The next week, the last one in September, was a time for Margery and me to have introductions to various friends and family. The one I want to talk about here is when Margery met my two best friends from high school, Mark Zimmerman and Dan Behrens.

I had met Mark in the West Bronx back in 1966 when we were eleven years old and starting junior high. If someone was going to play him in a movie, I might have picked Woody Allen, although the physical resemblance was only an approximation. For one thing, Mark had darker hair. He certainly was a bit on the short side.

Maybe I thought of Allen because Mark had some characteristics of the actor’s persona. But while Allen probably had created the personality, at least partially, for his act, Mark’s insecurities and self-doubt were very real. He was also a very smart guy, and later in life, he would take on some of the same pretentiousness that Allen would exhibit as his career developed. Yet somehow he latched on to me very early on, and I enjoyed talking to him even if he annoyed me at times.

Dan was a tall, thin Irish guy, and unlike Mark, he cultivated an air of Gaelic toughness and bluntness. The toughness part was mostly faked, but his voice was certainly loud and he seemed oblivious to whoever might overhear his disconcerting – for me anyway – comments.

Both of them were always encouraging me to ask girls out on dates but their own stories about women were surely made up. In the week after meeting Margery, I of course had to tell them about her. I truly tried not to appear self-satisfied but at the age of seventeen, I was getting rather sure of my prowess with women. What I didn’t talk about much was how Margery was slowly taking over the relationship.

When I saw Mark and Dan at school, they wanted to know how and where I had met her and, equally important, what I had done with her. I didn’t mind telling them that I had found her on the sidewalk just down the block from my own house. Mark seemed the more curious and also the more incredulous of my two friends. “You mean you just said hello to her as she was standing there?”

I described a condensed version of the incident, “Actually, she greeted me first, we started bantering, and then I invited her to a pizza shop.”

Dan wanted to know, “And who proposed the second date?”

“She did, right there at the pizzeria.”

They were both looking at me as if I was leaving out some crucial details. In fact, I was indeed leaving something out. It was tempting, but I decided not to tell them about our basement hideaway. It seemed that I should protect Margery’s privacy to some degree, and she had not given me explicit permission to mention that place or what we did in there.

Mark had to know more, “So what does she look like?”

“I’m sure you’ll meet her in a few days, and you’ll find out.”

He was not someone who easily took no for an answer, and he would wriggle around a refusal by rephrasing his query. That time, he said, “Could you at least tell us what color her hair is?”

“It’s brown, okay.”

Dan sagely noted, “That’s not very helpful.” I didn’t mention this, but I liked the idea of surprising them.

 Mark said, “How do you know she’ll meet us?”

“I’ll ask her, I’m sure she’ll do it. We all live pretty close to each other and it will be easy to arrange a meeting.”

I knew they were both thinking, I’ll believe this when I see her.

*****

We all decided on that Thursday afternoon for our meeting. We were too young to go to a bar, so this would happen at a luncheonette on Pelham Parkway. On Wednesday, I was talking to Margery about them. “Both of them have told me stories about themselves that I really don’t believe.”

“Okay, stories about what?”

“You know, they were bragging about their – call it their sexual exploits.”

She was amused by that. “Teenaged guys are always making up tales about themselves.”

“Well, I never have.”

“So Hank, you must be a saint then.” It took me a moment to see that she was kidding me. “Now, unless you think they told you all this in confidence, what did they say about their experiences?”

Mark had the most detailed yarn for me to reveal. Supposedly, the previous summer – just a few weeks earlier – he had been hitchhiking back from Boston where he had been checking out colleges for the following year. Then some girl (I think older than he was) picked him up, took him to her apartment (in Connecticut I assume), got stoned with him, and then banged him.

Margery asked me, “So what happened then?”

“If I remember correctly, she drove him back to the Interstate so he could catch another ride.”

“That’s pretty cold. And being stoned, he of course didn’t remember her name, address, phone number, or anything.”

“He’d probably say that Connecticut wasn’t convenient for him.”

“Oh please, it’s not that far for some reliable poontang.” She was getting blunter by the day. “And I assumed you envied him; you wanted this story to be true I think.”

“Yeah, I mostly fell for it, or maybe I did fall for it. I was so impressed that I actually told my family about it.”

“Including your parents?”

“Well, just my mother.” Margery had met her a couple of days earlier.

“She must be incredibly open-minded.”

