Nightgown, Unworn

 Making love with Frank Parisi was something that Vivian never did, and always wished she had, from age 22 into perpetuity.

December, 1984. The light on Vivian’s answering machine was flashing when she got home at midnight; she had “three new messages”; it turned out they were all from Paul Meyer. Paul was quirky; he either called her every hour of the day or not at all for weeks which suited Vivian fine; she could only take him in small doses. When she was halfway through playing the third message, Leo, the doorman, called on the intercom.

 “Do you know Paul Meyer? He says he knows you,” Leo barked.

  “Is that a rhetorical question?” Vivian responded.

“Is that a what?” Leo snarled, clearly confused by the term. Leo was an off-duty cop who hated to be awakened from the naps he regularly took in the lobby. “There’s a guy here who wants me to let him in - he’s wearing cut-off shorts and boat shoes. It’s December and it’s snowing.”

                       “Thanks for the weather update,” Vivian responded, “yes - you can let him come up.”

                       Minutes later Paul was at her door with a bottle of Sambuca, his long tousled curly hair sprinkled with snow. “There’s plenty of time to sleep in the grave,” he said, as usual, pulling her hair playfully. On this night, Vivian welcomed the interruption. Paul was fun – a wild child; reminded her of Bomba the Jungle Boy from Tarzan movies. He was formerly a soccer player, now a high school shop teacher and soccer coach, and lived for the glory days, which is why he was fond of showing off his over-developed calves and rarely wore long pants, even in the dead of winter. He was also one of the people Vivian’s mother mentioned in her frequent “If you keep dating these losers you’ll NEVER get married” speeches.

                       “Wake me up before first period,” he would always say when, invariably, he fell asleep, usually on the floor or sprawled on the couch.

                       Paul excused himself and went to the bathroom. When he emerged, he said “hey hey hey, girl…I like that black lace thing hanging on the back of the door,” and immediately started kissing her neck.

                       Vivian was puzzled; first off, Paul normally hit refrigerator before hitting on her – or asked what she had to drink – and second, she didn’t own anything lacey. She ordinarily slept in flannel or a nightshirt or something just not that sexy - a truth that could not be glamorized.  Vivian never felt like she had credibility as a “bombshell.” She was attractive enough, but more the girl-next-door than the type of girl that guys wanted to sneak into their parents’ houses and rail on the dining room table while they were in Miami. Overcome with curiosity about the “black lace thing” Vivian pulled away from Paul, and walked into the bathroom herself to investigate. She realized that Paul was referring to a jacket that her sister Diane had left behind when she visited over the weekend.

                       “That’s not a negligee,” Vivian started to say – but before she could finish, Paul Meyer – in Jungle Boy mode - was again all over her. She whispered, “I have leftover chow fun,” knowing that food would get him off track. But this time, he was not so easily deterred.

                       “Come on baby,” he said, “let’s get it on.”

                       “Since when are you Marvin Gaye?,” Vivian said.

                       The mood was instantly broken.

                       “Hey,” Paul said, “You think I’m gay? You really think I’m gay?” Paul’s macho posturing was almost instantly set off-kilter.

                       Before Vivian could explain the song reference, Paul, who had the attention span of a 6^th grader, asked “Got any pesto?” he asked, bolting toward the kitchen, “I love your pesto…I’ll eat and give you time to put on that thing hanging on the door.”

                       Vivian was surprised; Paul was being way more aggressive than usual; their relationship wasn’t really all that sexual nor was Paul, despite his demeanor. She had slept with him once, in the two years they had known each other, but they were mostly “just friends”; Paul was a “man’s man” who lived more for nights out with his buddies, somehow not noticing that he was approaching 40 and he needed to transition into something resembling adulthood. Vivian sensed that on that cold winter night Paul’s passion was triggered not by his sudden longing for her but by the notion of a nightgown that she didn’t even have. There was a fundamental power in black lace. Vivian was never one of “those girls” who felt comfortable walking around naked or wearing black lace anything. Although she knew it was cliché, she partially blamed her upbringing. Her next door neighbor and sometimes-friend Pam English grew up in a far more open and liberal environment than Vivian did. “I have proof that my parents still do it,” Pam announced one afternoon when they were sitting in her room experimenting with eye make-up. “I overheard my mother telling her sister that my father doesn’t want her to go off the pill until after our vacation…you know what that means,” Pam whispered.

