Prologue

One day, not long after the ferry terminal episode, Holly, Tiffany, and I were hanging out in a bar having sherry. I didn’t particularly like sherry, but I decided to follow their lead.

At one point Tiffany said, “We know another lady who would like to meet a nice young man like you.”

I blurted out, “Another one?”

“Let me tell you about Catherine, or Cathy. She’s forty-two; she’s also divorced and she has two sons. She’s on the West Side rather than the East.”

“That’s a change of pace. So is she kinky too?”

Tiffany replied, “Oh no, not at all.”

“So she just wants some . . .”

I hesitated, and Holly completed the thought, “She wants some balling.” Leave it to her to be blunt.

Tiffany added, “She wants to rent a Lioness Limousine car, and have you drive it.”

I felt a bit annoyed, “Why can’t I just go to her apartment?”

Tiffany knew, “Because she wants to live out a naughty lady with her chauffeur fantasy.”

I said, “Not that I haven’t seen that before.” I thought but didn’t say, great, now I’ll have to find someplace to park with this Cathy person. “Do you have any photos of her?”

Holly had them. I looked at a lady with blonde hair down to her shoulders. Her face was “interesting;” she had a prominent nose, a wide mouth, and a toothy grin. But man, that grin! She was smiling in all of the photos, and it looked genuine and warm. “She looks very – ah, friendly.”

Holly said, “Yes, she’s a real sweetie; I don’t think she has any meanness in her at all.” She paused. “Unlike the two of us, who can be real bitches.”

I said, “You can play at being bitches, but you’re actually real sweeties too.”

Tiffany said, “Aw, he really likes us.” She added, “You should know that Cathy still has a nice, trim body.”

That was a plus. I still had an issue to bring up. “All of this is making me feel like a gigolo.”

Tiffany protested, “But you’re not! Gigolos want some tangible benefits, like money, gifts, and so forth. All we’ve given you is a few cups of coffee, at most.”

Holly broke in, “And some potato salad.”

“Yes, I remember that. So then, I’m doing this just for fun, not for profit?”

Tiffany answered, “Exactly, so don’t worry about it.”

I wasn’t completely convinced. I remembered Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy, and how he trolled Park Avenue looking for women like these two. There was that steamy sex scene with Cass – Silvia Miles was about forty-four then, but she still looked hot. But she truly was a bitch with no redeeming qualities. When Joe first approached her on the street and used his ridiculous pick-up line – “Ma’am, can you tell me how to get to the Statue of Liberty?” – she replied, “She’s up in Central Park taking a leak.”

If that had been me, I might have had a comeback, “So I guess you know because you take leaks with her.” I was about to describe all of this to Holly and Tiffany (surely they had seen the film), but I thought better of it.

It then struck me that these women didn’t seem at all jealous when sharing me around. Am I just a fling, their boy toy? I wondered what it would have been like if I had been twenty-one back in 1960 when they were also twenty-one. I guessed they wouldn’t have given me the time of day. Now that they were older and lonely, I fulfilled some need in them.

I had one more question, “She couldn’t be from Bryn Mawr too?”

Tiffany was a real estate agent. “I handled her apartment when she bought it.”

Man, now I have to deal with three of these dames. Yet I said, “All right, when this plan is ready, you’ll know where to find me.”

Bush Terminal / Industry City

On a Sunday, I drove my car service vehicle to West End Avenue. I had my single sports coat and a tie on. Cathy Coleman was on the sidewalk, and she came right over to the front passenger-side door. I let her in.

“You must be Paul. I’m Cathy, of course.”

“Hi Cathy; how are you?”

She looked even better in person. Her warm smile melted my heart almost immediately.

Like my other two ladies, she went in for dressing up on the weekends. The most notable item was her big, brimmed white hat. She had a short-sleeved, white blouse with black dots, a black skirt, darky nylon stockings, and black medium-heeled shoes. Except for the hat, it was all pretty basic, but she looked great.

She said, “I’m going to sit in the back. I think you know why.”

“Sort of.”

“That’s so I can play my naughty passenger role.”

That’s exactly what Holly and Tiffany did too. As I starting driving I said, “Cathy, as you must know, we have to go someplace with some privacy. I was thinking of the first location I took Holly, in Brooklyn.”

“I know all about it.” She giggled, “Holly is not the most discreet person.”

“I know that.” How much detail had she described? “So this place is called Bush Terminal.”

“I’ve seen it, from the expressway.”

“So I’ll use the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. That should be quick.”

She was quite sociable on the trip and we talked about our lives. When we emerged from the tunnel, I knew I’d be using Third Avenue under the elevated expressway. Cathy looked around and said, “This must be the location for Last Exit to Brooklyn.”

Holly had made the exact same comment. I replied, “Yes, this is it. Red Hook and Sunset Park.”

