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Quest
Quest
Quest
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Quest

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Gene Lovell was born into the Great Depression where economics narrowed his choices to beans and biscuits at meal time. A predatory aunt narrowed his sexual menu to cunnilingus. Is he forever doomed to eat limas and pussy, or can he shed those fetters for richer paths in a forest of infinite possibilities? Does ones selection of friends and companions influence his predilections? Suppose he marries a celebrated whore? Will he continue the behaviors his environmental exposures have dictated? Will the goals of his life be affected by a dramatic late-life experimental robotic surgery and his post-operative care givers, as well as the death of his life-long partner?
Quest explores the answers to how far what we do defines who we are.
LanguageEnglish
PublisheriUniverse
Release dateOct 5, 2011
ISBN9781462051724
Quest
Author

Gene Lovell

Gene Lovell was a broker for John C. Legg (now Legg Mason) in the late fifties when that firm, an industry expert in insurance stocks, led a successful fight to seize control of New Amsterdam Casualty Insurance Co., giving him insight into what a ?takeover? is all about. A well-known portrait painter and successful author of six other novels, Lovell lives quietly on the Eastern Shore with Jacquelyn Amos, his wife of fifty-three years, fighting boredom and cancer.

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    Quest - Gene Lovell

    Contents

    FOREWORD

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

    ONE

    TWO

    THREE

    FOUR

    FIVE

    SIX

    SEVEN

    EIGHT

    NINE

    TEN

    ELEVEN

    TWELVE

    THIRTEEN

    FOURTEEN

    FIFTEEN

    SIXTEEN

    DISCLAIMER

    FOREWORD

    Nature or nurture, the age old enigma! It is still with us today. There has probably been more PhD’s earned exploring this subject than any other. Was it heredity or environment that influenced behavior more has always intrigued scholars since Plato in the Republic discussed the problem of variation in individual endowments. This fostered studies in twins in families (who can forget the Jukes and the Kallikaks), and everything in between. Then Freud weighed in on the environmental impact on sexual behavior. Early age experimentation he found to be of great significance. He found under-age sexual child abuse to be particularly devastating. Which brings us to sustained sexual abuse between a female and a male in the form of cunnilingus in Quest. What psychological change was wrought by such activity? How warped was the victim’s psyche and for how long must be considered in assessing the impact on his behavior over a lifetime.

    William James said, The human individual lives usually far within his limits; he possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use. What heights could our victim have risen to had not he been stunted in his youth? It is a regretful waste, yet regret is not a platform for building a future. That takes caring people nearby who are determined to help. Did our man have the necessary helps or was he simple enabled to continue? Did fashion play a role here? I pose the question because today’s culture seems to emphasize making the sexual organs easier to see and available with the least effort. Someone once observed that nineteenth century women had the most sex appeal because everything about her except cheeks and nose was a secret. Would that environment have aided our man, or was he doomed from birth?

