of Love,’ ‘Do It Again,’ ‘Birds Do It.’ OK, she thought. Now Catherine is going to do it.
Ron turned south onto Clark Street.
Ahead on both sides of the street were huge blinking red eyes, neon signs that were alive in the night, screaming out their offers of cheap and temporary havens for impatient young lovers. ‘EASY REST MOTEL.’ ‘OVERNIGHT MOTEL,’ ‘COME INN,’ (Now that had to be Freudian!) ‘TRAVELLER’S REST.’ The paucity of imagination was staggering, but on the other hand the owners of these places were probably too busy bustling fornicating young couples in and out of bed to worry about being literary.
‘This is about the best of them,’ Ron said, pointing to a sign ahead.
‘PARADISE INN – VACANCY.’
It was a symbol. There was a vacancy in Paradise, and she, Catherine Alexander, was going to fill it.
Ron swung the car into the courtyard next to a small white-washed office with a sign that read: RING BELL AND ENTER. The courtyard consisted of about two dozen numbered wooden bungalows.
‘How does this look?’ Ron asked.
Like Dante’s Inferno. Like the Colosseum in Rome when the Christians were about to be thrown to the lions. Like the Temple of Delphi when a Vestal Virgin was about to get hers.
Catherine felt that excited feeling in her groin again. ‘Terrific,’ she said. ‘Just terrific.’
Ron smiled knowingly. ‘I’ll be right back.’ He put his hand on Catherine’s knee, sliding it up towards her thigh, gave her a quick, impersonal kiss and swung out of the car and went into the office. She sat there, looking after him, trying to make her mind blank.
She heard the wail of a siren in the distance. Oh, my God, she thought wildly, it’s a raid! They’re always raiding these places!
The door to the manager’s office opened and Ron came out. He was carrying a key and apparently was deaf to the siren which was coming closer and closer. He walked over to Catherine’s side of the car and opened the door.
‘All set,’ he said. The siren was a screaming banshee moving in on them. Could the police arrest them for merely being in the courtyard?
‘Come on,’ Ron said.
‘Don’t you hear that?’
‘Hear what?’
The siren passed them and went ululating down the street away from them, receding into the distance. Damn! ‘The birds,’ she said weakly.
There was a look of impatience on Ron’s face.
‘If there’s anything wrong –’ he said.
‘No, no,’ Catherine cut in quickly. ‘I’m coming.’ She got out of the car and they moved towards one of the bungalows. ‘I hope you got my lucky number,’ she said brightly.
‘What did you say?’
Catherine looked up at him and suddenly realized no words had come out. Her mouth was completely dry. ‘Nothing,’ she croaked.
They reached the door and it said number thirteen. It was exactly what she deserved. It was a sign from heaven that she was going to get pregnant, that God was out to punish Saint Catherine.
Ron unlocked the door and held it open for her. He flicked on the light switch and Catherine stepped inside. She could not believe it. The room seemed to consist of one enormous bed. The only other furniture was an uncomfortable-looking easy chair in a corner, a small dressing table with a mirror over it, and next to the bed, a battered radio with a slot for feeding it quarters. No one would ever walk in here and mistake this room for anything but what it was: a place where a boy brought a girl to screw her. You couldn’t say, Well, here we are in the ski lodge, or the war games room, or the bridal suite at the Ambassador. No. What this was was a cheap love nest. Catherine turned to see what Ron was doing and he was throwing the bolt on the door. Good. If the Vice Squad wanted them, they’d have to break down the door first. She could see herself being carried out in the nude by two policemen while a photographer snapped her picture for the front page of the Chicago Daily News.
Ron moved up to Catherine and put his arms around her. ‘Are you nervous?’ he asked.
She looked up at him and forced a laugh that would have made Margaret Sullavan proud. ‘Nervous? Ron, don’t be silly.’
He was still studying her, unsure. ‘You’ve done this before, haven’t you, Cathy?’
‘I don’t keep a scorecard.’
‘I’ve had a strange feeling about you all evening.’
Here it comes. He was going to throw her out on her virgin ass and tell her to get lost in a cold shower. Well, she wasn’t going to let that happen. Not tonight. ‘What kind of feeling?’
‘I don’t know.’ Ron’s voice was perplexed. ‘One minute you’re kind of sexy and, you know, with it, and the next minute your mind is way off somewhere and you’re as frigid as ice. It’s like you’re two people. Which one is the real Catherine Alexander?’
Frigid as ice, she automatically said to herself. Aloud she said, ‘I’ll show you.’ She put her arms around him and kissed him on the lips and she could smell egg foo young.
He kissed her harder and pulled her close to him. He ran his hands over her breasts, caressing them, pushing his tongue into her mouth. Catherine felt a hot moisture deep down inside her and she could feel her pants dampen. Here I go, she thought. It’s really going to happen! It’s really going to happen! She clung to him harder, filled with a growing, almost unbearable excitement.
‘Let’s get undressed,’ Ron said hoarsely. He stepped back from her and started to take off his jacket.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Let me.’ There was a new confidence in her voice. If this was the night of nights, she was going to do it right. She was going to remember everything she had ever read or heard. Ron wasn’t going back to school to snicker to the girls about how he had made love to a dumb little virgin. Catherine might not have Jean-Anne’s bust measurement, but she had a brain ten times as useful, and she was going to put it to work to make Ron so happy in bed he wouldn’t be able to stand it. She took off his jacket and laid it on the bed, then reached for his tie.
‘Hold it,’ Ron said. ‘I want to see you undress.’
Catherine stared at him, swallowed, slowly reached for her zipper and got out of her dress. She was standing in her bra, slip, pants, shoes and stockings.
‘Go on.’
She hesitated a moment, then reached down and stepped out of her slip. Lions, 2 – Christians, 0, she thought.
‘Hey, great! Keep going.’
Catherine slowly sat down on the bed and carefully removed her shoes and stockings, trying to make it look as sexy as she could. Suddenly she felt Ron behind her, undoing her bra. She let it fall to the bed. He lifted Catherine to her feet and started sliding her pants down. She took a deep breath
