Do You Want Some Company Tonight

This story is set in 1969. All characters are over the age of eighteen. All sexual acts are consensual. I'd like to thank a forum friend, since I spoke to her some time ago about a few details of this story. We agree she was a technical consultant, not a writing partner, but her help was valuable. NOTE: Some terms used here may now be considered politically incorrect or offensive. However, they were in common use during the time period of this story.

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"Do you want some company tonight?"

I was on my usual stool in my favorite watering hole. The bartender, Chester, was trading horror stories about women with me since I recently ended a relationship that went sour. The chick had a Women's Lib bumper sticker on her little MG, but at home she was a clingy whiner. I'm pretty easy to get along with, and I'm very supportive of someone I care about, but this one got to be a pain in the ass. Nothing was ever good enough, she had to work too hard, everyone was out to screw her over, life was unfair, like a damn skipping record. Complaining was what she did best.

Nursing my sanity and my second beer, I wasn't in the mood for women. I hadn't even been very horny since the break-up. I turned to look at the guy two stools away who spoke to me. "What did you say?"

He repeated, "Do you want some company tonight?"

The occasional stranger came into this dump, looking for a dick to suck. I can ignore that as long as it's not my dick. This guy was young and fine-featured, but somehow, he didn't look like the type. He flashed a nervous smile, so I asked, "What do you mean by company? Do you want to talk about the way Namath and the boys made Baltimore eat their words in Miami last month, or are you getting funny with me?"

The kid blushed. "Look, I've never done this before. Maybe I said it wrong. I overheard what you and the bartender were talking about. I thought maybe you might be interested in meeting a nice girl."

"What are you, a pimp?"

"No! God, no. That's nasty. No, I wondered if you wanted to meet a girl who likes older guys."

"If you're not a pimp, what are you?"

"Her brother."

"You're pimping out your sister?" I sputtered.

"No! It's not like that!"

"All right. What is it like? Here you are, approaching a stranger in a bar, asking if I want to meet your sister for some 'company'. What the hell am I supposed to think?"

"Please, hear me out. She's very pretty, has a nice figure and all, but she's really shy. She's frustrated." He lowered his voice and leaned toward me. "She wants to have sex, but no one asks her, so we decided to see if I could help her out."

"Older sister or younger?" I asked. This guy looked old enough to be in a bar, but he was a lot younger than me.

"Younger," he said.

"How young?"

"She can't come in here."

"So she's under twenty-one?"

The guy didn't say anything.

"Kid, how damn young is your sister?"

"Nineteen. Her birthday was last week."

Shit. This didn't sound good. The girl I had been bitching about to Chester was twenty-eight, fifteen years younger than me. Her immaturity was the cause of a lot of our problems. What would I want with a girl less than half my age?

"Here, let me show you some pictures." The kid pulled some dog-eared prints from his pocket. "This was from summer vacation."

The photo showed a nicely-built young girl, sunbathing in a relatively conservative two-piece at the beach. It was taken from far enough away that I couldn't really judge the girl's attractiveness, other than to say she was a slender blond with a decent rack.

The next picture was a full-frame shot of the same girl, smiling at the camera as she put suntan oil on her belly. Now, I could see she was pretty as well as being toned and athletic, like a dancer or swimmer. The sun glistened on her shiny bronze skin.

In the next photo she was on her belly, her long hair tied up on top of her head to expose her neck and shoulders to the sun. She used a rolled up towel as a pillow and had her arms stretched out in front of her. Her bathing suit bottom was rolled and tugged to expose a fair amount of skin, and I had a clear view of the side of one pale breast, since her top was unhooked. Everything looked good, so why was her brother in here showing her pictures to me?

"Does she know you're in here trying to find some guy to fuck her?" I asked.

No answer.

"Kid!" I said a little louder. "You got a hearing problem or something? I asked you a question."

"You don't need to shout," the young man said. "I heard you just fine. If I take you home to my sister, don't bother yelling there, either. She's completely deaf. You could set off a cherry bomb right in front of her, and she wouldn't hear it."

"All right. Let's say I believe you. I'll ask again -- does your deaf-as-a-stone sister know you're in here trying to pick up some guy to fuck her?"

