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By Susan C. Price
[Sequel to “Setting the stage: Family life and quirks,” published on October 28]
Pam was always trying to connect with men, usually in the basest way possible. She would not have said, “I met a man and we had a fascinating argument about opera.” It would be, “I met a man and we had a fascinating argument about opera, then I gave him head. He said I was quite good at it. Well, I KNEW that!”
She loved to tell her own stories about her sexual “escapades.” They were funny in the telling, the listener verging from shock to hilarity to suspicion of veracity, and back again. Now, as Pam is dead...I get to tell them. For many of these, I have no independent corroboration. Pam saw male interest everywhere she looked. Some of it was real. And, yup, names and some other identifying details have been changed to protect...me.
A HOLE IN…: A few years after her pregnancy, Pam married her first husband, Doug. Early on they enjoyed the standard of fine living that Pam wanted—owning lots of silver, art, fine furniture, etc. Though her parents were not upper class (in fact, her mother had been “in service” at some point) her mother knew what was “fine” and strictly taught Pam to recognize and seek it. Pam and Doug bought a small home in a very nice section of Long Beach and decorated it tastefully. Then the marriage did not go well. Doug traveled for weeks at a time on business, and during one absence, Pam started an affair with a married neighbor. When Doug returned home and realized this, he angrily and pointedly poked a hole in her diaphragm. This did not deter her “extra-curricular” activities. But, forever after, Pam referred to this man as, “The Great Asshole.” When it was time for me to inform everyone of her death, I could not remember his name.
Ultimately, Pam and Doug divorced, a few years after we had met, leaving her the fine house in Long Beach. Oh, and yes, Doug ultimately found her number and called her once or twice in later years. She said he asked for (and presumably received) phone sex.
COCAINE: Pam’s first long relationship after the first divorce, was with Lindsey. He was trying to get a real-estate business going, but until that could produce sufficient income, he began a cocaine trade. I recall seeing the cocaine scale on Pam’s dining room table in her impeccably decorated dining room. (A fine mahogany sideboard with full silver tea service...you get the picture). At the neighbor’s New Year’s Party (the same neighbor as in Pam’s “How our Thanksgiving goose got cooked”) there was an hour where I could not find Pam to chat, and wondered where she had gone to. She later informed me that she and Lindsey had been hiding in the coat closet while he was licking cocaine off her clitoris. It being Pam, she probably said, “my snatch.”
As time wore on, Lindsey did not wear well. They were stopped for a DUI, and he left Pam in jail, finding his own bail person and leaving. Soon after they moved to a new two-story home in the tony Belmont Shore area, Pam fell while coming down the stairs with the laundry basket. Lindsey stepped over her fallen form without a word, and left in their only car. Pam called me to take her to the doctor. Lindsey soon moved out and on.
Often, as Pam told me these stories, I would ask, “But, what did you SAY?” I seldom got a usable answer. She never explained why she allowed herself to be used so badly.
ON THE DESK: Pam went out to the local well-known high-class Mexican restaurant with a group of friends. They were all drinking much Tequila. The owner (a well-known local business man—married, of course) stopped by their table and was quite friendly. A bit later, Pam left to go to the ladies’, and as she put it, “Next thing I know, I’m flat on my back on the owner’s desk and we are screwing.” A several-weeks-long affair ensued.
GREEN STREET: After Belmont Shore, Pam moved north to San Francisco, transferring to another State of California job. She was investigating an apartment on Green Street, and met the real estate agent. They flirted, and a brief affair ensued. Some months later, while in line for tickets to the San Francisco Opera, Pam met a man who made his living via gambling. An affair ensued (see the pattern?). Actually, this man, “Ticket Line Mike” as he was forever known, remained a good friend of hers.
