She wanted nothing more than to keep touching him. He wanted that, too – all thoughts of eating and plans for the day had vanished – but he was more frightened than he had ever been before a race.
Chapter Nine
SURPRISE VISIT
Mary dialed his number early that morning and then hung up. She got into her car and drove the fifty miles down to Wellston. It had only been a week since Penn but her life was now in turmoil. How could she account for her attraction to this boy?
Sure, he was physically attractive and intelligent but he was hardly educated. He really wasn’t that good-looking, now that she thought about it. But he was pleasant. Happy. Focused. And oh, so young! Silly Mary. What do you want with him?
What can it hurt to give him a call? Serendipity has no better example than getting spiked by him at a track meet 500 miles from home. The Fates must have ordained it. So, go ahead and call him.
“Hullo?”
“Jeremy, it’s Mary Sanger.” She spoke rapidly so he wouldn’t have to respond. “I’m in Wellston on business. If you’re not too busy, I could meet you for lunch.”
Jeremy was caught off-guard. The woman intrigued him, certainly. But by Monday, he’d dismissed her from his thoughts. For five days, he had trained with renewed vigor and focus. Now this.
He had a girlfriend once, Sylvia, during his junior year, and she kept calling him. But this was different. Sylvia was giddy and childish – she just wanted to be seen with him. Mary Sanger was, well, a woman. He had planned to lift weights but what could it hurt to postpone that?
“I just got back from the farm, Mary.” He had not eaten breakfast nor bathed. “Got in ten miles this morning. Where are you now? You could come by my house and then we could make plans.”
“Let’s see, I’ll check outside this phone booth and tell you, ” Mary said, the roar of a semi nearly drowning her out. “It says I’m at the corner of Telephone and Telephone.”
Jeremy chuckled. He’d seen that corny cartoon in Boy’s Life magazine when he was twelve. He couldn’t stop laughing.
“Actually, I’m at Memorial Park,” Mary said when he calmed himself. She was happy to have broken some tension.
“O.K., drive twelve blocks west on Locust Street – that’s right in front of the park – north on Oak Street – two blocks north, 345 Oak.”
“Good. Got it. See you in a few minutes.”
Jeremy stripped off his running shoes, socks, shorts and t-shirt, wolfed down a banana and a granola bar, and plunged into the tub for a quick bath. In just seconds, it seemed, Mary was there, poking her head through the front door.
“Hello, it’s me. May I come in?”
“Yes, come on in,” he hollered. “I’m in the tub. Sorry. Be out in a minute.”
“Oh, please, take your time. You weren’t expecting company. Soak for a while. I’ll find something to read.”
She looked around his house. It was far neater than she had expected, him being a young man living alone. No dirty dishes in the sink, no clothes on the floor. It seemed to be just four rooms, a nearly empty living room, a large kitchen and dining area, a small, spare bedroom, and presumably, in the back corner, the bathroom.
She was drawn to the bookcase and found it remarkable – not for the number of volumes but for the authors and titles: Nietzsche, Gandhi, Emerson, Maugham, Plato, Hammarskjold, Muir, Origin of Species, Complete Works of Shakespeare, Textbook of Work Physiology, Cosmos, Ethics for a New Millennium, A Brief History of Time.
There were fewer than fifty books, but each one had substance.
This is no ordinary 18-year-old she reminded herself. She picked up a magazine from the end table – it was the Smithsonian. Beside it was a recent New Yorker and Running Research News.
She read for a few minutes about orangutans in Sri Lanka and could hear water sloshing in the tub.
“Mary?” he called quietly.
“Yes, Jeremy, I’m here.”
“Would you please toss me a towel?”
She followed his voice into the bedroom. A stack of towels stood on the dresser.
She pictured him naked and wet, sitting in the bathtub. Her mind flashed to a scene in the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, where Donna Reed runs out of her robe into a hydrangea bush and Jimmy Stewart remarks, “a man doesn’t get in a situation like this every day.”
She grabbed a green striped towel from the stack on the dresser and stuck her arm through the partly open door.
“Just toss it toward the center of the room,” he instructed.
“Jeremy,” she said, emboldened by her rapidly-growing familiarity with him. “Why don’t you let me come in and wash your back? I hope you don’t think I’m being too forward,” knowing that she was being far too forward.
A long pause while he thought about it. Only a washcloth to cover me! Need more bubbles!
“Toss me that towel so I can cover up.” He ran some more water. “Bring another towel in with you.”
She threw the towel in the direction of the voice, gave him a few moments, then slowly swung the door open. He looked over his left shoulder, grinning sheepishly. She wore a race t-shirt from the Canton Sheriff ‘s Ten-Mile and green running shorts.
“Hi, Jeremy,” she smiled. “Please forgive me for intruding on your morning routine.”
He said he was glad she could drop by, just that he was unprepared for visitors.
“You deserve a good soak after a morning of working and running. Just relax. Hand me that soap and washcloth.” She surprised herself with her self-assured manner.
“I can’t remember ever having my back washed,” he said.
“Lean forward a little bit,” she told him.
Jeremy’s back was pale, muscular, and smooth. She lathered the washcloth and gently rubbed his sun-tanned neck, his freckled shoulders, and his back. She could see the curve of his hips beneath the water. A soft sigh escaped his throat. Goose bumps appeared on his arms.
