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All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design: Willsin Rowe
Alice In Shtuppingland © August 2011 Barrie Abalard
eXcessica publishing
A Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved
Alice In Shtuppingland
By Barrie Abalard
A Word About the Seventies
A side of the Seventies you don't normally read about concerns the people who burned out on Sixties anti-war, anti-establishment protests. While these folks fully participated in the group grope that was the era, not all of them frequented discos or wore Spandex. Some continued living in their blue jeans (though they did enjoy donning the occasional platform shoes with their jeans). Some of them were still hippies, mired in Sixties politics and attitudes and enjoying a slacker lifestyle, to use a phrase that hadn’t been invented yet.
While writing Alice in Shtuppingland, a project that took seven years to come together (pun intended), I did my best to keep the settings, fashions, household items, etc., true to the time period. If certain things seem outlandish, all I can say is, I was there. I did an awful lot of what’s depicted in the book, including being hired to drive a cab (when I had no clue where anything in Boston was located), and working in a clerical capacity at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston—the old building at Ten Post Office Square. (However, my boss was emphatically not the guy you’ll meet later in the story. My boss treated me well, and I enjoyed working with all the people in my department.)
Yes, I really lived at the YWCA on Berkeley Street, not far from Boston Police Headquarters, for a short while—at the time, it cost only five dollars a night. I literally did nothing there but sleep (no men were allowed above the first floor), so cheap worked for me. What I can't figure out these days is how I did without a cell phone when I was looking for a decent apartment/rent share. Pay phones were pretty damned inconvenient, but it was all I had available to me until I moved into a place with a land line (known back then as, simply, "a phone").
Rent in Boston today remains just as outrageously expensive as it was then. The Boston Public Library is still one of my favorite places, as is Copley Square, where I indeed got quite shit-faced on tequila one snowy January night. But not alone. Well, you'll read about it. Know that the drinking tequila straight from the bottle in sub-freezing temps, while wearing my beloved ankle-length wool coat and boots, is true, even if the guy who joined me didn't even remotely resemble the male character portrayed in the story.
However, I’ll not comment on the truthiness, to use a Stephen Colbert word, of Alice’s sex life when compared to mine. Some things are best left to the imagination. But I can tell you that the Chocolate Orgasm in the story is a real dessert (and is absolutely scrumptious and will add three inches to your butt, even if all you do is look at it). It is sold to this day by Rosie’s Bakery. Back in 1977, it was sold by Baby Watson, which (who?) was then justifiably famous for cheesecakes of all varieties.
Do you have the idea I spent much of my time eating my way through Boston and Cambridge in the Seventies? If you think that, you're right. And, damn, how I miss The Coffee Connection! (Starbucks bought them out in the late Eighties.) Caffeine and nicotine were (mostly) my drugs of choice back then. I'm too old for both now.
Certain places in the story do exist where I bent the truth, or the local geography, for my own reasons. Know that any inaccuracies regarding Boston, Cambridge, and the time period are due to artistic license. It’s either that, or my failing memory. I can’t recall which.
As always, none of the characters in this story are intended to resemble any person, living or dead. The characters are, at best, amalgams inspired by more than one person, though several are outright fashioned from whole cloth. No one in the story is “you” (if you happen to know me personally). Not even if you think you remember participating in the activities depicted. With me. Nope.
Remember this: the original Alice in the original Wonderland (a place invented by a very strange mathematician) was a visitor to the locale. In the same way, my Alice lives in Shtuppingland but isn't of Shtuppingland. She doesn't participate as fully as some characters do, though she does her best to keep up. A in S is not a sex book, but it is a sexy one. At least, that's my intention. And the word shtupp? It's Yiddish, a rather impolite word meaning, "to fornicate." If you've seen Blazing Saddles, you might remember Madeline Kahn's character, Lili von Shtupp. Just writing the name makes me smile.
Enjoy the Survival Rules at the beginning of each chapter. Many of them are based in fact, or were at least inspired by the hard knocks of experience. Truth be told, I took more than my share in real life, mostly because of my hard-headedness. (Cue the Cat Stevens song, "Hard Headed Woman".)
My coming of age (again, pun intended) in Seventies Boston provided me with many fond memories and, I hope, has provided you with an entertaining story. In my mind, Alice is still shtupping madly in some Boston-area apartment with the hot nerd who became her husband. Rock on, gal!
Prologue
I used to think, life sucks, and then you die. But now, I’m not so sure.
See, my original premise was based on eighteen years of hell, otherwise knows as home, not-so-sweet home. I flew the coop for Boston in 1977 and didn’t look back, figuring that the cold and snowy locale had to be better than what I’d known up to that time. I also figured 1977 had to be better than ’76, not to mention all the years that preceded it. Why? Because, at heart, I’m a cockeyed optimist.
Why Boston? It was supposed to be one of the best places for a writer to live. I’d read that somewhere. And writing has always been my passion. Besides men, I mean.
Men—I had a few back then, though I didn’t (often) date more than one simultaneously. That fact made me hopelessly square in the Seventies. But I lived my by my own rules, and one of the biggest ones was, doing things my way was worth any price.
That was before life took a twist I never, ever saw coming.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
PART ONE:
THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE, 1977
Chapter One
January, 1977
Alice's Survival Rule Number One: Use every ladies' room you run across in Boston, because you can never be sure when or where you'll find another one.
There's one thing to be said for a dysfunctional childhood—it gets you out of your parents' house, no matter what the price you pay is.
"More?"
The waitress held a steaming pot. I accepted more coffee, grateful for the restaurant walls separating me from Back Bay's January wasteland. The Boston Globe's front page that I’d seen on a newsstand had noted that the day’s high would reach thirty. I’d learned in two short, frigid Boston days that "thirty" in the month following Christmas was practically a heat wave.
I smashed my half-smoked cigarette in the cheap metal ashtray, sparks flying. My little drawstring purse contained a few dollars and a partial roll of dimes for phone calls. The bucks were enough for my coffee shop bill and two or three subway rides, tops. But I was on my own, and happy, for the first time since I could remember.