Dan’s story was local and far simpler. His tale was that he would fool around with girls in boxcars parked by the Fordham station. That was on the same Harlem Division that went by our street.

I said, “There’s a hole in his story, but I’d have to describe something about how the railroad works.”

“Go ahead, I’ll listen.”

“It used to be that most of the commuter stations also had a freight house – I mean, for less-than-carload freight. You know what that is?”

“Sure, I get it.”

“The thing is, that all disappeared at least ten years ago, I think.”

“Boxcars! The bigger problem is that he couldn’t name any of those girls either. I suppose I shouldn’t bring up any of these tales when I meet them, right?” She must have noticed my expression. “I’m not serious! Of course, it would be a lot of fun to actually do it.”

“Well, don’t do it. Although they’d probably try to confirm that these events did happen.”

*******

On Thursday afternoon, after school, I met Margery in front of her building and we took the train down to the diner. She had dressed up a bit for that occasion, but not excessively so. On that day she was wearing a blue blazer, dark trousers, and fairly ordinary shoes.

She looked good, but I had grown a bit wary of praising her appearance. Yet she didn’t ask me for a comment; she seemed to be getting better at taking things in stride. I was glad because while I was more careful about giving out compliments I was becoming increasingly fond of her too.

Both Mark and Dan were already sitting at a table when we arrived, and I saw their heads swivel as Margery and I walked in. I don’t know what my own expression was, but Margery sauntered in – that’s the way I would describe her movements – looking very calm and composed. My two friends were looking at her as if they had never seen a woman before. Well, they had never seen a woman who was involved with one of the three of us.

I could tell that they were impressed with her, and Margery could see that too. She seemed pleased with the impact she had made on them. For my part, I messed up the introductions; I never could remember who was supposed to be introduced to whom but at our ages that didn’t matter much.

We sat at the ends of the table facing each other while Dan and Mark were at the sides. Mostly we talked about our schools to start with. At one point I tried to brag about her, and I said, “Margery likes poetry, and sometimes she gives me things that we can read out loud to each other.”

Dan took the cue. “Really, which ones?”

Margery took on a supercilious tone that made her sound like Katherine Hepburn. “Are you familiar with the works of Allen Ginsberg?”

Dan said, “I’ve heard of him.”

I remembered that the two of us had read ”Howl,” among other things, a couple of days before, and I could see the outlines of what was coming. She said, “Would you like me to recite a few lines from ‘Howl?’”

There was some controversial material in that one, and I knew she was going to repeat whatever it was. Mark was willing to hear it, “Sure, go ahead.”

Margery had a very good memory for these things, and although she didn’t have the entire poem under her belt, she did know about seven or eight of the wilder lines that Ginsberg had written. After making a little gesture with her hands to get prepared – probably faked, I thought – she let loose with her recital.

It started with the best minds of his generation having anal sex with “saintly motorcyclists” and gay relations with the “human seraphim,” sailors in other words. She kept going with lines that included the phrases “ultimate cunt” and “the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset.”

When she was done, there was silence around the table. Everybody knew that she had, as the phrase goes, “blown them out of their socks.” Probably neither one of my buddies had ever heard a girl say the word cunt before; maybe they hadn’t even heard a male use it that often. After a few moments, she glanced around and said, “You guys look a bit surprised, maybe even shocked.”

Mark of course tried to deny it. Margery went on to describe some other aspects of the poem, and then the conversation shifted to other topics. At one point I caught her eye and she winked at me.

When it came time to leave, Mark headed east, Dan west, and Margery and I went north. While we waited for the train, she said, “So they think I’m cute, I suppose.”

“It’s something more than cute, I’d say.”

“Yes, they are going to remember me, that’s for sure. And not just for the poem. I saw the way they were checking me out.”

“What were they looking at?”

“The usual feminine items; my hair, my tits, my thighs.”

“So you are okay with seeing them again, I’m not sure for what.”

“Of course, whenever you, or they, want.” Then she said, “They’re both envious of you, you know.”

She was looking for another compliment, but as I said I was trying to be sparing with those. I shrugged, “Were they? I’m not sure what their view of me is now.”

She knew that I was equivocating, “Come on, I know you all have discussed girls and, thus, sex too.”

There was no point in denying it. “All right, we have. What did you expect?”

“So what did you tell them about us?”

“Not much. I mean, it’s really none of their business.”

She pondered that for a moment. "But you're going to tell them eventually, it's virtually inevitable.”

