Once again, for his usual wizardry with words, I send many thanks out to Aaroneous. When it comes to making edits and suggestions to my stories, he is the best. I know how long it takes to go over my mess, and I have no idea how he puts up with my repetitive mistakes. Beyond that, I am fully aware his hard work makes my words far more enjoyable reading.
Plain Jane the Chameleon
June 18
th
, 1985. It was a Tuesday.
The day started out poorly but, as time passed, it became one I will always fondly remember. It was the day I started down the path to becoming a man.
The date sticks in my head because it was the beginning of a journey which provided me with many firsts in my young life. There were two on that particular day. My first ever flight and the first time I left American soil.
My overnight Pan Am flight was not what I expected. I couldn't see a thing out of the window I had begged for. Other than the flashing lights out over the wings, there was nothing but blackness. Blackness that didn't help me with what I was leaving behind.
I was born and raised in Hoboken, New Jersey. My father worked for the city as a maintenance man and my mother had a job in the kitchen at the hospital. They met in high school, and "had to" get married. We were true blue collar. If you have ever sat on the metal hood of a car older than 1975 and listened to Bruce Springsteen belting out one of his many tunes, then you know he was singing about us.
Everyone in my family worked. It's all we ever knew. School, work, sleep, repeat. But with four kids, there wasn't any choice, so my older sister and I worked stocking shelves at the grocery store near our house. We earned $2.25 per hour, which was less than minimum wage, but no one seemed to care. It was a good family life. We never seemed to need or want anything we didn't have. Maybe it was the way we were brought up. Maybe we had more than we knew.
At sixteen, I got my license, but it didn't matter because my mother and father only had one car and adding a third and fourth driver only made it a tougher fight to get driving time. So, I hung out with my buddies who had cars.
On weekends or nights during the summer, we pooled our money, filled my friend's brother's Monte Carlo, and drove it around Time Square like we were the Kings of Hoboken. If it wasn't happening there, we drove out to the Shores. We'd cruise the beach strip all day and all night. Many times, we ended up sleeping in the car. They were good times. Times when life seemed simple and fun, but it all came to a screeching halt when I met Lydia.
I first noticed Lydia when her family moved in down the street. She never spoke to me, or any of us for that matter. She was a home body, and her mother kept her close by her side.
Lydia would watch her brother play stickball in the street, but that was it. She wasn't allowed to join us. Her mom said girls didn't play sports. We all laughed at it, because we had heard Mrs. Petrovic had played volleyball back in the old country.
So, for the longest time, Lydia looked on as a spectator, but everything changed shortly after her eighteenth birthday.
Lydia Petrovic only lived five houses down from my place. Like every family on my street, her roots went directly back to Europe. Lydia was born in the States, but her parents and her two brothers were born in Yugoslavia. Lydia was my dream girl. Soft Eastern European looks with long dark hair. She was so pretty. And when she offered to steal away my virginity, I jumped at the chance. It happened a week after my eighteenth birthday. In a fumbling affair I realized I had no idea what to do, or how to please her, but when I looked back, it came to me, neither did she.
Our first-time having sex was during the day. A day when her mother played bridge, her father worked, and her brothers were at school.
Like I said, I fumbled around. I wanted to touch and taste every inch of her, but she wasn't having any of it. Lydia wouldn't let me rub or touch her pussy. Any movement unrequested got me a slap on the hands. She barely even let me suck on her dark nipples. And when I asked her to suck me, she was so disgusted, it almost ended the day.
So, my very first sexual encounter started and ended in pretty much the same way, Lydia with her legs spread, leaning back as far as she could on the family's basement laundry table. The same table they used to fold their clothes. I aimed my cock at the tiny hairs surrounding her hole because she wouldn't do it. With a certain degree of difficulty, I pushed my cock up, breaking the barrier skin. When my push stopped, I was as far into Lydia as I could go. With a small scream from her, and a loud groan from me, I was in. It was the timeless ceremony of breaking a cherry and solidifying a relationship with the girl next door. No longer were we virgins.
From that very day, on Tuesday night's while her parents were at a Fellowship meeting and her brothers were at the gym participating in boxing classes, we practiced sex in her basement. I wouldn't say either of us got any better at it, but it felt good, and the more we did it, the longer I lasted, and lasting longer is why I ended up on a plane bound for London.