Removing the two half-smoked cigarettes from the ashtray, I smoothed them, the better to re-light them later. My tobacco stash was down to eight. I needed to mellow out before I used up any more cancer sticks. Yeah, I shouldn’t smoke. But have you ever met a writer who didn’t smoke while pounding the typewriter keys?
To lighten my mood, I closed my eyes, willing silly images to appear on the inside of my lids. Imagining my parents puckering their lips up to my bare ass prompted a smile. I could just hear Mama, complaining my underwear weren't sufficiently proper for a hospital's emergency room. Eyes open again, my fingers scrabbled for the last crumbs of blueberry muffin while I flagged down the waitress for the bill. But when I asked her where the ladies' room was, she stared at me as if I were the dumbest rube ever to hit the big city. "We don't have one."
All Virginia restaurants, by law, had public restrooms. I thought that surely Massachusetts would be the same. "What do you mean, you don't have one? What do you use?"
"We have bathrooms for employees, but customers can't use them," she said while snatching up the check and the exact change I’d placed on top of it.
Big mistake, telling me about the employee bathrooms. "Wait a minute. I can't use the bathroom you do? Why not?"
She shrugged. "I don't make the rules."
"You served me three cups of coffee and you don’t have a bathroom for customers? Let me use the employees’ bathroom, or I'll climb on this table and pee right here. Don't think I won't." I pressed fifty cents into her palm, hoping she hadn’t heard the slight tremble in my words of bravado.
A one-third tip plus my insane expression gained me entrance to Boston Bites's golden throne. When I left, I ignored the waitress’s glare as well as the ultra-convenient pay phone. The Back Bay location of the Boston Bites chain was a place I could never eat again, but at least I didn’t have wet pants.
I walked two blocks up Boylston before ducking into another small coffee shop. Using their pay phone, I lined up one employment agency interview for the afternoon, and one for the next morning. Last week I’d made the rounds of advertising houses. Photocopying expenses and riding the subway (the MBTA, known as "the T") all over town had dented my savings, with diddly-squat to show for it. I’d tucked away a lot by not buying a car with the money left over from my accident, but it wouldn’t last forever. No jobs, damn the recession. The new year, 1977, looked no better than the old one. Same shit, different city.
Unsure where the library was, I stopped a passer-by. At least she didn’t look at me as if I were something she’d scraped off the soles of her buttery leather boots. I pointed to my left. "Which way to the library? They have papers there, right?"
"Back that way," she answered, gesturing towards Copley Square. "Yes, they have newspapers."
"Thanks," I replied, but she grabbed my arm before I could turn around to head for the library. Pity danced in her eyes. Mentally, I scanned my outfit. Did I look that pathetic?
"What do you need?" she asked. "I have a Globe and a Real Paper here."
"A Real Paper, please. Need to find a place to live."
"Of course you do, darling."
She passed me the paper, along with a dollar bill. Feeling humiliated, I held out the dollar to the woman who saw me as a vagrant. "Wait. You think I'm, you know, but I'm not, really."
She patted my shoulder. "Of course you're not, dear. Get out of the cold and eat some hot soup, okay?" She strolled away, no doubt thinking she’d done a good deed.
"Thanks," I called, stuffing the dollar into an inner pocket. Nice lady. Now I wouldn’t have to ration my smokes as carefully.
At the Boston Public Library, I headed for the bathroom to study my reflection. Navy ankle-length coat, rainbow wool scarf, worn boots, denim: I looked like a hippie, but not homeless. Then again, if I lived on Beacon Hill and shopped at Saks, maybe I'd look homeless to me.
I used the facilities, figuring I might as well, because the coffee I drank was refilling my bladder. Back in the periodicals room, I settled into a chair, opening The Real Paper to the Roommates section. Living at the YWCA was cheap, but not cheap enough, considering I had to share a bathroom with twenty other women. The nightly fee worked out to over one-forty a month and, for that price, I hoped I could snare a large, sunny room, sharing a bath with only one or two women instead of twenty. Or one or two men. I wasn’t picky, if the sunny room cost little enough, and platonically sharing apartments with the opposite sex was, I'd heard, not unusual in Boston.
Two situations in the paper held promise, both in Cambridge. After going downstairs to use the public phone, no one answered at the first number, but at the second one, an answering machine picked up after four rings. I wondered why these folks needed a roommate, if they were well off enough to have a machine. No one I knew back in Richmond could afford one, they were so new. One would have cost more than a week’s wages at my old job.
Hoping someone would be home shortly, I left a brief message along with the number of the pay phone I was using. I knew I would have to wait by the phone in the hopes that no one else would tie it up, but an ample supply of phones left my right of possession unchallenged.
After about ten minutes and no call, disappointment settled in. Of course, the moment I started climbing the stairs, the phone rang. In my haste I tripped, but managed to grab the receiver on the third ring.
"Hello," I gasped, clinging to the phone's bulky black box to keep from falling.
"Hey, are you the person looking for a place to live?"
"Uh, yeah."
A beat of silence while I slowed my huffing and puffing. "Are you all right?" the guy asked.
I took a deep breath, exhaled. "I'm fine. It's just that I'm at a pay phone because I'm staying at the Y and I need a place to live, and—" I stopped babbling in order to breathe again.
"I just got up. Want to come over now? We're both home."
Well, the ad did say two male musicians were looking for someone to rent the third bedroom, so I understood their late rising. But I wouldn’t go to their place without meeting them on safe, public ground first. I might have been country-raised, but I wasn’t country-dumb. "Uh, do you have a Boston Bites nearby?" I asked.
"We have a small spa a block or so away."
Now confused, I replied, "A spa? You mean, like a health club?"
"No, like a store, newsstand. That sort of thing."
A new bit of Boston slang for me to absorb. "Is a spa sort of like a Seven-Eleven?"
