THE SOUL OF MARY ANN CHAPTER 8
Gilligan entered the girls hut on a knock, where he saw his Mary Ann awaiting him, legs crossed, on her bed. He joined her there.
"Hi, honey," Gilligan said.
"Hey, baby", Mary Ann said, kissing her man on the lips.
The kiss felt very good to Gilligan, leading him to ask about the lipstick.
"Say, that lipstick tastes very nice. Is that a new shade for you?" he asked.
"No, darling, it is Ginger's," she said.
"Did she let you borrow hers?" Gilligan asked.
"Not exactly," Mary Ann confessed, "I helped myself."
"Really? What brought that on?" Gilligan asked, as he sat on the side of Mary Ann's bed right next to her.
"Well, after your meeting today, when we met up just outside of camp, I noticed that you had traces of her lipstick on your lips," Mary Ann answered.
Gilligan was so embarassed…that his face turned redder than his signature shirt. He was very flumoxed.
"Well, gee, sorry, honey…it just sort of…happened…at the end of our talk…" Gilligan stumbled out of his mouth.
Mary Ann stood up over him, hands over her very own full hips, while wearing Professor Roy's old dress shirt, with a serious look on her face.
"So, answer me this," Mary Ann asked him, "was it good?"
"Yes, it was…but not as good as yours, honey," Gilligan, sitting like a scared student in the detention room, said. Well, he was in a detention room, all right—that of his girlfriend!
"That's nice. Because before you came in here…I decided to get a kiss for myself to see for sure,"
Mary Ann admitted.
"You did? " Gilligan asked. "Who exactly did you kiss? ? The Professor?"
"No. I kissed Ginger," Mary Ann admitted.
"Really? Gilligan was shocked! First, it was one thing to find out that Mary Ann was part Negro. Now, it was another one where she was now kissing a woman!
'Yes, dear," she said.
"And how did you like it?" Gilligan asked.
"Actually…I liked it, very much." she answered back.
"Wow…" Gilligan said, looking around in disbelief. He could not believe this was coming out of his Mary Ann. Yet it was. Mary Ann was clearly growing more comfortable in her own skin and becoming very much more confident, be it that she did, after all, initiate the kiss with Ginger in the first place.
"And I will tell you something else, my beloved WIlly," Mary Ann said, as she approached Gilligan sitting down on the bed beside him, "as great as her kiss was…her kisses are nowhere as great to me as yours are!"
"Is that right?" Gilligan said, with a smile creeping back onto his face.
"Yes, honey, I love your kisses the most," Mary Ann said, planting a kiss onto his face which had the lovers deep in one another's arms—just as Rocky Soul came over KHSL-FM radio with Otis Redding's 1965 soul classic, Respect.
Once The Big O started singing, Gilligan got up from his girlfriend's embrace and began singing and dancing along with the song, while Mary Ann sat on the bed, smiling, moving and grooving right along with her boyfriend, those thick, honey-sepiaized thighs crossed, as Otis played over the radio.
After the song ended, Gilligan returned to Mary Ann's arms as they listened together to Rocky Soul prepare to introduce Aretha Franklin's new Atlanic LP, I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You. Despite her initial misgivings about the kiss, Mary Ann was not mad at her boyfriend, at all. In fact, she was secretly turned on by the fact that another beautiful woman found her man attractive enough to love, albeit platonically, and even go as far as to kiss. Though Ginger is head-over-heels in love with her Professor Roy, she is seriously genuine and sincere about her love and admiration for Gilligan. So much so, in fact, that she even felt compelled to even kiss him, albeit on the lips, in the first place. The way Mary Ann saw it, if Ginger felt the need to kiss her Gilligan, partcualry with her lovng Professor standing right there next to her, sans any known animosity from the educated man, then why not kiss the lips of the woman who kissed those of her Gilligan? A woman that Mary Ann had come to love as a sister, as well.
