In honor and memory of one of Literotica's great citizens, an exemplar of intelligent prose, common sense, decency and fair minded discussion.
Oggbashan, a Lit Immortal
.
[Finding Uncle Saul's journal tucked away in a trunk in his attic shouldn't have been a surprise. I didn't even know he kept a memory book, although he was the observant, introverted type. He had lived the last five years of his life in Wellfleet, on Cape Cod. My father's brother hated the warm months that entailed tourists and crowded beaches, so he mostly played hermit for the summer, but the rest of the season it was grand. He wrote, took long walks on deserted beaches, used his high-end camera for nature photographs, and as far as I could tell, he was happy.
Saul was an attentive, if sometimes distracted, uncle. My father always said Saul lived in his head too much. But Uncle Saul always made a point to visit on the occasion of every niece or nephew's eighth birthday, flying out from where he'd settled in San Diego, when he would make a gift of a pen knife, and spend a week instructing you on the fine points of blade care, safety, whittling techniques. I don't know why that birthday was significant for him, but he never missed one of ours, and a knife was given to male or female alike. I remember being thrilled with mine, and the prospect of a special visit from him.
But he died in May, and I was charged, with a couple other family members, to go through his effects, get the house ready to sell, do mop up after a death, none of which is ever anyone's favorite activity.
The journal was a sporadic mix of personal reminisces, and mostly relayed experiences as unconnected events. The overall effect was a mosaic portrait of the man. Given the subject matter for this entry and the level of detail involved, I cannot believe it is not true—he was not one to embellish. But of course now I harbor a family secret. I doubt I will ever reveal it to the others. I've saved the journal to share with the family but have carefully, so no one will notice, removed the pages containing this particular incident.
I've done the lightest of edits and put a couple explanatory notes in square brackets. Not everyone is Jewish.
Dated October 1978, several years after the event in question.]
****
Mitzi's request could hardly have been more surprising. It was just after Pesach [Passover], in April 1970, and I hadn't seen the whole family for over a year. I had finished my year of duty in an infantry platoon in Vietnam, had home leave for two weeks before heading down to Fort Dix and my last six months of service.
I was relieved to have come home in one piece, and my chances of surviving the next several months in New Jersey were far greater than crouching at the edge of a tropical rice paddy and getting shot at. No one talked about the war, and if I was in uniform, people avoided me like the plague. Even without the clothes, my military haircut at that time, and probably my demeanor, stood out and marked me wherever I was about. Except for family time, being stateside tended to be an uncomfortable experience.
We were in the old family vacation home in Harwichport [on the Cape], had finished prayers and a good meal, and I was luxuriating in the presence of everyone. My parents and my brother Ben, along with Aunt Rachel and her husband David Goldschmidt, with their two daughters Mitzi and Wendy, who was just finishing high school and thinking ahead to college in Boston. Uncle Isaac and family weren't there that year, cannot remember why. The Wallenstein family.
Mitzi had taken me aside on an after dinner walk in the neighborhood. It was warm, the crickets out buzzing away. Mitzi was the most gregarious of the cousins, inevitably cheerful and engaging. Her dark hair was back in a pony tail, her long dress, more formal than usual, elegant and flowing.
"I have a rather large favor to ask."
This, of course, is rarely an opening line that is welcome. What could she (or they?) want of me? I was in the army, had no money, wasn't even home but for another couple days before getting shipped down to Fort Dix.
I looked at her, probably with some alarm.
"It's Wendy."
I tried to think what sort of favor might be involved. What trouble could Wendy possibly have? I couldn't imagine her doing drugs, or that she had difficulties of any sort. Studious, polite, loyal. If you wanted your ideal, rule-abiding, cautious sister, daughter, family member, you couldn't do any better than Wendy. And this was her older sister asking.
"What about?" I was out of ideas.
"Guys."
"Okay, guy trouble." I laughed. This at least made sense.
"She have an unfortunate boyfriend?"
"No, that's exactly the point."
"Alright, no boyfriend. So?"
"It's a big deal, Saul."
"Mitzi, I think you went eighty plus percent of high school without a boyfriend if I recall correctly. I don't see anything unusual about that."
Mitzi hesitated. "Okay, you know she turned eighteen in January."
I laughed again. This was an old joke in the family. Wendy was born at twenty minutes past midnight on the First of January, 1952. First baby of the year in our town, a nice little record in the newspaper, a footnote to a birth. But the joke was that her father, David Goldschmidt, esteemed Certified Public Acountant, got screwed big time. He still groused about it. If Wendy had been born an hour earlier on December 30th, her father would have been able to deduct her as a dependent for tax purposes for the whole year before. As it was, he missed out on an entire year of tax benefits.
"Sure. Turned eighteen, no problem there."
Mitzi hesitated again. "She hasn't had a single boyfriend."