"What's a Seven-Eleven? Never mind. Want to meet there? I mean, I figure you don't want to come to our place alone."
"You're going to have to talk me in. I don't have a clue where Cambridgeport is. Are you near Central Square?"
"Central's not quite a mile away, but it's easier to come across the B.U. Bridge. You know where I'm talking about?"
I hesitated, crossing my fingers. "I can find it."
"Jeez, another out-of-towner. You a student? You sound about eighteen. You don't mind walking? Where are you now?"
His detailed directions started with picking up the B trolley line at the Copley Square T stop. I searched my pockets for a ballpoint pen to scribble notes on the margin of The Real Paper, ending up writing on the back of my hand as I ran out of room in the paper's margins.
"So, you think you can find your way over?"
"Of course." I had to work at sounding confident and strong.
"Good. Call me when you find Cambridgeport Spa and we'll come right over. Rico's cool—if you tell him Todd and Marcus know you, he'll let you use his phone to call us. I'm Todd Butler. Who are you?"
"Alice. Alice—" I hesitated, and not only because I wasn’t ready to give my real last name. "Just Alice for now."
"Hey, Just Alice For Now, see you soon."
I hung up to pore over my street map long enough to panic. I didn’t have the faintest idea where in the Harry I was headed, as my mother would have said. And, damn it all, she would have been right, too. I always hated it when my mother was right.
"Need help?" The question was seasoned with typical nasal Boston twang.
I glanced up into eyes a shade of blue that Boston Harbor hadn't seen since the Wampanoag met the Pilgrims at the big rock. His mahogany hair, a rebellious, too-long-for-the-business-world length, had a purple cast under the fluorescent lights. His nose, largeish and sharp, only accentuated his good looks. If it were the nineteenth century, I would have swooned.
"Hey, you're shaking. Don't be scared." The vision backed away, palms outwardly-facing me in the universal sign for, "I won't harm you."
"Is this okay?" he asked.
Consciously willing my knees to stabilize, I attempted to talk. "Yes, sorry, you startled me." I wet my lips and freed my long blonde hair, held captive by my coat. Maybe I could tempt this tasty god and indulge my Mount Olympus fantasy. After all, it had been over a week since I’d said goodbye to my just-for-kicks lover back in Richmond.
"If I startled you, I should do the apologizing. You look like an out-of-towner, and Bostonians don't believe in street signs, at least, not accurate ones. I think the long winters stimulate a sadistic desire to torment new arrivals." He cocked an eyebrow, and I swore I could see the devil dancing in his peepers. "So, like I said before, need help?"
I stopped staring. Sex could wait if this guy could show me how to find Cambridgeport. I’d had it with living at the Y. "Show me where Putnam and Pearl intersect on this map. Also, how do I know which trolley stop I need for the B. U. Bridge?"
He stepped close enough for me to catch a whiff of wet wool, shampoo, and delicious male hormones. I edged towards him, bumped his hip with mine, and he didn’t pull away. Taking my hand, he moved it to a spot on the map. I did my best to listen, but the tingle running up my arm, down to the center of my ying-yang, didn’t make it easy to do.
"Here's the intersection you're looking for. This whole area," he moved my hand in a small circle while my body pumped hormones, "is called Cambridgeport. Ask the B-line trolley driver to let you off at the stop before the bridge. If he's a jerk, pull the cord after you see the bridge on your right. You can walk back to it."
"Thank you."
He moved a half-step back. "You know where the nearest T stop is?"
"Yes. I have trouble with maps, that's all." I smoothed my hair while batting my lashes.
"Good luck, then."
He started to walk away, but I wanted to prolong our contact. "Wait."
He smiled a smile that would have made a farmer’s daughter open her legs in joyous anticipation.
"What's your name?"
"Doug. Yours?"
"Alice."
"I hope you find whatever you're looking for over in Cambridgeport."
He waved before disappearing up the stairs. And me with no phone number to give him. Damn.
* * * *
My lust didn’t keep me warm for long. Thirty-five frigid minutes later, I was staring at a street sign, shivering upon feeling the bite of the wind off the Charles River. Neither Todd nor the tasty Doug had said anything about a Brookline Street. I rechecked the map to locate Putnam Ave and, after a short walk, found it. When I turned left, I could see the Cambridgeport Spa two blocks down.
A funky mixture of wet wool, spicy Caribbean food, and smoke of at least one illegal variety assaulted my nose. I'd never need to buy dope again—I could get high just stopping by to pick up my bread and cigarettes here.
The man behind the counter nodded. I nodded back. "I know Todd and Marcus. They want me to call them from here, and they said you'd let me use the phone." More silent nodding—the clerk must have been enjoying a mellow ganja high—while he handed the phone to me.
Todd answered on the first ring, telling me they'll meet me in five minutes. I thanked the clerk, who, of course, nodded. The store, at most ten by twelve, reached capacity when three additional customers walked in, so I went outside to smoke a cigarette. Before I could finish, two men, one short and stocky, one tall and skinny, approached, bundled in bulky parkas that looked like military surplus from the army-navy store I'd seen on Boylston.
Short and Stocky, his curly hair hanging past his shoulders with his face's lower half masked by full mustache and flowing beard, said, "Hi. I'm Todd. He's Marcus. You Just Alice for Now?"
It was my turn to nod. "Hi, how are you?"
Marcus, his Afro so large it obliterated my view of the weak sun, smiled. "We're musicians. That's how we are."
Todd bent over, howling with laughter at Marcus's non sequitur. Okayyyyy. Apparently someone else besides the nodding Rico was one toke over the line.
After his hilarity subsided to intermittent giggles, Todd stroked his mustache as if it were a pet. "Want to see the place? It's a dump, of course, but cheap, and no worse than other dumps around here. At least there’s no cockroaches. Marcus and I are gone most weekends for out-of-town gigs, so we need a roommate who'll be home more than we are. Having the place occupied most of the time scares off the burglars."
