Granny

Granny

Chapter 72

The Maggie Chronicles

"Would you mind settling a small disagreement, dear?"

The woman with 'Maggie' written neatly on her paper nametag asked me this with a smile - a little too intently perhaps - after I poured her fourth drink of the past ninety minutes, this one a straight vodka on the rocks instead of the two cosmos which had followed a white wine.

She accepted the plastic cup, pulled a twenty from her clutch purse so I could see, folded it lengthwise, and tucked it into the pocket of my black catering shirt. A bit extravagant, but she had already thrown a five into the tip jar the other three times, and Jana had just gone on an unscheduled bathroom break, so this time I wouldn't be splitting the cash. I crumpled the bill and pushed it deeper into my pocket, so it wasn't visible.

Only fair, after all. I had noticed Jana twice pocketing tips that should have gone into the jar, handed to her by lecherous old men who had all but fallen over themselves trying to peek down her ludicrously low-necked cocktail waitress uniform. I barely knew Jana, despite being in the same graduating class next spring, and such chiseling did not help me form a positive impression of her now. Nonetheless I shared the old goats' curiosity about how this petite, but busty girl might look with her top off. It was doubly irritating because she had squelched all my own attempts at conversation. Usually I had no trouble getting light conversation going with attractive girls, but this one was aloof to a degree I found annoying.

Anyway, there not being any other patrons at the moment waiting for service at our cash bar here on the lawn just inside the main quad, I was naturally inclined to give this rather well-preserved and well-dressed alum a further degree of courtesy. We had made very brief small talk, while I served her previous drinks, along the lines of what year I was and what I was majoring in and where I was from. This new request was a bit of a departure.

"A disagreement? Sure. If I can," I answered with a shrug, as amiably as I could.

She glanced momentarily at the three similarly-aged women loitering a few feet behind her, then addressed me again.

"How long is your penis?"

I would love to see a video, if one existed, of my instant reaction. I'm sure it wasn't the most suave ever. Anyway, all I could muster was, "excuse me?" The others clearly were listening in, because they giggled like, well, the college girls they used to be.

Maggie took a sip of her drink, then smiled again at me - a smile more of amusement, really, if not downright superiority. "Oh my. I'm sorry. Was that too direct of me?"

"It's... not... something I usually get asked point blank," I managed, keeping a quieter tone this time. She was pointedly patient and let me finish my sentence even though I hemmed and hawed my way through it.

"No, I suppose not, dear. Not even in these more informal times. Don't get the wrong idea. We were simply discussing, and Pat said it had to be at least six inches. At *least*. And I said that, no, just because a man is unusually tall, it doesn't necessarily follow that his..."

"I'm not *that* tall. Six two?"

She took another long sip. "Tall enough, Joshua. Tall enough. As you can imagine, I personally prefer ones who are tall. Anyway, Joshua, it..."

She had gotten my name from the catering badge. "It's just Josh," I said.

She held up an index finger, as if to indicate that the two interruptions had not been welcome. "Well, Just Josh, I'm saying that height doesn't mean that the man's 'physiology', if you will, must necessarily match, down below. It could well be more like four or five inches. There's no shame in that. Perfectly normal. Adequate for the purpose. Anyway, we each picked a number. The winner gets her drinks paid for by the others, the rest of the reunion. Another day and a half. So a lot is riding on your answer." She sipped again for theatrical effect, then added, "I went with four. Inches. When fully erect. Fully."

I regained some fraction of my aplomb, simply because the conversation had taken such a silly turn. "Wow. Look, it's not 'Just-Josh'. It's just... Josh. See the difference?" I laughed awkwardly at my own small attempt at humor, while I tried to think of how, or whether, I wanted to address her actual question.

"Pleased to meet you, Josh," she said, holding out her hand. "I'm Mrs. Winterbottom." Which, of course, I could see from the smaller print on her nametag. Nee Bush. But at least it clarified whether I should call her by her first name. Which only made me more inclined to mess with her a bit and call her Maggie. Though, I didn't want yet another complaint for insubordination or whatever.

I shook her hand politely, for as short a time as possible, and tried not to snicker at either of her surnames now that they had been brought to my attention. "Is Mr. Winterbottom here for the weekend too?"

"No, dear. My husband passed away quite some time ago. Almost twelve years."

