Chapter 22 In the Future #5
It was early in the evening of the following day when Jimmy came back to the Holzinger apartment after wrestling practice. Siegfried was playing in the hall with Hard Rain. “M?dchen im Schlafzimmer,” was all Siegfried said. (“Girl in bedroom.”) He meant Mieke.
That night at the Nachtmusik, as the three roommates and Mieke sat around their table, Jolanda suggested that Mieke might feel more relaxed if she got to know Jimmy better before they did it.
“Since it’s your first night in Vienna, maybe you and Jimmy should sleep together but just talk to each other—or something,” Jolanda said to Mieke.
“Okey doke,” Mieke said. Her English was more American than Jolanda’s. Mieke’s German was okey doke, too, Jimmy noticed.
“Should Mieke and I sleep in my bedroom, and you sleep with Claude and Hard Rain?” Jimmy asked Jolanda.
“You and I and Mieke will sleep in your bedroom, Jimmy,” Jolanda said.
“Okey doke,” Mieke said, but she was looking at Jimmy.
“Okey doke,” Jimmy repeated, looking at Mieke.
“I’ve never been on a date as awkward as this one!” Claude cried.
“Jesus and family, Claude—it’s not your date!” Jolanda told him.
It was no less awkward when Jolanda and Mieke and Jimmy were in bed together—Mieke in the middle.
Jolanda had opened the curtains at the balcony window, so that Jimmy and Mieke could see each other in the streetlight.
Jolanda turned away from them, facing the bedroom door.
“Touch each other, talk to each other—you know, just figure out each other, like I’m not here,” Jolanda told them.
“But you are here,” Mieke reminded her. Jolanda had instructed Mieke and Jimmy to wear only their underpants, so Mieke’s breasts were bare.
“I don’t want to see Jimmy’s penis, Mieke, but you should see it,” Jolanda said.
“I don’t want to see your penis, Jimmy, but can I touch it?” Mieke asked him.
“Okey doke,” Jimmy said. When Mieke held his penis, he got a boner.
“Oh!” Mieke said; she’d felt him get bigger.
“Well, what did you think would happen to a penis if you held it?” Jolanda asked her girlfriend. Jimmy tentatively touched Mieke’s breasts.
“Is this okay?” he asked Mieke.
“Yes, it’s fine,” Mieke told him.
“Is what okay? What’s fine?” Jolanda asked them.
Mieke said something in Dutch; she sounded angry.
“Well, then—you should just do it, Mieke!” Jolanda told her.
“Look out the window, Jimmy—don’t watch us,” Jolanda said.
Jimmy turned his back to them, staring into the light from one of the streetlamps on the Schwindgasse.
He could hear Jolanda and Mieke; maybe they were kissing.
He heard the moment when Mieke’s breathing changed.
“Take off your underpants, Jimmy—now,” Jolanda told him.
Of course it wasn’t what Claude had imagined.
Jolanda didn’t hold Mieke’s head and talk to her.
Jolanda turned her back to them; she lay curled on the far side of the bed.
Maybe her eyes were closed or she stared at the frosted panel of glass on Jimmy’s bedroom door.
Mieke’s eyes were open when Jimmy kissed her, and she kissed him back.
When she guided him inside her, she was wetter than Jimmy expected.
It was more wonderful than anything Jimmy ever imagined; he never wanted it to stop, but then it was so suddenly over.
He lay still on top of her; they stared into each other’s eyes.
“Holy shit—that was fast! Is everything all right?” Jolanda asked them.
“That was superfast but better than all right,” Mieke told her, smiling at Jimmy.
Later, Jolanda took her T-shirt off, but she kept her panties on.
She and Mieke lay cuddled together. Mieke’s back was turned to Jimmy.
He lay staring at the streetlight; he drifted asleep, he woke up.
When Jimmy was awake, he heard Jolanda and Mieke whispering in Dutch.
“She’s telling me what happens when the prostitute comes home from work—how she takes a bath and everything,” Mieke explained to Jimmy, who fell back to sleep.
When Irmgard came home and undressed in the hall, and after she’d covered herself in a bath towel, she heard the two girls whispering in Dutch. “How many girls are with you tonight, Jimmy?” she asked, opening his door.
Mieke must have wanted to get as far away from the behemoth in a bath towel as possible.
She didn’t want to be in the middle, between Jimmy and Jolanda.
Mieke scrambled over Jimmy; now she was on the window side of the bed, with Jimmy in the middle.
“She looks old enough,” Irmgard said, meaning Mieke.
“Ein Dreiecksverh?ltnis,” Jolanda told Irmgard.
“A love triangle,” Mieke whispered in Jimmy’s ear, translating for him.
“Das ist mir Wurst,” Irmgard told Jolanda, closing the bedroom door.