"Mmm, is crime a problem?" At the thought of burglars, I dropped my cigarette so I could shove my nervous hands in my pockets. Some big-city woman I was.
"No more than any other part of Cambridge. It's mostly property crime, not muggings."
"Not in the daytime, anyway," Marcus added.
Oh, great. That meant, this far north in January, I'd be housebound from four p.m. to seven a.m. But it was cheaper than the Y. Besides, who said it was any safer after dark near the Y?
"We've got six other calls to return. You're the first applicant, so you have dibs. Want to see it?" Todd pushed.
"Let's go," I said before my inner straight person could freak.
"You working, or a student?" Marcus asked while we three dodged icy patches on the unshoveled sidewalks.
"Working," I said, crossing the fingers hidden in my pockets.
"Your voice sounds southern. What brings you to Boston?"
"Fame, fortune, and men. Hey, why do you guys have an answering machine? They cost big bucks."
"Our manager was tired of us missing calls, so he gave us one." Marcus locked eyes with me, smiling as if he were the cat and I was the delectably-lappable cream. "Find any men you like yet?" he purred.
I was considering my reply when Todd butted in. "You got the money for one month's security deposit and two months' rent in advance? That would be, uh… “
“Two-twenty-five," I said. I’d always been quick with figures. "Yes, I have it."
"Where you working?"
"Shamrock Cab." I’d seen one moments before and I prayed these guys wouldn’t demand pay-stub verification.
"Cut the bullshit," Todd said. "You look fresh from the farm. Cabbing in the city would have eaten you alive by now."
Panic can make you tell strange lies. "I don't drive. I'm the announcer.”
Todd squinted at me. I put on a hard stare and my best tough-bitch expression.
"The 'announcer'? It's called 'dispatcher'. Now I know you're lying."
"Hey, don't hassle the chick," Marcus said. "If she's crazy enough to live with two musicians, I say we believe her."
My boldness faded. Living with two musicians. Were they expecting more than rent? I had to ask, stupid as it might sound. I liked lots of sex, but I wasn’t ready to sell myself for anything, to anyone. "I’ll have my own room, right? And we're talking a roommate situation, nothing more?"
Todd brayed with laughter. "Now I know she's fresh from the farm. Where you from, babe, Kansas? Toto living in your luggage? Shit, you don't look like the type to run out on the rent—the guilt would kill you. Hell, you could be a Combat Zone hooker for all I care, as long as you pay up the first of every month. And yes, we want a roommate, not a piece of—"
"Hey," Marcus interrupted, his voice as sultry as Barry White's. "The lady wants to hang with me, I won't toss her out for eating crackers."
Parts of me were melting under the glare of Marcus's bald flirtation. I liked him better than squat, hairy Todd. Marcus was fine.
"Here we are." Todd pointed to a sagging triple-decker painted baby-poop-yellow. The paint was peeling like skin after too much sun, and the minuscule yard lacked enough snow cover to hide abandoned odds and ends. "We've got the whole third floor," he bragged.
"Oh, goodie," I muttered while climbing the creaking steps. They were so narrow, Todd had to walk in front of me, and Marcus, behind. I could feel the man’s eyes on my ass. Not that I minded much.
"You got a TV?" Marcus asked. I shook my head. I didn’t even have a bed, just a couple of suitcases of stuff that I hauled via Greyhound.
"You can watch mine whenever I'm away,” he offered. “Just don't spill crap in my bed. Late on Saturday nights they show Creature Double Feature, with all that old science fiction shit from the Fifties. Like the giant ants. You know that movie?"
"It's called Them, I think."
"Yeah, that's it. Channel 56. Check it out. Lots of fun if you're high. 'Course, if you're high with a righteous dude, forget the TV. You'll have better things to do."
* * * *
On Friday I packed my two suitcases, eager to leave the Y behind. On Wednesday I’d bought a mattress and wheedled Friday afternoon delivery out of the discount house. I also purchased mismatched but almost-new bedding at a Goodwill store. Tonight I'd sleep in my own room. Mine. I savored the thought, even though I’d be sharing a bathroom with two guys.
Todd and Marcus told me they’d be away at a gig when I arrived, but the keys I needed were dangling on a plastic key chain that bore my bank's name. I didn’t have a job, but, because I was twenty-five and stupidly optimistic, I figured one would simply come along. Strangely, the idea of driving taxi was growing on me, so I planned to check out Shamrock Cab.
Speaking of cabs, I splurged on one after dragging my bags down several flights of stairs to the curb—the damned elevator was out of order. Luckily, a cab appeared within the first thirty seconds I waved my hand, and, oddly enough, it was a Shamrock. The driver kept his thoughts to himself while we threaded our way through traffic. His lack of banal chitchat guaranteed a nice tip.
When we pulled up to the baby-poop-colored building I now called home, I handed over twenty percent, mostly because he carried my bags to the triple-decker's worn front steps.
"Thank you." He lifted his cap.
"Let me ask you—do you like your job?"
He smiled and shrugged. "It's a job, and I've been doing it for thirty years."
"Are they hiring?"
"It’s no job for a young girl like yourself. But yes, they are. They always are."
Again, I thought about driving cab for a living. If I did so, it would kill my parents. Tempting as that possibility was, I'd probably stink at cabbing. Still, as a temporary measure to fatten my bank account, I could do worse, I knew.
I hauled my bags up the winding staircase, still thinking about my parents. My mother would have fainted to see the dumpy place, but it was cheap, near public transportation, and all mine. One room of it, anyway.
Old smells of garlic, onion, and good weed assaulted my nose when I used my key. I secured all three locks on the door behind me before lugging the bags to my room. The layout was pure shotgun shack. The hallway sprouted two bedrooms to the left before it dead-ended in the living room. And, true to the old Creedence Clearwater Revival song, “there's the bathroom on the right.”
Yes, I know those aren’t the real words to the song.
Beyond the living room sat the enormous kitchen (right doorway) and my dinky bedroom (left doorway). Unlike the kitchen, I had a door I could close, but sleep might become impossible if someone banged on the enormous upright piano hugging the shared wall. Not that I was complaining. It beat the Y.
