl, whose name was Shelley, was a teenager with incredibly long straight black hair that reached to the bottom of her bouncy little buttocks. She had on high leather boots that ended just above her knees and a short leather skirt that almost succeeded in reaching the crotch of her perky pink panties.

I suppose I gaped at her rather transparently, because she returned my gaze with large liquid eyes and a moist, somewhat amused mouth. I had never desired anyone so immediately or so powerfully in my life, never before wanted to abandon myself so completely to nakedness and rubbing things and wet, licking, sucking, whimpering, mindless fucking things. I loved her with mind and heart and body and I would cheerfully have written out a proposal of marriage to her on the spot in exchange for even one night in bed with her. So what I did was I went into another room and hid.

My host the art director found me cowering in the other room and asked me what was wrong. When I told him, he chuckled. He insisted I come out and meet the cocky entrepreneur and his moist, leather-bound teenager; and though I was truly terrified, I let myself be dragged over to them and I mumbled some facsimile of greeting.

There was no big secret about what I was feeling. My forehead was a small rear-projection screen on which were flickering the depraved blue-movie fantasies of my mind. I was so obvious and pathetic that everyone was very solicitous of me, finally guiding me into a chair and bringing me enormous quantities of alcohol to relieve my nervousness.

The entrepreneur, whose name was Cliff, had brought down several joints, which he generously distributed among the guests, and when he came over to where I was sitting, he winked and said:

"What do you think of Shelley?"

"I don't guess that's much of a secret," I said. "I think she's sensational."

"Great-looking chick, huh?"

"Sensational," I said.

"You want her number?" he said.

"Huh?"

"You want me to give you her telephone number?"

"Shelley's?" I said.

He nodded.

"Why?" I said. "I mean, I don't understand--aren't you two going together or something?"

"I don't go with anybody, man," he said. "I've got too many chicks to go with any of them. In fact, I'm leaving now, because I've got another date upstairs in twenty minutes. Why don't you take her number, though? She's kind of young, but she's a lot of fun. I think you'd like her."

"I'm sure I would," I said.

He scribbled a number on the inside of a matchbook and handed it to me. I thanked him and put it into my pocket, wondering if I'd ever have the guts to call her, and then Cliff left for his date upstairs.

I thought about Shelley a good deal in the days that followed, and once or twice I even got as far as dialing the first two digits of her number; but then I'd chicken out or get nauseous and hang up, resolving to go through with it when I got back some of the weight and some of the self-confidence I'd lost in Europe.

The weeks passed, and then the months. Spring came to New York and the little piles of charcoal-gray snow and old dog shit melted away and were replaced by tender young shoots of green grass and new dog shit. I'd put on some weight and regained enough confidence to at least go out with girls again, although I hadn't scored with any.

Late one afternoon I was lying around my cozy garden apartment on East 19th Street and I got to thinking about old Shelley and her preposterous overripe teenaged body, and I again fiddled with the possibility of calling her. My usual tight-assed, hung-up operating procedure would have been to phone her on a Monday for a date on the following Friday or Saturday night, and I knew that if I came on with her that way, she'd think I was so square she wouldn't even go out with me. But what if I tried to come on like the kind of guys she was used to? Guys like old Cliff, with his offhand dates upstairs every 20 minutes?

Before I had enough time to think about it and get too nervous to go through with it, I found her number and dialed it and convinced myself I was, if not quite Cliff, at least somewhat Cliff-like.

The phone rang a few times and then Shelley's husky, incredibly sexy voice said hello, and I clung tightly to the image of Cliff. I told her my name and that Cliff had given me her number and I resisted the impulse to say, "You probably don't remember me, but----"

"Hey, wow," she said. "Cliff told me he gave you my number. Like, I was wondering how long it would take you to call me."

That really knocked me out, but I concentrated hard on who I was trying to be and, after some idle chitchat about things like school (she was actually still going to high school!), I said I thought we ought to get together. She said she'd like to--when? I fought off the temptation to say, "How about next Saturday night?" and instead, I said:

"How about right now?"

"Groovy," she said.

I gave her my address and told her how to get there. I had never before dared suggest that a girl come over to my apartment without my picking her up and taking her there, but she seemed to feel it was the most natural request in the world. She said she'd be over in about 20 minutes. Twenty minutes!

I hung up and had a moment of panic. Talking on the telephone to a teenaged sex bomb and making that work was one thing. But what about when it came time to actually hop into the sack with her? It had been nearly a year since I'd made love to a woman--what if I didn't even remember how?

I ran around the apartment, straightening it up. I put on the soft lights, some rock music and changed into some calculatingly casual clothes. I shaved, brushed my teeth about six times, rolled on some deodorant, rinsed my mouth with mouthwash and slapped some great French shaving lotion on my face before I realized I was doing it all wrong--kids Shelley's age value honest, natural body smells, not phony perfumy lotions. I tried washing off the shaving lotion and deodorant, but it was hopeless. I stank of goodness. The doorbell rang and, after checking myself in the mirror for the 40th time and rumpling my hair, I casually shuffled to the door and opened it.

There she was, still wearing her absurdly short leather skirt and her astonishingly high leather boots and her outrageously unfair teenaged body, obviously not having changed clothes or grown a day older in the months since the party--just as though she had been created strictly for my use and had no other life when she was not in my presence. Her eyes were still large and liquid (continued on page 194)Shelley(continued from page 166) and her lips still moist and inviting and mildly mocking. Her straight black hair still hung down to the base of her biteable tushy. She was so succulent and juicy and wonderful I wanted to cry. I ushered her into the apartment.

"Oh, wow," she said, looking around. "Oh, wow. You live here alone?"

"Uh, yeah."

She appeared to be fairly impressed with what I'd done to the place and I figured I was a step ahead. It really was a terrific-looking place--a duplex with two small rooms upstairs and one large bedroom downstairs that opened out onto a patio and a 40-foot-deep garden. I'd planted the garden myself with long grasses, flowers and shrubbery, and I'd sunk green floodlights into the ground under the trees--now in all their Southern California glory, since it was nearly dark out. Inside the apartment was a custom-made bar I'd designed myself, lots of walnut paneling and indirect lighting.

Shelley sat down and I offered her a drink, instantly losing several points. She didn't drink, of course--no kids drank these days; if only I'd paused to think before I spoke--and instead, she pulled out a couple of joints and offered me one. I accepted, knowing that although I was no stranger to marijuana, knowing that although I'd been introduced to it about the time she was in second grade, she would still look at the way I was smoking it and decide I was doing it wrong.

We smoked awhile in a silence that I found uncomfortable but that didn't seem to bother her at all.

"This is pretty good stuff," I said at last.

"Yeah."

"Yeah," I said. "So tell me. What'd you do today?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Well, you know. Stuff for school."

"Yeah. Where do you go?" I said.

"To school?"

"Yeah."

"Julia Richman."

"Julia Richman, the, uh, high school," I said.

"Yeah."

I had a sudden vision of her dressed in pinafore and pigtails, licking a lollipop, playing on a playground swing, and of me dressed as a bummy, dirty old man walking up and offering her a slug of whiskey.

"How is Julia Richman?" I said. "As a, you know, school, I mean."

"Oh, wow," she said.

I waited for some further amplification, but none appeared to be forthcoming.

"Yeah," I said finally.

"It's actually not that bad of a place to score, though," she said.

