An Odd Reunion

Our relationship had progressed to the point of sexual intercourse but was still an unusual union. We mutually decided we did not like condoms and in our monogamy (I presume here, as I am certain on my part but less so of her), we abandoned their use. Susan was on the pill to regulate her periods yet insisted I pull out and this was the pattern for ten years until she decided chances were running out for her to get pregnant. Many evenings I would engage in foreplay and intercourse until she orgasmed and would give her a few more strokes where she would excuse herself and when she returned from the bathroom, would be wearing flannel pajamas and occasionally face cream and/or rollers. I was left many a night with a throbbing hard on. She was done and had no particular concern whether I had been satisfied or not. Susan would be upset if after she left me hanging, I would turn on Channel 55 (the Playboy Channel) to try to finish off. She had a habit of injuring me by clawing my back, biting my neck, and early, before I screamed that "you're really injuring me", my penis, when she was about to depart for a visit home or some work or education-related trip. I suppose she was trying to assure my fidelity which was unquestioned until I realized from her behavior, which I will elaborate on later, the relationship could have no possible future in December of 2008. But this was 1996, the year of Susan's tenth high school reunion. Our love life was not all pain and provocation by any means. Susan lived next to-one condo away-from a large Catholic campus that hosts elementary through college institutions where she, who though I wasn't aware of it at the time, could display her exhibitionist tendencies. We even fucked through the net on the tennis courts there. Well, Susan wanted me to take her to aforementioned reunion. I agreed, if reluctantly, because Susan had badmouthed her home state so much. Her tag line joke was: "You know what West Virginia exports?... Its people." From what she claimed about being a basically dateless ugly duckling in school, a mostly friendless spinster, I could not imagine why she wanted to go. From Susan's statements about not wanting to live there, I thought all her home state produced was misery. But in the event, I acquiesced and told her I would drive her if she wanted to attend. We headed north by way of Virginia and ended up sleeping in Harrisonburg. At the hotel, there was a display case of collectible coins at the reception desk and no night clerk, but instead of scratching that little touch of larceny and walking off richer for the experience, I rang the bell about ten times over the three minutes it took the Asian Indian working there to wake, and he checked us in. After a restive night for me (I tend to stand sentry when I am with a female partner in a hotel), we woke and Susan blew off the reunion. She announced she wanted to go to Philadelphia and see the Cezanne exhibit. So, off we went. I drove through to Gettysburg where we ate dinner at a historic tavern where I remarked our waitress looked like Hope from my mother's Days of Our Lives soap opera. The young server was flattered; Susan seemed offended that I mentioned the resemblance. We found a small motel owned and operated by an Indian family where there were copious vacancies and a thirty dollar a night bill. The rooms were clean if somewhat Spartan, but what the room lacked in luxury, our neighbors for the evening certainly made up for. A homosexual couple had chosen the sparse accommodations as well and checking in at the same time, they lavished us with custom glitter decorated clothing that they made to sell but gladly gave us. We explored the battlefield the next day before proceeding through Amish country and ending up at King of Prussia Mall. We shopped a little, ate at Red Lobster, that Susan really thought was fine dining, and when I returned to the Blazer, found two policemen hovering around the open rear hatch. At the time I thought nothing had been taken, but upon returning to Nashville, I found the spare tire had been stolen. We checked into the King of Prussia Best Western and after about ten minutes in which we had normal volume conversation with me composing and reciting an on the spot poem about the trip, the hotel security guard banged on the door, telling us to keep the noise down. He then demanded I accompany him to the front desk when I attempted to explain there was no noise to "keep down". I was glad to go with him as I was livid and wanted to talk to management. I told the night manager my uncle was in the hospitality business in Nashville and that customers deserved at the least, courtesy as the guard who was a black man of about fifty and about six feet, six inches and two hundred and ninety pounds, bristled with anger. The next day I bought some glove leather Italian loafers that had been four hundred dollars on clearance for $89 and the salesman threw in a premium leather belt and a package of dress socks. We stayed that night in Philadelphia at a hotel near the museum, accompanied in by an armed off-duty policeman who explained it was a dangerous neighborhood but that guests could request protective escort at the concierge desk. We heard gunfire and sirens all night. At this point, Susan, who had already scrubbed the reunion, announced we would head back to Nashville in the morning without seeing Cezanne as she had committed to host a college friend Sally, who was on her way from Nashville to New Orleans, at her condo. This caused our first argument, our first really serious dispute of the relationship, as I put my foot down and told Susan that there was no way I was going to rush back to Nashville for that, but that I would gladly pay for a hotel room for Sally if that was what Susan desired. Susan was furious but finally accepted my logic. We went