Author's Note:
American Ream is intended to be an episodic telling of the misadventures of Frankie Heck, a middle aged single mother trying to survive in a brutal economy. The episodes will stand alone although they will move the narrative forward a bit, more or less like a TV season.
There will be sex, but there will also be story, some of it even a bit funny, I hope.
You don't have to be familiar with the American TV series "The Middle" to follow the story.
*****
AMERICAN REAM
Ream as in: to enlarge a hole by use of a reamer, to extract the juice from; beat, bilk, bugger, diddle, gyp, impale, penetrate, screw, sodomize, cheat. Ya, it means all those things; (I looked that up on the internet at the library). And ya, pretty much all of those things happened to me over the next year of my life.
Episode 1: Frankie Fingers
Out here in the middle very strange things can happen to you right out of the clear blue morning sky...
MY WORST NIGHTMARE
So there I was, lost, all alone, drenched in sweat, wearing a ridiculous home-made Super Woman costume that was stuck to me like a second skin, well, stuck to my spanx like a third skin I guess you'd say; no phone service, not a car in sight, dying of hunger and thirst; and this is like ten-thirty in the morning. It was that kind of a day, believe me.
Anyway, I hadn't had a thing to eat all day, nothing, it's important that you understand that. Then I saw this Little Betty Twinkie laying on the road, crushed, but still in the wrapper. I looked around; I was surrounded by miles of empty farm fields, so of course I didn't see anybody. So God help, me I dropped to my knees on the hot, dusty, pavement, ripped open the package and started shoveling it into my mouth. It was pretty humiliating, but if you knew me, you wouldn't find it too surprising.
Anyways, there I was on my knees, cream filling splattered around my mouth like cum, and I heard the noise, a deep, angry rumble, and before I can even mumble the word "bikers" they were already around the bend and bearing right down on me fast.
I froze; I'm sure this is every woman's secret nightmare; to get kidnapped by a by a bunch of hairy, nasty bikers and get gang banged half to death. I certainly had thought about it a lot... worried about it, I mean.
I couldn't move, my heart was thumping in my chest and I couldn't breathe. They spotted me of course, with my crazy bright red leotard and stupid yellow rubber boots, and they quickly started to form a circle around me. I wiped some of the Twinkie off of my mouth and managed to stand on my wobbly legs hoping I could make a run for it, but by then they had me completely surrounded, their bikes were shutting down and some of them were even getting off. There must have been twenty of them, the air was full of the smell of gasoline, leather and manly sweat. I'm usually pretty plucky, but when I saw all the beards, and tattoos, and heavy boots all around me, I just kinda moaned and sank to my knees. There was no possibility of a fight; I'm five foot two, and light, not to mention forty-one years old and out of shape. I couldn't run, and there was nooooo hope that anyone would happen along to save me; all I could do was play the pathetic card and hope they would have pity on me - not much of a plan.
Crouching down in a cowardly submissive pose I found that the smell of my own sweat was pretty fierce too, maybe that would turn them off, I thought. Ya, I had a lot to learn about bikers. The engines were all stopped, and it became so quiet I could hear the crunch of the boots of the guy approaching me. I lifted my head up to look at him, my lips trembling, eyes swimming in tears, and saw him looming over me, just a big tower of jeans and leather, beard, and a rough, merciless face hidden behind aviator glasses.
It just occurred to me that maybe you might have some questions about how an ordinary, middle aged, middle-class (at least I used to think I was) mother got herself into such a crazy and dangerous situation. Let me back up a bit...
My name is Frankie Heck. I'm a forty-one year old, recently divorced (after sixteen god dammed years of marriage) mother of three, living in Orson Indiana. If you can call it living; the "correction" of 2008 put the boots to my lifestyle, my marriage, and my whole faith in the American Dream.
Dream, ha! American Ream is more like it. Ream as in: to enlarge a hole by use of a reamer, to extract the juice from; beat, bilk, bugger, diddle, gyp, impale, penetrate, screw, sodomize, cheat. Ya, it means all those things; (I looked that up on the internet at the library). And ya, pretty much all of them happened to me over the next year of my life.
I had played by the rules all my life, went to school, raised my kids, paid my taxes, obeyed the law, gave to charity, everything I was supposed to do to achieve the American Dream; well instead I got the American Ream so hard I can hardly walk straight any more. I won't bother you with the details of my financial woes, but you can trust me on this, I'm flat busted broke. My shitty house is underwater, all of my credit cards, store cards and debits cards have been cut up, I probably couldn't even borrow a nickel from a loan shark right about now.
Everybody was always saying to me, "Hey Frankie, so much shit happens to you, you should write a book," ya, people kept saying that to me so I decided to give it a try. What people don't know, or weren't telling me, was that writing is hard work! Now, I'm not really a hard-work kind of person; sure I can go in spurts when I have to, but I'm not cut out for anything that takes commitment and dedication, you know - like writing a book.