She was right, but I didn’t want to confirm it. I shrugged and said, “Who knows what I’ll do in the future?” From the way she was looking at me, I knew she could tell that I was fibbing.

*****

On the following Saturday, over two weeks after we had met, Margery had me meet her in the park across from her building. She said on the phone, “There is something I want to show you.”

“And what would that be?”

“You’ll find out when you get here.”

When I arrived, I saw that she was wearing a short-sleeved white blouse, a plaid skirt, and gray knee socks. “Hey, this is the Catholic schoolgirl look I promised you.”

I just had to be a bit of a jerk about it. “I thought they usually wore white socks.”

“There’s at least one place where it’s gray. Maybe St. Brendan’s? Anyway, I definitely have seen girls with gray ones.”

“Got to wear the standard uniform, of course.”

“Of course, uniformity is next to Godliness.”

I asked her, “Did you ever miss going to one of those places?”

“Me? Never, I’m public school all the way. And I can imagine the trouble I would have gotten into with my big mouth had I been in one of those schools. By the way, have you noticed how those pious little chicks are always hiking their skirts up about as far as they can get away with?”

I had seen them, but I wanted to confirm it as subtly as possible. Margery must have understood that I noticed other women, but that didn’t mean I had to talk about it in great detail. “If you say so, then I suppose it’s true. So, you wanted me to see your clothes today, is that it?”

“That’s only part of it. Let’s go over there and you’ll see.”

On that day, she wanted to sit with me on a fallen tree trunk next to the Bronx River. A considerable amount of foliage screened us from the view of any passerby on the nearby path. It was a sunny late summer day, and I liked the shallow river flowing a few feet away. The only downside was the noise of the cars on the parkway, which was just beyond the far bank.

She had never wanted to sit there before, but I didn’t think anything of it. I also noticed that she was carrying a brown manila envelope, but that didn’t seem important either. After we had been there chatting for a few minutes, she casually said to me, “Remember when I said that some of my neighbors, a few of the young guys who live around here, had shown me and some of the other girls the magazines they had collected?”

“Yeah, I remember you did say something about that. But you didn’t say who showed them to you.”

“Well, it was several of the guys that you probably don’t know yet. I’m sure they did it to impress the impressionable young females they had met. That, of course, would include me!” I wasn’t quite getting her point, so she tried to clear up my confusion. “You do know what those publications are about; I’m sure I told you.”

Suddenly I recalled the brief conversation we had, and it was a little difficult for me to talk about it. “They were about sex, I believe you said.”

Margery was surprisingly ebullient about the topic, although I wondered if she faking that a bit to keep her courage up. Yet she went into quite a detailed explanation.

“Exactly, I mentioned that they are from Europe. Now, these guys think they are so clever. They only had three publications among them, so they cut out the various photo spreads and stapled the pages together. That way they had more stuff to, you know, pass around instead of waiting for one of the full issues to be available.”

I didn’t have much of a response, so all I said was, “Okay, that sort of makes sense.”

She kept going. “So, in this envelope, I have a couple of these photo spreads that this person Ben lent to me. He’s eighteen and goes to Lehman now.”

“He wasn’t one of those people I saw on the day I met you?” By that point, she had met more of my friends than I had met of hers.

“No, he’s from that Art Deco place just up the block.”

Rather than dwell on whatever Margery had in her envelope, I briefly thought of that yellow, orange, and brown brick apartment pile that Ben lived in. The style had come and gone so quickly, like perhaps for five or so years just before World War II. Then I was mentally back to Margery, who was still holding her package. I asked her, “And I need to see this, why again?” I think we were both surprised that I was so hesitant.

“Because you are going to learn a few things from them. I already have discovered some notable, ah, facts myself.”

She was exhibiting a certain stubbornness or boldness that I had seen before. After that first day, when I had asked her out, she had taken over the pace of our relationship. Back then I was too young to truly resist her. I decided I wanted to see the contents, but not with her around. I tried a gambit, “How about you give that to me and I’ll look at it by myself later?”

She was good-natured about it, but she scoffed at me. “Oh no, Ben gave them to me to use as I see fit, and I want to look at them with you. I specifically had that in mind.”

“Does he even know what you are doing with them?”

“I don’t know, it was his decision to lend them out. That’s all I know.”

“You probably asked him to borrow it, didn’t you?”

She shrugged, “Yes, but so what?”

