beautiful,” he said.“ You’ re really beautiful.” He bent down and kissed her breast. She caught a glimpse in the dressing-table mirror. It looked like a French farce, sordid and dirty. Everything inside her except the hot pain in her groin told her that this was dreary and ugly and wrong, but there was no way to stop it now. Ron was whipping off his tie and unbuttoning his shirt, his face flushed. He undid his belt and stripped down to his shorts, then sat down on the bed and started to take off his shoes and socks.“ I mean it, Catherine,” he said, his voice tight with emotion.“ You’ re the most beautiful goddamn thing I’ ve ever laid eyes on.”
His words only increased Catherine’ s panic. Ron stood up, a broad, anticipatory grin on his face, and let his shorts drop to the floor. His male organ was standing out stiffly, like an enormous, inflated salami with hair around it. It was the largest, most incredible thing Catherine had ever seen in her life.
“ How do you like that?” he said, looking down at it proudly. Without thinking, Catherine said,“ Sliced on rye. Hold the mustard and lettuce.” And she stood there, watching it go down.
In Catherine’ s sophomore year there was a change in the atmosphere of the campus.
For the first time there was a growing concern about what was happening in Europe and an increasing feeling that America was going to get involved. Hitler’ s dream of the thousand-year rule of the Third Reich was on its way to becoming a reality. The Nazis had occupied Denmark and invaded Norway.
Over the past six months the talk on campuses across the country had shifted from sex and clothes and proms to the ROTC and the draft and lend-lease. More and more college boys were appearing in army and navy uniforms.
One day Susie Roberts, a classmate from Senn, stopped Catherine in the corridor.“ I want to say good-bye, Cathy. I’ m leaving.”
“ Where are you going?”“ The Klondike.”“ The Klondike?”
“ Washington, D. C. All the girls are striking gold there. They say for every girl there are at least a hundred men. I like those odds.” She looked at Catherine.“ What do you want to stick around this place for? School’ s a drag. There’ s a whole big world waiting out there.”
“ I can’ t leave just now,” Catherine said. She was not sure why: She had no real ties in Chicago. She corresponded regularly with her father in Omaha and talked to him on the telephone once or twice a month and each time he sounded as though he were in prison.
Catherine was on her own now. The more she thought about Washington, the more exciting it seemed. That evening she phoned her father and told him she wanted to quit