I was going to wait two days before calling Margery, figuring that I wanted to appear interested but not desperate either. That was about the limit of my knowledge about handling dating situations. However, she was the one who called me the very next day. She had suggested that she might do something like that, but I hadn’t taken her very seriously. It was a Friday, and I had just gotten home from school.

“Hey Hank, how about taking me out this evening? Say about five o’clock?”

Despite what she had suggested the day before, I had never truly imagined girls initiating a date. But I decided to agree to it; maybe it took some of the pressure off me to have her make the call. I did assume that as the male, I would be the one to figure out the details.

“All right, let’s go down to Fordham Road and see a movie.” There were four theaters still operating there, down from a peak of about seven. “Then we can something to eat at Krum’s across the street.” That was a luncheonette/ice cream parlor. We were both too young to go to a bar.

She was enthusiastic about it. “That sounds great; let’s go.” We agree to meet in the park across the street from her building a couple of blocks down from mine.

As I hung up, I thought, Jesus, she called me and she wants a real date right now. I was pleased but a bit discombobulated too.

When I got down there at five, she was sitting on a bench but she immediately got up. I had my second surprise of the day. She had indeed dressed up for me as she had said she would the day before. Her outfit consisted of a light blue pullover blouse, a dark blue skirt with white dots, and chunky brown sandals but no stockings. Her hair looked neater than it had on Thursday. And then she smiled at me.

As I approached her, I felt a thump within myself. Could this be the girl I had been looking for all of these years? At seventeen one has a different sense of time than as an adult. And she was right there on my own street.

But maybe she had been looking for someone too, and for the moment I was that guy. I had no idea why I had been picked; I was sure that it was something beyond the offer of pizza slices. Perhaps it had just been a random event after all, although the first day had gone better than I had expected. I felt a bit nervous about having a follow-up on this second day. I fretted about saying or doing something well, stupid, but I had to hide that fear from her.

Perhaps she was thinking something similar because for a second we just stood there face to face without speaking. Then she said something that I guessed she had planned for that moment. “What is that line about not knowing anything about bachelor dandies and drinkers of brandies?”

For a second I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, but then it struck me. Oh yeah, Liesl Von Trapp. Margery had mentioned her the day before because the character had been approximately the same age as she was now. I figured that being bold and confident had worked pretty well so far, so I tried it again. I said, “Except I think you may not be so timid and shy after all.”

“Well, Liesl wasn’t either, although she tried to fake it. But yeah, you’ve got that right about me, and I’m also not that naïve.” I wanted her to explain that further, but then she put her hands on my shoulders and kissed me on the mouth. It wasn’t a long kiss, but it was more than the peck I had gotten the day before. She stepped back and gestured at herself.

“So what do you think, I mean about how I look?”

I had known that this moment might come, and I had prepared for it as best I could. I had to walk a line between over-praising her and appearing rude or indifferent. I pretended to scrutinize her for a moment, and then I said, “You look about two years older than you did yesterday.” That seemed to strike the right note.

“Of course, that’s the whole point of it.” At least she was too inexperienced to ask me about other girlfriends I might have going. It wasn’t until I was a bit older that I had to handle that gambit. I still wasn’t going to admit to her that I hadn’t been on any other dates before. Keep her guessing.

I hoped that I wasn’t hurrying her, but I said, “So, how about we get going now? We’ll take the Bx41.” The bus stop was about three blocks away.

“No, let’s take the el; it goes to the same places.” That was one of the reasons why that line wasn’t going to last much longer.

The mode of transport was a minor concession on my part. But it definitely seemed like I should choose the movie, but what would this chick’s taste in film be? I decided to go with what I wanted to see. If she hated the idea, I would be able to tell from her facial expression. But she had liked The Godfather so that gave me a clue.

“Deliverance is playing at the RKO Fordham; we should see that.” I did my best to sound decisive.

She went for it, “Oh yeah, I had wanted to see that one.” I was big on reading movie reviews every Friday; maybe she was too.