My mattress was propped on end with my new pillow perched on top of it. I found all the bent wire hangers I'd ever need in the closet, but I had no place to store my undies. My suitcases, or maybe a cardboard box, would have to do until I could afford a secondhand chest of drawers.
After putting down the suitcases, I looked more closely at the kitchen. At least it wasn’t filthy despite the fact my roommates were men. Maybe the cleanliness explained the surprising lack of roaches. I grabbed the broom and dustpan, eager to sweep the bedroom floor before placing my belongings on it. Having swept it as clean as I could, I plopped the mattress on the floor and made up my bed (well, my mattress) with the almost-new sheets, then hung my few clothing items in the closet.
I carried my shampoo and soap to the bathroom, hoping but failing to find similar cleanliness standards. Ick. I resolved to scrub the tub with Bon Ami before sticking so much as a pinkie in it. I was searching for a sponge when the phone rang.
"Hello. We're conducting a survey. Would you like to participate?"
What the hell, I didn’t have any plans, so I decided to bite. "What kind?"
"Lifestyles of single women. Are you single?"
"Uh-huh."
"All right. First question: how would you describe your lips?"
"Normal, I guess. Not too big, not thin."
"How about your figure? Thin, average, or full?"
I eyed my sort-of-full figure and said, "Average." (Hey, videophones didn't exist outside the lab yet. I could describe myself any way I wanted.)
"Do you wear bell-bottoms?"
"Yes," I said with an eye roll. Some survey. I didn’t know anyone my age who didn’t wear them.
"Tell me about your breasts."
Some sort of warning stirred in my brain. "What kind of survey did you say this was?"
"Are they big and bouncy? Do you like having them sucked?"
"What?"
"And your ass. Boy, I'd like to get my hands on a nice ass. What's yours like?"
Light dawned on Marblehead, as the local saying goes. "This isn't a survey, is it?"
"Of course it is. As I said—"
"No, it's not. It's an obscene phone call, and I'm hanging up now."
I dropped the receiver into its cradle and bumped my head against the wall. Most women would have caught on faster, but noooo, not me. Some big-city chick I am.
The phone rang again. I decided to let the machine answer it.
* * * *
Sunday morning I woke up in Marcus's bed. I cracked open one eye to make sure I was alone. To my relief, I was. Sleeping with a roommate, even though he was a hunk, wasn't a trend I wanted to start.
The TV blared. The last thing I remembered was Channel 56's weirdly cool Creature Double Feature, recommended by Marcus. The second half of the bill, The Tingler with Vincent Price, didn't add much positive to ol' Vince's résumé, but it still amused me.
I stretched luxuriously. The unplanned hours ahead sang a siren's ditty. I'd rustle up some cold cereal and hot coffee before bopping to Rico's spa for newspapers. Perhaps after I read The Real Paper ads I'd take in the dollar show at the Orson Welles Cinema. The only cultural outing cheaper than the Welles was the free admission on Sunday mornings to the Museum of Fine Arts, but I would wait for another day to appreciate the Monets and Renoirs. Exploring Cambridge came first.
Breakfast and round trip to the spa accomplished, I warmed my frozen fingers and toes over the living room's clanging radiator before I checked the want ads. Maybe I’d just stay indoors because it was so damned cold. Why did I move to Boston from Richmond? I asked myself.
Because I hated hot weather and liked snow was the answer, so I'd better stop the complaining about chilly digits. Not to mention I had liked all the Boston men I’d met occasionally back in Virginia. I hoped the ones I'd encounter here would be hotter than the day’s wind chill number.
I settled on the lumpy burnt-orange couch to check which movies were playing at the Welles, then read the Personals. If I planned on having my fancy tickled soon, I needed to start looking. I skimmed over at least seventeen blah ads before one jumped out at me. Phrases like "liberated past having to prove it" and "call me UNUKICK" tickled my brain.
Call me UNUKICK.
The Real Paper never allowed phone numbers in personal ads, only box numbers you wrote to. That said, the first three letters—UNU—corresponded to 868 on the phone's dial, a Cambridge exchange. Clever.
I dialed the seven numbers corresponding to the letters, holding my breath through three rings. When a male voice answered, I exhaled, "Call me UNUKICK," which made him laugh.
"You figured it out. Congratulations, you're the only one so far."
I would the phone line around my index finger. "The 'liberated' line grabbed me, too."
"I like no-bullshit people." His tone was friendly, warm even.
"Me, too." Our conversation stalled until I said, "Your phone exchange is Cambridge." I winced at the obviousness of my comment, but he responded with enthusiasm.
"Slummerville, actually. Right over the line, near Porter Square."
"Slummerville?"
"You must be an out-of-towner."
"Caught me."
"Somerville's the town's real name. A local, David Misch, wrote a funny song about it."
"And, Porter Square?"
"North of Harvard, on Mass. Ave. Hey, you've got a bit of an accent."
"I noticed yours, too. I just moved here from Virginia. You?"
"Nashville, about a year ago. I'm Rudy, but my friends call me Slim."
"Slim?"
"Well, if your name was Rudy, wouldn't you grab a nickname as fast as you could?"
"Terrible names, I understand. Mine's Alice—forget about the last name. I've never met a Rudy before."
"Here's your chance. Doing anything today besides freezin' your ass off? How about the dollar show at the Welles?"
As I noted before, I was thinking about going there, not to mention I preferred to meet a strange man in public during daylight hours. "What's on?" I asked, though I'd already looked at the listings.
"Intermezzo. Ingrid Bergman, Leslie Howard. Do you like tearjerkers?"
"I like Bergman," I assured him.
"All right, meet me in the lobby. If we hit it off, we can grab a bite later, if you want."
"Solid. The movie starts at four. Meet at three-forty?" I asked.
"See you then. Wait, how will I know you?"
"Long blonde hair, glasses, tall, blue eyes."