"To ... score. To buy drugs, you mean."

"Yeah."

"What can you, uh, score there?"

"Oh, you know. Anything. Grass, hash, speed, coke. Anything."

"Acid?" I said.

"Yeah."

"Have you had acid?" I said.

"Today, you mean?"

"No, I meant...."

"At all?"

"Yeah."

"Well, sure," she said.

"Oh."

"The only thing I haven't really tried," she said, "is smack."

"Heroin?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I don't blame you," I said. "I mean, that stuff can really be dangerous."

"Yeah," she said. "I'd be scared to take it more than once."

I laughed. "I'd be scared to even take it once," I said.

"Oh, it's not so bad, if you only take it once," she said.

"How do you know?"

"Well, you know. I mean, like, I didn't notice any bad effects."

I looked at her carefully. "You mean you've taken heroin?" I said.

"Only once," she said.

"I thought you said you've never tried it."

"Well, wow. Once isn't anything. It's when you do it all the time."

"I see," I said. "But isn't that, uh, dangerous? I mean, isn't it, you know, habit-forming?"

"Not if you only do it a couple of times, like I did," she said.

I decided not to push it. My purpose, after all, was not to get her to lead a clean life; my purpose was to get my dirty-old-man self into those warm sweet panties of hers.

"Tell me," I said with elaborate nonchalance, "how old are you?"

"Me?"

"Yes."

"Seventeen," she said.

"Seventeen," I said.

"Pretty much," she said.

"Pretty much?"

"Well, I mean, I will be in a couple of weeks."

"Ah."

"How old are you?" she said.

"Me?" I said.

"Yeah."

"Nearly thirty," I said.

Now it was her turn to be elaborately nonchalant.

"Thirty ... years old," she said.

"Yes," I said.

She contemplated this bit of news soberly for several moments.

"I knew someone who had a thing with someone your age once," she said.

"Imagine that," I said.

"Yeah," she said. "What do you do, work?"

"Yes."

"Oh, yeah? Where?"

"Right here at home. I'm a free-lance writer."

"Yeah? What do you write?"

"Oh, books, plays, screenplays. You know."

This type of conversation was clearly not going to lead to anything sexual, and I was getting rather restless. Also, joint or no joint, I still needed a drink. I stood up.

"You sure I can't get you anything to drink?" I said.

"I don't know. Are you going to have something?"

"Well, yeah. I thought I would."

"OK, then maybe I'll have something. What've you got?"

I smiled proudly.

"Just about anything you can name," I said. "What would you like?"

"Pear brandy," she said.

"Pear brandy?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't think I have any of that. Is there anything else you'd like?"

She shrugged. "I don't care. Whatever you have."

I went over to the bar, poured myself a Scotch and her a vodka and returned to the couch. I handed her the drink and sat down next to her and tried to plot the least awkward way of making my move. It was clear to me that to have gotten her over to my apartment and spent all this time with her and then not made a pass at her would blow my chance with her completely. After trying for another half hour to think of natural-looking ways of doing it, I finally just leaned over and attached my mouth to hers, catching her in midsentence, and then her lips opened and our tongues touched and I was in heaven.

I kissed her and caressed her firm young wonderful body through her clothes, and I had to concentrate hard on not blurting out terrible uncool love-and-marriage things. I think she was enjoying what we were doing, but it was hard for me to tell, since I was so excited myself. I managed to take off her heavy sweater and her leather skirt without excessive clumsiness, and then I hoarsely suggested it might be more comfortable if we went downstairs.

We walked downstairs in our absolute (continued on page 290)Shelley(continued from page 194) underwear and as we walked, I prayed: Please, God, please--let me do all right and not puke or be impotent or forget what part goes where, please let me fuck this child, please just let me shove my nasty old shlong into this teenaged child's warm little pussy and please let me do all right, and then, after that, You can do anything You want with me--but please, God, don't let me come this close to ecstasy without letting me have it.

We sat down on my king-sized bed. I took off her underwear and her boots and then I climbed on top of her and climbed inside of her and it was marvelous--just absolutely incredibly marvelous--and, mercifully, I hadn't forgotten how to do it. I don't think my performance was anything more than competent, having put away all that liquor and everything, but I wasn't too bad, either, and in the moment of orgasm I would cheerfully have died or converted to Catholicism on the off-chance that the God I'd been dealing with hadn't been Jewish.

We lay together for a while and then we got up and went into the bathroom and took a shower together. I kissed her and hugged her a lot in the shower, and when we came out and toweled our bodies dry, she had somehow changed. With her make-up washed off and with her marvelous long hair all wet and without her leather clothes on, she looked about 12 years old. I became really nervous, having screwed someone who looked so young, and I fought off my guilt with thoughts of her drug experiences and her sex experiences with guys like Cliff.

She said she'd better be getting home soon or her mother would worry (I really needed hearing about worried mothers at that point), so we got dressed and went out looking for a cab to take her home. She held my hand all the way back to her house in the cab, and I noticed with considerable surprise that her supercool drugsy manner of speech had lapsed into some dimly remembered thing out of my past. What it was, I realized, was the kind of coy, cutesy, self-conscious way of talking that teenagers talked when I was in high school.

We arrived at her house and I opened the door of the cab to let her out, but she asked if I would mind letting the cab go and coming inside to meet her mother. I wasn't at all eager to meet her mother, but I nodded dully and paid the cabby. As we walked up to her door, she said to me:

"I hope you don't think I do that all the time."

"What do you mean?" I said. I thought maybe she meant asking me to let the cab go and come inside to meet her mother.

"I mean, like, what we just got done doing," she said, somewhat embarrassed.

"You mean making love?" I said.

She nodded.

"You mean you don't usually go to bed with a guy the first time you see him or what?"

She appeared truly hurt.

"I've only balled, like, two other guys in my life," she said, "and only after going steady with them for, like, years."

"Come on, Shelley," I said gently.

"You mean to tell me you went steady for years with Cliff?"

"Cliff!" she said. "Oh, wow, I never balled Cliff."

"You didn't?"

"No. I mean, he wanted me to, but I wouldn't. Why?" she said. "Did he tell you he balled me?"

"Not exactly," I said. "I just assumed he had. I mean, I thought you were a big swinger and everything or I wouldn't have even made a move at you till about the fourth or fifth date."

"Oh, wow," she said. "The only reason I went along with it was I thought you were a big swinger, and if I didn't I'd never see you again."

We looked at each other for a long moment and we saw each other for perhaps the first (and possibly the only) time, and then we went inside to meet her mother. In some kind of wacky way, I knew that I was back in high school and had somehow agreed to go steady.

Shelley's mom, Mrs. Robish, greeted us at the door. She was a quite voluptuous woman in her early 40s--plumper than you would have wished, but not bad-looking. She was blonde, Polish, seductive and spoke with an accent.

"Well," said Mrs. Robish, looking me over, "so this is your young man, Shelley?"

"Yeah," Shelley said and perfunctorily introduced us.

I shook hands with Mrs. Robish, figuring it was a Continental thing to do, and she seemed reluctant to let go of me.

"He's very cute, your young man, Shelley," said Mrs. Robish, "very cute."

I smiled wanly and Mrs. Robish continued holding my hand.

"You better watch out, Shelley, that I don't take your young man away from you," said Mrs. Robish.

