At the Christmas party of 1997 I laid my eyes on Kathy Scully for the first time. I had heard about her, everyone who'd ever seen her told me how great looking she was, what a terrific body she was blessed with and how if anyone working for Jack Scully went near her he would first fire him and then have him killed.
That year was my turn to help supervise setting up the party. It would all begin with Jim sending someone he had confidence in over to Jack's a couple of hours before the guests were to arrive to help with any last minute problems and to make sure the help Jack had hired were doing their jobs. When I got there Mrs. Scully told me Jack was asleep but things were going smoothly. I assumed Jack had drank himself to sleep and was glad that I wouldn't have him looking over my shoulder if I had to actually make a decision, which as it turned out I never had to do, at least not concerning the party. Mary Scully was right, without Jack nosing around everything was going just fine and by the time the first members of Scully Sales began to arrive everything was in place. That is everything except Scully, he slept until nearly midnight and by then a good number of his people had come and gone. But that wasn't the main significance of Jack spending most of the party stretched out on his couch in his upstairs office. In those few hours I met and instantaneously fell in love with Kathy Scully, made love of sorts to Kathy Scully and immediately began to regret all of it. That pattern would repeat itself over and over again, until it ended with me driving my nondescript beige Honda back toward a time and place in my life that I had screwed up worse than I screwed up my job at Scully Sales.
I'm still in New Jersey but at least I'm moving. I don't think very well in traffic, I get too damn anxious about getting where I'm going even when there aren't any time constraints at all. I make my own pressure, a very stupid habit. But I'm doing 70 now and I can see Cindy Barth in that pink sweater she was wearing when I first saw her in Miss Wing's speech class at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, South Dakota in 1981. Man, she was pretty.
I spent the first couple of hours of actual party time that Christmas mostly wandering around old Jack's home. It was like nothing I'd ever seen. Every room had its own motif--Kathy taught me that word-- with everything from a den built around Dressage--another word Kathy taught me-- to a reasonable facsimile of a revolutionary days kitchen to bathrooms done with more mirrors than a fun house. Some of the rooms were beautiful, as was the room that I assumed was the living room. Big, I mean really huge sofas, in earth colors with dark wood tables. A rust-colored rug that begged to be napped on. But other rooms, such as the master bedroom looked to me as way overdone. A dark red canopy over a giant bed with a gold spread surrounded by lighter gold wallpapered walls. I've got to think Mary and Jack Scully somehow decided to share the responsibility of designing the rooms in their home and I would love to have seen Mary's face when Jack showed her the Provincial bureau, with its intricately carved legs and handles, in very dark mahogany wood.
I admit to looking in their medicine chest with no major discoveries. And I confess to spending more than an appropriate amount of time in what was obviously Kathy's bedroom. That's where I first smelled the musk perfume that she wore twenty-four hours a day. It was intoxicating that evening, alone in her bedroom and it stayed intoxicating through the last time I saw her, which was only a few days ago.
The first time I saw Jack Scully's daughter was around ten thirty at the Christmas party. I was sitting in the giant family room with Tony Musso, one of my retail supervisors, having my third glass of cabernet. I always sit facing the entrance to the room I'm in--I speculate that it shows my ancestry may very well be Sicilian-- and that night was no different. So I was among the first to see this striking creature walk in with her mom. She was wearing a black cocktail dress, pearls, large hoop shaped silver earrings, high heeled black shoes and--I noticed later on when she came closer-- a thick diamond encrusted ankle bracelet... and that musk perfume. She was beautiful; big dark eyes over very fair skin. She had medium length light brown hair and the body of a sixteen-year old. Small but very shapely, nothing moved when she walked. In a few seconds I developed a feeling that began in my throat and stretched straight down through to my gut. That feeling was to come back to me every single time I came into contact with this girl and often came upon me when I was alone, daydreaming of the next time I could find a way to be alone with her.