I was momentarily flummoxed again. I should have realized that older alums might easily be widowed. Live and learn. At least she didn't seem about to burst into tears in renewed grief. "Oh. Sorry." I tried to think if there was something better, more conventional, to say when given that kind of information unexpectedly, but came up empty.

"You seem to be avoiding my question."

"Not really. It's just that it's a little surprising, is all. Personal."

"Too personal? Oh, that's the *best* kind of question, dear. Don't you think so, Joyce?" One of her companions had moved up alongside her. I nodded to her, and she smiled without speaking. This Joyce was a good deal shorter than Maggie, with obviously-dyed brown hair rather than Maggie's distinguished looking gray, and she appeared to be bustier too. Well, by 'appeared' I mean that with Maggie it would be only a guess because of her classic tailored outfit, but with Joyce there was significant old-lady cleavage showing above her low-necked blouse.

"May I get you another drink?" I asked this one.

"No, no. Two glasses of wine in the afternoon is plenty." Her voice was surprisingly high pitched. Not unpleasantly so. Light and airy.

"Oh, have another," Maggie urged. "I remember when you weren't so..."

"Hush," Joyce said, "that was all a long time - a *very* long time - ago."

"All the more reason," Maggie said with a chuckle.

I looked at Joyce, still expecting to get a drink request, but she said, "I'm fine."

Maggie reached into her purse and pulled out a twenty. "Give her another... what were you having... oh, forget the wine, no, make it a mojito," she told me, fluttering the bill gently and adding, "and don't be skimpy."

I turned and mixed the drink with the off-brand ingredients I had been given to work with, pouring more of the thin generic rum than I was really supposed to. "Thank you, sweetie," Joyce said as she took the cup from me and drained half of it in one go.

I made change for the twenty Maggie handed me, since she hadn't placed it into my shirt pocket this time, but she stuffed the bills I handed her back into her purse. "So," Maggie resumed, "you *still* haven't answered our question. We're all dying to know." I inferred that one thing was related to the other -- no personal data, no tip.

"I didn't realize it would be such a topic among you ladies," I said, resisting the urge to make a crack about dying, along the lines of, "at your age," and all. I mean, I know not to say the quiet part out loud, right?

"Why? You don't think girls talk? Or, do you imagine we stop talking, past a certain point in time?"

"I think," I said, as diplomatically as I could, "you and your friends seem to have more interesting conversations at Buckmoor reunions than average." When I was a freshman, homecoming seemed exciting, but by now I was a little bored with the sparse attendance it actually drew. It was especially quiet here at the moment this afternoon, with most of the attendees at the football game.

"At number fifty, we have less patience for unnecessary vagueness, I do suppose."

"Do you come to Homecoming every year, Mrs. Winterbottom?"

"Now, now, don't change the subject again, dear. I asked you a question, and I would very much like to receive an answer."

It dawned on me that I was being hit upon, and not just chatted with, by a woman - no, two, or potentially four - my own Granny's age. Well, maybe not quite; if this was their fiftieth reunion, then if she had been 22 when she graduated, it would make her 72 now. Give or take. Up to now I had figured she was in her fifties or sixties, but then I'm not good at ages. Maybe she was a young 72. But still. Older than Mom, by a lot. Not quite as old as Granny, the only one of my grandparents still living. These women probably *were* somebody's Granny. New territory for me, being hit on so obviously by anyone of such advanced years.

I decided to play along, a little coyly. "The question?"

"How long is your penis, dear? Fully erect?

"Oh, yeah. I don't know. I never measured."

Maggie smiled, and again I saw what might have been a hard edge to it. "Don't be patronizing, dear. Every young man measures his erection, at some point when he is growing up. He wants to know how well he, well, measures up."

I feigned innocence. "I guess I never got the memo," I said, looking at Joyce to relieve the intensity a bit. "Doesn't it depend on where you measure from? Like, above, or below?"

Joyce looked toward Maggie, who evidently was not interested in any ambiguity. "You're embarrassing him," she said. Was my face flushed? I didn't think so.

"On top," instructed the taller woman. "From the base. At the pubic bone. Past the glans. To the urethra. When engorged. Fully erect. Perfectly hard." Her graphic description was at odds with her elegant appearance, although in fairness she hadn't used any coarse slang.