It’s hard to imagine how innocent – ignorant really – most kids our age were in 1972, long before the Internet was available on everybody’s smartphone. The term smut was still widely used back then by adults.

“I did see a copy of Playboy once that my dad had in his closet.”

“So what was in it?”

“I remember these naked chicks in cowboy hats sitting on horses. I suppose it was in Texas or someplace like that. They definitely had great tan lines.”

“Hah, tan lines! Well, these go way beyond that.”

I tried one more tactic. “I’d rather look with those with my friends rather than with you.” That seemed a little too blunt. “I’m just being honest.”

I was getting to know her pretty well, and I wasn’t surprised that she held her ground. “Right, so you all can have a circle jerk while looking at them?”That was a term I had never heard her use before, and I stared at her. “Don’t look at me like that. You already know what a naughty girl I can be. But I do suspect you’ll be surprised with what I have in this envelope.”

I expressed some annoyance, “You can be a handful, that’s for sure. All right, enough of these negotiations, let’s see what you’ve got in there.” She seemed to be doing a parody of primness as she unclasped the envelope and handed the first set of pages to me.

She was right, I was surprised and, yes, shocked. For a moment I looked up and forward, just to give my view something else to rest on. I noted the flowing water in the shallow river, and then the cars on the parkway next to it. Then I saw that Margery wasn’t distracted; she was staring directly at me. “I can see this is a bit much for a good Catholic boy such as yourself to handle.”

“I’m not really a Catholic anymore.” I still would go to Mass for another year just to please my family, but I hadn’t been to Confession for a long time.

“Well, neither am I, despite how I’m dressed today.” She was smirking at me. “I know you like the way I look right now. Anyway, you haven’t examined the contents yet.”

I knew I had to look, so I did. One set of pages was a full-color photo spread, and it had the usual somewhat absurd porno plot although I later saw dumber ones than that one.

It was sort of a fictional photoshoot inside of a real one. The idea was that a girl with dark blonde hair was being photographed for an advertisement for Pepsi-Cola – perhaps it was a paid product placement. Within a few minutes, it seemed, she was flashing her panties at the photographer and then was taking them off, she had removed her blouse (there was no bra underneath), and then the inevitable happened.

I was bothered by Margery sitting right there looking at the pages too. She seemed so serene; that was the word that came to mind.

“Come on Margery, say something already.”

“I believe looking at this is what the Church would call a ‘near occasion of sin.’ ”

“Which sin? Oh, never mind, I get it. I wonder if people tell priests about the porn they’ve looked at.”

“You mean in Confession? I’m sure they do. And I bet the priest likes hearing about it. ‘Please, tell me what you saw there.’ It must get pretty boring being in that box all afternoon.” Then she said, “So tell me, what do you think of all this?”

“Well, it’s obvious – I mean, he’s really…” Words failed me at that point.

“The term you may be looking for is, ‘he’s nailing her.’ I think you can see where that phrase comes from.” In two photos one could see him on top of the Pepsi girl, as seen from behind. Everything was visible – his balls, his cock entering her vagina. 

I attempted some humor. “If your only tool is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.”

She did laugh at that. Then she said, “So do you think she’s cute? I especially like that little red-checked skirt she has on. You’ll notice that she never takes it off. ”

I could see that she was trying to bait me, trying to get me rattled, and I fibbed. I think she knew that I was joshing with her. “She also never takes her socks and sneakers off. Anyway, she’s not really my type.”

“Oh really? Well, she takes her panties off for men pretty readily it seems. I would say that is definitely your type.”

“It’s every man’s type.” I hoped she found that funny. “So, you think they are really – well, really enjoying it? They certainly look like they are.” At one point the Pepsi girl was gripping the guy’s ass with her red fingernails.

Margery was completely deadpan as she said, “Enjoying what? You mean the fucking?” I don’t think I had ever heard her say that word. “Who can say? I assume they are getting paid for it; maybe they are simply good actors. It’s possible too that they are amateurs. You’d have to be pretty exhibitionist for that, but I’m sure some people are.”

“Isn’t it a bit unrealistic that she bangs this guy – I guess it’s about fifteen minutes after meeting him?"

“It’s porn, it’s not supposed to be realistic.” I thought but didn’t say that it only took Margery three days to get started on me. However, we hadn’t progressed any further into our repertoire of sexual activities at that point, although we had been to the basement a few times. I wasn’t going to complain, however. I thought I was doing very well at the age of seventeen.