    Gene Lovell

    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

    The following people have significantly impacted my life for better or worse! Sadie I. Beverage, Hazel B. Lovell, Wanda Lovell, Marjorie Dickson, Genevieve Moore, Bo Peep McLaughlin, Ada Sharp, Dolly Sharp, Jane P. Sharp, Nancy B. Bruns, Pearl S. Buck, Linda F. Bell, Frances Odend’hal, Barbara Odend’ hal, Bonnie Odend’hal, Marilyn M. Rohrer, Patsy Grey, Elizabeth Rolke, Shirley S. Day, Beverly Colvin, Laura Schultneck, Wanda Mitchell, Anne Kerfoot, Eileen E. Mose, Evelyn S. Rice, Alice Maxson, Martha Grover, Sarah S. Bowman, Jeanne R. Nalley, Rae Warner, Charlotte Martin, Aida Dunn, Jacqueline A Lovell, Florence DeNagy, Elina McPherson, Marge Ford, Judy Planner, Ann S. Wilson, Stephanie M. Smith, Miriam Dyer, Esther Perkins, Inge Hanson, Renee Lovell, Stephanie Lee, Holly Cerini, Linda Hooper, Cynthia Clark, Michelle Lovell, Peridot W. Lovell, Rose Kanter, Evelyn Hannahan, Ronnie Siskind, Stacey Berland, Rachel Sheets, Mabel Harbaugh, Maude Moore, Aletha C. Lovell, Gwendoline White, Vaughn Miller, Wanda L. McCraken, Donna Wessels, Karen Coleman Gibbons-Neff, Sandy VanSchaik Pomeroy, Robyn VanSchaik, Amy Pippin, Weinshet Teklu, Jeanne Dyson, Eileen McCarthy, Debra Bennett, Jennifer Blunt, Tina Woods, Petie Brigham, Jane Terebey, Dr. Melinda Butler, Sydney Ramey, Sheila S. Collie, Gloria Gardner, Jacqueline McCurdy, Sue Ying Chen, Ruth Christopher, Dottie Wright, Alicia Carroll, Mary Cary, Dr. Karen Salmon, Lisa T. Calloway, Karen Wegener, Perla Osorio, Connie J. Copley, Betty Crowe, Faye L. Coulbourne, Barbara Dill, Barbara Dougherty, Nancy Dail, Marina Dowdall, Anna M. Elrick, Dr. Fayette Engstrom, Charlotte Fleischman, Betty F. Lewison, Valerie Flatten, Dr. Susan Forlifer, Linda F. Praeger, Carla Fletcher, Diane Garey, Carol Greenge, Carol Smith, Betty Horan, Phyllis Hayman, Angie Jones, Lindsay Kerfoot, Gloria Lee, Ann M. Lusby, Joanne Mulvey, Judi Mauk, Ellen Mulder, Barbara Mutolo, Mary Mickey, Karen Montieth, Ruth Mink, Millicent Maloney, Carolyn McDaniels, Dotty Pratt, Sue Pine, Elizabeth Pinkett, Chrissy Gerardi, Ashley Payne, Cathy Prouse, Laura Price, Peggy Wilson, Annalee Rieck, Susie Milburn, Stevie Sisca, Greta Scanlon, Courtney Spurry, Maggie Schindel, Laura Shatto, Julia Younker, Doris Pryor, Mina Lyon, Jean Mentzer, Pat Mullenix, Jeane Neff, Jaime Potts, Mary Reel, Judy Rose, Doreen Rinehart, Joyce Silvervail, Donna Sponseller, Junio Sponseller, Stevie Stevens, Orpha Stouffer, Pat Vidas, Peg Williams, Cathy Yates, Sissy Chaney, Tink Sprecker, Brownie Lizer, Judy and Lucy McIntire, Trish McFadden, Mary Marpel, Carol Fundis, Bonnie Hartle, Inky Ingram, Jan Brewer, Bonnie Baker, Pinky Crabtree, Joyce Eyler, Katie Fockler, Catherine Futterer, Joan Boyle, Virginia Maycock, Saffron Paul, Beverly Utz, Greta Utz, Sandra Gee, Tracey Moos, Pat Spain, Trudy Tawes, Judy Warren, Audrey Willey, Amy F. Wright, Eva M. Wright, Nancy Zepp, Atlee Kepler, Stephen Dixon, and Clyde Roberts to name a few. I apologize to those I’ve missed.

    Will Rogers is supposed to have said, I never met a man I didn’t like. Gene Lovell is supposed to have said, I never met a woman I didn’t want to go down on.

    Gene Lovell

    "Love is a wild bird

    no one can tame…"

    Carmen

    Bizet

    ONE

    Your tongue obviously has post-graduate degrees.

    The speaker was a beautiful, young, graduate student at Johns Hopkins. I had just gone down on her in her second floor apartment at 2832 St. Paul Street in Baltimore. She was pleased that I had brought her to two orgasms in the hour we had been together.

    I am glad I could please you, I said, I did not bother to tell her my skill had been acquired in Hagerstown, Maryland at age ten and a half when my aunt, dear, dear Aunt Maggie, had sat on my face for the first time. She had continued to do so every Friday night when my parents left me in her care while they drove into town to do the shopping. Maggie had warned me not to give her up and true to the 30’s tradition of Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney and John Garfield’s code against being a rat I did not tell my parents. I could not now bring myself to tell this lovely creature I had done my aunt, either. I did not in any way wish to give her an excuse to dump me. It was bad enough that I was three years younger than she was, that I was an undergraduate, and that I was sexually inadequate. Her reputation was that of a sophisticated erotic, so when I had first been invited to fuck her I was somewhat prepared for an easy entry. I had no idea it would be like trying to do the Holland Tunnel! I realized immediately I could hold onto her only by providing some novel exciting experiences. Hence, the oral sex. Much as I had hated her in the beginning, I came to appreciate the fact that Aunt Maggie had taught me well during the fifteen months she had lived with us. Now it became the key to keeping the interest and body of the hottest female on campus. It was an interest that was to last for over fifty-six years for I had been allowed to marry her. Despite the scores of men and boys she had had who were stronger, taller, faster, smarter, richer, from better families, and who had bigger dicks that delivered bigger loads, it was I she had decided to marry. When I had first proposed, she had thrown down the gauntlet! I am the biggest whore at Hopkins. Can you deal with that?

