Her name was Kim and she was heading downtown to an interview, commonly known in the modeling business as a “go-see”. Being familiar with her business, I casually mentioned that I used to be a photographer, but got out of the business in pursuit of higher capitalism. Although she was somewhat guarded, I think she enjoyed my laid back approach. We chatted all the way to 59^th Street where I changed for the downtown express. I asked if she would like to get together for a drink. She was also about to change trains, when I made my suggestion.

“That’s very nice of you, but I’m sort of involved with someone,” Kim replied.

“Sort of?” I asked, curious to know more.

“Well, It’s more than that, but thanks for asking anyway,” she said. 
“Too bad,” I said, “I’d like to get to know you.” 

At this point the flirtation was well established and I could tell she was enjoying the attention.

“What the [CENSORED]!” I figured. The worse that could happen is that she would blow me off.  It wouldn’t hurt to give it a final try. 

“Look, I don’t want to come between you and your boyfriend,” I said, with my best attempt at sincerity, “but I’d like to know more about you.”

            This was kind of a contradiction, but I was being “a real nice guy” and I was doing my best to disguise the web. At this point I had to take a step back and give control back to her. I took out a business card and handed it to her. 

“If you like, you can just call to say hello,” I said. “No strings attached!” I added, staring into her pretty hazel eyes.

“If you want, we can even have lunch, my treat.” I gave her my puppy dog look.

“We’ll see,” she diplomatically said, while taking the card from my hand. Kim turned and walked away.

          A couple of days later, I ran into Kim again and unhampered by the soggy clothes and droopy hair of our first meeting, she radiated an even greater beauty.  She had wavy shoulder length, dirty blond hair and even brighter hazel eyes than I remembered from our first soggy encounter.

She stood about 5’9” and her short skirt revealed some of the shapeliest legs I had seen in a long time. I would later come to learn that one of the attributes on her head sheet read, “Great Legs!” Somebody was certainly telling the truth.

          As it turned out, Kim lived in a studio apartment on 79^th Street, between York and East End, just around the corner from me.  We talked again and she began to show the same warm personality as in our first meeting. I was encouraged by her reaction and persisted with the drink offer, hoping she would weaken. I kept the burners on high, making sure not to cross that delicate line between confidence and desperation. It was working.

          Our train-ride conversation revealed a slight hint of dissatisfaction with her love life and I immediately went for the soft spot. However, I did it in such a way as to create curiosity in her mind about me and tried not to come off too cocky.  Simply put, I told her that men needed to be more sensitive to women’s needs and less selfish.  I also stated that this had always been my philosophy:

“It’s more important to me that my partner fully enjoys every aspect of the relationship, with little concern for my needs.” I said. “If a relationship is a good one, and the woman is being fully satisfied, then she would no doubt want to give herself fully and unselfishly to her man.” 
           What Bull-[CENSORED]!

I stated if that were the case, then both parties would benefit from a fulfilling relationship. I also said that I couldn’t understand why a man would want it any other way. I was really pouring it on and she was eating up every little bit.  Something was happening and we both knew it.  I was a matter of time before I would have her. I was such a devious [CENSORED]!

          Some more time had passed and Kim reached her breaking point.  After a slight altercation with her boyfriend, Glenn, she broke down and called me at my office.  She said she was in the area and wanted to know if the drink offer still held. I no doubt agreed to meet her after work and we went to a local bar.  We had a drink or two and I suggested dinner. She accepted and we grabbed a cab for uptown.

          Dinner was nice, romantic and enlightening.  I learned many things about Kim and I started to feel that she wasn’t just going to be another conquest.  I was starting to like her more.  After dinner, I played the spider and the fly game and she willingly entered the web. 

          When we got to my apartment, I poured after dinner drinks, lit candles and went to work.  I had her where I wanted her and I knew by her reactions that there was no escape. I seduced her slowly, tenderly and passionately. I had her quivering all over before I even touched her. By the time we finally got around to making love, she [CENSORED] in a wild flurry at the instant I [CENSORED] her.  

          Now, I knew about male premature[CENSORED], but this was the first time I ever experienced it in a woman. She broke down and began to cry saying that this was the kind of loving she craved. I was a little confused, so I began to probe her statement. Sobbing, she began a long drawn out confession.

