The Other Side of Midnight

Ron grinned at Catherine. "I'll drink to that." He lifted his glass. She looked at him sitting across from her obviously enjoying her company. She had nothing to worry about. Everything was going beautifully. He asked if she would like another drink, but Catherine declined. She did not intend to be in an alcoholic stupor when she was deflowered. Deflowered? Did people still use words like deflowered? Anyway, she wanted to remember every moment, every sensation. Oh, my God! She wasn't wearing anything! Would he? Surely a man as experienced as Ron Peterson would have something to put on, some protection so she wouldn't get pregnant. What if he was expecting the same thing? What if he was thinking that a girl as experienced as Catherine Alexander would surely have some protection? Could she come right out and ask him? She decided that she would rather die first, right at the table. They could carry her body away and give her a ceremonial Chinese burial.

Ron ordered the dollar seventy-five six-course dinner, and Catherine pretended to eat it, but it might as well have been Chinese cardboard. She was beginning to get so tense she couldn't taste anything. Her tongue was suddenly dry and the roof of her mouth felt strangely numb. What if she had just had a stroke? If she had sex right after a stroke, it would probably kill her. Perhaps she should warn Ron. It would hurt his reputation if they found a dead girl in his bed. Or maybe it would enhance it.

"What's the matter?" Ron asked. "You look pale."

"I feel great," Catherine said, recklessly. "I'm just excited about being with you."

Ron looked at her approvingly, his brown eyes taking in every detail of her face and moving down to her breasts and lingering there. "I feel the same way," he replied.

The waiter had taken the dishes away, and Ron had paid the check. He looked at her, but Catherine couldn't move.

"Do you want anything else?" Ron asked.

Do I? Oh, yes! I want to be on a slow boat to China. I want to be in a cannibal's kettle being boiled for dinner. I want my mother!

Ron was watching her, waiting. Catherine took a deep breath. "I--I can't think of anything."

"Good." He drew the syllable out, long and lastingly so that it seemed to put a bed on the table between them. "Let's go." He stood up and Catherine followed. The euphoric feeling from the drinks had completely vanished and her legs began to tremble.

They were outside in the warm night air when a sudden thought hit Catherine and filled her with relief. He's not going to take me to bed tonight. Men never do that with a girl on the first date. He's going to ask me out to dinner again and next time we'll go to Henrici's and we'll get to know each other better. Really know each other. And we'll probably fall in love--madly--and he'll take me to meet his parents and then everything will be all right...and I won't feel this stupid panic.

"Do you have any preference in motels?" Ron asked.

Catherine stared up at him, speechless. Gone were the dreams of a genteel musicale evening with his mother and father. The bastard was planning to take her to bed in a motel! Well, that was what she wanted, wasn't it? Wasn't that the reason she had written that insane note?

Ron's hand was on Catherine's shoulder now, sliding down her arm. She felt a warm sensation in her groin. She swallowed and said, "If you've seen one motel, you've seen them all."

Ron looked at her strangely. But all he said was, "OK. Let's go."

They got into his car and started driving west. Catherine's body had turned into a block of ice, but her mind was racing at a feverish pitch. The last time she had stayed in a motel was when she was eight and was driving across country with her mother and father. Now she was going to one to go to bed with a man who was a total stranger. What did she know about him anyway? Only that he was handsome, popular and knew an easy lay when he saw one.

Ron reached over and took her hand. "Your hands are cold," he said.

"Cold hands, hot legs." Oh, Christ, she thought. There I go again. For some reason, the lyrics of "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life" started to go through Catherine's head. Well she was about to solve it. She was on her way to finding out what everything was all about. The books, the sexy advertisements, the thinly veiled love lyrics--"Rock Me in the Cradle of Love," "Do It Again," "Birds Do It." OK, she thought. Now Catherine is going to do it.

Ron turned south onto Clark Street.

Ahead on both sides of the street were huge blinking red eyes, neon signs that were alive in the night, screaming out their offers of cheap and temporary havens for impatient young lovers. "EASY REST MOTEL," "OVERNIGHT MOTEL," "COME INN," (Now that had to be Freudian!) "TRAVELER'S REST." The paucity of imagination was staggering, but on the other hand the owners of these places were probably too busy bustling fornicating young couples in and out of bed to worry about being literary.

"This is about the best of them," Ron said, pointing to a sign ahead.

"PARADISE INN--VACANCY."

It was a symbol. There was a vacancy in Paradise, and she, Catherine Alexander, was going to fill it.

Ron swung the car into the courtyard next to a small whitewashed office with a sign that read: RING BELL AND ENTER. The courtyard consisted of about two dozen numbered wooden bungalows.

"How does this look?" Ron asked.

Like Dante's Inferno. Like the Colosseum in Rome when the Christians were about to be thrown to the lions. Like the Temple of Delphi when a Vestal Virgin was about to get hers.

Catherine felt that excited feeling in her groin again. "Terrific," she said, "Just terrific."

Ron smiled knowingly. "I'll be right back." He put his hand on Catherine's knee, sliding it up toward her thigh, gave her a quick, impersonal kiss and swung out of the car and went into the office. She sat there, looking after him, trying to make her mind blank.

She heard the wail of a siren in the distance. Oh, my God, she thought wildly, it's a raid! They're always raiding these places!

The door to the manager's office opened and Ron came out. He was carrying a key and apparently was deaf to the siren which was coming closer and closer. He walked over to Catherine's side of the car and opened the door.