At that point, a greasy-looking foreign man, maybe 30 years old, maybe less, entered the room. He had a skinny mustache, a luminescent suit and an accent even heavier than Mrs. Robish's.

"Ah," said Mrs. Robish, spying the guy, "here is Maurice. Maurice, say hello to Mr. Greenburg."

Maurice did a little bow and shook hands with me.

"Meestair Grinnboorg, a great plaiseer," he said. "Gude evening, Shelley," he said to Shelley.

"Maurice and I are engaged to marry," said Mrs. Robish.

"Oh," I said. "Well, congratulations."

"Just now," said Mrs. Robish, "we are only lovers."

"Ah," I said.

"Perhaps you will stay to dinner, Mr. Greenburg," said Mrs. Robish.

"Oh, no, no thanks," I said. "I have to be going."

"Yes? But there is much food. Too much for the three of us. Perhaps you will stay and help us dispose of it?"

"Oh, that's very kind of you," I said, "but no, I'm afraid I have to run."

"Yes?" said Mrs. Robish. "Where must you run?"

"Mom, for God's sake," said Shelley.

"Where must you run, Mr. Greenburg?" said Mrs. Robish. "Another dinner engagement?"

"Well, no, not exactly," I said.

"Have you eaten yet this evening, Mr. Greenburg?" said Mrs. Robish.

"Well, no," I said, "but...."

Mrs. Robish took my hand again.

"Then please," she said, "I insist you stay and eat with us. Unless our simple food would offend you?"

"Offend me," I said. "Of course not."

"Good," said Mrs. Robish. "Then you'll stay?"

"Well...."

There seemed no way to get out of it without hurting foreign feelings.

"Excellent," said Mrs. Robish, giving my hand a big squeeze. "Maurice, get Mr. Greenburg a drink."

I was about to tell Maurice what I wanted to drink, but he only nodded and went off to fetch it. Mrs. Robish led me into the living room and seated me on the couch.

"Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Greenburg," she said. "Now I must go and cook, and Shelley must do some homework, but Maurice will entertain you until dinnertime."

Mrs. Robish and Shelley went off to their respective tasks and Maurice came back into the room and handed me a large jelly glass full of amber liquid with no ice in it. I took a sip of it and my eyes widened.

"What is this?" I said, my throat on fire.

"Please?"

I pointed to the glass. "This," I said. "What is it?"

"Ah. Pear brandy," said Maurice.

"Pear brandy," I said.

Maurice nodded. "It pleases you?" he said.

"Oh. Yes. Very good. Yes." I smiled. "Thank you."

Maurice smiled and sat down right next to me on the couch. I eyed him warily. He just sat there, smiling at me. There was a lot of silence.

"So," I said, unable to stand the silence any longer. "Tell me. What do you do?"

"Please?"

"What do you do? What, uh, line are you in?"

"Ah. What I work?" he said.

"Yes."

"Ah." Maurice smiled his comprehension. "Fown-dation," he said.

"Fown-dation?" I said.

Maurice nodded.

"What kind of foundation--a charitable one?" I said.

"Please?"

"I say, what kind of foundation do you work for--a charitable one?"

Maurice shook his head impatiently.

"Ghar-mens," he said.

"Ghar-mens?" I said blankly.

"Ghar-mens, ghar-mens," he said in exasperation, "cower-sets, bres-heers, ghordles--to hawld opp de buttocks and de teets. Fown-dation ghar-mens."

"Foundation gar ments," I said. "Yes. I understand."

Maurice nodded impatiently and sighed. There was another longish silence.

"Well," I said, "that sounds very interesting. What do you do, sell them, fit them or what?"

Maurice nodded. "For Hess Klein," he said.

"For S. Klein, the department store?"

"Hess Klein on de Skvare. Ees how I meet Meeses Robeesh."

"Oh?"

"Feeteeng her for cower-sets. Lawf-ly woman. Beeg bazooms. Lawf-ly. You lawf beeg bazooms?"

"Oh. Well, sure," I said. "I guess so."

"Beeg bazooms on Meeses Robeesh," he said. "I fall een lawf weeth them. Before the feeteeng ees over, we are proctically engaged."

"Well, that's very ... sweet," I said.

"She make me very happy, that woman, weeth her beeg bazooms," he said. "I lawf them more than life."

"Tell me," I said, "how'd you happen to end up in that racket?"

"Please?"

"I say, how did you happen to wind up in the foundation-garments game?"

"Ees not what you theenk," he said defensively.

"It's not?"

"Eet's not that I am, how you say, 'torned on' by cower-sets, ghor-dles, bresheers, oh, no. Ees only to me a job. A profession. For hobbies, for avocations, I have other theengs."

"Ah."

"I am collector."

"Really?" I said. "What do you collect?"

"Oh, many theengs: ponties, staukeengs, gartair belts, theengs of thees natures. Linggery."

"Linggery? I see. Well, I'm glad to hear you're so diversified in your interests."

"Deeversification ees my life. Do you know I have thairty-two separate varieties of ponties alone?"

"Imagine."

"Oh, yes," said Maurice. He pointed a dramatic finger at me. "One of de three largest amateur collections een the entire United States of Americas!"

"Not really!" I said. I began to look uncomfortably around. "Say, I wonder how we're doing on dinner in there," I said.

"Porhops sometimes you weesh to see my collection?" said Maurice.

"Oh. Well, maybe so," I said. "Mrs. Robish," I called, "how are we doing in there?"

"Soup is on, everyone!" she replied.

I was immensely relieved.

• • •

Two days later, I got a greeting card in the mail. On the cover was a very cutesy terrier with a peppy face and an envelope in his mouth. On the inside of the card was the following message:

This little doggy came to sayHe hopes you have a happy day.If I weren't shy as shy can be,I'd be there now instead of he.

--Love, Shelley

I had my first real date with Shelley about a week after that. I took her out to dinner at a restaurant, just like a grownup, and I couldn't completely get out of my head the image of Daddy taking his daughter out to eat. She had no idea what to order or how to eat it--things I had learned years before and then forgotten I'd had to learn them--and although I found it charming to be the teacher, it was still slightly disconcerting.

When I took her back to my apartment afterward, she let me neck with her, but she stopped my hand before it had crept any farther up her leg than the top of her boot.

"What's the matter?" I said.

"Nothing."

"Then why did you stop me just now?"

"Because."

"Because what?"

"Because we're going too fast," she said.

"Too fast? Too fast for what?"

"Too fast for our second date," she said.

"But on our first date you went to bed with me."

"I know," she said, "but that was from a misunderstanding. It doesn't count."

"How could it not count? We went to bed together. We made love. I was inside you. How could that not count?"

She sighed.

"Oh, wow," she said, then continued as if to a not very bright child. "It didn't count because we both thought it was something else. And also...."

"And also what?"

"Also because it wasn't important then," she said.

"And now it is?" I said.

She nodded, looking the other way. I was touched, but no less frustrated.

"Shelley, honey," I said, taking her hands in mine, "that doesn't make sense, does it--that it's OK to let a guy make love to you if he's not important to you and not to let him if he is?"

"I just don't want to give you the wrong idea about what kind of girl I am," she said, "that's all."

I let go of her hands and covered my eyes.

"I can't believe it," I said. "I just can't believe it. I'm practically thirty years old and I'm right back in high school. It's as if the last fifteen years never even happened. It's as if the whole sexual revolution never even happened."

I dropped my hands and looked at her.