          She had been dating Glenn for about four years.
          “He’s under my skin,” she explained. “I’ve thought about breaking up with him,” she confessed, “but I can’t bring myself around to doing it.”  

          “Every time I’ve tried,” she went on, “he always found a way to my weaknesses and got me back. He’s just under my skin!”

I would come to hate that expression but for now I was willing to let her explain her dilemma.  She had some really strong feelings for him, but something was missing in their lovemaking. Apparently, good old Glenn was caught short in the equipment department and didn’t quite cut the mustard with that little knife of his. 

          According to her, (and I readily take the bows), I was twice the man in both longitude and latitude. Marco Polo had nothing on me! 

“What a difference anatomy makes!” she exclaimed.

She knew she wanted more and wasn’t shy to ask for it. My needs and my ego were being satisfied. The more I saw of Kim, the more she was getting under my skin. My feelings were evolving from superficial to something more, but I knew I was in for a letdown. 

Not wanting to fully let go of my other existence, I resigned myself to taking what I could get from this relationship.  I knew she was still seeing Glen, but I had the upper hand as far as ego was concerned, so there was some insulation from any hurt that may come my way. Funny, I was going to be the [CENSORED], but it looked as if I might become the [CENSORED].

I couldn’t let it bother me.  She wasn’t the only pretty girl with a nice body and a nice personality.  I resigned myself to the role of spider and if the web became a bit tattered, I would have to just mend it.

          Kim would spend most of her weekends with Glen, who lived in Brooklyn. I would give her a good [CENSORED] during the week. Eventually the two trains were hearing towards each other on the same track. I expected a violent collision but instead, I simply ran full steam through a pillow full of duck feathers.

          I don’t know how it came about, but Kim, unable to handle the guilt of a three-way relationship, broke down and confessed to Glenn that she had been seeing me. Any other guy would have been furious, but this little mommy’s boy, wimp, told her it was O.K., if that’s what she wanted.

 Not only did he have no [CENSORED], he didn’t have any testosterone either! What do you expect from a nerdy little lawyer from Brooklyn? I bet he was trying to figure out a way to sue me! I think I would have had more respect for him if he got angry. But this little sissy of a man thought it was, “O.K.”  I was [CENSORED] the love of his life with a bigger, fatter [CENSORED] and doing it much better, and more often. He thought it was O.K.?

“Hey Glenn, get a [CENSORED] dress!” was a thought which ran through my head. If it were me, I’d want to kick some ass!

          After some time, the little game we were playing got to be quite the joke. Evidently, Glenn and I both liked the same drink, and he would leave a bottle of Stoli in the freezer at Kim’s apartment.  It seemed only right that I should drink it whenever I went to her place. After all, “It was O.K.”

 I must have gone through a few bottles when the wimp finally got up some [CENSORED] to make a statement. His answer: a note in the now empty freezer, which read, “Sorry Sal!” If it were I, I would have [CENSORED] in the bottle. But enough about the [CENSORED] wonder, there were some better stories about my relationship with Kim.

One Wednesday night, Kim, one of her girlfriends and I were planning on going out for drinks at a local bar.  We were walking along 1^st Avenue in the low seventies. It was spring and Kim was wearing one of those satin baseball jackets.  She was in high spirits that night and I remember thinking that I liked when she was in that good a mood.  She was making all kinds of jokes and she had her friend and me laughing at the top of our lungs. I love when people are happy.

Suddenly, without warning and out of the clear blue, Kim yanked at my arm stopping me in my tracks. We were standing at the crosswalk on the southeast corner of 71^st and 1^st. She looked at me with a serious look on her face.

“Do you Like Baseball?” she asked rather abruptly.

I was perplexed and not knowing how to really answer such an (pardon the pun) out of left field question, I simply stated,

“I guess so, but I’m not a big fan.” I answered half-heartedly.

Kim interrupted my answer. She leaned over and planted a rather passionate kiss on me, which I felt way down to my [CENSORED].

She stepped back and said, “Let’s [CENSORED]!”

For a brief moment, time stood still and everything looked like it was in slow motion.  She turned to her friend and said, “I’m sorry, but we have to go now.”

We left her friend standing there, wondering what the [CENSORED] was going on?  I stuck up my hand, hailed a cab and told the driver,

“80^th and East End, hurry!”