"If you come home with me, you'll find out whether I'm telling you the truth about her hearing, mister. And no, she doesn't know I'm in this particular bar tonight looking for someone. She did ask me to help set her up. Look, she tried to get guys to notice her all through high school, but no one her age wants to go out with a handicapped chick, no matter what she looks like. She's even tried pen pals, but when she tells guys about her deafness, they don't write back."

"So you're in a bar trying to get a guy over twice her age to go home with you."

"Beth and I talked -- her name's Beth -- and we decided that maybe an older guy would deal with the handicap better."

"How do you talk with her? Sign language? Is she deaf and dumb?"

"She was born deaf, so she learned to sign like other kids learn to talk. She's had a lot of speech therapy, so she speaks pretty well. Her German is as good as her English. She can make all the complex consonant sounds easily."

"You're telling me your sister speaks two languages but can't hear. That's hard to believe."

"She's brilliant. Just awkward with people. She started school a year late to allow her to get intensive language therapy, so she was always older than all the kids in her classes. It didn't help when our parents died in a plane crash when she was fourteen. I had just turned nineteen, so I was awarded guardianship."

"Let me get this straight. You're not only the big brother of a lonely, pretty, handicapped girl, you're also her legal guardian, or were last year. Tonight you're out in some corner bar, talking up a guy you know nothing about, trying to get me to bang her. If I actually believed any of this shit, I'd be tempted to drag you out in the alley and teach you some decency."

"Why do you have to be like that? Why don't you believe me? I showed you her pictures."

"There are some weird, fucked-up people in this world, kid. I'm not one of them, but maybe you are. You showed me snapshots of some chick on the beach. How do I know who she is? Besides, if I go with you to meet this so-called sister, how do I know there won't be a couple of your buddies there to beat me up and rob me to buy drugs? I have no way of knowing if anything you told me is true."

"All right," the kid said. "How about this? I'll bring her to the all-night diner down the street. You can meet her there in a public place, and you'll get to see for yourself what she's like. I'll buy you breakfast, and if you don't like her, you leave. Okay?"

"When?"

"Whenever you like."

"I'll meet you there in half an hour," I said.

"What should I tell her your name is? I'm Nate."

"Sam."

"Beth and I will see you in thirty minutes at the diner, Sam," Nate said, heading for the door.

When the kid was gone, Chester came over to me. "What the hell was that about? I heard some of it."

"Not sure."

"You know I run a clean place, Sam. At first, I thought he was a pimp. I was gonna tell Beast over there," he said, pointing to the giant bouncer dozing in the corner, "to take him out and play kickball with him while I called the cops."

"He says the girl is his sister. She's pretty cute, but he claims she's stone deaf."

"Cool," Chester said. "I mean, it's not like midget sex or amputee sex, but it's pretty far out. And just think -- she'll never hear you warn her so you can cum anywhere you like."

"That's sick."

"Oh, like you didn't know that about me? Listen, man, do you want to give me a phone number for your next of kin? How do you know this guy's telling you the truth? He could be a serial killer."

"I'm suspicious too. He offered to bring her to the diner down the street. I'm going to meet them there. He suggested it, and it made sense to me. At least I'll get to see if the girl is real and check out the situation."

"When are you supposed to meet them?"

"In about half an hour."

"Be smart. Get there before they do. That way, you'll see if they come alone, or if they bring goons with them."

"Good idea."

I was sipping a cup of coffee at the diner when Nate walked in with a very pretty girl with shoulder length light brown hair. They stood at the door getting their bearings, and then Nate saw me. I waved, and he touched the girl on the arm and pointed my way. She smiled, and they walked toward me.

When they got to my booth, Nate did something with his hands where the girl could see them and said to me, "Sam, this is my sister Beth. She cut her hair shortly after those beach pictures were taken and dyed it back to its natural color." Turning to the girl, he said, "Beth, this is Sam, the man I told you about."

"Hello, Sam. Nate didn't tell me how handsome you are," she said, holding out her hand.

I took it, and said to her brother, "How do I talk to her? I don't know sign language."

"Beth reads lips. Just make sure you look at her when you talk, and don't hold your hand in front of your mouth or anything. If she's not looking at you, touch her to get her attention."

"Okay." Turning to Beth, I said, "I ... am ... very ... glad ... to ... meet ... you ... too."

