Kurt and Mary were unlike anyone I had ever met. Kurt had been in the
Navy, but he hated it. It wasn't what the recruiter promised and "traveling" was no fun in the murky sub-floor of the ship. He got blood poisoning from his socks, which were always wet. They let him out when he almost died. All this gave him a certain mystique; he was a man who had been somewhere.
He had short bleached white hair and looked like a tall, wispy Billy Idol. His lips were full and soft, his voice deep with feline eyes and body movement. He had a deep, throaty chuckle, the kind of laugh you want to hear again and again. In his black jeans, leather jacket with giant pentagram and black ass kickin' boots he was exactly the kind of guy my parents would hate, and he seemed to be flirting with me, laughing a lot, standing very close. He was erotic as well as interesting to talk to. When he wore Polo it mixed with his own intoxicating natural scent in a way that really turned me on. He was well versed in the occult, and loaned me books I could not find elsewhere. I would catch him watching me out of the corner of his eye, touching his big, full lips with his fingers.
At first my relationship with Kurt and Mary seemed based on Earen bashing,(see this weather makes for crappy sex) It turned out that they had never had any real respect or affection for him, and had endless Dumb Earen stories to share with me. I was their friend now; he was on the outskirts. Mary began seeking me out at lunch, asking me over to her house, giving me her cast-off cloths. All the while she would ask me if I thought Kurt was cute. Not wanting to get throttled I tried to be non-committal. Her insistence seemed to require a different answer, and Mary was a big girl who could be menacing. She seemed to beg me to find him attractive.
One day Mary blurted out, "Kurt wants to jump your bones!" She laughed; Kurt dove behind a chair. "Ha Ha! You're both beet red!" This was a little game of hers. She asked me if I liked Kurt. Since he was right there how could I answer yes or no? I now knew he had feelings for me...what was she asking? It was one of those moments where time and space seem all stretched out. Against my own better judgment I was honest and said yes. Kurt came out from hiding, blushing. Mary's maniacal guffaw turned into a chuckle, a face saving sort of, "OK then, I guess I did ask." She was suddenly uncomfortable. She played a game she made up and lost some of her power, the tiniest little toe-hold was given out and she couldn't take it back. I didn't say much about it, but Kurt became more "available". A strange breech had occurred. What did this mean?
Once Mary, Kurt, Earen and I were sitting around Kurt's bedroom and decided to play truth or dare. Mary used this as an opportunity to "make" Kurt and I reveal and admit our feeling for each other, then dared us to "really kiss". The torture for Earen was delicious and palpable. Mary was gleeful at first, but I was taken aback by a sense of passion and being kissed in a way I never had, in such a charged atmosphere. I felt like I might break apart into microscopic pieces, turn into a mist of heat and moisture. Earen got mad and left. Mary spent the rest of my visit trying to maintain top dog status, whining about her body, finding any reason other than the obvious to require Kurt's full physical attention and my sympathy. So began our bizarre triad, a pattern where Mary would push Kurt and I together, then hardly be able to handle her own insecurities when we followed through. He would hold her close and make eye contact with me as if to say, "Our time will come."
Mary began writing me letters, to clear things up, as we were all confused, waiting for her cue as to where this was going. In the letters she made comments like, "Kurt likes you anyway, so I figured it may as well go in front of my back, rather than behind it." And "Hey, friends share, right?"
Earen was trying to make up with me. Part of me knew he was a dork, but another part of me felt powerful, torn between two attractive men who vied for my affections. For the first time I felt like it was up to me.
Mary knew she had opened Pandora's Box. Afraid it would turn out all wrong, she attempted to manipulate and control "our" next move. She would have bouts of self-doubt and want to me to counsel her, stroke her ego and assure her that this really weird thing was not going to get out of hand. There was an understanding between us that I was to be the specially chosen "other" girlfriend, a relationship co-pilot
I was now obsessed with the thought of being with Kurt, though I was concerned as to how it would work out with Mary always present. A few days and many passionate kisses later, Mary announced that she and her friend E.H. were going to drink beer in his car and I could be alone with Kurt If I wanted, wink wink.
In the course of that first time alone with each other we had a passionate exchange of words, a series of confessions regarding all the ways he had noticed me and tried to get my attention, how he was jealous of Earen and couldn't believe I was the same girl he had been talking about, that I was certainly deeper and more beautiful than that. We reminisced about the first time we met, how instead of carving pumpkins like I told my mother we went to the woods to build a fire. Mary and Earen were the wood gatherers because Kurt had a broken arm and I was in dress flats. I confessed that as I pretended to watch the flames I was really struck by the shadows they made on Kurt's cheekbones. I watched his eyes and his magical hands and I felt an odd stirring.
We ended up in a heap in his bed, lights off so Mary could not see in the window from the car. Nothing but soft breath, gentle caresses and throaty murmurs. I was impressed that he didn't take my clothing off all at once, didn't seem in a hurry and was very concerned about my experience. He was savoring me.
It was exquisite.
Later that night Mary appeared, half-drunk and mad at E.H. for rejecting her advances. She was needy, thwarted on all fronts, me with her boyfriend's wonderful smell on my flesh, the love scented room that was not hers alone anymore. We were all in uncertain territory. Together Kurt and I consoled her. He rubbed her back and I gave sympathetic tones and looks. After what I had just experienced, naked, with "her" boyfriend, this step seemed natural; of course her ego would need stroking. Weren't we all getting our needs met now?
We began attending parties as a threesome, walking arm-in-arm-in-arm. Mary would challenge the public, beckoning me to kiss Kurt right after she did, depending on how drunk I was I might indulge and laugh with her at the reactions we would get. Kurt, in the middle, laughed the loudest of all.
