Coming of Age with Mrs. Wertz

Coming Of Age With Mrs. W

This is a work of fiction.

Moving West

I was born in a small town in Southeast Nebraska. When I was 5, my mother ran my father off. She used to say that he was a pretty good mechanic when he wasn't drinking but that wasn't often enough. My father pretty much disappeared and we never knew where he went until years later when one of his relatives sent a news clipping indicating he had been killed in an industrial accident at a paper mill in Oregon. My brother and I never knew him well and after a year or so we pretty much forgot all about him.

My mother managed to support my brother and I through our childhood by working as a cook and doing housekeeping at a few motels in the area. When I was eleven just after Christmas, she announced that we were moving to LA. She felt we would get a better education there and have more opportunity and was sick of winter in Nebraska.

She sold as much of our furniture and appliances as she could and what remained we hauled to the dump. My brother and I helped her load the 51 Pontiac Chieftain and we spent the night with her sister on their farm before leaving town. The trip west started out well but we had transmission problems in Blanding, Utah and were stranded at a little motel for 4 days until parts came in and the car could be fixed.

We arrived in LA on January 14, 1965 and lived out of the car for about a week at a county park while mom looked for an apartment and work. The apartment she found was pretty beat and not in a good neighborhood but middle school and high school were within bike range and she found work a couple of miles away at a factory that did electrical assembly work. We lived there until I went away to college.

The neighbors above us became close friends and used to watch out for my brother and I when mom was working after school and when she had to fill in on shift work.

Money was tight and I managed to get a job as a busboy at a restaurant when I started high school. I also worked for an older Hispanic man that painted houses so I learned painting and how to refinish hardwood floors. The busboy job offered part time work after school and I was able to help contribute in a modest way to paying the bills. After a year I filled in as cook for several shifts and wound up being promoted into a cook's position with a better hourly wage.

When I turned 17 we got a new manager at the restaurant and he was a jerk. I had a smart mouth and got some laughs from other employees when he screwed up the work schedule one day and he decided to get rid of me. He adjusted schedules and forced me to decide either to quit high school or the job and this was a no-brainer so I quit the job and never looked back.

About a month later a woman my mom worked with suggested I apply at a furniture store a couple of miles from our apartment where they were hiring.

Meeting Mrs. Wertz

I was interviewed by the owner, Mrs. Wertz. She explained that she owned 3 furniture stores in LA and that this store was the largest and had a warehouse associated with it. Trusted employees ran the other 2 stores with some oversight.

The interview didn't go particularly well. Mrs. Wertz was in her late 40's and had dark hair, possibly dyed, which she wore in a bun. She was a very beautiful woman, about 5'-10" with a really great figure. She dressed conservatively and wore those goofy, half lens reading glasses with horn rims and spent most of the interview looking over the lenses while she drilled in on my personal history and the details of my application.

Her nose was somewhat large, she had high cheekbones and smooth, very white skin which accented her hazel eyes and dark eyebrows and lashes. She had an unusual face. One of her eyes was slightly higher than the other and that made each half of her face look different from the other. I still have a large photograph of her and if you cover one side of her face and then switch to the other side she looks like two different people.

For some reason I have always found women with small flaws more beautiful than those that are nearly perfect. I can't remember any interview in my life where I was more intimidated and at one point when she questioned employment dates, I pretty much froze up completely. After about 10 minutes she indicated that I might not be the right applicant but if I would work for a couple hours for free with her warehouse employee, she would ask his opinion and make a decision.

The warehouse guy was named Pete and he was a big, quiet, black man. He ran the pallet jack and we unloaded an entire van load of furniture in about 45 minutes and then moved the furniture into storage locations in the warehouse.

He explained how the warehouse was organized which made sense and he quizzed me a bit and I thought I did OK. Pete cautioned me several times that I needed to be very careful and if anything got scratched Mrs. Wertz would have his ass.