Like the Otis Redding song they had finished listening to together, Respect is what it came down to. Respect by Mary Ann for her loving Gilligan. Respect by Ginger for her bonding with Gilligan as she did. Respect from Professor Roy for his seeing the brave, confident young man Gilligan was becoming. Respect by Gilligan for Professor Roy and his understanding of the true nature of the kiss. Respect by Gilligan for Ginger in ther ability to air their primal truths about one another and come to a deeper level of love and friendship. And respect by Mary Ann and Ginger in realzing the love they both simply have for Gilligan…and each other, as sisters.
And that word, in and of itself, was about to take on a whole new meaning.
The first song Rocky played on Aretha's new LP: Respect.
Yes, it was a cover of the Otis Redding song, all right.
Only this time, it was not from an area of a man pleading with his woman for respect when he comes home.
No, this time…it was from the vantage point of a woman who commanded and demanded respect. It was a different answer song…which was not an answer song…but rather…and exclamation mark!
And Mary Ann instantly sprung up away from Gilligan and started dancing with a ferocity in her entire body and a firery intestity that Gilligan had never seen before.
And if that was not enough…Mary Ann went over to a special pole Gilligan and Professor Roy had recently erected for the girls to exercise with while inside of their hut. Yes, they used it regularly, all right. However, Gilligan was about to find out just how much his girlfriend used the pole, which was 1.5" in diamater, made out of bamboo, and sanded down and finished with coconut oil for a smoother, better grip and movement.
As the bridge to Respect came up, which was a saxaphone solo in the middle of the song (vs. words Otis used in the original), Mary Ann got up on the pole, going up, down and around on it, rather suggestively, further indicating her newly-emerging confidence, while Gilligan sat there amazed with a wide, agape grin on his face.
When Aretha spelled out the song's name towards the end, Mary Ann lip-syched things the rest of the way. Here, more of the farm girl's fervence came out—indicating that she was becoming more comfortable with the Negro part of her identity manifesting itself with her Gilligan.
"So, how did you like that song, baby?" Mary Ann said, while sitting on her boyfriend's lap, in a more sultry type of voice which Gilligan never heard coming out of her before.
"Wow," was all Gilligan could muster. "That voice…"
"Yes, Aretha is some kind of singer" Mary Ann said, smilimg
But that is not what Gilligan quite had in mind. "No, I mean your voice…how you just said what you said." Though Gilligan had recently told Mary Ann how much she reminded him of Lena Horne when they first met…now it sounded like Miss Horne's voice was coming out of Mary Ann. It was as if Gilligan's original admission of his girlfriend reminding him of Miss Horne, in the first place, had triggered something in Mary Ann's subconsciousness which was now wanting to manifest itself out and wider into the open—at least amongst the two of them, anyway.
"Yes, honey. More of who and what I am are staring to come out now. And that includes this voice which comes out whenever I am with people I am particularly love…and those who are comfortable with all of me. And that includes you," Mary Ann admitted.
"Well, if this is part of who and what you are…then just keep talking," GIlligan admitted, with an aroused smile on his face.
A beaming Mary Ann then led her boyfriend onto the floor to slow dance to Drown In My Own Tears, which Aretha had covered on this album. Then came the title cut to the Atlantic LP, which sent Gilligan and Mary Ann into a very deep, passionite kiss which led them onto the latter's bed.
As Soul Seranade played in the background, Mary Ann and Gilligan paused their making out to speak out on this emerging turn of events. As Gilligan could not help but admire his girlfriend's newfangled confidence, Mary Ann was wondering if her newly emerging personality was becoming a bit much for him. Gilligan assured her that was not the case.
"Oh, no, not at all," Gilligan assured. "If anything, it is making things much more interesting between us. I love you, Mary Ann. I only want you to be happy. I want us to be a happy couple. Whatever comes…I am ready to face it with you, together."