We were practically finished with our simultaneous [CENSORED] by the time it took to close my apartment door behind us and get to the bed where we collapsed.  We did most of our [CENSORED] standing up against the wall.

“Do you like Baseball?” was a question that Kim repeatedly asked of me from that night forward. I loved when she asked.

          Another amusing but repulsive story had to do with the time I slept at Kim’s apartment. To say that this place was tiny is a gross understatement. It was so small that you had to decide which way you wanted to face before you went inside. Well maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, and if I’ve said it once, I said it a million times, I don’t exaggerate! [Cymbal Crash!]

Anyway, the place was [CENSORED] small.  The next thing that you would notice upon entering was that the only window was in a closet sized area she referred to as her kitchen. The window faced a dreary looking courtyard of brick and grime. This room had a twenty-inch round table and two chairs and it was over-furnished.

          The alcove or sleeping area had a small loveseat, which served as the living room. The opposite wall couldn’t have been more than six feet away. Hovering about five feet above the loveseat was the sleeping area or loft as she called it. Two walls, with a third wall mere feet away and a very low ceiling bordered it. The space between the mattress and the ceiling couldn’t have been more than three feet high. The only way to get around once you climbed up there was to crawl like an infantryman.

To get up to the bed you had to climb what I think may have been a short ship’s ladder, made to handle the maximum weight of a Barbie doll. Once there, if you sat up too fast while you were in bed, you would smash your forehead on the [CENSORED] ceiling! [CENSORED] doggie style was out of the question in this locale. In fact [CENSORED] any style was an amazing feat.  The missionary position was interesting though, because on the up stroke, my [CENSORED] slammed into the ceiling and the down stroke bounced me back up again. [CENSORED] in that bed made me feel like I was living inside one of those annoying Pong video games. Blip...blip...blip...blip...blip...blip...blip. Was it good for you?

By the way, did I mention that the place wasn’t air-conditioned? Well, who needs air anyway?  I figured I could survive breathing in the combination of both our liquor-tainted breath and the smell of the old man who must have died there before she moved in.

          I guess out of both exhaustion and a limited supply of oxygen, I was finally able to get to sleep after what seemed like a lifetime of tossing and turning in this confined hell. I kept telling myself that I wasn’t claustrophobic. Yeah, right!

          It must have been about four in the morning when I was awakened by a rather foul odor. I guess I forgot to mention that Kim and I had eaten at a local Tex/Mex restaurant that night and she had chili. Now I have had the opportunity to sample some rather noxious methane expulsions in my day but this was the mother of all mothers as far as girl [CENSORED] are concerned. I had never before and never since, experienced as repulsive a human odor as I did that horrible, confined night.  What quietly eked out of her [CENSORED] while she was sleeping was the most nauseating, disgusting, ‘want to punch you in the head you [CENSORED] pig’, smell ever. 

          I also have to state that I am rather fastidious when it comes to bodily functions.  I mean, I know girls [CENSORED] and [CENSORED], but if it takes place when I’m in the same state, I WANT TO KILL!  This is probably a result of bad toilet training. Other than that, I’m a tolerant man.

          Back to the Horror of Horrors!  Here I was trapped against two and a half walls, under a three foot ceiling, in a room that on a good night smelled like a dead old man. An unconscious, naked woman with her [CENSORED] poised to blast again blocked my only escape route, the rickety ladder. The odor was indescribable. I thought I might puke and to prevent myself from doing so, I buried my face in the pillow, depriving myself of even more air. I prayed that I would either pass out or have a tornado whirl by and blow the roof off.  In that dungeon, nobody heard my prayer. All through this, my hour of suffering, Kim was sleeping like a baby.  That [CENSORED]!

          I don’t know how, but I survived the night. All I can say is that it’s a good [CENSORED] thing she was beautiful!  A lesser woman may have ended up with a pillow stuffed in her [CENSORED].  And the moral of the story: If you ever take a chick out for a chili dinner and you get that irresistible urge to do the horizontal Lombada, (a) make sure she’s beautiful, (b) bring a clothes pin for your nose, and (c) [CENSORED] her in the park on a windy night.

          I eventually got over that experience and because I consider myself a gentleman, I never brought up the fact that she nearly killed me with her [CENSORED]. Instead, I returned my focus to simply enjoying it.