The steadiness of her gaze remained disconcerting, but by now I was more used to it, and I looked her right back in the eye. "If I told you a number, you wouldn't believe me anyway. Maybe I should just show you."

She flinched, just slightly, giving me reason to believe I had discovered there was a limit for this kind of discussion. Good. "Don't be silly, dear," she said. "I wouldn't ask you to expose yourself right here in public. Just tell us. How long... *is*... your penis... Josh?"

"Ahh, you talk," I smirked, "but you would freak *out* if I showed you." I didn't want to overdo it, but I did enjoy having turned the tables somewhat.

"Doing that wouldn't tell us anything," she countered. "It's not erect."

"And how do you know?" I asked.

She glanced down at my crotch for an instant. "A woman can tell."

"Yeah? How?"

"A *lady* doesn't say."

I again resisted the urge to say something over the boundary and rude, along the lines of 'so what does being a lady have to do with you?' But like I said, there was no point in overdoing it. Plus, it wouldn't have been clever, merely a denial of what she had said. I had learned to avoid that in improv class last summer. Improv had opened my eyes about human interaction and provided many life lessons.

"Well, I guess it'll have to remain my little secret."

"So. Exactly as I thought, then. Little."

I grimaced over having walked into that one. I started to respond, it's for me to know and you to find out. But would that be any better? I didn't want it to sound like I was repeating the threat to unzip and show her. "Good one," I settled for, hoping it didn't sound too sarcastic. I was secure enough in the knowledge that she was incorrect. Way incorrect. Having a cock that's received its share of compliments from the ladies will do that for a guy.

"Too many prying eyes is our problem," Joyce observed.

Maggie glanced over at her, and responded, "suggestions?"

"CC?"

Maggie laughed out loud for the first time. "Oh my," she said after composing herself, "Oh my. I haven't thought about that in *years*. Leave it to you, to bring up *that* spot."

"What's CC?" I asked, mildly curious.

Joyce explained. "I'm sure you don't call it that anymore. Behind Dickinson Hall, over there? It's still there. I can see it. I don't suppose they use it for anything anymore though. Back in the day, it was easy to force the gate open, go around the corner, go around the other corner. Filthy and disgusting. The absolute cesspool of the campus. You'd leave a bra or some other marker on the gate so another couple would know it's occupied. It was a rite of passage more or less to go there. But you could at least have a little privacy." She had become considerably more chatty.

"Privacy. You mean for...?"

She waited for me to finish my thought, but I didn't want to just come out and say it. Maggie completed it for me. "Sex? Yes. You can say the word in front of us, dear. There's nothing new under the sun. People were having sex in 1964."

"No. I know." She had asked me about my cock, after all. "But I mean, why there?"

"In loco parentis, Josh," Maggie continued. "I don't suppose you're familiar with that bit of history either. It meant, long story short, that Buckmoor acted with parental authority. And in particular, members of the opposite sex could not be in the dorms, up in the rooms I mean, no matter what. You could be expelled, permanently. And we had to be checked in by ten, by the resident manager - midnight on weekends. No off-campus housing at all. Ohhh, times are different. I'm sure you can't imagine."

"So why CC?" I pressed.

Short, busty Joyce giggled a little. "Conception Corner. It's where at least one freshman girl got herself knocked up, every fall. Like clockwork."

My friends sometimes called the classroom building itself Dick-in-some-twat Hall, but that was just random raunchiness. Not that old Josiah Buckmoor would likely be surprised that a school named after himself might be prone to off-color humor - Fuckmore University, as it were. Dear old Fuck U. But anyway I had never heard anything mentioned about the storage area to the side. I could see one wall of it from where I stood, but I could barely picture anything else about it, except it would be about the least romantic setting for sex you could pick. Tractors and other landscaping equipment. The aroma of decaying mowed grass and petroleum products, blended.

"Freshmen? I seem to remember you didn't stop going there when you were a soph," Maggie teased.

"Shut *up*, Bush," Joyce shot back good naturedly. "At least you had the Planetarium. I didn't have it quite as easy. Depending."

"True, true," Maggie replied. "The Planetarium certainly did, well, simplify things for George and me. But that wasn't until junior year. You're forgetting."

