Stalled: The First Story of Millie and Jesse
The following is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real people, places, or events is purely coincidental. No persons under the age of 18 are depicted as engaging in sexual activity. Copyright 2011, by ErosArtist. All rights reserved.
They stood beside the car in the late afternoon sun, cool air picking at their skin. Jesse was embarrassed; even a bit angry, but Millie thought it was funny. In fact, she had burst out laughing when Jesse told her why the car had stalled.
"Oh yeah, right! I didn't think guys really tried that," she said and laughed harder.
Jesse sulked.
"Look, I'm not joking. Seriously. We're out of gas. Check for yourself."
Millie laughed more, but Jesse's expression didn't change.
Finally, he turned to her and said, "Look, stay here. I'll walk for help."
Millie tensed.
"What?" she asked. "What do you mean 'walk for help'?"
Jesse held his cell phone up.
"No signal. Gotta walk," he said, turning away.
"Jesus Christ!" Millie thought. "Wait!" she yelled. "Where are you going? What do...you mean you're freakin' serious? Oh my god. I don't believe this. Damn Jesse, why'd you let this happen?"
She looked around.
"Where the hell are we anyway?"
Jesse kicked at gravel on the road side and shrugged. He walked back to her, and pulled her close, kissing her forehead softly. Millie stood stiffly.
"We're a long way from anywhere babe," he finally said.
She looked up at him.
"Well I don't want you to leave me here alone. I'll check my phone," she said, going to the passenger door and reaching into the open window for her purse. Her eyes squinted at the small screen. No signal. She tossed it back into the bag.
"So what do we do?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest, "wait for somebody to come along?"
"Yeah" Jesse said, wrapping her in a warm embrace, "if you don't want to me to walk, we're gonna have to wait. Or we can walk together."
Her fingertip traced the line of his chin, the slight stubble of his beard tickling her.
"No," she said. "Maybe now we can finally be alone." She sounded exasperated.
"Besides," she continued, "I can't walk out here in these shoes."
Jesse's eyes cut to the delicate flats she wore. He smiled.
"Ok. But nobody's likely to head this way for a while," he said.
Her eyes widened. "Exactly how long is a 'while'?"
He smiled again. "You wanted a quite place, didn't you?"
"Yeah," Millie said, pushing him away, "I did. But some prior planning on your part would've been nice."
Jesse's face dropped. He kicked at the rocks again.
"I'm sorry I got us stuck," He said.
Millie forced a heavy sigh.
"You didn't mean to," she said. "I'm just a little freaked, that's all."
Millie turned to look down the road, once again drawing her arms close around her. Jesse pulled his sweater over his head and draped it over her shoulders.
"Thank you," she said, as he kissed her cheek lightly.
This wasn't what Millie had had in mind.
She packed a picnic lunch for them and suggested they go somewhere out of the way; somewhere beautiful and quiet. Jesse brought the wine; a wonderful deep and dark Burgundy.
Millie wanted to give herself to him that afternoon. She wanted to show him the woman she had become, and make love to him under the sun and sky.
But of course, he hadn't known that.
"If he had,' she thought, 'he would have put gas in the friggin' car."
Jesse said he knew just where they should go. It was definitely out of the way and it was beautiful; a clear blue mountain lake with meadows of wildflowers, and tall stands of pines that whispered in the breeze. The problem was that others thought it was a beautiful place too.
A lot of others.
They finally found a spot to spread their blanket in relative peace. Millie looked around in frustration at the other couples and families with children nearby. A little girl caught her eye, smiling and waving. Millie waved back, but didn't smile.
Damn it all. Maybe tonight.
Sensing her disappointment, though not understanding why, Jesse decided to take a less traveled, more scenic route home, hopeful to find some place pretty and quiet to stop to be alone with her.
When the gas tank ran empty, he panicked inside.
"Way to screw up your second date," he thought.
But he had been preoccupied with thoughts of Millie's emerald green eyes and was eager to see her again. He never noticed the gas gauge was at empty before they left town. They were lucky to have made it as far as they did.
Now they were stuck here on this very pretty, but very deserted road, surrounded by tall pines glowing in the fading light of the setting sun. The sun's rays cut a golden swath through the tress, warming Millie's porcelain skin softly.
Millie looked at Jesse, his back to her. He was still trying to get his cell phone to find a signal.
"Crap!" he muttered and shifted his weight.
Millie smiled softly. Had he planned this? No, she decided. He was being honest.
She pulled his sweater closer around her, smelling him on it.
And he was being sweet. Jesse had always been sweet to her.
Although they attended the same high school, Millie didn't know him then the way she did now.