    I had. It had been a daily challenge, but I had.

    Now, all this time later, we were still married and I was still as enamored and enslaved as I had first been… .

    I shoved her basket of laundry up the stairs one at a time. Doing the laundry, mine and hers, was but part of my household duties, even though right now it was difficult. I had had a heart attack only two weeks before on December 27, 2009. I had only been back home here a few days. I was still weak, very weak. I could only do one step at a time. I had to rest. It gave me time to think, to divert my mind.

    It was a dark place, but warm and moist. Its smell was a clean smell, but dusky too. My eyes stayed tightly closed. I did not need to see; I knew every nook and cranny by heart. They were all familiar, all old friends. I was very much at ease there. It was home. It was my refuge in time of stress. I sought it often of late… even if denied.

    I almost never went upstairs, not since 1975 when I fell out of that English walnut in the back yard. The chain saw was still running, but I flung it from me. I wasn’t about to be chewed up by it like that poor devil in Royal Oak. The result was predictable. I landed badly and crushed my foot. The tragedy was compounded when the eminent orthopedic doctor would not only set it wrong but cast it so a spur of plaster projected into the back of my right foot. I complained about the pain but was ignored. When the cast finally came off I had an indentation the size and shape of a Hershey’s Kiss. It hurt to climb stairs, so I eschewed stairs whenever possible. I spent the next thirty-five years sleeping in a first floor recliner. As I said, I only went upstairs with her laundry or to change a picture for her, or move some piece of furniture. She slept up there alternating among four bedrooms and often knitted up there. Since sex was outlawed by her after November 1974, I did not go upstairs for that.

    My absence upstairs did cause some problems none the less. Son, Cord, used it as an opportunity to plant some marijuana in pots behind the blinds in the bathroom. He told his mother they were a kind of geranium and she bought it because Cord could do no wrong in her eyes. He was almost an Eagle Scout by then, wasn’t he?

    It was a time of zero tolerance in our county and we could have lost our home had I not smelled a rat and had the weed destroyed just in time. A neighbor, the Bridegroom Bridges, was not as lucky. They ended up having to move in with his mother when his home was seized and auctioned by the county. I vowed to keep a closer watch until Cord moved out. I realized that if it had happened today I would be unable to police the area. I was out of puff.

    My home was hardly big enough when we moved in, in 1966. There were the five children and her parents who joined us a month later from Baltimore. This meant weekends also featured their daughter, Maria, and her husband, Brighton. It also meant a visit from my parents and my sister, Lydia, and her husband, Steve, plus his mother, now divorced.

    The grocery bill went up by leaps and bounds to say nothing of the alcohol tab. One humongous family, right?

    Now we were back to two. Two people knocking around in thirteen rooms and on four porches. At least some of the land was gone… an acre here, a lot there. Cars, drug dealers, bills, lawyer’s fees, college expenses—you name it. The land paid a lot of bills. At least we now had Molly and Marty’s family on an acre next door. So what if Sunshine had four weddings. So what if the waterfront land was now gone—we didn’t really need to see the river! Right? Gone With the Wind. Yes, Margaret Mitchell told it true.

    Did all of this make December 27, 2009’s, incident inevitable? Who can say? I hooked up my wife’s Chihuahua, Moofer, and we walked around the house. I should say Moo dragged me around. Then I decided to take my art framer, Chuck Player, his belated Christmas gift. I drove to Federalsburg, dropped it off, and headed back; I didn’t even get to the truck before I realized something was wrong in my chest. As I drove back toward Preston I had the brilliant idea of stopping to see Dr. Timm in Preston to get him to confirm I really had a problem.

    Bad idea.

    His nurse wouldn’t even call him. You need to go to the hospital, Zippy, now!

    When she saw I was angry and about to drive myself, she contacted my daughter, (who called 911) and practically sat on me until the ambulance crew burst in the door.

