Chapter 9

Posted: August 09, 2008 - 06:19:01 pm

Tommy navigated between the whoop-dee-doo rows of speakers until he found the section of the drive-in Regina had recommended to him. The spot was on the row left of the concession stand and projection room, and right up against the high wood fence. A huge live oak next to the fence dappled the ground with dark shadows. Underneath the tree, Tommy’s dark blue truck was almost invisible. The spot was out of the way and private, yet it was less than a hundred feet from the concession stand, and had a clear view of the screen.

A big part of Betty Lou was still in shock that she was parked at a drive-in movie with a handsome man. Another part of her was shocked that she was only surprised and not upset at his presumptuousness. As she thought about it, she realized that Tommy had not brought her here as part of some nefarious scheme to take advantage of her. His only purpose had been to find the movie she wanted to see. What puzzled her was Regina’s involvement in the process. Regina certainly knew about the reputations of drive-ins, even if Tommy hadn’t a clue.

The speaker was on Betty Lou’s side of the truck, so they hung it on her window. Trailers for coming attractions and advertisements were playing, so Tommy helped Betty Lou out of his door. Hand in hand, they walked to the concession stand, as dancing hot dogs cavorted on the fifty foot screen. They were back snug in the truck ten minutes later, their hands full of Dr. Pepper and sublimely sinful buttered popcorn. Tommy’s movie plan had a couple of holes in it, one of which was the weather. As the evening progressed, it kept getting chillier. Betty Lou didn’t mind the temperature a bit, however, as she ended up snuggled up to Tommy under a blanket he pulled from behind his seat.

The movie was excellent and Betty Lou had to admit that watching it tucked up underneath Tommy’s arm made the experience much better. As the evening moved forward, Betty Lou started to wonder why Tommy wasn’t at least kissing her once in a while.

Tommy had not tried to kiss her, even though he was dying to, because of a miscommunication between him and Rita Fricke. Since this was Tommy’s first movie date, he went to Momma Rita for advice on how to comport himself. Because Tommy did not specify the movie was a drive-in, Rita gave him advice applicable to an indoor cinema.

“Be on your best behavior, Honey, and don’t embarrass her,” Rita told him. “It’s okay to put your arm around her if she doesn’t object, but don’t try to kiss her or get too familiar. You know how shy Betty Lou is.”

It was the usual excellent direction he expected from Rita. Unfortunately, it didn’t apply under the current circumstances. Yes, Betty Lou appreciated that he wasn’t all over her, but even her strict moral code didn’t rule out a kiss every once in a while. Away from anyone seeing her, she felt daring and adventurous. About half way through the movie, she decided, for the first time in her life, she would make out with a man in a car at a drive-in movie. She turned her head and pressed her lips to his ear.

“This part is boring, Tommy, so why don’t you kiss me?” she whispered.

Tommy gave her a big smile and did just that very thing. Betty Lou kissed him right back without the slightest bit of hesitation. As the kiss progressed, Betty Lou moaned deep in her chest as a bolt of pure sexual excitement shot through her. Betty Lou had kissed a few boys in high school, and during her nine year marriage, she shared many kisses with her husband. Yet none of those that went before could hold a candle to the kiss she was sharing with Tommy.

That Betty Lou was so unfamiliar with passion was not that usual for a small town Texas girl raised in the nineteen fifties. She had been a good girl all through high school. Pretty and popular though she was, she still graduated a virgin. She met and fell in love with Richard (Rick) Grimes the summer after graduation. She was a trainee teller at the savings and loan. Rick was a divorced deputy sheriff, five years older than her. Rick was a serious young man, devoutly Baptist, with traditional conservative values. They married a year later, four months before Betty Lou’s twentieth birthday. Betty Lou was as unsullied as her snow white dress when she walked down the aisle.

Betty Lou and Rick had what she assumed was a normal sex life. Both she and Rick saw intercourse as an act of love between husband and wife that transcended the rutting passion of wild animals. She and Rick shared that love once a week in a dark bedroom in the missionary position, her in a nightgown, him in pajamas. That Bucky was conceived so quickly after they married was all the evidence she needed of the goodness of their love life.

Betty did not accept a date until two years after Rick’s death. Unfortunately, both offers she accepted were from men looking to score with an attractive and lonely widow woman. The two cads were enough to convince Betty Lou that she was better off staying at home. After all, she had her children, her job and her church, what else did she really need?

Betty Lou began to have an inkling of what else she might need there in the front seat of Tommy’s pickup truck. The inkling grew stronger as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body tighter against him. Tommy leaned back until he was semi-reclined against the door. He pulled her with him until she was on top of him as their lips and tongues continued to duel. Betty Lou was disappointed when Tommy gently broke the kiss. She raised her head and looked at him questioningly.

“I want to touch you,” Tommy said, as he gazed into her eyes.

Betty Lou saw nothing but love in his look and he was so sweet asking instead of just groping her. She gave him a little nod and lifted herself slightly off him.

Betty Lou gasped when Tommy insinuated a hand between their torsos. Far from being offended, Betty Lou gave a hum of encouragement and reattached her lips to his. His hands on her felt every bit as good as his lips.