"I'm tall and thin, as you might have gathered from my nickname, also wear glasses, brown and brown."
"Brown and brown?"
"Hair and eyes. See ya, Alice."
I hung up before hugging myself. I had a date. Cool.
* * * *
The movie made me cry, an idiotic thing to do on a first date, because it makes you emotionally vulnerable. At least I had brought enough tissues, and after my childhood, I knew how to sob silently.
"Huh. That was something," Slim commented after the lights came up.
"What do you mean?" I dabbed at my nose.
"Leslie Howard's such a fop. What does the Bergman character see in him?"
"I guess you've never suffered from deathless love," I sniffed.
"Hey, are you crying?"
"No.”
"Liar.” He paused. “Did I tell you lying turns me on?"
I couldn't help laughing at that.
We navigated our way north on Massachusetts Avenue, heading for Mr. Bartley's Burger Cottage. It was full dark, and the wind chewed on my face and ears. My eyes teared up from the cold, so I wrapped my scarf more tightly around my neck. "Like I said, have you ever suffered from deathless love?”
"A couple of bad crushes. No one I'd die for. You?"
I pushed thoughts of Thos Paine out of my mind. If lying turned Slim on, I’d do some more of it. "Nothing but good sex," I said, "especially Al, back in Richmond. Gotta watch out for the quiet ones, 'cause they get it on like it's their last screw on earth."
"Hmm. You trying to make me jealous?" His gloved hand reached for one of mine.
"Maybe. Are you?" I asked.
"I've got nothing to be jealous of. I'm better than this Al guy. You just don't know it yet."
"You are kind of quiet," I teased.
He let my hand go to pat my backside, then curled his arm around my waist. Stopping under a lamppost, his lips softened against mine, opening slowly. As the kiss grew longer and deeper, I realized I was sweating under my coat. Damn, but he was good.
He pulled away to whisper, "Want to skip the burger?"
"Sorry, but I'm hungry." And I haven’t made up my mind yet whether I’m sleeping with you tonight.
He pulled me tightly against him. "So am I, but not for burger." Even through our coats, the hard truth of his statement was made plain.
"Well, maybe later." I kissed him lightly on the lips.
"S'okay," he said. "Kind of obnoxious of me to expect a trip to bed before I've even bought you dinner."
When we began walking again, I cleared my throat, deciding it was safer to talk about the movie than about sex. "Women identify with Bergman's dilemma and her heartache. She's only his midlife crisis, but he's her world; she has more invested emotionally. He has a family he can go back to, while she has nothing."
Slim stopped walking. "Wait a minute. You think she hurts more than he does?"
"Of course. It's the typical affair story—the married man dumps the single woman. The mores of the late Thirties dictated that she lose, because she broke the rules."
"What rules? Oh, god, you're not going to fill my ears with feminist cant, are you?"
"No. But every stereotype has some truth behind it. It might seem trite now, but in 1939, a doomed romance smacked of reality."
We disagreed loudly all the way to the Burger Cottage, me defending women from men's cavalier affairs, him chiding most women's lack of personal responsibility. We continued to fuss happily (does anything make hormones pump more than an old-fashioned, male-versus-female argument?) as we stepped into the restaurant's greasy steam. I welcomed the change. With any luck, my ears would thaw and not fall off from frostbite. After kissing Slim, all my blood was in my crotch.
"Hey, I see an open table in the back." he said, heading for it. I stopped dead to gawk. The library dude, Doug, was chowing down on the fattest cheeseburger I'd ever seen, not five feet from me.
Somewhere in my brain I noted that Slim waved to me, but seeing Doug slammed my internal sex engine into overdrive, flooding my rationality center. See, Slim was a burger, but Doug was filet mignon. With bordelaise.
My stare caught Doug’s attention. He looked back with a blank expression. He didn’t remember me. Undaunted by that fact, I starting approaching the table, but another woman beat me to it. Doug's attention snapped to her like a released rubber band.
My smile drooped as they inclined their heads towards each other as if they shared one brain.
Slim was still calling to me, but I barely heard him above the din. I mentally abused myself for considering dumping him for Doug. What I shit I was.
"Hey, what's wrong? Didn't you see me?" The questions tumbled out of Slim's mouth when I sat down. "What do you want?"
Recalling my not-nice behavior, I muttered, "A good spanking," thinking he couldn’t hear me. I was wrong.
"That," he said with lifted eyebrows, "can be arranged."
Chapter Two
January, 1977
Alice's Survival Rule Number Two: Never stay outdoors when you can be warm indoors.
The sunshine bouncing off the snow blinded me and the wind sliced through me. I reconsidered my decision to save money by walking the entire way from my apartment to Shamrock Cab and waited for the Comm Ave trolley. After taking the car as far as Kenmore Square, I headed in the direction of Fenway Park. The Red Sox were spring training in Florida, the lucky bums. Eventually I located a concrete bunker with a peeling green shamrock hanging from a rusty pole. When I ducked inside to escape winter, exhaust fumes from running engines nearly choked me.
"Yeah?" the dispatcher snapped through a tiny hole in the plastic-glass.
"I'm here to apply for a job."
The grizzled old man laughed. "That's a good one. All right, who sent you here, Back Bay Taxi? Or was it Beantown Cab?"
A burst of tinny-sounding activity cut off my response. Pressing a lever on the mic, the old man listed the available jobs, and drivers competed to snag them. During a lull he spoke again. "You still here? Look, you've had your fun, and you've earned whatever they're paying you for the gag. Go away now. I'm busy."
"I'm here to apply for a job. The ad said, 'Sooner or later you will drive for Shamrock Cab'. Sooner works for me."
He rolled his eyes, but shoved an application through the skinny slot at the bottom of the window. "Please, may I come in and fill it out?" I flashed my best southern-belle smile.
"Oh, for Petey's sake," he grumbled, but he buzzed me in.