    Andrew Gordon led the two-man ambulance crew that answered the call and strapped me to the gurney. He was a great bear of a man, a true gentle giant. He had as much hair as a black bear and the strength as well. I had known him for years and taught his wife, Doris, as well as taught with her. He was president of the Preston Volunteer Fire Department as well as being a certified paramedic. He made me feel very comfortable and secure. I was in good hands. I had him give Nurse Crystal my vehicle keys so someone could drive my truck home and she also gave him my vitals which she had been monitoring the whole time. They loaded me and Andrew gave me a nitroglycerine pill after talking to the ER in Easton’s Memorial Hospital.

    The ride was bumpy but swift and I was seen immediately, examined, and sent up to the fourth floor, Telemetry.

    The next morning a cardiologist from the same practice that was treating my wife for a heart valve problem came to see me.

    Dr. Frankle, he said, as we shook hands and he looked over my chart. He listened, palpated, asked a few questions and settled into a chair. What have they told you?

    They said something about a stress test.

    He snorted, That’s the last thing I would want.

    Have I had a heart attack?

    We might precipitate one with a stress test, but the answer, I think, is no.

    What do you recommend?

    Angioplasty. I want to run a catheter wire up into your chest and see what is going on first.

    Will you be doing it?

    No. A member of my group will to it tomorrow. Then we will talk. We shook again and left.

    A nurse with soft, round curves came in. She was followed by what could have been her twin. This is your tech, Angela.

    Angela didn’t look a day over twelve. Are you a McQueen-Gibbs girl, Angela?

    No, sir. I trained in Arizona. I am Mexican-Hawaiian.

    You don’t look a day over twelve.

    She giggled and fitted me with a pressure cuff. She laid my arm along the bed’s edge and held it close to her tummy. I could feel her warmth. Weird. I am thirty and have three children, she said.

    Get out.

    No. It is true. Please let me get your pressure.

    I have wrestled people who have not held me as close as Angela did while she got my BP and listened with her stethoscope. She must have added points to the reading. Had to. I made a note to ask her to take it in the future.

    Sleep was a disaster. When eight came and visitors were asked to leave, they didn’t. Not only did they stay but the ones across the way turned the TV up and whooped and hollered as they watched WWF. The nurses did nothing and neither did Security. In fact, I think the black Security guard was in the room watching the matches. Had I a flame thrower, I would have used it. Quiet at Easton hospital was non-existent.

    I was glad to see them come for me in the morning. In the OR, the Intervention crew was full of people I knew and had taught. It suddenly struck me they were going to shave me and see my Johnson. They were all smiles; they already figured that out and were looking to tease me to the max.

    You taught me Sex Ed, one sweet thing said from behind her mask, now it’s my turn to show you what I learned.

    The rest all laughed. I blushed and surrendered. I had to. Dr. Harris made the cut and we were off. It didn’t last long. Suddenly, they were all serious and the doctor lowered his mask and stepped back. Mr. Cosmo, you need stents. I’m sending you to University Hospital in Baltimore.

    They, who had been so jovial, were now somber and solicitous. I got hugs and pats as they closed me up and bundled me into a waiting ambulance.

    I was off to Baltimore. This was getting serious…

    The ambulance ride to Baltimore was miserable. My lower back was killing me. I had broken my back in two places a few years before and it was now telling me it still didn’t appreciate it. I tried to think of other things to distract myself. I thought of Angela and how warm and soft she felt. I wondered, just in passing of course, how her pussy might have tasted. Then I had a chest pain and warned myself against any further speculations along those lines. I was ready to scream when we finally backed into the loading dock at 22 S. Greene Street.

    I went to law school right across the street from the main entrance, I told anyone who might be listening. No one seemed to care as they wheeled me through miles and miles of painful corridors. They gave me something and soon I was not in this world.