Betty Lou had firm, medium sized, half-grapefruit shaped breasts, wide spaced on her chest. They would never be competition for Margie Wilcox or Conchita Delgado. What set her apart was a set of overly large nipples that were a constant embarrassment to her. When they were erect, they were the size of a sewing thimble. Only her heavily stitched Maidenform Sweet Dreams bra kept everyone in the world from knowing that.

Tommy was the one to call things to a halt fifteen intense minutes later. Tommy stopping had nothing to do with Betty Lou protesting or him lacking the ardor. Instead, the mechanics of doing more in the cramped cab of the truck made stopping necessary. There was just no way to find a comfortable position, what with the gear shift lever and steering wheel constantly in the way. By the time they halted, Betty Lou’s Maidenform was under her chin and her skirt was around her waist. Betty Lou had been as aroused as she’d ever been in her life.

Betty Lou pulled her bra back down and straightened her skirt, as Tommy situated himself behind the wheel. She rolled down her window, hung the speaker back on the pole, and slid over next to him as he fired up the engine. He rolled down his window and they sat there quietly as the defroster labored to clear the windshield. Tommy was quiet because he was afraid he’d gone too far and made Betty Lou mad at him. It was worry enough to make him lose the aching hard-on filling his jeans. She was quiet because she was still processing the new sexual feelings Tommy brought out in her. Tommy finally broke the ice.

“I’m sorry if I made you mad, but you are so beautiful and sexy that I couldn’t stop once I started,” he moaned mournfully.

Betty Lou jerked her head off his shoulder and looked at him in surprise. Of all the things she was feeling, mad wasn’t one of them. She gave him a smile and patted his knee.

“I’m not mad at you, Tommy. You did not do anything I didn’t want you to do. But we have more to consider than just what makes me feel good. I mean, look at us, Tommy, we live in the same house and my son is your best friend. What will Bucky think about you and me having that kind of relationship? Then there is Regina. What kind of example will I be setting for her?”

Tommy nodded morosely as she ticked off her points. He had not considered any of that. All he had thought about was how much he cared for her and how much he wanted to share his love with her. What Betty Lou was pointing out was way above his ability to sort out. He’d talk to Momma Rita about it tomorrow and see what she thought. Until then, he was going to be on his best behavior.

Tommy had some help staying on his best behavior around Betty Lou that weekend, because Margie Wilcox kept him occupied on Saturday night, and Ruth Silverman invited him to dinner Sunday after church. It helped that Betty Lou wasn’t making a big deal out of staying away from him. She treated him just as she always had.

Monday evening Tommy spent at the library, huddled up with Becky Dierdorf. Tommy and his tutor were researching farm equipment stores in trade magazines geared toward farmers and ranchers. The American Cattleman magazine had some especially nice two page color ads for some of the bigger stores that catered to ranchers. Tommy was particularly impressed with the looks of the Tractor Supply Company’s ads (a chain of ranch and farm supply stores based out of Minot, North Dakota). Tractor Supply had a presence in Texas, but it was mostly up in the panhandle, there wasn’t one within a hundred miles of Brantley.

Becky Dierdorf smiled as Tommy excitedly told her of Harold Fricke’s plans to expand the feed and seed into something similar to the store in the magazine. She smiled often when Tommy, or the thought of him, was involved. Becky was crazy about Tommy, but went to great pains to avoid showing it. After all, what would a handsome man like him want with someone like her?

Yet Tommy wasn’t like other boys or men she’d met. He didn’t tease her about her frizzy mop of carrot red hair, her billion freckles, or the thick glasses that made her appear owlish. He’d never said a word about her big bottom or her tiny fried egg breasts. Instead, he treated her almost reverently, because he thought she was so smart. Other men had treated her nicely, but only as a ruse to get into her pants, a ploy she’d fallen for all too often. By contrast, Tommy treated her with respect and admiration, without any hidden agenda. Because of the way Tommy treated her since she became his cicerone, Becky had stopped putting out for any man who paid her the slightest attention.

It only took half an hour to find everything Tommy needed to know about farm supply stores. He was more convinced than ever that Harold’s idea for expanding his business was a great plan. Tommy carried the magazines they’d been perusing back to the periodical rack and plopped down next to Becky at the research room table. He was more than a little sad, that tonight was Becky’s last night as his tutor. She was leaving in a couple of days to start her registered nurse training at a big Dallas teaching hospital. Suddenly, an idea popped into his brain. He jumped to his feet and grabbed a startled Becky’s hand.

“Come on, Becky, lets go celebrate you starting school,” he said.

Becky blinked a couple of times and her heart did a few flip-flops as he pulled her to her feet. Before she could marshal a good argument against going out on a work night, they were in Tommy’s truck, headed up Austin Street. All she could think about was how glad she was that she had worn her most flattering skirt and blouse when Tommy pulled into the parking lot of Dukes Place. She was blown away that Tommy was taking her out in public right here in Brantley where everyone could see them. Usually her dates either took her parking or to a room at the Cardinal Motor Court out on the south bypass.