She added, “The main takeaway from this is the oral sex component. Except, she is going down on him but there are no photos of him doing the same to her. A bit unfair, don’t you think?” I didn’t know what to think, but she knew her own thoughts which she told me. “I can show you an alternative, at least a little bit of one. There is one more set of pages in here, which has one picture that shows what we need to see.” She shook her head, “I think the ladies should get a little more attention in these sessions but, hey, I don’t create these, I just look at them.”

“You would never consider posing for one of these shoots, no matter how much they pay, right?”

“Absolutely not, not for pay or as a freebie.” She showed some mock outrage. “What kind of girl do you think I am?”

“Yet you look at this – this porn.”

“When Ben and his buddies bought these, it all existed already. I couldn’t undo what had been done at that point.”

Then she revealed the second set of pages, which was also in color and more extensive than the first set. I’m not going to bother to explain the plot of it, but the dark-haired young lady shown was getting screwed from every possible direction. Margery pointed to the single photo that interested her. In it, the male participant was gently licking the pussy of the female one. He held her lips open with one hand while she had one of her hands around the back of his head.

Margery said, “I don’t think she’s faking how good that must feel.”

I tried, “And how would you know?” She looked at me askance and ignored me. I continued with my impressions. “What are they wearing, anyway? It looks like Air Force uniforms maybe.”

“Who knows or cares? I do like how she hung her red panties over the back of that armchair.”

“Also, in the end, he’s coming all over her chest.”

“The famous money shot, which is mostly for the benefit of the male viewers. Now as I said, the oral sex pictures in these are the main ones that concern us today.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?” She pointed to each of the five blowjob pictures in the two sets of photos. “For the next step in our hot little affair, I’m going to do this to you. By the way, that dark-haired lady seems quite adept at blowing him, as you might notice.” She then pointed to the one photo of the same woman getting licked. “And you are going to do this to me. Is that plain enough?”

“Ah, do we know how, I mean how to do these things?”

She seemed a bit impatient with me. “That’s why I brought the photos, Hank. That plus our instincts should serve us fine.” Maybe I didn’t look as happy as she expected, because she said, “I know, you think I’m kind of weird. Maybe I am, a bit.”

“Blunt is the word I’d use. I mean, the romance of it all.”

“Yes, I would agree with you about the bluntness, but I am indeed romantic! Or would you rather be dating one of those nice good girls who are quite common around here? You’d be lucky to cop a feel of one of her tits, and I mean through her blouse.” She was getting ever more sure of herself. 

“So, when and where is this supposed to happen?”

Margery gestured over her shoulder. “Right now, over there in our basement love nest, assuming you are up to it.” She had thrown a kind of challenge at me. “You’ll notice I wore a skirt today. That was no coincidence.” She laughed, “Hey, easier access, right? It’s not red-checks, but it is a very nice plaid. Warm weather Catholic girls; pretty nice, I’d say.”

“They usually wear those light blue skirts.”

“I don’t have one of those. So, you have been noticing those girls, I see. You dirty boy, you want to get into their God-fearing virginal pants, don’t you?”

I was rather charged up and yet unsettled by the porn I had been looking at. Then I looked to my right again. This real girl is sitting right next to you. And it’s taking a while, but I’m getting into her virginal pants slowly but surely. It was a bit daunting as a prospect, even if I wanted it to happen. Thus I went for a distraction, “That basement, we’re going to get caught over there eventually, I think.”

“No, we’re not. You worry too much.”

She’s gained a lot of confidence in recent days. She’s reveling in the sexual power she has over me. But I was too young to handle it any differently. I need her, I’ve waited so long for someone like her, and then she just appeared one day on that block behind us.

I said, “All right, let’s get over there already.”

Margery took my hand as we crossed the street.

**********

In the past week, she had started to do a few things to make our basement room more inviting. There was now a table lamp plugged into an outlet so we didn’t have to have that bare bulb in the ceiling on all the time. That was the light that she turned on when we got there. There were also a couple of folding chairs now, although we still usually sat on the unfolded sleeping bag as we doing at that moment.

There was one more item. She had brought down a bottle of wine, although at some point she had uncorked it and then put the top back in.

“How did you get that?”

“Marie bought it for me. She’s done things like that a couple of times before.” Marie was her older sister who lived in the same apartment.