Then she caught me off-guard yet again. She came around to my left side and put her arm through mine. “A gentleman always walks with his lady to the side away from the street.” I realized that for those three blocks the traffic would be to our right.

“That won’t help much if a truck jumps the curb.”

She was amused by that and she laughed. “It is kind of obsolete, isn’t it?” My attempt at humor had gone over pretty well. Then I liked how it felt as she put her arm through mine. It was the first time in my life I had ever had that much affectionate contact with a girl, and it felt great.

After that, however, things were quite platonic in terms of physical contact. We had only met the day before, so that seemed normal to me. On the trip down, we talked about Liesl, which seemed like a safer topic to converse about rather than ourselves. As we waited on the train for it to leave the terminal, I tried to show some expertise by saying, “None of the Von Trapp daughters was actually named Liesl.”

“I know, they all were fictionalized. The oldest daughter was named Agathe, and she would have about twenty-five at the time of the Anschluss.”

The Anschluss referred to the German annexation of Austria, which in the movie seems to happen not long after Liesl and Rolfe are dancing around that gazebo. But what struck me was the off-handed way Margery had tossed off that bit of info. She gave me a subtle sidelong glance that seemed to say, you didn’t think I’d know that, did you?

Actually, I didn’t think she’d know because, let’s face it, most Americans don’t know a damn thing about history. They mostly couldn’t even find Austria on a map. Perhaps it was a strange thing to think on a date, but I was impressed that Margery knew anything about Agathe Von Trapp or what was going on during her lifetime.

I said, “I heard that the Captain was actually the good-natured one, and Maria could have a terrible temper at times.”

“It usually blew over pretty quickly, however. You know who gets me? That Baroness Elsa person.”

“Why is that?”

“Because she just sits back and lets this young whipper-snapper come in and steal her fiancé.”

“Well, Maria is really good with the kids.”

“The hell with that; I’d put up a fight – a subtle one, of course - to keep him.”

“Yeah, but she’s completely fictional too.”

“Yes, absolutely. Just like Rolfe and his various Nazi buddies.”

When we got to the theater, I realized that I had forgotten that Deliverance was rated R, and technically Margery was a couple of months too young to be admitted without an “adult guardian.” I was prepared to argue that I was seventeen, and that qualified me to take her in. But the ticket-taker, who was close to my age, didn’t notice anything about us and he didn’t give us any hassles.

When I saw the scene with Ned Beatty and his hillbilly tormentors, I certainly got what the R-rating was about. Later, when we were at the luncheonette, I mentioned the incident. “That movie didn’t show white Southerners in the best light.”

“It’s about the last group you can malign without consequences.”

Then I slipped up and did ask something a bit dumb. “You weren’t shocked by that scene, were you?”

Fortunately, she was amused. “No Hank, I wasn't shocked. I do know about such things. In fact, I knew it was coming because I had read about it.”

“So you don’t mind spoilers. Did you ever see Easy Rider? That’s another one with various cavorting crackers, although they only shoot people.” For a second I wondered why I had even mentioned that movie.

But she laughed at it. “You see, you’re doing it yourself! You called them crackers.”

“I was kidding.”

“Of course, I got that.”

I was beginning to feel in tune with her like I had on Thursday. At one point she wanted to talk about poetry again, and she picked T.S. Eliot’s “Preludes.” She recited the first stanza, which impressed me. I had never heard the poem before, or any of Eliot’s work at all.

She said, “I really should get a copy of these poems – I mean I have them at home – and read them to you. Would you like that?”

I was too inexperienced not to let my interest in that show. . “Sure, I’d like that.” It seemed very romantic for a couple to read poems to each other, although her choices weren’t really about love – at least in the conventional sense of it.

I think I’ve found a really smart, interesting girl here – and right from my own street.

At a certain point, however, she suddenly sexualized the conversation, which caught me off-balance again. I think she was doing it deliberately to enjoy the effect it was having on me. The striking thing was that she was indirect about it and she talked almost entirely about ladies’ stockings and underthings. She was very calm as she said. “I know you said I should wear nylon stockings today.” It had been sort of a throwaway line, but I remembered that I had hinted that stockings would look good on her.