I asked Pete what Mrs. Wertz's given name was and he replied, "Margaret, but she prefers Mrs. Wertz." We finished up, Pete talked with Mrs. Wertz for a few minutes and I stopped by the office to find out if any decision had been reached. Mrs. Wertz came out and looked at me and told me to go home and she would call if they were interested. Two nights later she called and told me I was hired. Pete said I was OK and that was good enough for her. I would start at minimum wage.

My job started at 5 PM and I worked until 11 PM on Monday through Friday and then a 10-hour shift on Saturday. I swept, washed floors, washed windows, unpacked furniture and later helped move furniture and set up displays. Saturdays were busy at the store and Mrs. Wertz was there most of the time and acted as the lead salesperson.

She had two male salesmen and both of them were unfriendly and rude to me. Everyone else was great though and I immediately got along well with Pete and he treated me very well. On swing shift I worked mainly alone and after a few weeks I was given the gate code and a key and was trusted to lock the place up when I finished work.

Things went OK in general, but there were some rough patches when I made mistakes and was reprimanded by Mrs. Wertz. I can remember two occasions and I think she had a formula that she followed to make these events as unpleasant as possible.

First you would be summoned to her office. She would be on the phone and you would wait outside while she finished the call or handled other business. This often took 10 to 15 minutes. Usually, Pete would come to inform me that Mrs. W wanted to see me. He took it all in stride and used to screw with me a little bit. "I don't know what you did this time but the queen seems to be pissed off."

When she was off the phone, she would call me in, and direct me to a chair opposite her desk. She would light a cigarette and observe me for a minute over the reading glasses without saying anything. My anxiety level would rise during this preliminary softening up phase and it was necessary to make a conscious effort to control my natural tendency to fidget.

After several minutes of silence, she would begin by informing me that I was very bright, talented and had a lot of potential. Most of her other employees had limitations but she felt I had good character and if I worked hard and started thinking I might make something of myself. This would be followed by a review of my screwup and the potential impact to the company. Each step that I made, each decision, would be analyzed in depth and criticized. In the end, I would submit, yes, I was a fool. I was sorry, I would do better in the future. Mrs. Wertz hoped so and dismissed me.

Even though Mrs. Wertz could be harsh I was beginning to like her. One day while making deliveries, Pete got pulled over by the LA cops while driving the furniture truck. He was charged with speeding. From Pete's account the cop was not even in a position to know how fast he was driving since he turned in behind him at an intersection with his lights flashing. I overhead Mrs. Wertz describe the charge as a DWB to one of the salesmen who thought the whole thing was pretty funny. When I asked the accountant about this, she explained that the charge was "driving while black." Mrs. W hired an attorney and the speeding charge was dropped.

About this time, I was told that Mr. Wertz was in the California legislature and was a powerful local politician. I met him when he came by the store. He was tall, good looking and tanned but took no real interest in the store or the employees. I took an immediate dislike to him.

I worked for Mrs. Wertz for a year and was asked to help Pete with customer deliveries and restocking the other stores from the warehouse. In time I received several pay raises. I was also doing well in high school and had been taken under the wing of the best math teacher at the school.

He got me interested in computer programming and I was able to gain some experience using Fortran. The high school had a keypunch machine and the assignments he gave me were submitted on punch cards. He would pass them to a technician at the nearby community college which was linked to state mainframes which were shared by various California universities.

In my sophomore year of high school, I became interested in jazz and started to play stand up and electric bass. The school had a great music teacher and he introduced me to Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Art Tatum, Art Blakley and a bunch of great blues artists. With money saved from working at the furniture store during my senior year I bought a Fender Jazz Bass and a Bassman amp that I still own.

The Summer House

On my 18

th

birthday Mrs. W called me to her office where we were joined by her accountant. She wished me happy birthday and there was a poppy seed cupcake from the local bakery on the desk with a candle. Mrs. W lit the candle and they sang happy birthday to me. I was surprised, they both had good voices. Mrs. W watched while I ate the cup cake and then she sent the accountant to bring back some tax forms that needed to be filed. Mrs. W told me that I was doing well and she was glad I had decided to work for her.