"Shelley," I said, "you're a sweet, lovely girl, a very sexual girl, and a very dear person. Making love to you was one of the best, most wonderful experiences of my entire life. And now you're telling me you're not going to ever let me make love to you again. Does that make sense?"

"That's not what I'm telling you," she said.

"You are going to let me make love to you again?" I said.

"Sure."

"When?" I said huskily.

"Not tonight."

"When?"

"After a while. After a few more dates."

"How many dates?" I said.

"I don't know yet."

"I see," I said. "And what if I don't go along with that?"

"Then you don't have to see me anymore," she said.

"I see," I said.

• • •

You will perhaps not be altogether thrilled with me when I tell you that for the next few dates we did things her way. We didn't go to dinner parties or do other things that grownups do and we didn't go to any more restaurants, because they made her feel uncomfortable. Instead, we double-dated with teenaged couples and we went to a number of teenaged parties, where we sat around and listened to loud rock music and smoked a lot of pot and didn't talk.

At one such party, in the sparsely furnished East Village apartment of one of Shelley's friends, I couldn't endure the silence any longer and turned to a boy of about 17 or so who was sitting next to me and attempted to engage him in conversation.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi," he said.

"I'm Dan," I said.

"I know," he said.

"Oh," I said. Then, because the silence was beginning to close in on me again, I said, "What do you do?"

"What do I what?"

"Do," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, do you work or go to school or what?"

"Well, you know," he said. "I mean, I used to go to school. But then I, like, stopped."

"How come?"

"Well, you know. It was too heavy, you know?"

"School was too heavy?" I said.

"Yeah. School, the teachers, whatever was going down--it was too heavy for me, you know? Too heavy a scene. I mean, like, there was just no way, you know?"

"So you just dropped out," I said.

He nodded.

"And you're not doing anything at all now?" I said.

He shook his head.

"Well," I said, "if you dropped out of high school, I guess you won't be able to get into college so easily."

"Why do I need to go to college?" he said.

"Well, I don't know," I said, feeling older and squarer every second. "To get a better job, I guess."

"Why do I need a better job?" he said.

"I don't know," I said. "To ... to be able to buy nice things, to be able to save toward a time when you can ... enjoy the fruits of your labor and relax and ... take it easy...."

"I'm taking it easy right now," he said.

I thought about that for a moment and then I nodded. "Yeah, I guess you have a point there," I said.

• • •

My one attempt to take her to a party with friends my age was a disaster. The men crowded around and slobbered over her just as I had done at the party where I'd met her myself. The women patronized, resented and ultimately ignored her, and nobody could quite manage to maintain a conversation with her.

We left early and I took her back to my apartment--only to neck, not to fuck, I assured her. But once in my lair and once we were necking, the crafty old pervert did not permit his hand to be stopped at the boot tops. The more Shelley resisted, the hotter I got to be inside her. We rolled onto the floor and struggled in silence for an incredibly long time, as the absurdity of what I was doing kept washing over me.

Because what I was doing was raping a girl I'd already had sex with, a girl I was--God forbid--going steady with, a girl I had so little in common with that we couldn't carry on an intelligent conversation; and the strangest thing of all was that never before had I dared to physically force myself on anyone.

Eventually, superior strength prevailed, and although I wasn't able to get her downstairs to bed or even get her undressed, I did manage to pin her to the floor with one hand and then get the other one inside her panties to calm her down. Then I thrust my throbbing waga under the crotch of her panties and into her now-slippery pussy, and the crime at last was consummated.

Shelley didn't seem at all resentful. She felt she'd tried to stop me and if she'd failed, she'd failed. Rape is, after all, not the responsibility of the rapee.

What I finally began to realize about Shelley was that she wasn't even all that crazy about sex. She didn't dislike it, by any means, and she did, of course, realize that all her teenaged friends were doing it, but still she wasn't really all that crazy about it. Perhaps, since women are supposed to reach their peak of desire in their late 30s, she simply wasn't old enough. Kittens don't appreciate catnip till they're full-grown, either.

Shelley and I had about three more dates, one of which included another rape, and then one day she telephoned and sounded somewhat troubled.

"Listen," she said, "like, this is really a drag, but I think I'm pregnant."

"What?" I said.

"Yeah," she said, "I'm about a month and a half late, and usually I'm pretty regular."

"But how could you be pregnant?" I said. "I mean, the pill is supposed to be practically foolproof."

"I don't use the pill," she said.

"You don't?" I said.

"No."

"What do you use?" I said.

"Nothing," she said.

I had read this before, I knew, in some novel or other. And now it was happening to me in real life.

"How could you possibly not use anything?" I said.

"Well, like, I never thought I needed anything," she said.

"But why didn't you at least tell me you weren't using anything?" I said.

"I don't know," she said. "I thought it was safe."

I covered my eyes with my hand or whatever it is they do at such times in the movies, and then I told her in a sort of tired, resigned voice that I would, of course, pay for the abortion and that I would make a few phone calls and find out whether we had to go to Puerto Rico or wherever to have it done.

"Oh, wow," she said, "nobody goes to Puerto Rico anymore. I mean, like, I've got the names of about six doctors in New York alone."

"OK," I said, "find out how much it'll cost and I'll get the money and go there with you."

At first she said she wouldn't take any money from me because it had been her own fault, but I insisted it was my fault as well and that I could afford it better than she could, so she grudgingly agreed to let me pay for it. But she didn't want me to go with her--she said she'd feel more comfortable going there with a girlfriend. The only thing she wanted was to be able to come back to my apartment afterward and recuperate for a few hours. I said My God, of course, but why only for a few hours--why not stay all night? I had begun a tender fantasy of nursing my little girl through the long night hours, having the first blue light of dawn find her past the crisis, looking up into my haggard face, her eyes bright with love. Perhaps I'd gather her up in my arms then and ask her to be my wife.

She explained that, wow, she couldn't very well stay the night, because what would she tell her mother and everything, and that all she wanted to do was come back to my place and lie down for a while and, since she'd probably be bleeding all over the place, would it be all right if her girlfriend took care of her and I arranged to be elsewhere?

Sure, I said, anything you say, but I wished there were more she'd let me do. She said that paying for it and letting her stay and bleed awhile in my apartment were more than enough. She would call me later and tell me how much cash she needed and when I was to be out of the apartment, and so on. I hung up and started in on a fantasy of her dying in some seedy little tenement in Brooklyn, pitifully moaning my name as the life forces leaked out of her once perky body, or else hemorrhaging to death in my very own bed as I watched helplessly in horror while prowl cars outside cut their headlights and glided up to encircle the apartment building.

Whenever I get really disturbed about something, I call my attorney for advice. When I told him what I was disturbed about this time, he got so nervous he refused to even discuss it on the telephone. So I met him on a street corner not far from his office and we walked along Madison Avenue, pretending vast interest in store-window displays, speaking sotto voce out of the corners of our mouths, referring to the abortion as "this matter that has come up" and in general behaving in a manner that would have aroused the suspicions of any law-enforcement officer a block away.

My attorney's thinking boiled down to two basic approaches: first, to prepare ourselves now to be able to prove after Shelley's death that I hadn't even known her, much less been a party to her abortion; second, to encourage her to have the child and to negotiate with her beforehand a favorable contract of child support. I told him he was no goddamned help and he apologized, mumbled goodbye and took a circuitous route back to his office.