The exhaust fumes level dropped from lethal to nauseating after I entered, but the heat was stifling me—the first time I’d been too warm in a week. I took a seat on a folding metal chair that looked mostly clean. "Thanks.”
He mumbled something I didn’t catch. I took the hint, remaining silent while I finished the application.
While he scanned it, he sat bolt upright in his office chair, the squeaks almost painful to my ears. "Alice N Wonderland. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what were your parents thinking?"
I liked him more now because he winced over my name. "You got me." I showed upturned palms.
"What's the 'N' stand for?"
"Nothing. The N is just an N. Like Harry S Truman, whose 'S' stood only for S."
He shook his head. "You got any experience?"
"No."
With a cackle, he said, "You sound perfect. I'm Sully. Pleasetameecha. Hey, O'Brien,” he yelled over an intercom, “new driver."
The fattest man I'd ever seen, except for Halifax County's DeWitt twins, squeezed himself through the office doorway, a perfect counterpart to Sully's shrunken, bony frame. "Why d'ya wanna work for us?" O'Brien flicked his cigar ash on the concrete floor.
I decided desperate and honest were the way to go. "I need money. You need drivers. I saw your ad in the Globe. Why not?"
"You know your way around the city?"
"Who doesn't?" I said, sidestepping an outright lie.
"You're hired. Go to Boston Police Department headquarters for your hack license. Once you have it, show it to Sully. He'll book you in our next new-employee class."
I opened the office door, ready to brave the carbon monoxide. Sully's voice boomed over the intercom. "New driver."
The whistles and catcalls from the mechanics and drivers nearly deafened me.
* * * *
Back at the apartment, I collapsed in a kitchen chair. Todd and Marcus were cooking, intense expressions on their faces. Sweet cinnamon tickled my nose. "How were the gigs? What're you making? Smells yummy."
"Gig was cool. Todd's making rice pudding," Marcus said, flashing me a sexy smile. "We both have terrible munchies."
I realized the smell of marijuana was overlaying the pudding's aroma. "Most people eat chips for the munchies."
"We're not most people. We like rice pudding." Todd shook the wooden spoon at me, milky mixture dripping on the linoleum.
Marcus wiped it up with a sponge. “Hey, don’t make a mess here.”
I watched them. "I confess I've never seen a guy make it. Actually, I've never seen any man cook except for charcoaling hamburger and boiling spaghetti. Mind if I make tea? It must be zero outside. I am fucking frozen."
"What's happenin'?" Marcus sat, leaning back in his chair.
"I'm going to drive for Shamrock Cab."
"Better come up with a new line of bullshit. I didn't believe it the first time." Todd tasted the pudding using the wooden spoon and then put the same spoon back in the pot. Yuck. Maybe I didn't want any pudding after all.
"It's true. Want to see my Hack License?"
"What's that?"
"A license to drive a cab."
I spread my newest government papers on the table. Both peered at them.
"I’ll be damned. Guess you weren't lying after all." Todd returned to stirring his bubbling pot, his other hand stroking his Fu Manchu mustache.
"No sweat. I was lying when I first met you."
Marcus slapped the tabletop. "Damn, I almost forgot. You had a call a while ago from Leslie Howard. His number's by the phone."
"Wasn't he an actor in the Forties or something?" Todd said while scraping the pudding into large bowls.
I went to call “Leslie Howard.” Slim's number was busy, so I pulled out the street map I purchased to study it.
The oldest sections of Boston and Cambridge are little more than glorified cow paths. Streets snake and interconnect like arteries in a vast body, carrying the life's blood of pedestrians, cars, and trucks. The map does not tell me, however, about streets that can transform illogically into one-way passages. As the classic saying goes, you can't get there from here.
I despaired at ever finding my way around the city with a fare in the back seat. To hell with it for now. I picked up the phone a second time.
"Editorial. Rudy Kimball."
"Leslie Howard, please."
"Alice, hey there. I enjoyed last night, despite receiving a handshake instead of a kiss."
"Don't take it personally—my stomach was hurting. Anyway, falling into bed after a movie and a burger is not my style." Though sometimes it is, I added mentally.
"How many dates does it take to win your heart, or at least your body? I want to see you again."
"I know the cool thing to do in 1977 is to screw like mad after only an hour of conversation, but I need at least three hours. And a reasonable expectation of exclusivity, even if it’s only for the two weeks the relationship lasts."
"Feel like having that remaining two hours of conversation tonight, and then, maybe, you know?"
"Give me two hours of genuine, passionate, intellectual conversation, and we'll see about the rest."
* * * *
We ate. We drank. We talked. We talked about his job and my upcoming orientation with Shamrock Cab. We decided we both wanted to make our livings with words, somehow, some day. We argued over which was the better movie qua movie: Nashville or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. We discussed whether Young Frankenstein was funnier than Blazing Saddles. We wondered what possessed Stanley Kubrick to follow the brilliant A Clockwork Orange with the costume drama Barry Lyndon. We agreed that Harlan Ellison was God with a typewriter. Well, maybe one of God's sinister relations.
And we ended up in my bed.
I hadn't slept much—two tall people on a twin mattress don't allow for movement—but contentment warmed my insides. The night before, Slim had worn down my defenses. He wasn't the greatest-looking guy, but he was smart, sported a nice pair of shoulders, and knew how to satisfy a woman. He also knew how to spank a woman. Yikes!
I snuggled closer when his fingers trailed up my inner thighs, his other hand chafing my sore backside. “Ow,” I complained, “you spanked too hard. It still hurts.”
"You deserved every swat,” he breathed in my ear as one of his fingers toyed with my clit, making me wiggle with pleasure. “I don't mind going to work late, you know.”
At that point, he repositioned his mouth farther south. Looks don't matter much in a guy who wants to use his mouth for something more than smooching. Stiffening his tongue, he flicked it rapidly across my clit until my fingers in his wiry hair were practically pulling it out. “Oh, god,” I gasped when he stopped. “Don’t leave me hanging.”
He lightly bit one of my nipples. “How about we try it from behind?”