After a few moments of watching her I noticed I was breathing through my mouth. I closed it and began to look around at the other guests. You had to look carefully but you could see virtually every man in the room at least peeking at the Scully women working the room, though it's safe to say the emphasis was on the one with the frozen breasts. And as I found out less than an hour later, there was nothing between those breasts and Kathy's little black cocktail dress.
Mary Scully was clearly intent on Kathy meeting and greeting each and every one of the twenty or thirty guests in the room. The mother was beaming and the daughter appeared to be quite comfortable even as she had to plainly know that her every move was being watched, scrutinized if you will, by dozens of pairs of eyes, men's and women's alike. The way she carried herself, the seemingly honest smiles she gave again and again to each new person she'd meet identified her as a person apparently at ease with herself. This was the first time any of us had been aware of Jack inviting his precious daughter to any kind of get together with people from Scully Sales and the few employees who had ever seen her before had built up the others expectations to dramatic levels. But I can assure you no one was disappointed.
Within a few moments Mrs. Scully and her daughter got to the side of the room Tony and I were sitting in. She was but a few feet from me, being introduced to one of our computer guys, Mike Breven, sitting with his wife Lauren, a rather attractive woman in her own right. As the Scullys approached I watched his wife watching Mike who did the polite thing and got up to shake their hands. After a few seconds Mary gestured that he should sit back down next to Lauren, which he did, but it resulted in Kathy's beautiful bosom with its moderately sized but fairly pronounced cleavage about eighteen inches from his face. Tony poked me in the side but I was getting all of this, believe me. We watched him struggle to stay cool and to look nowhere but into her eyes and I give the man credit, his jaw was noticeably tight and I saw him bite his lower lip but he never slipped up.
"The man's amazing Sean, he knows his old lady is waiting for one false move and she'll be giving him shit all the way home. Look at that concentration, look at that control... Look at those tits!"
"Christ Tony, hold it down. Oh boy, it's our turn, be good man."
In a moment we were standing to meet the ladies.
"Kathy, this is Tony, I'm sorry I've forgotten your last name."
"Musso, Mrs. Scully, pleasure to see you again. How do you do, Kathy?"
"Pleasure to meet you Tony. And you're Sean. How do you like the party."
I couldn't imagine how she knew my name but I loved it. I was dying to ask her but I tried to stay as cool as Mike Breven had been a few moments before.
"it's great, you have a truly beautiful home. I understand you attend Princeton. you're a senior this year right?" I felt I was being smooth.
"Yeah, it'll all be over in a few months. It was great while it lasted but now it'll be on to bigger and better things, or so they tell me. By the way, in case you're wondering, I know a bit about you from a girl I go to school with, Carrie Darwin."
It took me a couple of seconds to make the association. Janice Darwin was a manufacturer's representative from L'eggs Panty Hose, one of the many accounts we'd lost over the last several years. we'd become quite close and in fact have had an on again off again physical relationship. Not in Kathy Scully's league, she's a cute girl who enjoyed what I enjoyed, namely going out to dinner and having sex. She had recently turned thirty-five and had shared with me the fact she was having a tough time with it. A lot of her friends were married, getting married, getting engaged, all of that. A couple of times I tried to remind her of all the friends she'd told me about who'd been married and divorced, nearly married and dumped and all of THAT, but she wasn't buying any of it. We weren't in love and she was afraid she wasn't ever going to find love. Join the club. she'd told me she had a kid sister in Princeton but I hadn't made the association when Jim told me Kathy Scully was there.
"What do you do Tony?" Goddamn it, I waited too long. They were speaking now and I felt funny standing there so I picked my drink up off the arm of the sofa, excused myself and wandered away. I walked over to a large bay window looking out to the back of Scully's home. It looked like a resort, paths and ponds and grass like a fairway--in December! I was there for a few moments when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see Kathy Scully. I lost my breath.
"You look lonely. Are you a lonely man? Carrie said you and Janice are pretty close."
"When did you last speak to her?"
"Gee I don't know, maybe two, three weeks ago, why?"