                       That was during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the world at large was experiencing a sexual revolution but mostly no one in Vivian’s world had gotten the memo. Certainly not her mother’s across-the-street neighbor Eleanor Sena, who typically dressed in loose floral housecoats and rarely wore make-up but whose hair was frozen into a permanent helmet thanks to her weekly stint at the local Beauty Parlor (which is what hair salons were called back then). At one point, when Eleanor’s son Michael was in Vietnam, she lost almost 50 pounds and started dressing in mini-skirts and boots. But then when Michael returned safely, she reverted to her daily overeating and promptly went back to her signature attire. As Vivian’s mother poured Eleanor cup after cup of Instant coffee, Eleanor took a long drag off her short Lucky Strike and said in a husky voice, in hushed tones “At least he doesn’t bother me anymore.” This was the ellipsis at the end of her run-on sentence about her husband Angelo who, among his multiple foibles, left his socks on the floor, visited his sister every night before dinner, spent too much time at the racetrack and obsessively edged his tiny patch of a lawn and never shaved on weekends.

                       When Mrs. Sena eventually made her way back home Vivian bluntly asked her mother what she had meant by the “bother” comment. Vivian’s mother was uncomfortable with any discussions about sex or anything like it, reacted the same way she did when Vivian once asked her what a “piece of ass” was (after Mark Orinkowitz called her that when he saw her at the mall).

                       “It’s not a nice thing to talk about,” her mom snapped. And that was the end of the discussion.

                       Vivian had first become aware of the mystical, magical power of visual stimulation some ten years before, when she was a law student. Here, with Paul Meyer on her couch leftover Chinese food and playing with the television remote, settling finally on “Eddie and the Cruisers,” the memory raced back to her and with it - another fantasy about Frank Parisi. Frank Parisi! How the hell did he enter her consciousness – who was he and did he really even exist? Was he the elusive sex-god that kept Vivian rife with fantasy almost a decade after she had last seen him, before she had ever actually made love with anyone? Was he the devil?

                       Vivian thought Frank might be the devil, at least in 1976. Vivian was in her first year of law school at nearby Snooty University where the parking lot looked like Monte Carlo; she was surrounded by rich, beautiful Jewish people some of who were even better looking than they started out being in the first place, because they all got their noses fixed for their 16^th birthdays. She had skipped a grade, which was not the best thing that could have happened to her, because although she was only a year behind in age, she felt ten years behind in emotional intelligence. She would have coffee with Helene Brenner who said “I have to get away this weekend; I’m so spent…going to my father’s condo in Miami” or Wendy Schumer who said “I was schtupping Stu last night and he didn’t pull out in time – if I’m preggers…I’ll shoot him.” Girl that wore expensive jeans and shopped at Bloomingdale’s and were so confident in their sexuality when Vivian herself felt like she was a child, shrouded in Catholic guilt, working two jobs to help pay for her tuition, and idealistically wanting to “save herself” for marriage, which would have been fine if Vivian didn’t feel so unready for anything so serious.

                       The truth was, it was easy to retain her “virtue” as she wasn’t really tempted by anyone, at least no one at Snoot U. She had lots of guy friends who she related to better than the girls; Bobby Guido, who wore long-sleeved striped Polo shirts most of the time, and worked part-time at the Pot Belly Pub, a local gin mill. Cliff, her best friend who drove her to school every day in his lime green Pinto; they waited patiently for commercials for “Battling Barry’s House of Audio” to come on so they could laugh about them. Stu, an eccentric unwitting clown, who took her with him when he got his hair cut or to pick out shoes. Dave Neufeld, who could recite every line from even Woody Allen film ever made, and who explained to her what a Quaalude was. Scott Salimando who was chivalrous and opened doors for her and told that when she braided her hair, she looked just like Mary Hartman, a popular TV character of the day; “Harvey C” from Roulette Records whose family owned a nightclub in New York and who was over-coiffed and wore at least three medallions on any given day. Vivian felt comfortable around them, and they treated her like a sister and even when she helped Cliff pick out jeans and he asked her to put her hand in his pockets to see if they were too tight, there was no stirring in her. Her boyfriend at the time, was what her Grandma Tessie called a “nice Italian boy” whose brother was at West Point and whose father was a Staten Island cop. He tried to “wine and dine” her – sending her flowers, flying her to D.C. for dinner, sending Hallmark greeting cards, but Vivian was unmoved and un-tempted by “forbidden fruit.” But then – there was Frank Parisi. What made him so different? Vivian had no idea. But a full decade later, she vividly recalled exactly how “it” started:

                       One fateful day in class, Frank had a one-on-one with the professor, Malachy Mahon, who everyone else at school was afraid of and intimidated by. Everyone was duly impressed, and high-fiving him, including Vivian who was instantly transfixed. She apparently telegraphed her mood, because afterwards, her friend Charlie Siegel, who had greasy hair and loved Huckapoo shirts, said “You’re crushing on Frank Parisi,” he said, taking a drag on his Marlboro. It was more of a statement than a question, and Vivian adamantly denied it. “Are you nuts?,” she said, “he’s so rude.”