She grinned. "Talk normally. You're one of the easy ones. You move your lips a lot. I bet your speech is very clear. I can probably keep up. If I can't, I'll let you know."

Interesting. She wasn't hard to understand. Her voice was a little flat, and some of the vowel sounds were off, like an accent, but her speech was clear. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm not sure I ever had a conversation with someone with hearing problems."

"I don't have hearing problems. I'm deaf. Sound is something I can sometimes feel, like a bass drum or a door slamming, but I don't experience what you think of as hearing."

Signing rapidly, Nate said, "Our parents took her everywhere when she was a kid, trying to find some miracle-worker. It's a birth defect. She never developed some parts of her hearing system."

"Why are you signing if she lip-reads?"

"Because I'm looking at you, not her. I don't know if she can read my lips from this angle, and I want her to know what I say."

The waitress came to take our orders. Nate touched Beth's hand to get her attention, since she was reading the menu. Turning to face her, he asked, "Are you ready to order?"

"Oh, sure." She glanced up at the waitress and saw her looking back at her, pen in hand. She gave her order and watched as the waitress scribbled.

The woman seemed to have no trouble understanding, simply nodding as she wrote. Beth's speech was pretty remarkable, if the story was true about her deafness. I still didn't know what was going on. If these kids were playing me, they were good at it.

"Sam?" Beth said. She touched my hand just before she spoke. "Can I ask you a favor?"

There it was. I waited for her to say, "I'll fuck you if you put me through college," or some such shit.

She smiled at me and said, "If you want to talk to me while we eat, please don't talk with your mouth full. I'm not being Miss Manners. It makes people hard to understand."

"Oh. Sure. Fine. Yeah, I guess that would be a problem."

"Lip reading and body language are all I have with new people. With my parents when they were alive or when I'm alone or with Nate, not being able to hear doesn't mean anything. With someone who doesn't sign it can be hard, but we won't have to talk in bed. I watched some movies, and you can guide me,..." At that point, Beth saw the waitress headed our way.

When we had our plates and our privacy, Nate said, "It's a shame you can't sign."

"Yeah." I busied myself with my omelet. The others got to work on their food, too.

After a few minutes, Beth's fingers appeared, tip-toeing toward my plate. I looked up at her and saw her grinning at me. "You must be hungry," she said.

I made it a point to swallow and use my napkin. "Nobody makes eggs like the guy who cooks here at night on weekends. This is the best greasy spoon joint for miles."

"Greasy spoon joint?" she repeated, looking confused. "Oh, it's slang!" Her giggle was an odd warbling sound. Not unpleasant, just ... different. "I'm really glad you agreed to meet me," she said. "Nate told me you acted shocked."

"I was. I am. Maybe you don't get out much, and I'm sure you've never been in a bar, but trust me when I tell you that having a stranger approach me to come home with him to meet his barely-legal-age, deaf, genius, orphan sister was NOT what I expected when I went in there."

She giggled again. "Did you like my pictures? I thought maybe you wouldn't think I was the same girl."

"The hair threw me for a second, but when I really looked at you, I thought it was possible."

"How can I prove it's me? They would throw me out if I tried to come in here in my bikini."

"Probably. I believe you're the girl at the beach. I'm not sure I believe anything else."

"What do I have to do?" she asked. Her obvious frustration garbled her speech slightly.

Nate touched her on the arm. She instantly glared at him.

"Sis, I told you this was a bad idea," he said aloud, his hands flying in front of him.

She signed back furiously in silence.

"Stop it, Beth. That's rude. Talk so Sam can hear you, or I'm going to look away," her brother said. He didn't sign that time.

She slumped back in her seat and fumbled in her purse for a tissue to catch the tears that welled up in her eyes. Then she started talking rapidly. I couldn't understand her.

Nate touched her arm to get her attention. "Please calm down. You know how hard you are to understand when you're upset."

She nodded, dabbed at her eyes, and composed herself. Turning to me, she said, "I shouldn't have expected this to work. Nate is right. This was a stupid idea. I don't know why I'm here."

"You're here because I wanted to make sure your brother was talking about a real girl he wanted me to meet, not setting me up to get robbed in an alley somewhere. I was skeptical of the whole thing. I still am. All I know so far is you're a very attractive young girl who resembles the chick in his pictures. I'm sorry, too. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but this is all pretty new to me."