“I’ve never had alcohol before, except for a few sips of beer my grandfather would give to me.”

She had already passed out a couple of plastic cups to us. “Now go easy on this stuff. I’ve seen some novice drinkers get plastered on their first time out.”

And you don’t think you’re a novice too? It was mildly annoying to hear her give me that advice, but I still was curious about what she meant. “So what should I do?”

“Just sip it. Don’t gulp it down; it’s not seltzer.” Then she noticed that I was sitting opposite her, about two feet away, “You look a little jittery. Come over here, sit next to me, and relax a bit.” I had thought I was exuding relaxation, but she saw through my act. At that moment she was sitting on the floor with her legs crossed. I moved next to her and put my arm around her, and we finally kissed a little.

I admit, I noticed the pale flesh of her arms and of her knees above her gray socks. She noticed me looking, but she made no comment about what I was doing. Instead, we had our wine and talked about various topics that didn’t seem particularly important. We both finished our cups at about the same time, and despite her cautions, she refilled both of them. As the second one started to have its impact on me I knew it had to be working on her too.

She stretched her legs out and I could see more of her thighs. In addition, she started talking with a slightly simpering tone that let me know she was playing a tongue-in-cheek role with me. “I’m such a good Catholic schoolgirl and I suspect you are considering sullying my virtue.”

Her phrasing was so funny that I felt I had to top it with something of my mine own. The best I could come up with was, “Young lady, do you think I’m some kind of cad?”

“Oh, I know you men are always looking for any advantage you can get over us innocent young girls”

As if to prove her right, I suddenly clamped my hand down on her bare inner thigh. She swatted me away. “Couldn’t you at least confine yourself to above the waist but under the clothes?”

By 1972, that phrasing was already archaic but I knew what she meant; she was giving me permission to unbutton her blouse and then undo her bra too.

“If that’s what you want…”

Her white shirt opened in the front and after I had undone it, I reached behind her to unbuckle her bra. As usual, I had some trouble with that simple task. “Here, let me do it.” I think her annoyance with me was not entirely faked.

Once her clothes had been pushed aside, I knew I had the go-ahead to stroke her nipples and then suck on them. I also knew how much she liked that, and soon she was moaning as I put my mouth against her breasts. I would have been happy to do that for a while, and I had a chance to ask her, “So, Catholic girl, what school do you go to?”

Without hesitation, she answered “Mount St. Ursula.”

“I’ve heard that the girls there are – well, sort of fast.”

“Well, that’s not true. Where did you hear that?”

“From Dan; he lives right down the street.”

“And that qualifies him as an expert? Hank, will you stop talking about your buddies and schools and get back to what you were doing?”

After a bit longer she had some instructions for me. “Okay, stand up, in front of me.”

Margery knelt in front of me, and she undid my pants. She then pulled them down as well as my underpants. Of course, I was aroused from my time playing with her breasts and my cock stuck straight out, almost to her face.

She said, “You’ve reacted very well; I know for sure I’ve had a big effect on you.”

“So, what are you going to do?”

“You should be able to tell that from the positions we are in.”

I must have been pretty dense because I wasn’t sure. Then I saw her glancing over to her left where she had her porn pages opened up. Maybe her sexual boldness was a bit more than I could deal with at that point. “You’re going to be looking at those things while we – ah, whatever.”

“Of course; would you rather I just guessed at what I’m doing? I’m going to be experimenting as it is.”

What was going to happen next became obvious. “Okay, go ahead, I’m ready.”

“Just relax Hank; let me do my thing. I believe subtlety is the key to this whole operation.”

Her confidence in her own abilities was striking, but I had learned to appreciate that in the time since I had met her. She put her left hand on my bare hip and held the base of my cock with her right one. As she pulled me forward, her tongue came out and she gently licked the tip of my glans. The effect on me was instantaneous. Within seconds, I was babbling about great it all felt. I suppose a guy never forgets his first blow job but he also likely doesn’t remember what he said during it.

I know I did say a lot but it didn’t matter what it all was. Margery must have been following the examples of the Pepsi and Air Force porn girls because she only took about half of my shaft into her mouth each time I went in. That was mixed in with some licks and kisses along the length of my cock. I briefly was aware that those might also have been tactics she had learned from her older sister, as she had mentioned on an earlier day. Mostly I wasn’t aware of anything except the pleasure I was getting from her mouth on me. My hands when through her hair and I thrust forward so that I was supplying most of the motion.  