                       Frank Parisi was sometimes rude and often brash, but there was something else so elegant and sexual about him that she couldn’t define but that drove her crazy and made her feel hot and cold and tremble and stammer. The last time she had that reaction was when she was 14 and first saw Jim Morrison sing “Light My Fire” and when she played “Touch Me” over and over as she touched herself. Jim though, was only alive on posters in the attic of her childhood home but Frank was in her classes.  None of this made sense to Vivian– Frank really wasn’t really her type – and she knew she wasn’t his. Frank always seemed to be surrounded by cheerleaders or potheads or both, and Vivian gravitated more toward “surfer boy” jock types. Frank was around the same height she was, at least when she faked a few inches, wearing the high and mostly uncomfortable shoes she favored, and he was very slender, which made Vivian feel like an amazon; she knew it had to do with her Viking blood. But Frank radiated a raw sexuality and confidence that her shadow side responded to and aroused feelings in her that she couldn’t even define with words.  Plus, he had most beautiful mouth she had ever seen; his lips were always slightly parted and the corners were often twisted into a knowing smirk. When Vivian was around Frank, she imagined that he could see right through her and that he wasn’t buying her “good girl” persona and knew that if he wanted to, just by touching her face with the tip of one of his fingers, her defenses and moral compass would be smashed to smithereens.

                       She wasn’t entirely lying when she told Charlie Siegel that Frank was rude to her; he was a “ball buster” in a frat boy kind of way. He always had a smartass remark to say to somebody, and when Frank walked behind Vivian after they left class one day, he taunted her “Oh come on…you’re walking that way on purpose,” intimating that she was “selling it.” “Can I get a burger with that shake?,” Charlie Siegel chimed in. The other boys – her alleged friends – joined him. Vivian was mortified and felt embarrassed, and ganged-up on, like Frank had turned her asexual friends into a pack of savages, but she was also strangely titillated.

                       A few days later, after being sure to avoid Frank at all costs, never even allowing herself to steal a glance at him in classes, out of the blue, Frank approached Vivian, all business, about typing a paper for one of his classes. Vivian, a proficient typist, often made extra money typing papers for other students. If she didn’t know them, she would charge them more, especially if they were desperate because they finished a paper at midnight and it was due the following morning.

                       “I heard you type papers,” he said, “can you do mine? I’ll pay you.” Frank of course, had no way of knowing she would have done it for free just to touch the words on his paper with her fingertips…the words that were written with a pen that he had in his mouth…

                       Vivian agreed, and Frank said they should walk across the campus to his dorm to pick it up. As they walked along the campus, Frank made uncharacteristically polite small talk and Vivian remembers trying to be extra careful not to topple over in her orange Famolare rippled-sole clogs. “What if I stumble and fall on him?” she thought, “I can’t touch him. I’ll faint.”

                       When they walked into his small room, Vivian was amazed at how neat it was. She absently stood there, as he ruffled through papers on his desk. Somehow, his closet caught her eye. On a hanger, amid a blazer or two and some shirts, was the slinkiest black negligee she ever saw in her life.

                       Frank immediately noticed that Vivian had seen it. “Nice, isn’t it?” he said, “It belongs to anyone who it fits.”

                       She thought he was probably joking – didn’t want to find out if he was or not. She guessed that he said it to make her blush, yet again, but what he couldn’t have known was that if he moved one step closer – maybe one inch…she would have put her hand on the back of his neck in his thick hair and…

                       In a parallel universe, where Vivian was not a virgin – Frank took Vivian’s wrists in his slim, beautiful fingers and pulled her into him, smothering her with his perfect mouth, not giving her time to breathe or protest.  He put his hands under her pullover sweater and gently pinched her nipples. Vivian could barely stand, so Frank quietly led her to his neatly-made single bed. She said “We can’t do this,” but probably not aloud. Vivian could feel Frank’s maleness rise up against her as they kissed and he gently pushed her to her knees and…

                       But, after the joke about “one size fits all,” Frank was all business again, holding the door open for Vivian so she could stumble back to the other side of campus and so he could – what? Call up one of the black-lace babes?

                       Vivian awoke from her unearthed fantasy when it was 1984 again, slapping Vivian in the face like the northeast wind. Actually, it was the sound of Paul hitting the floor; he had fallen asleep and landed with a thud. This woke him up, and he said “Man, I’m tired.” She decided to break the “no overnight guests on weeknights” rule because it was too cold outside to make him drive home. But, he could have the couch or the floor, but not her bed which was reserved for fantasies and the ghost of Frank Parisi…at least for that cold night as the snow inched up outside.

                       Vivian (to Paul):         “Please put the empty Chinese food thingy in the garbage.”

                       Paul (to Vivian):         “Don’t forget – wake me up before 1^st period.”

                       Vivian (to self):           “From now on - stick to flannel…it’s safer.”