"How can I prove things to you? Oh, I know! Do you speak any foreign languages?

"I took a lot of German in high school," I said. "I didn't forget all of it."

She flashed a naughty grin. "Ich habe kein Jungfernhautchen, aber ich bin noch Jungfrau. Ich will deinen Schwanz lutschen."

That taxed me for a minute, but finally I figured it out. "You said you don't have a hymen, but you're still a virgin, which I guess means you've never been with a man. You also said you want to suck my dick."

"I got hurt falling from a horse when I was a kid. The other part,... well,... men like that, don't they? Anyway, you understood what I said in German. Does that prove anything?"

"It proves you can talk dirty in German."

"I was trying to ask you to take me to bed."

"Why me? Not that I think you're unattractive or anything, but why aren't you with some guy closer to your age? I'm old enough to be your father."

She seemed to think for a minute, then leaned forward and looked straight into my eyes. "I'm nineteen now. A woman, sort of. I'm going off to college in the fall, and I'm hoping the guys there will be more mature than high school boys. Sure, if I took off my clothes and got on my back in front of one of my classmates, I'd probably get laid, but I want it to be good for me, too. That's why I thought of an older man."

"I'm definitely an older man."

"How old are you?"

"Forty-three."

"That's not old," she smiled. "What's the tattoo for?"

"U.S. Eighth Army. I was in Korea. I thought I would be a career man when I enlisted after high school, but when my tour of duty ended, I didn't re-enlist. One thing I learned in the army was to trust my instincts. That's why I'm cautious here. This whole thing seems strange. I'm still not convinced you're deaf."

"I guess I should take that as a compliment. I really try to overcome my handicap well enough to not make people uncomfortable around me."

"It's not my comfort I'm concerned about. If I knew anything about signing, I'd use it."

"Sign language is easy. Some signs are pretty obvious when they're explained. You already use a little sign language yourself."

"I do?"

"Sure. You wave hello and goodbye, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"The person who sees you understands what you mean, even if you don't say anything, don't they?"

"Yeah."

"You communicated visually, not with talking and hearing. Deaf people have a group of hand and finger movements we use to spell out words or to mean whole words. Some gestures convey entire thoughts. Everyone knows what you mean when you give someone a dirty look and hold up your middle finger, don't they? Most English-speaking teenagers and adults get the message. It's the same with sign language."

"I never thought about it."

"Here's another sign I bet you understand." She curled the fingers of one hand into a loose fist, and pushed the middle finger of her other hand in and out.

"Where I come from, that means having sex," I said.

"That's what it means where I come from, too," Beth smiled. She pointed at me, then pointed at herself, then made the obscene gestures again. "I just communicated an entire thought to you, a complete sentence, with simple hand motions."

This was too good to be true. "Nate, where do you fit into all this?" I asked, making sure Beth could still see my mouth.

"I'll drive us home, lock myself out of the house, and go stay at the motel near the diner. I'll leave the number so you can call the office when you're ready to go home," he said, signing for her.

Beth spoke up. "I want to have sex with someone who won't brag about it before I go off to college. Maybe there I'll have the confidence to talk to men and form relationships."

"Try to put yourself in her shoes," Nate said. "Imagine what it would have been like in high school if you couldn't hear. Think what that would do to your social skills. What would it do for your dating prospects, if you wanted to be with someone you could communicate with?"

"Sam," Beth said, "my parents insisted on main-streaming me in school. I took classes with everyone else. When I was little, I had a tutor who signed, so I was able to keep up. One of the kids in my class signed a bit too, since she had family members who were deaf, so she helped. But I never made many friends. I sure didn't have boyfriends. The only boy I know well is my brother. If it weren't so wrong, I'd ask him to make love to me."

"We talked about it," Nate admitted quietly. "I know that's not normal, but she's dead-set on knowing what men and women do before she gets into a relationship with a guy who might be special to her. Will you help her, please?"

I looked straight at Beth, but spoke to both of them. "I reserve the right to call anyone I want right until the time I'm back in my own place. Not to brag or anything like that. I'm playing it safe, since I still don't trust you kids."