Though she was loose lipped about "our" boyfriend the nature of out relationship was to remain a secret from his mother. To maintain he illusion that he and I were just friends Mary suggested that she remain in the room when Kurt and I were having sex. She thought it would look suspicious if Kurt and I were alone in his room while she was downstairs "twiddling thumbs". Aware of her manipulation, and being afraid of confrontation, I agreed to this and a few times, that's how it was. She would peek at us over her magazine and later adopt my style and mock my passion faces.
Somehow, on two occasions we had a threesome even though I found Mary physically repulsive. She had doughy white flesh, hairy arms and bad breath, not enough charisma to pull it all off. But, I was in an adventurous mood, had plenty of beer in me and was curious about sex with another woman. I remember those nights in jerky, hazy, half images, the three of us lurching around the bed, Kurt caressing two women at one time, the idea of pleasure competitions... The second time I remember almost nothing of the actual event. I was so intoxicated I am surprised my brain could remember to regulate my breathing and heartbeat.
It was not too long after that my relationship with Mary turned ugly. She would insert comments into our conversations, mean little non-sequiters, "You're a dumbass", "Don't be stupid". She was always mentioning that what we had done was wrong, that she had not been brought up that way, a too late shame attack. She wanted to bring everyone down. For my part I was ashamed that I had been naked with a pig. I wasn't sure what it said about my own orientation. There was the fact that she was MARY, the slob with the bad hygiene stories. It was just too much.
We began to fight over Kurt and fiercely defend our time alone with him. I would not kiss him in from of her, insisting that he say goodbye to me privately. I would speak to him about subjects I knew she couldn't keep up with. I would sit in their presence and chain smoke, writing for hours, speaking to neither of them, waiting for her to leave the room, searching for clues and conspiring with Kurt to meet me alone when ever possible. I would make him drive me home and leave her at his house. We would park around the block and make out until my lips were bruised. Sometimes I came home with my panties in my pocket. Once, they fell out of my pant leg as soon as I got to my bedroom. I walked a thin line.
Toward the end of our relationship I was in bed with Kurt, Mary's cloths and personal items strewn about what she now thought of as her room. She came home unannounced, only to find the door locked. Not in the mood to fight with her I whispered that I thought I should pretend not to be there, and Kurt mockingly called out, "I'm kind of busy." We laughed into each other's shoulders. It's not really that I felt bad for her, as it was her insistence that got us in this ridiculous situation in the first place, but it occurred to me that Kurt had meanness to him.
I pushed him to break up with her and devote himself to me, a half-hearted gesture. He had already messed around with April, Joy and Charlotte as well as his ex-girlfriend Mindy, as though two women were not enough for him. Mary was the one who informed me of the Mindy and Charlotte "affairs", reporting it in a rage, "He's cheating on us!" She was asking me to join with her and confront him about his "infidelity".
Kurt and I were sitting in his car when I asked him to leave her. All he did was complain about her, she and I no longer got along, and she had moved into his house one day when he wasn't home, bribing his mother to let her stay by offering to pay a sizable chunk of the mortgage with her monthly inheritance check. He agreed that she was a "fat bitch" which seemed to settle it. He and I made out, a passionate celebration. He was a fantastic make-out partner, what with all the practice.
The next time I came by to see him he was sitting on the couch with Mary. I raised my eyebrow, indicating that I expected him to go ahead and tell her, "Hey, fat bitch, get out..." and Mary, sly as a cat, said, "I asked Kurt if he was going to keep seeing you forever and he said no because you are just a little girl."
A few days later, a day to hot for my sweater, I met him at his house and we drove around the neighborhood. I told him it was over. We stopped in front of an elementary school and I commented that this seemed an appropriate place to break it off with his "little girl." He was pleading, apologetic, asking me to get back in the car. He said we could fix it and I could see that he was weaker, no longer propped up by two women and all the lesser players. I hugged him and accepted equal blame for the ridiculousness of the relationship. He said he loved me and I told him I believed him. There was silence. It was very muggy and my sweater was clinging to me in a gross way. He hugged me, seemed close to tears, and wanted to stay friends. "We've always been friends Kurt, just no more fucking." He asked me to go home with him and hang out, convinced that we could work it out, but I was not willing to play along anymore. I told him to just leave me there and I would walk home. When he got into the car he seemed reluctant to leave and inched away slowly with a concerned look on his face. I went to playground and sat on the swings. I felt sort of free.
Kurt and I did remain friends, even Mary and I became civil to one another, but watching them act as a couple was just weird. Gone was Mary's main way of manipulating him. She could no longer say, "Hey look, I want this bauble or bit of attention because I let you cheat on me" or "I'm just gonna sit here and belittle you because I let you cheat on me." Or, "Go make me sandwich, buy me some beer, don't bitch about my pot smoking or my friends, because, hey, I let you cheat on me."
He still flirted with me, tried to hold me when she wasn't looking. Sometimes I let him, just to smell his neck. I missed him. About a year later he called me in the middle of the night and we went out and got drunk together. Cruising around on the back of his bike, arms around his waist, I breathed him in. The sun was just beginning to come up, a soft fog on the edges of something erotic and dangerous, hum of the motor between our legs, he turned at a stop sign to kiss me and the bike fell over in the road. A woman ran to her door, calling through haze, "Are you OK!?" Lying on the concrete, unhurt by the fall, rolling around on each other, making out in the road, lunatic laughing until a car came. We were off, speeding along toward another time and place, a strange intoxicating destiny. The sun came up and he asked me to ride with him forever. Just keep going until we were far away and out of gas.
By then the fog had lifted.