          I liked showing Kim off. She was quite the sight. In addition to her looks, she had a warm mid-west personality, which in New York was a welcome change of pace from the “Princess’s” I was use to dealing with. No matter where we went, people liked her. She was a charm I liked having.

          Early in our brief relationship, I had an opportunity to take Kim along to my sister’s house out on Long Island.  It was a sunny Sunday afternoon and I enjoyed introducing this beauty at the family gathering. My uncles and brother-in-law were in awe of her beauty. I had fun rubbing my new trophy in their faces.

            “What do you think of the new chick I’m doing?” I taunted them.

            “She’s hot and she loves to [CENSORED],” I teased.

            I could see by the look on their faces that is some sorted way they wished they were me. Guys love talking about [CENSORED] and Kim was certainly inspirational for that topic. I remember having a conversation with one of my uncles that day.

“You’re so crazy, I bet you even eat it!” he said with a wrinkled nose and brow.

“You mean [CENSORED]?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, “you probably stick your face right in it you crazy [CENSORED]!” he said.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. If I heard right, here was a guy in his mid sixties telling me that eating [CENSORED] was foul. My poor aunt!  Did he really believe that [CENSORED] was all a woman really needs to get her off?  I couldn’t just let this go. I had to have some fun with him.

“I’m a certified [CENSORED] diver,” I said with conviction.

“Whenever you’re looking for me, just look between some [CENSORED].” I continued taunting him, adding, “I lick [CENSORED] like a little cat licks milk out of a dish.” I boasted. “In fact, I even grew a beard so that I could still taste it long after I was done,” I proudly pontificated, as his nose curled even further. I was cracking up inside but I kept outwardly cool as his eyes darted back and forth, trying to digest what I was saying.

The look on his face was the look of a guy about to toss his cookies. He even thought that [CENSORED] were something that only hookers did.  I guess he came from a very different generation. Boy, if I could travel back in time, what a hit I would be!

 Needless to say, I got a kick out of telling these guys the baseball story. I even dared one of them to ask Kim if she liked baseball. He backed down. I think he was afraid of the answer he might get.

Kim was intent on making a good showing with my family, so she decided to bake a cake to bring along with her. Kim was a beautiful girl, but for her sake, I secretly hoped that she married an extremely wealthy guy who hired a cook so she could stay the [CENSORED] out of the kitchen. ‘Suzy Homemaker’ was not a title anyone was going to bestow upon her anytime soon.

          She baked what she said was a chocolate cake. To everyone else, it looked like fudge brownies that were sitting in a tray since last year. But, we all agreed that it was the thought that counts and my thoughts were of that little cat that I spoke of earlier. If I wanted cake, I’d go to a bakery.

          At some point, Kim decided to cut off all her beautiful hair.  At first I thought she looked like a little boy, but the look started to grow on me. I should have realized that inwardly, she might have been trying to shed her guilt about the three-way thing. Looking back, I realize that this was the beginning of the end of our relationship. Whenever a chick makes a drastic change in her appearance, she’s usually about to make an even greater change in her life.       

          I took some pictures of her with her new look and we had fun dressing her up in sexy lingerie and doing the exotic picture thing. It was a fun time and in the middle of shooting she asked when I was going to take off the red bra, panties and garter belt she was wearing. I obliged and we [CENSORED] in the middle of photography equipment, empty film canisters, wine bottles and other sorted debris. I will say this, when something moved her, she was a hot ticket.  Unfortunately there was a weasel stuck under her skin.

          She liked me and loved [CENSORED] me but she was somehow in love with Glenn. I didn’t get it, but I couldn’t force her to think the way I wanted her to.  If Glenn were her choice then that’s what it would have to be. I know she had feelings for me, but to preserve her sanity she told herself that it was only physical. Her difficulty was choosing the right direction.  Seeing her torment, I did the only logical thing I could; I turned off my emotions completely. I tried to convince myself that she was just another piece of [CENSORED]. Who the hell was I kidding?

I saw Kim one last time before she ran off into the sunset with the little guy. She came over my apartment and said that she was somehow in love with both Glen and me but had to make a choice. I knew by the tears in her eyes that she was saying goodbye to me. We made love for the last time and I watched her walk out of my life. Sobbing, she turned and said she was retiring from baseball but would always cherish the memories of the game. I laughed, lit another cigarette and poured myself a drink. It was going to be a long, lonely night.