Like many good things, they have a tendency for not lasting. The more times we had sex, the more possessive Lydia became. Even though she wasn't allowed to speak to me in public, she didn't want me hanging out with any of my friends. A line was drawn in the sand. Going out with friends, equals no pussy. And at eighteen-years old, pussy is very important. It might even be a key part for survival.
So, for thirty glorious minutes, and those thirty minutes included arrival, sex and departure, I was a very happy guy. The rest of the week, I was a miserable wretch.
As school came to an end and summer break neared, I weighed my options. I continued doing what I loved on Tuesday and then sat around pouting every other day of the week. It was time to move on. Either we had to start doing more in bed, or in our case, the basement, or I was going to try and hook up with one of the Italian girls down on the shore.
In the end, the decision was made by a higher being.
It was after one of our many Tuesday nights alone when Lydia's mom came knocking on our front door.
A series of events had led to Mrs. Petrovic coming to our house. The first was Lydia being overly upset with me because I was going to be working with my father for the summer. It was more money, but it meant way more hours. Lydia explained to her mom, I was being mean to her. She told her mom she wanted to date me, and I kept putting her off. According to Lydia, her mom told her to be nicer to me.
So, in an effort to get me to change my mind, she 'nicely' offered to let me, as she put it, 'do the deed', one time and one time only, bareback.
"Just to see what it will feel like when we are married and I'm on the pill", she said.
Yeah, Lydia spoke about getting married every time we hooked up. Looking back, I think she wanted us to be more 'couple like', than what we were. But we were kids.
The marriage thing bothered me, but I also wasn't on the list of eighteen-year-old guys who would refuse an offer of no condom sex. So, one Tuesday night, horny, and stupid, with my entire body shaking like a leaf, I put my bare cock into Lydia. I surprised myself by pounding away for almost seven full minutes. Lydia appeared to be bored by the time we got to three, but she waited until the five-minute mark until she told me to hurry up. So, for the first time in my life, I filled something other than a sock, tissue or condom. It felt incredible, and it was the evening where I had learned and wanted to last longer. Bareback sex was incredible, but the feeling of joy quickly flew out the window when Lydia's mom came down the basement stairs with her arms filled with a wicker basket of laundry.
Trying to explain to my parents why their son and her daughter were to be married, was the first of two reasons Mrs. P. was downstairs. The second was the Petrovic boys were very unhappy knowing their sister might be fucking an English low life like me. And if the rumors they heard at the gym were true she might even be pregnant with the 'low life's' child. Mrs. P. told my mother her sons were were 'dying to spar with me', so they could demonstrate their boxing skills. Lydia's mom was here to warn my mother. Her sons and husband would be looking for Michael. Two to beat me. One to force me to marry his only daughter and keep her honor safe or kill me. It would be my choice.
Six days later, Lydia and her parents showed up at my house, again. Everyone seemed relieved they had been able to keep us 'young lovers', apart. But not enough where they thought a situation of this nature was to be swept under the carpet. No, the Petrovic's had a very simple solution. The easiest way to stop the rumors and to stop their daughter from having pre-marital sex was to have their daughter get married. This wasn't a request. They told my parents a date in July. It was the day the wedding would be held. By then I could save some money and get an apartment. Until then, we were to stay away from one another.
In the evening I heard my parents talking. Having two daughters of their own, they knew how the Petrovic's felt, but I will never forget hearing my father make a joke about what was happening. He told my mother it wasn't like anything would help. There was no way Lydia's cherry would "grow back". I also remember the sound of a slap and both of them laughing.
My mother and father had a heart-to-heart with me and took everything into consideration. In the end we all thought it would be best for me to maybe spend my summer as far away from Hoboken as possible, and just outside Newquay, Wales, seemed like the best place for me to be.
Lydia snuck out of her house the night before I left. She begged me not to go. She offered me sex. Then threatened me with no sex. I couldn't win.
When the dust settled, she had called me every name in the book. Most of those being not so nice. And she also promised to never speak to me again. Actually, her words, verbatim, were, 'never, ever, fucking again, you stupid asshole'.
*****
The Clarke family near the Newguay area of Wales had roots dating back a couple of centuries. In fact, my father's youngest brother still lived on a seaside farm. The same farm where my father was born. And now, twenty years after my dad left the farm, he was sending his eldest son back. Of course, as he stated, it was 'for my own good'.