I called my internist, a strait-laced but gentle man, who offered little hope of having the thing done legally but who agreed to examine Shelley to make sure she was (a) healthy enough to have an abortion and (b) pregnant enough, and he assured me he would treat her immediately after it had been done.

Since you have undoubtedly watched endless TV situation comedies involving adults persuading teenagers to do something that was for their own good but that they thought unnecessary, I will spare you the details of how I convinced Shelley to visit my internist. Eventually she did go, was pronounced both healthy and pregnant (I would've given a lot to have seen the look on my gentle doctor's face when the young woman who had been billed as my fiancée walked into his office in her leather ensemble and her preposterous youth), and a meeting with the abortionist was finally arranged.

I gave Shelley $300 in small bills. I again tried vainly to talk her into letting me accompany her (I wasn't sure what I dreaded more--going with her or not going), and I finally settled back to wait for her in my apartment.

The time passed slowly. Visions of bloody deaths in vacant slum dwellings and of policemen alighting from prowl cars with tommy guns persisted. And then the phone rang.

"Are you all right?" I said.

"Yeah," said Shelley, "but it didn't work."

"What do you mean it didn't work?"

"Well, the thing that she did just didn't work, that's all, and, like, I'm supposed to come back in a couple weeks."

"What thing didn't work? What she?"

"Oh, wow," she said. "Well, like, it's hard to say now, you know?"

"You mean you're calling from somewhere that you can't speak freely?"

"Yeah, right," she said.

"But you're sure you're all right?" I said.

"Yeah, I'm positive," she said.

"You want to go and see my internist?"

"No," she said.

"Will you call me as soon as you can talk?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll try," she said. "But, like, it might not be for a while. I got a lot of homework to do for school."

• • •

When I didn't hear from her the following day, I called her, and again she couldn't talk. I asked if she could meet me later that night, but she said she had a big civics test coming up and couldn't leave the house. I told her I might drop by later and see her.

That night I took a cab over to her house. Mrs. Robish answered the door, wearing a rather revealing dressing gown. She looked as though she'd been crying. She seemed pleased to see me and immediately ushered me into the living room and sat me down on the couch.

"Listen, Mrs. Robish," I said, "I know Shelley's studying and everything, but I wonder if you'd mind very much if I took a walk with her for ten or fifteen minutes."

"With Shelley?" she said.

"Yes. Would you mind very much?"

"Shelley isn't here, Mr. Greenburg," she said.

"What?"

"Shelley went out right after dinner," she said.

I looked at her blankly.

"But she said she'd be home studying all night tonight," I said. "She has a big civics test tomorrow."

"Maybe she's studying with a friend," said Mrs. Robish.

"But she's not ... here?" I said.

"No," said Mrs. Robish. "Not."

"Are you sure?" I said.

She smiled.

"Mr. Greenburg," she said. "You think perhaps she went out and then sneaked back in and is hiding?"

"No. No, I'm sorry," I said. "It's just that I wanted to talk to her about something important and she said she'd be here, that's all."

"Well," said Mrs. Robish, "it's after ten o'clock. I'm sure she'll be home any minute now. Why don't you wait for her?"

"Well," I said, "I wouldn't want to impose."

"Impose?" she said. "Don't be foolish. Impose."

She sniffled and dabbed at her eyes.

"Frankly," she said, "I'd welcome the company."

"Is anything wrong, Mrs. Robish?" I said.

"Wrong? What could be wrong?" She sniffled again. "Just because a person's closest friend, a friend to whom she is engaged to marry, does not find her attractive anymore, what could possibly be wrong?"

She sank down in a chair next to the couch, took a huge Kleenex out of an enormous box on the coffee table and began to blow her nose. I was afraid she was really going to go into a big crying scene and I didn't know how to handle it. The tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

"Don't cry, Mrs. Robish," I said. "Please don't."

"Sure, don't cry," she said. "Don't feel sorry for yourself that a wonderful man to whom you have poured out the secrets of a lifetime, a man to whom you've entrusted the intimacies of the heart, a man to whom you've permitted the intimacies of the flesh, a man who has called your bosoms one of the three finest bosoms in the entire United States of America--don't be sorry that such a man would throw you away like an old paper towel."

At this, she broke down completely. I rushed over to comfort her, to pat her back, to pat her head, to pat her arm, not knowing what else to pat.

"Please, Mrs. Robish, please. He wasn't worth it," I said.

"Yes he was," she said through her tears.

"No he wasn't," I said. "In fact, if you want my frank opinion, Maurice was a greaseball and a fetishist creep."

She whirled on me.

"A greaseball!" she said.

"I only meant----"

"After the things he gave me, I should sit here and let him be called a greaseball?"

"Mrs. Robish, please," I said. "I only meant----"

"That man was a prince that you call a greaseball." She grabbed the hem of her dressing gown. "Look at this. Is this the present of a greaseball?"

"No, listen, I'm sorry I----"

She whipped open her dressing gown to reveal tackily elegant sexy panties, bra, garter belt, stockings and a really voluptuous figure.

"Look at these," she said. "Are these the presents of a greaseball?" She grabbed the lace edge of her bra. "Look at the work here. Look at it!"

I politely bent to look at it.

"Oh, yes. Well, that's very----"

"Look at this." She grabbed the lace waistband of her panties and held them away from her body to show me. "Look at the work on this and then tell me if it's the present of a greaseball."

"It's really ... lovely, Mrs. Robish," I stammered, beginning to get a little turned on in spite of myself.

"You still think he's a greaseball?" she said.

"No. No, I don't. I think he's a ... a fine human being," I said.

"You do?"

"Yes," I said. "Probably one of the ... three finest human beings in the entire United States of America."

"Then why"--she choked on a sob--"does he throw me away?"

"I don't know, Mrs. Robish," I said.

"Why does he no longer find me attractive?"

"I don't know."

"Am I suddenly so ugly that no man wants to be seen with me?"

"No, of course not!" I said.

"Am I suddenly so old and flabby that no man wants to make love to me?"

"Oh, no, Mrs. Robish, not at all!" I said.

She peered down at her figure.

"Look at me! Am I, at the age of forty-two, ready for anything but the garbage can?"

"Oh, yes, Mrs. Robish--God, yes!" I said.

"No, I'm not," she said, breaking down completely. "I'm garbage! Call the Bureau of Sanitation to take me away! Call them! Call them!"

As she gave way to total hysteria, I grabbed her and held her and patted her back, in response to which she hugged me so tightly I could scarcely breathe and began showering me with grateful kisses.

All at once, there was the sound of a key in the lock of the front door. Mrs. Robish and I were blasted apart as if by an explosion. I took a horrified look at the door opening, then at Mrs. Robish's open dressing gown, and made a mad grab to close the latter just as Shelley walked into the room.

We stood there in mid-gesture, caught like a freeze frame at the end of a film, as Shelley impassively surveyed the scene.

"You said you'd be home studying for a civics test," I said finally. "I came by to see you."

"Oh," said Shelley. "Well, I had to go out."

"I see," I said.

"I was studying with some friends," she said.

"I see," I said. I looked at Mrs. Robish. "Do you think it would be all right if I talked with Shelley outside for a minute?" I said.

Mrs. Robish nodded. I led Shelley to the door, looked back briefly at Mrs. Robish, and then went outside.

Shelley and I stood awkwardly outside her house.

"I have a confession to make to you," she said.