"Okay. But she's going off to college, I cannot imagine she'll go more than a couple months at Tufts before she pairs up with someone. Or at least has the opportunity to do so."
Mitzi shook her head. "You don't understand some of the complications of women-folk, Saul. We get worked up over guys. Over our looks, how we appear to others, whether we're attractive, all sorts of stuff."
This, so far, was not news to me.
Mitzi went on. "Wendy, as you well know, is not
ay sheine maidele
[a handsome girl]."
This was true. Wendy was short, barely over five feet. Chubby enough to the point of being teased. Wide hips, almost no waist, the big flat Ashkenazi ass. Wire-rimmed glasses, curly, untamable hair that stood out as wide as it was tall, making her resemble a hedgehog. Almost a Jewish Afro.
And the nose. The long protruding nose of our ancestors. But her broad face was appealing, a sharp chin, her eyes lively if shy.
None of this is what I said though.
"On outside appearance? Right. On inside qualities, she's right up there with the best of them."
"You are correct about college, Saul. All it will take is a suitable illegal keg party and someone will be willing to take the plunge with her. But here's the rub."
I shrugged. "Okay?"
"No boyfriend, no kisses, no breasts being fondled, no
sthupping.
Understand?"
She seemed exasperated, as if I was missing something, although I was beginning to get a bad feeling about the conversation.
"Sure. Virginity. And like I said, all of this can be handled nicely in the first couple months of college freedom."
"That's exactly it. But here's the thing. She would like to have had some experience with male," she hesitated, like reaching for the right word, "desire, before that happens. Doesn't want the first time to be a complete surprise."
Now I found myself distinctly uncomfortable.
"So what I am supposed to do, Mitzi? You want for me to procure for her? Find one of my buddies, which I remind you there are none in town at the moment, for a mercy fuck?" I felt annoyance creep into my words.
Mitzi put her hand on my shoulder. "No. You." I flinched.
"Me? You're nuts, Mitzi. This is your sister. My cousin!"
"It would mean the world, Saul. Absolutely the world."
I shook my head. "No way."
"Look at it this way. One time. With someone she trusts. With someone who will be good to her, treat her with respect. Can you say that about all first
sthups
?"
She was right on that score. Certainly for me. And despite a number of conversations, with both male and female friends, almost nobody, if they were honest, raved about their first copulation. It was the later ones that made the headlines.
We talked a little more. I was adamant. No interest. Mitzi tried every argument and angle she could think of.
The whole thing went south the moment I thought about putting my penis up Wendy's
shmundie
. I could not imagine doing so. Or even getting an erection up for her at all, to tell the truth.
We had wandered back to the house. Mitzi paused at the foot of the stairs up to the porch.
"Will you at least promise me to think about this, Saul? Sleep on it for a night?"
I gave her my promise, most reluctantly.
And I did not sleep well that night.
You can ask my family, or anyone really, and they will tell you I am generally more than ready and willing to do a mitzvah, for anyone, but no one had ever asked for this sort of "good deed" before.
By great mental effort I could almost wrap my head around the benefits of honoring the request, to agree to the favor in principle. Until I got to the part about putting my erection inside of Wendy. This, of course, is primal. When confronted by this sort of thing for most of us, a million different thoughts raise their stubby little hands and cry "No!"
Wendy was my cousin. I was just two years older than her, we had played together growing up. I remembered pushing her in a swing when she was three. She wasn't quite the little sister who tagged along, it was but close enough when our families got together.
But Mitzi was right, Wendy's years had led to adulthood, a young woman now at the cusp of a new chapter, college coming, freedoms, independence.
[Enclosed in the journal here is a family photo from maybe the year before in front of the Harwichport house. The whole extended family. The Wallenstein siblings in the center: my grandparents Irv and Mira, his brother Isaac and sister Rachel. Progeny clustered around each sibling: Isaac and Ruth's four, Saul off to the right, looking trim and wiry, with a Boston Red Sox baseball hat on, with my father Ben next to him. Tall Mitzi and short Wendy far at the other side next to Rachel's husband David Goldschmidt. Wendy is in jeans and a baggy flannel shirt. She looks stiff, her nose sticking out beneath her glasses.]
A question suddenly arrived in my head. I had neglected to ask Mitzi earlier. Was the request coming from Mitzi alone? I puzzled over this for some time but concluded that she never would have asked without Wendy's knowledge and permission. Otherwise, how weird was that? Asking me to
shtup
her sister? But the uncertainty lingered overnight.
The doubt dissipated the moment I sat down to breakfast with the crew the next morning. Wendy looked over to me and quickly averted her gaze. She knew. Even Mitzi, talkster extraordinaire, was quieter than usual, her banter forced and just a beat off normal.
Alright. A conspiracy then.
Mitzi collared me as soon as possible after the family meal.