    I was suspended high in the air, or so I felt. I drifted and Cynthia came into view. I loved her long black hair and her bangs; they seemed special to me for some unknown reason. I loved to hear her play her violin. She was much better than I, much more daring. I hesitated to play alone before others, even in practice. Not Cynthia. She would burst forth even without invitation. And I was glad to listen. I was glad to hear her play because she let me caress and kiss her body while she played. Cynthia appeared first on my radar in the spring of 1950. She was Fort Hill High School’s lone First Violin selection to the Maryland High School Orchestra in Baltimore that year. We played last chair First Violins together. I ate lunch with her at Horn and Horn Cafeteria after the morning rehearsal the first day. That afternoon I took her to a movie neither of us really watched. I was busy kissing her at first and she was busy letting me, then I was busy finger-fucking her as well and she was busy enjoying it. She was really hot. She was the second girl I had ever met who undressed herself. I started to work down to her panties when she said, Wait. Then she stripped them off herself and put them in her pocketbook. I had clear sailing from then on. I don’t remember the concert or even what music we played. I only remember her.

    Later that month she showed up at my door at 32 Roessner Avenue in Halfway, I had answered the knock and was reduced to the open-mouth, staring-idiot condition.

    Aren’t you going to invite me in?

    I—of course, I—what are you doing here?

    I’m in town for my interview, remember?

    I hadn’t until then. It finally came to me that she had applied for admission to Washington County’s School of Nursing and here she was for the in-person phase.

    My mother appeared at my elbow. She was not best pleased I could tell from the way her mouth twisted, but her manners were better than mine and she welcomed Cynthia in. It only took Cynthia half an hour to charm mother into letting her stay, into letting her stay and play the violin, BUT, also more importantly, to let her stay and play in MY BEDROOM. Wonderful, just wonderful. When we broke for lunch of tea and tuna fish, we were both very happy and I saw her off to catch the bus for her p.m. meet at the hospital.

    She was accepted and began her nursing career as I began my senior year at dear old Hagerstown High. I dated her twice in September before a young intern knocked her up, as the current expression had it. I saw her once more, in The Square in town. She was six months along. She looked stricken and lost. I should have stuck to you and your fingers and tongue, she said.

    What could I do but sigh and agree?

    How in the hell did she get in my head now, on the eve of my stent procedure?

    I am Dr. Gupta, the handsome young Indian told me.I shall be overseeing your procedure.

    Gupta? Gupta? I said, groping

    I am not the one on TV. You must remember, Mr. Cosmo, that in my country Gupta is as common a name as Smith is here.

    That settled, he outlined what was about to happen. Then, at a speed surprising to me, I was wheeled under a sort of machine where two men and a woman began to work on my groin area again. One indicated a TV screen and with some alarm I watched as the wire catheter inside me began its dance. A young man at my elbow addressed me and a machine in front of him, If you hurt, say so. I will help.

    I said so.

    I awoke with a terrible back pain. I was lying flat in a conventional patient’s bed. I tried to shift position and rise but was restrained by a nurse’s stern hands. I am sorry, sir, but you have to remain flat for eight hours.

    They were the longest, most painful hours of my life.

    When they were finally elapsed, I was wheeled down to Room A in Cardiac Care, the first stop after Recovery; I would be there four days.

    I had Jenny Flood as my day nurse and Milly O’Hare as my day tech. Both were white, bright, and very efficient. Jenny was divorced with a child, Jordan, who thought catsup provided her daily nutritional vegetable requirement. Nurse Flood did only what was required by the job, which did not include socializing with me. She was on the prowl for another mate and had no time for a gabby old fart like me. Milly, on the other hand, was happily married to a big Irishman who adored her. She had two shamrocks, Rose and Rory, and so was tolerant of my tales and good company. She did little extras like getting me a wheelchair so I could join the staff that went up on the roof to watch revelers at the Inner Harbor bring in the New Year with fireworks. Milly also agreed to let me paint her. Flood could have cared less; I was still too suspiciously the dirty old man trying to do her wrong, again.

    When check-out time came, the nurse stuck her head in the door and waved goodbye. Milly O’Hare fetched a wheelchair, donned a jacket and a pretty white wool cap and took me down to where Molly and Marty waited in their car. She gave me a hug and wished me well. She made sure I left UMMC with a good taste in my mouth. I waved to her and watched until she was no longer in sight. She was good people. The oil portrait I did of her was as good as any I had ever done. I was proud of it.

    Moo couldn’t believe his eyes when I staggered in the kitchen door. Only when my wife kissed my cheek did his tail find life and he gave a little woof.

    Home looked good.

    I sat in my recliner and fell asleep without undressing.

    January and February were one big ice and snow time. They rumbled off the roof and crushed hedge and plants without mercy. I could only watch. I could not walk Moo. He had to poop indoors. I picked up his jellybeans.

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