Note: This is a follow-up to "Juliana's Summer of Lost Innocence," published in the Taboo/Incest section on 6/6/16. It helps if you read that one first but not crucial. What follows is a slice of campus life in the tumultuous year of 1968 as told in a college romance between Juliana and a guy whose politics swings 180 degrees from her own. Those who crave prolonged graphic sex in their stories won't find it here.
*****
Juliana Wilcox felt relieved to be back at Brandeis for her sophomore year. Last June, she had looked forward to the summer with high expectations, most of them centered on Wendell Perdofsky, her neighbor and a guy she had started seeing over spring break. She had no inkling of what was to come—her strange sexual encounter with her mom, her parents' separation and a ménage à trois involving herself, Wendell and her mom that barely got started before Juliana bailed. She had left for the summer secure in her sexual orientation. She returned to school confused and confounded by her deviant experiences over those three months.
Counseling sessions with her mom in August had helped—sort of. It felt good to talk things out, to express her feelings to someone who was paid to listen and not judge. It did little, however, to allay the guilt she still felt, the feeling that something was profoundly wrong with her. Normal girls didn't engage in incestuous sex with their moms. Of course, the reverse was also true, except that Janet, her mom, didn't feel guilty about what they had done. The Duchess of Kink, Juliana had called herself, the "not so famous offspring of the Queen of Kink" as she had told Wendell.
She hoped to put what happened behind her, to make a fresh start. It was the first semester of a new school year. She planned to concentrate on her studies and looked forward to making new friends, perhaps meeting a nice guy. She followed with great interest the presidential race. She once liked Humphrey over Nixon but now wasn't so sure, not after what those brutal, head-bashing Chicago police did to peaceful demonstrators a few weeks ago at the Democratic National Convention. Grudgingly, she gave Nixon credit for his remarkable political comeback following his loss to Pat Brown in the 1962 California governor's race. Rockefeller had seemed like a moderate alternative to Nixon and Humphrey but his half-hearted campaign fizzled as had Eugene McCarthy's.
Being only nineteen, Juliana couldn't vote, but she could make her views known through student demonstrations. Vietnam was still the prime issue and she, like much of the country after the Viet Cong's surprise offensive known as Tet, thought it was time for American troops to pull out. Still, a conservative vocal minority ran counter demonstrations, people that still supported U.S. intervention.
In the first week of October, one such demonstration took place on campus in front of Ford Hall, a brick, architecturally undistinguished, three-story hulk of a building built in the early 1950s and the center of student activity. Juliana and dorm mate Mindy Asch joined the faction protesting against the war. The groups carried signs and shouted at one another. Faculty and campus security personnel looked on while the students marched back and forth just yards apart in the crisp, early autumn, New England air. Juliana wore a black skirt hemmed at her knees, boots and a light suede jacket over a white blouse. She wore her chestnut hair up, a departure from her current coiffure, a twisted pony tail that dropped over and below her left shoulder. STOP THE WAR her sign read, perhaps the most pedestrian of messages among the anti-war group. Nevertheless, it caught the eye of a counter protester, a tall, lanky, broad-shouldered guy carrying a sign that read DEMOCRACY FOR SOUTH VIETNAM.
"Stop the war? Stop the commies you mean," he barked as they faced each other.
"We don't belong there," Juliana barked back. "Ho Chi Minh is no threat to us."
As they passed each other, Juliana looked back over her shoulder. "Misguided he might be, but I could look at him all day," she said to Mindy.
Mindy, wearing jeans and blue sneakers brushed back her dark, shoulder-length curly hair and laughed. "Shame on you Julie, putting sex before politics."
When they passed each other again, he said, "Ho Chi Minh is Moscow's dupe. So he's very much a threat to us, sister."
Juliana couldn't help but smile as she looked him over, from his wavy brown hair and strong features to his six-foot athletic frame. "First off, my name is Juliana Wilcox, not sister. Second, communism is not a monolith centered in Moscow."
"Okay, Juliana, I suppose Red China, which supplies Ho's army with weapons and possesses a nuclear arsenal, isn't a threat to us either." He paused and smiled back. "And I'm Chad Grossman."
She held her hand up and wiggled her fingers. "Bye Chad," she said as they moved forward with their own group.
"I think he likes you," Mindy said.
"Too far to the right for me," Juliana said. "He's no doubt a Nixon guy, probably rooted for Goldwater in sixty-four."
"So now its politics before sex?" Mindy teased.
"Oh, I don't know," Juliana said laughing, wondering what his next pithy comment might be when they faced each other again. Before she could come up with one of her own to counter his Red China remark, she caught sight of him once more, looking absolutely smashing in his blue v-neck sweater, chinos and what looked like hiking shoes. "From the looks of those shoes, I gather you do a lot of this," she said.
He stamped his feet. "Only when provoked by naïve peaceniks like you."
She stopped walking, holding up the people behind her. "It's you who are naïve, my friend, if you believe that we belong in a third world country that's engaged in a civil war."
They stood and traded barbs back and forth, surrounded by their respective supporters who joined in. No longer in motion, the groups stood face to face, shouting at one another, some thrusting their placards toward the other side. Then someone from Chad's side hurled a rock that hit Juliana in the solar plexus. She doubled over, then collapsed on the grass. Pandemonium ensued. Security and faculty moved in to quell the physical altercations that broke out, mostly among males, but also among a few females engaged in punching and hair pulling. Juliana sat doubled over in the midst of the melee, struggling to breathe. She saw Mindy on the ground and then Chad's handsome face. He was stooped down with his arm over her back, asking if she was okay. She couldn't breathe normally, much less speak, not until he scooped her up in his arms and carried her several yards away before lowering her to the ground.
"Looks like you got the wind knocked out of you," he said. "I wish I knew the idiot who threw that rock." She clutched the spot where the rock hit her and winced in pain. "Maybe you should go to the infirmary. I'll walk with you if you'd like."
She smiled weakly. "Thanks, but I'll be okay. It's probably only bruised."
He nodded and watched as the uniformed security team dispersed the crowd. Most of the students left willingly, while others had to be dragged away. "This should never have happened," he said.
She flashed him a scolding look. "But it did and it came from someone on your side."
He shook his head sympathetically. "Look, I'm sorry you got hurt. But you shouldn't paint our group with a broad brush."
"Look who's talking about painting with broad brushes, calling me a naïve peacenik. I know that military force is sometimes warranted. But not by OUR military in Vietnam."
"Guess we'll have to agree to disagree then, Juliana."
"Guess we will, Chad." She started to get up and he reached for her hand. Refusing the help, she rose on her own and looked to see Mindy, worried and anxious, running toward them.
"My god, Julie, are you okay?" She eyed Chad suspiciously. "That rock must have hurt like hell."
"Only when I laugh."