"What?"

"I wasn't studying at a friend's house just now."

"You weren't?"

"No."

"What were you doing?"

"Scoring some dope."

"I see," I said.

"You mad at me for not being home when I said I'd be?"

"No," I said magnanimously, "not at all."

And then I got a full report on the unsuccessful abortion attempt. It seems that the abortionist, a lady doctor, preferred to use nonsurgical means of aborting the fetus if at all possible and had given Shelley a drug to take that had not worked. I was relieved that surgical procedures were being avoided and I now envisioned the abortionist as a kindly old Margaret Sanger--like woman who would protect my little nymphet and unburden her as painlessly as possible of her untimely motherhood.

I called my internist and gave him the name of the drug that Shelley said she'd been given. He said that he was familiar with the drug, that it was reasonably safe, but that as far as he knew, it was seldom effective.

• • •

Early the following evening, I was sitting at my desk, working on a manuscript, when the phone rang. I picked it up and a somewhat nervous, accented voice said hello.

"Hi, Mrs. Robish," I said.

"You recognized my voice?" she said.

"You have a very distinctive voice," I said.

"Mr. Greenburg, tell me. You are alone?"

"Alone? Right now, you mean?"

"Right now in your apartment, yes."

"Yes. Why?"

"May I come there and speak with you?"

"Speak to me? I mean--right now?"

"Yes. Unless you don't want me?"

"Unless I don't want you?"

"I can see that you are busy, Mr. Greenburg," she said.

"Busy? Oh, no," I said. "Not at all. If you'd like to come over, by all means do so. You have the address?"

"Yes, of course I have the address," she said. "How could I come there if I have not the address?"

"Well, good," I said. "When should I expect you, then?"

"I leave the house right now," she said.

"Oh, OK, fine. See you in a little while, Mrs. Robish."

I hung up very perplexed. It was entirely possible that she had learned of Shelley's pregnancy and wished to have some sort of dreadful discussion with me about it. On the other hand, it was just as possible that the intent of her visit was sexual in nature, and, although I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about the prospect of hopping into the sack with Mrs. Robish, I figured I'd keep an open mind on the subject and prepare for such an eventuality, should it come to that.

I tore into the bathroom, whipped off my work shirt and jeans and tried on a number of sedate but dressy outfits. At one point I even toyed with the idea of wearing a tie. I finally put the tie away but settled on something far too dressy for at-home wear.

I ran around the apartment drawing shades and curtains and turning on low, seductive lights. I put a record on the phonograph and then decided it was too contemporary. I changed it to a thing by Wagner. That seemed much too heavy, so I changed it to something hokey and Oriental with tinkly bells and drums.

The doorbell rang. I grabbed my tie and put it on after all, changed the record back to Wagner and raced for the door.

"Well, well. Hello there, Mrs. Robish," I said.

She came in, looked interestedly around, took in the romantic lighting, the Wagner record, and then she noticed my hastily tied tie and dress-up clothes.

"Why didn't you tell me you were getting ready to go out?" she said.

"Oh, but I'm not," I said. "I ... I always dress this way at home when I'm working. I find it ... gives the work more dignity that way."

"Ah."

"Well, come in, come in," I said. "Sit down, sit down."

"Thank you, thank you," said Mrs. Robish. "I will, I will."

She sat down on the couch.

"What can I get you to drink?" I said.

"Whatever you're having will be fine."

"Scotch?"

"You don't by any chance happen to have a bit of pear brandy?" she said.

"I'm afraid not."

"Then anything you have will be fine."

I went to the bar and nervously mixed two strong drinks, then returned to the couch. I had a little trouble deciding exactly how close to sit to her, but finally hit upon a compromise distance and sat down. There was an awkward silence.

"So," I said.

"So," she said.

There was another pause and I noticed she was staring at my hands.

"One of those is for me?" she said finally.

"Oh, of course," I said, reddening, and handed her one of the drinks I was holding.

We clinked glasses.

"To whatever ... it is that would please you the most," I said ambiguously.

"You're very sweet," she said.

She reached out to give my neck an affectionate squeeze, which I misconstrued as a pass and immediately started kissing her hand and was halfway up her arm before realizing it had merely been a friendly gesture. I withdrew in confusion and tried to compose myself.

"So," said Mrs. Robish again after another silence.

"So," I said.

"Well," said Mrs. Robish, "where shall I begin?"

"I don't know," I said.

"If you think this is easy for me," she said, "you are mistaken." She looked down at her lap. "Perhaps I should not have even come," she said and immediately stood up.

"No, please," I said, restraining her. "I'm glad you've come. I'm delighted you've come."

"Perhaps you would not be so delighted if you knew why I am here," she said.

"Oh ... well...."

"Do you know why I am here?"

"Well," I said, "I'm not sure, but I ... have some suspicions."

"You know," she said, "I was not going to come at first. I said to myself, Pola, why do you have to bother the young man, when he probably has enough already on his mind as it is? I said to myself, Pola, leave the young man alone, do not complicate another person's life."

I gazed at her in what I hoped was an intense stare of sympathetic understanding. I leaned in closer to her.

"But then," she said, "I remembered how warm and considerate you were to me the other night at my home...."

"Yes ..." I said softly, leaning closer.

"I remembered all the wonderful sweet things you said to me...."

"Yes ..." I said, leaning even closer.

"I remembered how you said to me I was not garbage to be taken away by the Bureau of Sanitation...."

"Yes ..." I said, my lips three inches away from hers.

"I remembered how you said I was not so old and flabby and ugly that no man would want to make love to me...."

"Yes ..." I whispered, two inches away.

"And I said to myself, Pola, just because Maurice the Ingrate, Maurice the Pervert, Maurice the Greaseball wants to throw you into the garbage can and have you taken away by the Bureau of Sanitation does not mean that Mr. Greenburg, the fine young friend of your daughter Shelley, will want this also."

"Yes ..." I whispered, an inch away.

"I said, if Maurice cannot give you what you want, then you will ask the handsome Mr. Greenburg and perhaps he will not refuse you. I said, perhaps he will be able to give you what you want or at least not be disgusted by the request."

"Anything," I breathed, practically touching her lips, "anything at all ... just ask it."

She cupped my face and gazed deeply into my eyes.

"Can you lend me four hundred dollars?" she said.

I knew somehow that she had not actually said what I thought she had said, but it seemed best to check.

"Can I do what?" I whispered.

"Lend me four hundred dollars?"

Overcome with sudden weariness, I sank back against the cushions of the couch.

"I knew I should not have asked it," she said. "I knew it. I said to myself, Pola, don't ask him. Don't. It is not fair for you to burden another with your problems. It is not fair for you to ask another person with problems of his own for such a sum of money, even if he has it and could spare it and even if you yourself need it so desperately since you lost your job that you and your daughter will have to live on dry cereal and week-old bread and spoiled milk for the rest of your lives."

She began to cry.

"I said, don't ask it of him, even though it would only be for a short period of time and you would cheerfully pay him twelve-and-a-half percent interest on the loan and as collateral put up your dishes, your vacuum cleaner and your clothes," she said. "I said, better you should get the money elsewhere, from strangers. I said, better you should sell your body in Times Square to sailors and perverts and give half of what you earn to a pimp and contract a social disease than to embarrass such a wonderful warm young man as Mr. Greenburg. I said----"

"No! Please! Stop!" I said. I couldn't take it anymore. I ran to my desk, grabbed my wallet, ran back to the couch and dumped a bunch of five- and ten-dollar bills into her lap. "Here! Take it!" I said. "Here! Please!"