I turned onto my belly with no questions asked, offering myself to him. When he started slipping inside, I brought my fingers to my clit, rubbing in time with his thrusts. Doggie-style has always been a favored position.
His hardness was almost shocking, and the way he used his cock had me crying out within moments, my fingers thrumming for all they were worth. Within moments, Slim shoved inside me fiercely, groaning. We lay there a few minutes, the afterglow one of those perfect times when you just want to sigh with utter contentment. When he pulled out, I made a disappointed sound. Without a word, he whacked my butt several times.
“Ow, no more, ouch, damn, it smarts.” I tried to block his peppering hand, but his other one caught mine before I could shield my tender flesh from his smacks. After he finished, he said, “I couldn’t leave without turning your lovely behind a nice shade of pink. I hope it stings for a while.”
He left to wash up for work while I explored the heat he’d created, my bottom burning in a way that made me horny all over again. Hmm, I might have to make this spanking stuff a regular part of my sex life.
The horniness didn’t go away, so I found my vibrator and gave it a go. I had just finished when he returned to my room to kiss me goodbye. Seeing me positioned with one hand rubbing my backside while the other used the vibrator, he grinned and swatted my backside once more before he donned his coat. “I knew you were into kink,” was the last thing he said before he left.
After he was gone, I ran a bath, the better to wallow in physical sensation. Lying in the lovely hot water, I touched myself a lot. Funny how sex just makes you want more sex.
A loud knock startled me into knocking my mug of tea into the tub.
"Hey, you've been in there a half-hour. I've gotta pee like a racehorse."
You're home? I thought. I could have sworn they'd told me they'd be gone overnight for a gig. "Right, Todd," I called, "be out shortly."
What the hell does "pee like a racehorse" mean? And why do men say it?
I wrapped my towel around me to run to my room, averting my eyes from the extremely hairy Todd in his droopy briefs. That was a vision I didn't want imprinted on my retinas. He banged the bathroom door shut.
Well, good morning to you, too, Sunshine.
That night I was due at Shamrock for the three-hour orientation. No seeing Slim afterwards unless he wanted to lose a second night's sleep. I wasn’t sure I did. I wanted to work, because my bank account was dwindling fast.
* * * *
Two mornings later I sat first in line at the Copley Plaza Hotel's cabstand, checking out my look in the rear-view mirror, wondering if I needed more eye shadow. The doorman opened the back door of the cab and three men in suits slid inside.
"Where to?" I slapped the meter on while I pulled out.
"Logan. Hey, you're the best-looking driver we've ever had in Boston," the oldest-looking of them said. I met his eyes in the mirror.
"That so. Remember that at tip time. Where're you headed?"
"L.A. So, what do you want to be when you grow up?"
"A writer."
"That's what we are."
"No kidding." Not only were they pleasant, they were interesting, assuming they were telling the truth. "What kind of writing?"
"TV sitcoms. You've heard of Phyllis? Mike here writes for that." The oldest-looking guy motioned to the youngest-looking one. "Jack and I write for Happy Days. Did you know that Henry Winkler graduated from Emerson?"
"Here in Boston?"
"That's right," Mike said. "What do you write?"
"Fiction, mostly short stories, and some poetry. Got a few ideas for magazine articles. Of course, I want to pen The Great American Novel. Who doesn't?"
We merged into the Central Artery's late-morning traffic. "Why are you in Boston?"
"We were consulting about a possible new show, set in Boston," Jack said.
"About what?" I glanced in the mirror. They looked at each other but said nothing. "Big secret, huh?"
"Something like that," the oldest laughed.
We emerged from the Callahan Tunnel.
"Which airline?"
"Pan Am."
I stopped at the proper terminal. "Four-ninety, plus fifty cents for the tunnel."
The oldest one handed me ten bucks. "Keep the change. I believe in encouraging young writers."
Ten dollars for a five-forty fare? "Sir, do you realize you gave me—"
"Yes. Good luck with your career."
"Thanks. Good luck with the new show," I chirped while hiding the ten in my lock box.
Not too shabby for my first fare.
The rest of the day I had plenty of pleasant fares, didn't get lost once, and the sun shone brightly. By the end of the day, I had grossed sixty dollars. After I paid Shamrock for the use of the cab, I was left with a thirty-six dollar profit for nine hours of work. Four bucks an hour was almost double what I'd receive as an office clerk, and I didn't have to wear pantyhose.
I'd risen at five that morning to arrive at the garage before 6:30. I’d hit the streets by 6:45, the better to grab the rush hour fares. By the time I staggered up the stairs to the apartment shortly before five p.m., I couldn't have cared less about doing the horizontal cha-cha with Slim. I ignored his phone message, ate, bathed, and was sound asleep by seven-thirty, the better to rise at four-thirty. I was determined to be on the street at six to make even more money tomorrow.
Hubris, thy name is Alice.
The next day I crawled home with less than ten dollars for my nine-plus hours. How did I manage it? The old-fashioned way: I was ripped off.
And it was my own damn fault.
I’d been sitting at the North Station stand when a guy flung himself into my back seat, claiming he needed a ride to Revere because his wife was having a baby. A trip to Revere meant the meter didn't run—the rider paid a set fee. Flat-fee trips were lucrative.
He didn't have money on him, but he promised to pay me if I stopped at his home on the way to the hospital.
And I believed the jerk.
I dropped him at the specified house, waiting for him to come back out with the money. After ten minutes, I banged on the front door.
A little old lady from the adjoining house opened her door. "Shut the fuck up! I'm trying to watch my stories."
"You shut the fuck up. The bastard stiffed me for two sawbucks."
"Aw, honey, he's gone out the back door by now."
My shoulders droop. "Yeah, you're probably right."
"Don't never trust a man, that's what I say. Gotta see my stories now."
She shut her door, and I gave up.
I ended the day with a huge number of miles to eat and little money to show for them. After paying Shamrock and the T for my ride home, a grand total of nine eighty-five lined my pocket.