Amy Meets a Swinger

Bobby Cash was a friend of Paul. He used to drink at the Hell's Kitchen bar where Paul worked, but then the bar closed and they didn't see each other much anymore. Last week Paul suggested the three of us go out. I was on my way out the door when the phone rang. "I had to work at the last minute," said Paul. "Would you meet Bobby on your own?"

"I don't know. Isn't he like...in his 60s?"

"Yeah, but you'll like him. He has a very interesting sexual past." My curiosity overcame my trepidation so I slipped on a tight tank top and got on the train.

We were supposed to meet at Mi Nidito restaurant on 8th Ave. and 51st. I knew right away who Bobby was. He was sitting at the end of the bar, by the service area, drinking a Heineken. He had blond eyebrows, a brown mustache and a bald head with a fringe of brown hair that ran around the nape of his neck. He was short and slightly hunched and he wore a cotton plaid shirt buttoned almost all the way to the top.

Bobby?" I said, tapping him on the shoulder.

"Who are you?"

"Amy. Paul's girlfriend." I wasn't actually sure if I was his girlfriend but I liked saying it when he wasn't around. Something about the word always made my clit do a little dance of joy.

"Where's Paul?" said Bobby.

"He had to work," I said, taking a seat. "It'll just be the two of us. I hope you don't mind."

"No," he said slowly. "You're a very pretty girl. You have classic features."

"I know," I said. "Two of them."

"I have three," he said, raising a brow. "What would you like to drink?"

"A frozen margarita." He beckoned the bartender and ordered the drink. "Paul tells me you know him from _____" I said, naming the Hell's Kitchen bar.

"Yes," he said. "I go to so many bars I don't know where I am. Sometimes I get under the alfluence of incohol." He paused for a beat, then let out a high-pitched chuckle, and leaned his torso forward. I got the feeling this was what he always did after a punchline.

"That's a good one," I said.

"The drunker I sit, the longer I get," he said. "Seriously, though. You know what turns my stomach?"

"What?"

"A pair of tits against my back."

Suddenly I was kind of glad Paul couldn't join us after all.

"You're such a wicked man," I said, taking a sip of the margarita. "Paul told me you've had some interesting sexual adventures."

"I did," he said. "I used to have sex with girls in the hotel where I worked."

"When was this?"

"In the late 50s. I worked in a hotel bar on E. 40th St. and sometimes I'd take them up to the rooms. This was a noninflationary time, and the hotels were not doing good. The desk clerk would give me the key. I'd go out, pick up a girl and say, 'I'm staying in town tonight. You want to go to the hotel?' And they would. There was no business of, 'Who'd you have last night?' You understand what I'm saying?"

I nodded, glad I wasn't single in those days.

"But this'll flip your wig," he said. "I used to have sex in telephone booths. You want to hear about my first telephone venture?"

"Oh, yes."

"On the nights I wasn't working, I'd go around the corner to Stouffer's Restaurant at Grand Central Station. They used to serve 2500 lunches and 2500 dinners and there were 60 waitresses. I'd stand by the service area of the bar and flirt heavily. I'd threaten the girls with my eyes."

"What does that mean?"

He gave me a Dracula look and, in a deep, gruff voice said, "You know what I'm gonna do to you?"

"Oh," I said.

"Staring at all those 18-, 19-, 20-year-old girls, I had a permanent erection. Once I went into the pharmacy to get help. There was a lady behind the counter. I asked for the male pharmacist and she said, 'I'm a registered pharmacist. My sister and I work here. What can I do for you?' So I said, not knowing how to say it, 'I have a permanent erection and it just won't go down. What could you give me for it?' She went to the back and told her sister and then she came out and said, 'My sister and I have decided to give you $5000 in cash and a half-interest in the store.'" He doubled over. "You like that one? I told it to Paul the other day."

"I do," I said. "But what about the telephone venture?"

