Popped by Casey Truman Page B

to me. Some days I wished I had
the courage to do something in situations like this, but it wasn’t
worth the hassle — we’d be pulling into
Chiswick Park soon, and I’d be free of the growing cock and the
heavy breathing. In the meantime, I returned to reading my book and
tried to ignore the penis that moved against my lower back.

Chapter 3
    It was seven
o’clock when I arrived at Phillip’s mother’s house on South Parade
and rang the bell. The lights were on in the downstairs living room
and classical music was drifting out of a partially opened window.
Winter hadn’t started in earnest yet — it
seemed to get later and later every year — and the weather was mild. Joyce opened the door and
offered me a welcoming smile.
    “There you
are, dear,” she said, genuinely happy to see me. She stood to one
side and motioned me in. “Phillip’s in the kitchen trying to sort
out the wine.”
    “Speaking of
wine,” I said, and handed her a bottle I’d picked up on Chiswick
High Road earlier.
    Joyce was
sixty nine years old, and she ran her son’s life as if she were his
wife. Phillip had never left home. He’d gone to university in
London, and studied for his doctorate at the same college. He’d
been on the faculty at King’s for twelve years and looked like he
was going to stay there forever. If things went well between us,
I’d probably move in here after she died. It was one of those
things that was understood by all of us, but never mentioned or
discussed openly. I was to be the new Joyce, taking care of Phillip
when she died.
    The party was
boring. I wish I could say it wasn’t, but the dozen or so middle
aged academics were about as dull as a well-educated group of human
beings could possibly be. The men were all dressed in tweed and
mismatched jackets, and they stared at my bottom whenever I turned
my back. The women were shrill and nervous, and they hugged their
wine glasses as if they were life jackets. This was to be my life
if I married Phillip. These people would be friends and these
parties would be fun . As the clock counted down to midnight,
I wondered what Parker was up to. Was she standing in a room full
of drunken professors talking about the indigenous populations of
tiny African countries? Or was she laughing and kissing and
drinking foreign lagers and having fun?
    Phillip had
crept up beside me without my noticing. He bent over and whispered
into my ear, “Clara, come up to my room, I have a present for
you.”
    I followed him
up the stairs, noticing as I did how badly he was in need of a
haircut. It really would be a full time job taking care of him, and
I began to pity his mother just a little. I wondered if he was the
man he was because of her, or did she give up her life for him?
Something seemed to have been wasted but I couldn’t identify
what.
    Phillip’s
bedroom hadn’t changed much from when he was a child. A single bed
occupied the center of the room, and the walls were decorated with
pictures taken from various National Geographic Magazines. I
wondered if he’d ever had sex in that bed. Probably not. While I
was musing on Phillip’s previous sexual history — something we’d never talked about — he closed the door behind me and pressed me up against
it. He was drunker than I’d thought, and his five o’clock shadow
grated against my cheeks as he rubbed his face against me. I felt
his lips slide over mine and his tongue snaked out and forced
itself into my mouth, between my teeth. He needed to brush.
    “Mmmm,
sweetie,” he mumbled, sliding his hands down my body. His engorged
cock was evident. That was new. We’d kissed many times, but it had
never led to anything solid on Phillip’s part. In all the months
we’d been together, I’d never even noticed that he had a penis, but
tonight it seemed to want to put in an appearance. His breath
smelled of garlic and alcohol, and his hands reached around and
grabbed my bum — another first. It was all
happening