“There was that scene where that poor girl Tralala gets gang-raped.”

I said, “That was a little hard to take. I suspect Hubert Selby was a pretty strange guy.”

We soon turned right, and the car bumped over Belgian-block streets and railroad tracks. I did find a place that looked promising. An entire block between First and Second Avenues was given over to parking truck trailers. There was an aisle down the middle that was wide enough to drive into; I parked halfway down. The aisle was open at both ends, but it seemed unlikely that anybody would come in there.

Cathy said, “This looks pretty good; you’re very clever.”

I then had the paranoid thought that I had expressed to Tiffany once. What about a slowly-cruising police car? Would the cops look through here and wonder why a passenger car was parked among the trailers? I tried to put that out of my mind, but I also thought, there is only so much of these daytime parking events that I can take.

“Cathy, I’m coming back there now.”

“Yes, please do.”

When I was sitting to her right, I felt an awkwardness about it. Holly and Tiffany had gotten right into their kinky role-plays, which made it easier for me to be uninhabited. Cathy said, “I admit, I’m a bit nervous.”

“Just relax; if you feel uncomfortable with something, just let me know.”

She smiled at me, “I think I’ll get used to it pretty quickly.”

She soon moved closer to me, and she put her arms around me. Then we started kissing me; she had to take her wide hat off to do that. It felt good, but I was aware that I had only known her for about forty minutes. I only touched her by rubbing her bare lower arms.

At one point she got close to my ear and spoke quietly. We couldn’t be overheard by anyone, of course. I could detect a shyness in her.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been with a man. You, I know, have been with Holly and Tiffany.” Why did she have to mention those two? “Do you have a real girlfriend somewhere?”

Holly and Tiffany seemed real enough to me. “I did have a girl at City College, but she left me in December.”

Cathy found some reserve of boldness because she said to me. “If you are okay with this, I know exactly how I want it to go.”

She needed another moment to get more courage up. “You’re a young guy, so I want you to have some stamina for me. First, well, I’m going to blow you. Then, after a bit, we’ll have intercourse.”

I was struck by how she was mixing crude and formal words. It obviously took her a bit of effort on her part to say that. I said, “Sure Cathy, whatever you want.”

Soon she was rubbing my crotch. She said, “Please, feel me up.” I tried for her breasts first, but her blouse didn’t have buttons in the front. “Here, look at this.” She yanked her black skirt up. I saw a black garter and straps holding up her dark stockings and her lacy black panties on top of those.

“Do you like my underwear?”

I would be more cautious about praising a younger woman, but I figured I had nothing to lose by complimenting this one. “Yeah Cathy, it looks great.”

She took my right hand and guided it to her crotch. “I’m sure you know what to do.”

I certainly did. I slipped my hand into her panties and began alternating between fondling her crotch and moving back to squeezing her ass. Most women seemed to go for that technique. In a few moments she was moaning and saying things like, “My God, this feels wonderful.”

This gal still has her juice. For a second I couldn’t help but wonder how long it had been since a man had done this with her.

Soon she said, “Let me get this off.” She put her feet up on the cushion and took her panties off. Soon her hands were down there to help me out. My fingers went in and out of her while her own fingers went to her clitoris.

“I’m going to come with this, I know it. This is how I masturbate.” I was a bit surprised at how down and dirty she could be. She continued, “Don’t worry, I’ll do you too soon.”

“Cathy, I’m not worried.”

When she came, she leaned back, wiggled around, and was chanting something like, “Oh, oh, oh.” Then she sat there and breathed heavily. I was a bit rattled; this had all been quite abrupt. The brashness and even recklessness of Holly and Tiffany had covered for the weirdness of their actions and the risky locations I had chosen for them.

Cathy did have something going for her; I guess I’d call it sweetness. And she seemed to be gaining some comfort with her own sexuality in a way that I suspected she hadn’t done in some time.

As she sat there, she reached out and just touched my nose, “Paul, we’ve really been enjoying this day together so far, but I’ve caught just a touch of – what would I call it? – discomfort from you.” I didn’t know to respond. She elaborated on it for me. “It’s almost if you are being too polite. Probably that’s the way you were trained to deal with women.” She didn’t add, women my age, although I was sure that’s what she meant.

If she had been my age, I would have tried for a cocky comeback. Instead, I said, “Does that bother you then?”

“Oh no, not at all. It’s just that, as you get to know me better, you’ll become more relaxed about getting down and dirty with me. I mean, I’d really like that. Here, let me show you some things.”

She removed her blouse and her skirt. Her bra and her ample garter were a matching set, black with lacy side panels. She got into a kneeling position facing away from me on the seat. Since she had taken her panties off, her behind stuck out from the open bottom of her garter. She shook it at me and got giggly.