A few days later Mrs. Wertz called me into her office and asked me to shut the door. She told me she was aware of my college plans and interest in Computer Science and she felt it was a very smart move. She also indicated a willingness to give me as many work hours as I wanted knowing that my living expenses would be high in Berkley and she wanted me to succeed there.

Mrs. Wertz explained that she had a summer house east of the Sierra's that needed a lot of work. She planned to have me work there, unsupervised for a month to build a rock wall and paint the house. She had hired a kid to help at the warehouse for the summer. If I was interested and my mother didn't object, she would pay me my normal hourly wage and overtime for any work over 40 hours per week. My mother of course thought it was fine and we planned the work for the month of July.

We left LA at 6 AM on a perfect Sunday. There had been heavy rain on Saturday and the air was cool with excellent visibility and a perfectly clear sky. Mrs. Wertz drove her Cadillac and smoked while I took in the sights. Initially we climbed out of the LA basin and into the desert passing Mojave and then finally drew abreast of Mt. Whitney which was just spectacular.

We had time to time to talk and Mrs. Wertz began asking me about high school, the classes I had taken and what I liked and disliked. I became animated as I described my favorite and least favorite instructors and classes. We also talked about music. She liked jazz and blues and was knowledgeable. She loved Ella Fitzgerald and Louie Armstrong.

She then discreetly asked me whether I was dating anyone and I told her about a girl named Julie. We had dated for 2 years in high school. We had just broken up since she was headed to school on the east coast and we both felt it would be awkward to maintain a long-distance relationship. Mrs. W raised her eyebrows and then nodded her head and commented that she was happy we had talked things through and parted without bitterness.

I then asked her about her past and she opened up a bit. She had a PhD degree in history from the University of Connecticut. After graduation she took a job with the state and was trained as a financial analyst. She enjoyed the work but found the atmosphere in the office socially stifling. She had to dress very conservatively and for a number of years she worked for a former nun who was a bitter and unpleasant woman.

After 10 years working for the state of Connecticut she quit and for a few years worked as a cocktail waitress. The job paid poorly but she got good tips and she got along with the other staff and most of the customers. She had invested her savings from the state job and she was disciplined about not spending any of her savings.

She explained that she was a tightwad at heart unless she was spending someone else's money. Money was tight while she was waitressing and she barely scraped by paying her bills and rent for a run-down apartment in a rough part of Hartford near the old industrial district.

She met Mr. Wertz one night at the bar she worked at. They married after dating for more than a year and then moved to California. Her husband was named Mark and his parents were quite wealthy. He had been working in marketing and was making decent money.

After the move he and some friends began speculating in real estate and over time he made a killing. He ran for the California legislature and was elected. The early years of their marriage were wonderful. They sailed a good bit on his 30' catamaran and traveled extensively in Mexico and made trips to Portugal and France when the legislature was not in session.

Gradually, the relationship lost steam and then soured. 10 years prior she had decided to start the furniture business and one of Mr. W's well-connected business associates had supplied the seed capital. The business had been very successful but required huge effort on her part and over time Mark and her had gradually drifted apart.

Now she was primarily ornamental as his "trophy" wife at social and political events. She was quiet for a few minutes and then she explained that Mark and her lived more or less separate lives and shared their house. Mr. W had no interest in the furniture business and it was solely in her name.

Mark was out of town frequently up in Sacramento or conducting business in California or Nevada where he had other investments.

We reached the summer house at about 5 PM.

The house was accessed from a forest service road via a 1/2-mile gravel road and was sited at about 5,500 ft elevation. It was a Victorian 2 story, built in 1910 on a foundation made of large quarried stones. The front of the house faced east with a commanding view of the Inyo range on the opposite side of the valley.