So why am I writing this now? First of all, 2009 was a bat shit crazy year. There was weird shit, and funny shit, and dirty shit... I don't mean dirty like, well shit dirty... okay maybe I shouldn't use that word. There was so much obscene, outrageous, should-never-happen-to-a-middle-aged-mother in Middle America stuff that happened to me that I almost feel... obliged to write it down. It's like, if this can happen to me, Frankie Heck, in the heartland of America, then maybe it says something about America, or maybe it just says something about me; you decide. And the second reason is that I am so broke that I'm even willing to try something hard if it might make a buck. Of course I won't write it all at once, just one freaky thing or another kinda strung together with longer running stuff...well you know what I mean.
To sum up; I'm broke, desperate, weird shit happens to me all the time, and I'm gonna tell you about it if you want to bother to read on. Thank You.
After those idiots in Washington let those fat cats on Wall Street nuke the economy, man, there was no work at all out there for a newly single mother trying to raise two of her three kids (the other one went with his dad, but that's another story), not even minimum wage, shit jobs, nothing; so I figured I was lucky when I landed a job as a car salesperson at Orson's only car lot, Ellert's Motors. Well think again Frankie; without commission the job paid less than minimum wage, and had no benefits of any kind. It's not too bad if you can sell a car, but that was something I hadn't been able to do in the three month's that I'd been there, which was why I was in the owner's office getting reamed out (verbally) on the day that my life really started to come apart.
Old man Ellert chewed out my ass, telling me in no uncertain terms that he was going to fire me if I didn't sell a car by the end of the month. Like I needed any more pressure than I already had; I was just a couple bad breaks from having my kids taken by child services and landing my own sorry ass in some overcrowded women's shelter.
Now, I'm what people call "plucky", but I was feeling close to despair when suddenly there was a ray of hope; I'm not sure if that's a message to "never give up," or just a demonstration that the universe likes to fuck with me. Anyway, when I came out of the old man's office and was striding, tight faced towards the lot, I heard a man call out my name. It stopped me in my tracks because the voice actually sounded happy, not angry or disappointed or whiney.
"Hey Frankie, I heard you were working here; long time no see," he said. I didn't say he sounded original, just happy.
I turned around and there was Stevie Elhert, Mr Elhert's only son, and an old high school classmate of mine. He was looking pretty good for his age, he was only a year younger than me, but he still had all of his light brown hair, and his slightly weathered face was helped out by a deep, healthy looking tan. He was casually but, at least to my eyes, expensively dressed with some kind of tan, soft material pants and an open-necked dress shirt. His blue eyes were bright, and his straight teeth were brilliantly white as he walked up to me.
I was going to put out my hand, but he enfolded me in a hug which took me completely by surprise; "It's good to see you Frankie," he said sincerely. He squeezed me and stepped back to look at me from arm's length.
"Hey Stevie," I said blushing a little, it had been ages since anyone had said a nice word to me.
STEVIE
Stevie hadn't been so good looking in high school, in fact he'd been awkward and a little twitchy on account of his loud mouthed father. A lot of kids made fun of him, but I was always nice to him, not Frankie Fingers nice, (were gonna get to that, don't worry) but friendly and polite. He had gone off to University in Chicago and then we heard that he'd had a falling out with his dad and had gone to Arizona or Mexico or something to start his own business. We also heard that he was married, but I didn't see any ring on his finger, and no tan lines there either. Sure I looked right away, you better believe I'm exploring every option these days, no matter how much of a long shot they might be.
"Wow, I didn't know you were back in town," I said.
"Just been back a couple of days," he replied, and then shook his head in what appeared real admiration; "You're looking good Frankie; you've really kept in shape," he said.
"Oh pleeeeese," I replied dismissively.
Because this had started out to be just another day, of course I had rushed out the door in a mess, with my hair barely presentable and no makeup on. Probably what was grabbing his attention was my clothes. I'm still in pretty good shape, but I've been putting on weight lately, especially since Mike left, fortunately it's going mostly to my boobs and hips, and not so much to my stomach or face.
The thing is, because I'm so broke I haven't bought any new clothes in almost a year, so the ones I do wear are hugging me pretty tight. I mean, I've gone up a full bra size to 38C, but I haven't been able to buy any new bras, so I'm kinda spilling out everywhere; it's uncomfortable, but men kinda like that sort of thing. I was wearing a purple blouse with the top three buttons undone, not because I was trying to impress anybody, but because I couldn't get them done up; I had put a purple sweater on over top of the blouse and buttoned it higher, but the top button on that kept popping open too, and the next one down was so tight that there was a gaping pull right at mid-breast. I had on a tan skirt that was supposed to be just above the knee, but because it was pulled so tightly across my hips it rode up a couple of inches higher; I had on nude pantyhose that didn't have any runs, at least not below mid-thigh.
"Come on, talk to me for a sec,' he said nodding his head towards the coffee area and taking me gently by the upper arm. I felt an immediate flush; it feels nice to be complimented, even if the reason is that your clothes didn't fit. I looked over my shoulder and saw Mr Elhert standing in the doorway of his office scowling at us, and although that was a little unnerving, it also gave me a kind of thrill as well.
I looked up at Stevie as we walked, he's about five-eight, and asked sweetly; "Are you going to be in town long, Stevie?"
A couple of the salesmen, they're all men except me, were standing by the coffee machine; they smiled at Stevie like brown-nosers, but he must have given them a look or something, because they quickly moved away.