"I haven't seen Janice in about a month, she got kind of down about reaching thirty-five. We didn't have a fight or anything, it just seemed like it was over."
"Just what was over if you don't mind me asking?"
"I don't know... good times I guess, a lot of fun. What about you, anybody in your life?"
She disregarded my question. "Janice told Carrie you were the best lover she'd ever had. By a lot." She was grinning.
"How the hell do I respond to that?" Her perfume had filled my head; my heart was pounding.
"Turn back toward the window. Look to your left, do you see the garage?" I saw what looked like a medium sized house with garage doors. I nodded.
"Wait five minutes, walk straight toward that garage and you'll see a paved road that runs into the back of it. Follow that road to a shed, I'll be in there. Use the side door, it's on the left. Just make sure you wait five minutes." I nodded again and stood there looking out at the beautiful, clear December sky. I had forgotten to put on my watch so I started counting one Mississippi, two Mississippi until I got to three hundred Mississippi. I thought about getting my coat and then thought better of it. At about two hundred Mississippi I started to get cold feet but that feeling only lasted about fifteen Mississippi. I followed her instructions and by the time I got behind the medium sized house I could see what she called a shed and what I would have called a giant garage. I suppose I must have been cold but I have no recollection of anything except feeling my heart bang in my chest. I found the door, opened it and was immediately hit in the face with the light from a flashlight, a very powerful flashlight.
"Shut the door and get in here."
I could hear her voice and smell that perfume but the light was blinding me.
"Will you put the light down for a minute, I can't see a thing."
"Over here." She moved the light so that it was pointing at the floor in front of her. She was on a giant yellow swimming pool float. I couldn't see anything else in the building that had become the first of many unusual places Kathy and I would have sex together. She was on her side, her pearls lying on the floor in the middle of the light. Her shoes and pantyhose were off, placed neatly on the outdoor carpeted floor, toward the bottom of the float.
"Come lie down next to me." I walked over and lay down on my side facing her.
"You know I saw you a couple of times when I was in daddy's office. One time you were getting out of your car, you looked very busy. Like you were rushing somewhere. Another time I was sitting on the coach in his office and you came in and told him something about one of his principles coming in to town. You were there about three or four minutes and you were concentrating so much on your conversation with my father you never even noticed me. When you left I asked daddy who you were. You know what he said?"
"I give up." All I could think of was how much I wanted to kiss her. To touch some part, any part of her.
"Nobody. He said you were nobody. Isn't that mean?" She was grinning.
I started to cup her head with my left hand.
"Wait." She turned around, leaving her back facing me. "Unzip me." I unzipped her dress. She turned back to me, pulled down the top of her dress and jacked up the bottom of it, leaving her breasts, her beautiful breasts staring at me. I reached down between her legs with one hand and tried again to cup her head with the other.
"You do understand we've got a few minutes, that's all."
"Let me tell you something, if I last that long it'll be a miracle." I started to slide on top of her.
"No, no wait. I've got to go back inside, stay this way. You know you're cute?"
"Do you ever shut up?"
"Only when my mouth's full lover boy."
I took the hint and it came just in time. It was as good a thirty seconds as I'd ever had but I quickly felt an apology was in order.
"Jesus Christ I'm sorry. I wanted..."
"Now you shut up, everything's fine. I had two big O's waiting for you and one with you. I REALLY get off on this, you know." She rearranged her dress and began to put her pantyhose back on.
"Wait about two or three minutes and come back in. What are you going to say if anyone sees you walk back in without your jacket? What the hell was your plan if someone saw you walking out that way?" I made what I'd like to think she considered a dumb face, at least that was what I was trying for. I figured I'd go with the cute thing.
"You went out for a cigarette, here, take one, I'll light it for you." She handed it to me. "Smoke it until you get to the patio, try to let people see you smoke it."
"You're really good at this, you know?"
"Yeah I know, lots of experience. I told you I get off on this kind of stuff. By the way, you do owe me now.
"It'll be my pleasure."
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Material Copyright © 1998-2003 by Jim Bearden