It had utility power but no phone and had been unoccupied for over 4 years when the prior owner died. Above the house was 200 acres of pasture which abutted the national forest. At one time the house and adjoining barn had been part of a working beef operation with over 2000 acres of land but that was all gone now.

The house was generally sound with a good metal roof but needed some windows replaced and was sorely in need of paint. Access had originally been via a driveway that was routed up a very steep grade near the house. Mrs. W hired a local contractor with a Cat to reroute the driveway but this necessitated cutting a bank immediately in front of the house and this is where she wanted me to build a rock wall.

The wall would need to be about 120' long and was 6' tall at the highest point. A large quantity of rock had been delivered prior to our arrival and was placed in a series of piles off the driveway to the north.

Mrs. W spent 20 minutes going over the work she had in mind and then we unpacked the car and spent most of the evening cleaning the interior and getting the house habitable again. I was placed in a room at the north end of the house on the 2nd floor. Mrs. Wertz indicated that this room tended to stay fairly cool during the day due to the placement of the windows and usually got a nice breeze in the evenings.

She occupied a much larger bedroom on the opposite side of the house.

A bathroom with a claw foot tub with shower had been added to the house next to my room by the last owner. The house was pleasant and I was looking forward to being on my own for the next 3 weeks.

In the morning Mrs. Wertz lined out the work she wanted me to do. She showed me the ladders, brackets and scaffolding that I was to use in painting the upper story and reviewed what she expected in terms of scraping and painting.

We also installed a new battery in a beat-up pickup truck in the barn and after a lot of screwing around got it started. She left for LA indicating she would be back on the following Saturday night.

I had a great week. I would get up at first light, eat a big breakfast and then start the rock work. I was working mainly in shorts and tennis shoes since it got hot early and didn't cool off until dark. At noon I would eat lunch, take a 1-hour nap and then paint, when possible, on the shady side of the house until about 7 PM and have a shower and dinner.

The week flew by and I made good progress. On Friday, at about 3 PM I was surprised when Mrs. W drove up while I was painting.

Her hair was down and she was wearing black pedal pusher pants and a white blouse and had sunglasses on. She walked around the house and examined the rock wall and was very complimentary about the work I had completed.

I was a little uncomfortable about my appearance and offered to go inside and get a tee shirt. Mrs. Wertz lowered her sunglasses, looked me up and down and shook her head from side to side. She said, "Did you get that tan up here? You're beginning to look like a lifeguard." I helped her move groceries into the house and she suggested I knock off early, shower and help her make dinner.

I took a nice hot shower to clean up, turned off the water and pulled back the shower curtains and got the shock of my life. Mrs. Wertz was standing next to the tub with a towel in her hand wearing a black satin dressing gown.

The gown had a high belt and the front flaps were drawn together in way that confined and supported her bosom. On display were 4 inches of the whitest, softest, cleavage imaginable. She handed me the towel and told me to stay right where I was. I quickly dried myself and wrapped the towel around my waist.

She returned with another towel in her left hand. She dropped the folded towel onto the linoleum next to the tub and kneeled at the edge of the tub. She looked up at me and pulled my towel away and dropped it next to the tub.

At this point Mrs. W reached out with her right hand and began to gently smear a large blob of petroleum jelly on the top of the head and shaft of my stiffening cock. When the shaft was sufficiently erect to have lifted off my balls, she began to work the jelly lower to coat the underside of my dick.

I have a larger than average cock. When erect it is about 8 inches long and is quite thick. The head is large and just behind the head the diameter decreases so that the head has a distinct mushroom appearance.

The shaft has large veins which grow prominent when it is fully erect. From the point behind the head the shaft increases in size to match the head at the midpoint. This girth continues back to the base of my penis.

She only touched my cock with her right hand. She gradually coated my entire cock with the petrolatum and very gently stroked up and down with her index and middle fingers on the top of my cock and her thumb on the bottom. My cock was now fully erect.