Once inside the kitchen with the door to the main room closed, the annoying surfer tune faded into the background and Jake seemed to return to some semblance of normalcy. However, Pat found it hard to get a straight answer from him to any of her queries about himself or his girlfriend, Joan Cohen, whom she hadn't noticed being at the party.
Soundtrack: What’d I Say Parts I & II----Ray Charles
Meanwhile, Pat had heaped her plate full of food and started to eat. Jake didn't seem interested in food, but instead headed straight for the refrigerator, where he grabbed a bottle of beer, which he downed almost without stopping to take a breath. Pat had never seen anything quite like it. He opened the beer by levering the bottle cap against the edge of the kitchen table and slamming his hand down on it; he then tipped back his head and let the contents of the entire bottle pour down his open throat without taking a breath or actually swallowing. He then repeated the same routine two more times. Each time, as he finished a beer, he simply dropped the empty bottle on the floor, where it somehow bounced without breaking, and grabbed another from the still open fridge.
Finally, after inhaling his third beer, Jake looked around, his eyes sweeping the room, appearing to notice first Pat, next the table of food, and finally the back stairs. Then his eyes began to oscillate back and forth between her and the stairs, like a pendulum, back and forth, wordlessly. She followed the movement of his eyes and slowly got the message. Jake wanted her to go upstairs with him. He wanted to make love to her. No. That wasn't it. He wanted to fuck her. Love had nothing to do with it. His pendulum eyes said it all. "Let's fuck! Let's fuck! Let's fuck!"
Pat sighed. No. That's not what she wanted. Jake might have fooled her out there on the dance floor with the music surrounding her and with him sweeping her up with his masculine energy... perhaps then her better judgment had been overcome by the raw sexuality of the moment. But now, in the kitchen, beneath stark fluorescent lighting, she could see Jake for what he was at this moment... an animal, full of lust, a musk-scented satyr, while she... she was a woman who craved love, not lust; intimacy, not depravity; a mature relationship, not a one-night stand.
"I don't think so, Jake!" Pat blurted out, almost without thinking. "Not tonight, not here, anyway," she added in a feeble attempt to cover up her knee-jerk prudery.
Jake just stared at her, as if he didn't understand what she'd just said, so she felt compelled to explain, even though she wasn't sure what she'd really meant either. "I know it sounds corny, but I'm not that kind of girl. I don't mean I'm a virgin or anything like that, but I'm, well, I'm not prepared... and I'm not the sort who takes chances."
Jake just looked more confused and Pat began to wonder if she had imagined the whole thing. Now that she thought about it, Jake hadn't actually said anything about sleeping with her, really. It had all just been suggested by his look. Maybe she'd misread him. Maybe she'd imagined what he was thinking. Now she was embarrassed, so she started backtracking.
"Uh Jake... what I meant was... uh... that, sure, I'm really attracted to you and... uh... you know...but, uhhh... well, I'm not prepared tonight... you know what I mean, don't you?" Did she even know what she meant?
But, Jake seemed even more confused by this explanation. Obviously, she wasn't getting through to him, so, moving closer to him, Pat leaned up and kissed his cheek gently. "Jake, I really dig you. I really do. I would definitely like to make it with you,” she lied, at least she thought she did. And then she lied again, but this time she was sure of it: “But I'm right in the middle of my cycle and I don't have my diaphragm... I mean I didn't come here expecting... I... " She stopped. Jake was staring at her wide-eyed.
"Jake? Jake, what's wrong? Are you...?" Pat was growing more uncomfortable by the minute. Jake's almost catatonic silence and his evident confusion had thoroughly unnerved her. She grew silent herself, not knowing what else to say or do.
Finally, Jake seemed to snap out of it, speaking in an almost normal voice. "Oh, yeah, sure. Listen babe. It's O.K. It's just that I was a little surprised. I didn't realize chicks still used diaphragms, you know. I mean, it's O.K., really. I was just surprised. That’s all, and, uh, disappointed. Yeah, I was disappointed. I was feeling that you and me could make some beautiful love tonight. But it's O.K. Really it is."
Pat breathed a deep sigh of relief. Until Jake said this, she had no idea what he was thinking. She still half believed the whole thing was going on only in her head and that Jake hadn't meant anything at all by his pendulum looks.
Pat decided to try exiting as gracefully as possible without sounding totally foolish, if she could help it. "Oh Jake, I feel like such a jerk. I don't know why I didn't bring my diaphragm. I wish I had, but you know, I.... to tell you the truth, it's been a long time... "
She interrupted herself mid-stream. That bit about a diaphragm was bullshit and she knew it; she didn’t have one… because she had no cause to need one. Screw it, she thought, and decided to unload on him her simmering, but growing resentment of her situation vis à vis men on campus.
"To tell the God's honest truth, Jake, it's been a ver-r-r-y long time since I last made love. You know there aren't a whole lot of men in U-Town looking to sleep with a nappy haired sister, especially not one who's 23 going on 43 and is Editor of The Law School Journal and all. You know, most of these guys' egos aren't strong enough to hang out with someone like me... even if they were attracted to me, which they're mostly not, what with all the perky young, bra-less white young things ready to hop in bed at a moment's notice. You know even most of the brothers on campus, as few as there are, seem more interested in white flesh than in their big-bottomed black sisters. You know what I mean?"
Her diatribe seemed to wake Jake up out of the stupor he'd been in since they'd danced. His response was almost coherent. "Yeah. I know. You're right. You're right. It's just I was surprised. That's all. Just surprised and disappointed, you know. It's OK. We'll do it another time, OK? Another time."
"Sure Jake, another time," Pat said, but she could hear in his voice that there wasn't likely to be another time and, oddly, she was disappointed. She leaned up and kissed him, on the mouth this time — but still just a warm kiss, not a hot one.
"See you around, Jake. Maybe in the City sometime."
Links
diaphragm as birth control
Ray Charles
Go to the next scene in Pat's story
New Year's Eve 1968: Pat, Scene 5 "Pat-rees-i-a"
Go to the previous scene in Pat's story
New Year's Eve 1968: Pat, Scene 3 "Praxis"
Go to a related scene
New Year's Eve 1968: Jake, Scene 11 "New Year's Resolution"
No comments:
Post a Comment