"One night in Stouffer's, this girl came up to me, Eileen, let's say her name was. She's been working there a year or more, she's attractive in a very young way. She says, 'How come you never talk to me?' I said, 'I never got around to it. You're very nice. After work why don't you come around the corner to the bar to get a drink?' At 9 o'clock I got to the bar. I'd told some of the other bartendersfrom the neighborhood to come. So I'm sitting there with the guys, and Eileen shows up. Next thing you know I'm holding her hand. A little while later, I had to make a phone call. As I go, I say, 'Come with me.'

"So we get into this phone booth and just out of nowhere I start kissing her. She kisses back. I say, 'I'm sorry I didn't meet you sooner.' Now I'm developing a quite sizable erection. But I make my phone call and go back to the table with her. Half an hour later I say, 'I have to make another phone call.' So we went back and this time we went through all sorts of gyrations."

"Did you do it?"

"No. I started lifting her dress?women didn't wear pants in those days. I just couldn't help it. I was overwhelmed. Next thing I know I whip it out. I get her hand, I put it on it, I say, 'Oh, Eileen, this is terrific.' I lift her dress and I get it into her panties. But the booth is very narrow. So I said, 'You better get down. Someone might see us.' She gets down and I say, 'Eileen, kiss it.' That's a good thing to say. It sounds innocent. Now I'm losing my color. But I don't drop a load. We go back to the table and start making out at the bar."

"Did the guys know something was strange?"

"Oh yeah. They said, 'I hear they're getting rid of the telephone booths, Bobby. What are you going to do?' Later on I take Eileen over to the hotel and we go up to a room. There was a lot of kissing and then I went in there and I was too excited. I came immediately. It was the same with the others. I slept with probably 40 or 50 Stouffer's girls over two years. When a girl didn't show up for work, it scared the shit out of me."

A busboy came over to us, pointed at me and said something in Spanish to Bobby. Bobby responded in Spanish and the busboy busted up laughing.

"What'd he say?" I asked.

"He said, 'How many times last night?' and I said, 'Eight. I put it in, I fell out, I put it in, I fell out?'" The busboy grinned, gave me a once-over, then walked away.

"How many other telephone ventures did you have?" I asked.

"Probably 20. And 99 percent of these women had no idea what a woman's orgasm was. They thought it was their duty to satisfy the man. They didn't go, 'Oh! Oh! Oh!' Nothing like that. I was making a deposit. I thought quantity was the important thing. I was a hedonist. Not a hedonist. What do you call it?"

"Misogynist?"

"No. What do you call it when a man, you say he's a male..."

"Chauvinist?"

"Yeah. There was never any relationship. Just one night or one half-hour. And the guys I went out with were the same. We engaged in the most awful sexual things. No modesty. We did everything you could think of in every possible position. Except #43, which was dangling off the chandelier."

"Did you ever make a woman come?"

"Just once. No, twice. I once met a beautiful girl from France at the hotel. She taught me control. Didn't speak a lot of English. She'd say, 'You come, I keel you.' She'd make me stop and start again. I came four or five times with her over two hours."

"Have you been married?"

"Once. I got married once, without being in love. I was in the Army, the Korean War. You're afraid the world's gonna come to an end and you're gonna die. You never know when you're gonna get it so sex is the only pacifier there is."

"Did you have kids with her?"

"She sent me a letter saying she had children. I don't know what happened to them."

"Do you wonder?"

"No. I don't even know if they're mine."

"Have you ever felt lonely?"

"No. It's funny. I used to go to so many bars and make so many acquaintances, male and female. I've never gotten a depressed feeling where I hope I'll be with someone."

He took a pull on his Heineken. I'd almost finished my margarita and it had gone straight to my head.

"I'm drunk," I said. "I should probably go home."

"Will you be all right?"

"Yeah." I stood up, put my arm around him and then kissed him on the cheek. It was smooth and taut and I kept my lips against it for a second. Bobby was the dirty older uncle I never had. I couldn't wait to see him again.

"It was good to meet you," I said. "Where you going after this?"

"You got any ideas?" he said lasciviously. Then we laughed loud together. I downed the rest of my drink and headed home.