Shots Over the Bow

When I met Susan, I was no lothario-having been involved with six women now counting her in my twenty years and eight. I first saw a little sign of her ability to manipulate and some meanness soon after she met my parents when she asked me to help her move. She was living in recently widowed K's home but had a leased apartment near Vanderbilt's campus where she had obtained her advanced degrees. Her lease was expiring and she had bought a condo across from Nashville's elite boys' prep school which once again by coincidence, I had attended in seventh grade. I had a new Chevy Blazer and Susan asked me to help her move a few "little" things to the new condo. I drove and met her and found the small items included a home theater TV of about sixty inches. As I sweat mightily in the August heat, Susan said, "If you get hot take anything you want in the fridge or in the kitchen for that matter". As we were loading what Susan had taken to calling my "rig", a black vagrant who suffered vitiligo came up on his bicycle asking for money. I had seen him harass others in the past and quickly dismissed him with the line, "Man, I wish we had some money-then maybe we wouldn't be being evicted". He believed the lie as he saw the Blazer burdened with Susan's worldly goods and peddled off. We arrived at Susan's new abode, and after much heavy lifting on my part because of male pride, leavened somewhat by laughter when I did not know the appearance of a modern hard drive tower having not seen a computer in twelve years, I asked Susan "What do you want me to do with your space heater?" I grabbed a bottle of Diet Coke from the refrigerator. I hear, "What barn were you raised in? Don't you ask?" Evidently, Susan had forgotten the kitchen carte blanche she had given to me at the other apartment or the rules had changed. When I recapped the bottle before my first sip and began to bid adieu, I gave Susan a gentle reminder of what she had said at the place across from the Vanderbilt law school where she had incidentally studied for two years. When she saw I was leaving and realized her mistake, she apologized profusely and insisted I drink the Coke. After the remaining exertions of moving furniture and electronics around Susan and I made out with both of us climaxing in mutual masturbation. She had given me a premixed mudslide and I have always been able to hold my liquor, but whether from the hard work in the heat of the day, the release of sexual tension, the drink, or something Susan, who had been employed before I met her at poison control, put in it, I drifted off-passed out like I had been hit by a ton of bricks, naked on the floor with only Susan's quilt wrapped around me. I was deep in the arms of Morpheus when I felt Susan remove the cover to reveal my curled up in a ball nakedness. I could swear I awoke with Susan and K assessing my nudity, holding glasses of wine with Susan saying she had slipped me a Mickey. I stirred as the women looked me over and Susan gently told me to go back to sleep, "sleep...dream, it's all just a dream" in soothing, sonorous tones. Perhaps, this was merely a dream-the subconscious can play tricks after all, but never before or since, have I had a dream like it. Should I conclude that this surreal episode was a window on a lesbian liaison Susan had been having with K when they lived together? I have often wondered and knowing what I know now, I would not rule it out. The next faux pas came when Susan called and said she wanted to meet me at K's house. I drove expecting a pleasant get-together only to be confronted by an infuriated Susan saying I was a liar. Her host had been married to a police detective prior to the union with the judge and Susan had evidently had him look into me. Susan blared that she had "Done a Dun and Bradstreet" on me and that I was not rich (which I had never said-only that I came from a prominent family). She then yelled in K's drive that she had found out I didn't belong to "any of the Jewish churches". As a point of clarification, as I was leaving with the intention of never seeing her again, I explained Jews attend synagogues or temples. She seemed to realize her mistake and literally grabbed my leg and asked me to forgive her and give her a chance-I obliged.