I ran and got my checkbook and whipped off a check for the remaining amount and thrust it into her hands. "Here! Here's the money! Take it! Please!"

Terribly moved, she looked at the bills in her lap and at the check. Then she looked up at me. Then she handed it all back.

"I can't," she said. "I can't take the money. Here. Please. Take it back."

"No, you take it," I said. "Please. Take it. I want you to take it. Please. Do me a favor and take it. Please."

I pushed it all back at her. She pushed it all back at me. It shuttled back and forth between us for several seconds, finally ending up back in my hands. She looked up at me with overpowering emotion.

"You are the finest human being I have ever met," she said and kissed me full on the mouth.

I melted. She hugged me tight, kissed me again, then, holding me by the shoulders at arm's length, she looked at me and smiled.

"All right," she said. She shook her head and sighed. "All right." She sighed again. "I'll take the money."

She took the money out of my hands and stood up.

"God bless you," she said, her eyes wet. "God bless you."

She went to the door.

"God bless you," she said.

She opened the door, blew me a kiss and softly closed the door behind her.

• • •

Ten or 12 days after that, Shelley again visited the little old abortionist and was again given the same drug, and with the same results. She was told to appear once more in a week or so for a third attempt. Time was running out. Shelley was by then two and a half months pregnant and I knew it was practically impossible to have an illegal abortion after the third month of pregnancy.

The third administration of the drug proved unsuccessful as well and the doctor told Shelley she would then attempt another abortive technique, more severe than the previous one but also nonsurgical. The doctor warned that there might be unpleasant aftereffects, so I was able to persuade Shelley to return to my apartment after the treatment and spend the night in my care. She agreed, worked out an elaborate lie to tell her mother and told me to expect her about ten P.M.

Ten P.M. came and went without Shelley's arrival, but I knew how difficult it was to predict what time one would be home from even an appointment with a legitimate doctor, so I didn't become really worried until about midnight. From midnight to one o'clock, I found myself doing a lot of nervous humming and pacing and twitching; and from one o'clock to two o'clock, I was involved in a heated discussion with God about taking me too literally when I'd said He could do anything if He just let me screw her. At 2:30 the doorbell rang and when I saw that it was Shelley, I grabbed her and held her so tightly I almost strangled her.

"My God," I said, leading her over to a chair, "how do you feel?"

"Oh, wow," she said, "a little tired."

"I can just imagine," I said. "You poor kid. Are you all right?"

"I guess so," she said, slumping into a half slouch in the chair.

"What took so long?" I said. "Were there complications or what?"

"Oh, no, no complications," she said.

"Then what took so long?"

"Well, like, on the way back from the abortionist, we ran into some kids we knew who were going to this new discothèque in the East Village and it sounded like a groove, so we went with them."

"Let me see if I've got this straight," I said. "After your abortion you went dancing? Is that what you're telling me?"

"Yeah, but only for a couple hours," she said.

"I see," I said, trying mightily to remain composed.

"What's wrong with you?" she said.

"Well, aside from the fact that while you were dancing, all of your guts could have slid out of your crotch onto the dance floor, you happen to be about four and a half hours late and I was a little concerned about your safety."

She gave me a chilling look of unbelievable disappointment and sadly shook her head.

"Oh, wow," she said. "Oh, wow."

Then she went to bed.

• • •

Our relationship, if that's what you want to call it, was not too terrific after that. The fourth abortion attempt had failed and a fifth was arranged for the following weekend, when I would be out of town on business and Shelley and her girlfriend could use my apartment.

I had by that time caught Shelley in a number of pointless untruths, such as: (1) the girlfriend who accompanied her on her several trips to the abortionist was sometimes a real girlfriend named Cathy and sometimes a former boyfriend named Peter, for whom, she insisted, she no longer felt anything but friendship; (2) the two occasions on which she'd broken dates with me to be with her lonely widowed mother had actually been spent with her lonely widowed mother and Peter; (3) the kindly white-haired lady doctor who was trying to abort Shelley was neither kindly nor white-haired, nor was she a doctor--she was a tough Puerto Rican woman who'd assisted another abortionist long enough to learn the trade and go into business for herself, and the technique she was currently using on Shelley involved filling up her womb with a hideous concoction of penicillin and molten soap.

I had partially suspected the first two things but had no idea at all of the third. The confrontation during which all of this came out took place in my bedroom as Shelley watched me get ready to leave for the airport and a plane I barely had time to catch, so there was little time to do more than shudder and close the suitcase and walk to the door. I made her promise to call my internist at the slightest sign of trouble and I made her promise to keep the front door double locked at all times, to not let anyone but her girlfriend Cathy into the apartment, to not use anything stronger than pot, and I hadn't the slightest hope that she was even listening to me.

As I opened the door to leave, Shelley suddenly said, "Hey," and grabbed me and hugged me very tightly.

"I'm sorry I told you all those things that weren't true," she said into my shoulder.

"That's all right," I said.

"You don't like me anymore, do you?" she said.

"Sure I do. Sure I like you, Shelley," I said.

"No, you don't," she said. "I can tell. I lied to you a lot, and I don't know why I did, because it was so stupid, but I just did. And now you don't trust me anymore, and I don't blame you. But it's really sad, because the thing is ... I love you."

With that, she started to cry for the first time since I'd known her. I had never expected her to say anything about loving me--I hadn't spoken much about love to anyone at that point in my life--and it really rocked me. I held her tight and I told her how much she meant to me, because suddenly she meant a very great deal to me, indeed, and I told her that I guessed I loved her, too, and that I would call her from Chicago and to take care. Then I walked out the door and ran out onto First Avenue to hail a taxi.

I suppose I should have stayed. I suppose I should have canceled the flight reservation and called off the trip and stayed with the poor little pregnant girl in my apartment who'd just blurted out that she loved me. But that is really more what they do in the movies than what you do in real life. In real life, you don't call off the business trip and you don't cancel the reservation, you hail the taxi and ride to the airport and get on the plane, no matter how strong your premonitions of disaster. In real life, you don't even get off an airplane that is still on the ground, though you've suddenly been hit with not the premonition but the certainty that the plane will explode in mid-air somewhere over Michigan, because you would rather face certain death and dismemberment than the possibility of public ridicule.

I telephoned Shelley from my parents' home in Chicago and she informed me that the fifth attempt at abortion had proved unsuccessful as well but that she was feeling fine. I made her promise to visit my internist anyway and I said that we would get the whole thing resolved once and for all when I got back to New York (she was now in her third month of pregnancy) and just to sit tight. I told her I loved her and I'd be home soon, and then I hung up.

My parents, though forbidden by me for many years to ask anything whatever about my plans for marriage, were trying so hard to keep from asking me anything about the girl I had just spoken to in New York and said "I love you" to that they were almost in physical pain.

When I got back to New York, I immediately began making phone calls and arrangements for taking Shelley to Puerto Rico for a surgical abortion under sterile and semilegal conditions. She wasn't at all enthusiastic about the idea, but she appeared to accept my tone of authority.

My apartment seemed much as I had left it, and if any drug parties or orgies had occurred there in my absence, no evidence of either remained. Just as an afterthought, however, I checked my desk and the small night table by the side of my bed to make sure my valuables were still intact. I felt sort of sheepish about doing it, but I did it anyway.

