The Other Side of Midnight

‘How hungry are you?’ Jean-Anne asked.

‘I’m starved.’

‘Then try this.’ They both looked up in surprise. It was Catherine standing over the booth. She handed Ron Peterson a folded note, turned around and walked back to the cash register.

Ron opened the note, looked at it and burst into laughter. Jean-Anne watched him coolly.

‘Is it a private joke or can anyone get in on it?’

‘Private,’ Ron grinned. He slipped the note into his pocket.

Ron and Jean-Anne left shortly afterwards. Ron didn’t say anything as he paid his cheque, but he gave Catherine a long, speculative look, smiled and walked out with Jean-Anne on his arm. Catherine looked after them, feeling like an idiot. She didn’t even know how to make a successful pass at a boy.

When her shift was up, Catherine got into her coat, said good night to the girl coming in to relieve her and went outside. It was a warm autumn evening with a cooling breeze skipping in off the lake. The sky looked like purple velvet with soft, far-flung stars just out of reach. It was a perfect evening to – what? Catherine made a list in her mind.

I can go home and wash my hair.

I can go to the library and study for the Latin exam tomorrow.

I can go to a movie.

I can hide in the bushes and rape the first sailor who comes along.

I can go get myself committed.

Committed, she decided.

As she started to move along the campus towards the library, a figure stepped out from behind a lamp post.

‘Hi, Cathy. Where you headed?’

It was Ron Peterson, smiling down at her, and Catherine’s heart started to pound until it began to burst out of her chest. She watched as it took off on its own, beating its way through the air. She became aware that Ron was staring at her. No wonder. How many girls did he know who could do that heart trick? She desperately wanted to comb her hair and fix her makeup and check the seams of her stockings, but she tried to let none of her nervousness show. Rule one: Keep calm.

‘Blug,’ she mumbled.

‘Where are you headed?’

Should she give him her list? God, no! He’d think she was insane. This was her big chance and she must not do a single thing to destroy it. She looked up at him, her eyes as warm and inviting as Carole Lombard’s in Nothing Sacred.

‘I didn’t have any special plans,’ she said invitingly.

Ron was studying her, still not sure of her, some primeval instinct making him cautious. ‘Would you like to do something special?’ he asked.

This was it. The Proposition. The point of no return. ‘Name it,’ she said, ‘and I’m yours.’ And cringed inwardly. It sounded so corny. No one said, ‘Name it and I’m yours’ except in bad Fannie Hurst novels. He was going to turn on his heel and walk away in disgust.

But he didn’t. Incredibly, he smiled, took her arm and said, ‘Let’s go.’

Catherine walked along with him, stunned. It had been as simple as that. She was on her way to getting laid. She began to tremble inside. If he found out she was a virgin, she would be finished. And what was she going to talk about when she was in bed with him? Did people talk when they were actually doing it, or did they wait until it was over? She didn’t want to be rude, but she had no idea what the rules were.

‘Have you had dinner?’ Ron was asking.

‘Dinner?’ She stared up at him, trying to think. Should she have had dinner? If she said yes, then he could take her right to bed and she could get it over with. ‘No,’ she said quickly, ‘I haven’t.’ Now why did I say that? I’ve ruined everything. But Ron did not seem upset.

‘Good. Do you like Chinese food?’

‘It’s my favourite.’ She hated it, but the gods certainly weren’t going to count a little yellow lie on the biggest night of her life.

‘There’s a good Chinese joint over on Estes. Lum Fong’s. Do you know it?’

No, but she would never forget it as long as she lived.

What did you do the night you lost your cherry?

Oh, I went to Lum Fong’s first and had some Chinese food with Ron Peterson.

Was it good?

Sure. But you know Chinese food. An hour later, I was sexy again.

They had reached his car, a maroon Reo convertible. Ron held the door open for Catherine, and she sat in the seat where all the other girls she envied had once sat. Ron was charming, handsome, a top athlete. And a sex maniac. It would make a good title for a movie. The Sex Maniac and the Virgin. Maybe she should have held out for a nicer restaurant like Henrici’s in the Loop and then Ron would have thought, This is the kind of girl I want to take home to Mother.

‘A penny for your thoughts,’ he said.

Oh, great! All right, so he wasn’t the most brilliant conversationalist in the world. But that wasn’t why she was here, was it? She looked up at him sweetly. ‘I was just thinking about you.’ She snuggled against him.

He grinned. ‘You really had me fooled, Cathy.’

‘I did?’

‘I always thought you were pretty standoffish – I mean, not interested in men.’

The word you’re fumbling for is lesbian, Catherine thought, but aloud she said, ‘I just like to pick my time and place.’

‘I’m glad you picked me.’

‘So am I.’ And she was. She really was. She could be certain that Ron was a good lover. He had been factory-tested and approved by every horny coed within a radius of a hundred and fifty miles. It would have been humiliating to have had her first sexual experience with someone as ignorant as she was. With Ron she was getting a master. After tonight she would not be calling herself Saint Catherine any longer. Instead she would probably be known as ‘Catherine the Great.’ And this time she would know what the ‘Great’ stood for. She would be fantastic in bed. The trick was not to panic. All the wonderful things she had read about in the little green books she used to keep hidden from her mother and father were about to happen to her. Her body was going to be an organ filled with exquisite music. Oh, she knew it would hurt the first time; it always did. But she would not let Ron know. She would move her behind around a lot because men hated for a woman to just lie there, motionless. And when Ron penetrated her, she would bite her lip to conceal the pain and cover it up with a sexy cry.

‘What?’

She turned to Ron, appalled, and realized she had cried aloud. ‘I–I didn’t say anything.’

‘You gave a kind of funny cry.’

‘Did I?’ She forced a little laugh.

‘You’re a million miles away.’

She analysed the line and decided it was bad. She must be more like Jean-Anne. Catherine put her hand on his arm and moved closer. ‘I’m right here,’ she said.