She drained the last of the vodka, and set the cup down on the serving table, holding onto her napkin. I picked it up and started to toss it across to the large trash can, but she stopped me and asked if I could give her "just a splash" more of the liquor. I was supposed to keep track of who might be over-indulging, and clearly this woman was pushing it, but the money she had put in my pocket led me to put the rule aside, and I turned around momentarily to grab the bottle again.

"You're hoping we've *all* forgotten," another of the group said, stepping forward. Barbara, I could see on her nametag as I turned back to pour Maggie a generous 'splash' of booze. The fourth member of this apparent clique also moved up - I couldn't make out the scrawl of her name. Both of these women looked to me like church ladies, I decided.

"I deny *nothing*," Maggie said with a laugh, and the others laughed heartily too.

"Oh, you're safe, because I *see* nothing," Barbara answered, also to much laughter.

"I might have *heard* something, though," the fourth woman said. Some kind of old-school in-jokes, I concluded.

"Hear? Well, there's something *here* I wouldn't mind *seeing*," Maggie said.

It was directed obviously, I figured, toward me, since she was making eye contact again. So I responded, "I thought we established that you wouldn't look, even if you had the chance."

"Don't be vain," she said dismissively, "I wasn't referring to *that*. But now that you mention your penis again, what I actually said was, not here. But CC? That could be a different story."

"Go over there and flash you? You'd totally faint," I said, with a little less conviction.

She gave me that look again. "We're game if you are."

"Well, I can't leave the bar unattended, anyway. Say, did you want to order another drink?" I asked the two other women, suddenly remembering I had a job to do; they both shook their heads no. Maggie didn't insist this time.

"In a bit, then. Isn't she coming back?" Maggie inquired.

Jana would return from her break soon and my excuse would be busted if I lied. "I guess she is," I admitted.

"Then, you can take a break too. And come with us. When she comes back."

"I don't... know," I said lamely. This was somehow threatening to spin out of control, unless I straight out said no.

She opened her purse and pulled out another Jackson. "Twenty dollars, for just a peek? At Conception Corner? Not that you have to worry about conception with us anymore." She chuckled at the irony of that last part.

"You're not serious."

"Serious as a heart attack."

I suddenly wondered what her husband had died from. Or whether all four of them were widows.

"I warned you, you shouldn't," the fourth woman said. "You're humiliating him, bless his heart. He doesn't want to." Patricia, I could finally make out on the nametag - oh yeah, Maggie had mentioned her earlier, the one who she said believed in my package. Pat didn't really seem the type.

"Of course he does," Maggie said combatively, lacing the bill through her fingers. "He's just a bit shy. All young men want to show you what they have when it's erect. Even a small, a very small, one."

I knew I was being goaded but couldn't help myself. "You might be in for a shock, if I did show you. A big surprise." What did I just get done saying, about being secure in the quality of my junk? Ha.

"Then bring it over there. *I'll* look at it. I'm sure the rest of the Gay Girls will too."

"Gay?"

"That's what we called ourselves. It had a different meaning back then, of course. So what do you say?"

"Well. I'll have to think about that."

She leaned forward, supporting herself with one hand on the serving cart. "Let me tell you a secret," she whispered. I was afraid of what I was about to hear, but I leaned in toward her anyway. Tucking the folded twenty into my shirt pocket next to the other one and keeping those two fingers in there pressed against my pectoral, she whispered into my ear, "the boys used to say that Joyce was uncommonly talented at performing fellatio. Back in the day."

I failed to be discreet and glanced Joyce's way, which was enough to alert her. "What?" the full-figured woman asked with a mixture of playfulness and defensiveness, stepping closer to us. "Is she talking behind my back again?" she asked me.

It occurred to me that she might be what Jana would look like if Jana and I ran into each other again at our own fiftieth Homecoming. "No," I lied.

"I don't believe you," Joyce said.

"I merely asked him if he's circumcised," Maggie told her. "Since he's apparently too shy to tell us its size."

"Do I look Jewish?" I asked, trying to gently deflect this newest personal question.

Maggie waved her hand dismissively and did not reply to that. "There's another tip like the one I just gave you," Maggie said to me, "from each of us, if you will just come over to CC and give us a quick peek. Well, a good look, actually. Maybe if we like what we see, there could be a nice dinner in it for you too. Nicer than the Huddle, I mean." She referred to the campus eatery that was mostly for townies.