The small supply of cash I keep appeared to be just as I'd left it, my two 35mm cameras were still there, and I was just about to concede that my inclination to check my valuables had been paranoid when I realized that my tiny Minox camera was missing.

I couldn't believe it. And yet it wasn't there. I emptied the drawers of the night table and picked through the contents. No Minox. I emptied the drawers of my desk and went through them in painstaking detail. I systematically tore the entire apartment apart, but nowhere could I find my Minox. I telephoned Shelley and told her.

"Are you sure you looked everywhere?" she said.

"I'm positive," I said. "Honey, do you have any idea where it could be?"

"I don't even know what a Minox camera looks like," she said, and I believed her.

"You don't think that Cathy could have taken it for any reason, do you?" I said. "Not to steal it, I mean, just to borrow it for some purpose?"

"Why would Cathy do a thing like that?" she said.

"I don't know," I said. "Listen, Shelley, do you swear to me that nobody but you and Cathy was in my apartment while I was gone?"

"Oh, wow," she said, "what do you think we did--invite over all our friends and shoot dope?"

"No, of course not," I said, though of course that's what I thought. "Just swear to me that nobody but you and Cathy was here while I was gone and I'll believe you. OK?"

"Oh, wow," said Shelley.

"Do you swear?" I said.

There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Then:

"If I tell you something, will you be mad at me?"

"What?" I said warily.

"Well, on Saturday, a couple of kids I know dropped by your place and wanted to come in...."

"Yes ...?"

"Well, I told them I'd, like, promised not to let anyone in but Cathy and everything...."

"Yes ...?"

"Well, so, like, one of them had to go to the bathroom and everything...."

"Yes ...?"

"Well, wow. I mean, like, I couldn't tell them not to use the bathroom, now, could I?"

"And after they used the bathroom, did they leave then?"

"Well, sort of. Yeah."

"Did they leave after using the bathroom or didn't they?"

"Well, like, not that very second, no. But they didn't stay too long after that."

"Shelley," I said, "the Minox that is missing was in the top drawer of the little night table next to the bed in the bedroom. If you can assure me that you were with your friends every minute they were in my apartment and that they didn't go into my bedroom, then I am willing to drop this whole discussion right now. Are you willing to give me that assurance?"

"Oh, wow."

"Are you?"

"Well, I was with them most of the time. I mean, I wasn't with them when they went into the goddamn bathroom, for God's sake...."

"Go on...."

"Well, now that I think of it, one of the guys, a kid named Joe, might possibly have wandered downstairs into your bedroom for a second or so, just to look around, like. But he came out right away, I know that; and besides, he wouldn't have taken your Minox. I can guarantee you that."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because. He doesn't do that kind of stuff. Not anymore, I mean. I mean, not since he's been back."

"He doesn't do what stuff anymore since he's been back from where?"

There was a long sigh at the other end of the line.

"I know you're going to get the wrong idea about this," she said.

"Tell me anyway," I said.

"Well, Joe just got out of jail for stealing a car. But, like, that's all the more reason why he wouldn't have stolen your Minox, because he'd be afraid of violating his parole. See?"

Now it was my turn to be silent. It was clear that the further I probed into this, the worse things I would find, but it was too late to stop.

"Shelley," I said in this very controlled voice, "you gave me your word before I left that you wouldn't let anyone but Cathy into my apartment, and when I came back you swore that you had kept your promise. And now you've admitted that you permitted a man who is on parole for grand larceny to go into my bedroom, and still you insist he is not responsible for my missing Minox. Now, does that sound reasonable to you or do you think I have legitimate grounds for being suspicious?"

"Oh, wow," she said. "OK. Look. I knew Joe went into your bedroom. But I know he didn't take your Minox, because I saw him go through the drawers in your night table and I know that all he took was odds and ends."

At some point I was going to have to just stop asking questions, I really was.

"What sort of ... odds and ends did this convicted felon friend of yours take out of my night-table drawers?" I said.

"Just some Chap Stick and some ... waddayacallems."

"What kind of waddayacallems?"

"Cundrums, I think, is what you call them."

"You mean condoms?" I said. I had once bought a package of very expensive premoistened condoms but had never used them.

"Yeah, condoms. That and the Chap Stick was all he took, I swear. I told him to not even take that, but he did. He was a little stoned and he was, like, goofing on the stuff in your drawers, but even though he was playing around with the Minox, he didn't take it. I would have seen it if he had."

"I'm sure you would," I said. "All right, Shelley, here is what you are going to do. You are going to call your friend Joe the convicted felon and you are going to tell him I know all about the condoms and the Chap Stick and the Minox. You are going to tell him he can keep the condoms and he can keep the Chap Stick, but you are going to tell him that unless he has my Minox back here in my apartment within twenty-four hours, I am going straight to the police and he is going straight back to jail."

There was a lot of heavy breathing at the other end of the line.

"Will you tell him that?" I said.

"I'll tell him," she said and hung up.

I was so angry I was shaking. I could just imagine the scene in my apartment while I was gone--the drug taking, the amused "goofing" on the contents of my drawers--and I felt terribly violated and betrayed.

Obviously, the only true thing she had ever told me was that she was pregnant--and I wouldn't even be sure of that if my own internist hadn't verified it. But pregnant by whom? Joe, the stoned felon? Peter, the former lover and alleged present "friend"? Cliff, the cocky entrepreneur who allegedly never made it into bed with her? Or perhaps she was pregnant by one of her many lovers I didn't even know by name and who couldn't afford to pay for an abortion as I could. To think that I'd believed her when she said she loved me! Bitch!

Well, my little Nabokovian escapade had cost me an expensive miniature camera and $700 for just three lays--at those prices, I'd have been better off with a high-class callgirl. Well, now it was definitely over with Shelley, and I didn't much care if they poured penicillin and soap into her twat till it came out her nostrils.

Shelley called back to say she had talked to Joe and he'd sworn he never took my Minox, and I could go to the cops if I wanted to, but she believed him. I was barely civil to her.

The next day, I filed a claim with my insurance company for the missing camera. Although I was truly furious, the only report I gave the police was for the insurance claim; and when they asked me if I had any idea who might have stolen it, I said I hadn't.

A couple of days after that, Shelley called to say that she didn't know whether I was still interested, but she'd gone back to the abortionist and had another treatment and that this time it had been successful. I asked her if she was all right and she said she was. I asked her where it had happened and she said in her mother's bathroom. She'd felt it coming, she said, and had just gone into the bathroom and aborted it into the toilet. She also said something else, which I dismiss as a teenager's overactive imagination, because it's too disturbing to be taken seriously. What she said was that she forced herself to look at the mess in the toilet bowl before she flushed it down and that it had been a boy.

I never heard from Shelley again, although I did come across some photographs I'd taken of her once and they made me terribly sad.

About two months after I filed my claim, the insurance company sent me a voucher good for another camera. I picked up the new Minox at my local camera store, took it home and was just about to put it into my camera bag, when I saw it: the missing Minox, lying there in the bottom of the bag.

And suddenly, I didn't know anything at all about what had really happened between me and my teenaged mistress, because now any of it or all of it--including her loving me--could just as likely have been the truth as not. The only thing I did know for sure was that whatever the real truth was, it was too late to matter.