“Feel good?” Mary asked, happy to give him pleasure.
“Mmmm,” said the boy.
“Where’s your shampoo? Let me wash your hair.”
“In the cabinet over the sink. The orange bottle.”
With cupped hands, Mary wet his sun-bleached hair and slowly worked the lather into it. “Lie back,” she commanded softly, and he slid down into the tub again, his head back. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow.
She looked closely at his young face. “How’d you hurt your nose?” she asked. It was crooked with a dent in the middle that she had not noticed before.
“Football,” he replied softly. “My sophomore year . . . my last year of football. It wasn’t my sport.”
Mary continued to wash his hair, both hands and every fingertip stroking his forehead, ears, down his cheeks, even beneath his chin. He seemed to be asleep.
His knees protruded from the bathwater and Mary saw a lump beneath the submerged towel. Jeremy was aroused. How helpless a person becomes when they place themselves in someone else’s hands. She caressed his hair and head. “Lean forward,” she directed. “Let’s rinse this off.”
In a few minutes, she was satisfied that the soap was all gone. She turned off the faucet, handed him the dry towel, and left the room.
“I’ll wait out here,” she called. “OK if I put on some music?” She pushed the POWER button on his record player, a vinyl record dropped to the turntable, and the opening strains of a piano concerto filled the little house.
Jeremy emerged from the bathroom clad in his towel. “Lie down,” she said firmly. “I’ll give you a massage.”
Caught off-guard, he immediately lay face down on his bed, a simple arrangement of cement blocks, 2-by-8s, and a firm thin mattress. Mary had found a bottle of Cornhusker’s Lotion that she judged adequate for the task of rubbing his wiry muscles.
“The only massage I ever got was from a trainer at Ohio State,” he said.
A woman he barely knew was in his bedroom, her hands on his nearly naked body. The past hour had been one long sensual experience.
“I hope I can do as well,” Mary said. She stood at his bedside and leaned over him, massaging the lotion into his back for a few minutes. Then she kneeled on the bed to get closer to him. He sighed again softly as she kneaded the lean muscles of his shoulders and neck. She worked her way down his back, skipped the area covered by the towel, and began to rub his thighs, calves, and feet.
“Feel good?” she asked and Jeremy just sighed.
He was overloaded with sensations. Warmth and happiness rose inside him. Her touch stirred unfamiliar urges. His icy feet protruded from a body heated to the melting point.
“O.K., turn over,” she said.
“Uh, . . . I . . . I can’t. Your touch has . . . got me excited. I need to get dressed.”
“Jeremy,” she spoke to him softly but firmly, not wanting things to stop just now. “It’s natural for a man to be stimulated by the touch of a woman. Close your eyes and turn over. Nothing is going to happen to you.”
She wanted nothing more than to keep touching him. He wanted that, too – all thoughts of eating and plans for the day had vanished – but he was more frightened than he had ever been before a race. The pulse pounded in his temples, his breathing was ragged.
A woman was here on his bed. He was virtually naked and terribly aroused. He felt he’d known her for a long time, but sexual excitement was something he’d always experienced alone.
Mary kept rubbing his thighs, slowly, rhythmically, knowing she should not say another word, knowing he was deciding what to do. Long moments passed. The room was filled with expectation and apprehension.
His eyes squeezed shut, Jeremy slowly rolled over, the towel still covering him but hiding nothing.
Mary kept her hands on him, fearing a break of contact would break the bond of trust. She stroked his quads, his knees, his shins, and his feet. He could feel her smoothness against his tingling body and briefly imagined her naked. He opened his eyes to see her staring at his face. Jeremy quickly closed his eyes again.
She lay down beside him and stroked his chest and his abdomen.
“Would you like to touch me, Jeremy?”
She could see his heart pounding between his ribs. He could hear it in his head.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’d like to do that.”
Mary slipped off her shoes and socks, pulled the t-shirt over her head, and lay back in a flowered sports bra and her green shorts. She closed her eyes and rolled onto her stomach.
For the first time in many minutes, her gaze was not on him and he was relieved. He rose from the bed, reached into a drawer, and grabbed a pair of running shorts, and pulled them on.
For the next twenty minutes, he rubbed her back and legs. She was soft but lean. He had never touched a woman before. His juvenile experiences with girls had been infrequent, awkward, tentative, frustrating, and meaningless.
He touched her firmly and gently, as she had touched him. Mary rolled onto her back and smiled.
She reached up, encircled him with her arms, and pulled him on top of her.
“Hold me, Jeremy,” she said, tears leaking from her eyes. “Please hold me for just a little while.”
“I want to help you reach your dreams,” she whispered, in a voice too soft for him to hear.
She started to fix them a meal but Jeremy’s pantry was lacking. Boxes of cereal, a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly. Some spaghetti.
She drove them to Chaney’s Cafe. Over the Saturday Special, they talked about his running. Mary knew a little physiology and some training philosophies. But her field of expertise was nutrition.
“Starting today,” she told him, “you will eat like a champion.”
After shopping at Carl’s Super Foods, they spent the afternoon at his kitchen table, plotting his running future.
Fifteen months remained until the Trials.