SHAKESPEARE: One of Pam’s San Francisco pals and Pam met a gentleman during the San Francisco Opera interval, in the bar...of course. Several weeks later, after dinner at a restaurant in North Beach, the pal and Pam went to a famous local bookstore. They became separated and the pal waited about 20 minutes in front of the bookstore, thoroughly perplexed. Eventually Pam appeared, somewhat disheveled, with sloppy lipstick and a wicked grin. “I was giving head to that guy we met...in the Shakespeare aisle!”
BLACK DRESS: Through the cookbook editing job, she met a gay man who became a close friend. He introduced her to Andrew, an older, lonely widower who had been married to his sister. Pam declared she was in love (also, that Andrew was good at sex) and they became engaged. The wedding was somewhat strained, as Andrew’s three children had their own issues. The late-20’s daughter appeared at the ceremony in a black dress, claiming the look was “in style.” “Bullshit,” Pam and I chorused. Pam and Andrew bought and lived in one then another nice townhome in San Francisco, the last in the Castro district, known for its gay population.
And, as time wore on, Andrew was no longer “sweet and charming”...he bored her no end as he “...watches TV and reads—All The Time!” Ultimately, they divorced without great acrimony, remaining phone pals until the end of her life.
THE LAST AFFAIR: And then a friend who had had an affair with her older brother-in-law, Nicholas, invited Pam to her own wedding on the East Coast, knowing and expecting (well...according to Pam) that Nicholas would be interested in Pam. And he was. Thus began a cross-continent, almost 15-year, off-and-on-again affair.
Nick was quite the investor (Wharton-educated) and had to visit San Francisco for the various companies with which he was involved. He and Pam were both intensely interested in money, finance, investing...and sex and alcohol. Nick liked to dress up in ladies undies (yup, I looked at the photo Pam showed me), S & M (I saw the eyehooks in the door frame that Pam installed to hang the restraints), and public sex. According to Pam, they not only visited a sex club, they “fucked in front of a bunch of people. I didn’t really like it that much.”
At times, Pam said she was very much in love with Nick. “It’s so cute, we read the financial pages together each morning.” Nick moved into the condo she bought after she moved out of the Castro district of San Francisco. Then Nick went back to his wife. By Pam’s reports, the wife was a harridan and Nick had been cheating on her for the full 35 years of their marriage. They did not divorce because Nick feared the financial “hit” (and the wife did not want to lose her “position” in society).
Less than a year later, Nick reappeared, affirmed his love for Pam, and asked her to move to New York City with him. She left the state job she had returned to, sold her condo and her BMW, and moved. She was looking forward to living the high life in a nice, large flat in the Upper East Side and hobnobbing with the wealthy folk that Nick knew. She discovered that he did not agree with her taste in Interior Decoration, wanting only fussy, conservative, very expensive stuff. Pam wanted more modern, expensive items. But Nick was paying the decorator....His wealthy friends were alcoholics, as, increasingly, was Nick, and the married men friends tried to play grab-ass with Pam, and asked to screw her. Ultimately, one blizzardy day just before New Year’s Day, while Pam lay in bed sick with a bad flu, Nick again announced that he was returning to his wife and walked out. Pam never forgave him, but when he still wanted phone conversations (and phone sex) she agreed, as long as he sent her money. Which he did until she lost her ability to speak on the phone. I found his consistency touching...in a way.
Next time: Pammie Story #4—The End
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Copyright © 2013 by Susan C. Price
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Well Susan, the only thing I can think of to say is, "WOW". Another great story.
ReplyDeleteI've known a few Pans in my life. Most had such a need to be liked(loved) it was like a drug. One very sweet, wonderful, girl I knew in Lake County, came down with MS and even that didn't stop her. She and I never had sex. I guess my wife( at the time) and me were among her true friends. She would vanish for months at a time, and one day out of the blue there she would be. She would have someone new on her arm, or great stories of people(men and sometimes women) she met(slept with).
One day she left and never came back, We asked but no one knew anything. I always hoped she found what she was looking for and that was why she hadn't returned, but it's more likely she died alone in a hospital bed, in God only knows where.