"Oh, baby…I love you, too," Mary Ann said, as she kissed Gilligan once more. Don't Let Me Lose This Dream followed, particualry befitting the moment. These two agreed not to do so at all, as Mary Ann, sitting atop of her boyfriend, ran her fingers, as if she were playing the piano, all over Gilligan's torso, arousing the first mate to no end—although Mary Ann was pounding Gilligan pretty hard with her left hand, per her mock piano playing, while doing so. Baby, Baby, Baby got them both out of the bed to do a slow dance. By now, Mary Ann's sleep shirt was unbuttoned, exposing her bra and panties, while Gilligan was down to this boxer shorts.
That mood then changed with Dr. Feelgood came on the radio, when Mary Ann pushed Gilligan back onto the bed to do more teasing around the pole, going around it during key parts in the song, eventually coming to remove her sleep shirt, and ending the number back in her Willian's arms, kissing him in the process. The two of them got up and started dancing during the cover of the old Sam Cooke 1964 classic, Good Times, which had a much more direct, up-tempo pull to it than the original had. No question these two youngest castaways had so fallen hard for one another. They were not holding back anything from their love—perhaps why this new voice was coming out of Mary Ann, a voice which had vexed Skipper…but intriuged Gilligan to no end.
Mary Ann and Gilligan then slow danced to Do Right Woman, Do Right Man—a new favorite slow song to look forward from this LP, to go with Tears, the eponymus cut, Baby, and Dr. Feelgood. Mary Ann rested her head right at the area where a tuft of chest hair resided outside of Gilligan's heart on his defined chest. After the song ended, Mary Ann took a lick at that area. Gilligan was aroused.
That was a great way to go into Save Me, as Gilligan playfully chased Mary Ann around the hut, also dancinig on in the process. She had, apparently, found his ergoneous zone. It would take all kinds of super heroes, as those mentioned by Aretha in this fast-tempoed soul song (Batman, The Green Hornet, and Kato), to keep Gilligan away from Mary Ann…
…yet in one song, the entire mood would be completely changed.
The final song, A Change Is Gonna Come, was the final release to come from Sam Cooke prior to his untimely passing in 1964. Written as a paean to the Civil Rights Movement, Aretha adjusted tthe opening, with a tribute to her late, fallen friend. From there, she started in on her rendition of the song.
Mary Ann and Gilligan came together for a slow dance. Midway through the song, Mary Ann began tearing up.
Gilligan, sensing something was up, and knowing what this song was all about, particlarly how much this song actually meant to Mary Ann, took his girlfriend deeper into his arms and allowed her to let it all out if she needed to.
She did…sobbing into Gilligan's chest. From there, Gilligan, who even teared up himself, just held her in his arms, slowing their dance to a stop. As the song neared its conclusion, Queen Aretha put her own spin on the ending, as well. Mary Ann just asked Gilligan to hold her. So, he obliged, laying her down on her bed and letting her rest beside him.
The song had a rather haunting quality to it, albeit a reassuredness that a change would, indeed, come. The organ spinkled throughout the song's conclusion, which Queen Aretha ad libbed at the with a strong, gospel flavoring which got under the couple's skin.
And it was not just about the change to come for a nation and the world…not to mention a change for representation for women of song, including Ginger, in what this release signified…but a change which was happening right there on the island the young couple was standed on with five other people.
A change which was coming with the couple next door in Professor Roy's hut, where even he and Ginger were laying there, emotionally, together, also stirred and moved by this conclusion to this fine album which even had them thinking about how their lives had changed by declaring their own love for each other, emerging deeply in ways they even never, ever imagined. Both Roy and Ginger—who was quietly sobbing—had tears in their eyes at the end of this song, as well, as they listened next door.
And change which was comng between this emerging couple in the girl's hut, which also had a deep, abiding love for one another, in which the man was not so merely bumblng and inept as first thought. And in which the woman was not just merely a farm girl…but a woman of quiet depth who had more to her than met the eye.
What's more…they are each about to open up to one another in a newer, deeper, and excitingly beautiful way as the future unfolds.