“If I rubbed my bottom into your crotch, I’m sure I could get you to come.”

“Ah, with my pants up or down?”

She laughed, “Both ways! Even through the cloth, I think I could still do it.” Then she turned to me and went into her quiet confidential mode, “Let’s get to the main act already; we’ll skip that other part.” I figured she meant the blowjob proposal.

She thought a bit more about it. When she started talking again, she was very calm and methodical. “I’ll open up your pants but I won’t rub you so you won’t get too excited. Meanwhile, you’ll rub me so that I do get excited.” She seemed to be remembering some long-disused sexual techniques.

I couldn’t tell her this, but I was glad she was skipping the oral sex. I knew that it and the interim period immediately afterwards would take some time, the time when we were most at risk of getting caught.

We kissed and hugged in the back seat. At one point I decided to take off my awful sports coat. When she wanted to go further, she unbuckled my pants and took down my zipper. As my erect cock come out, she said only, “Oh my.” I supposed it been a while since she had seen one, but she seemed comfortable with the situation.

We kind of naturally got into things. As I had promised, I fondled her pussy, and she again put a hand down there to help. I wasn’t going to remove most of my clothing; all I did was pull my pants down below my knees. We did more mutual rubbing of each other’s crotches. Somehow we forgot to undo her bra, and her nipples were not in the game.

When she was lying down, with one black shoe up on the back seat cushion, and the other propped on the front seat, I decided it was time to go into her.

She started enjoying it from the very start, which pleased me too. Despite her worries, I did have enough staying-power for her. It was enjoyable to look up and see her legs, with the dark stockings and dark shoes, waving around in the air. It was also notable to hear the dirty yet obvious things that people usually say during sex, “That’s it, fuck my cunt, please fuck it hard!”

Her climax came rather quickly, just before mine did. She held her arms around me and gripped my body with her legs. I forgot any unease I might have had when I came myself. I put one hand under her behind to lift her up and get a better angle on her.

Afterwards, we stayed together for a short while as our breathing returned to normal. It seemed very quiet out in the surrounding area. The only sound from outside seemed to be a locomotive horn in the rail yard across the street. That was enough to get me to sit up and Cathy followed my lead.

She seemed more at ease than I was, and she put an arm around me and cuddled. She said, “I’m so glad I could please you.”

“Well, I’m glad I pleased you too.”

I became more aware again of where we were, and as usual, I felt disconcerted. I looked out and saw the sun shining on the trailers.

“Cathy, it’s really time we go.”

“I know; I get that.”

She got her clothes on and I got my pants up. When that was done, I got out on the passenger side and walked around the front. As I got behind the wheel, Cathy got in the front too and sat pressed against me. I had expected that; all of these women did the same things.

“Oh, let me get my hat.” She retrieved it from the back seat and put it on. Then, “But I left my panties back there on the floor.”

“Okay, why is that?”

“Because it feels so good without them. You see, everyone thinks I’m a good girl, but I’m actually very bad.” I sensed that she had used that line before, probably a long time ago. Had it been with a lover or just one of her friends?

I started the engine and we drove off. Beyond the trailers, there was a big, bright world. There were no people on the streets, but I still felt strange having to drive after an intimate encounter. I looked around, just to distract myself. There was a single red boxcar by a loading dock. Painted on the side was, “Southern Serves the South.”

Cathy saw it too, “That’s kind of redundant, isn’t it?”

It took me a second to realize that she was joking. I chuckled and said, “Yes, it sure is.”

In a moment I was turning the big car into Third Avenue again. There were fewer traffic lights on that one as compared to Fourth. Just to start a conversation, I asked her, “So where did you go to school?”

“I’m Barnard, class of ‘56.”

I was impressed. Barnard was a women’s university in Manhattan, closely affiliated with Columbia. Damn, she’s Ivy League.

“That’s pretty awesome, I’d say.”

She replied, “Well, don’t they call your school the Harvard of the Proletariat?”

I was kind of proud of that. “Yes, they sure do. However, the campus is, well, run-down now.”

“I heard about how the Stalinists and Trotskyites used to have debates in the cafeteria. That was a bit before my time.”

“That’s right, in the 1930s. It was the one in Shepard Hall.”

It occurred to me that if we had both been twenty-one at the same time, either now or in 1955, we might have hit it off.  Well, aren’t we getting along now? No, she had over two decades on me, so it wasn’t quite the same. We were of different generations; we had grown up in different eras. Yet, even with her slightly prominent teeth and nose, she must have been stunning back then. She still seemed pretty hot.

She seemed to guess my thoughts because she said, “Paul, I’m aware of certain things. I know that you are going back next semester. You’ll have to find a girl up there for yourself.”

That was true, but I didn’t know how to respond.