I wasn’t thinking about it too much as I said, “Yeah, I remember that.”

“Well, it’s was a little too warm today to be wearing pantyhose.”

That go my attention, and I recognized that she was escalating the conversation to a different level. However, I didn't have the slightest idea of how to respond to her. But I was certainly having an explicit thought about her for the first time that evening. It was on the order of, I wonder what color and kind of panties this girl has on under her skirt? I couldn’t help wondering about that detail.

She was looking at me like she knew what she was doing, and maybe she had already planned some of the dialogue. The next thing she said “I think I’m going to get garters and straps for warm days like this. You do know what those are, don’t you?”

I wasn’t very knowledgeable about women’s clothing, especially their underthings, but I didn’t want to admit it. “Of course I know what those are.”

She knew I was lying; I could tell that much. I didn’t know yet that women were very good at picking up clues about exactly that sort of issue.

Thus she ignored what I had just said and launched into a quite detailed explanation of the subject. “Well, they’re kind old-fashioned now, but you can still get them. Before pantyhose, women used them to hold up their stockings. The garter is a sort of a belt or girdle that goes around your waist, and there are straps, up to four of them, going down to hold the stockings. Those are sort of clipped on.”

I guessed that all this was a test to see if she could get me rattled or embarrassed. Perhaps I was uneasy, but instinctively I knew I had to hide it. I tried to appear as cool as possible as I said, “You seem very interested in describing these things.”

Margery indeed had a lot more to say about the topic. “The garter is open at the bottom so you’re supposed to wear underpants over everything. Notice I said, ‘supposed to.’ I imagine it would be a lot of fun to not wear the panties, however.” She giggled, “I mean, my crotch would be open to the air, but no one would know that because it was under my clothes.”

That was going way beyond flirting; she was coming close to making a pass at me. My imagination flashed again. Her clothes that day, especially her skirt, emphasized her femaleness. I thought, maybe she isn’t even wearing panties right now. That was exciting but also a bit disturbing to imagine. The best I could come up with was, “Have you ever done that yourself?” Hey, she started this whole thing, I didn’t.

“No, I don’t have a garter. But I know what they look like, and it’s fun to imagine what I could do. They sell them down on Orchard Street, among other places.”  She leaned forward, “So, Hank, what color should I get for the garter and straps? White or black?”

I somehow knew what to say, “How about both?”

“I like that idea. When I get them, I’ll show them to you.” She could tell I was still confused. “Silly, I mean they won’t be in the package, I’ll be wearing them!”

I knew from the way she was looking at me that she was well aware of the implications of what she was saying. “You thought I was a good girl, but I can also be very forward and naughty perhaps, right?”

Thank God I came up with something, “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Margery found that amusing, “But I think I am that way, or I could be if given the chance.”

I was daring enough to say, “I have no doubt that you could be.”

That didn’t faze her at all. “You know what else I should wear? I should get out my old knee socks. I’ve got them in all colors, but I haven’t worn them in a while. I thought I had outgrown them. But now that the school year has started up again, maybe I should look a bit different. I have nothing against trousers, but I don’t have to wear them every day like I have. So, do you like girls in knee socks?”

Of course I did, almost every guy was like that, but that was quite a load of information to process. She seemed to be describing all of this stocking stuff as a way to tease me. I was trying to keep my poise through this, but I realized that I had an erection at this point. Later I figured she knew I would have one after all she had just said.

In any case, I had never heard a girl talk like she was doing, although if I had been older I would have recognized that it was mostly pretty mild. I thought, I hope you’re not simply having some fun at my expense. But some intuition told me that she wasn’t just kidding around. 

I didn’t say any of that, of course. Instead, I said, “Aren’t you a bit old for knee socks?”

She had her response ready. “Not at all, older ladies wear them too, sometimes with different patterns on them. Sometimes those are thigh-high.” She seemed to know a lot about that topic too. “Although, there are girls my age who do wear them, I mean the ones who go to Catholic schools. You must have seen them around on the streets.”