At that horny young age, it only took me a few minutes to come. As I approached my climax, I was dimly wondering where I would shoot my load. It seemed that she would probably swallow it, as I had heard that some women would do. However, maybe at the last second, she would change her mind.

She told me later that she knew from my motions and voice that I was on the verge. Well, I was also talking about how I felt. Then she pulled me out, aimed me to the left, and stroked me with her hands. My ejaculations went out beyond her shoulder but a small amount landed on her arm and blouse.

I barely noticed that, because I fell to my knees and then I laid down on my side. Margery got down next to me and put her arms around me. She was cooing something like, “There Hank, that went really well, didn’t it? You impressed me, as you have done before.”

When I could talk, I felt a bit chagrined about the drops I had gotten on her clothes. “I’m sorry about getting that stuff on your blouse.”

“Hey, it was my fault, I didn’t tell you what I was going to do. In fact, I wasn’t sure myself until the last moment. Just give me a handkerchief for now; in any case, this is wash and wear.”

I was struck that she had taken it so well. A little later she said, “Now it’s my turn. I think I can sit down and you can do this if I put the two folding chairs next to each other.”

“Do you have to do it that way?”

“If I want you to have the right angle on me, then yeah, I think I can balance myself on them.” Right after she had put the two chairs together, she picked up one of her photo spread sets and showed it to me. “See, like in this one. She’s sitting on the sofa.” Margery was pointing to the Air Force girl getting a gentle lick from her presumably Air Force beau. She was impressed and she told me so, “Now, that looks great. I know it’s also going to feel great when you do it on me.”

Perhaps I looked worried, because she said, “It’s going to be easy, I’m sure you’ll do fine. Here, take a look.” As she perched there, she lifted her skirt and spread her legs; one foot was on the seat of each of the chairs.  “See, nice little schoolgirl panties. The nuns wouldn’t like it if I didn’t wear them every day, I mean, if I was bare under my skirt.”

I could imagine that all too vividly. I managed to say the most irrelevant thing possible. “I think at St. Ursula’s they have white socks in warm weather and red ones in cold weather.”

“Hah, you’re so literal-minded. Besides, the socks are only a bonus. This is what’s really important.” She reached down to remove her underpants; then she balled them up and threw them right into my face. I was too surprised to react as her garment fell to the floor.

She was spreading herself with her fingers just like the woman in the photos. “I didn’t mention this, but I got extremely turned on when I was blowing you.” She pointed down to herself. “See what I mean?” Her vulva was glistening with wetness. “If you take the time to examine my panties, you’ll note how, well, damp they are.” Then she laughed at me. “You do look a bit confused. Hank, you can be a bit of a prude sometimes.”

I should have kept my cool, but I said, “I can’t help it. I learned it from my family.”

“I know, it can be contagious. Have another cup of wine if you, wish. Then – well, kneel in front of me as I sit here. I’m sure you’ve always wanted to get up close and personal to a girl’s cooch.”

“Forget the wine, let’s just do this already.”

“Go ahead, sweetie, I’m right here.”

Something about her expression got to me. “You look a bit smug right now,” I remembered thinking that in the park too.

“Yes, and I have every reason to be smug.” She gestured for me to move closer. “Come on, show me what you can do.”

I took that as another challenge, so I got down between her legs. I put my hands on her thighs – her legs felt so smooth and warm – to steady her. Her bare crotch was right in front of my face. At my young age, it was surprisingly difficult to make a new sexual move on somebody.

You’ve seen her pussy before; in fact, you’ve fondled it and stuck your fingers into it. You’ve brought her to climaxes that way. Now all you have to do is the same thing, except your mouth and tongue will accomplish the task.

Like the guy in the picture, I stuck the tip of my tongue onto her at the top of her opening. Then I used some pressure to push it down on her, and I noted her reactions. She said something like, “O-h-h;” then her hands went up. One of them caressed my hair while she used the other one to rub her bare nipples. My own fingers went to where hers had been to hold her open.

Margery was talking through all of this. She said something like, “Yes, Hank – Hank, that is great. Now lick me from top to bottom and side to side. It’s so obvious how it should go, isn’t it? Then stick your tongue inside of me too.” Then she said, “Now you know why they call it Sweet Sixteen.”

I pulled back for a moment. “How is that again?”

“I mean how sweet I taste.”

“You’re not going to be any different when you’re seventeen in November.”

