Becoming Lovers

Marilyn had never felt so drunk in her life.

It had started with a drink with Victor two hours ago at dinner. He'd picked her up in a flashy convertible, and they'd sped off to a restaurant she'd never heard of, and before she knew it, she'd had one glass of wine, and then another, and then a third, and that was enough to put her on her way.

She fought off the urge to panic, but the sense that something was very wrong overwhelmed her. Everyone at the bar was smiling at her. Victor was telling jokes. She heard every fourth or fifth word, and she smiled and tried to keep her eyes level and laugh when everyone else was laughing. It worried her that she might be part of the jokes.

But Victor wouldn't do that--he wouldn't make fun of her. She was his date, and this was their third or fourth date, or something like that anyway. Marilyn tried to slow her mind down long enough to count their dates. The room spun when she closed her eyes. She tried instead to count how many drinks she'd had.

Then there was an arm around her waist, and it was Victor's, and through the wine sloshing through her brain she heard him say she was awfully pretty. He held her hand as she stood up and pulled her close so she wouldn't wobble. That felt good, she thought. It made her feel better.

The car was a few blocks away, so they began walking down the sidewalk. The city seemed like an underwater electric show. Marilyn saw two men approach them. Neither looked safe. She heard one of them ask Victor for some money, and Victor smiled and motioned to her, and told them tomorrow night maybe. They didn't look happy, but they kept walking. When Marilyn and Victor reached the corner, she looked back to make sure the men hadn't followed them.

"Don't worry," she heard Victor say.

"I think they're following us and I don't know how much they'd want anyway," she slurred.

"Marilyn," he said, and when she looked up, he kissed her, and suddenly everything sped back up again--the street, the noise, the blinking lights--as if someone had pulled the drain plug on her drunkenness. The glimpse of lucidity turned into a high.

And then they were back in the car, and she remembered seeing Times Square, and she remembered feeling like they were going somewhere new, and then she remembered this was where Victor lived.

***

Marilyn woke up the next morning feeling startled and lost. She didn't know where she was. The doors were in the wrong places. She was alone in bed.

It was a nice bed, though. She realized the clothes she was wearing weren't her own. Slowly, she stood up, and tip-toed barefoot across the rich, shag carpet toward the door. When she pushed it open, she saw Vic asleep on a sofa.

***

"I am ashamed, and yet I am fascinated," she later wrote in her journal. "What would my mother think? My father? Reverend Roberts? Everything that happened last night went against everything I've ever learned growing up about right and wrong, and yet nothing in my heart feels heavy."

"Instead, it all feels right."