to see Cezanne, did the Rocky steps, bought the admission tickets from a dubious Jewish scalper, were intimidated by the Nation of Islam exhibit guards, and then found a room at the Holiday Inn Convention Center across from the New Jersey State Fair in Cherry Hill. We stayed for a full week exploring Philly. On Sunday, we dined at world famous Bookbinder's and the valet parkers there laughed their asses off, watching me put money into a Philadelphia Inquirer machine twice, after I could not open it the first time but figuring Susan and I would each enjoy a copy of the Sunday edition to commemorate the trip. The parkers must have seen many tourists duped by the malfunctioning machine. Allen Funt never came out and the Inquirer never reimbursed me the money though I called and wrote them of what had transpired. When we checked out, I bought a console TV at a liquidation sale the hotel was having for fifty dollars. Unbeknownst to me, a helpful maid lifted one of my bags as I rolled our luggage out on a courtesy dolly as she opened the door for me, help I had not sought. It contained my prescription for a medicine that helped me breathe through my occasional bouts of asthma. One aside about the journey was that my father had insisted I take a couple of thousand dollars in traveller's cheques which almost no businesses either accepted or even recognized. They were turned away at the New Jersey fair where the clerks confused them with personal checks. Another incident happened with carnies who dumped our clothes out of the hotel laundry and helped themselves to our detergent. A tattooed girl argued with me and left after replacing our clothes with literally unspeakably filthy rags. I knew she was headed to bring her man back and back they came with him irate, vulgar, and threatening. I was not unduly worried as Susan had wrapped a thirty-eight special we had travelled with, concealed in a soda carton with cans to both St. Louis and on this trip, in a towel from the room and I would really have killed him if he had approached any closer. Now, we were headed South, but I was concerned my father would object to the shoe purchase as he had always said soft leather may feel good but just doesn't last. So, I rushed to return the shoes to King of Prussia battling a flu-like illness and on the way there, was pulled over by a black state patrolman with dyslexia. He said we were doing ninety-five on the turnpike when I had been going seventy-five. I had sped and earned the ticket as the limit there was fifty-five, but I could not bitch about it with a console TV that the cop could well have thought was stolen, an open container of Old Overholt Rye Whiskey which we had last sipped days before in our hotel room, and a concealed loaded gun in the car. The officer also misread the registration and said it did not belong on that car-he was totally wrong, but I could not afford to do anything but smile and thank him. Not that the whole trip to that point was a bust, some people had been very nice, but I had never seen people openly smoking crack until we made it to Philadelphia. On a sad note, the nicest waitress ever, a blond of about forty, who told us she had never been farther than Delaware, had bent over backwards when I was having some real respiratory distress. She brought many extras in a downtown Italian eatery without being asked and said they were on the house. I was so sick I asked Susan to take care of the tip and went to the restroom near the exit. After driving off, I asked Susan who was paying with one of my two wallets which I had asked her to carry in her purse, what tip she gave. Her answer: two dollars. I would have left a five at a minimum. We drove South by way of Maryland including a two-lane stretch where I thought I was lost but asking near midnight at a fire station, found we were on the right course, that the highway had never been completed there. We saw Antietam, explored the fields of carnage and drove to spend the next night at the Ramada in Morgantown. I stopped at the WalMart there to buy over the counter respiratory relief. I was literally too sick and tired to test the fog hazard winding mountain highways and let Susan navigate her home state. We arrived in Huntington, shopped and at a Hill's department store where I bought my mom pug refrigerator magnets and a stain treatment I still use thirteen years later and napped in the parking lot. We went to meet Susan's sister and gave her the TV and Susan paid for my prescription bag that I had called the Cherry Hill hotel about and had shipped down by UPS. The medicine was there but someone had liberated the toiletries. We drove around the town, but I was not at that point taken to her actual home in a rural enclave called Point Pleasant. We met her Mom at the sister's house, stayed the night at a Ramada that was under renovation with a light switched off that continued to buzz and blink all night, depriving all sleep for me and heavy equipment construction starting at dawn. There were numerous bugs in the room from the site work. I tried to have the bill adjusted as we departed but was told only the general manager could do that and that he was not there. Susan was scheduled for work in Nashville the next day, so I knew we couldn't linger but felt the general manager routine was bullshit. I told the staff as much to hear Susan say, "Don't worry about it (this after I or my parents had spent three thousand dollars on her trip)-I have to live here." To which I naturally replied, "...at the Ramada Inn?" We put Huntington behind us and Susan cried for more than an hour, all the way to Morehead, Kentucky where she immediately turned off the waterworks about how it destroyed her each time she left her home state and went calmly into a convenience store for a potty break. She did not cry again on our journey back to Nashville.