She knew I was kidding her. “Jesus, there’s that literal-mindedness again. Do you like my taste?”

It indeed seemed very sweet. “Yeah, baby, you can be sure of that.”

I was aware of my pants being down and my cock being very erect again. She said, “Guys your age can go all day long, I’ve noticed.” I hoped I was the only one she had seen with that ability. Then I went back to working on her, and she did a lot of squirming and moaning. Man, she really likes this a lot.

It was always fun to give Margery an orgasm because she made such a fuss about it. Her slightly precarious position on the chairs restrained her movements a bit but she made plenty of noise. It was also amusing how she grabbed my head with both hands and pushed me against her crotch. Somewhere during that, she was chanting something like, “Please, Hank, make me come; please, you are making become right now.” Then all I heard was her loud moaning. Her legs went up and out, above my head. I gripped her hips to keep her steady.

When she was done, she sat back and looked at the ceiling. Meanwhile, I was looking at her with something like awe. Female orgasms were still a novelty to me, and I was always impressed when witnessing Margery have one.

I said, “I think I’ll have that wine now. Would you like some too?”

Instead of answering, she hurled herself off the chairs and into me. We both fell back onto the sleeping bag as she pulled me down.

“Oh Hank, that was perfect.”

Without really thinking, I said, “I love you, Margery.”

She laughed at me. I said, “What is so funny?”

“Nothing; it’s just that you’ve never said that to me before.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. But you see, Hank, I love you too.”

We lay there, facing each other, with our arms around each other. I put my hand under the back of her skirt and rubbed her small, tight bottom.

“You naughty girl, you’re not wearing any panties.”

“That reminds me, I’ve been wondering what it would be like to walk around with a skirt but no underpants.”

“You mean in the street? Why would you do that?”

“Just to be naughty as you said about me. And I want to know what it feels like, to be honest. Rather sexy, I think.”

That was the second time she had mentioned a lack of underpants, but she seemed serious. “Ah, Margery, if you do this – I mean when you do it, could you invite me along too?”

“Of course, sweetie, that makes it even more fun. As long as you behave yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, don’t yank my skirt up just to embarrass me.”

I felt that I had to defend myself, “You know I would never do something like that.”

She looked lower down on my body. “All this talk about underwear, or the lack of it, is getting you aroused for another go-round soon, isn’t it?”

I didn’t have to look to know what was happening to me. “Licking your pussy helped a lot too. But, yeah, honey, I’ll be ready very soon.”

*******

After we had made each other come twice more, we were both lying on our backs, staring at the ceiling. Margery had removed her blouse, her dangling bra, and her skirt. The only items she still had on were her shoes and gray socks.

I looked over at her body, “You had faint tan lines a week ago, but they seem to be almost gone now.”

“A two-piece suit, but not a bikini; you must have noticed that.” 

“Where did you go swimming?”

“My family goes to Orchard Beach but with my friends, we make the trip to Jones Beach. It’s quite a hike. An hour on the subway, and you’ve only reached Penn Station.”

“We missed the season; it’s too late for swimming now.”

“Don’t worry, there’s always next year.”

So she is expecting me to still be around in a year. I had yet to think that far ahead. I almost commented on that fact, but then I realized that I didn’t have to.

**********

We weren’t there all afternoon, but it was certainly a long time. As we walked up the block, Margery seemed disheveled even though her clothes were back in order. It was really the languorous attitude that she was presenting at that point. I then noticed something else. “You left your porn collection back in there.”

“Oh well, it’s not going anywhere. Ben didn’t give me a deadline for returning it.”

We were just passing his Art Deco building at that point. I called up, “Hey Ben, thank you for all that you’ve done for us.”

On the other side of the street, I looked back at the building again. It had one of those weirdly complicated rooflines that were common to that style; it reminded me of a ziggurat, perhaps. It also reminded me of a line in a Ginsberg poem we had read that week, about lost el trains running over the Babylonian apartment rooftops in The Bronx. I repeated it for Margery.

She said, “He meant the one on Jerome Avenue, I think.”

“But this one will do too.”

At that moment a four-car Third Avenue train passed, heading southbound.

I said, “I’m going to miss that thing when it’s gone.”

“I will too. They’ll never build anything like that again.”

 #######

The Art Deco building described here really exists, but the decaying roofline was recently been replaced with plain yellow bricks.

The poem that Hank quotes is “Kaddish” (1961).