I tried for casual indifference, “Sure, I’ve seen them around.”

“If you wish, I could improvise that Catholic school look. Would you like to see me that way?”

Man, I would definitely like seeing that but I knew I had to keep calm. “I’ll tell you what Margery, if you want to go to the trouble of doing that, then I’ll look at it, okay?” That was the best I could come up with, but by sheer luck, perhaps, it seemed to work with her.

“Okay, give me some time and I’ll do it for you.”

From the way she was smiling, I knew she was pleased by how this game with me was going. Later I figured out that she was being somewhat provocative, and I was pretending to not really notice or care. She understood how I was playing my end, but she appreciated the effort I was putting into it.

I suddenly remembered that in my fantasy about her the night before, she had been wearing white knee socks. It seemed an odd coincidence that she had just mentioned them. But I was starting to think that Margery could be a handful for a novice like me. First, she had initiated the date, and then she had started to control what happened during the event.

Jesus, she’s been talking about what it would be like to not wear panties. I could picture her bare under her skirt, and that was pretty heady to contemplate.

Maybe she had enough for the moment, and she glanced at her watch. I looked at mine too, and I said, “We should get going soon.” She agreed, even though I had mixed feelings about ending that conversation. I almost asked if she had a curfew, but I decided that it was up to her to mention it.

It was fully dark out when we got back to Bronx Boulevard. She said, “Come on, let’s sit on one of the benches in the park.” When we had sat down, she put an arm around my shoulders and brought her face close to mine. She quietly said, “Let’s make out, right now.”

Before I could respond, she put her lips on my mouth and kissed me, much more insistently than before. After a brief delay, I kissed back. It was then that I understood what the big deal about kissing was, why it was featured so prominently in old movies. It meant that the couple were really serious about each other.

Soon I was kissing her all over her face, including her closed eyelids. She said, “Put your tongue in my ear and let’s see how that goes.” I did, and she giggled, “Oh, that tickles, but it feels nice anyway.” That gave me an opportunity to push my face through her hair and catch her aroma.

During our smooching, I took care to only touch her arms or shoulders. I admit that I had an urge to lift up her blouse and undo her bra, thus giving me access to her breasts. But I wasn’t going to do that without an explicit go-ahead from her. Yet, I couldn’t control my own body, and I got an erection through the whole thing. If she noticed – which I’m sure she did – she didn’t comment on it.

I did say some rather dumb things to her because of my youth and virginity. “Margery, you’re so sweet.”

She laughed, “Yes, sweeter than an Almond Joy bar.”

My reply was almost irrelevant, “I do like the cocoanut in those things.”

When the time came, I walked her across the street to the front door of her lobby. For the first time, she held my hand, and I savored the feeling of her warm flesh on mine. The last thing she said was, “Are you going to be home tomorrow?” That was a Saturday.

“I suppose so.”

I almost asked her why she wanted to know, but she told me without prompting. “I thought I’d give you another call, maybe early in the afternoon.”

“Sure, I’ll be there.” That would be the third day in a row, but it was the weekend now.

I was feeling a bit shaky after I had left her and I was walking up the block. It was hard to deal with the sudden impact Margery was having on me. I was thinking of her as a potential lover now. I had thought I always wanted that, but now that it seemed to be on the verge of happening, I felt some anxiety about it.

That night I had a very intense masturbation fantasy about her. She was wearing the same clothes I had seen her in earlier, and she was splayed out on a bed. Her skirt was up around her waist, he panties were off (I pictured them as being blue with white dots to match her skirt), and her legs moved around as I thrust into her. Sometimes she spread them wide, other times she wrapped them around my body. I had been in such a hurry to penetrate her that I had lowered my trousers but I hadn’t taken them off. It only took a few minutes for me to come.

As I lay there afterwards, it never occurred to me that she would be doing virtually the same thing to herself that night while thinking of me. Based on what she had said earlier, I should have known that.  I also shouldn't have been so surprised about what she did that Saturday.

#####

Agathe Von Trapp died in 2010 at the age of ninety-seven.