“She said, ‘That is sausage to me’—what the Christ does that mean?” Mieke asked Jolanda.
“It means, ‘I couldn’t care less’—it’s a Viennese thing,” Jolanda said.
“Irmgard only cares if you’re old enough,” Jimmy explained to Mieke. They could hear the bath running, but Irmgard wasn’t singing to herself. Hard Rain was sleeping with Claude. “Please say the word for love triangle again—it sounds ridiculous,” Jimmy said to Jolanda.
“Don’t even think about a love triangle, Jimmy,” Jolanda told him.
“Dreiecksverh?ltnis,” Mieke whispered in Jimmy’s ear, reawakening his penis. He was lying naked between two girls with bare breasts, and Jolanda was the only one with her underpants on.
“I heard you, Mieke—no more whispering,” Jolanda said. “No playing with Jimmy’s penis, you two,” Jolanda told them.
“I like being in the middle,” Jimmy said.
“I like being in the middle more,” Mieke told him.
“Give your reproductive parts a rest, you two,” Jolanda told them.
In the morning, Siegfried seemed disappointed to find Jimmy and Jolanda in bed with the new girl—not with Hard Rain.
Jolanda just made Siegfried repeat Mieke’s name.
Soon Siegfried liked saying it. Mieke was an easy name for a German-speaking boy to say, and the five-year-old stayed with them awhile.
Then Jolanda told Siegfried to go wake up Claude.
Hard Rain would be happy to see Siegfried, and Jolanda had to pee—as did Mieke and Jimmy.
Mieke also had a bath. “I didn’t want Siegfried to see two girls with bare boobs—not to mention your penis, Jimmy,” Jolanda said.
Jimmy just knew he had two more nights to make Mieke pregnant.
“How’d everything go?” Claude couldn’t wait to ask the three of them, after the chaos of Hard Rain’s reunion with Siegfried had subsided.
Jolanda once more explained to Claude that Mieke would be back in Amsterdam before she even knew if she’d missed her period.
Jolanda said it would be a few weeks after that before Mieke could go for a pregnancy test. In the 1960s, the only way to test for pregnancy was to make a doctor’s appointment, give a urine sample, and wait two weeks for the results.
“I know, I know—I just meant how it went with the doing it!” Claude cried.
“It went fine—I really liked it,” Jimmy said to Claude.
“It went superfast, but it was better than all right,” Mieke answered.
“Jesus F. Christ, Claude,” was all Jolanda could say.
“I don’t like the stuff that keeps coming out of me,” Mieke told them, matter-of-factly. “I even had a bath, but the stuff just keeps coming out,” she said to Jimmy, who didn’t know what to say. “Isn’t the stuff supposed to stay inside me?” Mieke asked Jolanda. Claude, of course, looked appalled.
“Aren’t you glad you asked, Claude?” was all Jolanda could say.
Claude had read that the woman’s urine was injected into a rabbit.
If the rabbit ovulated, pregnancy had occurred.
Sometimes the rabbit died. Even Claude had better sense than to ask Jolanda and Mieke about this; he asked Jimmy, who knew nothing about the rabbits.
“Maybe that was a long time ago, Claude. I don’t believe rabbits will ovulate or die if Mieke is pregnant,” Jimmy answered.
The next two nights, with Mieke in the middle, Jimmy tried to make the doing-it last longer. Mieke said lasting longer was better than superfast.
“The longer you do it has no influence on Jimmy’s sperm count,” Jolanda informed the lovers.
After Jimmy ejaculated, Jolanda didn’t want him to dillydally over withdrawing his penis.
“Why are you just lying there on top of her, Jimmy?” Jolanda asked him.
As soon as they did it, Jolanda made her girlfriend lie on her back and hug her knees to her chest. “Then maybe Jimmy’s stuff will stay inside you longer,” Jolanda said.
“Okey doke,” was all Mieke said. The third and last night they did it, when the doing-it was over, the three of them were just lying on their backs.
Mieke was still in the middle when she spoke to them.
“You both should know I never want to do this again, but I will do it again if I’m not pregnant,” Mieke said.
“Thank you both for letting me try it,” she added.
As usual, Jimmy didn’t know what to say.
He’d been hoping to himself that Mieke wasn’t pregnant—because, naturally, he wanted to keep doing it—but now he felt awful at the thought of Mieke having to do it again when she didn’t want to.
“I don’t mean it was unbearable, Jimmy—I’d just rather not do it again if I don’t have to,” Mieke told him.
By how quickly she moved her hand away, Jimmy knew she’d not meant to touch his penis.
“I hope you don’t have to do it again, Mieke,” Jimmy consoled her.
“If you’re not pregnant, Mieke, I’ll do it with Jimmy,” Jolanda said.