She continued, “It would be nice if you could still show me some kindness every now and again.”

“Haven’t I been kind so far?”

“Of course you have.”

I had an ungenerous thought, why doesn’t she date someone her own age? Then, maybe she can’t find anybody. Holly and Tiffany didn’t seem to be having any success either.

To change the topic, I said, “Let’s avoid that noisy tunnel; we can take the Brooklyn Bridge.”

“That’s a good idea. I like the view from up there.”

It turned out that the bridge wasn’t that quiet either. I had forgotten that the bridge back then had a strange deck made of a steel grid with asphalt stuck in the openings. The sound of tires running over that was pretty intense. I looked out at the city, my city. It could be both exciting and overwhelming. In 1976, it was also getting into deep trouble.

As we approached West End Avenue, she said, “I’d like it if later you would come back here, and we could have a couple of drinks.” That was exactly what Holly had asked me to do the first time. Tiffany had decided on coffee for her first day.

I said, “I can do that.”  I gave her an estimated time of arrival. Then on her block, there was some awkwardness at our parting. She decided to kiss me warmly.

She winked at me, “I have some pretty nice undergarments, don’t I?”

“Yes, Cathy, you sure do. I see you are into that garter belt thing.”

“You know where I got that from? From Holly and Tiffany. They also told me about the – ah, lack of a certain undergarment.”

I said, “Like you are now, obviously. I think they’re a bad influence on you.”

She laughed, “At my age, you need all the bad influences you can get. Look, when you get back here, tell the doorman to have me come downstairs. I’ll tell him to expect you. There’s a bar on Broadway we can go to.” She looked a bit worried. “You did say you were coming back?” She was aware that I could just disappear from her life now if I wanted that.

I reassured her, “You bet.”

As I was driving away, some memory of the last couple of hours came to me. At a light, I looked in the back. Sure enough, her black panties were still on the floor.

Hey, she’ll be amused when I give them back to her in the bar.

Epilogue

A few days later, Holly and Tiffany invited me to the latter’s apartment. I knew what they wanted: an after-action report, something to gossip about.

Holly said, “Cathy told me she wants to see you again.”

“I know, I could tell that from what she said to me – in the future tense.”

Tiffany said, “So, did you like her? You know what I mean.”

I felt that was a bit personal, and I wasn’t about to describe the details. All I said was, “Yes, I liked her.”

“I think she charmed the pants off of you.”

“Well, I didn’t have any trouble getting into her pants either.”

Holly went for some mock disapproval. “Oh, that’s so crude.”

A bit later, I blundered into something that had been on my mind for a while. In fact, I had already told them about it. I got into it by referring to a movie. “There’s that scene near the end of Sunset Boulevard where Joe gives all his gifts back to Norma.”

Tiffany said, “I get it; you’re on that kick again.”

I tried to deny it. “No, I was just saying that it was a good movie.”

Tiffany put on a pretty good imitation of Gloria Swanson, gestures and all. “ ‘I’ll show them; I’ll be up there again, so help me!’ ”

Holly said, “Do you want us to buy you a necktie or something and get it all out in the open?”

I had to pretend that I wasn’t serious, “I don’t want a tie; I want a car.”

“What would you like?”

“How about a 1971 Plymouth Cricket?”

She laughed, “It will break down as you’re leaving the lot.”

I realized what was really bothering me, but I wasn’t going to tell them about it. It wasn’t about money and gifts; it was about me exchanging tokens of affection and sex with them. With Cathy, there were now three such women.

Sure, they were all very kind to me, but that wasn’t the point. The seventeen and twenty-one-year age differences were ultimately insurmountable.  I had already fallen for Holly, pretty hard in fact. But I couldn’t tell her that, and I knew she’d never tell me about her own feelings.

No one ever leaves a star; that’s what makes a star. Eventually, somebody was going to have to leave this comfortable little arrangement, and that would be me. I wondered how it would be done without everybody getting their feelings hurt.

As if on cue, the talk came around to sex. Tiffany said, “Do you know that Swanson was married six times? Plus she found time for affairs, like with Joe Kennedy Senior.”

I wasn’t surprised that Holly came up with something witty, elaborate, and dirty. “She must have been a real left-handed screw.” I knew the screw metaphor – the metallic kind - somehow led to the idea that a certain woman’s vagina felt particularly good on a man’s cock.  

Tiffany had her own contribution. She started singing, “ ‘Where have you gone, Joe Maggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you, woo hoo hoo.’ ”

Holly said, “Come on, that lady was a real bitch.” She then turned her attention directly to me. “And we’re not like that, are we Paul?” I could tell she was assessing me, and she was pretty sharp. “You’re actually a rather uptight guy.”

“That’s just my nature.”

“Well, try to relax a bit, okay?”

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