But the first time with Betty had gone fairly well — she was no virgin, even if he was. She had to help him get his cock into her, but she seemed to take that as a matter of course. And halfway through the act itself she had gurgled up from the blanket they were lying on: ‘I just love to fuck!’ It was the tone of voice another girl might have used to express her love for strawberry whirl ice cream.
Later encounters — there had been five of them (five and a half, he supposed, if you wanted to count last night) — hadn’t been so good. They had, in fact, gotten worse at what seemed an exponential rate… although he didn’t believe even now that Betty had been aware of that (at least not until last night). In fact, quite the opposite. Betty apparently believed she had found the battering-ram of her dreams.
Todd hadn’t felt any of the things he was supposed to feel at a time like that Kissing her lips was like kissing warm but uncooked liver. Having her tongue in his mouth only made him wonder what kind of germs she was carrying, and sometimes he thought he could smell her fillings — an unpleasant metallic odour, like chrome. Her breasts were bags of meat. No more.
Todd had done it twice more with her before Dussander’s heart attack. Each time he had more trouble getting erect In both cases he had finally succeeded by using a fantasy. She was stripped naked in front of all their friends. Crying. Todd was forcing her to walk up and down between them while he cried out: Show your tits! Let them see your snatch, you cheap slut! Spread your cheeks! That’s right, bend over and SPREAD them!
Betty’s appreciation was not at all surprising. He was a very good lover, not in spite of his problems but because of them. Getting hard was only the first step. Once you achieved erection, you had to have an orgasm. The fourth time they had done it — this was three days after Dussander’s heart attack — he had pounded away at her for over ten minutes. Betty Trask thought she had died and gone to heaven; she had three orgasms and was trying for a fourth when Todd recalled an old fantasy… what was, in fact, the First Fantasy. The girl on the table, clamped and helpless. The huge dildo. The rubber squeeze-bulb. Only now, desperate and sweaty and almost insane with his desire to come and get this horror over with, the face of the girl on the table became Betty’s face. That brought on a joyless, rubbery spasm that he supposed was, technically, at least, an orgasm. A moment later Betty was whispering in his ear, her breath warm and redolent of Juicy Fruit gum: ‘Lover, you do me any old time. Just call me.’
Todd had nearly groaned aloud.
The nub of his dilemma was this: Wouldn’t his reputation suffer if he broke off with a girl who so obviously wanted to put out for him? Wouldn’t people wonder why? Part of him said they would not He remembered walking down the hall behind two senior boys during his freshman year and hearing one of them tell the other he had broken off with his girlfriend. The other wanted to know why. ‘Fucked ‘er out,’ the first said, and both of them bellowed goatish laughter.
If someone asks me why I dropped her, I’ll just say I fucked her out. But what if she says we only did it five times? Is that enough? What?… How much?… How many?… Who’ll talk?… What’ll they say?
So his mind ran on, as restless as a hungry rat in an insoluble maze. He was vaguely aware that he was turning a minor problem into a big problem, and that his very inability to solve the problem had something to say about how shaky he had gotten. But knowing it brought him no fresh ability to change his behaviour, and he sank into a black depression.
College. College was the answer. College offered an excuse to break with Betty that no one could question. But September seemed so far away.