Jesse had been a jock and Millie hated jocks.
To her, jocks were jerks, arrogant asses, all. She smirked.
But, she remembered, Jesse had always been nice.
And she remembered those blue eyes, those brilliant, sapphire blue eyes.
Millie's smirk softened to a smile.
Jesse had a nice ass too, the best boy butt in school. All the girls loved his ass and eyes.
Millie had been an awkward teenage girl, bullied for most of her childhood because of her red hair and pale skin. She had been the only redhead in her school. Her complexion was, in her own words, 'ghostly pale.'
She had been fearfully shy.
Her own mother called her a 'late blooming wallflower.' Her father said she 'had a face like a homemade pie.'
School in general was hell for Millie, but gym class was the absolute worst.
She hated having to undress in the locker room.
The other girl's bodies were tanned and supple. She was pudgy. Chubby.
And then there were her breasts, uneven in development. The left one pushed forward while the right seemed to forever remain a small hard knot. The areola around her nipples puffed, always seeming angry and reddened.
Millie hated her body. And gym class equated to hell within hell.
When Millie was naked, the other girls would cover their eyes and taunt her.
"We're going snow blind, snow blind!" they would chant.
Once, she opened her locker to find an obviously over sized bra inside. In one cup was a cantaloupe. In the other was a grape. Pinned to it was a note that said "custom made for the snow white weird tit bitch."
Millie spent her high school years doing as little as possible to draw attention to herself.
Her few friends were her safety net. They were outcasts themselves just as she was; geeks and nerds. She didn't know Jesse existed until her junior year.
Millie tried to avoid the jocks but it wasn't always possible. When they would pass her in the hall, often bodily shoving her aside, they called her names like 'flamed brain.'
Once, one of them pulled her hair so hard a handful of strands were pulled away from her scalp.
Millie screamed in pain. Other students stopped and stared as she clutched her head, the books and other things she was carrying strewn about the floor.
As she saw the red orange strands of her hair settle to the floor around her, she began to sob uncontrollably.
She ran crying to the principal's office where she was told to grow up. to Tough it out.
"Sometimes," the school nurse told her, "life can hurt."
But Jesse behaved differently.
"Just ignore them," he once whispered as he helped her steady herself after being shoved into a bank of lockers.
Their class graduated three years ago.
Millie grew into a pretty young woman, and now at 21, that portion of her life along with most of the people that existed within it, she left in the past.
Millie went to a local community college; Jesse to work in construction.
College was a new environment with new faces and opportunities; a perfect place for her to reinvent herself. Millie also discovered men; or more accurately, men discovered her.
She experienced a rapid succession of boyfriends, none of them lasting more than four or five dates before they stopped calling or seemed to forget she existed. The dates were typically dinner; maybe some dancing or the occasional movie or concert.
Millie would let the college boys paw at her and by the third or fourth date, blowjobs and handjobs were routine.
They would fumble with her breasts and put their hands in her panties.
They were clumsy and all seemed very immature, behaving as juveniles.
Millie quickly grew bored with them.
They were so predictable.
Still, she liked their attention. Millie didn't have real sex with any of them, but it wasn't as if she was in college and still a virgin.
She had lost that while in high school, while she was a nerdy girl to a nerdy boy. They did it in his older brother's bed while his family was away.
'Tossed it away,' she would think. The boy was careless and like her, inexperienced.
If it hadn't hurt it wouldn't have even been memorable.
Since, Millie had only slept with one man and that had been a drunken one night stand. When she woke the following morning, her head split with a hangover, the hotel room stunk of vomit and piss. The guy, she never knew his name, was gone from their bed.
No note, no anything.
And the bastard took a trophy. Her bra and panties were gone.
Millie felt no urgency for similar experiences.
She had taken a break from college, not wanting to borrow more student loans and accepted a job in a civil engineering office as the office manager. It was a small firm, just her and the engineers, two older men that were brothers. They were always kind to her and the pay was good. She had been able to get her own apartment and a car.
It wasn't work that thrilled her, but as long as she did her job, the brothers left her alone and allowed her to work on her own timetable, coming and going as she pleased.
By chance, Millie and Jesse met again just before the Labor Day holiday weekend, while standing in line at the bank. She didn't remember him at first, but he did her.
A distantly familiar voice said "wow! Is that you, Millie? Millie Johnston? Oh my god. How are you?"
She stared at him blankly for a moment. Then his blue eyes jolted her.
"Jesse Bowen? Oh my god, you're kidding me!"
They embraced across the velvet ropes. It was Jesse's turn at the counter. As he walked towards the teller, her memory was validated.
